Cham Albanians

Foreign volunteers, collaboration and Axis Allies 1939-1945.

Moderator: George Lepre

Post Reply
teddy
Member
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Sep 30, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Cham Albanians

Post by teddy »

What roles did the Cham Albanians play during World War ll?
User avatar
nino
Supporter
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon Jan 27, 2003 11:40 pm
Location: somewhere in the globe
Contact:

Re: Cham Albanians

Post by nino »

Only found an article about them in wikipedia:
The remaining 20,000 Muslim Cham Albanians of Greece were subjected to discrimination that increased
under Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 to 1941. Tensions were exacerbated at the time of
World War II. Following an Italian invasion of Albania (7 April - 12 April 1939), the Albanian Kingdom became
a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy. The Greco-Italian War (28 October 1940 - 23 April 1941) started with
the Italian military forces launching an invasion of Greece from Albanian territories. The invasion force
included several hundred native Albanian and Cham auxiliaries.
The initial Greco-Italian War continued into the Battle of Greece (6 April - 30 April 1941), with forces of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Bulgaria joining the Italian side.
The three Axis powers defeated Greece and divided it into occupation zones. The Italians, whose zone of occupation included Epirus, recruited a large number of Muslim Cham citizens to assist them. The property of several of the Muslim Cham feudal lords (beys), that collaborated with the Nazis, more or less passively, was confiscated in order to permit Greeks to settle in the area.[10] The massacres that occurred in this region (i. e. Paramythia) against the Christian-Orthodox population had the full support of hundreds of Cham militias. There are no reports of Cham criminals having been brought to trial after World War II. They found refuge behind the Albanian border after retreating together with the Nazis in 1944.[2][11]
During the Axis occupation, the Muslim Chams set up their own administration and militia, part of the fascist Balli Kombetar and XILIA organizations, at Thesprotia and collaborated closely with both the Italians and, when Italy capitulated, the Germans.[12] Cham units comprised the main occupation force committing, alongside the Wehrmacht, a number of atrocities on their ethnically Greek fellow citizens, burning houses and entire villages to the ground,[2] killing several hundred ethnic Greeks and forcing thousands to flee their homes.[13]
The right-wing head of EDES, Napoleon Zervas, asked the Cham Albanians to fight against EAM-ELAS. After their negative response, EDES forced many Cham Albanians to leave their homes. Several hundred of them were killed and others died during their exodus to Albania.[14] The property of all Muslim Chams (whether they collaborated with the Nazis or not) was confiscated in order to permit Greeks to settle in the area.[15] The left-wing army of Greece, Elas, was opposed to the idea of collectively punishing the Cham community, as several hundred Muslim Chams had enlisted in its ranks.[3] After the war, only 117 Muslim Cham Albanians were left in Greece.[16]
Muslim Cham units also played an active part in the Holocaust in Greece, including the round-up and expulsion to
the Auschwitz concentration camp and Birkenau of the 2,000 strong Romaniotes Greek-Jewish community of
Ioannina in April 1944.[17] As the Germans and their allies began to lose ground to the anti-Nazi militias in 1944,
and started retreating to Albania, many hundreds of Chams followed them.
Post Reply