Paleo Trikeri

Paleo Trikeri (Greek: Παλαιό Τρίκερι) or Old Trikeri, also known as Trikeri Island, is a small island in the Pagasitic Gulf off the end of the Pelion peninsula in Thessaly, Greece. It is part of the municipal unit of Trikeri within the municipality of South Pelion. In the 2001 census it was reported to have a population of 87, but the year-round population has been estimated at 15.[1] The island has an area of about 4.5 km2.[2] There are no cars or roads on the island. In antiquity, the island was called Cicynethus (Ancient Greek: Κικύνηθος, translit. Kikynethos).[3][4][5]

In June 1913, at the end of the Second Balkan War, the Greek authorities turned the almost uninhabited island into a death camp for Bulgarian prisoners of war. This was the first death camp in Europe, earlier than the Nazi Konzlagers and earlier than the Solovetskie Islands in Russia. The Greek government interned there thousands of Bulgarian people, citizens of Thessaloniki and Aegean Trace, whose only guilt was being Bulgarian. Later, thousands of Bulgarian POWs, mostly ordinary and sergeants, were also brought in. Prisoners were forced to sleep under the open sky and were deprived of water, food and medical services. Many were thrown overboard and drowned, to the cheers of the sailors. The prisoners were forced to provide for their own water by digging holes in the sand near the sea. At first, the muddy water was fresh and drinkable, but soon turned brackish and new holes were dug. When ships delivered food, the bags with bread were thrown in the water on purpose to soak the bread and to add more suffering and humiliation. It will never be known how many died there, and how many drowned in. An international committee sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment was sent to inspect the conditions, but the local guards turned it back under the excuse that there was a cholera epidemic. (The full text of the Carnegie Committee can be found here: https://archive.org/stream/reportofinternat00inteuoft/reportofinternat00inteuoft_djvu.txt) On October 9 1913 the Bulgarian ship Varna arrived and was allowed to take back home 1800 survivors.

From the last months of 1946 the island was used as a concentration camp. The first to arrive after a decision of the minister for National Security Napoleon Zervas, were male antifacist political prisoners, mostly from the districts of Epirus and Thessaly, who participated in the EAM-ELAS, resistance movement during the WWII and the occupation period of Greece by Italian, German and Bulgarian military forces. Later in 1947 the men were relocated to other concentration camps and the camp was used for female pro-Communist political prisoners during the Greek Civil War. The women and their children were themselves members of the EAM - ELAS or/and relatives of members of the EAM-ELAS, the resistance paraCommunist forces which had fought against fascist occupation during World War II and against the nonCommunist resistance movements and governments. In September 1949 political activists from other camps were sent to Paleo Trikeri, increasing the number of people held there to 4,700.[6]

Ancient Kikynethos formed as polis (city-state) of Magnesia, ancient Thessaly.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Lonely Planet website
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ Pomponius Mela. De situ orbis. 2.7.
  4. ↑ Pliny. Naturalis Historia. 4.12.
  5. ↑  Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Cicynethus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
  6. ↑ Victoria Theodorou (Ed.) 'The Trikeri Journal' in Eleni Fourtouni, Greek Women in Resistance, (Thelphini, 1986), pp. 105 - 111. (Greek: "Στα νησιά της Ελλάδας") (Sta nisia tis Elladas, Transl. To the islands of Greece) February 1947 published by: (Greek: Εθνική Αλληλεγγύη Ελλάδος) Transl. National Solidarity Organisation of Greece
  7. ↑ Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen (2004). "Thessaly and Adjacent Regions". An inventory of archaic and classical poleis. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 719. ISBN 0-19-814099-1.

Further reading: The Graves of Paleo Trikeri. Vladimir Sis. 10-19-2017. English. Grobovete na Trikeri (Bulgarian Edition) 11-30-2017 Bulgarian.


Coordinates: 39°10′00″N 23°05′00″E / 39.16667°N 23.08333°E / 39.16667; 23.08333

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