Lyggiades or Lingiades the village that was destroyed by

the Wehrmachts 1st Gebirgsjaegers Division men the

October 3rd, 1943.

Written and published the year 1947 by the schoolteacher Kostas Papageorgiou in Ioannina. Printred by the Roussas printingshop in Ioannina.

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The atrocity

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It was Sunday October the 3^rd  1943 a fine early autumn bright, sunny day.  To the villagers from Lingiades  

was a day for easy harvesting work and for this reason the majority of them went to the locality Moglii, on the northeastern slope of the mountain Mitsikeli to collect the years production of walnuts.

Those who started the long way to the walnut orchards, it was a road to salvation. It was that which saved their lifes, it was good lack that hey were many. The day was developing   routinely and nothing was indicating that it will bad. At one hours after midday, when several women followed the  ascending path, as they did almost every day, to fetch the drinking water they needed at home daily, from the spring further downhill near the lake of Ioannina. The spring is known locally as “Plitz”. The village itself has no natural springs. The peasant women have not any chances to let the time go by unused. So they were walking and  the same time were spinning wool or knitting woolen clothes. The local custom dictates that is shame not doing always something usefull.

   Loaded the pack animals with their wooden water containers and left the village. Filled the containers and slowly started ascending the path towards the village again. There after the first 300 meters received the first bursts of machine gun. They were coming from the machine gust posting on the top of the island in the lake of Ioannina. Here allow us to explain something.

   When the GESTAPO arrived in the town of  Ioannina the Commanding Officer had his Headquarters not it the town, but on this island. He was occupying the house of Lappa, which faces the mountain. They installed an underwater telephone cable connection with the town. They had also posted guard posts around the island for security. From the island were coming the orders for the different operations and arrests of suspects for subversive activity. These machine gun posts were now observing only the mountain slope, since the GESTAPO commander had switched Headquarters to the center of the town.

    The guards observing the women ascending started shooting them, with their machine guns and other firearms. The women went hiding on the back of the cliffs of the mountain slope. They were lucky enough and none was hurt by the firing. None of the pack animals was hit as well.

    That was it.

     From Jannina started the same moment five military tracks loaded with soldiers with their hats having an “edelweiss”, sign of the   1^st Mountain Operations Division of Wehrmacht (1. Gebirgsjaeger Division). Two ambulances were following them. Next moment (about 15’ later) were observed to climb uphill just over the small settlement Strouni. Jumped off the trucks and divided into three platoons. The first platoon took the central path of the Marafas ravine. The second platoon followed the Selloma path just by the local bridge with the arch. And the third platoon, followed the third path of Ftelias which just over the water spring of Drabatova (the one the women fetched water).

    They approached the village and placed immediately guard posts around. One in the front of the school the Agnantio (it means observation point), the other guard post was at the location Pyrgos (it means tower) and the last was at Lykotopi (the wolfs place).  The resting force encircled the village as if they were going to start a ring dance as was telling one of the women which was finally escaped death. At the same time the artillery from its regular posts, was shelling around the village to prohibit any escape attempts.

    Some of the Lyngiadites watching the Germans climbing, reacted by escaping towards the mountain top, the rest did not understood what was going on. The majority especially women amd children, stayed in the village so they should not find the village empty to put it on fire as they were doing usually elsewhere. So the soldiers closed in children wome and senior citizens. The guard post of the location Lykotopi, shut a flare. Immediately the nazies spread into the village and were guiding the inhabitants to the main place in front of the school. They did not leave anyone at home, not even the infants which obliged their respective mothers to take with them. Those who refused to go along were beaten with the weapon buts and were kicked with thei heavy boots… Finally gathered all approximately ninety persons, senior citizens, women, girls boys and infants three months old. All without exception of the inhabitants which happened to be in the village this very moment. Then the Nazis spread within the village  to loot it of  any valuables leaving three or four to guard them, who were switched by others who were returning from the looting round., in order to go also and get their looting share.

   So they gathere d a lots of things in the schoolyard. Clothing, carpeting, woven bedwear, dowries of the girls, cheese, butter, wool, fresh walnuts, mutton and sheep, fowl, kitchen utensils (saucepans, cauldrons, etc. of copper) and everything else they found as valuable and usefull. In this interval of time arrived and their commanding officer. Then after the looting was over started the officers discuss-ing in their own language something. This discussion did not last long time. Then thei head made a sign with his hand without saying  a word. They knew already their orders, because as soon as they saw  his sign, started in small groups of three four soldiers each to grab with them about ten persons and take them uphill towards the houses.

