German President Apologizes at Site of Massacre in Greece
At the site of the biggest civilian massacre by Nazi forces in Greece, German President Johannes Rau faced sorrowful survivors Tuesday with a long-awaited expression of grief and shame.
Villagers gathered on a rosemary-covered hill below a 35-foot memorial cross where Nazi troops gunned down more than 1,300 men and boys over the age of 15. Rau said that “this place of memory” should serve to remind Germans of their dark deeds.
He was the first German president to issue an apology in Greece for Nazi atrocities.
“Only those who accept their past can forge ahead to the future,” Rau told villagers, who included survivors of the attack on Dec. 13, 1943, in Kalavryta, about 85 miles west of Athens.
But Rau’s visit may do little to avert possible legal showdowns between Greece and Germany over reparations for the 1941-44 wartime occupation.
Rau came to this mountain village in the northern Peloponnesus as part of a three-day official visit that coincided with hectic preparations for Greek parliamentary elections Sunday.
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