Talk:Kalavryta massacre

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 12:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Casualties
I corrected the excessive numbers of dead civilians, according to recent estimates in the Hermann Frank Meyer's excellent book ''Von Wien nach Kalavryta: Die blutige Spur der 117. Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland''. Unfortunately, I only had the Greek translation available, so I thouht it would be of no use to cite pages in this article. Anyone interested in precise numbers (assuming he can read Greek) may take a look at the article on Greek Wikipedia.--Dipa1965 (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate Photo
This article (Massacre of Kalavryta) shares the same photo (but different image file) as the article for Distomo massacre. This is clearly an error as these events happened in different places and on different dates. Image origin must be mistaken for one of these photos. --X2ca (talk) 09:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC) thumb|German troops in front of buildings set ablaze in Distomo, during the massacre.thumb|German soldiers of the [[117th Jäger Division in the burning town of Kalavryta]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by X2ca (talk • contribs) 09:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

On categorization as Violence against men
In regard to this revert (and the two preceding it, which are sniffing right up to the WP:3RR bright line rule), with the edit summary ''these were not combatants and were selected and killed because of their gender. Again plenty of sources. Plz read sources before rev''

The first sentence betrays the fact that the editor is engaging in original research. The second sentence - "Plz read sources before rev" - does not make sense. Here are the sources in the article:


 * Hermann Frank Meyer, Von Wien nach Kalavryta: Die blutige Spur der 117. Jäger-Division durch Serbien und Griechenland - I seriously doubt that this source discusses this event as an example of "Violence against men" or "gendercide". Though true, I haven't read it, as it's in German and not easily available. Somehow I seriously doubt that "Obiwankenobi" has read it either.
 * Andy Varlow, Just Another Man: A Story of the Nazi Massacre of Kalavryta. - I have looked through this source to some extent. I see no indication what so ever that there's anything in it that would support the inclusion of the category "Violence against men" or that such a thing is even discussed in it.

Other than that, the article lacks inline citations, so it's hard to tell exactly how the inclusion of this cat is supposed to be justified. There are hardly any sources overall. In addition I looked at some of the external links and again, nothing in there about "gendercide"

Hence, I would appreciate it if "Obiwankenobi" refrained from telling others to "Plz read sources before rev" until he "read sources plz before rev hisself". It looks like the editor is pretending that something is true while very obviously, it ain't. And then edit warring on the basis of that falsehood.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong however. Let's see where the sources in the article address the issue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * How about "Machine-gun Murder of the Men of Calavryta by Germans"

