Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis

(Redirected from Axis-Cham Albanian collaboration)

Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis
Memorial to the victims of the mass executions in Paramythia
Location	Thesprotia, Greece Konispol, Albania
Date	1941-1944
Target	Population hostile to the Axis occupation
Attack type	Mass murder by firing squads, rapes, burning of villages, massacres, destruction of settlements and cultural heritage sites, transport of civilians to Nazi concentration camps, wide scale looting and banditry
Deaths	In Greece: 1,065 Operation Augustus: 600 Paramythia Executions: 201 In Albania: 550 Operation Augustus: 50 Operation Horridoh: 500
Victims	Civilian population of Thesprotia, Greece, Konispol Albania
Perpetrators	Cham Albanian paramilitary, Këshilla 1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), Nuri Dino battalion (Wehrmacht), Geheime Feldpolizei
Motive	Ethnic Cleansing, Annexation of Thesprotia to Albania
Verdict	Collaboration with the Axis occupation units, Plain murder

During the Axis occupation of Greece between 1941 and 1944 parts of the Cham Albanian minority (Albanian: Çamë, Greek: Τσάμηδες, Tsámides) in the Thesprotia prefecture, northwestern Greece, collaborated with the occupation forces. Fascist Italian as well as Nazi German propaganda promised that the region would be awarded to Albania (then in personal union with Italy) after the end of the war. As a result of this pro-Albanian approach, many Muslim Chams actively supported the Axis operations and committed a number of crimes against the local population both in Greece and Albania. Apart from the formation of a local administration and armed security battalions, a paramilitary organization named Këshilla and a resistance paramilitary group called Balli Kombetar Cam were operating in the region, manned by local Muslim Chams. The results were devastating: many Greek and Albanian citizens lost their lives and a great number of villages were burned and destroyed. It appears that the Mufti and many beys did not approve of the Cham helping the Wehrmacht to burn Greek villages. With the retreat of the Axis forces from Greece in 1944, most of the Cham population fled to Albania and revenge attacks against the remaining Chams were carried out by Greek guerrillas and villagers. When the war ended, special courts on collaboration sentenced 2,106 Chams to death in absentia. However, the war crimes remained unpunished since the criminals had already fled abroad. According to German historian Norbert Frei, the Muslim Cham minority is regarded as the "fourth occupation force" in Greece due to the collaborationist and criminal activities that large parts of the minority committed.

According to the Lieutenant Colonel Palmer of the British Military Mission in Albania, 2,000–3,000 collaborated in an organized manner, while a report of Pan-Epirotic EAM-Commission names 3,200 Cham collaborators from the Dino clan. Although not everyone in the community actively collaborated, historiography agrees that the Cham minority completely accepted the Axis occupation and benefited from the presence of occupation troops by providing them with guides, connections, informants and other forms of support. Mainly due to their collaboration in World War II the Chams later became a controversial if not suspect community for the leaders of the Peoples Republic of Albania (1945-1991).

Background

The region inhabited by the Chams, known among Albanians as "Chameria", consisted chiefly of the Thesprotia prefecture in Greece, as well as a few villages in southwestern Albania. Before 1945, the region had a mixed Greek and Albanian population dating to the migrations of Albanian tribes into the area in the 13th and 14th centuries. Many of the Chams, originally Orthodox Christians, were Islamicized in the 17th to 19th centuries, with Crypto-Christianity persisting as late as the early 19th century.

Given the Ottoman social structure, Muslim Cham landlords were a privileged part of the society and owned much of the most fertile land. Apart from the beys it seems that the majority of the Muslim Cham population consisted of middle sized land owners and also included families with ownership of small land parcels, few fields or animals and located in villages. A degree of antagonism existed between the two communities and conflict occurred on certain occasions.

Despite the claims of Greek and Albanian nationalists alike, surveys of the region of Thesprotia repeatedly noted the lack of "nationalisation" among the population; the Albanian speaking Christians referred to themselves not as Greeks but as "kaurs", while Albanophone Muslims did not call themselves "Albanian" but instead "Muslims" or "Turks"; even as late as the 1940s, the Muslims lacked any sort of Albanian consciousness and continued to describe themselves as "Turks"; Albanian nationalist ideas were espoused by a "minority of the educated and landowning class" but even these were divided between republican and royalist factions. Muslim religious authorities were conservative and of pro-Turkish persuasion, and accordingly they obstructed the growth of Albanian nationalism in the region.

