The eight‑story apartment building on 72 Tsimiski Street (now 64 Tsimiski) was built in the 1930s. During the Occupation it was requisitioned to serve as the headquarters of Unit 621 of the German Secret Military Police (GFP). Based on various testimonies and descriptions, the fourth floor housed the interrogation area, while the basement had been converted into holding cells. After their interrogation, detainees who were not released were transferred either to other services in the city of Thessaloniki or to the Pavlos Melas camp.

In July 1945, D. Kontoudis recounted his memories of his arrest and detention in the building: “Someone preceded me in the interrogation room. A young man, a laborer judging by his clothing. They had him seated next to a large table. His right hand was placed in a strange handcuff that was screwed onto the table. I thought it was a precautionary measure to prevent an escape and found it excessive. How could anyone, even if left alone escape from the fourth floor of the building, where the ‘interrogation room’ was located? Soon the interrogator, Lieutenant Hertel, made me understand the real purpose of the handcuff. He grabbed the fingers of the man’s right hand and broke them one by one! The room filled with the victim’s screams of pain and with the awful ‘crack—crack’ made by the breaking of finger joints. He said nothing—either because he did not want to or because, as happened in most cases, he knew nothing. They dragged him out of the room like a dead dog. Laughing and cheerful. Surely pleased because they were faithfully carrying out the orders they had been given and at the same time fulfilling their duty as German… patriots!”[1]

After the War, the building belonged to the National Bank of Greece. It was purchased by the Trastor Housing Company and operated as a store of the clothing and footwear company Fokas until 2014. In 2019 it was leased by Inditex, specifically for the group’s brand Pull & Bear, which specializes in young men’s and women’s clothing as well as accessories and currently operates as a store (ground floor). Residential and urban planning changes in Thessaloniki have led to mistaken identifications of the building because of the changes in the street renumbering that had occurred in the meantime.[2]

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[1] Proini Ora (Morning Time), 16 July 1945.

[2] Spyros Alevropoulos, “Tsimiski 64,” Thessaloniki Lost City, 31 October 2024, https://archive.saloni.ca/3200 (last accessed: 4.3.2026).

The Baron Hirsch settlement was a Jewish neighbourhood on the western edge of the city, near the old railway station of Thessaloniki. The settlement was created after the fire of 1890 by the German-Jewish philanthropist and activist Maurice Baron de Hirsch (1831-1896) with the aim of housing Jewish refugees from Kichinev and Megilev who had left Russia after continuous pogroms. It consisted of 250 small houses with courtyards on what is now Stavrou Voutira Street. It had a school, a synagogue, a polyclinic and a Jewish psychiatric hospital on the corner of Giannitson and Voutira Streets. During the Occupation, it covered an area of 30,000 square metres and had 2,315 inhabitants.[1]

In February 1943, as part of the Nazi orders for the forced relocation of all Jews in Thessaloniki to a ghetto. On 5 March, the neighbourhood was sealed off with a wooden fence and barbed wire, trilingual signs (greek-german-italian) were placed at the three entrances and residents were forbidden to leave. Guard posts were set up, while the Jewish psychiatric hospital was converted into a detention centre and the school building into kitchens. An ad hoc formed Jewish ghetto police, headed by the collaborator Vital Chason, was put in charge of running the camp. Due to its proximity to the railway station, Baron Hirsch became a transit camp for those who were to be deported to the camps. The first to be locked up in Baron Hirsch were the Jews of Lagkada. On Sunday, 14 March, the Germans forced Rabbi Zvi Koretz to gather the detainees in the synagogue and announce that the first train to Poland would depart the following day (15 March). A total of 2,800 people departed. On 16 March, the residents of the Agia Paraskevi neighbourhood gathered in Hirsch, followed later by the residents of Rezi Vardar. In April and May, the ghettos of Settlement 151 and the southeastern neighbourhoods of Thessaloniki followed. By 10 August 1943, a total of 46,091 Jews from Thessaloniki had been deported via Hirsch to the Auschwitz camp.[2] 

The settlement was a scene violent acts, as well as public executions of Jews who had been arrested while trying to flee Thessaloniki. On 15 April, while the deportations continued, a selection was made of men who would be sent to forced labour camps run by the Organisation Todt in southern Greece. Samuel Ardittis was one of them: “In April 1943, as soon as we had gone to the Hirsch ghetto, the Germans caught two merchants. One was called Mallach, I don’t remember the name of the other. I remember Mallach because he was young and our neighbour. He was arrested in Platamonas while trying to escape to the Italian zone. They were executed in the Hirsch ghetto, near the synagogue, in front of everyone. At that time, there were about 4,000 Jews in the ghetto. Twelve Germans came and executed them against the wall of the synagogue. Chason was present at the execution. By 4 p.m., we had not dispersed, and an order came for all young men between the ages of 16 and 24 who were present to remain in their ranks. We stayed with my two brothers, Jacob and Benjamin. They took us to a fenced-in area near Arditti’s coffee house. We stayed there all night. There were about 470 of us and we stood in the café all night. At 10 o’clock in the morning they put us on a train without telling us where we were going. The journey lasted two and a half days”. [3]  

At the same time, the settlement was turned into a gathering place and a site of violent looting by the Germans and their collaborators, who took personal belongings and property that the Jews were forced to hand over before being displaced. The area was deserted and despite the establishment of some Jewish families after the war, today no trace of the Jewish presence or the events of the Holocaust of the Jews of Thessaloniki exists. 

