The Vagianou Clinic was a private neurological clinic located at the intersection of Chalkidikis, Analipseos and Thermopylon Streets in Thessaloniki. It was built in the early 1930s by architect and neurologist Andreas Vagianou, who also set up his private residence there. During the Occupation, it was requisitioned by the German forces and became the headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Thessaloniki. Civilians, both men and women, who had been arrested based on information or during raids in the city and its suburbs were taken there. The complex housed interrogation offices and isolation cells in a specially designed basement. Prisoners were often transferred to other locations for interrogation or detention, such as the SD headquarters at 117 Vasilissis Olgas Street or the offices of the Secret Military Police (GFP) 510 and 621 in 1 Italias and 72 Tsimiski Street resprectively, and then to the Pavlos Melas Camp or directly to places of mass executions.[1]
The Vagianou Clinic became one of the main incarceration sites in Thessaloniki and gained a notorious reputation as a “Gestapo stronghold.” According to a feature in the newspaper Dimokratia (March 1946), “when someone entered the isolation ward, they remained standing for two or three days straight, because the Germans filled it to capacity so that those in isolation could not even move, and they were sprayed with dirty water dripping from the sewer, which deliberately passed through the concrete roof. During their isolation, they were given neither bread nor water, and were forced to relieve themselves on the floor, suffocating in an atmosphere of indescribable stench.[2] Georgios M. Vellos, a resident of Thessaloniki, filed a claim for compensation in October 1961 for his imprisonment during the Occupation, in which he stated the following: “I was arrested on 4 June 1944 and taken to the torture chambers of the ‘Vagianou’ clinic in Thessaloniki, where I was tortured day and night for thirty consecutive days by all kinds of means, resulting in physical injury (disability) that reduced my ability to work by more than 60%.”[3]
After the war, it continued to operate as a neurological clinic and later as a conservatory. Today, only the two-storey house of Andreas Vagianous (50 Chalkidiki Street) remains of the complex, which has been converted into a luxury guesthouse.
[1] Raphael Gaidatzis, “The cries from the basement – When a clinic in Thessaloniki was turned into a den of horrific torture,” parallaxi, 29 September 2025, https://parallaximag.gr/thessaloniki-news/oi-krayges-apo-ta-ypogeia-otan-mia-kliniki-tis-thessalonikis-metatrapike-se-antro-frikton-vasanistirion (last accessed: 4.3.2026).
[2] Democracy newspaper, 22 March 1945.
[3] GRGSA-IAM Digital Archive, GRGSA-IAM_JUS001.S02.SS01.15_001587_IT000208_00007. Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki, Application by Georgios Miltiadis Vellos, 25 October 1961