Once Epirus passed to Greek hands in 1913 as a result of the Balkan Wars however, the Muslim beys lost their political influence, while retaining their economic weight. During the Interwar period, the Greek state did not take any serious effort to encourage their assimilation, although a number of complaints by the Chams to the League of Nations bear witness to a sense of grievance. However, there is little evidence of direct state persecution at this time. During that time though, members of the Cham community suffered from discrimination due to severe expropriations of their lands.

Relations between the various social groups were complicated in the region and were characterized primarily by an intense honor culture featuring clans and blood feuds among all major groups, antagonisms between the pastoralist (Vlach) and sedentary (Greek and Albanian) populations, religious rivalries between landowning Muslims and often land-starved Christian itinerant farmers who worked in "deplorable" conditions, and the exploitation of religious affiliations by both Christians and Muslims to win disputes. At the same time there was a high rate of interreligious clan alliances, friendships, blood-brotherhoods, adoptions (where the adoptee retained their parents' religion despite the parents practicing another) and interreligious marriages. Muslim peasants often gave their children Christian names and attended Christian services, while Christians likewise would consult Muslim clergy.

In the early 20th century, the bonds between the various Christian and Muslim communities began to weaken as clergy on both sides railed against interreligious relationships. Further stress was placed on interreligious relationships by conflicts over land and resources, the allotment of formerly Muslim-controlled resources to refugees from Turkey, anti-Albanian policies by the Metaxas government beginning in 1936 which included suppression of the Albanian language and harassment of Muslim notables, and finally in 1939 the beginning of irredentist pressures emanating from Italy and Italian occupied Albania calling for the annexation of Thesprotia to Albania.

In the late 1930s, especially after Albania became a protectorate of Fascist Italy, relations between the Cham community and the Greek state also deteriorated considerably, as, with the encouragement of the Italian authorities in Albania, irredentist elements of this community became more vocal. The Italian governor of Albania, Francesco Jacomoni, was an especially vocal proponent of Albanian claims in Greece and Kosovo, hoping to use them as a means of rallying Albanian support around the Fascist regime. In the event, Albanian enthusiasm for the "liberation of Chameria" was muted, but as Italian invasion became imminent in fall 1940, the Greek authorities disarmed the Cham conscripts in the Army, and later rounded up the male population and sent it to internal exile.

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, 28 villages in the region were inhabited exclusively by Muslim Chams, and an additional 20 villages had mixed (Greek-Muslim Cham) populations.

Italian occupation

Greco-Italian War and Italian occupation of October–November 1940

When the Greek-Italian War broke out in October 1940, the Italian forces had the support of 3,500 Albanians, among them members of the Cham community in Greece. Their performance however was distinctly lackluster; most Albanians, poorly motivated, either deserted or defected. During October 28 – November 1940 while the Italian army made a short advance and briefly took control of part of Thesprotia. Albanian Muslim irregulars began a spree of looting and violence against Greek villagers, and burned the provincial capital of Igoumenitsa to the ground, causing Greek villagers to flee into the mountains. Paramythia and Filiates were also burnt to the ground and representatives of the local communities were murdered by the Cham bands. A local "civil war" broke out in Thesprotia almost immediately with the arrival of the Italian army and its Albanian auxiliaries into the region. However, it was not at first "sectarianised" yet. Some 300 to 400 local Muslim villagers, especially from Gropa, aided the Italian army, and attacked the retreating Greek army and inflicted considerable casualties. A significant number of Albanian Muslim peasants provided armed support to the Italian invasion, however many Albanian Muslims abstained from such activities and proclaimed their disgust at their co-religionists' behavior. In the case of the village of Agios Vlasis the Albanian Muslim inhabitants sheltered "their Christian compatriots" from violence. In the town of Filiates the sacking and destruction committed by Albanian irregulars and Italian soldiers was of such extent that the local Italian military commander was compelled to promulgate an order to curtail the general anarchy.

