Paleo Trikeri

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.[1] The island has an area of about 4.5 km2.[2] There are no cars or roads on the island. In antiquity, the island was called Cicynethus (Ancient Greek: Κικύνηθος, romanized: Kikynethos).[3][4][5] Ancient Kikynethos formed as polis (city-state) of Magnesia, ancient Thessaly.[6]

Paleo Trikeri
Native name:
Παλαιό Τρίκερι
Paleo Trikeri, north of the tip of the Pelion peninsula
Geography
Coordinates39°10′00″N 23°05′00″E
Adjacent bodies of waterPagasitic Gulf, near Pelion
Area4.5 km2 (1.7 sq mi)
Administration

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. An International commission 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.[7] On October 9, 1913 the Bulgarian ships Varna, "Boris" and "Bulgaria" arrived to Old Trikeri to take the prisoners back. The next day they left the island. "Varna" and "Boris" left Volos with a total 2.462 Bulgarian ex-prisoners soldiers and 43 officers (Реч, № 1220, 14 октомври 1913, с. 1). At 12 of October all three ships arrived to Varna with the total number of 3.440 ex-prisoners soldiers, 40 officers, 14 Bulgarian ex-telegraphists from Thessaloniki and 8 Bulgarian ex-railways workers(Народни права, № 180, 15 окт. 1913, с. 3. Хроника. Понеделник, 14 октомври). On 15 of October Bulgarian newspapers „Пряпорец” and „Воля” wrote, that with the first group liberated from Greece Bulgarians there were 3.388 soldiers and lower officers, and 64 officers (Пряпорец, г. XVI, № 25, 15 октомври 1913, с. 3; Воля, № 214, 15 окт. 1913, с. 3, Хроника, София, 14 октомври) or 3.281 soldiers and lower officers and 64 officers (Български пленници от Гърция в Варна (Специална кореспонденция) Варна, 16 октомври 1913 г. – Мир, № 4036, 21 окт. 1913, с. 2). But we know that some people died during the journey from Greece to Bulgaria too (Страданията на българските пленници в Гърция. IV. – Воля, № 224, 26 окт. 1913, с. 3). This was the first group of the Bulgarian prisoners that came back. At 18 of November of 1913 there came another group of 1.347 prisoners, including 3 officers (М-р председателят д-р В. Радославов във Варна. Посрещането. Аудиенцията при Царицата. Разказът на бълг. пленници. – Народни права, № 212, 21 ноем. 1913, с. 3). Generally, there were officially 5.330 Bulgarian war prisoners during the II Balkan War in Greece (many of them on other places of Greece) and some arrested komitajis (who's number is unknown). According to Greek reports of September of 1913, there also were 870 Bulgarian civilians - meaning komitajis. At the same time, Bulgarian side was seeking for 4.910 war prisoners from Greeks. Sis wrote in 1914, that according to Greek statistics, on Old Trikeri there were in total 7.000 Bulgarian prisoners (but he forgot to tell us, who gave him this "official Greek number"). Anyhow. Totally there were 254 Bulgarian prisoners lost according to Bulgarian list of Bulgarian prisoners, and 297 Bulgarian prisoners lost according to Greek list of Bulgarian prisoners. Probably, part of this men were lost at Old Trikeri.

http://morskivestnik.com/compass/news/2018/122018/images/MVkTRIKERI2__01122018.pdf

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 pro-Communist 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 paraCommunist forces which had fought against fascist occupation during World War II and against the nonCommunist resistance movements and governments. In September 1949 political activists from other camps were sent to Paleo Trikeri, increasing the number of people held there to 4,700.[8]

References
  1. Lonely Planet website
  3. Pomponius Mela. De situ orbis. 2.7.
  4. Pliny. Naturalis Historia. 4.12.
  5.  Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Cicynethus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
  6. Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen (2004). "Thessaly and Adjacent Regions". An inventory of archaic and classical poleis. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 719. ISBN 0-19-814099-1.
  7. George Frost Kennan, The Other Balkan Wars: A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect A Carnegie Endowment Book; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1993, ISBN 0870030329, p. 245.
  8. Victoria Theodorou (Ed.) 'The Trikeri Journal' in Eleni Fourtouni, Greek Women in Resistance, (Thelphini, 1986), pp. 105 - 111. (Greek: "Στα νησιά της Ελλάδας") (Sta nisia tis Elladas, Transl. To the islands of Greece) February 1947 published by: (Greek: Εθνική Αλληλεγγύη Ελλάδος) Transl. National Solidarity Organisation of Greece
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