Yiannis Syngelakis, who lost his entire family in the Viannos Holocaust and fought for German reparations, has passed away.
“Left” passed away a few days ago, Giannis Syngelakis, the last survivor of the Viannos Holocaust that took place on September 14, 1943.
Yiannis Syngelakis, born on 15/1/1936, was only 7 years old when the Germans killed his father and four other members of his family and then set fire to the village.
The events marked his life and he dedicated himself to the struggle to document in an irrefutable way the brutalities of the German occupiers, to highlight and internationalize both the Viannos Holocaust and all the country’s holocausts, with the central goal of delivering justice, as the war crimes are inalienable.
The international press including Spiegel and the New York Times recorded his shocking testimonies many times.
His daughterDespina Syngelakis, lawyer and Deputy Mayor of Heraklion, Crete, posted a video of his testimony on her Facebook account.
What he had described on state German television:
“Like today, 80 years ago on April 6, 1941, the Wehrmacht invaded Greece. Officially to help the Italian forces there, only a few weeks later the entire country was occupied. And the Greek island of Crete is bombed during Operation “Mercur” (“Mercury”).
Tens of thousands of German paratroopers land there. Many of them are killed because the resistance is fierce. The Wehrmacht reacts to its own losses with reprisals and war crimes against civilians.
For every one German, ten inhabitants of the island will be killed, so stated the official order. To this day, Greek politicians demand billions from Germany in reparations for the occupation of their country.
Contemporary witnesses, who lived the events and survived the Nazi crimes in Crete, there are only a few, one of them is Mr. Syngelakis.
In a Wehrmacht massacre, he lost his entire family. This has left deep wounds in his soul to this day.
The walls of his parents’ house are still standing. When German soldiers were looking for his parents here, Ioannis Syngelakis was not here, only his father, his uncle and his mother.
They let my mother in the house, but because she was crying loudly and screaming, they locked the door with the key.”
From inside, his mother heard the murder of his father and uncle.
“They dragged my father over there, to that tree, and with the machine gun they shot him in the head and tossed him in the air.”
When the mother no longer heard gunshots, she jumped out of the window and ran downstairs to look for her seven-year-old son.
“He was afraid that the soldiers would kill him too but he found him safe. He hugged me, kissed me and with pain in his soul said to me: Come, my child, they killed your father.”
461 civilians will be murdered by the Wehrmacht in those days here and their houses will be set on fire.
In 1941 Nazi Germany attacks Greece In Crete rebel groups put up resistance. In an ambush in Amyras, 12 German soldiers are killed. The murder of the 461 inhabitants should be understood as revenge, this was against the law at the time.
In Amyra they have created a small museum for the memory of the murdered and other survivors pass by here, they want to report, to tell about the unimaginable atrocities, the experience of this place.
“Everything has remained in my memory, in my eyes, in my head and often at night when I sleep, when I hear a loud noise I am frightened and think that it is the Germans again”, said Zoakis Manolis.
The affected families in Amyras have so far received no individual compensation for their suffering.
Germany’s compensation to the state of Greece after the war was a small fraction of the amount originally calculated by the allies.
A majority in the Federal Parliament had just earlier voted against discussing reparations with Greece.
In Amyras, the residents are following these discussions, an old woman spoke to us when she realized that Ioannis Syngelakis was talking to us about reparations issues: “The Germans must give us our right. The Germans must be punished for their atrocious acts. The rest are words.” The wounds did not heal in Amyras 80 years after the attack on Greece”.
Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.
I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years, and my work has been featured on many different news websites. I am also an author, and my work has been published in several books. I specialize in opinion writing, and I often write about current events and controversial topics. I am a very well-rounded writer, and I have a lot of experience in different areas of journalism. I am a very hard worker, and I am always willing to put in the extra effort to get the job done.
