#Story
Massacre of Ligiades
In October 1940, the Greco-Italian war broke out and in April 1941 German troops attacked Greece from the north. Ioannina served as the headquarters of the Greek Army and suffered many massacres during the occupation. One such massacre took place in Ligiades village on 3 October 1943, when 82 civilians were murdered by Nazi forces.
Greece entered World War II on 28 October 1940, after being attacked by Italian troops coming from Albania. The Greco-Italian war lasted until April 1941, when German troops attacked Greece from Bulgaria (Operation Marita) aiming to support their allies, who had been defeated. Despite the Greek defense, the country signed an armistice and was placed under triple occupation by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. The region of Epirus was under the Italian zone of occupation until 1943.
In summer 1943, the Italian army passed over the administration of Epirus to “Edelweiss”, 1st Mountain Division of the German Wehrmacht. This marked a period of massacres, carried out as reprisals for the actions of the Greek resistance fighters.
Ligiades is a village opposite the city of Ioannina, on the other side of lake Pamvotis. The massacre of Ligiades took place on 3 October 1943, as reprisal for the death of a German Officer.
The attack started with artillery shooting from the Island on the lake. Then, a group of “Edelweiss” men arrived in trucks and surrounded the village. They burnt the houses, rounded up the villagers in groups of then or fifteen people, and shot them.
On this day, most of the male residents were away from the village to harvest walnuts, so the Nazis targeted the remaining civilian population. 82 people were killed in total: 34 infants and children, 37 women and eleven elders. Most of them were shot and some were burnt alive. Only five people survived the massacre.
Ligiades was recognised as a “Martyred Village” and joined the Greek Network of “Martyred Villages and Towns”.