Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Germany's president is due in Athens on a visit that will seek to lay some of the ghosts of a brutal Nazi occupation, amid renewed anti-German sentiment stoked by Greece's financial crisis.
Joachim Gauck's three-day visit will include a speech Friday where German army troops massacred 92 civilians near the northeastern town of Ioannina, and a meeting with the town's Jewish community.
In an interview with Greek Kathimerini daily published ahead if his arrival Wednesday, Gauck refused to discuss demands in Greece that Germany should pay reparations for World War II atrocities. He said Germany bears an undeniable "moral burden."
Germany rejected a demand last month by Greek Jews for compensation over a WWII ransom extracted to free Jewish slave laborers — who were subsequently murdered in Nazi death camps.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
