Greek city marks 80th anniversary of Auschwitz train convoy

By COSTAS KANTOURIS and DEMETRIS NELLAS
Associated Press

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki has commemorated the 80th anniversary of the departure of the first train convoy for the Auschwitz camp. Officials marched from Freedom Square where members of the city’s Jewish community were rounded up by the German occupying forces to the city’s Old Train Station where they laid red carnations on the tracks on Sunday. Some marchers held a banner reading “Thessalonki Auschwitz 80 years: Never again” and white balloons carrying the same slogan were released. The first train carrying Jewish people departed from the station which is now a freight terminal on March 15, 1943. The last one left on Aug. 7 that year.