The 11th Day: Crete 1941
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| The 11th Day: Crete 1941 | |
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| Directed by | Christos Epperson |
| Produced by | Christos Epperson Michael Epperson |
| Written by | Michael Epperson |
| Release date(s) | 2005 |
The 11th Day: Crete 1941 is a documentary movie made in 2005 featuring eyewitness accounts from survivors of the Battle for Crete during World War II. The film was created by producer-director Christos Epperson and writer-producer Michael Epperson, and funded by Alex Spanos. Among the eyewitness are British S.O.E. operative and famous writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Cretan Resistance hero George Tzikas. The non-veterans giving historical commentary include Chase Brandon of the CIA and Dr. Andre Gerolymatos of Simon Fraser University.
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[edit] Synopsis
On May 20, 1941, thousands of elite Nazi paratroopers assaulted the island of Crete. It was the beginning of the Battle of Crete--the largest Nazi airborne operation of World War II. They had expected to control the island within a few days; after all, they only needed to occupy Paris for a week before France surrendered. What they hadn’t expected was that the men, women, and even children of Crete would fight them to their dying breath.
Together with hundreds of stranded soldiers from England, Australia, and New Zealand, and a handful of British special operations commandos who had parachuted in to help, the Cretan resistance dealt Nazi Germany one of its most crippling defeats of the entire war. They would even kidnap the German commandant of Crete, General Kreipe--the famous operation masterminded and led by British Special Operations officer Patrick Leigh Fermor. It was the only successful kidnapping of a German general throughout the war.
With dramatic re-creations and over 20 veterans interviewed from Crete, England, Australia, and New Zealand, including Leigh Fermor himself, The 11th Day is a heart-pounding adventure story about courage, faith, and heroism...a story that is all the more remarkable because it is history.
"Until now, we knew that Greeks were fighting like heroes; from now on we shall say that the heroes fight like Greeks." --Winston Churchill
[edit] Newspaper Reviews
[edit] Availability
In 2005, The 11th Day toured theaters throughout the United States and Canada. In November 2006, the film was released on DVD (with Greek and English language tracks and a photo gallery of over 500 images), and is currently available in libraries, stores, Amazon.com, etc. It can also be purchased from the official film website listed in the "External Links" section below. Also on the official film website, the producers have made freely available their vast collection of research material, including over 2000 photos--more than 500 of which are rare and unpublished. It is the largest on-line archive of World War II photos and documents in the world.
[edit] About The Filmmakers
The great-aunts and uncles of producers Christos and Michael Epperson were members of the Cretan resistance in World War II. In 1943, their uncle Kyriako Xirouhakis and his sisters Eleftheria and Rita joined the resistance group "Pibli" in Hania, Crete. Eleftheria spoke three languages and worked in a German office where she had access to classified documents that she would steal, translate and give to the resistance group. On June 11, the Germans came during Manoli’s wedding reception and arrested all the siblings except Artemisia who was a baby at the time.
According to our uncle Niko (Kyriako’s second son) one of Manoli’s ex-girlfriends (jealous due to the wedding) had informed the Germans about the Xirouhakis' involvement in the resistance. During the search of the house, the Germans found a diagram of the "Perivolitsa Camp" behind a painting on the wall. They interrogated all the siblings and Eleftheria took responsibility for the diagram in order to protect her brothers and sisters. Her exact words according to German Lieutenant Volf Sinter were, "I am a spy, I work with the resistance group 'Pibli' and I will not reveal anything else."
They were all taken to the prison at Agia where Eleftheria was severely tortured by the Germans Hoffman and Fritz Sterling in order to reveal her contacts in the resistance. She was hung naked in the ladies room and beaten repeatedly for three days and nights, but didn’t reveal anything. There was a German guard next to her 24 hours a day to prevent her from sleeping.
Finally, on July 13, 1944 the Germans executed Eleftheria. Her last words according to the records of German nurse Fritz Nider who went to check her to make sure she was dead were, "Away with your dirty hands so you don’t pollute a Greek woman. Long live Greece."
Kyriako, Manoli and Dimitri were sent to the Dachau concentration camp and Rita was sent to another concentration camp somewhere in Eastern Europe. They all survived and returned to Crete after the war was over. The three brothers returned the same day their parents were having a memorial for them since they thought they had died.
On April 4, 2004 the cultural group "Omonia" honored Eleftheria with a statue at the church grounds in Aroni, Crete.
[edit] Biographical Information
Producer-Director Christos Epperson is an award winning director and documentary cinematographer whose work can be seen on the Discovery Channel. His production company, Archangel Films, is based in Sacramento, California.
Writer-Producer Michael Epperson earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2003 and is currently teaching in the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Sacramento. His published works on history and philosophy include the book Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (Fordham University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8232-2319-1).
The Epperson brothers' current production is Outpost Harry--a documentary feature film that recounts the little-known story of how 150 Greek and U.S. soldiers stationed in a remote outpost behind enemy lines defeated over 3000 Chinese infantrymen in one of the most brutal sieges of the Korean War. Like a modern day Battle of Thermopylae, they were ordered to 'hold at all costs' against an enemy that vastly outnumbered them--an enemy that flooded into the tiny outpost night after night for over a week. (Visit www.OutpostHarry.org and The Outpost Harry Survivors Association website for more information.)