. Does that qualify as "violence against men"? Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  03:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No, it doesn't. That source just notes that men were killed in the massacre. It doesn't discuss - well, it doesn't really discuss the event in depth at all - the massacre as an instance of "violence against men" or "gendercide". Also, the source is not presently being used in the article AFAICT.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * If the source is not used we can introduce it into the article. As far as discussion I don't think it is really needed. "Murder of Men" is "violence against men". The reliable source is definitive about that. The details of the incident do not detract from the fact that men were murdered, i.e. violence was used against them. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  04:17, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * If "men were murdered" was sufficient to include an article in the "Violence against men" category, we'd pretty much have to put that cat into any article that has to do with war, with crime, with any kind of conflict. That threshold is ridiculous. For the inclusion of the cat to be justified you need a source which explicitly discusses an event as a prominent example of "gendercide" or "violence against men" (in a distinctive kind of way, different than just the regular guys killing other guys). We don't have that here. Just agenda pushing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:24, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * exactly. Marek I think you misunderstand this category - the purpose is to capture instances which illustrate or cover the topic of violence against men. Both the Srebrenica massacre and this one are examples where non-combatant men were targeted for their gender and killed - reliable source on this are clear, the Germans explicitly separated boys/men 12 and older in the village and then killed them-, they were given explicit orders to do so in fact. rather similar to Srebrenica. The sources call it a massacre of the entire male population of the village, so that to me is sufficient to merit mention in violence against men. For now I don't think regular war actions should go in this cat, where enemy soldiers are killed since, while the vast majority of soldiers are men at the time they are killed it is presumably because they are enemy soldiers and not because they they are men. This cat is still being built up but there's no question this is a prime example that should remain within. It's not about men-were-murdered - it's men were murdered because they were men.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:28, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No, you need reliable sources which establish that this article belongs in the category. Your interpretation and feelings on the matter are just original research and in particular, an instance of WP:SYNTH (reading into sources what's not in them). I'm glad that "for now (you) don't think regular war actions should go in this cat". Woo, that's a relief. The fact that you have that "for now" in there sort of illustrates why your action is inappropriate and how out of touch with Wikipedia guidelines your thinking is. I'd love to see you go into the WW2 article and try to insert that cat in there and see how the editors who have been involved in making that into the quality article it is would react.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I think characterisations like "agenda pushing" have a chilling effect on discussion. I, for one, came here into this debate in good faith and I really think labeling edits this way is unhelpful. As far as "Murder of Men" having to do ...with war, with crime, with any kind of conflict,... I don't agree. War, crime and conflict are indiscriminate sources of death. In this case the reliable source makes specific mention of a the murder of a specific gender. That makes a difference. Having said that, it has become rather obvious to me that we are not going to agree any time soon. Thankfully this is a wiki and there are dispute resolution methods like RfCs, other editors dropping by and offering their opinions etc., that will allow me now to drop out of this conversation and wait for fresh input.  Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις   04:46, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In this case the reliable source makes specific mention of a the murder of a specific gender. - so? It does not discuss the event as an example of "Violence against men" or "gendercide". That's putting aside that the "source" is a very brief entry in a tertiary source.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:42, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Murder of a specific gender culled from a mixed gender demographic is targeting that gender. Targeting is discrimination toward that gender. It is directed toward the male gender. It is clear. The classification of the reliable source makes no diference, neither does any additional analysis of the event. Let's not forget we are not writing a Ph.D. thesis on the Kalavryta massacre. We are just trying to add a cat. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  07:37, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, now find a source which says something like that and mentions the Kalavryta massacre in that context. Otherwise, you're doing original research and synthesis. It's precisely because we are NOT writing a Ph.D. thesis (which does involve original research) that we need sources here, not extrapolations by Wikipedia users.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Obvious things are obvious and are not extrapolations, OR or SYNTH. And I think that you misunderstood my reference to writing a Ph.D. thesis. I meant you are making this into a far more complicated subject than it actually is. On the other hand it is clear that your POV is not supported currently in this discussion. Until such time as others support your position there is no consensus for your views. My advice for you would be to wait until such time as others support your view and a clear consensus emerges in your favour. It is clear, as before, that arguing between ourselves is not going to yield any agreement. So let's just agree to disagree and that's the end of it. