A working meeting was held between the Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, and the President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Gideon Taylor, along with the Chief Operating Officer, Mark Weitzman. The meeting was attended by the President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, David Saltiel, as well as representatives of the Embassy of the United States in Athens.

The Minister of Culture thanked the WJRO representatives for their contribution to the successful return of 91 Jewish artifacts from Poland, which had been looted from Greek synagogues by German occupation forces during World War II and are now housed at the Jewish Museum of Greece.

For their part, both Gideon Taylor and Mark Weitzman expressed their appreciation for the actions taken by the Ministry of Culture and stated that they look forward to continuing cooperation between the two sides, particularly on issues related to researching the provenance of Jewish artifacts held in museums worldwide.

The Minister noted that Greek museums follow model procedures, based on international conventions and archaeological law, for documenting and verifying the provenance of their exhibits—practices that Greece can propose as best practices to other cultural institutions.

Lina Mendoni also referred to the recent designation of the Karyes Railway Station as a historic Holocaust memorial site in Greece, noting that studies are already underway for its restoration and operation as an exhibition space honoring the victims of the Nazis in the region.

Additionally, she highlighted the progress being made in the construction of the Holocaust Museum of Greece, part of whose funding comes from the WJRO, underlining the importance of preserving and promoting the historical memory of Holocaust victims.

She also mentioned the “Josephus” project of the Jewish Communities of Greece—a digital repository containing more than 212,000 unique records and over 2,000,000 digital files—which was recently made available to the public.

Finally, she invited the WJRO to actively participate in the upcoming Cultural Heritage School conference, organized by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the United States Department of State, the Embassy of the United States in Athens, and International Council of Museums.

Following the working meeting, a brief ceremony was held at the National Gallery, where important artifacts recently returned from Poland to Greece and now kept at the Jewish Museum were presented.