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Post by Kassandros on Apr 4, 2009 2:49:43 GMT -5
macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6229/1/Croatia is investigating a mass grave of German and local soldiers executed in the wake of World War II, the deputy president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, said on Friday. The site at Harmica, 50 kilometres north-west of Zagreb, on Croatia's border with Slovenia, presumably contains 4,500 bodies of German soldiers, including 450 officers, executed by Yugoslav president Tito's partisans, Cicak told the German Press Agency dpa. The victims were a part of the 'Blue division,' established by the German command in Croatia in 1944. Commanded by German officers, the division was composed of Croats and German settlers to Yugoslavia. Details and photographs from the site at Harmica are to be released at press conference next week, Cicak said. Only a day earlier, Cicak had presented details from another newly-found mass grave, believed to contain some the remains of 1,500 Croat soldiers killed in June 1945. The grave was accidentally exposed by construction work on the embankment of the Darava river in Gornji Hrascani, near Cakovec in the north-west. The site is slated for additional exploration as soon as authorities secure financing for the job, Cicak said. During World War II, Croatia was considered an independent state, but was in effect run by Berlin and implemented Nazi laws. The rest of the then Yugoslav Kingdom was dismembered and more or less directly governed by various occupational forces from the German camp, like Italy governing Croatia, Hungary - Serbia and Bulgaria - Macedonia. After claiming victory in Yugoslavia, Tito's Communist Partisan force took brutal revenge not only on German soldiers and the large German minority living mostly in northern Croatia and Serbia, but also on local members of wartime authorities. Yugoslavia was the only country in Europe, apart from Russia to defeat the Germans, Italians, Bulgarians and Hungarians without outside help. Following the war, the new authorities brought ethnic Germans to concentration camps and eventually drove the survivors out. In the end, only a few thousand, out of several hundred thousands living in Yugoslavia, remained.Last month a grave with hundreds of mummified corpses, also victims of the Partisans, was found in an abandoned mine in Slovenia. Speaking recently in the wake of that discovery, Croatian Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko estimated the number of mass graves from the era at more than 1,000. According to Karamarko, there are 600 mass graves in Slovenia, 840 in Croatia, 90 in Bosnia and 'who knows how many more' strewn across the entire region. //04.03.09
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Apr 4, 2009 8:22:15 GMT -5
Reading the title, one cannot help, if you're not informed, to assume that the Chams were a group of collaborators consisting of soldiers and officers, not a strata of the population of Epirus, which include women, children, elderlies etc, who were all collectively punished under the false premise that they all collaborated with the Nazis ... from the smallest child to the oldest greatgrandparent.
This perverted distortion of history and attempt to justify the crimes against the Cham population will always be a source of distrust and perhaps even contempt between our nations, until some sort of satisfactory redemption & compensation from your side is initiated.
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Post by Kassandros on Apr 4, 2009 9:11:06 GMT -5
The only difference I see in the article with your way of seeing "cham issue" is that Greeks didnt execute thousand of Chams in mass graves.
The article says, again (underlined) that the German minority (women,children, elderlies etc) were driven out. Its the same with the Cham issue.
The article says Blue division Its the same with the Cham Bali-Competar divisions.
So, by comparing some things we see:
Chams were lacky because Greeks didnt execute them. Chams dont have mass graves. If Chams have to be compansated... then.. that Croatian and German minorities and all German minorites around Europe plus their allies minorities who had problems ..have to be compansated too!
How much is that likely to happen? In other words.. .what are the chances, countries that were invaded by 3rd Reich and allies.... and were destroyed economically from that invation and had thousands of victims from that invation... to pay again?
If Chams were droven away in a peacefull period and after they had a positive role in the area.... your claim would be right and with many potentials. But in such a case.... I dont believe you have many chances. At least you have the chances German minoritians have to be get compansations from Yougoslavia...
