Firefighters walk along a road carrying firefighting tools during a wildfire in the Rethymno region on the southern Greek island of Crete, Wednesday, where two firefighters died while battling the blaze. [AP]
At proud and modest Gerakari, high on the slopes of Crete’s Mt Kedros , guardian of one of the passes into the Amari valley, no one forgets the price of war.
Here, on August 22, 1944, the vengeful madness of the withdrawing Nazis erupted, with the execution of 54 men, women and children in this village, along with another 110 from nearby settlements. Here the bust of a local patriarch is accompanied by the words, “My five sons fell in the wars in Asia Minor, Albania and the German Occupation. If I had another five I would gladly offer them to the homeland.”
Opposite the valley, at Fourfouras, on the slopes of Mt Psiloritis, a monument honors the fighters against the Ottoman Empire and later campaigns. All across the Amari region, there are monuments and living memories of Crete’s endless wars, of its various invaders and the Cretans’ perennial resistance. Today, Gerakari and Fourfouras and all of Crete are in mourning for two firefighters who died on Wednesday in the battle against fire and wind in a neighboring region, in the war that is the climate crisis.
