The Venetian Fortress of Rethymno (Fortezza) is one of the oldest fortifications in the Greek world. It was built by the Venetians in September 1573 on the rocky hill of Paleokastro, which since antiquity had served as the acropolis of the ancient city of Rethymno (Rhithymna), and it housed the residence of the city’s governor (Rector), barracks, and ammunition depots. After the capture of Rethymno by the Ottomans (1646), the fortress retained its importance as a fortified position. In 1715 the Ottomans constructed a pentagonal fortification outside the main gate of the Fortezza to the east, between the bastions of Saint Paul and Saint Nicholas, for the needs of the garrison. The building was used as an ammunition depot by Russian troops who had been installed in Rethymno as a protecting power, and from 1909 to 1929 it functioned as a brothel and residence for prostitutes on the initiative of the municipal authorities. In 1929 it was converted into a prison and housed the Reformatory Prison of Rethymno.[1]

During the period 1941–1944 German forces were stationed in the Fortezza, where anti-aircraft guns were also installed, mainly in the trench of the bastion of Saint Nicholas.[2] The Reformatory Prison continued to operate with Greek guards, while at the same time it was also used as detention facilities by the Occupation forces. Information about the occupation period is sporadic. According to a local account:

“Up there they gathered the hostages, some for forced labour (who could forget the terrible barbed wires?) and others for detention, until they were lined up before the firing squad or sent to Dachau and the crematoria of the Wehrmacht.”

The prison was used as a transit camp for detainees from the prefecture of Rethymno who in the spring of 1944 were deported via the Agia Prison, Athens, and Belgrade to Mauthausen, together with other hostages from various parts of Crete.[3] In addition to male resistance fighters and civilians, women and children were also detained there. On 23 August 1944 the villages of the province of Agios Vasileios that were to be destroyed in reprisals (Gerakari, Vryses, Ano Meros, Drygies, etc.) were evacuated, and dozens of women were imprisoned in the Fortezza until the end of September, when the German forces evacuated Rethymno.[4]

Executions carried out in the Fortezza are documented only through civil registry sources. From the death registers of the Municipality of Rethymno we learn of a mass execution of seven detainees that took place on Tuesday, 6 July 1943 at 5 a.m. In the civil registry entry of one of the victims, the place of execution is recorded as “outside the Reformatory Prison of Rethymno (Fortezza) on Acropoleos Street”,[5] most likely on the road separating the building from the main (eastern) entrance of the fortress; elsewhere it is recorded that the execution took place “inside the fortress”.[6]

After the war, the prison continued to operate, among other things as a place of detention for women, relatives of guerrilla fighters, reaching 250 prisoners in 1945.[7] At the same time, the area around the prison building—and throughout the eastern and southern side of the fortress—where many houses had already been built since the final phase of Ottoman rule in the late nineteenth century, had for several years before but mainly for decades after the war become the city’s disreputable district, with poor houses and makeshift huts where the poor and the homeless found refuge.

As part of urban redevelopment and the promotion of the fortress, the prison closed in 1959 and most of the buildings around it were demolished under the supervision of the archaeological service.[8] In November 1965 the Fortezza was officially handed over to the Archaeological Service “after the evacuation of the buildings from their troglodyte inhabitants”.[9] From 1992 to 2016, following partial reconstruction, the building housed the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno.[10] Today it belongs to the 25th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and functions as a storage and conservation facility for antiquities. The building has no signage regarding its former use as a prison and is not open to visitors, as special permission is required for entry due to the presence of antiquities.

Footnotes

[1] For the history of the building in the early twentieth century, see Charidimos A. Papadakis, Brothels in the “City of Tolerance”, Rethymno 2013, pp. 37–42.

[2] Fortezza: The Fortress of Rethymno, Mediterraneo Editions, Rethymno 1998, p. 26.

[3] Antonis Sanoudakis, Raus. In the Hell of Melk: Kostas A. Xexakis, Association of Philologists of Rethymno, Rethymno 1996, pp. 45–49.

[4] Markos G. Gioubakis, Fortezza: The History of the Venetian Fortress of Rethymno, Rethymno 1970, p. 75.

[5] Civil Registry Archive of the Municipality of Rethymno, Register of Deaths A/1946, record no. 44.

[6] Civil Registry Archive of the Municipality of Rethymno, Register of Deaths A/1943, handwritten note attached to p. 97.

[7] Papadakis, Brothels, p. 41. See also recorded interview with Eleftheria Alevyzaki-Vavouraki, 12/10/2025.

[8] Iordanis E. Dimakopoulos, The Houses of Rethymno: Contribution to the Study of the Renaissance Architecture of Crete in the 16th and 17th Centuries, Athens 2001, p. 64.

[9] Rethymniotika Nea, 16 November 1965.

[10] Athina El. Petrakaki, Pyxida: A Guide to the History of Rethymno, Rethymno 2008, p. 141.