Mikis Theodorakis’ speech inaugurating the Spitha movement, the citizens’ movement Spark against the IMF occupation of Greece.
Theodorakis outlines the history and impact of occupation in Greece until the present. Read the speech here
Greece seeks War Reparations now – Sign the Petition
BBC report May 2013 – watch and read here
The background to the petition:
Germany should pay its long overdue obligations to Greece. Greece was looted and devastated by the Nazis as no other country under their occupation.The International Red Cross has estimated that between 1941 and 1943 at least 300,000 Greeks died from starvation – the direct result of the plundering of Greece by the Germans. During WWII Greece lost 13% of its population, some of it in battle, but mostly from the famine and from German war crimes. The Germans, murdered the population of 89 Greek villages and towns, burned to the ground over 1,700 villages and many of their inhabitants were also executed, they reduced the country to rubble, and looted its archeological treasures. Germany and Italy, in addition to charging Greece exorbitant sums as occupation expenses, obtained forcibly from Greece a loan (occupation loan) of $ 3.5 billion. Read more here and Sign the Petition here
The Greek Holocaust
More than 90 massacres took place in Greece under Nazi German occupation. Read more about this horror and resistance to it here
The massacre at Distomo June 10th 1944 . The Head of the International Red Cross in Greece, the Swede Sture Linner, described it in his book “My Odyssey” here
The Greek Jewish Holocaust: On 24 March 1944, the Nazis deported almost the entire Jewish population of Ioannina, 1,850 men,women and children to Auschwitz from which only 163 survived. Read more here. The Nazis prepared to implement the Final Solution in the regions of Greece they controlled from 1941. The memory of the Jews of Ioannina is now set to be revived with the unlikely help of a Canadian-designed mobile app, currently in the final stages of development at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University – see more here
For a full history – read ‘ Inside Hitler’s Greece, The experience of Occupation 1941-44.’ by Mark Mazower
‘The Hidden War’ – Two Part Documentary
A two part documentary ‘Greece, the Hidden War’ on Britain and America’s involvement in Greece during and after World War 2.
Watch Part 1 here:
and Part 2 here:
YouTube comments:
‘This is a British political documentary produced in 1986 and shown for just one and only time in British television, thereby being BANNED, concerning the involvement of the British Government in Greece’s political affairs during and after WW2, that is argued to have been the main catalyst in the breaking out of the Greek Civil War, followed by American involvement in the Civil War Battle (in line with the Truman Doctrine). The documentary consists mainly of interviews with Greek, British and American participants, soldiers,officials, politicians and ordinary people:
1) the first part concerns the events in which the ELAS movement, the Greek resistance group (leftist orientated, yet made up of people of widely different political views, thus of wide social base) clashes with Churchill’s plans for post-war Greece and with the Britain’s internal allies; 2) the second part concerns the American involvement and the evnts of the Greek civil war until its closure with the defeat of the Democratic Army in the mountains of Grammos and Vitsi.’
Aris Velouchiotis’ last great speech
Read here
Pouliopolis speech on Fascism :’The Metaxas Dictatorship of August 4th’
Read here