Greek police investigators are in shock and bewilderment: 8,000 books were stolen from bookstore for the homeless in the center of Athens.
Books in the store come mainly from donations from citizens and publishing houses, and the proceeds go to support the homeless of the Greek capital.
The theft was discovered by one of the three owners when he opened the bookstore on the morning of Friday, January 12.
“They took the books… If you had asked me, honestly, I would have given them away for nothing, but they came and stole them! We have no money or anything, the four of us live with great difficulty (…) I I’m not upset that thieves were interested in books, because printed publications will return to us again – the world loves and accepts us…”, – one of the founders of the store, Leonidas Kursumis, told state broadcaster ERT.
He noted that over the past five years, efforts have been made to move the bookstore from Piraeos Avenue to a permanent location in the Athens district of Gizi in order to stock all these books accessible to the general public. However, the move never took place due to financial difficulties, Kursumis noted.
The theft mobilized citizens who began collecting books to donate to the bookstore.
The theft was also noticed by the new mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, who visited the bookstore on Saturday.
As the Athens News learned, the bookstore owners did not classify or even keep records of the donated books, but simply put them on shelves for display and sale.
The theft raised suspicions about who might have organized it, and Greeks on social networks expressed their opinion about the search “rare editions and other rare books in general.”
On the other hand, 8,000 books weigh at least 5-8 tons. This means that this required at least a large truck and at least several hours for loading. Let’s assume no one noticed the loading if it happened at night.
And where did the thieves take the rest of the books? Was it scrapped? Was the game worth the trouble?
PS Have you often seen homeless people reading books? Maybe this is how the owners decided to get rid of unnecessary goods?
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