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Apr 4, 2009 9:36:43 GMT -5
Atleast 5,000 Chams, of both sexes and all ages, were executed by the Greeks in the final stage of the war (the rest being expelled to Albania). We're not even including the many crimes committed against the Cham community prior to World War Two, which included forceful displacement, political discrimination and opression, outright massacres etc, which were among the very reasons why certain elements within the Cham populace collaborated with the Nazis.
Equating the Chams with the Ustasha and Nazis is a little exaggerated, is it not? I mean you were reluctant to compare the Cham issue to Bleiburg because of your preconceived ideas of Greek innocence in WWII and that the Chams supposedly not having suffered any massacres (which they did) ... yet you don't hesitate to equate the Chams to the Ustasha and Nazis. Could you enlighten us in this regard; what crimes were the Chams guilty of which makes them comparable to those two groups above; did they erect and execute a Jasenovac or Auschwitz of their own in Epirus? Where Greeks, Jews & Gypsies were murdered?
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Post by Arxileas on Apr 4, 2009 9:56:02 GMT -5
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Apr 4, 2009 11:06:42 GMT -5
What a stupid source Arsehileas. Firstly, that small passage doesn't prove anything besides either the biased assumptions or ignorance of the author, who doesn't specify what these "heinous crimes" were and furthermore gets basic things wrong, like;
1) The term Cham isn't a "tribal" designation, but a geographic one, from Cameria which is the Albanian word for Thesprotia, the western part of Epirus along the Ioanian. A Cham is an Albanian from that territory, whether Christian or Muslim, including the Suliots.
2) The Chams didn't "flee" but they were forced to abandon their homes. This author is obviously trying to justify the Greek actions in '45 by demonizing the Chams as some sort of medieval barbarian remnant, as mercenaries only interested in exterminating the Greeks, when infact the actions of the Greeks in 1945 have little to do with the alleged collective collaboration of an entire populace with the Nazis. The actions of a minority was used as an excuse to finalize a project of Hellenizing Epirus, this under the pretense that all Chams supposedly aided the Nazis in an active manner.
This is crystal clear to anyone with half a brain. If Greece was sincerely interested in only punishing criminals and collaborators, it would have established a Nurnberg of its own, indicting the collaborators and not their families and all of their countrymen as well. But there was a different motive behind their actions in 1945; to expell the Albanian Muslim element and replace it with Greek speaking immigrants from Asia, while leaving the Albanian Christian element behind, seeing it as more suitable to assimilate them.
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Post by Kassandros on Apr 4, 2009 13:38:32 GMT -5
Donnie I think we have a problem on what we know for this story...
You say that 5000 Chams were killed. Who says so..?? You or Hotza?! Every masacre in Balkans is well known. Turks killed Armenians.. there are bones to proove that! Thats a fact! The only ones claiming for a genocide.... and if you kill 1/4 of population is a genocide!... is you! No graves.. no photos... no testimonials for mass executions... no evidence at all... and you claim genocide...? Dont you think that you exagerate a little bit? To remind you also... after Germans troops withdraw... the trees outside villages all over Greece were full of hanged Greek collaborators. Was it a genocide too of Greek to Greeks... or do you believe that Chams collaborators were excluded from punishment?
Second, you have to know that refugges from Asia Minor were transfered in Western Thrace (plain field), Macedonia (plain field) and in Attica (capital0. Epirus had no newcomers for the simple reason... it couldnt feed them! There are only mountains. No plain fields to give to the immigrants. Even local Epirots immigrate to Attica.. and you claim that refugges went to Epirus to find.. the promise land... on the mountains?
And finnaly, in the case of the Germans.... German civilians had to flee from Poland and Northern Yougoslavia. Civilians... women, children, old people that had nothing to do with Vermacht! Pure civilians. Did these people commit a crime? No! Their souls were with German troops... some of them become members of paramilitary Nazi teams... and thats enough for the rest of them to pay what loosers of the war usually pay. Where is the difference between them and Chams? Listen Donnie how things are; When you leave inside a different country... and this country is being attacked.. you have to be with the locals. If you take the side of the attackers you have to pay some consequences. Thats life and that is how world moves. Now, what I get from you is that... you agree that Chams were against Greeks and Greece... but you dont like they paid for it. Sorry dude... that is not how it works.