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  08:20, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Well I've been pushing this position for quite a while. The category itself is weak, collecting hardly related things and few actual articles on specifically about violence against men. For instance, the violence against women category contains human trafficking, foot binding, sati, and Violence against prostitutes, in other words, highly veritable and associated articles. In the violence against men, we have articles like castration, forced circumcision, and Stop Abuse for Everyone that definitely fit, but also war articles with limited (or no) reference to specifically being gendered violence (as well as a few other unrelated articles such as the SCUM manifesto). I'm not saying the category is irrelevant, but it is definitely confused as to what it should be applied to, and also a category that User:Obiwankenobi is stewarding (and therefore very interested in seeing growth within) --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 09:42, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * If this is an obvious thing that is obvious, then it should be trivial to find a source which actually supports the inclusion of the category into this article. Look. The sky is blue. And that's obvious so we don't need to cite it. But if pressed we *could* easily find a source to support it. The earth is round. And that's obvious so we don't need to cite it. But if we *could* easily find a source which say the earth is round. That is NOT the case here. Was this a case of "violence against men", of "gendercide"? Or was it violence against Greeks? Or violence against civilians? Is there some particular aspect which makes this belong to the category of "violence against men"? Or is it just a user trying to co-op this tragedy and suffering in pursuit of some Men's rights agenda (which I find distasteful)?
 * Compare with the situation on the Srebrenica massacre, where I also removed the cat, and was likewise reverted by "Obiwankenobi", who appears to have a serious WP:OWN problem with regard to these articles. But ok, there I looked into it and there *are* actually reliable sources which discuss the Srebrenica massacre as an example of gendercide (for example). So I'm letting that one go, because there is a source (though I'm still not clear as to why it was up to me to find it, rather than the editor who wants to include the cat). But as far as I can tell there's no such sources for this particular massacre, and hence the cat does not belong here.
 * Finally, you were just chastising me for saying that an editor "has an agenda" (he does) as that has a "chilling effect on discussion". And then you turn around and accuse me of pushing some POV. Come on! At least follow your own advice. Don't be one of those "if you do something then that's POV, if I do something then of course that's neutral" types.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:19, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * comment Marek, I would be much more convinced of your neutrality if I saw you clearing out the many hundreds of articles under violence against women, which include individual women who were raped or murdered. We don't have near that level of development of this category, but if you're not going to hold VAW to the same standard then I'm afraid you're revealing your bias. The case for this cat is clear - the lede, and every source I've looked, at discusses this massacre in the first few words as the elimination of the male population of this area. It need not be equated to gendercide, it simply needs to be equated to violence against men on the basis of their gender. Again, sources are clear that this was not indiscriminate - men were ordered to be separated, they were ,and were then killed. Murder of men on the basis of their gender is a special case of violence against men on the basis of their gender. It really is as simple as that. If you accuse me of OR you misunderstand both OR and how categorization works.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:01, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * What exactly is not neutral in my edits? Also see WP:OTHERSTUFF. Right now I'm looking at the use of this cat, later on I might look at the use of another. Don't try to hold my edits hostage to some imaginary edits you think I should make somewhere else. You know that's not how it works.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * To be fair, bringing up his edits outside of this as evidence of bias doesn't constitute a good argument and you do this quite often. I don't think I've ever seen you adding articles to the Violence against women category (or at least I can assert that, I highly doubt you've gone through all of the 43,000 or so edits he has made), but that's beside the point. Violence against women also has an appropriate article that helps to define what fits in the category and what doesn't --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I have studied the contents of VAW and since this is a less developed cat have been working on that. As you know I made parallel edits to misogyny and misandry. The point is, no-one is holding VAW to the same standards being pretended here. They are invented and not justified.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the parallel edits where you removed articles from misogyny and misandry and then added different articles to misandry? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 14:29, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the confusion comes from what exactly the categorisation means. There is certainly violence that happens to men and nobody is trying to argue against this, but it is a different kind of violence than the kind that women face and almost exclusively relates to war crimes. It is not a mirror of the Violence against women category as is systematic in an entirely different way, and in that, as well as the lack of an appropriate Violence against men article, it is hard to know exactly what is to be included within it --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 13:29, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * there should not be any confusion. VAM is violence committed because of the male gender of the victim. You might call conscription a form of bias against men but it's not really violence, even if soldiers end up being killed, again I think soldiers/death in war doesn't fit. However there is sexual violence against men (see WHO which discusses same), as well as Androcide which happens to male populations during war, as well as domestic abuse, and gay men targeted for murder/abuse (in a way lesbian women aren't). Yes some forms of violence are different than those faced by women, but for example acid attacks which we think of as VAW are more common against men in Jamaica. Your assertion that VAM is almost exclusively war crimes is POV bullshit, but it is true that some of the most dramatic incidents are war crimes. I'm going to work on a VAM article once I get some time.