Today, one of the worst atrocities in all of World War II history is remembered, when more than 1,200 male residents of the town of Kalavryta and surrounding villages were gunned down on a hillside by Nazi German invaders.
In November 1943, the German 117th Jäger Division began an operation to root out Greek guerrilla fighters in the mountainous area surrounding Kalavryta. During the operation, 77 German soldiers were captured by Greek rebels and killed. The German command responded ferociously, ordering a harsh reprisal operation signed and ordered by Karl von Le Suire on December 10, 1943.
The operation began from the coastal area of Achaea in Northern Peloponnese as German troops marched toward Kalavryta, burning every village in their path and murdering civilians along the way.
When they arrived in Kalavryta, they locked all women and children in the town’s school and ordered all male residents 12 years old and older to a hillside overlooking the town, where they were made to stand in a straight line as they were gunned down by machine gun.
Almost 500 men and boys were murdered in this single incident, which began at 2:35pm on December 13th. Since that moment, the hands of the town’s main church have not moved — leaving an impression on visitors to recall the exact time the atrocity took place.
Following the mass murder of these innocent civilians, the Nazis went on a rampage, burning more than 1,000 houses and looting and burning every building in the town. The following day the Nazi troops burnt down the Monastery of Agia Lavra, a landmark of the Greek War of Independence.
The school where the women and children were assembled was set on on fire by the Nazis but they broke windows to try to escape. The Germans tried to beat them back inside, but ultimately allowed them out, according to the town museum. Other accounts speak of a sympathetic Nazi who unlocked the doors and let the prisoners out, where they scattered into the surrounding brush.
The German occupation of Greece was one of the most brutal in Europe, according to noted historian and author Mark Mazower, whose book “Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944” remains a main go-to book for Greek World War II history.
Numerous survivor-account books have been written about the Kalavryta Holocaust including Hitler’s Orphan: Demetri of Kalavryta by Marc Zirogiannis and Just Another Man: A Story of the Nazi Massacre of Kalavryta by Andy Varlow.
In 2007, then film student Alethea Avramis received a prestigious award for Best Honors Thesis entitled “Kalavryta, Greece, and December 13, 1943.”
Avramis, now an award-winning filmmaker, shot a short documentary film called “The Last Widow” featuring an interview with Efthymia Vaya, the last remaining widow survivor from the massacre. The young filmmaker’s project was an in-depth analysis of the tragic events leading up to the massacres.
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15 comments
My father is from Kalabrita and he was there this day, he was 13 and see al what happened.
From all this years, every night he still have nightmares about.
Hi,my father is from Kalavryta,he was 5 when the rotten Germans invaded Agia Lavra,burning houses,and killing the men and young boys,as well as putting women and children be the church.
My grandfather’s brother is one of the men killed. My family is from kalavryta. His name was peter. PETROS PAPPACONSTOPOLOUS
Hi, we are in Greece now. My husband’s father was from Kalavryta. We came to find out more about his family. His las name is Haralampopulos let me know if you know somebody with that last name?
My maternal grandmother’s nephew was Colonel Ionnis Charalambopoulos. He was the one of the founding members of PASOK; the resistance movement to the military Junta. Just wondering if we’re related?
Euthymia Vaya was not the last surviving widow! My grandmother Androniki Katravas lived till 2013. She and her two children were in that school while her first husband, brother, and father were being murdered.
My grandfather Ionnainis Makaritis
My father dad Dimitrious Makaritis
Son of Dimitrious – Yiannis Makaritis and brother Vasilis Makaritis.
Residing in Sydney Australia ??
Does any body out there related to me from kalavrita – Pefko Village
Makaritis
My family too is/was from Kalavrita. My Grand Father Yiannis Kanellopoulos used to drive the train (Odontotos) from Diakofto to the village. He was spared from being killed during the massacre because a few weeks earlier he was imprisoned by the Germans when they stopped the train and after an inspection they found food and clothing. The provisions were for the villagers, but the Nazis accused him of supporting the guerillas fighting the cause. He was taken to another town hence why he was spared, but his brothers and their sons unfortunately were killed. I brought my kids there this past summer to see Pappou’s home town, and seeing my father (who was 7 at the time of invasion) tell his story as we were sitting at a cafe’ right by the entrance to the school was a very very saddening moment. We visited the cemetery where our family is laid to rest and while looking around it was very sombering to see so many head stones all with same date, and many of those headstones had similar messages on how the entombed were killed by the murderous Nazis etched into the marble. A constant horrible reminder.
When I was in Kalavryta I was told that, when the women and children who were locked up in the school broke out, the officer in charge (an Austrian) told his men not to shoot. True?
I wrote to the museum of Kalavryta to inquire about the Austrian, and below is their reply:
“According to the research done by the museum, it is not found that any Austrian freed the women and children from the school on December 13, 1943. Unfortunately, this is a muth that spread in the first years after the “Operation Kalavryta” and has been recorded in books and on internet”
As a German born more than 20 years after the war, I feel deeply ashamed when reading about what happened in Kalavryta, Distomo or other places. Fascism and nationalism are poison leading to war and inhuman atrocities.
Born 20 years after or 50 years after, it’s nothing you had anything to do with. However, you can make your mark today by doing what you can to suppress and vote out nationalistic leaders, parties, and organizations in the US, Europe and other places as leaders look the other way as hate, prejudice, racism , homophobia, xenophobia, is on the rise. We all can do something. We all HAVE to do something. In 50 years we dont want someone as you saying were that they were born 20yrs after the next onslaugh and how ashamed sorry they are. History CAN repeat itself. It has in the past.
Hello Greg. I just spoke with my 82-year old father, an eyewitness, who was five years old that day. He says that the older boys and men were sent out on the pretext of hearing a speech by the occupier. Sadly, about a dozen boys who were young enough to be spared instead, out of pride, went with their fathers.
Women and children had been evacuated out of their homes so that the burning of all homes could take place. He recalls one woman, who, seeing the flames of the surrounding houses, panicked and jumped out of a window. However, my father and his mother were the last to leave the school building and were able to do so without rushing.
The school was not set on fire while the townsfolk were assembled there.
(If there were an Austrian hero who saved the civilians and was shot for his trouble, then witnesses or researchers, please honor this martyr and give history his name!)
May the memory of all those departed, innocent souls be remembered, including my namesake grandfather, Γεώργιος Ντάνος, and my father’s maternal grandfather, Κωνσταντίνος Γιαβρούτας.
Dear Mr Pappas. Thank you so much for all the information you place on your post, especially for not forgetting the suffering of Hellas during WWII. My memoir of those years, seen through the eyes of a child, was just published. It’s called, Myth and Memory, my Childhood in WWII Greece. My name is Katerina Katsarka Whitley. I thank you also for mentioning my cookbook in the past, Around a Greek Table, Recipes and Stories Arranged according to the Liturgical Seasons of the Eastern Church. Myth and Memory is available on Amazon. Again, thank you for all you do for Greece.