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[1] Molcho, Michael (ed.), In Memoriam. Afieroma is tin mnimin ton Israiliton Thymaton tou Nazismou en Elladi [In dedication to the memory of the Israelite victims of Nazism in Thessaloniki], Thessaloniki 1974. p. 96.

[2] Danuta Czech, Deportation und Vernichtung der griechischen Juden im KL Auschwitz, Hefte von Auschwitz, issue 11 (1970), pp. 5-37.

[3] Schmuel Arditti Testimony, Yad Vashem, Item ID 3556222.

Empirikio was founded in 1917 as an orphanage (Empirikio Asylum for Homeless Children). Until 1925, the Empirikio operated under the supervision of the Ministry of Welfare. It then became a reformatory school for girls and came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. During the Occupation, it was converted into a women’s prison under Greek, Italian and German administration. Criminal prisoners were held on the first floor of the building, prisoners of the Germans on the second floor, and those of the Italians on the third floor. The political prisoners were women of all ages, from underage girls to elderly women and members of various resistance organisations in Athens and the provinces. They were transferred to the prison after interrogation, usually directly from the German or Italian guardhouse in Athens. Toula Mara-Michalakea was arrested as a member of Lefteri Nea (the women’s youth organisation of the EAM) in January 1943 at the age of 15: “The composition of the people [at Empirikio] was different, that is, there were many provincial women, there were artists, there were middle-class women, there were petty bourgeois women, there were working women. What I mean by this is that we were prisoners for various reasons; we weren’t just EAM members, we weren’t just communists, we were all different people. There were also many people from the islands who were hiding the British at that time.”[1] The confirmed presence of several women accused of participating in intelligence networks, espionage organisations or hiding British citizens is combined with the fact that the German and Italian counterintelligence services were based at the Empirikio: “The German and Italian counterintelligence officers serving at the Empirikio Asylum in Ampelokipoi, which had been converted from a juvenile detention centre into a women’s prison, had calculated everything: Gestapo agents stationed throughout the area, about ten soldiers at the entrance, the same number inside, 24-hour guard posts and sentries, Greek-speaking specialists in the offices and administration, and Greek employees who had all been vetted, one by one.[2] Empirikio was used also during the Civil War. Today, it houses the 46th Unified Lyceum of Athens (2014) and the 15th Primary School of Athens (2015).

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[1] Testimony of Toula Mara-Michalakea, in: Maria Fafaliou, Koritsia se periklistous chorous. Martyries [Girls in Confinment. Testimonies] 1942-1952, Alexandria, Athens 2020, p. 79.

[2] Eleftherios Skiadas, Artemis Petranti: Ekseftelise tin antikataskopia ton kataktiton. Epichirisi apodrasis Empirikio. Esose to diktyo Tsigante to 1942 [She humiliated the occupiers’ counterintelligence

Escape operation ‘Empeirikeio’: She saved the Tsigante network in 1942], Ta Athinaika, 22.10.2018. https://www.taathinaika.gr/artemis-petranti-i-ellinida-pou-ekseftelise-tin-antikataskopeia-ton-kataktiton/ (last accessed: 1 October 2025).

Tatoi was one of the largest forced labor camps in the Attica region. It was connected to Tatoi Airport, which was used by the Italian Air Force (until 1943) and by the German Air Force from the beginning to the end of the Occupation. The airfield was one of the oldest military airfields in the country. It began operating in 1918, and during the Greek-Italian War of 1940–41, it was also used by the RAF.

German forces made extensive use of Tatoi and expanded its grounds. Its dimensions were approximately 1,830 x 640 meters, and it featured a 915-meter-long paved runway. The area also included underground fuel tanks, bomb depots, and storage facilities, as well as various maintenance workshops, vehicle depots, and a fire station. There were three dispersal areas (west, north, and east), with a total of 36 open aircraft shelters and three more under construction in June 1943. From Tatoi, numerous units of bombers, fighters, and primarily transport aircraft of the Luftwaffe operated throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In November 1942^, the 1^st Air Transport Command of Southeast Europe (Lufttransportführer I Südost) was established at Tatoi as a temporary tactical command comprising units of the 2^nd Special Purpose Fighter Wing (Kampfgeschwader zur besonderen Verwendung / KG z.b.V. 2), with the mission of supplying Rommel’s forces on the North African front. From May 1941 until its evacuation in October 1944, the German base at Tatoi was subjected to a total of 12 air raids.[1]   

