Advisor/tutor: Jorinde Seijdel

Independent reviewer: Rana Hamadeh

Arnhem, June 2013

ABSTRACT

Kalavryta is a small town located on the mountains of Peloponnese in Greece. It is a place charged with a lot of different meanings throughout the country's modern history, starting by being the symbol of the establishment of the Greek state in 1821. During the Second World War, on December 13, 1943 the Wehrmacht army burned down the village, destroyed the food reserves and executed all male inhabitants above the age of 14. This story is known as 'the Kalavrytan Holocaust' and has a prominent place in the national narrations. After the elections of April 2012 and while the country was severely challenged by the financial crisis, the media announced that a big percentage of votes for the political party Golden Down was coming out of Kalavryta. The news evoked numerous reactions, as Golden Down is a party whose ideology has many similarities to that of National Socialism.
During my research I visited Kalavryta many times in order to investigate the reasons behind this controversy and understand how the present is getting formulated as a result of the past.