Lets pretend Kossovo was part of South Albania. Imagine Greek minority in South Albania.... helping Serbian troops in Kossovo with men and soldiers.... against Kossovar Albanians. What do you believe would be the outcome after Serbs lost Kossovo? How Kossovars would react against their Greek "fellow citizens"..?
Man grow up. You did a mistake.. you pay for your mistake. You cannot find not even ONE Greek that says we didnt make a mistake in Smyrni and in Asia Minor.. although we were the majority!! We did a big mistake... we paid it with thousands of dead people and even more refuggees... but we have the besa to admitt it. Not even ONE Greek will deny it. That is what I told you in a different post about the backward peasant mentality many Albanians still have. The lack of will to admitt your mistakes... shows something about your mentality. Now do you get how difficult is for a "tired" Greek to commounicate with a "peasant" Albanian?
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Post by leshte on Apr 4, 2009 15:13:00 GMT -5
EH B$ coming from the Greeks. The Chams were killed and ethnically cleansed because the Greeks didn't want any Albanians in that area. Simple as that. You can make all kinds of excuses to make yourselves feel better. See how good you think you have it now, with no ethnic minorities whatsoever being recognized by your government. That was the ultimate goal of Greece and that's why the Cham's were ethnically cleansed. If you had Chams in Greece today you would have to open schools for them, have then in your government, in your parliament, have documents in Albanian in the places where their lived. The ultimate goal was not to have any of these occur.
There were plenty of Greek collaborators too. Yet them and their families and friends were not massively expelled from Greece. Why the difference in treatment if they supposedly acted the same way? Simply because the Greeks didn't constitute an ethnic minority.
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Kanaris
Amicus
This just in>>>> Nobody gives a crap!
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Post by Kanaris on Apr 4, 2009 16:32:48 GMT -5
Why is it a stupid source Donnie? If we have to read thousands of passages of crap you guys bring forth... A source is a source... since it wasn't written by a Greek or Albanian. The expulsion of the Chams is the best thing that came out of WW2...
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Post by danceswithpoodles on Apr 4, 2009 19:18:09 GMT -5
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Post by danceswithpoodles on Apr 4, 2009 19:30:17 GMT -5
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Kanaris
Amicus
This just in>>>> Nobody gives a crap!
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Post by Kanaris on Apr 4, 2009 21:33:32 GMT -5
Very informative stuff... and from an unbiased source..Thank you!
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Post by Arxileas on Apr 4, 2009 22:50:40 GMT -5
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Post by Kassandros on Apr 5, 2009 7:52:07 GMT -5
Maaaany sources Donnie and Leshte.... from many NON-Greek historians.... Now is your turn; show me the usual evidence from.. Enver! lol lol lol Where is your besa re? You lost it after so many years in US... or besa for Albanians is just a myth.... or besa does not occur Turkalbanians?
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Apr 5, 2009 14:38:16 GMT -5
Woow ... reading the above replies, I am not surprised why suspicion over the discontinuity between you folks and the ancient Greeks ever arose in the first place. I mean, some of the incoherent and irrelevant arguments put forward, and the very inability of some of you to differentiate between two different issues.
1) Finding collaborators among the Chams isn't the issue at hand here. It is an easy thing to do, just as it is easy to find collaborators among the Greeks as well. Look up Poulos Verband, Ellinika Tagmata Asfalias, Volunteer Gendarmerie, 14th division of the Paneuropean Schutzstaffel, Nationale Kampfgruppe-Ethnikos Ellinkos Stratos etc. Yet for this sake, you didn't have the Greek Allies expelling whole segments of the Greek populace from Greece as part of some collective punishment. Why? Because the Cham issue was different. I'll dwelve into it soon to clear it up.
2) Just because your sources aren't Greek, does not make them truthful or flawless. This is very clear in the very first post of Arxileas, where his source mixes up very basic appellatives and concepts and in a very conscientious manner demonizes the Chams as some type of medieval barbarians, when in reality, the most wild element to have been produced by them were the Suliots whom you adore and worship so.