According to documents from that period, between 1942 and 1944 there were approximately 200 to 300 political prisoners held by the German authorities in Tatoi.[2] Many them, if not all, were employed in projects to expand the airport, construct facilities, and clear the area following Allied bombings. This type of forced labor was undoubtedly harsh and dangerous. Strong evidence of this comes from various directives of the Red Cross, which regularly supplied the camp with medical supplies from the ICRC warehouse, bandages, antiseptics, calcium tablets, camphor injections, and tonics for prisoners suffering from illness or exhaustion, as well as first-aid supplies “for air raid casualties,” such as gauze, injections, and tetanus antitoxins.[3] The camp must have been fairly well-organized, as evidenced by the fact that there was a Greek doctor present. The number of victims remains unknown. A compilation of compensation claims from the early 1960s indicates at least six deaths of detainees at the Tatoi SS camp: two by execution, two from hardship and deprivation, and one from an accidental incident (a gun discharge). In one of these reports, we read that the victim, “a worker conscripted to the Tatoi airfield, was forced to move about daily and, as a result of his exhausting labor, the hardships and deprivations, he contracted tuberculosis and, as a result of the above, passed away on March 28, 1944.”[4]

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[1] Henry L. deZeng IV, Luftwaffe Airfields 1935–45: Greece, Crete, and the Dodecanese, 2015, pp. 19–20.

[2] DAEES Archive, TB No. 15, L. Zarifi to EES/Medicine Distribution Committee, No. 13737, Athens, August 6, 1942. Ibid., Zarifi to DES Drug Distribution Service, 13791, Athens, December 9, 1943.

[3] DAEES Archive, TB No. 15, L. Zarifi to DES Drug Distribution Committee, No. 13154, Athens, October 11, 1943.

[4] GRGSA, Nazistikes Apofaseis [Nazi Decisions] 1963, No. 3373/1963.

In October 1943, the heart of the Nazi occupation in Greece was found in the Athens city block bounded by Vasilissis Sofias–Sekeris–Merlin–Kanari Streets. The higher SS command offices were located there. In the building of the Greek-French School of Georgios Metaxas at 11 Vasilissis Sofias Street, the Higher SS and Police Leader (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer) of Greece, Walter Schimana, was installed. At 10 Merlin Street was the headquarters of the Commander of the Security Police (SiPo) and the SD (Befehlshaber für SiPo/SD), Walter Blume. At 3 Merlin Street were the offices of the Counterintelligence Administration of the Military Commander of Greece. In neighboring buildings were housed corresponding services, such as the command of the Ordnungspolizei (also under the SS), at 5 Vasilissis Sofias Street. The entrance to the complex was probably located at 1 Sekeris Street, in the Mitarakis Mansion. Next to it stood the 3rd Police Station (Kolonaki): “A large iron door right beside the police station’s entrance was the doorway to the SS Headquarters. Two petalades, huge men towering high, with automatic weapons in their hands, were positioned at both ends of the door, sullen and fierce-looking.”[1] According to a record from April 1944, the complex housed 34 SS officers, 162 non-commissioned officers and soldiers, and 15 civilian employees—mostly interpreters and agents.[2]

All German police directorates tasked with dismantling resistance groups, Allied units, and persecuting communists, Jews, and other enemies of the Third Reich operated on Merlin Street. In a February 1945 report by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs on war criminals who operated in Greece, we read the following specifically about the Commander of the SiPo/SD: “Captain Blume. Head of the special SD service in Greece, always moving about in civilian clothing, he organized the entire espionage service of Hitlerism in Athens, specialized in the persecution of hidden Israelites, arrested hundreds of Greeks and oversaw their execution. He himself was present at the torture of the arrested Greeks and, with unimaginable sadism, insisted that it be made even more unbearable.”[3]

Few places in the city became so identified with the terror of the Nazi occupation and survived in the urban memory as strongly as “the SS of Merlin Street,” or simply “Merlin.” Hundreds of resistance members and civilians passed through the interrogation offices, where they were interrogated and brutally tortured before being sent for detention, mainly to the Haidari Camp, which was under the authority of Merlin Street. Interrogations were conducted in the presence of interpreters and involved relentless beatings, falanga (beating the soles of the feet), and the use of torture devices such as pulleys, iron hoops, and red‑hot irons. Vangelis Vasilatos, a member of EPON, who was arrested on 17 June 1944, was taken to Merlin Street by the Special Security Police and describes his experience as follows: “I was in the pulley chamber. I didn’t know of this torture. Soon, while I was completely naked, they grabbed me and fastened my hands with handcuffs behind my back, not in front as is usually done, and began pulling the rope. My arms were rising upward and my body leaned forward. They kept pulling. They brought me to the point of uplift, but from the reverse. The pain was terrible. Then they yanked the rope suddenly and my body was lifted about half a meter. I no longer stood on the floor. I was hanging from my arms turned backwards. The weight of my body—about 65–70 kilos—pressed on my wrists (where the handcuffs were) and on my shoulder joints. They pulled the rope a bit more and tied its end to the ring. The pain was unbearable. I was screaming. They continued the interrogation: ‘Speak, what do you know? Which organization are you in? What were you doing?’ At the same time they took the clubs and started hitting me on the back from the top of my head and shoulders down to my legs. My whole body had turned black. Then they took the barbed wire whip and struck with that. Every lash with it tore my flesh and dark blood flowed from here and there and began dripping down. From the terrible pain I fainted. Then they dipped a rag in a bucket full of filthy water and slapped it on my face. I came to immediately. This was repeated two or three times.”[4] Those under interrogation were taken out of the room half-conscious, so that those waiting for their turn could see them, as a form of psychological violence.

