ATHENS: Greece has acquired a trove of World War II photographs showing the last moments of 200 men executed by German soldiers following the assassination of a Nazi general, the culture minister said Saturday.
The collection includes 262 photographs, 16 documents and four contemporary banknotes. The photographs are believed to have been taken by a German soldier who had also served in Belgium and France.
“The transfer of ownership of the photographic collection... has been completed,” Lina Mendoni said.
The ministry had previously said they showed “the last moments” of 200 communists executed in an Athens shooting range on May 1, 1944.
Twelve of the photographs had appeared on the Ebay site Crain´s Militaria earlier this month before being taken down.
They had provoked strong emotions in Greece, especially among relatives of the victims. Ministry officials then travelled to Belgium to meet the collector who put them for sale and verify their authenticity.
The executions followed the killing of a German general and his staff by Communist guerrillas a few days earlier.
Greece was under Nazi occupation from 1941 until 1944.
Most of the executed men had been arrested years earlier during anti-communist raids by the police of Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas.
Until now, the only testimony of the 200 victims´ final moments were from handwritten notes they threw out of the trucks taking them to the execution site.
One of the pictures shows the men marching through a field. Others show them standing against a wall at the shooting range.
The most dramatic photograph shows several of them looking defiantly into the camera. Two of them appear to be singing.
