"The cowards who betray patriots to the Huns, out of fear of death, should know that we have set a trap for them, that they are doomed, and at the first opportunity, they will be exterminated like animals." With these words, L'Humanité, the official publication of the French Communist Party (PCF), called upon French resistors to acts of vengeance in April 1942.
In the Axis-occupied cities, communist organizations systematically cultivated mass disobedience against the occupying authority. In Athens and Piraeus, the rapid growth of EAM, based on an extensive organizational network, fueled the anti-occupation sentiment of the public, leading to a complete rupture with the occupation regime.
The intensification of Nazi terror, combined with the political polarization that peaked during the last phase of the Occupation (1943-1944), led to a bloody cycle of executions, open battles, and murders in the center and neighborhoods of the capital between the Greek-speaking occupation forces (Gendarmerie, Security, Evzones Battalions) and the "city partisans" of ELAS and OPLA, who were called to openly guard the EAM and party organizations while also taking on "secret" tasks of intelligence, espionage, and the extermination of officials of the occupation apparatus.
The operation and action of this "iron arm of the party" represent one of the last unknown pages of occupation history and are placed under the microscope of systematic historical research for the first time. For the first time, the structure, personnel, and practices of OPLA, the militia of ELAS tasked with executing collaborators of the conqueror and those Greek citizens considered traitors in the eyes of the communist party come to light.
This case was a complex phenomenon inextricably linked to the national liberation-social demands within the suffocating occupation framework where the Security Battalions also operated. It is no coincidence, therefore, that it has been shrouded in a veil of silence that persists to this day. (Manolis Pimplis, "Ta Nea", Bibliodromio, 31/3/2012)
Number of pages
304
Cover
Soft
Year of publication
2012
Publisher
THemelio
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