The Greek army repelled the attack and advanced. Chams support to Italy was paid back by the Greeks, who interned the majority of the male population of the Chams for security reasons. The Greek army and, with it, the internally displaced Christian population returned, a new round of violence in the deepening cycle of revenge erupted.After a large number of Muslim peasants were court-martialed, a massacre occurred at a prison in Igoumenitsa wherein Christian men broke in and murdered those arrested for the deaths of their relatives. The deportation of Muslim men aged 18 to 50 deprived the Muslim population of much of its work force and those who could have defended them from the nascent local criminal elements and vengeful Christian bands. Tsoutsoumpis notes that just as Muslims had earlier refused to help the Italian and Albanian occupiers, the majority of the Christian population was disgusted by the violence, and Greek villagers often protected Muslim neighbors from outside predation, and many Muslims were hidden by their Greek blood-brothers. With the intervention of Germany, Greece soon capitulated. The entire country came under a triple occupation by German, Italian and Bulgarian troops.

Italian occupation (1941–1943)

Germany was against the annexation of the region to Albania that time. Nevertheless, Fascist Italian as well as Nazi German propaganda promised that the region would be part of Great Albania after the end of the war. The next round of atrocities did not begin immediately. Italy initially halted its "separatist pro-Albanian policy" for fear of a Greek backlash, and retained the Greek authorities and gendarmerie (although with poor arms and diminished force), despite Albanian protests. Nevertheless, Italian authorities proved tolerant of murders committed by the Muslim population and allowed them to openly carry arms, ultimately encouraging a spate of murders that came to grow into serious communal conflicts, with the first major conflicts breaking out in Filiates in late October 1941. The establishment of the Italian occupation authorities in Epirus was complete up until middle May 1941 and the following month the first armed units consisting of Cham Albanians took action in the region.

The occupation forces installed a local Cham administration in the town of Paramythia, with Xhemil Dino as local administrator of Thesprotia and as a representative of the Albanian government. At the time the town of Paramythia had a mixed Greek-Cham population of 6,000. Apart from the local Cham administration (Këshilla), active from July 1942, its paramilitary militia and gendarmerie of the same name began operating from 1943. According to post-war courts decisions and testimonies, during the Italian occupation these armed units were responsible for large scale criminal activity: murders, rapes, village burnings and looting.

Fictive kinship ties and regional loyalties still served to restrain the violence at this time, with Muslims often warning or sheltering their Christian neighbors, and in some cases threatening violence against other Muslims if their neighbors were harmed. In some cases, Muslim clans that were committing violence against Christian clans were involved in the protection of other Christian clans. Motivations were not national or religious but instead were motivated by clan and personal rivalries; one British officer remarked that "the whole war is viewed by the Greeks and Albanians from a parochial standpoint with the result that their actions are often controlled by the value of the belligerents to the local cause". However as the violence continued and deepened, and with the rise of the Keshilla, acts of cross-religious solidarity became rarer, and the conflict was increasingly sectarianised. By 1942, according to oral histories, the region was in a civil war, with clans and villages pitted against each other, and the Christian population was forced to flee into the highlands. Their properties were redistributed among Muslims, especially the poorest Muslim classes, who benefited the most from their flight.

Operation "Augustus"

From 29 July – 31 August 1943, while the region was typically under Italian occupation, a combined German and Cham force launched an anti-partisan sweep operation codenamed Augustus. During the subsequent operations, 600 Greek villagers were killed and 70 villages in the region were destroyed. 500 Greek citizens were taken hostages and 160 of them were sent to forced labour in Nazi Germany. In 21 settlements in the vicinity of Kanallaki 400 inhabitants were arrested and forced to march to the nearest concentration camp in Thessaloniki (KZ Pavlos Melas). When the march begun the armed groups did not hesitate to execute a diseased priest in front of the rest of the hostages. In exchange of their support, German Lieutenant Colonel Josef Remold offered the Chams weapons and equipment. As a token of appreciation, Nuri Dino, the leader of the Cham security battalions, promised to secure the region of the Acheron river, south of Paramythia, against Allied infiltration.

