Chaidari concentration camp

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Chaidari Concentration Camp, Block 15 (2009)

The Chaidari concentration camp , or Chaidari concentration camp for short, was initially an Italian and then a German concentration camp during the Second World War , which was operated by the Schutzstaffel (SS) with the support of the Wehrmacht and Gestapo in the Athens district of Chaidari during the German occupation of Greece .

History, function, mass murders

The camp, which was initially operated by the Italian occupying forces as a central prison and prison camp ( campo di concentramento Chaidari ) northwest of the Greek capital Athens on a military site in Chaidari from September 3, 1943, was handed over to the German Wehrmacht on September 8, 1943 after the surrender of Italy . On October 20, 1943, it was subordinated to the SS under the Commander of the Security Police and SD (BdS) Walter Blume , who was responsible for Greece .

Paul Radomski, SS commander

Camp commander was the sturmbannführer Paul Radomski , one even "primitive, [...] one of the old bat" in his SS personnel files than from the fighting time of the NSDAP described earlier companion Reinhard Heydrich , who had previously been in the concentration camp Syrez in the occupied Ukraine a Had led the terror regiment. In 1944 Radomski was demoted to his orderly for brutalities and sentenced to six months in prison. His successor was Untersturmführer Karl Fischer .

The interior of the camp was guarded by ethnic German members of the Waffen SS from Hungary and Romania, while the outside guard consisted of the Wehrmacht and Italian troops.

The main purpose of the camp was to accommodate the numerous prisoners who were arrested during the frequent raids in various parts of Athens to stop the resistance .

These prisoners were taken to Chaidari by the various departments of the occupying power, including the Gestapo prison on Merlinstrasse in central Athens. In addition to resistance fighters, those who were arbitrarily taken hostage were arrested, and Chaidari was a transit station for Jewish Greeks who were deported to the German extermination camps in Poland .

The average number of prisoners was 2,000. In total, around 20,000 prisoners were trapped in the camp for a year. Many of them were deported to Germany, 1,900 were murdered at the Kesariani shooting range or in Dafni .

Many Jews from Athens, but also Jews from other parts of Greece - for example, almost 1,700 people from Rhodes alone - were deported from Chaidari to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for murder .

Malnutrition , forced labor, and torture were common in the Chaidari Camp . 1,800 people were murdered by the time Radomski was replaced. Of these, 300 died as a result of torture in Chaidari or in the Gestapo headquarters in Athens. Radomski personally carried out the first ever execution in the camp. A Jewish prisoner was shot for breaking out of arrest. The shooting was carried out not only to warn the other inmates, but also to break their morals and highlight the ever-present threat to their lives.

The residents of Hall 1, 260 predominantly communist political prisoners were legendary . 200 of these men were shot on May 1, 1944 at the Kesariani shooting range as reprisal for an assassination attempt on the German general Franz Krech near Molai in Laconia .

With the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht, the BdS (Police Leader) also prepared to withdraw from Athens in August 1944. Blume wanted to have those inmates liquidated beforehand, whom he believed to have a leading role in Greek politics. But he could not prevail against the embassy and the armed forces. Beginning on September 4, 1944, around 3,000 prisoners were released. Of the remaining 200 or so, 60 to 70 were shot in Chaidari, another 72 in Dafni near Athens and most of the rest, including the interpreters from the BdS, were shot in the basement of the BdS office.

After 1945

Concentration camp survivors and family members, 2009

On September 14, 1952, a preliminary investigation was launched against Radomski, Fischer and others for the execution of hostages, murders, torture, internment under inhuman conditions and terror. After a confidential agreement between the Greek Prime Minister Karamanlis and Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , the investigations were stopped in 1959 by the public prosecutor's office because the accused could not be found.

On October 11, 2018, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Chaidari concentration camp memorial and asked for forgiveness for the crimes committed during the time of German occupation .

literature

  • Ralph Klein: Chaidari , in: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , pp. 559-572.

Movie

The 2017 movie The Last Note by Pantelis Voulgaris is about the last days and the execution of 200 political prisoners on May 1, 1944.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hagen Fleischer : In the cross shadow of the powers, Greece 1941-1944 . Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 548 .
  2. ↑ Themos Kournaros: At the gates of Athens: Chaidari . In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Dachauer Hefte 5 - The forgotten camps . Dachau 1989, ISBN 3-423-04634-1 , pp. 214 ff .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Dimension of the genocide. The number of Jewish victims of National Socialism . 1996, p. 267 .
  4. ↑ Manolis Glezos et al. (Ed.): Black Book of the Crew . Athens 2006, p. 92 ( scribd.com ).
  5. ↑ Chaidari municipality (ed.): The first execution at Haidari . ( History of Chaidari ). History of Chaidari ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.haidari.gr
  6. ^ Commander of the 41st Infantry Division .
  7. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer: Atonement on the Peloponnese .
  8. ↑ Ralph Klein: Chaidari, p. 567.
  9. ↑ Ralph Klein in The Place of Terror: History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Volume 9 (2009), p. 567 ff.
  10. ↑ spiegel.de October 11, 2018: Steinmeier asks forgiveness for Nazi crimes
  11. ↑ The last note in the Internet Movie Database .

Coordinates: 38 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  N , 23 ° 39 ′ 0 ″  E