Feature: Greek village keeps Nazi massacre memory alive after 71 years

The Memorial in honor of the the 1944 massacre victims overlooks the small village of Distomo in central Greece.

Through the glass window of the small room attached to the Memorial, a glimpse of a shocking sight: the skulls and bones of the victims are there, in a small Mausoleum, waiting in silence for justice to be served, as the legal claim for war damages is back in the spotlight.

On June 10, 1944, after a battle with the Greek resistance guerillas nearby, the Nazis entered Distomo and slaughtered 214 villagers, mostly women, children and elderly people. Some villagers managed to escape, running to the nearby hills and towards the sea from where they could see the smoke of their houses burning, while others went to hide in barrels, in their basements, anywhere they could.

Eleni Athanasiou-Kinia, who was 8 years old at the time, remembers coming out of her hiding place after the Nazis had left the village. "As I went looking for my uncle, I stepped on something soft, I looked down and saw my friends, the girls I was playing with the same morning, dead; A few steps away, their parents were covered in blood."

She remembers that all the children her age who survived the massacre went through their teenage years in mourning and tears. "Distomo was a cemetery, what we experienced then as children, I wish that nobody would experience again."

For many years, brides here dressed in black in their weddings in mourning the dead, villagers said.

Christos Papanikolaou, son of a survivor, grew up in Distomo with the horrible stories of the slaughter that stigmatized the lives of everyone in the village. Inside the Mausoleum, he shows visitors the holes caused by the bullet on some of the skulls.

"In here, you will not see the remains of other souls that were also executed, the unborn ones, as the Nazis stabbed open the bellies of pregnant women, took out their embryos and killed them," he told Xinhua.

"It took many years for the normal flow of life to return to Distomo, but it was never fully restored," said Papanikolaou, who is active in the Cultural Association of Distomo. "The genealogical tree of families was broken, you could see grandparents and grandchildren but the parents were missing, or you could see parents without children, and so on, every family was missing a generation."

The names and ages of the victims of Nazi cruelty are carved in the marble stone of the Memorial, many family members one after the other, the youngest one only two months old, the eldest above 80.

"The Mausoleum was built 20 years ago. Every year, from June 1 to June 10 we commemorate the victims," said Vassiliki Kastriti, president of the Local Council of Distomo.

Besides the Memorial and the Mausoleum, there is also a museum in the village, where visitors can see photographs of the victims, which had been taken when they were alive. Loukas Zizzis, deputy Mayor of the Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra municipality, explained to Xinhua the importance of keeping the memory alive, after all these years.

"We built this museum to keep the memory alive so that people don't forget what the German Nazis did, especially here in Distomo, because when people don't know their own history, it can happen again," said Zissis.

"A lot of German pupils come to visit and they cannot believe that their own grandfathers did such things," Zissis added.

"I hope that the Germans don't forget what Germans did to Greece," said a German teacher who brought his class of mostly 16-year-old pupils to visit the Memorial. "There are many people in Germany who are good friends of Greece," said the teacher who preferred not to reveal his name.

The legal struggle for war damages started many years ago. In 2000, the Greek Supreme Court ruled that Germany should pay for damages and opened the way for the Greek State to confiscate German property in the country in order to compensate the victims.

However, mainly for political reasons, the court's ruling was never implemented.

Greek Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos said that he is prepared to implement the court's ruling, in line with relevant statements by the newly elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The new Greek government coming to power after the Jan. 25 general elections said Germany should pay Greece 162 billion euros as reparations for the damages the Nazis caused to Greece in WWII, while the German government said the case has been closed politically and legally.

For the people of Distomo, for the survivors and relatives of the victims this is above all an issue of moral satisfaction.

"We have nothing against the German people, they themselves have already suffered greatly in the hands of the Nazis, and we know very well that no matter how much money you give, you cannot pay for a human life that was lost," said Yannis Stathas, a MP of the ruling SYRIZA party, from Distomo, adding that those who commit crimes against humanity must pay no matter how many years pass.

The issue of war reparations in the case of Distomo has been brought back in the spotlight at a time when Greece is re-negotiating with its creditors about finding a viable solution to the debt crisis that hit the country in 2010. Germany is playing a vital role in these negotiations, but according to the Greek Government, the two issues are separate.

"There must be negotiations regarding the reparations for the massacre in Distomo but this is primarily an issue of moral satisfaction and it is a matter completely independent from the current negotiations between Greece and its creditors," Stathas told Xinhua.

"I think the German government should pay for the people of Distomo but I think Europeans must work together, they must see that we need a solution to the crisis and that we must help each other," said the German teacher, who is a member of some Greek-German societies in Germany.

Stathas underlined the importance of keeping the memory alive so that younger generations, who have not experienced Nazism and Fascism, will be deterred from supporting such ideologies.

"This is the most important message," he stressed, "that there must never be war again, we must never again have Fascism anywhere on the planet, because we have seen these crimes, here in Distomo, but also in China, France, Italy, and especially in Germany itself."

Visiting the village on June 10 for the 71th anniversary of the massacre, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos called for Greece and Germany to settle the issue of war reparations through the relevant "judicial fora". Endit