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I've asked on a few occasions but please don't swear at me, see WP:CIV Direct rudeness: gross profanity. I think a Violence against men article would probably help your case tenfold, especially if you support it with reliable sources --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Kill all the men, enslave and rape all the women" has been the standard in most warfare through out history (depressing when you think about human nature). If we consider that enough to include the cat then that cat would belong in every single article on a battle, war, massacre, etc. Hence, "men were killed there" is a ridiculous standard. But all this speculation and make-stuff-up is just editors' own feelings and thoughts. It's original research. That's why I'm asking for a reliable source. It's a perfectly reasonable - indeed, the usual - request. And I'm not setting the bar unreasonable high. Something like the source I gave above for Srebrenica massacre (here it is again) would be sufficient. Absent such a source, there's no reason for the cat to be in here. So removing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:28, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * 'wrong Marek you misunderstand the cat. Murder of men based on them being men IS Violence against men. You keep asking for sources but they are in front of your nose: were men singled out by gender for murder? Yes. That's all you need for inclusion in the cat. That's quite different from male soldiers killing other male soldiers so you're harping on a red herring. You are also inventing bullshit requirements like saying a RS must call this gendercide (itself a recent term) - and even though the vast majority of contents in the VAW category are *not* called gendercide. Your continued insistence on RS (when they are staring you in the face) and misleading commentary at the boys are stupid Tshirt controversy makes me think you have a different standard for sourcing than most wikipedians. Murder of males based on their gender IS violence against men. Repeat that three times and you're in business. I'm going to revert this tomorrow and bring it to the ANI if you persist in ignoring the obvious Marek. Your argument that rape of women in war and murder of male civilians in war is "normal" belies your bias - and fwiw we do have a war rape category, and any articles which cover incidents of war rape should be put within - your argument that something happens frequently is a terrible argument for claiming non-inclusion in a category.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:55, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I understand the cat perfectly well. What you need for inclusion is sources which discuss the topic in the context of the cat, not just some editor's belief and original research that the cat fits. What do you base your claim that "That's all you need for inclusion" on? Which policy? Which guideline? Which practice? You are merely expressing your own feelings on the issue rather than adhering to Wikipedia policy.
 * And no, I am not "inventing bullshit requirements". I don't appreciate you labeling my comments as such, you are being dishonest, poisoning the well and engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND rhetoric. Nor am I making "misleading commentary" here or anywhere else. I am actually NOT requiring that a source call this a "gendercide". I am saying that that would be *sufficient*. If you have a source which discusses this in terms *something like* gendercide (without using that word) then I'll accept that. But so far no such source has been presented.
 * I don't know if I have a "different standard for sourcing than most wikipedians". Maybe. Standards on Wikipedia have deteriorated quite a bit in my ten years here so that could be true, sensu stricto. My standards for sourcing are, and always have been, those which are written down in policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:V. If other Wikipedians, such as yourself, don't follow these policies, then that's simply not my problem. It's yours. Reliable sources or it goes. Wanna go ask Jimbo about this? Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Marek I'm using the word bullshit because it's the simplest and most clear description of your requirements. You request a source that calls this violence against men or gendercide or 'something like that'. We have provided and there exist elsewhere oodles of sources that call this a massacre of men, a machine-gunning of men, a murder of men, a slaughter of men: there are documentaries and plays and stories and novels all written about the MEN who were massacred and the women who remain, that study what is life was like in a world with no men. The inclusion criteria for the category is clear: violence against men based on their gender. WP:Defining states that reliable sources should regularly describe the category as a characteristic, so again let's check - do reliable sources regularly describe what happened in this village as a massacre of Greeks, a massacre of partisans, a massacre of civilians, or a massacre of men? The answer is, a massacre of men - this is a defining element of the event, the fact that men were especially targeted and wiped out. That this has happened before and may happen again is no reason to dispute the validity of the category, any more than a woman raped today is just as much an instance of violence against women as the war rape of thousands in Nanking. You're refusing to read the sources that have been presented, and being tendentious and requesting specific language aligned with the category title, a requirement which has never been applied to violence against women cats as far as I can tell. Marek I've seen your behavior and commentary at the boys Tshirt page where you either willingly or ignorantly misled people as to the nature of sources, so I have very little confidence in your ability to assess sourcing here. You've made it clear that your mission is to wipe this category clean and are edit warring across the wiki to ensure it: I won't stand for it.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Speaking of "bullshit": You request a source that calls this violence against men or gendercide or 'something like that'. We have provided and there exist elsewhere oodles of sources that call this a massacre of men, a machine-gunning of men, a murder of men, a slaughter of men: there are documentaries and plays and stories and novels all written about the MEN who were massacred and the women who remain, that study what is life was like in a world with no men. 
 * You, nor anyone else, has NOT provided such a source.
 * IF there exist "elsewhere" (where?) "oodles of sources that call this a massacre of men" then please provide them. Where are these documentaries and plays and stories and novels? Where are the sources? You keep saying these exist but have not provided them.
 * And one more time, since you appear to be suffering from WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, what you need here is not just sources which mention the fact that men were killed here. You need sources which give this massacre as an example of "Violence against men". Big "V" vs. little "v".
 * And again, I would appreciate it if you quit dishonestly mischaracterizing my comments at other articles/discussions. Sure, I understand that you disagreed with them. But to accuse me of "willingly" or "ignorantly" "misleading people" is a straight up personal attack. Same goes for your imaginings of what my "mission" is. Either engage the discussion in good faith and do your job as a Wikipedia editor and provide sources or back off and quit it with the edit warring. It's really simple.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:16, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