German occupation

In September 1943, following Italian capitulation, the region officially came under German control. The German commander of Paramythia, in need of the support of the Cham population, repeated to the Albanian community the promise that the region would become part of Greater Albania after the war.

By time Operation Augustus ended, a larger number of Muslim Chams was recruited for the armed support of the Axis side forming additional battalions of Cham volunteers. Their support was appreciated by the Germans: Lt Colonel Josef Remold remarked that "with their knowledge of the surrounding area, they have proved their value in the scouting missions". On several occasions these scouting missions engaged EDES units in combat. On September 27, combined German and Cham forces launched large scale operation in burning and destroying villages north of Paramythia: Eleftherochori, Seliani, Semelika, Aghios Nikolaos, killing 50 Greek villagers in the process. In this operation the Cham contingent numbered 150 men, and, according to German Major Stöckert, "performed very well".

Paramythia incident

Main article: Paramythia executions

On the night of 27 September, Cham militias arrested 53 prominent Greek citizens in Paramythia and executed 49 of them two days later. This action was orchestrated by the brothers Nuri and Mazar Dino (an officer of the Cham militia) in order to get rid of the town's Greek representatives and intellectuals. According to German reports, Cham militias were also part of the firing squad.

During 20–29 September , as a result of serial violent activities, at least 75 Greek citizens were killed in Paramythia and 19 municipalities were destroyed. On 30 September, the Swiss representative of the International Red Cross, Hans-Jakob Bickel, visited the area and concluded:

20,000 Albanians, with Italian and now German support, spread terror to the rest of the population. Only in the region of Fanari 24 villages were destroyed. The entire harvest was taken by them. In my trip I realized that the Albanians kept the Greeks terrified inside their homes. Young Albanians, just finished from school, wandered heavily armed. The Greek population of Igoumenitsa had to find refuge in the mountains. The Albanians had stolen all the cattle and the fields remain uncultivated.

Nazi-Cham activities in southern Albania

After the capitulation of Fascist Italy, in September 1943, the local British mission proposed an alliance to the Chams and to fight together the Germans, but this proposal was rejected.

Although operation Augustus took place mostly in Greek territory, such activities had also spread to southern Albania, with combined German and Cham Albanian units executing c. 50 Albanian in the process.

Due to increasing resistance activity at the end of 1943 in southern Albania, German General and local commander Hubert Lanz, decided to initiate armed operations with the code name Horridoh in this region. Albanian nationalist groups participated in these operations, among them a Cham battalion of ca. 1,000 men under the leadership of Nuri Dino. The death toll from these operations, which began on 1 January 1944 in the region of Konispol, was 500 Albanians.

Cham participation in the resistance

As the end of World War II drew near, a small number of Muslim Chams became part of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), as well as the anti-fascist National Liberation Army of Albania. In May 1944, ELAS formed a mixed battalion with Chams the IV "Ali Demi" battalion, named after a Cham Albanian who was killed in Vlora fighting against the Germans. At the time of its creation in 1944, it had 460 men, both Cham Albanians and Greeks. The results were disappointing and in a 1944 proclamation ELAS noted that: "Mazar and Nuri Dino found easy prey for their fascist plans in great part of the Cham people, which was thirsty for national liberation".

Axis retreat and expulsion of Chams

Main article: Expulsion of Cham Albanians

During the summer of 1944, when the German withdrawal was imminent, the right-wing head of the National Republican Greek League (EDES), Napoleon Zervas, asked the Cham Albanians to fight against his rivals, the Communist-controlled EAM-ELAS. After their negative response, and in pursuit of orders given by the Allied forces to EDES to push them out of Greece and into Albania, fierce fighting occurred between both sides. According to British reports, the Cham bands managed to flee to Albania with their full equipment, together with half million stolen cattle and 3,000 horses, leaving only the elderly members of the community behind.

On 18 June 1944, EDES forces with Allied support launched an attack on Paramythia. After short-term against a combined Cham-German garrison, the town was finally liberated. Soon after, violent reprisals were carried out against the town's Muslim community, which was considered responsible for the massacre of September 1943.

