The third episode of the radio documentary series “Forgotten Villages” is dedicated to Kandanos, which will be broadcast on Friday, February 9th, 2024, from 13:00 to 14:00 by Voice of Greece.
The main narrator of the radio documentary is Irini Kandaraki.
During World War II, on June 3rd, 1941, the Nazis burned and razed Kandanos to the ground, avenging the resistance they encountered from its residents outside the Elementary School.
Three inscriptions were left by the Nazis in Kandanos, unique historical monuments in all of Europe, as wherever they destroyed, they did not leave written proof of the crime they committed, but also did not emphasize so much the resistance they encountered.
On the two signs-inscriptions, which were placed at the entrances of Kandanos from Paleochora and Chania respectively, the following were written in Greek and German: “Because of the brutal murder of German paratroopers, alpinists and the Engineer, by a man, woman and children and priests together, and because they dared to resist against the Great Reich, Kandanos was totally destroyed June 3rd, 1941, so that it would never be rebuilt again.” And somewhat misspelled in the second:” IN RETALIATION FOR ARMED CIVILIANS, MEN AND WOMEN FROM THE REAR MURDERED GERMAN SOLDIERS, KANDANOS WAS DESTROYED.” Finally, the content of the third marble slab brought by the conquerors in 1943 is: “Here was Kandanos – Destroyed to atone for the murder of 25 German soldiers”
Forgotten Villages” is the new 20-episode radio documentary series by ERT journalist Thomas Sideris.
Small villages perched on the roots of rocks, but also head villages and towns that were full of life and became places of martyrdom and death during the fascist and Nazi era.
People caught in the maelstrom of history, unable to define their present and future, who lived through the horror and absurdity of war. Those who managed to survive, orphans and happy parents, relatives of the thousands of victims, lived the rest of their lives in endless silence.
Thomas Sideris opens the precious archive of the show “Unguarded Passage” and through his years of research he brings to light older and newer oral testimonies and narratives, which communicate with each other composing a dense canvas of parallel narrative axes about the massacres and holocausts that took place throughout Greece during World War II.
From the martyrdom of Distomo, Kalavryta, Mousiotitsa and Kommeno, to Viano, Anogia, Mesovouni and Domeniko, the “Forgotten villages” come alive again through the oblivion of time and tell us about all these and about all those who must never be forgotten.
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Research – Presented by: Thomas Sideris
Historical consultant: Dimitris Vlachopanos, philologist-writer
Research Assistant: Lena Anagnostopoulou, philologist
General Scientific Advisor: Sotiris Livas