The History of the Massacres against the Chameria Population in Greece
Memorie.al / The history of ethnic Albanians in Chameria is undoubtedly filled with a series of tragic dates, preserved in memory as acts of ultimate pain. But our historiography has accepted that, if in the years 1913-1943, the Hellenic genocide against the Cham Albanians had an escalation, it is also accepted that the spring and summer of 1944 constitute the apogee of Greek barbarism against the unprotected Albanian population. This genocide would prove once again the unwavering stance of Athens, which sought not only the expulsion of Albanians from their ancestral lands but also the complete destruction of memories of the existence of our race there.
It is worth noting that in August-September 1943, the resistance of the Cham patriots was best organized. Although essentially, this resistance was organized against the occupier, it also contained elements of local defense, which meant the protection of homes and the unprotected population against the Greek Andartes (guerrillas). Such patriots as Isuf Izeti, Xhafer Çafuli, Musa Demi, Dervish Dojaka, Braho Karasani, Sami Alushi, and dozens of others, tried to keep this resistance front alive even through the development of several battles against the Germans, ensuring that these battles did not give the opponent the opportunity to carry out reprisals.
Thus, in the last days of September 1943 and until the beginning of November of that year, the forces of the “Chameria” Battalion, also assisted by local volunteers, fought the famous Battle of Konispol, which lasted 55 days. In truth, Albanians from both sides of the political border participated in this battle, and this fact was conveyed with some concern in the chauvinistic circles of Athens. This close cooperation of Albanians inside the mother state with their Cham brothers, despite fighting against the German occupier, was understood as a great danger for the Vorio-Epirots and their goals.
Meanwhile, the forces of the “Chameria” Battalion, in cooperation with the nationalist command of the Southern forces, also fought in the areas of Gjirokastra, Tepelenë, and Delvinë. According to German documents found in the Archive of the Institute of History in Tirana, these battles were characterized by some extremely dangerous ambushes, where dozens of German soldiers and officers were killed. In these battles, both the patriots of Chameria and the nationalists of Southern Albania had taken courage, especially from the “declaration of Winston Churchill, according to which the state border of Albania would be reviewed immediately after the end of the war”! (Newspaper “Atdheu” Tirana, October 20, 1943.)
I also think that the fact that the Nationalists of Chameria opposed some Albanian communist detachments, which had established close ties with the Greek Communist Party, cannot be silenced. These detachments, led by some well-known philhellenes in Chameria, loudly trumpeted that only their joint fight with the Greeks would bring happiness to Chameria. They could not understand what tragedy was being prepared in Athens, and it was only the German presence that was delaying this very tragedy. A strange knot tied that handful of Chameria communists to the clique in Tirana, which also claimed that communism would be the dreamed-of freedom for all peoples.
In these extremely complicated moments, official Athens, as always, oriented itself towards its anti-Albanian policies. For this purpose, it exploited an agreement between the Communist Party of Greece and the clique of Dušan Mugoša and Enver Hoxha in Tirana, according to which, Greek communist representatives could go to the villages with a Greek minority in Albania and carry out propaganda and organize to fight the occupier.
The Greek communists who rushed to Southern Albania hastened to promote the pan-Hellenic ideas of Vorio Epirus, and within a few weeks, at the assembly organized in the place called Akrovjan, representatives of this minority, within the borders of the Albanian mother state, strongly demanded that: “we want to be one Greece, be it communist or of the devil, just to be in Greece!” The subtext was clear; the borders of Albania had to be pushed even further, shrinking them secretly.
A not insignificant role in the spring of 1944 would also be played by the nationalist patriots of Chameria. With their propaganda, but also with open actions, they aspired to the union of the Cham territories with Albania. This movement was led by a Provincial Council with its organisms, extended from the sub-prefecture to the most remote villages. I think it is appropriate to understand that precisely in the first months of 1944, unlike what has been published so far, the German authority wanted to play a cushioning or restraining role in the old Greek-Albanian animosities. Thus, in a highly secret document that the German command in Chameria sent to the high military command of Athens, among other things, it writes verbatim: “The situation in the province of Chameria has worsened, especially in these last weeks.