The number of the Cham victims during this operation is unknown, although it is certain that the remaining Chams who had not already fled to Albania were forced to move. British officers described it as "a most disgraceful affair" involving "an orgy of revenge" with the local guerrillas "looting and wantonly destroying everything". The British Foreign Office reported that "The bishop of Paramythia joined in the searching of houses for booty and came out of one house to find his already heavily laden mule had been meanwhile stripped by some andartes".

Aftermath and war crimes trials

References

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^ Meyer 2008: 204
^ Kallivretakis, 1995, p. 39
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^ Meyer 2008: 537
^ Meyer 2008: 539
Muñoz, Antonio (2018). The German Secret Field Police in Greece, 1941-1944. McFarland. pp. 79=80. ISBN 978-1476667843.
^ Katsikas, 2021, p. 191
Meyer 2008: 705 "The Albanian minority of the Chams collaborated in large parts with the Italians and the Germans".
^ Mazower, Mark. After The War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943–1960. Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-691-05842-3, pp. 25–26.
Victor Roudometof; Roland Robertson (2001). Nationalism, Globalization, and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 190–. ISBN 978-0-313-31949-5. "During World War II, the majority of Chams sided with the Axis forces..."
^ "Examining policy responses to immigration in the light of interstate relations and foreign policy objectives: Greece and Albania". In King, Russell, & Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers (eds). The new Albanian migration. Sussex Academic. p. 16.
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Close, David H. (1995). The Origins of the Greek Civil War. Longman. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-582-06471-3. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
Frei 2006: 483
^ Ethnologia Balkanica. Vol. 6. 2002.
Manta 2009, p. 8: "it been admitted by all sides that the Albanian population as a whole, even though it did not actively collaborate with the occupiers, they accepted them with hope and expectation for the materialization of the promises which had been cultivated for decades; they benefited from their presence in the region and provided them with indirect support with guides, connections, informants etc. A German officer was to admit later that the Albanians were favorably disposed towards them while the Greeks fought against them."
Manta 2009, p. 11: The least that can be said is that for Hoxha and generally for the Albanian communists, the Çams comprised a controversial if not suspect community, due to their collaboration with the German and Italian occupiers during World War II.
^ King 2005: 87
Isufi, Hajredin (2004). "Aspects of Islamization in Çamëri". Historical Studies (in Albanian). 3 (4). Tirana, Albania: Institute of History: 17–32.
Roudometof 2002: 157
Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011. "Although there is no sufficient written proof to support the idea, it’s almost certain that families owning very small parcels of land, or just a few small fields and a small number of sheep, were not an exception and were also present in villages"
^ Meyer 2008: 152
^ Tsoutsoumpis, Spyros. "Violence, resistance and collaboration in a Greek borderland: the case of the Muslim Chams of Epirus." (2015). Pages 121-127
^ Mazower 2000: 25
Roudometof 2002: 157.
Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011. "A concrete description of the lives of the Muslims is clearly referred to in a special report drawn by K. Stylianopoulos, the “Inspector” in charge of Minority issues, who was directly appointed by the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and was accountable to him. The report relates to us in graphic terms that “ persecutions and heavier confiscations, even led to the decision of classifying as chiftlik the town of Paramythia and in that way small properties and gardens had been expropriated against the Constitution and the Agrarian law; not a single stremma was left to them for cultivation and for sustaining their families, nor were the rents of their properties paid to them regularly (some of them being even lower than a stamp duty). They were not permitted to sell or buy land, and were forced to evaluate their fields at ridiculously low prices (as low as 3 drahmi per stremma), , only to be imprisoned for taxes not paid for land already confiscated or expropriated..... Report, 15.10.1930, Archive of Eleftherios Venizelos, Minorities, f. 58/173/4573. See the more detailed report on illegal real estate expropriations and confiscations and the financial results upon the Muslim population at the documents contacted by the General Inspector of the Central Department (of the Ministry of Agriculture) to his Ministry, dated 13. 01. 1932 and 07.08.1932 (HAMFA, 1935, f. A/4/9/2),where he underlines that even plots of 2-3 stremmata had been expropriated."
^ Fischer 1999: 75-76
^ Kretsi Georgia Verfolgung und Gedächtnis in Albanien: eine Analyse postsozialistischer Erinnerungsstrategien p. 283
^ Tsoutsoumpis, Spyros. "Violence, resistance and collaboration in a Greek borderland: the case of the Muslim Chams of Epirus." (2015). Pages 127–130.
