About five years ago I wrote two Commentaries for ZNet. Here are some excerpts from them:

 

 

ZNet Commentary: " 2009: 

On April 27, 1944 anti-Nazi Greek Resistance fighters in Peloponese killed a German general and three German soldiers. The Germans decided to kill 200 Greeks… 

On the evening of April 30, 1944, on the eve of May Day, the German commander of the Haidari concentration camp, read a list of 200 detainees who, supposedly were to be moved to another concentration camp. The 200 were the above mentioned communists. The 200 readily understood that they were chosen to be executed for the killing of the four Germans… 

The next morning, on May Day the trucks that carried the 200 started through the streets of Athens towards the neighborhood of Kesariani, the site of the executions. At the site the 200 demanded not to be shot in groups of ten but all of them together in one group. After a series of negotiations between the executioners and those to be executed it is agreed that the execution will be in groups of 20, so that the rest could load the dead bodies of the previous group to the trucks and not the German soldiers. Then, the 200 start to sing and dance once more and the execution begins. Finally, the last group of 20, inevitably, is loaded by the German soldiers on the trucks.
 
The execution took place on 10 a.m. The site of the executions was the "Shooting Range" where the Greek sportsmen and the Greek athletes prepared for the Olympic games, etc. It is situated smack in the middle of the Kesariani neighborhood. Thus, many of the people in the neighborhood were eyewitnesses of the slaughter from the roofs of their houses which were adjacent to the "Shooting Range." I rarely take American friends who visit Athens to the Parthenon. I take them to the Kesariani "Shooting Range." As a matter of fact, in 1985, a charming American lady from Los Osos of California, to thank me for showing her the site, managed to unearth a used copy of "Time" magazine, dated April 28, 1967, which I had never seen, as the US-instigated dictatorship had confiscated that particular issue of "Time".

  

 

ZNet Commentary: "May Day, the Athens 2009 Sequel" of May 20, 2009  

 The neighborhood of Kesariani (now a mayoralty) lies about a few hundred yards from the "Athens Hilton" hotel on the east side of Athens. The name Kesariani ["Kaesariani" in refined Greek] comes from a Christian monastery that was built in the area by the Byzantines in the 11th century. In the classical times at the site there was a temple dedicated to…Venus, as there was a spring there the water of which was supposed to help barren women. Even Ovid had written about the temple. As usual, the Christians demolished the Venus temple and built a monastery. Then in the middle of the 19th century Otto, the Bavarian Catholic Christian, imposed as a king on the Greeks, closed the Orthodox Christian monastery. 
 
In the early 1920s the Greeks were "ordered" by the Great Powers to invade Turkey through Asia Minor. The Turks resisted and drove the Greek population of Asia Minor to the Greek mainland as refugees. Some of the refugees were housed in 1923 in a group of buildings that became the Kesariani neighborhood, and which, eventually, became a bastion of the Left.
 
On Sunday, May 17, 2009, on 10 a.m. there was the annual commemoration at the site of the execution of the 200 at Kesariani. Again, there were about 50 persons at the ceremony, of which about 20 were the officials. And, again, there was laying of wreaths by the representatives (different ones than Haidari) of the four parties as above, etc. The mayor of Kesariani gave a speech on the 200 and a brief analysis of the present world situation. An analysis which would be applauded by any honest American. 
 
However, the ceremony at Kesariani had a development of paramount importance. Present at the ceremony was the ambassador of Germany to Greece, Dr. Wolfgang Schultheiss! Laying a wreath by the ambassador was just a formality. What is important is the fact that he had the courage to attend that specific ceremony and the fact that there could not be a public relations factor in his presence, as the ceremony, after almost three generations, is not even mentioned in the media.
 
I left the site with the feeling that Dr. Schultheiss was really moved by the sight of men and women in their advanced 90s, who walked with difficulty or could barely stand, give short speeches at the podium to honor their executed comrades or relatives, as did a woman of advanced age who recited a poem dedicated to her executed brother. 
 
