28 OCTOBER 1940

A few words about 28 October 1940 The Second World War broke out in 1939 during a time that Greece was trying to act peacefully, and had decided to not take part in the war. In 1940 though, Italy's dictator Mussolini, tried in several ways to fight against our country. On August 15th 1940, an important Greek Orthodox holiday, an Italian submarine shot a torpedo inside the island's harbour and shot one of the Greek ships.

AT THE WAR

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY The governing body of Metaxa, which had just come into office, pretended that they did not recognize who had done this, even though they did, in order to avoid any form of battle. The Italians continued their attacks in Greece, and war began to seem inevitable. Even so, Greece did not move its forces along its borders, for good reasons. Mussolini though was determined and he wanted to take over Greece. Therefore, on the night of the 28th of October, the Italian ambassador to Athens, Gratsi went to the home of the president I. Metaxa, woke him up and asked for free entrance of the Italian forces on to Greece. He immediately gave a negative reply, and with him the Hellenic people answered "oxi". The war began, the sirens sound, the enemy planes flew over the skies of Greece, and the Italian army was on Greek land

The Greeks fought long and hard for their country. They fought throughout the cold winter in Albania. The Greeks never gave up, but Mussolini, having seen their determination, asked for Hitler's help. The Greeks in turn, fighting with the English by their side, had more triumphs to write of at the El Alamein, and Rimini.

In memory of those who fought for our freedom The day of freedom came in October of Since then we have always thought back to this day and commemorated I. Metaxas for his bravery and conviction in the face of the Italian enemy, and the strong support of the Greek people with their shouts of "oxi" to the invaders.1 28th of October is a national holiday. On its anniversary Greek people don’t work and schools are closed. There are school parades locally and a big military parade in Thesaloniki.

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