Dear friends,

As we approach to the celebration of the end of Second World War, at May 8 of 1945, we continue our investigation on the theosophical movement during those dark years.

We have just published a new text in our website about the moving testimony of a Greek theosophist during the Nazi occupation.

The text follows below.

Best regards, Joaquim

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Theosophy in Greece Under Nazism

How Greek Theosophists

Survived Nazi Occupation

K. Melissaropoulos

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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.

It was in October 1940 that 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 year 2001 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.

(CCA)

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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 finally 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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