Trikeri Island
Paleo Trikeri (Greek: Παλαιό Τρίκερι) or Old Trikeri, also known as Trikeri Island, is a small island in the Pagasitic Gulf off the end of the Pelion peninsula in Thessaly, Greece. It is part of the municipal unit of Trikeri within the municipality of South Pelion. In the 2001 census it was reported to have a population of 87, but the year-round population has been estimated at 15. The island has an area of about 4.5 km2. There are no cars or roads on the island.
In June 1913, at the end of the Second Balkan War, the Greek authorities turned the almost uninhabited island into a death camp for Bulgarian prisoners of war. This was the first death camp in Europe, earlier than the Nazi Konzlagers and earlier than the Solovetskie Islands in Russia. The Greek government interned there thousands of Bulgarian people, citizens of Thessaloniki and Aegean Trace, whose only guilt was being Bulgarian. Later, thousands of Bulgarian POWs, mostly ordinary and sergeants, were also brought in. Prisoners were forced to sleep under the open sky and were deprived of water, food and medical services. Many were thrown overboard and drowned, to the cheers of the sailors. The prisoners were forced to provide for their own water by digging holes in the sand near the sea. At first, the muddy water was fresh and drinkable, but soon turned brackish and new holes were dug. When ships delivered food, the bags with bread were thrown in the water on purpose to soak the bread and to add more suffering and humiliation. It will never be known how many died there, and how many drowned in. An international committee sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment was sent to inspect the conditions, but the local guards turned it back under the excuse that there was a cholera epidemic. On October 9 1913 the Bulgarian ship Varna arrived and was allowed to take back home 1800 survivors.
From the last months of 1946 the island was used as a concentration camp. The first to arrive after a decision of the minister for National Security Napoleon Zervas, were male antifacist political prisoners, mostly from the districts of Epirus and Thessaly, who participated in the EAM-ELAS, resistance movement during the WWII and the occupation period of Greece by Italian, German and Bulgarian military forces. Later in 1947 the men were relocated to other concentration camps and the camp was used for female antifascist political prisoners during the Greek Civil War. The women and their children were themselves members of the EAM - ELAS or/and relatives of members of the EAM-ELAS, the resistance forces which had fought against fascist occupation during World War II. In September 1949 political activists from other camps were sent to Paleo Trikeri, increasing the number of people held there to 4,700.
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