Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GREEK JEWS AND WORLD WAR II
Following the German invasion of Greece, Jews who lived in the Italian zone of occupation
were initially no worse off than their fellow Greeks. But after Italy capitulated to the Allies in
September 1943 and German troops took over from the Italians, the Jewish communities in
Rhodes and Kos in the Dodecanese, as well as in Crete, Corfu, Vólos, Évvia and Zákynthos, were
exposed to the full force of Nazi racial doctrine. The Germans applied their “final solution” in
Greece during the spring and summer of 1944 with the deportation of virtually the entire
Jewish population, about 80,000 in all, to extermination camps in Poland. Thessaloníki alone
contained 57,000, the largest Jewish population of any Balkan city.
Greek Christians often went to extraordinary lengths to protect their persecuted
countrymen. Thus when the Germans demanded the names of the Jews of Zákynthos prior to
a roundup, Archbishop Khrysostomos and Mayor Loukas Karrer presented them with a roster
of just two names - their own - and secretly oversaw the smuggling of all the island's 275
Jews to remote farms. Their audacious behaviour paid off, as every Zakynthian Jew survived
the war. In Athens, the police chief and the archbishop arranged for false identity cards and
baptismal certificates to be issued. Elsewhere, others were warned in good time of what fate
the Germans had in store for them, and often took to the hills to join the partisans.
had little support within the country, Churchill ordered that only right-wing groups
like
EDES
, the National Republican Greek Army, should receive British money,
intelligence and arms. In August 1943 a resistance delegation asked the Greek king,
George, in Cairo, for a postwar coalition government in which EAM would hold the
ministries of the interior, justice and war, and requested that the king himself not
return to Greece without popular consent expressed through a plebiscite. Backed by
Churchill, King George flatly rejected their demands.
Liberation and civil war
As the Germans began to withdraw from Greece in September 1944, most of the
ELAS/EAM leadership agreed to join an interim government headed by the liberal
anti-communist politician
George Papandréou
, and to place its forces under that
government's control, which effectively meant under command of the British troops
who landed in Greece that October. But many partisans felt they were losing their
chance to impose a communist government and refused to lay down their arms. On
December 3, 1944 the police fired on an EAM demonstration in Athens, killing at
least sixteen. The following day, vicious
street fighting
broke out between members of
the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and British troops which lasted throughout the
month, until eleven thousand people were killed and large parts of Athens destroyed.
In other large towns, ELAS rounded up its most influential and wealthy opponents and
marched them out to rural areas in conditions that guaranteed their deaths.
After Papandréou resigned and the king agreed not to return without a plebiscite, a
ceasefire
was signed on February 12, 1945, and a new British-backed government
agreed to institute democratic reforms. Many of these were not implemented, however.
The army, police and civil service remained in right-wing hands, and while
collaborators were often allowed to retain their positions, left-wing sympathizers were
excluded. A KKE boycott of elections in March 1946 handed victory to the parties of
the right, and a
rigged plebiscite
followed that brought the king back to Greece.
1952
1952
1955
1959
Greece, now firmly
part of the Western
bloc, joins NATO.
New constitution
establishes a
parliamentary democracy,
with king as Head of State.
Karamanlís becomes
prime minister.
Cyprus gains independence.
