International commemorations for victims of Nazi reprisals in WW2

At the commemoration ceremonies held at the Nemecká and Kalište Memorials today (Wednesday 8 June 2022), senior officials of the MOD and the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) Museum along with the Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to Slovakia, representatives of the Slovak village of Nemecká and the Greek town of Kalavryta paid tribute to the victims of the Nazi reprisals in WW2.

The tragic destinies associated with these municipalities as a result of Nazi occupiers' appalling acts of brutality on local residents led Nemecká and Kalavryta to establishing close ties of friendship in 2021. This SVK-GRC partnership aims to commemorate the victims killed at the hands of the Nazi regime in the pan-European context.

Speaking in front of the gathered audience at the Nemecká Memorial ceremony, Secretary General of the MOD's Service Office Peter Kozák said: “Even 77 years on from these tragic events, we must be neither careless nor insensitive to the pain, suffering and hardships of other people. This is especially true at a time when many of the war crimes committed by soldiers of the Russian Federation and their allies in Ukraineʼs Bucha and Kherson remind us of the horrific acts of brutality that occurred in Slovakiaʼs Nemecká and Greeceʼs Kalavryta.”

In January 1945, the lime furnace in Nemecká was the place of mass executions of those involved in the Slovak National Uprising, their family members and supporters, and the racially persecuted people – all these were perpetrated by Nazi Germany's Einsatzkommando 14, Security Police, Security Service, Secret State Police (Gestapo) and the Hlinka Guard (HG) squads. It is estimated that up to 900 people were executed in the place at the time.

The municipality of Kalavryta, located in the north of the Peloponnese, saw the town's near-extermination of its male population, when over 1,300 men were slaughtered by the Nazi troops on 13 December 1943. The Kalavryta massacre was the worst massacre in Greece in WW2.

At the commemoration ceremony at the Kalište Memorial, a National Cultural Site under the remit of the SNP Museum, the SVK and GRC delegations planted a cherry tree together in tribute to the burned-out town of Kalavryta.