THE OCCUPATION AND THE POST-WAR YEARS

During the Occupation the German presence in Kalamaki was strong because of its proximity to Elliniko airport. The Germans were installed inside the airport, with their headquarters in the Tsanglis house. The observation post of the Yfantidis house was held by Italians and served to a large extent the coastal machine-gun posts installed at Agios Kosmas, at Zefyros and on the hills of Pani and Agia Anna.

In this period many houses, mainly villas, were requisitioned. But because German army officers were living in them, Kalamaki escaped extensive bombing.

The people of Alimos were also active in the National Resistance. Doctor Giannatos founded a resistance cell in Palaio Faliro in which many residents of Kalamaki took part. The siblings Takis and Eleni Stefanidi, aged only 17 and 15, set up a strong resistance group. The military leader of ELAS, Stefanos Sarafis, also lived permanently in Kalamaki.

At the liberation, the area of Alimos was the first place where the Allies landed, with ships anchoring in the bay of Palaios Alimos, in order to check and repair the damage caused by the bombing of the airport so that supplies and troops could be flown in.

An important monument of the area is the Allied war cemetery. Initially the site served as a cemetery for the Commonwealth soldiers who fell during the civil conflict of 1944-1945. Later, however, the Greek state and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission decided to turn it into a cemetery for all the Commonwealth soldiers who fell in the Second World War, and their remains were brought here from the battlefields, from temporary military cemeteries and from ordinary cemeteries all over Greece.

The architect of the cemetery was Louis de Soissons, a French-Canadian who designed many other cemeteries for the dead of the Second World War.

The cemetery memorial, the Athens Memorial, commemorates some 2,882 soldiers whose bodies were never found, from the operations in Greece and Crete in 1941 and in the period 1944-1945, from the Dodecanese and from Yugoslavia between 1943 and 1945.

Part of the cemetery is the cremation memorial, which commemorates 74 Indian soldiers who were cremated.

On the north-eastern side of the cemetery there is a section with the graves of soldiers and civilians who died in Greece after being wounded in the Crimean War. They had originally been buried in the Anglo-French Cemetery of Faliro in Neo Faliro, where they remained until 1966, when that cemetery was moved to the Faliro War Cemetery at the request of Greece.

In this section, which has a bilingual inscription reading “Franco British Cemetery – Crimean War” and “Cimetière Franco Britannique – Guerre de Crimée”, there are 23 graves, an obelisk serving as a common memorial for the French and British soldiers, and six further gravestones.

Allied War Cemetery
Source: https://www.alimosonline.gr/

Tanks of the British army after the liberation
Source: https://www.alimosonline.gr/

In 1942 the community of Palaio Faliro was promoted to a Municipality and the community of Kalamaki was incorporated into it. In 1945 the community of Kalamaki was re-established.

During the 1950s and 1960s the population of the community of Kalamaki grew by 200% and the settlements of civil servants, customs brokers, tax officials, chemical engineers and others were created, as well as the districts of the people from Kythira, Kefalonia, Constantinople and Egypt, turning the area from a quiet suburb into a modern town. At the same time the shore at Zefyros was filled in and the large marina of the Greek National Tourism Organisation was created. In 1968 the community of Kalamaki gave way to the modern Municipality of Alimos, founded by royal decree, which acquired the administrative boundaries that still apply today.

Kalamaki 1960
Source: https://www.alimosonline.gr/

Kleious Street
Source: https://www.alimosonline.gr/

Kalamaki Athletic Club
Source: https://alimos.gov.gr/istoria/