Discovered by chance, a mass grave revives memories of Greece’s brutal civil war

Workers were installing benches astatine a parkland successful the past Greek larboard metropolis of Thessaloniki when their excavator pushed brownish soil disconnected a fragile white skull.

They turned disconnected the motorized instrumentality and acceptable to work with pickaxes and shovels. The unit recovered two skeletons, then more. By March, 33 sets of bones laic successful a choky clump of unmarked burial pits successful the shadiness of a Byzantine fortress.

“We recovered galore bullets successful the heads, the skulls,” supervising technologist Haris Charismiadis said, standing connected world overturned by 4 months of digging.

It’s communal to find past remains oregon objects successful Greece. But hulking Yedi Kule castle was a situation where Communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece’s 1946–1949 Civil War. Tens of thousands died successful the aboriginal Cold War-era battles betwixt Western-backed authorities forces and left-wing insurgents, a brutal struggle with assassination squads, kid abductions and wide displacements.

The archaeological work cleared the ιστοσελίδα for improvement due to the fact that the bones are little than 100 years old. But authorities successful Neapolis-Sykies, a suburb of the coastal metropolis of Thessaloniki, pressed connected with excavation, saying the accidental find has “great humanities and nationalist importance.”

Descendants person been coming to the ιστοσελίδα successful caller weeks, leaving flowers and asking authorities to behaviour DNA testing “so they tin retrieve the remains of their grandfather, great-grandfather oregon uncle,” said Simos Daniilidis, who has served arsenic Neapolis-Sykies’ politician since 1994.

As galore arsenic 400 Yedi Kule prisoners were executed, according to historians and the Greek Communist Party. Items recovered with the bodies – a woman’s shoe, a handbag, a ringing – connection glimpses into the lives chopped short.

A drone photograph shows Yedi Kule prison, which is present a museum, successful Thessaloniki, April 11, 2025. [Thanassis Stavrakis/AP]

Wartime legacy

For the families of slain pro-Communist Greeks, the find successful the Park of National Resistance is reviving a wartime bequest kept dormant to debar reigniting aged animosities. The small ιστοσελίδα has go Greece’s archetypal Civil War wide sedate to beryllium exhumed.

Government forces executed 19-year-old Agapios Sachinis aft helium refused to motion a declaration renouncing his governmental beliefs.

“These are not elemental matters,” his namesake nephew said during a caller visit to the site.

“It’s astir carrying wrong you not conscionable courage, but values and dignity you won’t compromise – not adjacent to prevention your ain life,” said Agapios Sachinis, 78.

A retired Communist metropolis assembly member, Sachinis was imprisoned successful the 1960s for his governmental enactment during the dictatorship. Today, the Communist Party belongs to the governmental mainstream, mostly thanks to its relation successful the country’s World War II resistance.

If Sachinis’ uncle’s remains are identified, helium said, helium will cremate them and support the ashes astatine his home.

“I want Agapios adjacent to me, astatine slightest while I’m alive,” helium said.

Agapios Sachinis holds a representation of his uncle, a captive executed successful the Greek Civil War, successful Thessaloniki, connected April 12, 2025. [Thanassis Stavrakis/AP]

Cold War playbook

Greece’s Civil War began successful the wake of World War II. Coming aft continent-wide destruction, it rapidly mislaid planetary attraction but the struggle marked a turning point: US President Harry Truman’s argumentation of anti-communist involution – the Truman Doctrine – was presented to Congress successful 1947 arsenic a means to nonstop funds and subject support to Greece.

Etched connected the recently excavated bones successful Thessaloniki, then, is simply a playbook that went connected to nutrient decades of repression, societal divisions and much unmarked graves successful Asia, Africa and Latin America. Governments aboriginal addressing the Cold War-era abuses and atrocities faced a achy choice: To unearth the past – arsenic attempted with investigative commissions successful Eastern Europe and galore Latin American countries – oregon suppress it for fearfulness of caller division.

Greek exigency laws were gradually lifted and lone afloat abolished successful 1989. Records of summary trials and executions were ne'er made public. No governmental unit pushed for the excavation of suspected burial sites.

Politicians still use highly cautious connection when addressing the past and the Thessaloniki find was met with a subdued nationalist reaction. The find has not been straight addressed by the country’s center-right authorities – a reminder that galore Greeks still find it easier to walk past the country’s ghosts than face them.

Decades ago, the vicinity parkland successful Thessaloniki – a densely populated larboard metropolis of a cardinal with ruins from the past Greek, Roman and Ottoman eras, with historically strong Balkan and Jewish influences – was a tract connected the outskirts of the city. Today, it’s frequented by retirees and ringed by flat buildings filled with middle-class families. During construction, residents whispered that bones had been discovered when foundations were laid, but nary enquiry was conducted.

Author and historiographer Spyros Kouzinopoulos holds a paper announcing the Sept. 15, 1947, tribunal ruling to execute 52 radical being held astatine Yedi Kule prison, successful Thessaloniki, April 12, 2025. [Thanassis Stavrakis/AP Photo]

‘Flowers of their generation’

Executions by service firing squads extended into the 1950s and were publically announced, but graves were unmarked and secret. Author and historiographer Spyros Kouzinopoulos, a Thessaloniki native, spent decades researching the executions astatine Yedi Kule, including the indignities endured by prisoners successful their last hours.

After a subject tribunal issued a decease sentence, the main defender would take the condemned captive to solitary confinement successful small cells hardly large capable to stand. Many would use their past hours to write letters to their families. At dawn, the main defender and two others would retrieve the captive and manus them implicit to the firing squad. Most were loaded onto trucks to debar attracting nationalist attention. Sometimes they were led to their decease connected foot.

Most of the victims were hardly adults – youth Kouzinopoulos called “flowers of their generation.”

Two 17-year-old schoolgirls, Efpraxia Nikolaidou and Eva Kourouzidou, were executed while wearing their uniforms, helium said.

“It shook maine to the core,” Kouzinopoulos said.

An serviceman reads execution orders to 4 condemned youths astatine a subject installation adjacent Athens, Oct. 29, 1947, arsenic members of a firing squad stand with their backs to the camera. The youths, each from Peristeri, an Athens suburb, were convicted of aiding a Communist rebellion, conspiracy and a slaying. [AP Photo, File]

DNA testing

City officials are taking steps to behaviour DNA testing connected the remains, and urging families of the missing to submit familial material. That way, the bodies tin beryllium identified and returned to relatives.

Agapios Sachinis, the septuagenarian whose uncle was executed, is among those anxious to supply DNA.

Mayor Daniilidis has ordered an enlargement of the excavation to different parts of the parkland successful coming weeks.

“We indispensable nonstop a message,” helium said. “Never again.” [AP]