The Women of Katranitsa with the remnants of burnt human bodies, which collected after the Holocaust of 1944
The Pyrgoi massacre was a large-scale massacre on April 23, 1944, in Kozani, Greece, perpetrated by Germans with local accomplices.[1] Records indicate that 563 men, women, and children were killed on that day.[1] Among the atrocities that were committed, women and children were rounded up and burned alive.[2]
Colonel Karl Schümers, commander of the 7th constitution armored Grenadier police of the SS, was responsible for the massacres in Pyrgoi, Kleisoura Kastoria, and Distomo Boeotia which killed 862 men, women and children.
The survivors were forced to walk to Ptolemaida and the town was completely destroyed. Each year the President of Greece goes to Pyrgoi to be present at the established memorial for the victims of the Holocaust.
The events of April 1944 are the subject of documentaries.
Gallery
The Monument of the Nazis' massacre in Pyrgoi (Katranitsa)
Wreath from small children to the monument of the Nazis' Holocaust in Pyrgoi
References
^ ab"New Online Video Archive with Memories of Witnesses of the German Occupation in Greece from 1941 to 1944". Freie Universität Berlin. 23 April 2018. Retrieved 2024-02-03.
^Zielke, Kerrin (July 9, 2018). "Zeitzeugen-Archiv: Die Stimmen der Opfer". Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 2024-02-03.
The Monument of the Nazis' massacre in Pyrgoi (Katranitsa)
Wreath from small children to the monument of the Nazis' Holocaust in Pyrgoi
