ΧΑΪΔΑΡΙ ΧΑΪΔΑΡΙ - ΣΥΝΑΝΤΗΣΗ ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ | Page 260

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The Germans attacked Greece early in April 1941 with
intense ferocity. Chaidari was also bombed. M. Ganniris’
house, director of the Dromokaiteion Psychiatry, was
then destroyed. The Germans entered Athens on 27 April.
The main features of the Occupation were the spending
of resources and the destruction of infrastructure,
economic collapse, famine and desease, property
destruction, prosecutions, imprisonments, executions and
terrorization. These caused an active resistance in the
form of organized action. The Skoulikidis residence was
the German Comandatur in Chaidari, while the locals
organized public meals and money-collection activities
to fight famine.
The foundation of the camp
(September 1943)
The British redrew from the camp after the German
invasion. The camp lay deserted until September 1943,
when the first 600 prisoners arrived from Larisa. This was
part of a policy by the Italians, which were responsible
for prisons, aiming at disbanding penal institutions in
areas that were difficult to control. The first prisoners
included communists that had been imprisoned by
I. Metaxas and four women. Since October 1943, the
Chaidari camp was the destination of an increasing
number of prisoners, arrested in military blocks or by the
Gestapo. They were first taken to the S.S. headquarters
in Merlin Street for interrogation and torturing. .
In the end of 1943 there were about twelve hundred
prisoners. The number increased in August 1944 due to
the mass arrests by the S.S.. The camp was in operation
until September 1944, when the Germans started to
withdraw from Greece. It is estimated that over 21000
prisoners passed through Chaidari, including the Jews,
which were mostly transferred then to German camps.
Description of the camp buildings
The camp was rectangular. It had a tall enclosure wall
with a triple barbed wire. Fortified guarding posts were
placed every 200 m. A double entrance was on the west
side, flanked by guard posts. The exterior guard building,
cooking area and food magazine were to the southeast
of the entrance.
Inside the enclosure the area had been cleaned of
the vegetation. Many building blocks lay west of the
entrance. A. Zesis, prisoner between December 1943 and
May 1944, has described soldiers with machine guns
on the Blockhaus buildings and only one access to the
entrance, heavily guarded too.
Blocks 1-4 were built one after the other, each one
divided into two equal sections with independent
Ground plan of the Chaidari camp, as it developed in during
the Occupation. Drawing by prisoner Antonis Flountzis
(Reprinted from Chaidari, Kastro kai Vomos Ethnikis Antistasis, p. 26).