Cretan Resistance - The Aftermath

The Aftermath

After the Germans left there was a campaign to demonise the Greek resistance. No members of EAM were accepted for the new Greek army. Varkiza meant that EAM / ELAS disarmed while armed right-wing groups and former collaborators were permitted to roam the country oppressing former members of the resistance, during the White Terror. While it was a condition of the Varkiza agreement that collaborators would be brought to justice, in practice it was far more likely for resistance members to be persecuted, imprisoned or executed.

Vangelis Grassos continues:

"The Kazantzakis and Grassos families suffered the greatest oppression and had the greatest number of victims of the post-December regime (see The Dekemvrianá). At the demonstration in Yerapetra of 23/3/1944 were killed Xenoula Grassos, 19 years old, Efthymia Kazantakis, aged 65, and Yiannis Grassos, aged 30. Among the injured were Michalis Grassos and Nikos Dermitzakis, along with many others.

"In 1947 the Kazantzakis and Grassos families and Georgia Frantzeskaki were exiled to Krousta. They were imprisoned and tortured in order to force their brother Dimitris Kazantzakis to give himself up after the defeat of the Podias company in Psiloritis. "They burnt the house and business of Vangelis Grassos and took his car and driver’s license. This is the way our country rewarded us for what we did for her freedom."

In 2005, a documentary was released titled The 11th Day: Crete 1941, which relates events of the Cretan resistance through various eyewitnesses.