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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

From the article: "There are ruins at the center of Athens, too, but they are rather more ancient."

This insults us. Germans left Greece literally in ruins. The author of the article obviously don't know shit about history. I'm not surprised, even Germans chose to neglect their atrocities.

Please people, become a little more informed about what Germany did to my country during the war. It might be irrelevant to the current situation but for us Greeks it is all about justice. In our five thousands years of history no other invading nation inflicted as much damage as Germany. Germans are the most ungrateful fuckers there are.

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I think that's an unfair characterization. We're talking about a country that requires its schoolchildren to tour the remnants of a genocide committed only 70 years ago.

To say that Germany "neglects their atrocities" is, IMO, out of line.

http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-i...

Unfair? It took the Germans 70 years to apologize for the Distomo genocide. Just last year the German president officially visited Distomo to apologize to survivors. And yet, even to this day they refuse to pay the mere 28 million to individuals as war reparations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre

Yes, absolutely unfair. To cherry-pick select ignominies from WWII while ignoring the larger efforts in Germany to recognize the horrors committed by the Nazi regime is intellectually dishonest.

WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing.

I'm not Greek, I'm not German. My only connection to any of that atrocity is the tales my grandfather told me about his service in the war. But after seven decades you have to forgive and move on. Scratching that wound isn't going to help anyone (just look at the howls across Asia every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni shrine).

WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing.

I beg to differ. I think that “repeatedly bringing this up” is going to accomplish something. Because for the last fifty years every time we brought this issue up everyone was telling us it’s not the right time. Well you know what, we’re sick of waiting. At the very least they should pay us the loan Hitler took by force from our central bank. That’s not war reparations, it’s a fucking state loan.

It would be about time Greece pays back what Alexandre the Great robbed from all his neighbours! We waited long enough, I say.

I find it interest that in the last few days many of the negative comments about Greece come from accounts with very low karma. Are you guys on a crusade of ridicule or something?

I'm sure most HN users can empathize with how strongly you naturally feel about this, but please follow the site rules. Everyone needs to remain civil when commenting on HN, especially when emotions run high. It's the only way to preserve the community.

Fair enough.

Glad Italy is much better in confessing to colonial and war crimes committed by Italians, like

"Of more than 1,200 Italians sought for war crimes in Africa and the Balkans, not one has faced justice." (2001)

"When Japanese or Austrians try to gloss over their shame there is an outcry, but the Italians get away with it. [...] Ken Kirby's 1989 BBC Timewatch documentary, Fascist Legacy, detailing Italian crimes in Africa and the Balkans and the allies' involvement in the cover-up, provoked furious complaints from Italy's ambassador in London."

"'All efforts on Ethiopia's side to convince Italy to live up to its responsibilities have failed,' lamented the government."

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/25/artsandhuma...

Also good reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Libya (Acknowledged by Italy only in 2008)

It's interesting to read that, and then have those same people turn around and say 'well, that is in the past' and downvote the Greek guy above. It's easy to sit and cry about the terrible things that happened. It's much harder to actually do something about them - such as protesting the Nazis back then, or helping Greece now.

EDIT: He has even been flagged. Depressing.

I downvoted and flagged his comment not just for the sentiment but for the tone and disrespectful language. I realize that poster is pissed off and that's understandable given what his country is going through but I felt that specific post was inappropriate.

I understand this is very personal to you, but it's important to move forward. Hundreds (thousands?) of nations/people probably have all sorts of historical grievances against hundreds of other nations/people - just look to Rwanda and the Hutus/Tutsi's for the most recent example. Also - it's important to understand the difference between a regime was has thoroughly been expiated - If you can't let go of your past, you can never have a future.

The point that was being made, is that debt forgiveness after a war makes a lot more sense than debt forgiveness after a country has gone out and splurged on all sorts of luxuries. Even after austerity, greek pensions are greater than what some other countries can afford to give their people - prior to austerity they were way beyond the means of Greece to pay, and the politicians elected by the people refused to own up to this - and the result was a foregone conclusions that could have been avoided.

Dude, we have moved forward. Millions of Germans visit Greece for vacations for decades and we treat them as we treat every other visitor to our country. Some of them even retire here. It’s not about the money, it’s about gratitude and the feeling of justice. We feel like the world doesn’t acknowledge the extend of the suffering we endured during the war. We talk about the Holocaust, and rightly so, but how many of you know the atrocities that happened to Greece during the war?

I don’t expect Germany to pay us 300bn euros for war reparations. This is hilarious. And chances are with our corruption most of those money if they were to paid they’d end up in the pockets of the elites and the politicians. I just want some fucking remorse. It’s not that we remembered reparations when our state failed and our economy tanked. We’ve been constantly asking them for decades and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue. It just surfaced now because we’re in the spotlight.

soo, let say this. you do not pay any money to germans, but pay the rest of the debt?

How about you help us recover and we pay all of the debt? If we could sustain a 4% grow for a decade the debt could become sustainable. But with all this massacre of austerity measures it's impossible to repay while the economy tanks. How come every US economist can see that simple truth but Germans can not.

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