   The old men went all together separately, they were  beating them with the buts of the rifles and kicking them as well, they drove them  to the house of P. Tserikis. They pushed them into the cellar of the house and shot them dead like that.

   In the time being the women and children were driven to the cellars of other houses where they were murdering with heir submachine guns. Others were dead with the first some of them falling wounded and  were pulling together and the babies which had in their arms.  They were alive and were crying. Some of them were under their dead mothers bodies and crying. The nazies heard them and went near and shot them also dead withir submachine guns. One mother with her babie was wounded. She tried to raise herself. The soldiers aw that and shot her dead with the baby. The mother care was impossible to protect the infant from the barbar behaviour. In every house as soon as they had executed the victims, went searching for valuables and thet put iy on fire.

   In a such group of women and childres was included and Nikow Rouskas with his father and the two years old daughter Olga in his arms. Since the cellar was

gilled up with people and was no room for them, drew them to a nearby thatched hut for the animals and pushed them in there. Then they asked them “posta, posta” and they could not understand so they shot them all. Before going away they put the hut afire. Nikos Rouskas was not shot seriously so he managed  to withdraw in a hole in the ground, but there was proved that he was not safe, so creeped out and went  on the back of a hip of firewood to hide. But to his misfortune the fire wood was alse stated burning. So hiding now in the think smoke curtin which was developed went farther away and was hiding under some bushes. After some hours , when the Nazis had left the village went out and was safe and saved (the detailed description is published in an interview with him in the wekly magazine Haravgi nr 7 of March 1946).

    In between in the village was happening   the destruction. B. Lolis was guided in the house of  K. Katsaros. There after they beaten him they burned his head with an igniting powder. Marina Papa was found outside outside the house of Rouskas wounded with something penetrating her body and with her fingers cutoff. On her side was lying her son Stathis. Here was played a drama which

only mothers love can acheve. The soldier probably tried to push her in the house which was burning like inferno. The feeling of protection for herself makes her resist and pushes the Hun away. He attacks her and tries to take her child away from her hands, she wrestles to save it. The mothers instinct for the child makes her like a beast and she tries rip the barbarian to pieces, he in order to save himself leaves her and grabs his rifle to pierce her with bayonet. She does not give up. Grabs  the Nazis bayonet  of steel with her fingers pushing it away from her body. The soldier in order to fre his rifle, from the womans hands, shots her and the heroic woman from Lingiades looses her fingers, which had grabed the bayonet and falls with a cry desperation. With her falls and the child seriously wounded.

    The soldier seeing them on the ground leaves like that and goes away. The mother had extended for some seconds only their life thread. The villagers found the child breathing later,  his mother manage to leave it in order to find it with some traces of life, she managed it by offering her life. The child died a little later from the bleeding of blood.

     The massacre continues in the village. The groups of women and children sensing what is going to happen to them in the cellars of the houses, afraid  are looking to find ways to run away and save themselves. The Nazis chase them and kill them like pray. Then push tem into the cellars. The Nazi officer observes his achievement with a smile of satisfaction in his lips. He is in a hurry and demands from them to do it without any delay. The soldiers obey and they burn the face of Lamprini Liouri with igniting powder and pierced also with a bayonet leave her in the house of G. Siafakas.

    The four children of the schoolteacher of the village Christos Papas were Paraskevi, Xanthi, Sevasti and Nicholas, from the age of 9 to 3 years old respectively.. Their mother left them at home and went to bring water from the spring. There they we shot as you remember and spread and went hiding. Their father looking at the Germans coming  he wants to take them with him and go aeay.

  - Go away yourself father, so they will not catch you. We will stay in here so we will protect our house. Said to him the oldest daughter.

  The father for the moment looses his temper and runs away uphill, just the last moments. The Nazis arrived and found the children alone in the house and after they pierced them with the bayonet, threw them in the cellar. Their mother was saved also, due to the water fetching procedure.

   The infant three months old of Christos Lolis left it his mother in the cradle. The Nazis found it and threw it with the cradle in the blazes of the neighboring house. From under it were heard the wooing and crying of the children and women while they were confronting the death, by burning wounded but alive.

   All the small and innocent infants and children offered in the altar of the Nazis.

This is the way it was happening in all the houses, most of the infants were burning alive.

    One larger group of people was lead to the house of D. Cholevas, whose cellar became the largest group grave. The small children which could no go as quickly were pierced with the bayonets.

