Kalavryta massacre
Kalavryta massacre | |
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Part of the Machine guns and rifles | |
Deaths | 693 |
Perpetrators | 117th Jäger Division |
The Kalavryta massacre (
History
In early December 1943, the
Operation Kalavryta was mounted from six cities:
During the reprisals of Operation Kalavryta 693 civilians were killed;[12] their names are listed on memorials in Kalavrita and other villages. Twenty-eight communities – towns, villages, monasteries and settlements – were destroyed. In Kalavryta itself about 1,000 houses were looted and burned, and more than 2,000 livestock seized by the Germans.
Today the site of the massacre is kept as a memorial, and the events are commemorated every December. On 18 April 2000, the
In art
- Requiem (1984) by Mikis Theodorakis is dedicated ”to the dead of the Massacre of Kalavryta”[14]
- Kalavrita des mille Antigones by Charlotte Delbo
In literature
Comprehensive historical accounts of Operation Kalavryta have been documented in two non-fiction books:
- Hermann Frank Meyer , whose father had been a German lieutenant captured and executed in Greece during WWII, wrote Von Wien nach Kalavrita: Die blutige Spur der 117. Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland (From Vienna to Kalavryta: The bloodstained trail of the 117th Jäger-Division through Serbia and Greece) in 2002.
- Antonis Kakoyannis, a local villager who interviewed over seventy eyewitnesses to the events, documented Operation Kalavryta from the perspective of his family and local Greeks in The Cursed Day: Eyewitness Accounts of the Nazi Massacres During Operation Kalavryta (2019).
Some survivors of the events have documented their stories in short publications in Greek which can be found in Kalavryta’s museum and bookstore.
Other authors have woven narratives into the events surrounding the Kalavryta massacre, including Just Another Man: A Story of the Nazi Massacre of Kalavryta (1998) by Andy Varlow and Hitler's Orphan: Demetri of Kalavryta (2014) by Marc Zirogiannis. Hitler's Orphan is a historical novella that tells the story of the massacre from the perspective of the Zirogiannis family.[15]
See also
- List of massacres in Greece
- War crimes of the Wehrmacht
- Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
- Szczurowa massacre
- Distomo massacre
- Wehrmachtsausstellung
References
- ^ Stephan D. Yada-McNeal, Places of Shame-German and Bulgarian war crimes in Greece 1941-1945. (2018) online
- ^ Δημάρχου, Γραφείο. "Το Ολοκαύτωμα των Καλαβρύτων". Kalavrita.gr. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
- ^ For contested historiographical interpretations about the Massacre and the related debate in public sphere read Panagiotidou, Antigoni. 2023. Kalavryta 1943. Imprints of a traumatic and fragmented memory in art. pp. 33–36. Greek Open University: Skydra, January 2023 (MSc Thesis in Greek).
- ^ German map of Operation Kalavryta from the archives of German documents at the Municipal Museum of the Kalavryta Holocaust. https://www.dmko.gr
- ^ Meyer, Hermann Frank. 2002. Von Wien nach Kalavrita: Die blutige Spur der 117. Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland (From Vienna to Kalavryta: The bloodstained trail of the 117th Jäger-Division through Serbia and Greece). 1st edition. Moehnesee: Bibliopolis.
- ^ Fefes, Archimandrite Theoklitos. Καλάβρυτα-Θυμήσες: Ήμουν Δεκατετράχρονο Παιδί. (Kalavryta-Memories: I was a 14-yr-old Boy). Athens: Simandro.
- ^ Kaldiris, Dimitris. Το Δράμα των Καλαβρύτων (The Drama of Kalavryta). 2nd edition. Athens: Eptalofos. 1989.
- ^ All names of the men are listed in the Municipal Museum of the Kalavryta Holocaust. https://www.dmko.gr
- ^ Chrysopoulos, Philip (13 December 2021). "Kalavryta: The Bloodiest Nazi Massacre in Greece". Greek Reporter. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
- ^ Patramanis, Billy. "The Kalavryta Holocaust: One of the darkest days in modern Greek history". The Greek Herald. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
- ^ "Monastery of Agia Lavra – Kalavrita". Μοναστήρια της Ελλάδος. 2012-11-01. Retrieved 2023-10-06.
- ^ From German records described in Meyer, Hermann Frank. 2002. Von Wien Nach Kalavrita: Die blutige Spur der 117: Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland (From Vienna to Kalavryta: The bloodstained trail of the 117th Jäger-Division through Serbia and Greece). 1st edition. Moehnesee: Bibliopolis. Also, all names are listed in the Municipal Museum of the Kalavryta Holocaust.
- ^ Rau, Johannes (20 April 2000). "Ansprache in Kalavryta" [Speech at Kalavryta]. Der Bundespräsident (in German).
- ^ "About Theodorakis's Requiem | "The Music of Mikis Theodorakis"". Theodorakisfriends.com. Archived from the original on 6 November 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
- ISBN 9781312222595.
Sources
- Hermann Frank Meyer, Von Wien nach Kalavryta: Die blutige Spur der 117. Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland
- Andy Varlow, Just Another Man: A Story of the Nazi Massacre of Kalavryta. 1998; ISBN 1-883319-72-2