Greek military cemetery in Pirot (eng)

Greek military cemetery in Pirot, in the hill Metiljavica is a unique Greek military cemetery in Serbia at which 358 soldiers and officers of the third Greek division from Patra Peloponnesus were buried. After Bulgarian capitulation in the First World War, by the decision of Alliance supreme command, Greek division commanded by the general Nikolas Trikupis was allocated at the area of the villages Izvor, Gnjilan, Veliki Suvodol and Temska, with a task to monitor the situation in this part of Serbia, occupied by Bulgaria in the First World War. The soldiers died of frost, as well as of “Spanish fewer” and typhus. The municipality Pirot permanently conceded part of cemetery to Greece on 12th September 1924. In the same year, a monument in T shape, 10 meters high, made of white Greek marble, was built up representing marching Greek soldiers, with two circles symbolizing Greek and Serbian people marching together during centuries, with incised verses:” FOR BATTLE AND GOOD YOU DIED FOR, SERBIA BECAME OUR MOTHER, A LAUREL BRANCH BOSOMING SERB AND GREEK, A BRANCH FED BY YOUR BLOOD, NEVER WITHERING.” Every year, on the day of breakthrough of the Salonika front, representatives of Pirot, Serbia and Greece mark the friendship of the Greeks and the Serbs.