I had a chance to stop in the War Museum in Athens, and really enjoyed the visit. There are a lot more firearms on display than I expected, covering the whole gamut from muzzleloaders to fairly modern arms. The Balkan Wars, World War One, and World War Two all get a lot of attention, as does ancient Greek history (of course). There are a couple other collections housed in the building, including a very good collection donated by a Greek officer around 1900. If you are visiting Athens, it is most definitely worth a visit, and you should plan to spend more time there than you would normally expect.
You can also find a complete 3D virtual tour of the museum (and all the other museums run by the Greek military) at their web site:
Oops. Cyprus, not Crete.
I was particularly puzzled by their graphic illustration of populational losses during the WW2. The message was “Greece lost the highest” percentage of population (8%). Somehow they managed to ignore Poland (19%), Soviet Union (15%) and Germany (11%)…
Highly “personalised history”, indeed.
Perhaps a national failing. I had a Greek colleague who insisted that 80% of English vocabulary ‘derived from Greek.’ Apparently he could not distinguish a loan word from a cognate existing across many IE languages.
Everybody likes to make out like they did the most, suffered the most. Natural human trait.
That said, statistics are only of any value when you know how they were derived and calculated. If they show you, and you have some faith in the gathering of the numbers, then they’re valid and educational. Absent them showing you the work? Useless.
I think you could probably torture the numbers in some way to show that the Greeks did suffer worst, in various ways. If you went out into the hills, and looked at some of the villages? Holy crap… I heard stories from my Greek family friends that made crap you’d hear from other parts of Europe during that era sound positively wonderful, by comparison.
So, depending on how you counted, where you took the count from, and what parts of Greece you’re talking about? They could have had it that way. There were also parts of Greece that barely knew a war was going on…
What I find is best way to deal with these claims? Nod along, sympathize, and ignore the inaccuracies you think you see. You’re not going to make friends by doing the one-upsmanship thing in this arena, and when you are like the Soviets, suffering the vast majority of your casualties due to the idiocy and ineptitude of your leadership? Keep your filthy mouths shut, when you’re the fools who enabled and followed those leaders in their follies. Nobody cares about your “sacrifices” when you were the ones who started things and enabled other monsters.
I’ve really got limited empathy for the descendants of the various totalitarian states; if you’d have lost your ancestors fighting the takeovers? Yeah, I’d sympathize. Russia? LOL… You freaks got exactly that which you deserved in Stalin, and yet still worship him to this day. Without him supporting Hitler from 1939 to Barbarossa? WWII would have been a much less horrific event, and the fact that the blade Stalin tried to wield turned in his hand? Poetic justice.
Yes, Americans and Brits got far less than they deserved, unlike the Russians and the Germans.
>> if you’d have lost your ancestors fighting the takeovers?<<
…well, Grandpa Witold, with the 1st Polish Armoured Division, pre-war Polish Army career NCO. Went form Normandy to Wilhelmshaven. Survived.
"Grandpa – what was the worst experience during the war"
(and – mind it – he was beaten in 1939 in Poland, in 1940 in France, and managed to get to the Old Blighty, of which I am now proud citizen)
"When the Americans bombarded us in Normandy, by mistake. A head of my friend* rolled under the halftrack I was hiding under…"
————–
*who managed to do the 1939 Polish and 1940 French campaigns.
I have visited this museum a few years ago. It is very good, don’t miss it if you have the chance.
thank you Greece for using lots of light, so you can actually see what is on display. I have been in “modern” museums, where that is apparently considered unimportant.
Light is destructive to lots of old things and is an enemy to many curators. I have learned to take a flashlight to museums.
I spent a really enjoyable day in this museum a year or so ago. It is in a fascinating city and practically all the locals speak excellent English. So don’t miss it if you’re doing a European trip.
I liked it too!
I hope you got to see the Averof and Olympias at Plaka!