Now, having established the fact that there were indeed collaborators among the Chams, just as there were among you Greeks, who assisted the Axis powers, we can go on ... and explore the width of this collaboration which supposedly was "extensive" and covered the whole population (according to Greeks). It was, contrary to your wishful beliefs, quite limited. In 1940, the Greeks deported all Cham males who didn't turn up for "military" duty (consisting of labour, building roads etc, and not really combat related) to the Aegean islands. These were naturally very badly treated by Greek authorities, and as a consequence, some hundreds of Chams did infact assist the Axis in their operations against the Greek resistance. But they numbered in the hundreds, and this fault of theirs cannot be projected onto a whole population which includes civilians who did not assist the Axis in any way, i.e. children, elderlies, women etc (Mazower, Mark. After The War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943-1960. Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN 0691058423, pp. 25-26.)
Just like there were a few who collaborated with the Axis as a result of decades of Greek opression and persecution, there were many more who either remained passive or took up arms against the fascists. Hundreds and thousands of Chams enlisted into Greek ELAS or the Albanian communist resistance movement under Hoxha. In ELAS, the Chams formed their own battalion named "Batalioni i Ali Demit" (Battalion of Ali Demi), a local Cham martyr who was killed in an action against the Germans near Vlore, Albania. This battalion, in its very beginning, numbered some 460 Muslim Chams as well as 340 Orthodox Albanian & Greek volunteers, making it the second largest battalion in Epirus (Kresti, Georgia. Verfolgung und Gedächtnis in Albanien: Eine Analyse postsozialistischer Erinnerungsstrategien)
There was also another anti-fascist battalion under Hoxha's command known as "Batalioni i Camerise" and numbered some five hundred Cham warriors, most of whom were from Cameria and the rest from Konispol and Markat in Albania.
ELAS actually opposed collective punishment against the Chams. But it was EDES and Napoleon Zervas who insisted on it. In reality, it had nothing to do with punishing the Chams, as only a few collaborated with the Axis powers, while a larger element actually fought against them in either the Greek or Albanian resistance movements, such as Ali Demi. But EDES didn't make such a distinction and decided to expell EVERYONE, collaborators as well as non-collaborators, men, women, children, elderlies etc. It was a deliberate act of ethnic cleansing like Mark A. Mazower, also non-Greek and non-Albanian, clearly states. It was the finalization of a project which had been in process ever since Greece took control of Cameria, hence the "population exchange" programme with Turkey.
The "collaboration card" was used as an excuse to perpetrate a vicious crime against an entire population and can never be covered by a term such as "punishment", because collective punishment are never correct and an entire population can never be "collectively guilty" of crimes, especially in this case where it is very obvious that only a handful collaborated, while a larger participated in the resistance movement or remained passive.
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Post by leshte on Apr 5, 2009 15:40:22 GMT -5
Basil, that was a lame attempt at trying to put me down. Try harder next time. ^^^ Read the above, can't be more clear than that. All of you know that that's the truth. You can't bring yourself to say it loudly, and that is very cowardly from you Greeks.
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Post by Arxileas on Apr 5, 2009 16:33:58 GMT -5
Dear foreign guest senior mod Donnie. Name is Arxileas. Stop attacking and being personal Donnie to all members in our subforum, take this as a warning and I will delete you if your attacks continue in a personal insultive manner without having being provoked or attacked by others in the first place, attack ideas and not users. Now back to the topic;There is no such cham issue, it is a none existent issue, justice was served. .
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Post by leshte on Apr 5, 2009 17:01:19 GMT -5
^^^ TurkoAlbanian is an insulting term, I don't see you doing anything about that. There is no greek minority issue either. So we're all good.
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Post by Arxileas on Apr 5, 2009 17:20:16 GMT -5
We have already been through this as a factual term used, now that’s for another topic...
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Apr 5, 2009 17:59:08 GMT -5
LOL, the hypocrisy of some people ...
We're very well acquainted with your sense of "justice".
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