Until near the end of 1943, the Albanians were satisfied with exercising their dominance in some zones of influence without undertaking to administer the country. Now they have made progress by strengthening their position through the creation of several administrative bodies. The adoption of these measures is motivated by the fact that the Greek administration has completely failed, and without the intervention of the Albanians, order and tranquility are totally jeopardized. For the implementation of the administrative organization, they have established an Albanian National Council of Chameria.” (Archive of the Institute of History Tirana. German Documents. Doc. 23/44 secret, dated January 10, 1944)
The aforementioned activity of the National Council could not be accepted in any way by the chauvinistic circles of Athens. For this reason, the Greek government, with a special telegram, addressed the German minister for Southeast Europe, Neubacher, where, among other things, they demanded that the Hellenic authority be restored as soon as possible, as the influence of Albanian nationalism would have great consequences for the future fate of the Greek state. On the other hand, alongside the two thousand forces commanded by the infamous General Napoleon Zervas, the Tenth Division, commanded by the criminal Vasil Kamara, was also put into action, which would be destined for a cruel war against the inhabitants of Chameria.
In the first days of June 1944, at the office of General Zervas in Ioannina, the Greek Andartes sent a certain Harallamb Kallojeri, who allegedly supplied the Chameria battalion with weapons. He denied this fact with tears in his eyes, and since he was Greek, he suffered nothing. But it is worth mentioning the words with which General Zervas sent him off, who, clenching his jaws, continued: “If what they told me, that you sell weapons to the Chams, turns out to be true, know that not only you, but your entire tribe, I will burn alive with gasoline, in the middle of the village, so that everyone is terrified.”
Then he addressed all those present, adding: “We must approach the Chams and win them over with kindness, so that they do not slip out of our hands, until we seize the border. After we have locked them up like cattle in a pen, we will not only leave no person alive, but we will also slaughter their cats.” (Ibrahim Daut Hoxha, “National Regions in the Greek State”, Tirana 2000, page 356)
The first prey of the macabre Hellenic violence would be the province of Paramithia, which had often resisted, with weapons in hand, the hordes of Greek Andartes. At midnight on June 26, 1944, they approached Paramithia from all four sides. At dawn on June 27, several Cham patriots fell into the Zervists’ ambush, and the fighting began fiercely. But Greek cunning was quick to function again. The Zervist high command rushed to the Mufti of Paramithia, Sali Hafizi, convincing him that they had no business with the Chams, and that they should lay down their arms and remain calm in their homes. Sali Hafizi believed them and, in a brief assembly of men, ordered the fighting to stop.
Afterward, the Zervist command, led by the infamous Major Kranjani and the rabid anti-Albanian Kristo Stavropulli, went to the Metropolis and made plans with the Greek Despot. As soon as the meeting with the Despot ended, several Greek soldiers scattered through the streets and squares, loudly announcing: “All those who have weapons are ordered to surrender them immediately, because the army will maintain tranquility and order. No one should be afraid! We consider everyone a brother. We want to cooperate and help each other.” (Newspaper “Bashkimi” Tirana, March 7, 1947) But this could be nothing other than the next lie of the Hellenes, to achieve the macabre plans of General Zervas.
Years later, in the testimonies that Asllan Myftari and Sadete Katiu would send to the UN through the Committee for the Defense of Chameria, they would recall, among other things: “Around noon, when the surrender of weapons had not yet finished, the Zervists in groups… led by officers, fiercely poured over the population. Hearing the shots, people left the shops and ran wherever they could. Most ran towards the western side of the city, where they thought the path was not yet closed. There were cases where families were split in two, someone broke through the criminals’ cordon and someone else did not.
Since the circle was closed iron-clad, people ran in the city pursued by the murderers, like wild beasts by the hunter. Anyone encountered was killed. The streets and squares were filled with dead… when the Zervists rushed into a house to slaughter a 6-month-old boy and his mother covered the cradle with her body, they stabbed the woman in the back. Afterward, they stabbed the other boy of the house and its owner. They seized the sister of Hasan Beluli, the three sons of Asim Dino, the two girls and the wife of Rexhep Mali, and nailed them to the wall of the house. After killing Mulla Çeni, they amused themselves with his daughter. Nearby, they also killed 12-13 of Mulla’s neighbors. Throughout Paramithia, the chilling wails and cries of the elderly, young people, and children who were losing their last hopes, beneath the shots of bullets or the blades of knives and axes, could be heard.”
