On June 17, 1771, the Muslim Turks flayed alive the Greek Hero Daskalogianis. He was led to a central square in Heraklion. A wooden scaffold with a special seat had been erected. He was flayed starting from the head by a barbarian executioner who threw pieces of skin to the crowd, saying: "Take leather for your boots!". A second executioner periodically showed him his flayed face in a mirror, mocking: "Look, captain, how well the red suits you!". Relatives (brother and daughter) were in the crowd. He endured steadfastly and died when the flaying reached his shoulder blades. His flayed body remained exposed in the June heat for days in that square (now named in his honor) until the stench forced the Turks to bury it. Some of his body parts were eaten by the dogs.
After Daskalogiannis’s death and the failure of his revolt against the muslim tyrants, the life of the rayah (Greek Christians subjects, similar to dhimmis) became a constant torment.
The Janissaries were seizing all the Christians’ belongings, but they also exterminated them without any reason, simply because they were Christians.
Sometimes they executed them in cold blood in the middle of the road, just to test the accuracy of their weapons; other times to watch them writhe in their own blood; sometimes to make the abduction of a bride, right after her wedding, more dramatic; other times simply because the Christians were manly-looking, relatively well-dressed, or on horseback.
In the latter case, the rayah would hurry to dismount upon seeing a Janissary, but the latter would draw his pistol and say: "Why did you dismount, you infidel dog? So you could make me ride instead?". And the rayah, Greek Christian, would fall dead.
In periods of unrest and lawlessness, when bloodthirsty Janissaries held the upper hand, the murder of a Turk was punished extremely harshly by them. Many times it led to the extermination of entire families in the area where the murder had taken place. A characteristic example of their vengeful fury is the fact that, for the murder of one powerful Turk in the Selino region of Crete, 40 Greeks who bore the name Yannis (John) were killed.
In the last quarter of the 18th century, the situation in Crete was grim.
The Janissaries faced no restraint in their behavior toward the Christians. They would even enter churches and desecrate them. And if they discovered a beautiful Greek girl, they would seize her from her parents in order to satisfy their lewd desires. For this reason, anyone who had a pretty daughter was forced to keep her locked inside the house, while most Greek women who lived in towns would wear a burqa when they went out, just like Muslim women.
That's why today in Greece, we call the Greek traitors as "Janissaries" which is the ultimate insult for a Greek who acts against his own people.
The Greeks suffered so much that when they finally fell upon the Turks with rage in the last and successful revolution of 1821 against the muslim tyrants and barbarians, they would shoot with their rifles, and without waiting to reload the rifles (because it takes time), they would smash the Turks’ heads with their pistols.
There are eyewitness, historical accounts, describing how they beat the Turkish occupier with such hatred for what he had done to the Greeks that the iron of the weapons literally melted on the Turks’ heads from the force of the blows.
In Anogeia, Crete, out of the 800 dead Turks, two-thirds had their skulls completely crushed from the blows.
This is how much our ancestors suffered by Islam.
And this is why we hate Islam in Greece.
Unapologetically.
You can read more posts on my profile about modern Greek history and the barbarism of the Muslims during the Ottoman tyranny in Greece from 1453 to 1825.
- Homer Pavlos