War Booty Not to Be Displayed: Sexual Violence during the Greek Wars of the Twentieth Century, 1912–1949

Abstract

Sexual violence during the Greek wars of the twentieth century has been an unevenly studied topic. While the rape of Greek women by enemy soldiers or irregulars has been occasionally referred to in mainstream war accounts in a rather abstract way, the corresponding record of the Greek Army is usually bypassed. Based on archival sources and extensive use of memorial literature, especially war diaries and memoirs of former soldiers (among them the private diary of a rapist soldier, who recorded in detail no less than four gang rapes perpetrated by him and his comrades during the Second Balkan War), this article examines what we actual know about the occurrence, the frequency, the aims and specific patterns of sexual violence perpetrated by Greek soldiers or suffered by Greek civilians during successive military conflicts.