Key rings featuring the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are popular even in stores in the town of Kalavyrta, site of one of the worst Nazi atrocities of World War II, and where a memorial to the victims stands not far away.
Nazi troops on Dec. 13, 1943 killed nearly 500 people in the village and were ordered to exterminate everyone. When they reached the town they locked all women and children in the school and marched all males 12 and older to a hill just overlooking the town and machine-gunned them. There were only 13 survivors.
Women and children managed to free themselves from a school as the Nazis set the town on fire after one soldier took pity on them and let them escape. The following day the Nazi troops burnt down the Monastery of Agia Lavra, a landmark of the Greek War of Independence.
According to dete.gr, some of the residents are upset that the chains, which depict a Swastika-like ancient Greek meander, are present in the village where Nazis committed such an atrocity. Golden Dawn denies Nazi sympathies although its members give a Hitler-like salute and Mein Kampf was among literature in its headquarters and the party said that the Holocaust, the murder of six millions Jews by the Nazis was a fabrication and never happened.
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