K. Antoniou, Istoria Horifilakis (1833–1967) Volume.2 N/A Athens, 1964, p. 77. Cited in Tsoutsoumpis
Kretsi, 2009, p. 7
Manta, 2009, p. 7: "Greek Thesprotia was not included amongst the territories annexed to Albania and remained under the control of the High Command of Athens because of the German reaction. It seems that, amongst other factors which worked against such an annexation was the fact that, in contrast to Kosovo, the inhabitants of Epirus were by a vast majority Greeks, which could not justify any administrative reorganization in that region."
Meyer, p. 152: "Aufgrund des Versrpechens dass ein Teil des Epirus eines Tages zu Albanien gehoren werde, kollaborierten nicht wenige Tsamides mit den Italienern", p. 464: "setzten die deutschen Versprechungen... die sogenannte Tsamouria, nach Kriegsende in "ein freies, selbstandiges Albanien" eingegliedert werde."
Manta, 2009, p. 7: "Up until the middle of May that year their establishment in Paramythia and other Epirote cities and the organization of their services, were completed."
Theodoros, Sabatakakis (2003). "Οι Βρετανικές Υπηρεσίες κατά την Περίοδο του Δευτέρου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου στην Ελλάδα [British Intelligence in World War II Greece]". www.didaktorika.gr. Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences: 30. doi:10.12681/eadd/17487. Retrieved 10 May 2015. ...τον Ιούνιο του 1941, ξεκίνησαν τη δράση τους οι πρώτες ένοπλες συμμορίες Αλβανών τσάμηδων στην Ήπειρο...
Georgia Kretsi (2002). "The Secret Past of the Greek-Albanian Borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights". Ethnologia Balkanica.(6): 177. "An Albanian political administration called ‘Këshilla’ was founded in 1942, and after 1943 it was completed with its own armed forces as well as a gendarmerie. The latter must have had a less political character during the Italian occupation, and may have been more of a military gendarmerie, which the fascists used to maintain as a security organ for their military. When the Germans succeeded the Italians in July 1943, however, the Këshilla seemed to gain a role as a political administration. In vain they tried to switch off the Greek occupation authorities. An official hand—over of the administration to the Albanians would automatically mean the annexation to Albania, a move that was not necessarily in the interest of the German headquarters in Athens. Nevertheless the Këshilla appointed itself as the supreme administrative office (with law-making power), subsequently ignoring the Greek administration and introducing illegal taxes in order to finance its men."
Meyer 2008: 204, 464
Meyer 2008: 464, 467, 476
Meyer 2008: 469
Meyer 2008: 469-471
^ Meyer 2008: 476
Meyer 2008: 498
Kondis, Basil (1997). "The Developments of the Northern Epirus Question". Epirus, 4000 Years of Greek History and Civilization. Ekdotike Athenon: 401. ISBN 9789602133712. Retrieved 10 May 2015. After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the British mission in Epirus tried to arrive at an understanding with the Chams in the hope of persuading them to turn against the Germans. The Chams refused
Meyer 2008: 218
^ The Secret Past of the Greek-Albanian Borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights. Georgia Kretsi.
Eriksonas, Linas; Leos Müller (2005). Statehood before and beyond ethnicity: minor states in Northern and Eastern Europe, 1600-2000 (vol 33 ed.). P.I.E.-Peter Lang. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-8204-6646-0.
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King 2005: 218
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v t e Cham Albanians
History	Pashalik of Janina Souliotes (Souliote Confederacy Catastrophe of Zalongo Assembly of Preveza Albanian Committee of Janina Këshilla
Issue	Cham Albanian Resistance during World War II 4th "Ali Demi" Battalion "Chameria" Battalion Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis Këshilla Paramythia executions Expulsion of Cham Albanians Anti-Fascist Committee of Cham Immigrants Liberation Army of Chameria
Organizations	"Çamëria" Association Chameria Human Rights Association Party for Justice, Integration and Unity Democratic Foundation of Chameria Bilal Xhaferri Cultural Association Shoqata Çamëria Party of the Chameria Party for Justice and Integration Party for Justice and Unity
Culture	Cham Albanian dialect Music Iso-poliphony Song of Çelo Mezani Song of Marko Boçari Dance Dance of Osman Taka Dance of Zalongo Magazines Krahu i shqiponjës
Settlements	Chameria Konispol Konispol Markat Janjar Paramythia Filiates Igoumenitsa Katavothra Fanari Louros Kranea Derviziana Thesprotiko Parapotamos Mousiotitsa Sagiada Syvota Xarrë Anthousa Kanallaki Parga Pandalejmon Mavronoros Vrinë Perdika Margariti Kastri Karvounari
Individuals	Azis Tahir Ajdonati Aziz Çami Hamdi Çami Qamil Çami Thoma Çami Refo Çapari Ali Demi Musa Demi Niazi Demi Rexhep Demi Tahir Demi Abedin Dino Ahmed Dino Ali Dino Rasih Dino Shahin Dino Veli Gërra Muhamet Kyçyku Shpëtim Idrizi Tahir Muhedini Teme Sejko Dashamir Tahiri Hasan Tahsini Osman Taka Jakup Veseli Bilal Xhaferri
Settlements inhabited by communities known as Arvanites, and very rarely characterized as Cham