14 April list of sources and discussion

 * sources I can't believe how much time I've wasted to demonstrate to tendentious editors like Marek the validity of this category. He will likely complain that these sources don't have capital letter 'V' for violence but rather only lowercase 'm' for murder, but what can one do, it is impossible to convince him, so I hope others will read and share their thoughts:
 * "In full rage, Le Suire then issued the order to burn down all houses and to shoot the male population in the area of operation… Even before reaching Kalavryta, his soldiers torched all villages and shot the male population… Kalavryta as the region’s political and cultural centre was burnt to the ground, too, and between 460 and 500 male Greek civilians were shot on December 13, 1943." Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia [2 Volumes] edited by Alexander Mikaberidze
 * "One massacre in particular - the mass shooting of over 500 men from the town of Kalavryta - turned the reprisal policy into a highly controversial political issue…In retaliation for his men’s abduction, he embarked on a brutal series of reprisal raids in the mountains around Kalavryta and by the middle of December his troops had burned 25 villages and shot 696 Greeks, including the entire male population of Kalavryta itself." Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44, By Mark Mazower
 * "In “Kalavrita of the Thousand Antigones”, published first in 1979… Delbo provides a stunning image of the doubleness of trauma’s belated temporality: the past is at once completely present, because trauma stops time… In this narrative, a Greek women recounts to a “Voyater”, Delbo, how, in December 1943, the Germans entered Kalavrita, a Peloponesian village, and massacred all of the men, while the women were held in the village school. Much of “Kalavrita” recounts the efforts of the women to bury the thirteen hundred men, hence the reference to Antigone." Extremities: Trauma, Testimony, and Community, edited by Nancy K. Miller, Jason Danie
 * "A cable from Athens dated January 2, 1944 revealed, for example, that as reprisal against the resistance, all the male inhabitants of the village of Kalavrita in the Peloponnese had been massacred, including young boys” A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, By Lucas Delattre
 * The sources above, and any others you care to find that discuss the massacre, exclusively describe it as a massacre of men, and note how the men and boys were separated from the women before behind killed. There were many other atrocities committed against civilians in Greece, but Kalavryta/Kalavrita was somewhat unique in the gendered discrimination of those killed (later, the Nazis would kill women and children with abandon). As Adam Jones writes "If gendercide and mass killings of males is to some degree definitional of modern conflict, we may also be able to isolate an essential if not universal ritual of gendercide against men. It is the physical act of separating men from women as a prelude to consigning men to death. The ritual is enacted with great frequency the world over, although it is not always explicit in the above examples. Nonetheless, as Hochschild likened the evidence of gendercide in the grotesquely-misnamed Congo Free State to the "ruins of an Auschwitz crematorium" (see the excerpt above), we should see in our minds the camp commander and his henchmen on the platform, systematically and dispassionately "culling" part of a group (here, the male part) and consigning those selected to rapid extermination In witness accounts, at the moment the men were separated from the women, they said goodbye with tears in their eyes, as they had a premonition of what was going to happen (because as VM so callously points out, this has happened before).
 * So, again, what is the evidence we have that this was an instance of violence against men? First, what is the inclusion criteria for the category? We can read it at, which says: "Articles on the topic of gender-based violence against men or boys." Thus, an article can be included in the category if a DEFINING feature of the article is gender-based violence against men or boys. So, the question is, were the victims of Kalavryta selected for murder BECAUSE of their gender? Yes, reliable sources clearly indicate this. It was a direct order from the German commander to KILL all of the men. Is murder a form of violence? I'm not even going to bother answering that one, but Marek is apparently uncertain on this point so perhaps someone else can illuminate him. Indeed, if the category was called "Massacres of entire male populations", Marek would probably permit the category since so many reliable sources use those exact words, but since the category is called "Violence against men" Marek disputes that this is "Violence" with a capital "V" and instead argues that it is, I suppose, violence with a lowercase 'v'? Honestly, I wish someone else would help here, I have no idea what Marek is talking about and I'm really sick of discussing it with him.
 * Finally, Marek wants to know, where are the documentaries and plays and novels? Well, Marek, I suggest you go to visit the holocaust museum in Greece where they have published a number of testimonies, poems, books, writings, sculpture, artwork, and so on, about this horrible massacre, and perhaps you can ask them if any violence was committed against men in that town, and ask them if they are a reliable source or not.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Of course I'll complain because you're not acting in good faith. What you are doing is providing sources for the fact that "men were killed in this massacre". Yes. That's not the same as providing sources for the contention that this is some kind of quintessential example of "Violence against men". Yes. Men were killed in this massacre. Were they killed because it was the Germans' intent to eradicate the male gender from the face of the earth? Were they killed because the Germans were sexists towards men? No. They were killed because they represented a threat and because the Nazis were really into killing people. You are trying to hijack this horrible event to serve your own agenda about "men being victims of oppression" which is, quite frankly, despicable and distasteful. So don't lecture me on "visiting the Holocaust museum". I've been there, I've seen it. And I got closer connections to what happened then just "visiting a museum" can ever provide. It has nothing to do with your inane obsessions with portraying horrific events such as this as some kind of "violence against men" and violation of "men's rights". And don't accuse me of POV pushing when all I'm doing is trying to bring some balance to the topic area that you and a few of your buddies have taken over and skewed in a very twisted way. Get a blog (if you haven't already) and push your agenda over there. This is - or at least it's supposed to be - an *encyclopedia* after all, not a platform for fringe views.
