The Agia Rural Prison is in the village of the same name and seat of the community of the prefecture of Chania in Crete. They were established in 1929 as the fifth agricultural prison in Greece, after the prisons of Tiryns, Kassaveteia, Vidos (1925) and Assos (1927).[1] During the German occupation of Crete (1941-1945), the Agia Prison was used by German forces as their main military prison on the island for Greek citizens, resistance fighters and their relatives who were tried by the German authorities on various charges (possession of weapons, care of British soldiers). It also served as a place of execution. The prison was connected to the German Military Court which was established in Chania at the end of September 1943.[2]
During the Occupation, the building complex was entirely under German jurisdiction and underwent significant development. A new wing was built, the outer walls were reinforced and a strong fence with barbed wire, watchtowers and machine gun nests was erected. In the main prison building, to the right of the main entrance, there was a wing with six group cells, enclosed by a wall with bars and a glass roof.[3] The death row wing was a narrow, long, single-storey building with 17 cells on the north-western side of the large prison courtyard. The cells had a capacity of 6-8 detainees, but many more people were forced to stay there; some testimonies mention 100 or more. Hygiene conditions were non-existent. Food rations were inadequate, usually consisting of soup or legumes, while terror, torture and psychological violence were daily occurrences. A prisoner who was a doctor described a typical arrival of prisoners at Agia: “I hear footsteps. The [German] detachment brings in a group of about thirty-five men. They are rebels from Keramia, Kampos, Samona, etc. They have been locked up for four days, and they are being pushed and beaten with sticks and clubs because they do not understand the orders and do not carry them out immediately. Three by three, one by one, they are forced to run and turn their heads towards the isolation cell. Some of them are singled out and lined up with their backs to the isolation cell so that they cannot see what is happening behind them. One turns slowly and looks, but is hit hard on the head by a German because this is also forbidden. They bring in many groups, fifteen to twenty, human flocks with pale faces, clenched teeth and eyes full of horror, as are their hearts. Then they brought two groups of women, and so they separated 13 men and 4 women, 3 young girls and one middle-aged woman […] The iron doors banged as they opened and a human-like beast shouted with a foreign accent. I did not hear the rest of the sentence, which was spoken more quietly, nor the reply, but I heard the thuds made by the body being beaten. It did not take long for the air to be filled with heart-rending cries. The thuds continued to mingle with the girl’s cries, the cries stopped, although the thuds continued for a little longer, indicating that the victim had fainted. There was a sound like a bolt being thrown, the sound of the iron door closing behind the unconscious girl. Another door opens with a bang and the beast shouts again, “Come out, you bitch, or you’ll suffer the same fate.” Who are the partisans from your village? “No one, I don’t know.” The body makes the same sounds, the silence is followed by the same heart-rending cries, then fainting and falling again: “Get up, bitch.” A bucket of water poured over the girl’s body brings her round for a moment. The blows are heard again, she faints one more time and falls, thrown into the cell to repeat the same thing repeatedly… How many did they torture and for how long… Did they torture for two hours or two centuries? […] Now the tragedy moves to the corridor of the common cells. There they torture the men. I cannot hear the words, but the sounds of the tortured bodies are so loud that I think they will pierce my ears.[4] The prisoners were forced to listen to the reading of the list of those condemned to death from neighbouring cells, but also to the sound of the executions that took place a short distance from the prison, in a small ravine about 500 metres from the north-western side of the enclosure, which became known as “Golgotha”.
The prison community was organised in connection to the local economy. The inmates of Agia were often engaged in forced labour outside the prison, such as agricultural work, breaking stones, digging trenches, installing barbed wire. They also worked within the complex: there were gardens, together with carpentry and blacksmithing workshops. According to one testimony, women and young children were forced to sort sacks of sheep and goat hair that had been looted by the Germans.[5] The type of work was usually related to the type of sentence: those sentenced by the German court martial to shorter sentences usually worked outside the prison.[6] The importance and size of Agia as a place of confinement reflects on the term “katseti” that was used in everyday language when referring to the prison, a corruption of the German abbreviation KZ, which stands for concentration camp.[7]
It is estimated that approximately 20,000 men and women from all prefectures of Crete were held in Agia Prison during the Occupation, including women of all ages and even young children. There, those convicted by German military courts and hostages of reprisals were executed, either individually or in groups. The number of those executed has not been verified. 225 names have been identified, although it has been reported that the number of victims may have reached, or even exceeded, 2,000.[8] Among the many victims were prominent local Resistance leaders, such as the secretary of the Communist Party of Crete, Vangelis Ktistakis, who was murdered in prison on 16 June 1944 by German guards when he tried to react, and the Lasithi politician and member of the EAM, lawyer Roussos Koundouros, who was shot on 29 August 1944.[9]
The Agia Prison also served as a transit camp. On 10 February 1944, almost 400 men and a small number of women who had been arrested in a large purge operation in various provinces of the Prefecture of Chania (mainly in the villages of Meskla, Zourva, Theriso, Epanohori Selinou, etc.) on the same day, were transferred there.[10] Giorgos Stamatakis from Meskla recalls: “On the first night in Agia, they put 500 people in one room. It was a shack and they had blocked the windows. And there were informers outside watching – they knew who had a fake ID and if someone gave a false name, they would grab them. The interrogations began in prison. They tortured us […] They let some go, then they let some others and in the end, there were 9 of us left from my village – me, my father and 7 others – and from Meskla there were 38 of us in total. And of those, 11 of us returned.[11] After about a month and various releases in the meantime, about 250 detainees were sent via Athens, Thessaloniki and Belgrade to Mauthausen.
