Shooting in Diavata

Greece was one of the European countries where, during the Second World War, the partisan movement gained wide scope. With the beginning of the triple, German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation of Greece, the Communist Party of Greece took the initiative to expand the wide resistance movement , creating the National Liberation Front of Greece (EAM) in September 1941, which then proceeded to create the People’s Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS). In general, the sparse railway network of this mountainous country, and in particular the Athens - Thessaloniki line, was constantly attacked by ELAS partisans.

It is enough to note that only the “Separate Engineering Battalion” of Antonis Vratsanos at the 1st Thessaly Division ELAS ^[1] , operating on the Athens – Thessaloniki line in the region of Olympus , blew up 36 railway bridges and destroyed 20 trains and 12 steam locomotives.

In response to the actions of the Greek partisans, the usual practice of the occupation authorities was to shoot at places of attacks and sabotage either by residents of nearby settlements ^[2] , or hostages from among political prisoners in prisons and concentration camps ^[2] .

Prisons and camps here acted as “blood sources” ^[3] / suppliers of death row hostages. The most famous camp of this kind in Central Macedonia was, in the words of the writer Anna-Maria Drumbuki, “disgusting glory” ^[4] Pavlos Melas camp in Thessaloniki .

The Pavlos Melas camp was created by the Turks in 1881, as the barracks of the Ottoman army located in Thessaloniki. After the liberation of the Macedonian capital by the Greek army in 1912, the camp came under the control of the Greek army and was named after one of the most famous Macedonomians, that is, fighters for the reunification of Macedonia with Greece, Pavlos Melas. The largest building of the camp was the long building A2. Another building was perpendicular to it, which formed a right angle with A2, thereby creating the central area of ​​the camp. The former stables of the military camp were also used to keep prisoners. The majority of prisoners were men accused or suspected of participating in the Resistance and members of the Communist Party, which did not exclude the presence of women with children, as well as Jews, among the prisoners. Theodoros Valajas is the youngest prisoner - in the spring of 1944, when he was taken to the camp with his mother, he was 12 years old.

And after the executions, the number of prisoners in this “suicide bomb” did not decrease and was replenished due to those arrested during punitive operations. The prisoners were considered as hostages, their death was used as a warning, but their life could simultaneously be a factor in deterring the attacks of the partisans ^[5] The camp constantly acted as a “source of blood” for the retaliatory measures of the invaders. The first batch of suicide bombers was sent back in October 1941 for demonstrative execution by hanging in the village of Kalokastro, Serre , Central Macedonia , where partisan detachments were already operating ^[6] .

At the beginning of 1944, “the year of large punitive operations against gangs” ^[5] , the camp granted death row for dozens of executions, including the following mass executions:

• On March 3, 1944, 63 prisoners from the Pavlos Melas camp were shot on the dam of the Gallikos River, on the road from Thessaloniki to Kilkis , in response to the operations of ELAS troops in the region ^{[2] [5]} .
• On February 23, the battalion of A. Vratsanos blew up the N53 train in Tempei Gorge , full of soldiers and officers heading for the Eastern Front . It cost the Wehrmacht 450 killed, of which 150 officers, including the general with his headquarters. This action is considered one of the largest sabotage in Europe occupied by the Germans ^{[7] [8] [2]} .

In response to this ELAS operation, on March 8, the occupying authorities shot 100 hostages. Of these, 40 people from the Pavlos Melas camp, 40 people from the Larisa camp, and 20 peasants from a village nearby the operation site ^[2] .

• On May 25, after an attack by ELAS partisans in the region and in the city of Gumenis , in retaliation for the German soldiers and officers killed in these battles, 52 prisoners from the Pavlos Melas camp were shot on fire ^{[2] [5]} .

There is no serious reason to link the June 6 shooting with the Allied landings in Normandy , which began on the same day. The book by V. Gunaris and P. Papapoliviu “The blood tax in occupied Thessaloniki” ^[9] , as well as often in today's press, claims that this execution was carried out for “destroying an unidentified train” (αντίποινα για αταύτιστο εκτροχιασμό) ^[10] . Although this statement honors the Greek Resistance (the trains were attacked so often that it is not possible to determine which particular attack is involved), it does not answer the questions of where and when this attack occurred, and most importantly, how large the losses of the invaders were, in response on which they organized this mass execution. On the other hand, the statement of the professor of the “Balkan, Slavic and Eastern Department” of the University of Macedonia , Stratos Dordanos, who in his book writes that the execution on June 6 was carried out in revenge for the destruction by the partisans of the telegraph line in Katerini , raises questions. However, S. Dordanos himself asks himself the question: “100 people for simple sabotage?” Such a statement does not fit with the Nazi accounting of blood. The destruction of the telegraph line did not justify the mass shooting of this order, however, regardless of the occasion, the June 6 shooting took place. At a roll call of names in the Pavlos Melas camp, on the evening of June 5, it was announced that a hundred prisoners would be transferred to Kozani . The prisoners' fears were confirmed at dawn, when they were ordered to leave things in their cells ^[2] . One by one 98 people went out of the cells, addressing those who remained with the words “don’t forget us”, “take revenge”. Three more suicide bombers were brought from the Vayanos clinic, which the Nazis turned into a place of torture ^[11] . Before loading onto trucks, suicide bombers began to sing and dance the Zalongo Dance :

Fish do not live on land,

and flowers in the sand

the Greeks cannot

without freedom, in shackles.

The prisoners remaining in the camp heard from the 6 trucks leaving the National Anthem ^[2] trucks stopped on the ninth kilometer of the Thessaloniki-Kilkis highway, near the village of Diavata. The execution ended at 8 in the morning. The lists of names of those shot after the war include persons from 17 (Aleksandros Valavanis) and up to 67 years old ^{[12] [13]} . Among those executed was Kostas Hadzimalis, a member of the Central Committee and secretary of the city organization of the Communist Party of Greece, who had been the editor of the Communist Party's press organ, the newspaper Rizospastis for many years. However, due to the fact that Hadzimalis was arrested during a routine raid, the Germans did not know his real name ^[14] .

The mass grave later turned out to be on the territory of the industrial zone, on the site acquired by the National Bank of Greece . An attempt to put a modest monument above the mass grave rested on the property of the bank. Despite its "national name", the bank for a long time refused to transfer at least 100 square meters. meters of 800 square meters. meters of the mass grave ^[2] The monument erected in the end is not only modest, but access to it is complicated due to the limited area. The Pavlos Melas camp was used by the army until the end of the 90s, after which it remained neglected. Subsequently, the camp territory and its abandoned buildings were transferred to the department of the municipality. A monument to the National Resistance was erected opposite the camp. Today's (2019) plans of the municipality include the creation of a park and the Museum of National Resistance in the territory of the former camp in one of the camp buildings.