77 years after the Battle of Crete, the Municipality of Rethymno gave a box with soil from the battlefield to Ambassador of Australia. The move followed a request of the Australian government that will put the box together with another 99 boxes of soil from different battlefields at a monument in Sydney on the occasion of the centenary of the end of World War I and involving Australian and New Zealand soldiers in overseas missions.
Soil from Rethymno from the battlefield of the Battle of Crete was given on Thursday to Australian Ambassador Kate Logan, in the presence of deputy governor Maria Lioni, Mayor of Rethymno Yorgos Marinakis, descendants of families of servicemen and a crowd of people.
The soil from the hillside called Crucifixion, known as Hill A, was delivered in a special box 77 years after the Battle, at the request of the Australian Government, to be put together with another 99 boxes of soil from different battlefields at a monument in Sydney on the occasion of the centenary of the end of World War I and involving Australian and New Zealand soldiers in overseas missions.
“We are excited today to move ahead as a nation and take our responsibility, having our sense of debt to our history, to our present and future,” said the mayor of Rethymnon, while the Australian Ambassador standing in front of the monument of Greek and Australian warriors of the Battle of Crete, thanked the Rethemnians for everything they did in the war as allies of the Australians, giving honor to the monument that was set up, and is, as she said, a “symbol of the friendship of the two peoples, from their common stories during a terrible war. ”
The event was attended by a descendant of Markos Poloudakis. Markos Poloudakis at the age of 11 saw his father’s execution in the village of Asteri Rethymnon in front of his eyes when the Germans executed a total of 14 National Resistance fighters. For decades, he struggled so that the Battle of Crete has not been forgotten, just as the personal stories of families and fighters of that period, which were included in a book he published in 1983.
The Australian Ambassador handed a flag from her country’s Parliament to Mr. Paloudakis , who is involved in efforts to build a museum for the Battle of Crete – and, as he said, there the flag will be raised, a symbol of gratitude, friendship and alliance on the part of Australia.
