Driving up from Katerini to the village of Agios Dimitrios along the Olympus Pass the road winds through wooded hills. On the coastal plains it is warm and sunny but as you rise up into the mountains the weather cools and the wet roads tell you that you are entering another environment. These are the slopes of Mount Olympus – the home of the ancient Greek Gods. It is not difficult to imagine the playful but tormenting Dryads lurching in the forest, waiting to torment the tired shepherd or woodsman of old.

The mountain passes of the region have seen their share of conflict and war. No doubt it was through these that the ancient Dorians descended on the local inhabitants, bringing to an end the Mycenaean era in Greece. Herodotus’ history tells us that it was in these very passes that 10,000 armed men camped to face the advancing Persian army, before being withdrawn to the Thermopylae Pass. And on the walls of the village tavernas hang the old photographs of the fighters for Greek independence from Ottoman rule – and of the fierce klephts who walked the mountain passes.

And in the cold days of early April 77 years ago, Anzac troops deployed across the mountain passes of the region in their effort to halt the coming German advance in 1941. Major defensive engagements would take place at Vevi, Servia, Platamon and Tempe Gorge – to the west and east of the Katerini-Elassona road. In these battles Anzac and British troops would fight side by side with their Greek allies. And the little village of Agios Dimitrios, sitting astride this road, would see its share of the war too.

This very road on which I travelled was defended by the New Zealand 5th Brigade commanded by Brigadier Hargest on 15 and 16 April. A sheep farmer in civilian life, I wonder if he welcomed the sight of the flocks of sheep that traverse the pass!

Hargest’s troops comprised soldiers of the New Zealand 28th (Maori), 22nd and 23rd Battalions spread from left to right across the pass, the 22nd defending the region of the road itself. They were to hold the pass until the evening of 16 April. Further to the south, as the road emerged from the Olympus range, the Australian soldiers of the 2/1st Australian Infantry Battalion were deployed at Livadero. These positions helped defend the major Allied transport hub at Larissa further south.

Soon the New Zealanders were confronted by the advancing German 5th Mountain Division, which had earlier taken part in the fierce fighting at the Rupel Pass north of Thessaloniki. It was the soldiers of the 22nd Battalion who first heard the German troops calling out in English to confuse the defenders as they defused mines laid earlier by the Allies. But the Kiwis were not fooled. The 22nd Battalion was attacked but targeted artillery and mortar fire saw the Germans withdraw. As morning broke over Mount Olympus, the soldiers of the 28th Battalion could see lines of trucks, troop carriers and motorcycles, stretched 14 miles back to Katerini.

At 8.30 am on 16 April, New Zealand artillery had destroyed 14 vehicles, including two tanks. By mid-morning the weather had closed in, with mist and rain reducing visibility to a few hundred yards and limiting the effectiveness of any artillery fire. As this cleared later in the morning, the 28th Battalion could see German troops advancing through the mountains to the left of the defenders. The 23rd Battalion to its right soon halted this advance.

As the day stretched into early evening, the 28th Battalion soldiers could see the Germans advancing through the ravine to their left, clambering over the wooded hills. After a heavy engagement – with many casualties – the German attack here was halted.

As night fell, the brave and vastly outnumbered Kiwis made their way across what the Australian official history describes as muddy mountain tracks, greasy with rain, in the pitched dark. The 23rd climbed to 2,000 feet over a shoulder of Mt Olympus to make its way south.

After attempting to manhandle their nine artillery pieces over the tracks, they were forced to destroy them, tipping them over cliffs into the ravines below. Ten Bren gun carriers and 20 trucks had to be abandoned in the withdrawal, but not before they had acted to further impede the German advance by blowing craters in this important road through the pass.

The Allies would go on to continue the fighting retreat across Greece to the evacuation beaches of the Peloponnese. According to the official history of the campaign, the New Zealanders suffered 40 killed, over 50 wounded and over 130 captured during the campaign on the Greek mainland. They would take part in the Battle of Crete that followed and many of these same New Zealand troops, those of the 22nd and 28th Battalions, would take part in the famous Anzac charge at 42nd Street on 27 May in 1941, south of Suda Bay. In 2016 a new memorial was erected to commemorate the victory.

Night soon fell and the mists closed in as I arrived in Agios Dimitrios in April this year. It was an eerie reminder of the environment that confronted those young Kiwis as they had defended the area all those years ago.

Suddenly the trees parted and I found myself in this typical mountain village, the houses gabled and over-looking the footpaths, the traditional homes that you find across the horia of northern Greece. I have travelled these roads many times and love the smell of wood fires as nightfall comes across the isolated villages of the region.

In the centre of the plateia stands a war memorial. But this is not to the battle of April 1941. This one tells the story of a terrible retribution visited on this lovely little village during WWII. For here too, as across the whole of Greece, the ordinary people had joined together to resist the Germans – no matter the cost.
On the memorial are listed the 38 names of the local villagers, including the mayor, who were executed by the German occupiers on 23 February 1942 in retaliation for the killing of two German guards; the guards had been protecting an ironworks factory in the village which produced material for Germany’s war effort.

One of the names on the memorial is Ioannis Manikas, the grandfather of my guide Effie Karavidas. One of the Andartes operating in northern Greece, Ioannis had joined the Greek Resistance to free his land from the German invaders. It was his group that carried out the attack on the German guards.

In the cruel calculation of the Nazis, one German was worth 20 local Greek civilians – whether or not they had been involved in the action. Collective punishment was the order of the day during the German occupation of Europe.

And so 40 civilians were selected for execution near the railway station of Katerini: 39 from the village and one from nearby Katerini. Yet one of those selected by the Germans from the village was a worker from beyond the village of the Jewish faith. Maybe he was from Thessaloniki, my friends in the village do not know. But this resourceful man not only managed to successfully escape from the German truck taking the condemned of Agios Dimitrios to their deaths, he also survived the war. And so the Germans selected another civilian for execution when the truck arrived at Katerini.

Later the Germans would return to Agios Dimitrios and kill more civilians, including a number of local women. Their names are also recorded proudly alongside the names of those executed on that grim day in February 1942.

And so we sit in Tsipourio’s Nest, a local taverna and listen to Ilias the owner sing his laments, clutching his klitsa, sipping a glass of his tsipouro – no doubt as all those executed would have if they had been able to live out their lives.

The mountains and valleys of northern Greece contain some of the most beautiful scenery in Greece. And, of course, the hospitality of the people is legendary. And they are steeped in the history of Greece – stretching back to the Persians, through the struggles for Greek independence and to the Second World War.
The story of the New Zealand soldiers who defended this pass and the martyrs of Agios Dimitrios is a poignant one. These Anzacs had come from across the oceans to these misty hills that might have reminded them of the mountain passes of New Zealand.

The story of the villages’ martyrs is just one of the hundreds of examples of bravery and resistance that are to be found across Greece. Ordinary men and women who put themselves in harm’s way and the terrible German retribution visited on the local people.

* Jim Claven is a trained historian and freelance writer. He visited Agios Dimitrios with the support of Roula and Jim Sasainas of the Pan-Argoliki Brotherhood. He thanks Effie and Sakis Karavidas for their hospitality and for sharing their memories with him.