By Arben P. Llalla
Part Twelve
– Greek Collaborators, the Projectors and Leaders of the Genocide in Chameria (1944-1945) The truth of the Chams’ collaboration with the Germans –
PREFACE
Memorie.al / The period I started writing the book was from 2008-2016, gathering materials little by little. It was extremely difficult for me to find original photographs and some Greek-language newspapers for the years in question. For about 70 years, the Greek state with its state structures has been feeding internal and external public opinion with books and writings of lies about what really happened from 1936-1945, in relation to the Albanian minority in Chameria-Southern Epirus.
Continues from the previous issue
Violence against the Albanian minority 1913-1945
In the years 1972-1982, Greek governments issued laws that allowed any displaced Greek citizen to return and take their property or compensation. The Chams and the Slavic-Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia were excluded from these laws to return, as the law stipulated that the person forgiven must have Greek nationality and have maintained a Greek national stance in exile.
The Expulsion of the Slavic-Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia from Greece
After Greece expelled thousands of Albanians from their lands, the Greeks began expelling the Slavic-Macedonians living in the border area from Florina, Edessa, Thessaloniki, and Kilkis. In the name of the civil war (1946-1949) for power between the right-wing forces (IDEA) who were unreservedly aided by Great Britain and the USA, and the left-wing forces known as the Greek Democratic Army (DSE), massacres began in the villages where the Slavic-Macedonian minority lived.
As a result, thousands of Slavic-Macedonians were displaced from their homes and were initially sheltered in Albania and former Yugoslavia.
Although torn by internal strife, the DSE soldiers put up a heroic but fruitless resistance in the Vitsi and Gramos mountains, a little south of the border with Albania. To this day, Gramos has a barren patch of its wooded terrain where the royal army had used napalm. It was the first time that American soldiers were able to assess the effects of this substance.
The right-wing forces of the Greek kingdom had received military aid from their allies, England and the USA, worth 353.6 million dollars, which included 159,922 small arms and 4,130 mortars and cannons…! Meanwhile, the isolated left-wing DSE army had received aid from Albania and other communist countries in the form of several mules with rifles and dozens of cannons.
The strategy of isolating the forces of the Greek Democratic Army in the mountains was wrong and fatal. The intervention of American aviation to annihilate the resistance forces was decisive.
At the end of the Greek civil war 1946-1949, 41,970 soldiers of the Greek Democratic Army led by the communists were killed, 24,300 surrendered, and 23,950 were taken prisoner. And 70,000 people, elderly, women, and children, left Greece for European countries.
From the data that has come to light in recent years, there are doubts that the Slavic-Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia were betrayed by some leaders of the Greek Democratic Army, who were of Greek ethnicity and not Slavic-Macedonian.
It is suspected that the Chairman of the Provisional Government, General Marko Vafiadhis himself, helped the right-wing Greek army to expel the Slavic-Macedonians from Greece. This can also be explained by his rapid rehabilitation after he returned to Greece and was elected a Member of Parliament for the PASOK party.
The Greek civil war 1946-1949 had tragic consequences, especially for the Slavic-Macedonian minority, who suffered the fate of the Albanian minority in Chameria, that of being denied the right to return to their lands and benefit from their immovable property.
It is ironic that the Albanian minority was massacred and expelled under the accusation of being collaborators with the German occupiers. While the Macedonian minority was massacred and expelled under the accusation of being collaborators of the Greek Democratic Army, which was led by Greek communists.
Similarities and Differences in the Tragedy of the Two Minorities
The tragedy of the two minorities, the Albanian and the Slavic-Macedonian, who were violently expelled from the Greek state in the years 1944-1949, has many common points and differences.
Similarities:
a). They were expelled and massacred by the same Greek state army led by General Napoleon Zerva.
b). In general, immigrants from Asia Minor were settled on their lands.
c). The property was collectively appropriated by the Greek state.
d). They are forbidden to visit their homelands even as tourists.
f). Their Greek citizenship was collectively revoked.
Differences:
a). The Albanian minority from Chameria was expelled by the Greek army. While the Slavic-Macedonian minority was expelled by the Greek army with the help of the Anglo-Americans.
b). The Albanian minority did not put up armed resistance, they had no army. While the Slavic-Macedonian minority had almost 2/3 of the Greek Democratic Army (DSE) and resisted in the mountains for about three years.
c). The Albanian minority did not have time to take the deeds and other documents proving the value of the property when they left. While the Slavic-Macedonian minority had time to take everything as the resistance lasted three years.
d). The Albanians expelled from Chameria were not treated well by the government of Enver Hoxha when they came to Albania. They were despised by the communist government, who placed them in barracks in the poor suburban neighborhoods of the cities.
While the Slavic-Macedonians were supported by the government of the People’s Republic of Macedonia of the Federation of Yugoslavia. They received a full rehabilitation such as free houses, jobs, soft loans, etc.
An Open Letter to Archbishop Anastas, on the Occasion of the Holidays (December 2015)
A prayer and a mass of forgiveness for the genocide committed by Greek clerics against the Cham population*
The representatives of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece, the archbishops and metropolitans, have at least twice directed and participated directly in the massacres committed against the Albanian population in 1914, in the south of Albania and 1944-1945 in Chameria.
