by Katerina Nikolas

Created on: June 20, 2010   Last Updated: December 29, 2011

The Greek Civil war is a period which many will not speak of in the Greek Peloponnese, as atrocious acts were carried out between fellow countrymen. Whilst Greeks fought bravely against the Italians in the Second World War, defeating them, only in turn to fall to the mighty power of the advancing Germans, a second conflict was unfolding.

Communist and nationalists fought fiercely to take control of the country, and as the Germans began to leave Greece in September 1944, Aris Velouchiotis, chief of the People’s Army for National Liberation (ELAS) sent communist troops to conquer the Peloponnese.

In 1943 Security Battalions had been created to fight anti partisan groups, and many were thought to be in collaboration with the Nazis. The small town of Meligala in Messinia, Peloponnese, was the headquarters of a security battalion, and between 13th- 15th of September 1944, a 3 day battle raged there, between the nationalists and ELAS. The battle culminated in the massacre of Meligala, a brutal slaughter of at least 1400 men, women and children - civilians who were butchered alongside 50 officers and non commissioned officers of the security battalions.

Those rounded up to be killed were marched from many different villages and were primarily local peasants, their number including many innocent bystanders. The troops of ELAS made merry with their murdering spree, sparing ammunition and killing with knives, axes, tools and cans. Torture was inflicted before the dead and dying were thrown into a mass well on the outskirts of Meligala, known as Pigado.

Tassos Antonopoulos was an 18 year old spectator to the massacre and writes in his book ‘the Cavalry of Meligala’ that the executioners were “torturing and slaying their fellow men in the most inhuman and barbaric way”. Some had limbs amputated before being tossed into the well, others had their noses cut off, their eyes pulled out, their ears and tongues cut off. “Brothers and fellow countrymen were slaying each other, driven by hatred to revenge one another.”

The massacre stands as one of the most shameful events of the Greek Civil War, and it is no wonder that those who lived through those days hardly speak of them, as old enemies returned to live uneasily in the same environs. A massive blackened cross stares down upon the site of the Pigado and the area has been preserved as a monument to the dead.

An eerie silence permeates the site which sits below the road. A long square stands above the well: as you look down a small church stands to the right of the square, facing a now empty bone prison. A long wall is filled with an endless tableau of plaques listing the town or village name from which the dead were marched to the scene of their slaughter.

Each plaque lists the name, occupation and age of the murdered. Farmers, doctors, teachers, lawyers and priests number the dead. The youngest victim was a nine year old child.

Steps lead down to the well which must once have stood at the bottom of a steep hill as the prisoners were beaten down to it. Rows and rows of graves marked with rough hewn stone crosses bearing the name and age of the dead are becoming weather beaten. The site is bleak and no one speaks of it; no one speaks of which side of the civil war they took. Ironically the name Meligala means honey and milk, but the Pigado ran with the blood of the dead.

 

Sources: local

               Tassos Antonopoulos ‘The Cavalry of Meligala’.

              

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