"In his book-filled office, Vangelis Sakkatos took in the images of the men lined up before a firing squad. The executions on May Day 1944 have haunted him since he was a boy. Their heroism was the stuff of myth, said the veteran leftist, casting his eyes over the photographs that have dominated Greece's press in recent days with a mixture of fury and awe. The years may have passed, but I haven't forgotten."
"At 96, Sakkatos never imagined the time would come when he would be able to put a face to the protagonists of a tragedy that would go down as one of the worst atrocities of Nazi occupation. The 200 communists, executed by machine gun fire in the Kaisariani shooting range, barely a mile away from his first-floor flat, were killed in retaliation for the fatal attack on a German general ambushed by communist guerrillas a few days earlier."
"The pictures depict the men walking into the firing range in Athens, their heads held high as they stare, seemingly unafraid, into the camera. Famously, they went to their deaths chanting partisan songs in a final act of resistance. That is what we have always heard, said Sakkatos, who for years lobbied with other leftists for a monument to be erected in their honour. And now we can see that courage before our eyes."
Vangelis Sakkatos, now 96, viewed photographs of 200 communists executed on May Day 1944 at the Kaisariani shooting range near his Athens flat. The prisoners were killed in retaliation for the fatal ambush of a German general by communist guerrillas days earlier. The images show the men walking into the range with heads held high and chanting partisan songs as they faced death. For decades testimony rested on handwritten notes thrown from trucks and survivor memory. The photographs surfaced on eBay from a Belgian collector of Third Reich memorabilia. A monument now stands at the Kaisariani site.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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