The massacre of Napoleon Zervas against the unprotected inhabitants of Chameria would surpass the savagery of even the medieval inquisitions. This born criminal and his entire camp would encounter no obstacle in their unprecedented barbarity. The painful testimonies continue: “Below the Prronjatëve mosque, lay countless corpses. We distinguished the wife of Ibrahim Bollati, the sister of Muharrem Bako, her 10-year-old son, Mit’hat, 14-year-old Harun Mezani. While we did not recognize the others, because their faces were disfigured. While Estref Ilmiu recounts that when he and some other prisoners were taken to bury the half-decomposed bodies near the Church of Saint George, he only recognized four of the bodies, while dozens of others he could not recognize, as the faces were horribly mutilated by the murderers.” (Newspaper “Bashkimi”, Tirana, April 4, 1947)
Surely the animalistic lusts of Zervas and his company could not be satisfied only with the butchery of Paramithia. Two days later, they poured into the villages of Grikë, Kacjan, Karbunarë, and a string of villages in Central Chameria. If they found anything alive (people and livestock were tragically equated), the Andartes and Zervists immediately slaughtered it. In those houses where people had fled hastily, the military commandos carried out meticulous searches, stealing and looting everything, even the dowries of the unfortunate girls of Chameria.
In the villages of Luar and Karbunarë, as well as in the town of Margëlliç, a small, few-hours resistance was organized. But facing the 25-30 men of these villages, Athens sent the Fortieth Regiment, commanded by Major Angora, which, after 1700 soldiers and officers, also included a contingent of 40 Greek criminals, who had “won” freedom from Greek prisons, solely to slaughter as many ethnic Albanians of Chameria as possible.
This numerical superiority in men, this confusing speed in achieving goals, this unprecedented brutality, had to do as much with the killing of the Chams as with the silence that would accompany this terror. Moreover, despite the mysterious concealment that Athens has made of this tragedy for decades, European diplomacy would note in its annals: “Deliberately violating the ‘Caserta Agreement’, the troops of the Tenth Division, the units of the two E.D.H.E.S. divisions, those of the 100th, 110th, and 40th regiments, are cruelly attacking the unprotected territories of Chameria.” (Central State Archive-Tirana. “The Chameria Issue”, Fund 251, file 14, sheet 143)
The next wave of ethnic Albanian cleansing from their lands in Chameria was again entrusted to the infamous General Zervas, in March 1945. This time, it would be Filat, the cradle of the ultimate resistance of the inhabitants of Chameria that would be struck, burned, and devastated. Although the men of Filat had left, mobilized in small volunteer units, Zervas’s war machine poured into Filat with unprecedented ferocity. On this occasion, there were no shortage of murders, slaughterings, or burning of people and houses. The crimes were almost unseen.
In the information that the British Colonel Woodhouse sent to London at the end of March 1945, he wrote verbatim, among other things: “Based on the Allied Mission I led, I inform you that Zervas drove the Chams out of their homes in 1944, most of who managed to find shelter in Albania. Their expulsion was certainly carried out through a great bloodshed. Zervas’s action was followed later in March 1945 by an even greater massacre, such as this one in Filat in March, which cannot be forgiven.” (Archive of the Institute of History – Tirana. Foreign Office Fund PRO\FO. No. 371\48094).
According to the Memorandum of the Cham immigrants in Albania, which was presented not only to European chanceries but also to the USA, in the period June 1944 – March 1945, a total of 2771 unprotected civilians were killed. During this period, 68 villages were also burned and looted, with about 5800 houses. Other material losses include 110 thousand small livestock, 2400 cattle, 80 thousand quintals of olive oil, 21 thousand quintals of wheat, without counting the great drama of the denationalization of these territories.
A considerable part of Greek politics during the Cold War years, as well as the flatteries of their history, have defended and continue to defend the absurd thesis according to which the Albanians of Chameria left their ancestral lands of their own free will, allegedly having been connected with Germany, Greece’s opponent. These justifying theses, however, could not erase the bloody traces of that biblical genocide.
As for the properties of the inhabitants of Chameria, initially they were distributed to Greek settlers who came from Piraeus, who were quick to deepen the crimes even against those Orthodox Albanians who had remained in this region. Then, by royal order U.B. 2185\152 and by decision 2781\54, the property of the ethnic Albanians in Chameria was confiscated from them to be given or sold at ridiculous prices to Greek volunteers who left the south of the country to clash “bravely” with some lonely Orthodox Albanian in these regions. Such a process, unprecedented in the realm of the Charter of Human Rights, is still happening today in the new millennium, and despite the media noise, Athens continues to implement its annexationist plans against Albania more and more every day. Memorie.al
This article details the historical accounts and documented massacres of the Cham Albanian population in Greece by Greek forces, particularly the Zervists, during and after World War II. It highlights the political context, the resistance, and the scale of the atrocities committed./Memorie.al