 * No reliable sources have been provided to support that this event was in any way an example of "Violence against men". Try harder or go go away and grow up.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, not "men were killed" - men were SELECTED to be killed, based on the fact that they were MEN. Please read the "Gendercide and genocide" piece above which goes into this in quite a lot of detail. I have never said anything about "men's rights", and I don't have any buddies here. If anyone is pushing a fringe view, it is you - you are the one, remember, who thought that Srebrenica was also not an example of violence against men (but you retreated with tail between legs), you also though Abu Ghraib was not an example of violence against men (but if you care to read sources, you will again retreat with tail between legs). Marek, you're going to lose on this one, too, so why not give up now? Men were targeted because they were men - old men, 12 year old boys - where exactly are your sources that say the Nazis killed them because they were a threat? Bullshit!!! The nazi's killed them because the commander was furious and he wanted to teach the Greek partisans a lesson, and the lesson was, we will slaughter all of your men and burn your village, that was the order, and one group actually undertook to execute that order. That's what the sources say. You're the one who is making up stories about why they were killed "Cuz Nazis liked to kill people, cuz they were a threat, blah blah" - what-EVER. Why don't you bring some sources of your own that demonstrate that this isn't violence against men, or sources that discuss how men WERENT targeted for execution, or how men WERENT separated from the women and children and machine-gunned after being promised safety. Oh, wait, you don't have ANY such sources, do you, Marek, just your opinions?? How is it that you demand sources but provide none of your own, and then don't even bother to engage with the sources I provided? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:20, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, first let me respond to this little gem: "you are the one, remember, who thought that Srebrenica was also not an example of violence against men (but you retreated with tail between legs), you also though Abu Ghraib was not an example of violence against men (but if you care to read sources, you will again retreat with tail between legs).". And the edit summary you left with the comment on my talk page "down boy".
 * Let's see. On Srebrenica I removed the cat. You reverted and claimed - but failed to provide - sources supported its inclusion. Since you didn't actually back up your claim, I did my own research and yes, I did find sources which supported the cat's inclusion. So I left it alone.
 * Now. You can call that "retreating with tail between legs" if you want. But it's really just good practice and good faith editing on my part. If it turns out I'm wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?
 * Let me point out that if you hope to edit Wikipedia in a collaborative and collegiate manner than it doesn't really make sense to taunt users with statements about them "retreating with tail between legs" or with edit summaries like "down boy!". These kind of comments really just exemplify the WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude that you seem to have, as I've already pointed out and suggest you should not be editing topics related to "Violence Against Men" and "Men's Rights" until you are able to calm down and grow up a little.
 * You're lucky that this topic isn't subject to discretionary sanctions. All the same, I'd appreciate it if you'd strike those comments above.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Those sources say what happened but not the why. Which I think is the bit you need to be clearer about. I'd say you have to go up to the reasons for the formulation of the reprisal policy that directed the killings to identify it was against men because they were men and for the reasons such as "men-as-potential-combatants" or "men-because-ou t r-troops-would-not-shoot-women". GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Graeme. I understand your question but such a standard does not exist for any other gendered category that I can think of - for example, articles are placed in if violence against women, because of their gender, is defining of the article. No-one is asked to provide reasons WHY women were targeted - it suffices to establish that it was an act of violence and was done because of their gender. Non-combatant males have been subject to reprisals throughout history, the Adam Jones piece on gendercide and genocide reviews this in detail and concludes there may be different issues at play in the decision to just eliminate the men and spare the women (as opposed to other genocidal approaches where men, women and children are killed) - there are also cases where only women are targeted for violence or killing. But I don't know why we need to get some sort of motivation or justification for slaughtering 800 men and boys (what was the motivation for Srebrenica?) - nor why it makes a difference here. If I found a source that said the nazi commander was angry and wanted to teach a lesson to other Greek villages and make an example of kalavryta and figured by killing all the men the women would pass the message on to other villages, would that be justification for inclusion or not? I'm just not sure where motivation comes into it - if someone is targeted based on their gender that should be sufficient. (A platoon killing another platoon is different, as that is soldiers targeting other soldiers and presumably they would not behave differently if some of the soldiers were women) --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You keep referencing the Adam Jones piece. Does he actually talk about this massacre in it? Or are you just doing WP:SYNTH?
