GREECE TRIP - DAY 12c - 8th June 2008

I shall be honoured to go to jail. Under a dictatorship, the detention cell is a place of honour. - Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago of Philippines

Across Lavrion one may see the nearby island of Makronisos, the Greek equivalent of Alcatraz. However, on this island no hardened criminals, no murderers, no evil wrongdoers were imprisoned. Instead the island was a prison for people whose only crime was to think differently to the establishment. Makronisos was where many people who had fought to liberate Greece from the Germans during World War Two, met their fate at the hands of their countrymen. This is where patriots were tortured and killed because of their political beliefs. The men who lived and died here were the first victims of the Cold War.

In October 1944 the German army, which had been occupying Greece retreated. Their stay in Greece was not a pleasant one, for even though the Greek government and the army had themselves retreated from Greece when the Germans first arrived, the Greek resistance, which was predominately communist, harassed the occupiers from their camps in the mountains as well as in the cities. When the country was liberated, the Greek government returned with George Papandreou (father of Andreas) as Prime Minister sharing power with the left in a government of National Unity.

Unfortunately for the leftists, it had been decided already in Yalta by the leaders of the USA, Great Britain and The Soviet Union, when they divided up Europe, that Greece was not going to be allowed to fall under the influence of the communists. The possibility that the left would have any place at all in the Greek political system was disturbing to the leaders of the “free world”, despite the fact that the leftists had been the main resistance against the Nazis. General Scoby under orders from Winston Churchill initiated political intrigues against the communists and forced them to resign from government. On December 3rd a peaceful demonstration in Syntagma Square was fired upon by police snipers which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians. This led to the “Dekembriana”, the December uprising which lasted until January 5th.

With the treaty of Varkiza in February the communists turned in their weapons, making them easy prey for the right-wing criminal militias, who had been collaborators with the Nazis but were now backed by the British, who hunted down members of the resistance and their families. The first elections were held in March of 1946 but were boycotted by the communist party, a fatal mistake because from that point on they were outsiders and non-participants in the Greek political system.

Since the treaty of Varkiza the atrocities committed by the right against the left rivalled the crimes of the Nazis. There were 1,289 people murdered, 31,632 tortured, 30,000 imprisoned and many raped. Their property was confiscated and their houses looted. So in 1946 while the rest of Europe was celebrating the peace after World War Two and trying to get back on their feet, Greece had entered another period of misery as Civil War erupted with the British backing the most reactionary of the Greeks. The leftist parties of the KKE, ELAS and EPON were outlawed. Military tribunals were set up all over the country. Thousands of leftists were executed. 50,000 were imprisoned and tens of thousands were exiled to remote islands, one of these being Makronisos.

In 1946 under a government directive from Prime Minister Sofoulis, communists of draft age were sent to the barren island of Makronisos off the coast of Attica. The future prime minister Kanellopoulos (who was overthrown by the Junta) had called Makronisos “Greece’s new Parthenon”. In much later years, he regretted having said this. The plan was to rehabilitate (= brainwash” and torture) these “bad” Greeks into model citizens. Despite the fact that they had participated in the national resistance against the German occupation they were considered “traitors” and “enemies of the state”.

Their “rehabilitation” was called the “Baptistery of Siloam” and consisted of torture, living in tents in extreme hot or cold weather, being subjected to hunger and thirst, solitary confinement, threats and brainwashing. When their spirit was broken they could sign a declaration admitting wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness. They were then sent to the front lines to fight against their comrades. Those who refused to sign were tried in a tribunal court, executed by firing squad or locked up in the Military Prison of Makronisos. The vast majority were left on the island to be tortured and abused.

In the northern part of Makronisos civilians and officers were held in what was called D Battalion. These were groups of 500 men crowded fourteen to a tent and isolated from other groups by a five-metre high barbed-wire fence. The A Battalion was worse and prisoners were beaten and tortured with bats, iron bars and bamboo canes resulting in broken bones, spinal injury, blinding, psychological trauma and death for thousands of prisoners. This went on even after the Civil war ended in 1949. As time wore on, many fighters from the left who only wanted to return home and recommence their lives, found that they could not go back to their villages for fear of reprisals.

In 1949 the communists retreating to the Eastern block countries issued the infamous edict that all fighters will remain ready to re-attack (‘to oplo para podas’). This of course was false but gave the right wing governments the excuse to prosecute all leftist sympathisers (not only communists) relentlessly, and many of course ended up in Makronisos. Some people who were in Makronisos were taken there because of disputes with their neighbours. Plots abounded and many innocent people were denounced as leftists over these disputes. The military junta that ruled Greece 1967-73 period repopulated the island with inmates during its reign of terror.

Now Makronisos is deserted and the torture and cruelty that took place half a century ago is an almost forgotten memory except by those who lived through it. While the Greek Islands usually make us think of summer, sun, swimming and nights in the tavernas, Makronisos shows us there is another dark side and that man's inhumanity to his fellow man can turn any heaven into a hell. Like the concentration camps in Poland and Germany the island of Makronisos should be open to the public with photos and descriptions of what went on there in those shameful days, if for no other reason so that they will never be repeated.

We went to the bus stop and waited for the bus to Athens. And waited. And waited… It was meant to come every half hour, but it finally turned up 50 minutes past the hour. Apparently there had been a traffic jam on the way up to Sounion and hence it was late. We went via another route, this time inland and saw some villages and small towns on the way into Athens. As soon as we got there we had a stroll though the Field of Mars, which is a park with assorted statuary. It is getting renovated at the moment and is one of the few parks in the metropolitan area of Athens.

When we got back to the hotel we heard about the devastating earthquake in the Peloponnese. It happened while we were on the bus, returning to Athens from Lavrion at 3:25 pm local time. No doubt we would have felt it if we were on solid ground, but on the bus with the jolts, bumps and jarring that we were subjected to, we could not have distinguished it. Apparently in Athens they had felt it and it was remarkable because it lasted for a relatively long time. The really terrible thing about it was that it affected those very villages that last year had been through the ordeal of the huge bushfires that laid the land to waste. The village of Valmi which was severely affected by fire has all but been levelled now…