The first dead in a demonstration in occupied Athens. The struggles and resistance in the Exarchate of the 1940s, in the area where the Nazi detention centers were located
September 27, 1941. In the wider area of Exarcheia on Mavromichali Street, seven Greeks meet in complete secrecy in a house. Three of them are holding "chilies" outside a house.
The establishment of E.AM.
The representative of the KKE, Lefteris Apostolos, the representative of the Socialist Party of Greece, Christos Homenidis, the representative of the Union of the Democratic Republic of Greece, Elias Tsirimokos, and the representative of the Agricultural Party of Greece, Apostolos Vogos, talk undisturbed inside the house.
It was the historic day that the great resistance organization E.AM was founded. (National Liberation Front) and the first sermon was written to the Greek people.
The first dead in a demonstration in Exarchia
About 15 months later, E.AM. calls on the people to strike, due to the rumor that the government of "archivlak von Logotetopoulos" would proceed with a political mobilization of workers.
On December 22, 1942, thousands of workers, civil servants, students and pupils took to the streets in the direction of the Polytechnic, where the Ministry of Labor was located at the time (Tositsa and Bouboulinas).
Clashes ensued between protesters and Special Security men. When the head of the procession turned on Bouboulinas, Italian soldiers started firing in the air.
On Zaimi Street, student Dimitris Konstantinidis was the first to die in a demonstration in occupied Athens, when a carabinieri jeep hit a group of students trying to get back to Bouboulinas.
On February 24, 1943, the Exarcheiotis student of the 5th Gymnasium, Giannis Drakopoulos, was killed by carabinieri in a demonstration in order not to implement the decision "on the compulsory work of the urban population of Greece". In response to his death, the students abstained from their lessons.
On the same day, Dionysis Dimakopoulos was killed and 59 people were seriously injured. The mobilizations that continued in the following period forced the government to freeze the mobilization decree and to promise salary increases.
From the first days of the Nazi invasion, Exarchia has always been a place of martyrdom for countless patriots, as the infamous Bouboulina housed German prisons.
The area, however, never ceased to be a field of urban resistance with conflicts and street battles between the conquerors and the Greeks, while the university institutions of the area such as the Polytechnic, the University and the Chemistry were fixed points of ferment, struggle, inspiration and solidarity for students. youth and militants.