Memorial Service

Published on 23 August 2026 at 2:28 am

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Nothing new to report on the house. I´ve spent the past few days running around with my cousin and attending memorial services for the massacre in Ano Meros and the Amari Valley. Today is the day - 82 years ago, on 22 August 1944, when the Nazi invaders destroyed Ano Meros and massacred 40 of its men (including our grandfather, Leonidas Mihalakis).

Ano Meros was one of several villages along Mount Kedros that the Nazi Wehrmacht infantry woke at gunpoint. My Yiayia, my dad, his sister and brother were dragged along with other villagers to the schoolhouse where 38 men and boys were imprisoned for being resistance fighters and for helping the Allied Forces. Once all the women, children and old people were gathered, the Nazis blew up the schoolhouse.

The torture didn't stop there, as Nazis forced the survivors at gunpoint to watch as their homes were looted and destroyed with fire and dynamite.

Neighboring villages that had not been attacked provided shelter and shared their limited food with homeless women and children. By all accounts, the survivors endured extreme poverty, hunger, and psychological trauma through the remaining months of the war. For some, the psychological trauma remained for the rest of their lives.

General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller ordered the massacre to punish the villagers further for helping the Allied Forces kidnap General Heinrich Kreipe, who was the commander of Fortress Crete. In April 1944, British operatives, working closely with Cretan resistance fighters, ambushed Kreipe’s staff car near Heraklion. The team successfully smuggled the general across the island through the mountainous Amari Valley. Ano Meros was one of the villages that provided vital food, shelter, and cover to hide the team from searching Nazi patrols before Kreipe was finally evacuated by boat to Egypt.

A few months after the massacre, Müller was captured, convicted in Athens, and executed by a firing squad on 20 May 1947.

Ano Meros was rebuilt virtually from scratch with the women leading the work. Over 200 buildings, including the school and church, were reduced to rubble.

Anyone travelling to Ano Meros from itś northern entrance will see the sculptural monument by renowned Cretan artist Yiannis Kanakakis before they see the village itself. Much more than just a registry of the names of the men and boys killed that day, the gigantic sculpture represents defiance, memory and the enduring strength of Cretan women who survived the tragedy and rebuilt the village.

The monument features a statue of a traditional Cretan woman physically carving the names of her executed male relatives into stone. The names are bold and clear, but more than that, the memorial symbolises three key things:

Commitment to remember: Because the village was burned to ashes and the men were killed, the act of carving the names symbolizes the women taking control of history, ensuring the identity of the village and its people can never be erased.
The Burden of Survival: It honors the specific trauma of the women and children who were left behind to witness the destruction, endure forced exile, and ultimately return to rebuild their lives and village from nothing.
Cretan Defiance (Leventia): Instead of depicting the villagers as defeated victims, the woman's posture is strong, focused, and unyielding, embodying the historic spirit of the local resistance movement.

The monument ensures that anyone entering Ano Meros is immediately confronted with the price the community paid for freedom.

So, this hopefully explains a bit more about why it is so important for Leonidas and me to preserve the family house there. It is the one way we can honour my Papous (grandfather), Yiayia (grandma), Uncle Stelios, Aunt Helen, and my dad. We are so proud of each of them. We will fix and use the house, spending time in the place they loved and fought so hard to keep free.

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