78 years ago the Domenikon massacre, the Greeks demand justice

(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 14 - On February 16, 1943 a Greece was consumed, in the village of Domenikon, one of the worst massacres committed by the Italian occupation forces: at least 140 civilians were killed as (illegitimate) retaliation for the killing, in a partisan ambush, of nine black shirts: after 78 years no one has ever paid for that massacre, the subject of several investigations, the last of which was recently closed, and the families of the victims continue to ask for "justice".

    "These people did not come alone, neither in Greece nor in my village. The Italian state sent them and they were representatives of the Italian state", wrote - speaking of the soldiers who carried out the massacre - Stathis Psomiadis, president of the victims of Dominikon, in a letter to the magistrate Marco De Paolis who, despite the investigations conducted, was forced to ask for the filing because all the possible defendants were now dead.

And for this he apologized.

Psomiadis, while thanking them for their efforts, complained that Italy has never taken any initiative to compensate the victims of the massacre.

    More generally - as the historians FilippoFocardi and Lutz Klinkhammer underline in the preface to the book "Domenikon1943. When the Italians Kill" (Mursia), by the journalist Vincenzo Sinapi - since the postwar period a blanket of silence has been spread over the crimes committed by the fascist army in occupied territories, where "thousands of innocent victims were made for which there was never justice".

Unlike what happened in France and in Germany itself, in Italy "a public examination of conscience on one's own responsibilities (...) has so far been held back by varifactors, including political and institutional interests reluctant to recognize the misdeeds of the country, not least to avoid any requests of compensation by the relatives of the victims of Italian crimes ".

This remains a "removed page of the history of our country", with which "public opinion should finally confront itself".

(HANDLE).