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The Municipal Museum of the Kalavrita Holocaust is housed in the old Primary School, which was designated a protected historical monument, and is inextricably linked to the horrific events of "Black Monday" on 13-12-1943. The Germans gathered in the courtyard the inhabitants of Kalavrita and separated the men from 13 years and older from the women and children and the elderly. The former were executed on the hill of "Kappi", and they were trapped inside the school, which was set on fire, but they managed to escape. The school building was rebuilt in 1950 and today gathers all kinds of material related to the tragic events, as well as personal belongings of the victims.

This point of interest is Mountainous and Urban. It is accessible all year round. It is accessible through public transport. It has a fee or ticket. WED-SUN: 09:00-16:00. 

In this symbolic building the inhabitants of the city of Kalavryta experienced and suffered the brutality of the Nazi atrocities: it was the somewhat deceptive place of their concentration, the inhumane separation of families, the painful separation, the horrible confinement of women and children and their violent release.

HALL 1 - SUBJECT: PRE-WAR KALAVRITA

OUR OLD STATE

In the old days, our small state with its beautiful square, surrounded by cafes and barbershops and offices and water fountains, had a lot of people!

Clerks and tradesmen lawyers and dapper cobblers and master barbers filers in that good time!

And every Sunday, all of us in church, students with the schools. And then in the cafes, Hamouzas has a square where the philharmonic plays!

And everyone was waiting, I guess, for the evening to arrive for the little train to arrive, with Nikandros driving the motorbike with the little beard... And all that time!

And he had many joys: Pachi's corner, the tavern and the rare shop "A little bit of everything" of Gazis! But misfortunes found her! G. Koutsouris

HALL 2nd - THEME: OWNERSHIP - "KALAVRITA ENTERPRISE"

"Like in all places, Kalavritans have been living since May 1941 under the hoarseness of the Axis, maintaining a high morale and belief in the final victory.

We are in 1943. Merciless blows from East and West have put the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis in an extremely difficult position. However, the whole of Europe is suffering from the enraged because of the blows Nazi Germany is receiving. This, in addition to the extensive fronts of military operations, also has to deal with the national resistances in the occupied countries and is called upon to maintain large areas of enemy peoples.

Adolf Hitler and his collaborators activate their "secret weapon", the ultimate advantage: organized terrorism with merciless slaughter, looting with arson and the disappearance of everything associated with freedom.

The implementation of the plan was meticulously thought out and organized. The first blow was not to be given by chance, it had to be given to the "heart". Thus, cities that were pioneers in the struggle for freedom were struck in all states. Such a city was Kalavrita, which took the lead in the national liberation struggle of 1821..."

P. Nikolaidis

HALL 3 - SUBJECT: DISASTER IN THE WIDER AREA

"On November 29, 1943, the eve of Saint Andrew, the patron saint of my village, Skepastos, we were bombed. I was then twelve years old and going to school. When the German planes came over us, our teacher, Leonidas Papacharalambous, ordered us to get out.

The bombs started falling. I remember that he called me to him, in a coat that he had dropped to cover himself:

"Come, fall close to me and don't move at all," he told me. I obeyed. Then a bomb fell, a stone was thrown and hit me on the head. The river of blood... Where to stop it..."

Diamanto Bratsakis-Kotsaras

"I remember how we carried my father to the village on a ladder. Some were crying and others were mocking and laughing at us... We put him outside in the garden but someone advised us to bring him inside the house, lest they take pity on us and set him on fire. But they (the Germans) entered, threw down the oil lamp and tried to burn it...

We found the President of the village disemboweled; he was still alive but it was not possible to offer him any help... The whole night we did not rest... I remember that one had put on women's clothes to escape, another had climbed onto the roof, another had taken refuge on the rocks...

We still didn't know where they had been executed... In the morning we started looking. We went to Agia Paraskevi. What can we see... A layer of corpses... There were also two wounded. A teacher had been hit in the jaw; the villagers carried him on the shoulder, but it was too late. Another, Filippo Grindzo they called him, was saved, because a dead man fell on him and flattened him. We dug ourselves and buried them…”

Testimony of Elli Stephanopoulos-Grintzou

Victim of the Kerpini tragedy

HALL 4 - TOPIC: THE GERMANS IN KALAVRITA-DISASTER

“…It's about 10.30am. and black smoke begins to billow. Shots are heard in the city. They throw them to ignite the dust with which they sprinkle the houses to make them burn more easily. Everywhere you looked, flames and smoke. Smokes, bangs and looting. Houses, shops, public stores, huts and barns, churches, properties, toils and sweat of years and years, after the looting are mercilessly consumed by a red-black immense fire....

The first German who dragged me was really fooled. He thought I was dead and gave me a kick as he left. Then a second soldier came. I thought the same would happen to him. With the first shake of the first, my gold watch came out of my pocket, which glinted in his eyes. He got it two or three times in the hands and at the same time he looked around him and the others. It seems they were forbidden to rob the dead, and he was afraid some officer might see him. The watch dazzled him and flirted with him. Once he took it and once, he left it.

Finally, I couldn't hold my breath any longer and gasped. Then he shot me in the neck with his pistol and immediately left."

Georgios Georgantas (Rescued)

HALL 5th - THEME: SPACE OF HISTORICAL MEMORY (THE PANTHEON OF KALABRYTIN HEROES - THE DISATHULATION OF NAZISM)

"I lost my husband Nikos and my three boys, Antonis, George and Christos. And I was left alone and unprotected with my five orphans..."

Antiope Chondronicola.

"I had four brothers... I went up to the hill and found my one brother, Nikos. Half the head in front, half in the back, burning... I went further and I found Christos. Dead too, with his whole belly out. I found Alexis, he was struck in the heart and bleeding. I found Dimitris his hands were cut off. I went further and found my father. His whole face was gone…Horror…mourning…tears…”

Triseugeni Ferleli-Rekouti

COURTYARD - VISIT TO THE EAST SIDE OF THE COURTYARD

The composition entitled "NO MORE WARS", the work of the sculptor Nikos Dimopoulos, in the forecourt of the Kalavrita Holocaust Museum. It is a donation of Andreas Varelopoulos. It depicts a woman dragging her executed-dead husband under the pain-filled gaze of their children.

Link: youtube.com

Source : Website for the Municipal Museum of the Kalavryta Holocaust

Source Link: dmko.gr