To the honour of those patriots executed by
the Germans of the Third Reich
giving their lives for our liberty
July 15 1944
These are the words on a memorial to 9 Greek partisans executed by firing squad in the square of Chora, the hill top (and former main) town on Alonissos in the Northern Aegean. Consulting Wikipedia indicates that the wording on the memorial was changed in the 1980s to state that the perpetrators were German troops from a particular era – and, I like to think, makes clear that all Germans should not be held guilty by association. War is brutalising and I have often wondered how I would behave in such extreme and stressful circumstances.
