Himara (steamer)

The passenger ship “Hertha”, with a capacity of 1,427 registered tons , was built in 1905 at the German shipyard Stettiner Oderwerke in Szczecin . Operated by Stettiner Dampfschiffs Ges. - JF Brauenlich GmbH until 1946 ^[1] . During the war periods was used as a floating hospital.

Photo of the ship on the ship's menu, 1920

At the end of World War II and taking into account the state of the post-war German economy, Greece agreed with the proposal to postpone the payment of German military reparations to it until the unification of Germany ^[2] . One of the few acts of payment of reparations in advance, was the transfer of the steamer "Herth", one way or another was in the hands of the allies. The steamer was named Himar , in honor of the Greek city inhabited by Northern Epirus , liberated by the Greek army during the Greco-Italian War (1940-1941), but remaining in Albania after the German invasion in April 1941.

Himara left the port of Thessaloniki , the capital of the Macedonian capital, on January 18, 1947 at 8:30 in the morning. The steamer was heading for Piraeus , which in peacetime was not an ordinary passenger flight, but at the height of the civil war (1946-1949), when the railway and road traffic was threatened by guerrillas of the Democratic Army and in poor condition, the maritime message was an alternative. On board the ship were 544 passengers and 86 crew members.

Among the passengers were 36 imprisoned communists and the gendarmes accompanying them, as well as military personnel.

The number of gendarmes and soldiers, conscripts and recruits, reached 200 people.

At 4:10, at dawn on January 19, and being in the southern Euboeian Gulf, Himara began to sink in thick fog at the Verduya rocks, between Nea Stira and Agia Marina.

A hard blow caused water flow and seriously damaged the steering device, making the ship unmanageable.

Greek sea sources point out that the Himara crew was not up to par and did not maintain order when leaving the vessel, which was made uncontrollably.

The situation was aggravated by the fact that the armed gendarmes and soldiers did not obey the orders of the captain.

Moreover, the gendarmes were the first to rush to the lifeboats and rafts.

Although the steamer sank after an hour and a half and at a distance of just one mile from St. Marina and 1.5 miles from the island of Cavalliani, panic at leaving the vessel, low temperatures and strong sea currents led to the loss of at least 383 lives. Among them are many women and children.

Search and rescue of the victims of the disaster began only 10 hours after the crash, due to the fact that as a result of the explosion, the radio was disabled.

Minesweepers and fishing boats for two days collected corpses at sea ^[3] . Of the 36 Communist prisoners survived 10 people. Among the dead communists were activists of the organization of the Communist Party of Thessaloniki and trade unionists from all of Macedonia, including a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikos Zagurdzis ^[4] . Of the 10 Communists who survived, 8 were soon arrested in ports and hospitals. Only two managed to avoid arrest and get in touch with the underground organizations of the party in Athens. One of them, Alexandros Ksilakis, was arrested a few months later, in August of the same year, and sent to the Makronissos Concentration Camp , where he became the object of “special attention” of the guards. According to Ksilakis, he was beaten with the words "We beat you because you did not drown." Rescued from the Himara crash, Xylakis spent 12 years in camps and prisons ^{[5] [6]} .

Although in the context of the civil war, the version of sabotage was useful for propaganda purposes, it was rejected during the investigation. Were put forward version of the raid on the rocks due to navigation errors and blasting on a magnetic mine. The second version was confirmed by evidence of the explosion. The investigation concluded that in both cases, such as landing on rocks or blasting on a mine that had not been cleared by the Germans, the wreck was caused by a deviation from the desired course. At the ensuing court hearing, the German senior officer Bertols (who remained on board from the previous crew), who was on duty at the hour of the crash, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment, while captain S. Belesis was sentenced to 15 months of probation. For the lost ship, the Greek state received from the insurance company 70.000 British pounds . At the beginning of the next century, a group of diver Kostas Toktaridis made an underwater study at the crash site, at a depth of about 30 meters, confirming the version of the raid on a mine. The finds were exhibited at the beginning of 2006 in the Athenian palace of Zapion , together with the relics of the Titanic ^{[7] [8]} .