Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis

The region inhabited by the Chams, known among Albanians as "Chameria", consisted chiefly of the Thesprotia prefecture in Greece, as well as a few villages in southwestern Albania. Before 1945, the region had a mixed Greek and Albanian population dating to the migrations of Albanian tribes into the area in the 13th and 14th centuries. Many of the Chams, originally Orthodox Christians, were Islamicized in the 17th to 19th centuries, with Crypto-Christianity persisting as late as the early 19th century. Given the Ottoman social structure, Muslim Cham landlords were a privileged part of the society and owned much of the most fertile land. Apart from the beys it seems that the majority of the Muslim Cham population consisted of middle sized land owners and also included families with ownership of small land parcels, few fields or animals and located in villages. A degree of antagonism existed between the two communities and conflict occurred on certain occasions. Muslim religious authorities were conservative and of pro-Turkish persuasion, and accordingly they obstructed the growth of Albanian nationalism in the region. However, there is little evidence of direct state persecution at this time. During that time though, members of the Cham community suffered from discrimination due to severe expropriations of their lands. Relations between the various social groups were complicated in the region and were characterized primarily by an intense honor culture featuring clans and blood feuds among all major groups, antagonisms between the pastoralist (Vlach) and sedentary (Greek and Albanian) populations, religious rivalries between landowning Muslims and often land-starved Christian itinerant farmers who worked in "deplorable" conditions, and the exploitation of religious affiliations by both Christians and Muslims to win disputes. In the event, Albanian enthusiasm for the "liberation of Chameria" was muted, ==Italian occupation==

Greco-Italian War and Italian occupation of October–November 1940 When the Greek-Italian War broke out in October 1940, the Italian forces had the support of 3,500 Albanians, among them members of the Cham community in Greece. A local "civil war" broke out in Thesprotia almost immediately with the arrival of the Italian army and its Albanian auxiliaries into the region. However, it was not at first "sectarianised" yet. Some 300 to 400 local Muslim villagers, especially from Gropa, aided the Italian army, and attacked the retreating Greek army and inflicted considerable casualties. A significant number of Albanian Muslim peasants provided armed support to the Italian invasion, however many Albanian Muslims abstained from such activities and proclaimed their disgust at their co-religionists' behavior. In the case of the village of Agios Vlasis the Albanian Muslim inhabitants sheltered "their Christian compatriots" from violence. The Greek army repelled the attack and advanced. Chams support to Italy was paid back by the Greeks, who interned the majority of the male population of the Chams for security reasons. Nevertheless, Fascist Italian as well as Nazi German propaganda promised that the region would be part of Great Albania after the end of the war. The next round of atrocities did not begin immediately. Italy initially halted its "separatist pro-Albanian policy" for fear of a Greek backlash, and retained the Greek authorities and gendarmerie (although with poor arms and diminished force), despite Albanian protests. Nevertheless, Italian authorities proved tolerant of murders committed by the Muslim population and allowed them to openly carry arms, ultimately encouraging a spate of murders that came to grow into serious communal conflicts, with the first major conflicts breaking out in Filiates in late October 1941. and the following month the first armed units consisting of Cham Albanians took action in the region. The occupation forces installed a local Cham administration in the town of Paramythia, with Xhemil Dino as local administrator of Thesprotia and as a representative of the Albanian government. At the time the town of Paramythia had a mixed Greek-Cham population of 6,000. Apart from the local Cham administration (Këshilla), active from July 1942, its paramilitary militia and gendarmerie of the same name began operating from 1943. According to post-war courts decisions and testimonies, during the Italian occupation these armed units were responsible for large scale criminal activity: murders, rapes, village burnings and looting. During the subsequent operations, 600 Greek villagers were killed and 70 villages in the region were destroyed. 500 Greek citizens were taken hostages and 160 of them were sent to forced labour in Nazi Germany. In 21 settlements in the vicinity of Kanallaki 400 inhabitants were arrested and forced to march to the nearest concentration camp in Thessaloniki (KZ Pavlos Melas). When the march begun the armed groups did not hesitate to execute a diseased priest in front of the rest of the hostages. ==German occupation==