Greece during World War II

1940–1941 Balkans Campaign

Greco-Italian War
(1940–1941)

Battles

Leaders

Greece	Ioannis Metaxas Alexandros Papagos Charalambos Katsimitros Konstantinos Davakis Markos Drakos and Ioannis Pitsikas Dimitrios Papadopoulos Georgios Kosmas
Italy	Benito Mussolini Galeazzo Ciano Sebastiano Visconti Prasca Ubaldo Soddu Ugo Cavallero Carlo Geloso

Units

Greece	8th Infantry Division Epirus Army Section Western Macedonia Army Section
Italy	9th Army 11th Army

German invasion
(April–May 1941)

Battles

Leaders

Greece	King George II Alexandros Papagos Konstantinos Bakopoulos Georgios Tsolakoglou
British Commonwealth	Henry Maitland Wilson Thomas Blamey Bernard Freyberg
Germany	Wilhelm List Sepp Dietrich Kurt Student

Units

Greece	Eastern Macedonia Army Section Central Macedonia Army Section Epirus Army Section
British Commonwealth	1st Armoured Brigade 2nd New Zealand Division 6th Australian Division
Germany	XVIII Army Corps XXXX Panzer Corps Luftflotte 4 1st Parachute Division 5th Mountain Division

Occupation and collaboration

Occupying
powers

Leaders and
commands

Germany	Günther Altenburg Hermann Neubacher Walter Schimana Alexander Löhr Army Group E Hellmuth Felmy LXVIII Army Corps Hubert Lanz XXII Mountain Corps Alexander Andrae, Bruno Bräuer and Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller Fortress Crete Max Merten
Italy	Angelico Carta Pellegrino Ghigi Piero Parini Carlo Geloso and Carlo Vecchiarelli 11th Army III Army Corps [it] VIII Army Corps XXVI Corps
Bulgaria	Ivan Markov [bg] Trifon Trifonov [bg] Asen Sirakov

Atrocities

Economic
exploitation

The Holocaust

Collaborationist
government

People	Georgios Tsolakoglou K. Logothetopoulos Ioannis Rallis Sotirios Gotzamanis Georgios Bakos Georgios Poulos Friedrich Schubert Nikolaos Bourantas George S. Mercouris Ioannis Plytzanopoulos Dionysios Papadongonas
Organizations	Security Battalions Hellenic Socialist Patriotic Organisation (ESPO) National Union of Greece (EEE) Greek National Socialist Party
Secessionists	Roman Legion Alcibiades Diamandi Nicolaos Matussis Vassilis Rapotikas Ohrana Andon Kalchev Cham collaboration Këshilla Xhemil Dino
Atrocities	Paramythia Executions of Kokkinia

