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.
[1] GRGSA, Ministry of Justice Archive ABE 2261, File 174a , 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.
