ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what extent the post-WWII conditions in Greece contributed to the marginalization of events during the Occupation and resistance on Kythera. Kythera, known from antiquity and the Homeric epics as the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite, was in the West connected with a dream-like, distant place where love and eternal peace reigned supreme. Even before the outbreak of WWII, Kythera had experienced the intense shock of the economic crisis of 1929. Polls indicate that the xenophobic Golden Dawn, one of the most virulent neo-Nazi parties in Europe, has grown into Greece's third political party since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. Kythera was to follow the history of the Ionian Islands, cut off from mainland Greece. Uncertainty about the island's future increased the outflow of immigrants, with the result that on the eve of the war, the island's population had fallen to 8,178 from 14,605 during the interwar period.