Resistance and Free Greece

National Liberation
Front (EAM)

People	Aris Velouchiotis Stefanos Sarafis Andreas Tzimas Georgios Siantos Alexandros Svolos Ilias Tsirimokos Markos Vafeiadis Evripidis Bakirtzis
Organizations	Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Socialist Party of Greece (SKE) Union of People's Democracy (ELD) Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) Greek People's Liberation Navy (ELAN) Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA) and National Council United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON) National Solidarity (EA) Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle (OPLA) Slavic-Macedonian National Liberation Front (SNOF) Anti-Fascist Committee for a Free Germany (AKFD)
Operations	Drama uprising Ryka Mikro Chorio Gorgopotamos Bridge Meritsa Protests against labour mobilization Fardykambos Porta Sarantaporos Kournovo Tunnel 1943 Athens protest Pinerolo disarmament Steiri Agorelitsa Killing of Franz Krech
Atrocities	Feneos executions 5/42 Regiment dissolution Meligalas Kilkis Red Terror (Greece)

Non-EAM resistance

People	Napoleon Zervas Georgios Kartalis Dimitrios Psarros Komninos Pyromaglou Antonis Fosteridis Kostas Perrikos Ilias Degiannis Vasileios Sachinis Lela Karagianni Konstantinos Ventiris Manolis Paterakis Petrakogiorgis Kimonas Zografakis
Organizations	National Republican Greek League (EDES) National Bands of Greek Guerrillas (EOEA) National and Social Liberation (EKKA) 5/42 Regiment Defenders of Northern Greece (YVE)/Panhellenic Liberation Organization (PAO) Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths (PEAN) Prometheus II Apollo National Organization of Crete (ΕΟΚ) Hellenic Army (ES) Northern Epirus Liberation Front (MAVI) others...
Operations	ESPO bombing Gorgopotamos Bridge (Operation "Harling") Agia Kyriaki Milia Skala Paramythias Execution of Josef Salminger Xirovouni Trahili Menina Dodona
Atrocities	Expulsion of Cham Albanians

British Military Mission (SOE)

People	Eddie Myers Monty Woodhouse Patrick Leigh Fermor Bill Stanley Moss Themis Marinos George Psychoundakis Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz
Operations	Operation "Albumen" Gorgopotamos Bridge (Operation "Harling") Operation "Animals" Asopos Bridge (Operation "Washing") Kidnapping of Heinrich Kreipe Damasta sabotage

Greek government-in-exile

Greek government
in exile

Events/Battles	Mareth Line El Alamein Wadi Akarit Dodecanese April 1944 mutiny Rimini Symi Santorini
People	King George II Emmanouil Tsouderos Sofoklis Venizelos Panagiotis Kanellopoulos Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos Christodoulos Tsigantes Pafsanias Katsotas
Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East	3rd Mountain Brigade Sacred Band Vasilissa Olga Adrias Katsonis Papanikolis 13th Squadron 335th Squadron 336th Squadron

Liberation and road to the civil war

Prelude to Civil War

Events	National Bands Agreement Plaka agreement [el] Red Terror Lebanon Conference Caserta Agreement Operation "Manna" Percentages agreement Dekemvriana Treaty of Varkiza White Terror
People	Ronald Scobie Georgios Papandreou Archbishop Damaskinos Georgios Grivas Angelos Evert Nikos Zachariadis

Commemoration

Events	Ohi Day
Museums	Athens War Museum Holocaust Museum of Greece Kalavryta Massacre Museum Kalpaki War Museum Museum of the Battle of Crete and the National Resistance Thessaloniki War Museum
Popular culture	Aera! Aera! Aera! Captain Corelli's Mandolin film Ill Met by Moonlight film Ipolochagos Natassa Mediterraneo The 11th Day: Crete 1941 The Guns of Navarone film What Did You Do in the War, Thanasis?