Pavlos Melas concentration camp

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In official correspondence , the Pavlos Melas concentration camp was a concentration camp that was operated during the German occupation of Greece in a former artillery barracks near Thessaloniki under the German security service (SD) and guarded by the Greek police. In character it was a police detention camp similar to the Chaidari concentration camp near Athens and was not subject to the inspection of the concentration camps .

Occupation time

In the barracks complex, which has existed since 1881, the occupying forces interned 278 people who had been arrested on July 5, 1941 during so-called combed operations against the Greek resistance. After the attack on the Soviet Union , in addition to the conservative Pan-Greek Liberation Organization , the Communist Party of Greece became involved in the growing resistance. After several acts of sabotage and attacks, the commander of the Saloniki-Aegean Army Administration, Curt von Krenzki, ordered in September 1941 to set up a concentration camp in Thessaloniki. The Wehrmacht Commander in Chief Southeast General Wilhelm List demanded, in accordance with the atonement order , that hostages be kept available in order to shoot 50 to 100 Communists for every German soldier killed . From then on, the camp also served as a hostage detention center in the fight against Jewish Bolshevism . Some of the executions took place in the camp and in various places outside. From 1944 on, Greek collaborators in so-called security battalions also took part in the arrests and executions . On June 6, 1944, 101 hostage prisoners were executed.

post war period

After the liberation of Greece, the complex was used by the left-wing revolutionary Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) as a collection point for collaborators and enemies of the people who were then taken to remote communist hostage camps. After the demobilization of ELAS in February 1945, the camp was used again to intern collaborators and relatives as well as ELAS sympathizers for repression. During the civil war (1946 to 1949) the barracks were then returned to the Greek army . The barracks have been cleared and dilapidated since 2005.

Commemoration

There are commemorative events for the mass execution of June 6, 1944. The history and suffering of the various Greek prisoners and the prison are taboo, as is the annihilation of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki.

Criminal proceedings

General List was at the trial Generals in Southeast Europe a . a. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the order of atonement issued for his command area and released in 1952.

literature

  • Vaios Kalogrias, Stratos Dordanas: The National Socialist Police Detention Camp Pavlos Melas in Thessaloniki. In: Alexandra Klei , Katrin Stoll, Annika Wienert (eds.): The transformation of the camps: Approaching the sites of National Socialist crimes. Transcipt-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8394-1179-7 , pp. 289-308. limited preview in Google Book search

Web links

Coordinates: 40 ° 39 ′ 37.8 ″  N , 22 ° 56 ′ 19.3 ″  E