     In this big group were among the others and Eleni Holeva,  Anastasia Manthou, and Charilaos Lolis  who escaped death. Those who missed their life were Nikitas Siafakas, Maria, Vasilis and  Eleftheria Fouka, Nikolaos and Alexandra Choleva, Eleni, Eudoxia, Fanis, Manthos, Marina and Dimitroula Avgeri together with some whose names are not known and the majority of the small children.

    Will let Eleni Choleva to tell the story with her own words:

     “They took us a group of women and children and they were guiding as if we were livestock, with a direction the higher group of houses. On the way thos who were escaping they were catching them and brutally pulled them back in the flock. The small children had grabbed our skirts and were pulling us crying. The soldiers were pushing and shouting at them. We arrived at the house of Cholevas. They pushed us all in the cellar of the house and shot the group with the machine gun. The others were  falling around dead or wounded. A bullet hit me on my money pouch and another hit my baby on the head and spread brains, which splashed on my face and chest. I felt holding in my arms the dead body of my child. I was full of blood. They came back a few more times and shot the group since they were hearing the children who were alive crying under the bodies and among the dead.”

     “In a corner I saw my other child slain in pieces. The soldiers on the upper floor were searching the house. It took them some time. Then I heard a sound, something like a storm and the cellar was filled with smoke. They had put the house ablaze. The flames were now reaching the basement as well. They were almost burning me. The flames reached my child. I was hearing the flesh as it was grilled and it smelled the stench of burned flesh. The air was filled with this smell. I raised and went towards the door. Then I felt someone pulling my skirt. Was not my child, was Charilaos Liouris who was seriously wounded on his head. I did not recognize him through his face but through the outline of the head. The others were burning around. It stank and pushed me away, I could not stand it, and I started running uphill. I stopped there where the smoke did not reach me.

I was seeing the smoke and I had insinuations that it was my child coming to embrace me. Then I could not see I could not hear, I was smelling this stench. I could not hold my breath and not smell it. I could not….”

    We don’t let her continue, we will harm her, just a few days ago she recovered from the schock. She was totally away. It is possible to recognise the horror and fear on her face, when she tells us the story, to be followed with tears and pain for her mutilated children.

     Another person saved was and Anastasia Manthou, who hided under the table and then jumped also out. Thomas Foukas hided on the back of the door and saved but he was unlucky, next August 1944 was killed by a bomb.

      The whole village was ablaze and the shootings continued but sparsely now only to finish with someone who escaped death for the moment.  Happened many in the village who saw them to tell us about it??? Even those few who witnessed can give us a picture of what had happened, we can distinguish the brutality and the wild instincts of the Nazis. Who denied that they are not enough? They are enough not to let them have a position among the civilised world. The drama has not finished.

     When they finished with the people and the blazes. Went to the livestock.

They were catching them and if they could not do it they were shooting at them. Three horses and three oxen went like that. The mule of the mailman was not saved as well.

     And they had more stamina to continue shedding blood of innocent people.

    They pass and see one left is Eleni Baboushika with her two children, Giannis and Panagiotakis, one year old, they pull them to throw them in basement which the over part of the house is ablaze.. The mother resists and they shoot her. She falls together with Giannis who was pierced by the bayonet. Panagiotakis is wounded lightly by the bayonet in the side of his spine and was sucking her breast for two days, until he was found by the villagers. He was still by the breast of his mother. They sent him to the hospital of the partisans in Greveniti and happily was saved. Today (1945) is doing all right.

   The destruction of the village had already being fully accomplished. The blazes and the death were spread “generously” by the Nazis, they hade to complete it with something more, rape.

   They separated three women in three different thatched huts for the live stock, owned by Tsirikis and Holevas , there they were bestially raped and then killed. Then they put the huts on fire and burned them in there. They were found their only their churned remains. They had been twice stricken by calamity, raping and murdering.

     While the village was totally ablaze, the Nazis started shelling towards the top of the mountain with about 70 rounds. What was happening?? The traditional wedding celebration of the shepherds living up there. Lambros Hasakis was coming with the guest to the wedding to his home. They had the usual flag in front. As soon as they showed themselves in the western slope of the mountain,

they started shelling them. This moment arrived and the teacher of the village who had just escaped death and told them the news. From the village.

    To this wedding were turned the accusations by the people, (and we were many who believed that at thet time) for the destruction of the village, But we were wrong, we had missunderstood. We will explain further down what it really happened.