The city block Vasilissis Sofias–Merlin–Kanari–Sekeris has undergone many urban changes. The Metaxas School was demolished in 1962, and in its place today stands an office complex of an insurance company. The Mitarakis Mansion was demolished in 1967. The building at 6 Merlin Street, where the interrogation offices were located, has also been demolished, and a beauty products store occupies the site. On 25 April 1983, an official ceremony was held unveiling a memorial at 6 Merlin Street. The memorial consists of a prison-cell door and a relief sculpture by Thanasis Apartis with the inscription: “Here was the torture chamber of the Gestapo 1941–1944.”

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[1] Vassilis Daras, C83. Vios ke viomata enos aplou anthropou [Life and experiences of an ordinary man], Athens 1995, p. 28.

[2] BArch, RH 34/263, Anlage zu Stadtkommandantur Athen, Tgb. Nr. 730/44 geh., Truppenliste der in Athen anwesenden Einheiten, 10.4.1944.

[3] Cited in: Flountzis, Chaidari, p. 109.

[4] Cited in: Flountzis, Haidari, p. 119.

The Lamia Prison was built in 1915 on privately owned land leased by the state. It included a men’s and a women’s section. The men’s section was in the block of the current Kapodistriou, Alamanas, Diakou and Papakyriazi streets, while the women’s section was located further south, surrounded by Xanthou, Papakyriazi, Tsakalov and Alamanas streets. The men’s section had a capacity of 100 people. There is little information about the pre-war period, certainly the prisons did not meet operating standards. In the early 1930s, the local press noted that “the building that currently houses prisoners is a stain on our culture.” Between 1933 and 1935, various proposals to relocate the prison to the Castle of Lamia or the abandoned “Elassonion” Hospital were not implemented. [1]

During the Occupation, despite damage from German bombing, the prison continued to operate. On 30 September 1941, there were 121 prisoners, all of whom were serving sentences for criminal offences.[2] Until 1943, the men’s prison building was also used by the Italian occupation forces, who held military control of the whole of mainland Greece. In a report by the Ministry of Justice to the Italian forces in March 1943, it is noted that the building “is good in terms of capacity. Ventilation is adequate. Capacity for 100 prisoners. 161 are already being held. According to information from the Ministry, the prisoners are living tolerably well, in relation to the conditions in other prisons. The Ministry has allocated 500,000 drachmas for health and cleaning expenses, independently of the regular appropriations. As for food, the GRC regularly sends food supplies […] The prison administration was instructed to report to us why the prisoners’ food is inadequate.[3] The prisons held Italian resistance fighters and civilians who were murdered in reprisal operations, the most famous case being the execution of 14 hostages on 10 December 1942, in retaliation for the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos bridge.[4]  

From October 1943, the prisons were used by German forces to imprison resistance fighters and civilians who had been active in the anti-occupation movement. From mid-November 1943, Lamia had a branch of the SiPo/SD and, together with Athens and Larissa, was the headquarters of the Commander of the Order Police (BdO).[5] Prisoners were executed in at least two cases: on 2 April 1944 in Lamia (50 people) and on 25 April 1944 at the “Karakolithos” site in Boeotia (37 out of a total of 134 or 136 executed). On 29 July 1944, there were 120 political prisoners, all classified as “German prisoners”.[6] During the Civil War, Lamia Prison became one of the country’s central detention centres for political prisoners, communists, captured rebels and citizens persecuted for their political beliefs. A total of 435 prisoners were executed by decision of the Lamia Special Military Court. The condemned men were held in a separate building opposite the main prison, on Othonos Street. The prison was abolished in 1969. Today, the building (36 Kapodistriou Street) houses a branch of the Hellenic Post Office (ELTA) and a car park. The building that housed the death row inmates during the Civil War is now home to the 10^thPrimary School of

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[1] “I fylakes Lamias [The prisons of Lamia]”, 02.11.2018, Amfiktyon blog, https://amfictyon.blogspot.com/2018/11/blog-post.html (last accessed: 24/11/2025). 

[2] GRGSA, Ministry of Justice Archive, f. 174^a , List of prisoners in state prisons as of 30 September [1941].

[3] GRGSA, Ministry of Justice Archive, f. 176 , Greek State/Ministry of Justice/Directorate of Penitentiary Administration, “To the Royal Italian Delegation regarding the situation in prisons, as per the memorandum forwarded to the Ministry,” Athens, 2.3.1943.

[4] Giorgos Chandrinos, 75 chronia Gorgopotamos: sidirodromikes ptyches mias istorikis anatinaksis [75^th Anniversary of Gorgopotamos: Railway Aspects of a historic sabotage], Sidirotrochia no. 51 (2017), p. 26.