Therefore, on the occasion of the Christmas and Epiphany holidays, I invite the Archbishop of Albania, Anastasios, to hold a mass for forgiveness and in memory of the Albanian victims massacred over the years by the clerics of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece.
Seeking and giving forgiveness is perhaps the most beautiful element that characterizes the history of Christianity. Jesus Christ, who is also the founder of this religion, taught his followers to forgive each other for every sin committed, and his famous saying on the cross:
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” is also the giving of his personal example, that what he preached to others, he first applied himself in his own life.
Later, Christianity would fall into serious errors, culminating in the dark Middle Ages, where the Church would execute scientists and scholars at the stake, just for declaring that the earth rotated, or free souls as heretics, just for daring to believe in another Christian philosophy, not the official one, as was the case with the Lutheran reform, which also became the foundation of evangelical Christianity, which even today is not viewed favorably by the official Catholic religion.
These historical facts are known to all, and only at the end of the last century, the Catholic Church began to ask the world for forgiveness for all the crimes it had committed throughout history.
The climax was marked by Pope John Paul II, who asked for forgiveness for almost every crime committed by his predecessors, from those committed against the Jews, women, Galileo, Muslims killed by the crusades and against anyone who has suffered at the hands of the Roman Church.
The Popes who followed would also continue this tradition, as humble as it was dignified, of seeking forgiveness and officially acknowledging the errors committed, thus trying to heal the wounds of the past, but also those of the present, where there is no lack of admissions of sexual abuse by clerics, for which Pope Francis has repeatedly asked for forgiveness.
But this forgiveness has not always come and only as an initiative of the church authority, which has often tried to cover up scandals, or avoid their publication, in order to maintain the good public image of the religion.
In many cases, the request for forgiveness has come as a result of pressure exerted by civil society, or the victims of this violence themselves or their descendants. Of course, today, justice is also showing that churches and clerics no longer stand above the law, as they once did.
In the course of this treatise, I would like to make public and, why not, exert positive pressure, like the precedents I mentioned, for the recognition of a serious crime, which has been proven by historical documents to have been committed by high-ranking clerics of the Orthodox Church of Greece, and about the cooperation of the Greek Archbishops and Metropolitans for their direct participation in the massacres of 1914 and with Napoleon Zerva’s EDES, in the Genocide of 1944, committed against the Muslim and Orthodox Albanian population in Chameria.
The Archbishop of Greece, Spyridon Vlahos (1949-1956), participated in 1914 in the massacres committed by the Greek army in the south of Albania. Archbishop Spyridon Vlahos is the projector of the Greek Genocide against the Albanian population in Chameria 1944-1945. Archbishop Seraphim (1974-1998), personally participated in the Genocide committed by Napoleon Zerva.
The Metropolitan of Paramythia, Dorotheos, dressed in the military uniform of EDES, slaughtered dozens of Muslim Albanians on June 27, 1944, in Paramythia. Dozens of priests dressed in EDES military uniforms participated in the Genocide committed by the Greek army EDES against the Albanian population in Chameria.
For all the history scientifically elaborated and based on undeniable evidence, I demand, based on the church practice of repentance, that the Orthodox Archbishop of Albania, Anastasios Yannoulatos, since he was ordained to the episcopal rank by the Autocephalous Church of Greece, and today is also the Primate of the Autocephalous Church of Albania, to publicly ask for forgiveness on behalf of the church from which he comes, for its involvement in these monstrous massacres and crimes against the Albanians of Chameria.
The time has now come for the Eastern Orthodox Church to also ask, through its representatives, for forgiveness for the crimes committed throughout history, whenever it is requested by civil society, by the victims or their descendants.
Again, Archbishop Yannoulatos should apologize for the fact that he has repeatedly refused the requests of family members and representatives of Cham associations to perform prayers or memorials for those killed and massacred by the Greeks, with the terrible and divisive justification that the Chams are Muslims and the Church cannot pray for them.
But Mr. Yannoulatos probably does not know that among the massacred Chams there were also Orthodox Albanians such as the lawyer Spiro Çalluka, Thanas Marko, Petro Sharra, Thimi Gogozoti, etc. Can an Orthodox hierarch refuse a prayer for Orthodox believers, just because they are Chams and were killed by his fellow countrymen, without having any other valid ecclesiastical reason?
This is again a sacrilege, punishable by the canons, Your Grace, for which you are again called upon to ask for forgiveness and to correct the mistake, by praying perhaps you you for the souls of these Orthodox. From the research I did on the ecclesiastical tradition of seeking forgiveness, the most numerous examples of such repentance go to the Church of Rome.
The Byzantine or Orthodox Church has far fewer such examples of forgiveness, not because it has not made mistakes, as Eastern Christianity could not be more innocent than Western Christianity, for where there are people, there are also sins, but because the Eastern Church is not yet ready, has not made it its own as a method of healing, or perhaps does not have the level of emancipation to accept, recognize, and ask for forgiveness for the crimes it has been involved in, however few they may be in number, but there is no one naive enough to believe that in New Rome, people sinned less. / Memorie.al