 * Also, see this review of Jones' book . There, the author gets right to the heart of the matter:
 * "To be a useful and necessary concept, gendercide should define a unique, although closely related phenomenon. Gendercide would then be, and Jones often treats it as if it is, an attack on a group of victims based on the victims' gender/sex. Such an attack would only really occur if men or women are victimized because of their primary identity as men or women. In the case of male gendercide, male victims must be victims first and foremost because they are men, not male Bosnians, Jews, or Tutsis. Moreover, it must be the perpetrators themselves, not outside observers making ex-poste analyses, who identify a specific gender/sex as a threat and therefore a target for extermination."
 * That seems like a very reasonable criteria upon which to base the decision as to whether the cat belongs or not.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I just did a search of the book edited by Jones for "Kalavryta" on gbooks and amazon. The word does not appear to appear in the text. So it seems this is just "Obiwankenobi"'s synthesis and original research.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:23, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, this isn't synth, this is simply following the sources. i've already explained in detail above, there's no need to repeat myself. The name of the category is not "Gendercides" in any case, so there's no need for Jones to have identified every particular massacre for it to merit inclusion per WP:BLUESKY; I've already established well with sources above that this massacre was enacted against men, and that men were selected specifically for execution, and that the commanding officer ORDERED the (civilian, non-combatant) men to be killed. I've struck the comments above, which went too far, and I apologize, I was frustrated.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:42, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll take that response to mean "no, Adam Jones does not talk about Kalavryta massacre at all, I just synthesized that source with my own gut feelings".
 * And I've already addressed the "it's obvious" WP:BLUESKY objection. If something is obvious we don't need to source it. But - and this is the key - we could source it. We don't need sources in our article Sky which say it's blue. But such sources would be trivial to find. That isn't the case here. If the fact that the present article satisfies criteria for inclusion of the cat (see also the review above) is "obvious" then it should be trivial to provide sources to that effect, whether we wish to include them in the article or not. The fact that no one - including not you - has been able to provide such sources suggests very strongly that "it's not obvious" at all.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * As to the book review, I note that it's a review, so it's more of that one author's feelings - the work of Jones and Gendercide watch is widely cited in any case, and the review itself gives credence to the theories in the book. That said, part of the comment above doesn't make much sense, because if an Army decided that "Men" - tout court - were the problem - then wouldn't the soldiers have to kill themselves? It's non-sensical. Gender is always intersected with other attributes. There are some massacres which are termed politicides, e.g. elimination of the political/intellectual elite; some massacres, like that of Jews by the Nazis, are proper genocides, where it was hatred of Jews that drove the slaughter, and in which men, women and children were more or less killed with equal abandon. However, the Germans in Greece in WWII weren't interested in eliminating the greek population; instead they wanted to control them, and to do so by threats and reprisals. I'm not even sure if the men of Kalavryta were killed because they were perceived to be a threat - it seems more likely they were killed as revenge for partisan killing of german soldiers, at least that's what the sources say - otherwise there's little explanation for the slaughter of old men or young boys. That said, I think the second part is reasonable: "Moreover, it must be the perpetrators themselves, not outside observers making ex-poste analyses, who identify a specific gender/sex as a threat and therefore a target for extermination." - but there is plenty of evidence for this, notably through the separation of sexes as a precursor to murder, which Jones cites as a common, almost universal, aspect of such massacres. Again, you keep on claiming there are no sources, but I have provided sources above that you haven't engaged with that demonstrate men were selected for death because of their gender. That's the blue sky part you're missing.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:58, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment Regardless of the ins and outs if sources describe this as a massacre of men then by virtue of being in the category:massacres of men and thus an example of androcide it could be included in the category:Violence against men. However I think there are questions about that category and whether it should include only androcide or every single example of it. But such discussion should happen elsewhere. It seems to me this argument should be less about this article in particular and more about how that category works-- Cailil  talk 09:29, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