Yet, even if the German ambassador had the courage to attend the ceremony for the 200, the Greek neo-Nazis made their cowardly presence felt. As I walked by the masonry wall that encloses the execution site at an area which is a bit isolated I found on the ground about 15 neo-Nazi leaflets, probably thrown there in haste. The leaflets were 5" by 7" and were printed in black on both sides. One the front side it had the sign of the German neo-Nazis, a Christian cross superimposed on a circle, and printed was the title: "Autonomous Network of Nationalists". On the back side it was printed: "The Workers Have Fatherland. Long Live the Greek May Day". That the neo-Nazis write "Long Live" the (Haymarket) May Day is idiotic. Yet, these are murderous idiots. In Greece, as in Italy, Germany, etc, they have started to attack immigrants.
 
The insistence on relating the events about the execution of the 200 could be taken as an effort to appeal to "strong emotions". No, Haidari and Kesariani relate to what is happening in the world this very moment. There are dozens of "200"-cases taking place in the world every day thanks to the efforts of the pious "Leaders" of the world. It is about time for all of us to start thinking about doing something. One way to start is by installing a new Nuremberg!

 

 

Open Letter

 

Today, May 27, 2013, on the first page of the Athens "Paper of the Editors" there is an "Open Letter" addressed to the Prime Minister of Greece. Here is its translation into English:

 

 

"Mr. Prime Minister, 

Tomorrow morning start your day in a different manner: Take with you only one or two people of your personal guard, do not inform your personnel, do not notify absolutely none of the media and go to the Shooting Range of Kesariani. After you go through the built area, you will reach the place … of the executions. There, ask the people of your escort to stay away, move forward and stand alone for a few seconds on the very spot where more than 900 Greeks were executed during the Nazi occupation. The scenery is amazing. Only the chirping of the birds will keep you company and maybe, if you concentrate a bit, you could hear the last cries of the patriots that sacrificed their lives there: 'Long live Greece', 'Long live freedom', 'Down with fascism', 'Long live the KKE' [Communist Party of Greece]! Yes, do not be surprised, maybe you do not know or you have never read about it, but among the executed there were quite a few communists, as the 200 of the First of May of 1944, yet their sacrifice was serving the same ideal: the liberation of the homeland from the foreign occupier.  

This place is literally sacred as it was saturated with the blood of people who did not think of their lives. They themselves had parents, children, [and] loved ones. Since that time, many struggles were needed to stop the sound of the shootings by the Shooting Association. In 1984, the unforgettable Melina Mercoury managed to have the area declared as an 'historical monument', while a little later the entire area was characterized as a zone of historical interest. However, decisive was the building of the Monument for the Fallen Patriots. Then, during the inauguration [of the monument], on June 24, 2005, all were present: The President K. Papoulias, the Prime Minister K. Karamanlis, M. Glezos [of tearing down the Nazi flag from the Acropolis fame] side by side with K. Mitsotakis [a politician of the Right], the mayor and the people of Kesariani. Mr. Papoulias had stated that 'Kesariani is identified …  with the sound of machineguns and this sound continues to echo in us, as a continuous reminder of our debt to those people who sacrificed themselves.' 

Yet, this area of 24 acres, which formally belongs to the Organization of School Buildings and has been transferred to TAIPED [the recently formed Fund for selling Greek assets] our government intends to sell. That is, you have included in the list of the land for future development the area of the 'Place of Sacrifice for Freedom', an area that, anyway, the City Hall [of Kesariani] is claiming as its own for decades.  

This place has paramount symbolic value. It is the living history and the memory of an entire people that resisted Fascism and Nazism and defeated them. The executed at Kesariani sacrificed themselves defending the freedom and the independence of the homeland, values that unite all the Greeks from the conservative Right to the far Left. this place cannot be turned into a commercial center, it cannot be 'developed'. it has its own self-evident value.

 

Mr. Prime Minister,

 

Return to your office, and turn the pages of the last writings of your great grandmother, Penelope Delta, if you think that will help your memory, and instruct your people to immediately remove the entire area of the Shooting Range of Kasariani from the for-sale-list of TAIPED." 

  

Two questions: 

1. The persons in power in Greece know that selling Greece to the Russians, the Chinese, and the Germans, will not be tolerated by ordinary Greeks. Yet, they do it. Why? 

2. What is the aim of the US "mentors" of the Greeks in power? 

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