The President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank – Walter Steinmeier was welcomed in the martyred village of Kandanos with banners and slogans for German reparations.
The German president laid a wreath at the memorial to the fallen in Kandanos under draconian security measures, with police forces scattered around the area and cars being removed from roads near the village square.
According to zarpanews.gr, Steinmeier had a conversation with survivors who raised the issue of reparations with him, calling for justice for the crimes of the Germans, while those gathered applauded.
The protests came a day after the German president dismissed any discussion of reparations, telling President Katerina Sakellaropoulou that the issue is closed.
“I do not want to shake the hand of the butcher,” one of the descendants of survivors was heard telling the German president. A descendant of a victim said, “Eighty years ago, you executed our parents, and now you are executing us a second time.”
After laying a wreath, the German president will deliver a speech at the adjacent Kandanos Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Present at the event are representatives of the local political authorities, the governor of Crete, members of parliament, mayors from all over Crete, representatives of the military, as well as representatives from organizations advocating for reparations for the atrocities committed by the Germans during the Occupation.
The village of Kandanos, in western Crete, was completely destroyed on June 3, 1941 by German occupation forces during World War II, with the Nazis leaving ruins and corpses behind.
