As the third largest political force in Greece following European Parliament elections a few weeks ago, branches of Golden Dawn are popping up throughout the world. The ironic thing about these outposts is that they are popping up in immigrant communities like New York, Montreal and recently, in Brisbane, Australia.

Try and make sense of this… People who left Greece years ago (i.e. immigrants) and started new lives in countries around the world that were built on the backs of immigrants, are supporting a political party in Greece that is staunchly anti-immigrant. One newspaper in Australia tried making sense of the whole thing at a rally in Brisbane when “white supremacists” and Greek Australian Golden Dawn supporters rallied together recently.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on the rally. The writer jokingly conversed with a white supremacist that was part of the Australia First party– the Aussie answer to Greece’s Golden Dawn. But wait. The Australia First Party is also anti-immigrant and anti-multiculturalism. So why were they marching side by side with the Greek Australian Golden Dawn members?

“So you’re cool with Greek-Australians?” the newspaper reporter asked the white supremacist.

“Absolutely,” the guy responded. “Greek-Australians. European-Australians, in general.”

“So Italians are okay?”

“Yeah, they’re okay.”

“But back in the 1940s, wouldn’t your equivalent have been against Greek-Australians because they were the ‘wogs’ who were coming here as immigrants and ruining white Australia?”

He shrugs his shoulders, apathetic. “What was going on in the 1940s … we weren’t around in the 1940s, so we can’t really comment about what we would have done back then.”

The conversation gets better as the reporter approaches a Greek Australian Golden Dawn cadre, described as an old man in a Golden Dawn baseball hat, brandishing a huge Greek flag, smiling like a kindly grandfather.

The reporter thinks he says his name is Paul. Incidentally, the old Greek man has a Chinese girlfriend.

“But honestly I can’t tell for sure. His accent is too thick.”

The same is certainly happening in New York, Canada and elsewhere where ultra-nationalists are banding together under the New Nazi flag of Golden Dawn– immigrants themselves with heavy accents, who incidentally were welcomed into their new countries with open arms and were allowed to have a voice, albeit a voice of hate.

Immigrants and offspring of immigrants, celebrating and supporting a political party that hates immigrants. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

But then again, a lot doesn’t make sense. Like the fact that these bozos are standing outside the Greek Parliament singing Nazi SS songs and using the infamous Hitler greeting with arms proudly raised above their heads to the air. The mere thought is mind-boggling– that there still exists in Greece today, the living, breathing generation of people who survived the worst Nazi atrocities against a civilian population in all of World War II history.

I wonder of these Neo Nazi punks know the tragic irony of their actions– in the streets of Athens, where 70 years ago bodies, were being picked up by trucks– tens of thousands of victims of starvation, imposed by the Nazi conquerors to muster the will of the Greek resistance. These are real press photos from my own personal collection. Every time I look at them I ask myself if these idiots know their history.

And what about the brutal massacres– too many to name, with thousands of villages burned across Greece and tens of thousands of innocent civilians– women and children, butchered by… yes, Nazis and those supporting the Nazi ideology.

Kondomari, Kandanos, Distomo, Kalavryta, the Massacre of Viannos where an entire village of 500 people was slaughtered.

I’m not sure these thugs even know how to read– let alone read English. But I’m sure they can look at pictures. In case this post reaches them, I’ve added a few, just to remind them about the ideology they are representing and the poison they are trying to bring back to Greece.

The massacre at Kondomari on the island of Crete– dozens of men killed by a Nazi firing squad in June of 1941.

Just a few of the names of the more than 1,200 victims of the Holocaust of Kalavryta, when the entire village was burned to the ground in December of 1943.

The sign left by the Germans amidst the ashes that remained, when they burned the village of Kandanos to the ground, on the island of Crete. “Here stood Kandanos,” the sign reads. The bastards burned every single building in the village and killed almost 200 innocent people.

Just a snapshot of some of the thousands of Greek children orphaned by the Nazis.

The horrific massacre at Distomo on the Greek mainland and the memorial that was built– with the skulls of those killed.

Some will argue that they pose no real threat to Greek society and the “phenomenon” of Golden Dawn is merely a “knee jerk” reaction to the economic crisis. I’ll agree with Angelo Tsakopoulos, the California businessman who said in an interview that “this is how Hitler started.”