Tra La La Publishing

 

Dedication of the Memorial at Kalavryta

 

Massacres of innocent civilians by Nazis were a common occurrence in occupied lands throughout World War II. Some are only now coming to light in the public eye. Although the Kalavryta slaughter in Greece is the most heinous Nazi crime committed in the Balkans, it never captured the world's attention. Andy Varlow, a survivor of Kalavryta, has written a book. Just Another Man is a deeply touching story based on the author's true experience of this horror. The novel details a child's memory of the Kalavryta massacre, his vow, immigration to America and subsequent quest to find the commander responsible for the destruction of his home town.

In August 1998, the author his wife, children and grandchildren traveled to Kalavryta to commemorate a life-size statue in bronze of a woman hauling the body of her dead husband on a shredded blanket from the "Hill of Execution," where one thousand innocent men and boys were shot in cold blood; her two young children are looking on.

In the photo the author is weeping after he removed the Greek flag to unveil the statue in Kalavryta. The statue now stands in the yard of the schoolhouse where the women and children of Kalavryta were imprisoned by the Nazis, and the building was set on fire. The schoolhouse has been designated a Greek national museum.

The profits from Just Another Man will be donated to this museum.

 

Speech delivered by Varlow on August 9, 1998 during the dedication of the statue in Kalavryta, Greece:

Your Eminence Metroplitan, Honorable Governor Honorable Mayor Polkas, Friends and countrymen

Today we dedicated a statue of a woman dragging the dead body of her husband as her two young children with tears and pain are looking on. Since the morning of the 14th of December 1943 this horrible image has haunted me throughout my life. Barely eleven years old then, walking up the hill of the slaughtered to search for my own father, I encountered hundred of maddening scenes much like the one depicted by this statue-women and children drenched in blood hauling their loved ones on shredded blankets to bury them in the cemetery, all the while crying in chorus of man's inhumanity to man.

Fifty-five years later, because good has triumphed over evil, we are gathered here today to retell the world that love is greater than hate, and to demand that differences between nations be resolved with pens and paper on negotiating tables instead of bullets and machine guns in battle fields. All wars are dishonorable, shameful and cruel to the blameless masses who suffer the pangs of arm-bearing conquerors-no matter how brief such a subjugation may be.

This statue obliquely named "No more wars" then, will stand, not only as a reminder of the Nazi atrocities to blameless civilians, but as a forewarning to all future generations that wars are evil. Friends, let us hope that every person who casts his eyes on this statue will walk away, not with a heavy-hearted resignation and stoical acceptance of man's cruelty to man, but with a reawakened urgency to scream and shout to one's peers and leaders that contemporary man has risen above his savage instincts; that modern man demands the abolishment of all armed conflicts. Blood need not soil humanity's path to betterment and excellence because we now accept deep inside our hears that each and every human being regardless of his color or creed, has the right to be born, to live, and to die free.

May the memory of those fallen in 1943 remain vivid in the minds of the present and future generations. Thank you.