“I wish to articulate what the perpetrators, and those who were politically responsible for so many years in the postwar period did not want, or were not able to utter. That what happened here was a brutal injustice, and it is with feelings of shame and pain that I beg forgiveness from the families of those who were murdered".
German President Joachim Gauck during his visit to the martyred village Lyngiades in Greece, 2014

The so-called "martyred villages" or "martyred cities" are part of the German-Greek memory. Besides Distomo, in Greece there are other places where crimes were committed during the German occupation, such as Kalavryta. In some places, especially Kommeno, Klissoura and Distomo, even women and children were - including the unborn - brutally butchered.
There were no major differences between the Wehrmacht and SS. Especially the Wehrmacht commited horrific crimes, for example the 1st Mountain Division in Epirus, that destroyed the village Kommeno without any reason. Kalavryta, Distomo and nearly 100 others places were destroyed during the occupation. By the term "martyred villages and cities of Greece" (Greek: "Martirika Choria ke polis tis Elladas") are named these places where war crimes against civilians were committed during the German occupation.