The last major battle of the December events – and one of the deadliest – was that of the Gerokomeio (Old Age Home), during the three-day period between January 2nd and 4th, 1944.

The government forces, supported by British paratroopers and armored vehicles, ultimately triumphed over the tough 9th regiment of the ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army).

The following day, the ELAS forces withdrew from Athens, moving north, and on January 7th, they also left Piraeus. The December events were practically over by January 11th, when the ceasefire between the ELAS and the British forces, led by Ronald Scobie, was signed.

A month later, the time had come for the Varkiza Agreement: with a veneer of unhindered political action, a commitment to a free referendum about the future of the monarchy, and terms for the persecution of collaborators—which were never adhered to—the agreement called for the disarmament of the ELAS.

Before that, in the third week of December ’44, came the horrific decision of the ELAS to carry out mass arrests of “collaborators” in the areas controlled by the KKE (Communist Party of Greece), with the goal of exchanging them for captured partisans, as the government forces had already begun mass arrests of left-wing fighters.

As those who had collaborated with the Germans had abandoned the neighborhoods controlled by the ELAS, they began arresting (and, after their defeat, executing in several cases) people who had no connection to the occupiers.

The return of the KKE leader Nikos Zachariadis from the Dachau concentration camp in May 1945 changed the tactics of the KKE, which now focused on implementing the Varkiza Agreement, but not the course of events: the attack by a group of partisans on the Gendarmerie Station of Litochoro on March 30th, 1946, the day before the elections from which the KKE abstained, was merely the spark that ignited the Civil War…

Watch the 4th episode of the series, with journalist Pantelis Kapsis discussing with historian Nikos Marantzidis, one of the most reputable academics on the Civil War, who has a rich body of scholarly work.