On 13 December 1943 , in retribution for the killing of the captured German soldiers , the Massacre of Kalavryta took place . German troops ordered all male residents of Kalavryta , aged 14 years and up , to gather in a field just outside the village . Some 1 300 women and girls were locked in a school which was then set on fire while the men were looking on from a hill outside the village . Fortunately for the women , an Austrian soldier unlocked the door of the building and the women and girls managed to escape . The Germans shot the soldier who had set them free . Then 696 boys and men were machine-gunned . Only 13 survived . After that , they burnt down the town before they left and the next day they burnt down the monastery of Agia Lavra , the birthplace of the Greek War of Independence . After the war , the federal government of Germany offered gestures of atonement in the form of free school books for the high school , scholarships for orphans of the massacre and the building of a retirement home . However , German commanders , including Major Ebersberger who carried out the destruction of Kalavryta and Hauptmann Dohnert who led the firing party , were never brought to justice for their crimes
Massacre of Kalavryta
Massacre of Kalavryta
Kalavryta