[5] NARA, T501, roll 255, Militärbefehlshaber Griechenland/Ic, Lagebericht für die Zeit vom 15.11 -30.11.1943, Anlage zu KTB; BArch, R 70 (Griechenland) /1, Begl. Abschrift, Der Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD für Griechanland. Athens, 3 November 1944.

[6] DAESS Archive, TB N. 16, EES, Committee for the Care of Disabled Persons, Lamia Department to the EES Prisoners of War Office, Ref. No. 167. Lamia, 29 July 1944.

In early 1943, the Organization Todt set up one of its railway worksites at the Karya railway station on the southwestern side of Mount Othrys, between Lianokladi and Nezeros in Sterea Ellada. At that location, the German occupation authorities had decided to open a deep cut into the rocky hill almost opposite the station building, in order to extend by roughly 300 meters an existing “blind” or “safety” siding, in railway terminology.[1]

The project was carried out by the Überland company (Überland Hoch-, Tief-, und Straßenbau AG), a subsidiary of the Munich-based firm Leonhard Moll, which had been integrated into the Todt Organization as a project unit. The chief engineer was Hans Reschler, and the camp commandant/foreman was Josef Langmaier, both officers of the Todt Organization and employees of Überland/Moll.[2] The camp–worksite was organized in February 1943 and staffed exclusively with Jews from Thessaloniki, who were sent there in two groups at the end of March and mid-April 1943, during the mass arrest and deportation of the members of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki to Auschwitz. The first group consisted of men arrested during a roundup on 24 March in the (ghettoized) 151 settlement; the second group came from those seized inside the Baron Hirsch ghetto. According to a 1945 testimony, the second group numbered 420 people.[3] The basic bibliographic references speak of 300 forced laborers in Karya,[4] but the total was likely around 500.

The few surviving testimonies describe a true hell. The Jewish workers slept in two wooden barracks built by Todt, each holding about 250 people, and during the day they were forced to break rocks and carry the rubble to the other side of the railway line using small wagons. They worked 12-hour shifts, water was scarce, and the food consisted mostly of boiled beans and pickled cabbage, with bread rarely distributed and never exceeding 100 drams per portion. They were given no proper clothing or shoes, and many were forced to walk barefoot on sharp stones.[5] Disease was rampant (avitaminosis, dysentery, typhus, etc.), while the guards and overseers—mostly ethnic Germans from the Balkans, Croats, and Serbs—were free to execute on the spot anyone they deemed not working hard enough. Since trains continued to operate, the suffering of the Jewish workers was visible to passing passengers. One of them, the writer Georgios Vafopoulos from Thessaloniki, left the following description:

A few kilometers before Lamia, the train had stopped again, near a wasteland where my soul was tested by the horrifying scene of a Dantesque inferno. This oft-used expression is no figure of speech here. Down in the small ravine, in front of the stopped train, the final act of an episode from the hell of the great Florentine was being played out. Some shacks stood there, where perhaps only a few months earlier a “labor battalion” of tormented Jews had been housed. Now several living remnants remained—what once must have been human beings. Skeletal bodies with scraps of cloth on them could barely move from weakness. Their faces, devoid of humanity, resembled wounded animals dying away. They tried to walk and staggered, stumbling on stones, and then their guard—a renegade Jew—ran up and brought the German whip down with force on their tattered bodies.[6]

The total number of those who died in Karya remains unverified; it was one of the forced-labor camps with the highest mortality rate in Greece. According to the testimony (1954) of the Thessalonian Isac Mois Coenca, who managed to escape in early August 1943, about 40–50 people died from hardships or were murdered by the guards at the Karya worksite, which he describes as “hell on earth”. They were hastily buried along the railway line, on the right side heading toward Athens.[7]

About 800 people managed to return to Thessaloniki from the railway worksites–camps of Central Greece. They were deported to Auschwitz on 10 August 1943 with the 19th and last transport from Thessaloniki. Most were so weak and exhausted that they were deemed unfit for labor and were sent immediately to the crematorium. Only 271 men were admitted into the camp.[8]

The Karya worksite was abandoned after the completion of the works. The location continued to function as a stop on the SEK and later OSE railway network until 2019, when it was closed due to the rerouting of the line. Despite additional information about the existence of a mass grave near the tracks, its exact location has not yet been identified. The site has been the subject of extensive research within the scope of a Greek-German educational an exhibition program carried out by the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation Center (Dokumentationzentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit) in Berlin under the title “Karya 1943. Forced Labor and the Holocaust”. The travelling exhibition which was produced was presented in Berlin, Athens, Thessaloniki and Lamia in 2024 and 2025.

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[1] Zissis Protopapas, Touristikos sididromikos odigos [Tourist railway guide], Athens 1992, p. 31.

[2] “Karya 1943. Forced Labor and the Holocaust”, https://karya1943.eu/en/karya-1943-en/ (last access: 28.6.2025).

[3] Schmuel Arditti, Yad Vashem Archive, ITEM ID 3556222.

[4] In Memoriam, pp. 114-115.

