Oct 31, 2024
Difficult times for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier during his visit to Kandanos on the island of Crete, a village bombed flat by the Nazis during the WWII.
Local authorities, lawmakers and armed forces representatives, strong police forces as well as angry survivors had gathered in the village square with banners reading “Justice” and “Compensation.”
Kandanos was one of the first villages in Crete the German occupiers razed to the ground on 3. June 1941 as retaliation of the local resistance. They had erected a sign: “Here stood Kandanos, destroyed in retribution for the murder of 25 German soldiers, never to be rebuilt again.”
Some of the elderly survivors chanted “Justice! Justice!” as the German President had a conversation with survivors, who raised the issue of reparations, asking for justice for the crimes committed by the Nazis. However, Germany and President Steinmeier yesterday have been reiterating that the reparations issue is over.
93-year-old Ioanna Kandaraki said: “Tears are in our eyes for the crimes, the disaster and the murders of pregnant women, children, old bedridden people who were executed on the beds. For what reason? What did we do? Who had the right to come to Crete, Greece and do these things? Did we go to Germany to do the abominations they did? Shouldn’t we be defending our children, our country? So were we to leave them? Would they do the same? We want to be treated like people. The dead are gone but the living remember how they threatened to slaughter all the villagers. Those of us who lived cannot be described with what longing we lived. These are not paid for, they stay in your soul and you take them with you.”
“I don’t want to hold the hand of the butcher,” one of the survivors’ descendants was heard telling the German president. A descendant of another victim said: “80 years ago you executed our parents, now you are executing us for the second time.”
Steinmeier received a “cold reception” by the authorities of the village Kandanos by Chania, local media zarpanews.gr noted. He was given a tour of the Kandano Holocaust Memorial Museum and delivered a speech in the auditorium of the former city hall of the village.
Steinmeier discovered that Greece and Germany have… common responsibilities, avoided any mention even of the word “compensation”, but stated in Greek that he is asking for forgiveness, the local news website stressed.
“I am horrified and ashamed because the Kandanos inscriptions document how ruthless Germany’s war of conquest was. Today I visit this place of German shame.
Kantanos is one of the first villages leveled by the German soldiers in World War II.
They burned houses, killed residents. A day earlier they had already wreaked havoc on Kontomari and Alikianos, followed by Viannos and other villages. All the Jews of Crete were also displaced.
All over Europe there are such places. Some are better known, some were forgotten. That is why it is so important to be here today.
The Germans reacted to the resistance with indescribable cruelty. Kurt Student was convicted, but not for the crimes he committed against the civilian Greek population.
“Today I would like to ask for forgiveness in the name of Germany,” the president said in Greek.
Without memory there is no future. I wish we find the strength to take responsibility together. To build bridges. The Greek-German fund works on the common historical memory. Where else, if not in Greece, is the right place to commemorate European values. Democracy in EU countries is being questioned, even in my own country. And we will have a common future if we defend democratic values”
In his address, the mayor of Kantanos-Selinos, Antonis Perrakis, said, among others:
“Europe is facing a multifaceted crisis that threatens its cohesion and existence. The specter of fascism is once again hovering over Europe, more modern and with a different name today. Four days ago our country celebrated the NO to Mussolini which led to the first victories against fascism. The resistance of the people of Crete was followed by executions and destruction. The sign they put up in Kantanos says it was destroyed never to be rebuilt.
There are approximately 120 corresponding martyr villages throughout Greece. The martyred places of Crete are the resistance to the revisionism of history and the starting point to talk about peace again. I wish and hope that the deposition of the crown will be recorded in practice, so that the discussion on the return of German reparations can begin. A bilateral matter cannot be terminated by a unilateral decision of one side. If Germany fully recognizes its responsibilities for its Nazi past, it must act accordingly.”
Also read
Germany has destroyed and looted Greece twice in a century. It still refuses to compensate
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