In September 1943, following Italian capitulation, the region officially came under German control. The German commander of Paramythia, in need of the support of the Cham population, repeated to the Albanian community the promise that the region would become part of Greater Albania after the war. On September 27, combined German and Cham forces launched large scale operation in burning and destroying villages north of Paramythia: Eleftherochori, Seliani, Semelika, Aghios Nikolaos, killing 50 Greek villagers in the process. In this operation the Cham contingent numbered 150 men, and, according to German Major Stöckert, "performed very well". Paramythia incident On the night of 27 September, Cham militias arrested 53 prominent Greek citizens in Paramythia and executed 49 of them two days later. This action was orchestrated by the brothers Nuri and Mazar Dino (an officer of the Cham militia) in order to get rid of the town's Greek representatives and intellectuals. According to German reports, Cham militias were also part of the firing squad. During 20–29 September, as a result of serial violent activities, at least 75 Greek citizens were killed in Paramythia and 19 municipalities were destroyed. On 30 September, the Swiss representative of the International Red Cross, Hans-Jakob Bickel, visited the area and concluded: 20,000 Albanians, with Italian and now German support, spread terror to the rest of the population. Only in the region of Fanari 24 villages were destroyed. The entire harvest was taken by them. In my trip I realized that the Albanians kept the Greeks terrified inside their homes. Young Albanians, just finished from school, wandered heavily armed. The Greek population of Igoumenitsa had to find refuge in the mountains. The Albanians had stolen all the cattle and the fields remain uncultivated. Nazi-Cham activities in southern Albania After the capitulation of Fascist Italy, in September 1943, the local British mission proposed an alliance to the Chams and to fight together the Germans, but this proposal was rejected. Although operation Augustus took place mostly in Greek territory, such activities had also spread to southern Albania, with combined German and Cham Albanian units executing c. 50 Albanians in the process. Due to increasing resistance activity at the end of 1943 in southern Albania, German General and local commander Hubert Lanz, decided to initiate armed operations with the code name Horridoh in this region. Albanian nationalist groups participated in these operations, among them a Cham battalion of ca. 1,000 men under the leadership of Nuri Dino. The death toll from these operations, which began on 1 January 1944 in the region of Konispol, was 500 Albanians. Cham participation in the resistance As the end of World War II drew near, a small number of Muslim Chams became part of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), as well as the anti-fascist National Liberation Army of Albania. In May 1944, ELAS formed a mixed battalion with Chams the IV "Ali Demi" battalion, named after a Cham Albanian who was killed in Vlora fighting against the Germans. At the time of its creation in 1944, it had 460 men, both Cham Albanians and Greeks. Axis retreat and flight of Chams During the summer of 1944, when the German withdrawal was imminent, the right-wing head of the National Republican Greek League (EDES), Napoleon Zervas, asked the Cham Albanians to fight against his rivals, the Communist-controlled EAM-ELAS. After their negative response, and in pursuit of orders given by the Allied forces to EDES to push them out of Greece and into Albania, fierce fighting occurred between both sides. According to British reports, the Cham bands managed to flee to Albania with their full equipment, together with half million stolen cattle and 3,000 horses, leaving only the elderly members of the community behind. On 18 June 1944, EDES forces with Allied support launched an attack on Paramythia. After short-term against a combined Cham-German garrison, the town was finally liberated. Soon after, violent reprisals were carried out against the town's Muslim community, which was considered responsible for the massacre of September 1943. ==Aftermath and war crimes trials==

In the post-war years a number of trials concerning the war crimes committed during the Axis occupation occurred, however not a single defendant was arrested or imprisoned, as they had already fled the country. Nevertheless, some of the prominent Cham Albanian collaborators retained close contact with former officers of Nazi Germany after the war. Niri Dino lived in Germany and had a small business in Munich, where he kept contact with the former German Lieutenant Colonel . Rexhep Dino escaped to Turkey. During 1945, a Special Court on Collaborators in Ioannina condemned 1,930 Cham collaborators in absentia to death (decision no. 344/1945). The next year the same court condemned an additional 179. At the Nuremberg trials, General Hubert Lanz reported that the executions and the reprisal missions were part of "war regulations", however he admitted utter ignorance about the executions in Paramythia. In 1948 the Greek National Bureau on War Crimes ordered juridical research on the crimes committed by Italians, Albanians and Germans during the Axis occupation. Two days later, the immediate arrest of the defendants was ordered. Because all the defendants were abroad it is unknown if the Greek Foreign Ministry initiated the needed diplomatic procedure. In the Hostages Trial in Nuremberg (1948) the American judges called the executions in Paramythia "plain murder". ==References==