Fifteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper explores the desecration of Jewish tomb stones in Thessaloniki during World War Ii and its relationship to the construction of national memory in Messolonghi’s garden of heroes. Drawing on Devin Naar and Mark Mazower’s historical account of the expansion of Aristotle University, the essay argues that Jewish Hellenism’s effacement bears similarities to issues explored in Basquiat’s “Defacimento”, a graffiti work honoring the death of Michael Stewart. The sanitizing of political violence is exposed by defaced epitaphs, forms of writing that help explain the construction of national memory after the collapse of the Ottoman empire.