[5] Sam Cohen, VHA, Interview Code 34795, 2.11.1997.

[6] G. F. Vafopoulos, Selides aftoviografias [Autobiographical pages], Thessaloniki 1971, pp. 168-169.

[7] Ηistorical Archive of the Israelite Community of Thessaloniki (IAIKTH), file 323, sworn testimony of Isak Mois Koenka, 1.11.1954.

[8] Pepo Matalon, VHA, Interview Code 49030, 13.11.1998.

The Averof Prison was built on Alexandras Avenue in 1896 as a reformatory for minors, with money donated by national benefactor Georgios Averof. Their official name was “Averof Juvenile Detention Centre”. From 1941 to 1944, they operated as military prisons for the Italian and German authorities in the capital, while continuing to function as a Greek correctional facility, with male and female sections. Later on a children’s section was created for the children of prisoners.[1] Their occupation history began on 26 June 1941 when the Italians, without prior consultation with the prison administration but with the consent of the German authorities, took over the entire left wing of the main building with the its cells and related equipment.[2] The Italian section of Averof Prison was renamed Comando Carcere Militare Averof, with Major Guido Corti (Guido Corti) as acting commander. The Germans used the prison as the central military prison of Athens for the Wehrmacht  (Kriegswehrmachtgefangnis Athen). The Italians were entirely responsible for the external guarding of the complex.[3] During the Occupation, thousands of men and women, resistance fighters and rebels, demonstrators,[4] members of espionage organisations, a number of British agents from the Middle East who had been arrested in Athens,[5] were imprisoned here, along with a number German soldiers who had been punished for various offences.

Formally, the prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Greek Ministry of Justice. The administrative and correctional staff were Greek, while Italians and Germans were in charge of the respective sections of the prison under their supervision. Due to their operation, the Averof Prisons were reminiscent of the structure and organisation of a German concentration camp, mainly in terms of the great power enjoyed by low-ranking personnel: guards, interpreters and wardens had disproportionately extensive powers and exercised real authority over the inmates. A well-known case concerns the German nurse and later interpreter Margarete Kaufels, known in Greek testimonies as “Margarita Hartofyllou”. Having settled in Greece before the war and married to a Greek, Kaufels, according to statements made by members of the prison staff in 1945-46 to the War Crimes Office, “often pointed out certain prisoners to the Germans, who mistreated them. She [displayed] the same behaviour towards prison officials […] I also heard it said that when executions were to be carried out by the Germans, the accused would joke with the Germans. The defendant also behaved brutally towards visitors to the prisoners.”^[6] Although Kaufels did not participate in murders or executions or have any other authority, it is characteristic that she was the most recognisable figure for most inmates and, in the absence of identification details for the other German perpetrators, she was “blamed” for all the violence in the prison and charged with “violence, terrorising the civilian population, torturing all kinds of prisoners and members of the Averof Prison staff, extortion” etc., without the case ever reaching court.^[7]

The prison had 96 cells with a total capacity of 450 people and at least three group rooms with a capacity of about 100 people. A 19-year-old resistance fighter who was transferred to the prison in early 1944 describes the prisoners’ cells as follows: “It was at least thirty metres long and five or six metres wide. An armed German guard unlocked the barred door and I went inside […] A prisoner who served as the cell leader helped me reach the far left of the cell, where he showed me to my place: a mattress on the floor with two blankets. The cell was full of prisoners of all ages. The mattresses were arranged in two rows on the left and right, with a wide corridor running down the middle.[8] The wing for those awaiting execution was located on the west side of the prison complex, parallel to Kyrillou Loukareos Street, in what was known as Block C. The individual cells, measuring approximately 2.50 x 3.50 metres, were arranged along a large corridor. Each cell had a small iron-barred window and a small round hole (peephole) in the door, 1.5 metres above the floor and five or six centimetres in diameter. The condemned prisoners left their cells at 8 a.m. to wash in group washbasins and toilets. Every other day, between 10 and 11 a.m., they were allowed to exercise together in a small inner courtyard, walking in a circle for half an hour and without being allowed to talk to each other.[9]

At the end of 1941, there were 1,152 prisoners in Averof, which is almost the same number (1,130) recorded in Greek Red Cross sources two years later[10] , as well as oral testimonies.[11] Despite fluctuations, the prison operated continuously at full capacity. The prison population was a microcosm of occupied Athens. In April 1942, the three group cells were packed with all kinds of “offenders,” such as men and women involved in anti-occupation activities, such as officers who intended to flee to the Middle East, with the vast majority having been arrested for theft, market offences and black market activities.[12] Although the majority of prisoners came from the capital, the number of prisoners from provincial areas remained consistently high. At the end of August 1943, of the 74 prisoners (70 men and 4 women) who were classified as “indigenous”, 68 were from Lamia, Gravia and various villages in Central Greece.[13]

