Chortiatis ( el, Χορτιάτης) is a suburb and a former municipality in the Thessaloniki regional unit,

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. Since the 2011 Kallikratis local government reform it is part of the municipality

Pylaia-Chortiatis Pylaia-Chortiatis ( el, Πυλαία-Χορτιάτης) is a municipality in the Thessaloniki regional unit, Central Macedonia, Greece, consisting of three suburbs of Thessaloniki. The seat of the municipality is Panorama. The municipality has a ...

, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies at 600 metres altitude on the slopes of the

Mount Chortiatis Mount Chortiatis or Hortiatis ( el, Όρος Χορτιάτη, Χορτιάτης), known in Antiquity as Cissus ( grc, Κισσός) or Kissos, is a mountain in Central Macedonia, Greece. It rises southeast of Thessaloniki, peaking at 1,201 metre ...

, from which it takes its name. The municipal unit Chortiatis has an area of 109.934 km², and the community Chortiatis has an area of 57.315 km².

History of the area

In the antiquity, mountain and town were known as ''Cissus'' and

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

tells us that Cisseus was the king of this town. The town and its people are mentioned as members of the Delian League in the 5th century BC. The modern name and town ''Chortiatis'' can be traced back to the 12th century, when a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

monastery under the name ''Chortaites'', on the northern slopes of the mountain, provided

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

with fresh water by an aqueduct whose remains have been partly preserved. By the 15th century the settlement with the monastery was called ''Kastron Chortiatis'' (Castle Chortiatis) and it fell in 1423 under

Ottoman rule Ottoman is the Turkish spelling of the Arabic masculine given name Uthman ( ar, عُثْمان, ‘uthmān). It may refer to: Governments and dynasties * Ottoman Caliphate, an Islamic caliphate from 1517 to 1924 * Ottoman Empire, in existence fro ...

. In 1912 the Greek town was liberated. WW2 Massacre Memorial, Chortiatis, Thessaloniki, Greece 00

The Massacre of Chortiatis

The Chortiatis massacre was a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

mass murder of 146 civilians by the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

, at the end of the occupation of Greece by the Axis powers on 2 September 1944. After an attack on two German soldiers, one German chemist and two Greek collaborators by the

Greek People's Liberation Army Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(ELAS) on

mount Chortiatis Mount Chortiatis or Hortiatis ( el, Όρος Χορτιάτη, Χορτιάτης), known in Antiquity as Cissus ( grc, Κισσός) or Kissos, is a mountain in Central Macedonia, Greece. It rises southeast of Thessaloniki, peaking at 1,201 metre ...

, where the two Collaborators and the Chemist were killed, the German occupation authorities decided to react immediately with a

reprisal A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extreme ...

operation against the civilian population of the village Chortiatis. About twenty trucks with German soldiers and the paramilitary force ''Jagdkommando Schubert'', named after the Wehrmacht sergeant Friedrich Schubert who was in command, surrounded the village. They gathered all the people they found in the town square. One group of the civilians was led into the house of villager Evangelos Ntinoudis. They were locked inside and burnt alive. The other group was locked in the bakery. Schubert's men set up machine guns to make sure that no one can flee out of the bakery. But one 6-year-old girl managed to flee with help of the others outside a window which was unprotected. They others were burnt alive. Apart from the people who were killed in the two groups, others were raped and killed outside their homes or even in the village, while trying to escape. A total of 146 civilians residents of Chortiatis were killed that day. 109 of them were women and girls. One week later the Germans came back and set the whole village on fire. 300 homes were burned down.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chortiatis Populated places in Thessaloniki (regional unit)