According to post-war Greek and German judicial records, the prison commander during the period 1943-44 was Major Friedrich Wilhelm Klamt from Dortmund, who, according to a Greek witness, was also a member of the German military court in Chania.[12] The duties of camp commander were probably performed by Hermann Tauchert, a lieutenant in the military police, who was later captured by the British in Egypt and has since disappeared without trace.[13] The prison secretary was a Greek-speaking Warrant Officer named Rogoss, who is referred to in several testimonies by inmates as “Rokos,” and nicknamed “the angel of death”, as he was the one who usually read out the names of prisoners who were to be transferred or executed.[14] Major Klamt personally took part in executions and torture, while the humiliation of the hostages awaiting execution is particularly etched in the memory: “Klamt was a brutal man, culminating in his order to execute about 10 prisoners in early 1944, who were performing forced labour in the area of Profitis Ilias. Some of them were to be released after a few days. They lived in the open air and, after being given spoiled canned food, suffered from constant diarrhoea and did not know where to go to relieve themselves. They were executed. Klamt’s inferior officers shot them at close range.[15]
After the war, Agia continued to function as an agricultural prison and remains in operation to this day. In 1953, the Municipality of Chania erected a monument at the site of the executions, designed by sculptor Yannis Kanakakis. The monument is made of marble, with successive levels ending in a cube at the top. The names of 225 executed prisoners are inscribed on the sides and back. There is also an underground ossuary.[16]
[1] Stefanos K. Anagnostakis, I agrotikes fylakes Kassandras (Erevna sofronistikis politikis) [The Rural Prisons of Kassandra (Research on correctional policy), Thessaloniki [1954], p. 17.
[2] “Militärgericht auf Kreta,” DNG, Jg. III, no. 226 (24.9.1943).
[3] Antonis Sanoudakis, Raus. Stin kolasi tou Melk o Kostas Kseksakis [Raus. Kostas A. Kseksakis in the hell of Melk,], published by the Association of Philologists of Rethymno, Rethymno 1996, p. 49.
[4] Testimony of Dr. Hatzimanolis, in: Vardis Vardinoyannis, Argyro Kokkovli, Germanikes Fylakes Agias [German Prisons of Agia] 1941-1945, Society for the Preservation of Historical Archives (EDIA), Chania 2005, pp. 174-176.
[5] Vardinoyannis, Kokkovli, German Prisons of Agia, p. 141.
[6] Testimony of Michalis Peirasmakis, in: Antonis Sanoudakis-Sanoudos, Iroes ke Demones. I Ethniki Antistasi tou Krousona [Heroes and Demons. The National Resistance of Krousonas], Taksideftis, Athens 2013, pp. 119-125.
[7] Vardinoyannis, Kokkovli, German Prisons of Agia, p. 99. Also, Sanoudakis, Raus, p. 49.
[8] Vardinoyannis, Kokkovli, German Prisons of Agia, pp. 22-29.
[9] Vardinoyannis, Kokkovli, German Prisons of Agia, pp. 119-125.
[10] NARA, T-78, roll 331, Tagesmeldung OB Südost, 11.2.1944.
[11] Mauthausen Memorial Archive, Μ_5_2_616 Stamatakis
[12] BArch, B 162/17352, Bl. 30, 31. Report of an affidavit hearing of a witness, Evangelos Fronimos, Chania, 7 April 1947 (German translation of Greek original).
[13] BArch, B 162/17352 , Bl. 20, StA Bochum, Abschrift, 16 Js 40/57, Bochum, 17 February 1969.
[14] Testimony of Radamanthos N. Kondylakis, in: Vardinoyannis, Kokovli, German Prisons of Agia, p. 111.
[15] BArch, B 162/17352, Bl. 46f., Geogios Papadopetros to the competent office regarding the war criminals of the military command, 20.7.1945 (German translation of Greek original)
[16] Vardinoyannis, Kokovli, German Prisons of Agia, p. 28.
