How Greek Theosophists
Survived Nazi
Occupation
K.
Melissaropoulos
The Parthenon in Greece
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Editorial Note:
History is the human
record of
collective
Karma. Any accurate vision of the
theosophical
movement must include the story
of its survival
during the critical years of the
Second World
War; and Greece is no exception.
In October 1940,
Italian fascist troops
invaded Greece
from Albania. Greek armed forces
quickly defeated
the fascists; but then the German Nazis
invaded the
country and succeeded in dominating it. From
that moment on,
Greek population increasingly resisted
the Nazis with
guerrilla warfare. Nazi troops left Greece in
October 1944,
but their occupation was followed by civil
war between
Communists and Democrats. The “Communist
Rebellion” ended
in February 1945. The following
testimony is
dated March 20, 1945 and describes
the situation
faced by theosophists during the
Nazi occupation
in the first half of the 1940s. [1]
It
was only in the first years of 21st century that a lodge
of
the United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT) was created
in
Athens. The present document was written by a
member
of the Adyar Theosophical Society and published
in
June 1945.[2] While narrating his life in a Nazi
concentration
camp, Mr. K. Melissaropoulos mentions
himself
in the third person, singular. The short
letter
is addressed to the recording secretary in the
international
headquarters of the Adyar Society, in India.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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It is with great
joy that, after four years of enforced silence, we send you our brotherly
greetings from our liberated country.
We wish to protest with all our power to the civilized
world and to all honest and free people against the inhuman and barbarous way
in which the Germans behaved in our country. Untold destruction has been
caused; thousands of innocent men, women and children have been completely
wiped out.
Since the invasion of our country by the Germans, all
Theosophical activity has been suspended, because every gathering whatsoever
was forbidden. Fortunately, we were able
to save most of the furniture of our office and almost the entire library of our
Section. But every contact of our Council with the greatest part of our members
was interrupted.
Two of the members of our Council, namely the ex-Joint
General Secretary, P. Hadjipetros, and
the actual Joint General Secretary, K. Melissaropoulos, were arrested during
the last months of the occupation and imprisoned in the Haidari concentration
camp. It was from this camp that the
Germans picked an average of fifty persons to shoot every week for the purpose
of terrorizing the Greeks who were fighting against them.
Fortunately, our two colleagues have not been
executed, but their stay in that prison forced them to live the most terrible
days of their life, seeing everyday the most heinous crimes which the S.S.
troops committed, with complete disregard of all international laws.
Now that we are liberated, our Council will soon
consider the possibility of reestablishing the Greek Branch of The Society
though it is expected that we shall meet many difficulties, financial and
others.
We shall be very glad to have your news, and, if
possible, to be informed about the international activity of our Society during
the last four years.
NOTES:
[1] Post-war tensions in Greece would emerge again in
1946. It took a few years more for a peaceful democracy to be established in 1949-1950.
[2] We reproduce it from “The Theosophist” magazine, Adyar,
India, June 1945 edition, pp. 109-110. Original title: “In a Greek
Concentration Camp”.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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