Bill Kanellis

Bill The Greek Bill Kanellis

On October 28th, 1940 Benito Mussolini at 5 am, sent a telegram to his ambassador in Athens to demand that prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas allow his Italian troops to invade Greece without incident or face war. Since Greece had remained neutral during the start of WWII, Metaxas immediately replied with one word "oxi", which in Greek means no. The small and unprepared Greek Army with local volunteers, held the Italian Army at the border of Albania for six months from entering. After the humiliation of Mussolini's inability to conquer this small country, Hitler sent his troops on April 6th and by June 1st, 1941, Greece surrendered to Germany. During the occupation, the bank of Greece was completely looted by the Germans and 80 percent of the industry was destroyed. The country's food was allocated to supply Hitler's army in North Africa, which caused thousands of Greeks to die from starvation along with Nazi reprisals. Many Fortunes were spent to buy a sack of flour and other food necessities to survive.







The following book is a true story of some of the conditions I experienced during the Nazi occupation and my coming to America.