What place can the recurrent crime have in the reality of a long-lasting war, be it a war of liberation or a civil one, a social war or an individual struggle for survival? What is the point of civilians being sacrificed, when these are merely unsuspecting victims of vengeance?On December 13, 1943, the Germans act in retaliation by machine- gunning all the noncombatant men in Kalavryta. Only the women are left to bury their dead. Marianthi and her daughter Margarita flee the town. In 1955, Margarita’s daughter is born. Now a doctor, Lefki is haunted by that old war crime and lives in the shadow of her grandfather, Athos, Marianthi’s husband, who worked as a forester in the Kalavrita region. Lefki dedicates her life to treating her patients and alleviating their agony, while investigating the Nazi massacre. But could Athos really have been one of the thirteen survivors of that mass execution?
French and German rights sold
English and Italian extracts available
TO RODAKIO, 2014, 277 P.