This massacre is a prime example of genocidal policies by in this case mostly catholic Nazis against Ortodox men in Greece. However, its focus was not religious, but GENDER related, and clearly is example of selective violence against Greek men. Please do not remove the category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nemboysha (talk • contribs) 20:09, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: I haven't read all the catty arguments above, but perhaps a clearer category name would help.  We seem to be arguing as much over semantics as substance.  Clearly, if you expect to treat VAM as symmetrical with VAW, we're going to end up with very little in the category, because men and women are treated so differently.  As for targeting men or men and boys in war, that is worth its own category, perhaps as a subcat of VAM.  Such massacres are extremely common – they're the first commandment of the Bible after all (of your neighbors, kill the men, rape the women, and enslave the children, but of the people you live among, kill every man, woman, and child) – so they would certainly support a dedicated cat.  Also, targeting of gay men is a specific category as well: it's homophobia, not generic VAM; spousal violence would also warrant a subcat.  Much more informative that way than lumping everything in together and screaming at each other as to what the limits should be.  — kwami (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

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Austrian officer myth
I was told emphatically by multiple employees at the Museum of the Kalavryta Holocaust that the story of the Austrian officer is false. Unfortunately I cannot find a written source debunking it, though there are many sources that omit it or treat it as a mere rumor. The historical record shows that the doors were locked and the building was set on fire. What the historical record does not show is that soldiers were under orders to guard the doors, or that any soldiers acted under their own initiative to unlock the doors.

I have added citation needed and dubious tags. The story is dubious because there should be some German record of the disciplinary action, and because there is no evidence that the 117th Jäger Division made an attempt to resist the escape. Surely it cannot be that difficult for armed soldiers to keep unarmed women and children trapped in a building, and at minimum some of them would have been shot escaping, yet there are no accounts of this.

I have no objection to removing the claim entirely, but since the rumor is fairly widespread it would be even better if someone could find a source (perhaps a Greek source) explaining exactly why modern historians believe it is false.

I do not believe the tags are redundant, as Template:Dubious says the template is not to be used "to flag unsourced statements, unless you think they are incorrect". In this case I do think the unsourced statement is incorrect, for reasons explained above.

Manybytes (talk) 20:59, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

...but is it a myth?
When I visited Kalavrita in 1979, I met an elderly Greek gentleman in the church, a warden looking after the church, who was a survivor of the massacre. His eyewitness account of that fateful day in 1943, related orally to myself and my party, included the story of the Austrian soldier who left one of the school doors unlocked so that the women and children could escape.

Personally, I have always taken his account at face value and have never doubted its veracity. I think the reasoning of Manybytes - that since there is no surviving historical account of disciplinary action arising from this incident, it is unlikely to be true - is itself suspect. I think it is perfectly feasible that a door was surreptitiously left unlocked by a soldier who nonetheless subsequently evaded suspicion and disciplinary action.

Manybytes claims that modern historians believe the story is false, and asks other contributors to find a source to back him up. Manybytes, I think it is up to you to provide a source to support your claim, as otherwise it looks as though you are making unsourced claims that smack of OR.

Of course, my account of what a survivor of the massacre told me 43 years ago is not a sufficiently reliable source for Wikipedia, in the same way that Manybytes's account of what he was told at the museum is, in itself, not a sufficiently reliable source. However, there are plenty of sources that describe the massacre and mention accounts of the Austrian soldier. The following are amongst the first Google search results:

1. According to https://www.greeka.com/peloponnese/kalavryta/sightseeing/kalavryta-holocaust/, "It is said that an Austrian soldier ... helped them to get out".

2. https://greekherald.com.au/culture/the-kalavryta-holocaust-darkest-moment-in-modern-greek-history/ states "it is believed that an Austrian soldier freed them, while the some [sic] other Nazi soldiers also allowed them to be freed".

3. https://greekreporter.com/2021/12/13/kalavryta-the-bloodiest-nazi-massacre-in-greece/ states "There is a rumor that an Austrian soldier who had been entrusted with their custody left one door open so they could flee".

4. According to https://variety.com/2021/film/global/echoes-of-the-past-kalavryta-1943-massacre-1235103647/ there was an exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC that cited 14 eyewitnesses who relayed the story of the Austrian soldier.

I am aware that currently some of the descendants of survivors are adamant that there was no Austrian soldier, as evidenced by their reaction to the film "Echoes of the Past". Their view does not correspond to the account given to me directly by one of the survivors.

I think the account of the Austrian soldier needs to be mentioned in the article. At the very least it is an integral part of the story of the Kalavrita Massacre, even if it is now difficult to establish it as historical fact. Consequently, I have added: "According to some accounts, an Austrian solder left a door of the school unlocked, thereby allowing the women and children to escape". StefanosPavlos (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Accidentally?
Contributor 2804:D4B:9A42:9300:784C:FECE:2552:DBF1 has added the word "accidentally" to the sentence "According to some accounts, an Austrian solder left a door of the school unlocked, thereby allowing the women and children to escape". S/he makes no attempt to source this word, and none of the sources I found that mention the Austrian soldier say that the soldier's action was accidental. There is clear indication in the sources that the action was intentional. Consequently I have removed the word "accidentally".StefanosPavlos (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)