Flowers Fade Early: Kakopetros, August 28th, 1944

At dawn, Nazi German troops surrounded the small village Cretan village of Kakopetros located approximately 22 miles outside of Hania. Hours later, they had left 23 villagers dead, dozens of houses looted — and permanent scars that remain with the village’s inhabitants nearly 80 years later. The massacre came merely months after Nazis had razed the nearby village of Kandanos, which was one of the most atrocious war crimes committed during Germany’s occupation of Crete in World War II.