Conditions at Averof Prison were quite harsh, at least until the spring of 1942, when the Red Cross began systematically providing food to the prisoners. For some defendants, the right to send and receive parcels from relatives proved to be a lifeline. On the other hand, those who had no other source of food apart from the meagre prison rations suffered greatly, especially during the winter of 1941/42, which brought dozens of prisoners to the brink of starvation. The following description is from the spring of 1942: “So you saw people who were literally skeletons, skin and bones. Thighs as thin as bones, ribs sticking out horribly. The worst conditions were in the third ward, where all the vagrants of Athens had gathered, those who had not died of starvation and had rushed to steal something from the Germans to survive.”[14] From early 1943, the Italian guard allowed small food parcels to be sent by relatives.[15] 

The executions took place in the prison’s inner courtyard. Navy officer Menelaos Christopoulos describes the first execution of five prisoners sentenced to death on 28 April 1942: “It was a very cold feeling that we all experienced as we heard them being led one by one in front of our cell (because they took such measures that we could not see them from the windows) and then heard the gunshots […[ Even the fact that they carried out the executions inside the prison is characteristic of their inhumanity. They did not care if this meant that other prisoners sentenced to death had to witness these executions, while waiting day after day for their turn.[16]

Members of the prison administration had contacts with the Resistance. On 12 November 1942, an operation was carried out to free two women held by the Italians, Kaiti Antonopoulou and Christina Gaspari, who were in the women’s section of the prison. The operation was organised by the espionage group “Midas 614” and especially its member, officer Miltiadis Giannakopoulos, in collaboration with the director of the women’s prison, Artemis Petranti, and the assistance of the Urban Police Commander, Angelos Evert himself. Giannakopoulos entered the prison in a police sergeant’s uniform and took the prisoners and Petranti away, under the pretext that he would accompany them for questioning. Petranti went into hiding, fled to the Middle East and in July 1944 was sentenced in absentia by a Greek court to five years’ imprisonment for aiding and abetting an escape.[17]  She was reinstated to the leadership in November 1944.[18] The priest of the women’s prison, Dimitrios Chr. Papadimitriou, was arrested by the Italians as an accomplice, but was later released.[19]

On 16 September 1944, during a general strike called by the EAM in Athens and Piraeus, bloody armed clashes broke out around the Averof Prison, part of an attempt by EAM-ELAS forces to liberate the prisoners. Bibliographic and archival sources mention 72 dead and 200 wounded,[20] while a sergeant of the prison guard was also killed.[21] After the Liberation, the Averof prisons became the central detention centre for collaborators, including senior political and military figures and the qusiling prime ministers and ministers. On 18 December 1944, ELAS attacked the complex to kidnap the collaborators, resulting in a bloody battle with British forces. The building suffered serious damage. From 1945 onwards they were used exclusively for political prisoners, including many women. They continued to operate until 1971. The following year, the complex was demolished to make way for the modern Courthouse, which has housed the Supreme Court since 1981. Memory of the Averof Prison survives in the starting point of the active city bus line 813, called “Averof – Proussis”.

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[1] Dimitris D. Gyftopoulos, Mystikes apostoles stin echtrokratoumeni Ellada [Clandestine missions in Enemy-Occupied Greece], Dodoni, Athens 1990, p. 280.

[2] GAK, Ministry of Justice Archive, f. 177, Averof Juvenile Detention Centre to the Directorate of Correctional Administration, 1027, 27.6.1941 Vice Admiral E. Panas, Tria chronia sta cheria ton Nazi [Three Years in the Hands of the Nazis] 1942-1945, Filippotis, Athens 1985, p. 280.

[3] Panas, Three Years, p. 33.

[4] Tzinis, Bloodstained Notebooks, p. 91 ff.

[5] Nikolaos Dimotakis, Mystikos polemos 1941-1944. Midas-Plouton [Secret war 1941-1944. Midas-Pluto], Athens 1948, pp. 111, 112.

[6] BArch B 162/16929, Greek files, Athens Regional Court, Georgios Apostolopoulos, witness examination, 13 May 1946 (in Greek). Cf. Panas, Three Years, p. 33 ff.

[7] BArch B 162/16929, p. 9, List of Names II, No. 142, Kaufels, Margret (Karl), Interpreter at the “Aberof” Prison, Athens / Charge: Threats, coercion, terrorising the civilian population, mistreatment and torture of all kinds of prisoners and staff at the “Aberof” prison, blackmailing a woman and staff.

[8] Michael Tournavitis, Istoriko enos mellothanatou [History of a death row inmate] 1944, Pelasgos Publications, Athens 2013, p. 80.

[9] Ibid., pp. 94-98.

[10] DAEES Archive, TB, No. 15, EES Prisoners’ Office to DES Medicine Distribution Committee, 13397 , Athens, 2 November 1943 and 13461, Athens, 8 November 1943

[11] Apostolos Papangelou, interview, 7.10.2003.

[12] Vice Admiral E. Panas, Three Years, p. 31.

[13] DAEES Archive, KS Listes 1, Archdiocese of Athens to EES Prisoners of War Department, AP 458, Athens, 30.8.1943.

[14] Panas, Three Years, p. 30.

[15] Tzinis, Bloodstained Notebooks, p. 104.

