DOMOKOS LABOR CAMP
Domokos camp was located at Petromagoula, a limestone hill east of the Domokos Railway Station, where a quarry and cement factory operated by the Greek State Railways (SEK) had been in operation since before the war, extracting stones, gravel and mainly ballast for laying railway tracks.
During the Occupation, the exploitation of the quarry by the German forces begun in 1941 but was particularly intensified in early 1943, taken over by the Organisation Todt. At the same time, a forced labour camp was set up around the quarry, initially for prisoners of war (Yugoslavs, Poles) and later for Greek political prisoners and hostages. At times, conscripted men or free labourers from Volos and the surrounding area worked there. The camp had a capacity of 400-500 people. Prisoners captured by Italian and German troops from neighbouring villages were regularly sent to the quarry for forced labour, such as the eight men from neighbouring Vardali who had been convicted by the Italian military court in Larissa for possession of weapons, but whose death sentences had ultimately been overturned.[1] In early September 1943, about 400 Yugoslav prisoners of war were transferred there from the Lianokladi labor camp.[2] From the end of 1943, the Petromagoula camp-work site became even more important and was directly linked to the central camp system. Domokos was one of the main transfer points for prisoners of Pavlos Melas, who were sent there for forced labour.[3] In Domokos Camp also received prisoners from various prisons of Athens, Averof, Syngrou, and Hatzikonsta.[4] Work included quarrying and transporting stones from the quarry and repairing railway lines damaged by bombing or sabotage.[5]
The workers stayed in wooden shacks, with old railway carriages also used as dormitories.[6] A photograph of the site shows a wooden building – typical of Todt construction – where the workers slept without mattresses and with sacks instead of blankets. The site was surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fences and guarded by about 40 Germans, most likely members of Todt. The workday lasted 12 hours, from dawn to sunset, with a half-hour break for lunch. The living conditions were poor and the food was meagre, consisting mainly of legume soup. A forced labourer from Volos recounts: “From Trikala, they transported us by truck to Larissa and from there by train to Domokos. Behind the station there were wooden shacks and they put us there together with Yugoslav partisans, prisoners of the Germans. The very next day, they assigned us work, providing us with sledgehammers, pickaxes and crowbars. We went to the nearby quarry, broke stones and carried them back to the station where the Yugoslavs were building railway lines. This work appeared to be carried out by the German company Todt. After 10 days in the quarry, they put me to work on the tracks, many hours every day without food, since the black soup they gave us was inedible and the little bread they gave us was mouldy. There I met another man from Volos, Nikos, who was coming and going freely because he was working on the tracks voluntarily. I worked there for 3.5 months.”[7]
The construction site had attracted the attention of the Resistance forces, and the resistance chroniclers of Thessaly considered it one of the emblematic sites of Nazi terror in the entire region: “[The Germans] had surrounded the hill with rows and rows of barbed wire and had set up guards and high watchtowers. Up to 500 prisoners worked here in the quarries. Stone, hunger, terror…”[8]
On 20 August 1944, the stationmaster of Domokos of the SEK, Savvas Bekatoros, soon to take over as representative of the Red Cross, described the situation of the 420 prisoners as “desperate”: “Of the above number, half are seriously ill with malaria and stomach diseases due to the climate and water on the one hand, and heavy work and poor nutrition on the other. For the above reasons, we also have fatal cases. The patients remain bedridden, suffering from high fever, without receiving any care other than the daily administration of antimalarial drugs and the occasional dressing of wounds.”[9] Although information is lacking, working conditions caused many accidents which, combined with hardship and malnutrition, undoubtedly claimed many victims. An important event in the history of the camp was the failed operation of the I/54 ELAS Battalion in mid-August 1944, aimed at freeing the approximately 150 prisoners who were soon to be transferred. The operation failed and in retaliation a total of 15 Polish and 10 to 15 Greek prisoners were executed, of whom only three are known by name.[10] When they left Greece, the Germans transported all the prisoners who had remained in the Domokos quarry to Thessaloniki by train.
[1] Lambros Bourogianis, I eparchia Domokou stin Antistasi [The Province of Domokos in the Resistance], Athens 1986, p. 49.
[2] Victoria Bichta, Servi kratoumeni sti germanokratoumeni Thessaloniki [Serbian prisoners in German-occupied Thessaloniki] 1941-1944, unpublished disseration. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki 2001, p. 116.
[3] Iason Chandrinos, Haft, Zwangsarbeit, Arbeitsmigration: Griechen im Dritten Reich 1939 – 1945, Habilitation thesis, University of Regensburg, Regensburg 2022, p. 49.
[4] A/DAESS, TB N. 16, Greek Red Cross, Committee of Disabled Treatment/Lamia Branch to Greek Red Cross, Lamia, 18.8.1944; Lambros Bourogiannis, The Province of Domokos in the Resistance, 2nd edition, Athens 1986, p. 244.
[5] GRGSA-IAM Digital Archive, GRGSA-IAM_JUS001.S02.SS01.15.F001570.IT000399
[6] Alexis Sevastakis, Kapetan Boukouvalas. To andartiko ipiko tis Thessalias [Kapetan Boukouvalas. The partisan cavalry of Thessaly], Diogenis Publications, Athens 1978, p. 165.
[7] Testimony of Christos Karagiannopoulos, in: Nitsa Koliou, Agnostes ptyches tis katochis ke tis Antistasis [Unknown Aspects of the Occupation and Resistance 1941-1944], Volos 1985, volume 2, p. 1229.
[8] Sevastakis, Kapetan Boukouvalas, p. 165.
[9] DAESS Archive, TB N. 16, Savvas Bekatoros to the Red Cross, Domokos, 20.8.1944.
[10] They fell so life can go on, volume 4b, pp. 130-131; Lazaros Ars. Arseniou, I Thessalia stin Antistasi [Thessaly in the Resistance], Larissa 1999, vol. 2, p. 189.