[16] Nitsa Christopoulou (ed.), “…empleoi pasis timis”. Anamnisis apo tin echmalosia mou [“…sailing with honour”. Memories of my captivity] 1942-1945, published by the Naval Museum, Athens 1995, p. 38.

[17] Konstantinos Koukkidis, I dikeosini tous. I antistasi 1941-1944 sta italika  ke germanika stratodikeia [Their justice! The Resistance 1941-1944 in Italian and German military courts], Athens 1946, p. 124.

[18] Gyftopoulos, Secret Missions, pp. 239-242 .

[19] Magda Papadimitriou-Samothraki, Ο asymvivastos. Panos Meidanis-Geros-Anendotos [The Uncompromising. Panos Meidanis], Katerini 2014, p. 58.

[20] YDIA, File 30, Cairo Government 1943-1944, Liberation of Greece-EAM-ELAS and Security Battalions’ Vigilante Justice”, subfile 30.1, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, encrypted telegram (307) Sourla from Cairo, A.P.A. 25.9.1944. Military Bulletin 24 September 1944. 

[21] Archive of the Registry Office of the Municipality of Athens, Death Register IE/1944, entry no. 119.

The Eptapyrgio, also known by its Ottoman name Yedi Kule, is the ottoman fortress of Thessaloniki, located at the north-eastern end of the walls of Thessaloniki, within the Acropolis. It began to function as a prison during the last period of the Ottoman era, in the 1890s and continued to operate as a prison after Thessaloniki was annexed to the Greek state in 1913. It became one of the country’s main criminal prisons (Eptapyrgio Criminal Prison).

From the beginning to the end of the Occupation, political prisoners of the German Occupation authorities and those convicted by military courts were imprisoned in Eptapyrgio. The Germans initially forced the prison staff to move into the building of the Thessaloniki Public Prosecutor’s Office, while temporarily transferring the criminal prisoners to the Pavlos Melas camp.[1] The position of prison director was abolished by decision of the occupation government in November 1941.[2] The number of inmates remained consistently high. On 31 October 1941, 894 people were being held at Eptapyrgio.[3] In February 1944, the number of prisoners reached 369, of whom 99 had been referred by the German authorities, including 15 women.[4] The prison became the second largest detention centre in Thessaloniki after the Pavlos Melas Camp. One of the first victims of reprisals throughout Greece was the prisoner of Eptapyrgio, Giorgos Polychronakis, who had been convicted by a German court martial on charges of sheltering British soldiers. He was executed on 19 August 1941.[5] Prisoners were executed at various locations: in the area around Eptapyrgio, the Agricultural School, Mikra Airport, the “Red House”, Harmankioi and the Gallikos River.[6]

After 1945, the prison reopened and became one of the largest prisons in the country during the Civil War. According to research in the death records of the Municipality of Thessaloniki for the period 1946-1949, 184 death sentences imposed by the Special Court of Thessaloniki were carried out at Eptapyrgio.[7] In more recent years, prisons were considered “slave labour” and a source of scandal for the correctional system.[8] They were permanently closed in 1989 and transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. At the end of 2024, during the redevelopment of the National Resistance Park, located opposite the Eptapyrgio, six mass graves were discovered, containing a total of 33 human skeletons. The case received widespread publicity and drew public attention not only to the history of the Eptapyrgio but also to the unknown fate of dozens of prisoners executed during the Occupation and the Civil War.

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[1] GRGSA, Ministry of Justice Archive ABE 2261, File 174^a , Eptapyrgio Criminal Prisons to the Ministry of Justice, Ref. No. 292, Thessaloniki, 2.3.1945.

[2] “On the abolition of the position of Director of the Eptapyrgio Prisons,” Government Gazette, no. 432/A/15 December 1941

[3] GRGSA, Ministry of Justice Archive ABE 2261, File 174a, Table showing prisoners in state prisons on 31 October 1941.

[4] DAESS Archive, TB No. 15, Greek Red Cross, Thessaloniki Branch to the EES Prisoners and Detainees Department, AP 229, Thessaloniki, 5 February 1944.

[5] Gounaris, Vassilis K., Papapoliviou, Petrou (Eds.): O foros tou aimatos stin katochiki Thessaloniki. Kseni kiriarchia, antistasi ke epiviosi [The Tax of Blood in Occupied Thessaloniki. Foreign Occupation-Resistance and Survival], Thessaloniki 2001, p. 155.

[6] Spyros Kouzinopoulos, Yedi Koule. I vastilli tis Thessalonikis [Genti Koule. The Bastille of Thessaloniki], IANOS Publications, Athens 2025, p. 101.

[7] “Thessaloniki: The ‘dark past’ of Yedi Kule A monument of world cultural heritage,” Parallaxi, 22.3.2025 https://parallaximag.gr/thessaloniki-news/thessaloniki-to-skoteino-parelthon-toy-genti-koyle https://parallaximag.gr/thessaloniki-news/thessaloniki-to-skoteino-parelthon-toy-genti-koyle (last accessed: 28/2/2026).

[8] See, for example, Ellinikos Voras (Greek North), 18 January 1987.