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Palavra

Palavra

Mod Almighty
Staff member
Theseus said:
A last question: who were the prison camps of Gyaros & Makronisos originally intended for?
Click to expand...

In the '20s, Makronisos was used for quarantine for incoming refugees from the Black Sea and from Minor Asia (who were also Greeks, though). Post-WWII and for decades after, it was being used as a place for exile for communists, as it was during the Junta (I stand corrected :)). Gyaros was also a place of exile from the late '40s to the end of the Junta, for conscientious objectors (who, at that time, were mostly Jehovah's Witnesses), and for communists.

The conditions were extremely harsh, and many people died, among whom pregnant women.
 
Marinos

Marinos

¥
Palavra said:
In the '20s, Makronisos was used for quarantine for incoming refugees from the Black Sea and from Minor Asia (who were also Greeks, though). Post-WWII and for decades after, it was being used as a place for exile for communists, as it was during the Junta. Gyaros was also a place of exile from the late '40s to the end of the Junta, for conscientious objectors (who, at that time, were mostly Jehovah's Witnesses), and for communists.

The conditions were extremely harsh, and many people died, among whom pregnant women.
Click to expand...

A small correction: Makronisos was not used after 1955. Before, and especially during the Civil War, it was nominally an army camp for communist soldiers (youths in age of army service), who were tortured, humiliated and pressed in many ways until they signed a declaration of repentance.
https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Οργανισμός_Αναμορφωτηρίων_Μακρονήσου
 
Theseus

Theseus

¥
As a prisoner at Makronisos in the Greek Civil War, how can Theodorakis have been buried twice unless this was a brutal form of torture, in which the victim was buried for a time & then exhumed a little time later? I gather that under the Junta he was sent to the concentration camp at Oropos.
 
SBE

SBE

¥
Can you provide a source, Theseus, because I have just checked and there is no mention of what you are saying in any of the extended biographies that I have found online.

Edit: OK, I found something. He was buried to the neck. Presumably not like the people who do so on a sandy beach, but hopefully that answers your question, Theseus.
 
nickel

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
From his own site, which seems unavailable now, so I had to ferret this from the cache:

[1949]
End of May Theodorakis is sentenced to return to Makronissos.

July - August Theodorakis, back to Makronissos, suffers awfully. One evening, he is buried alive and rescued only by chance.

Makronissos
Theodorakis back to Makronissos :
a wounded man!

Again he is tortured and left for dead. Again Yorgos Theodorakis succeeds to obtain a transfer of his son to the continent and to set him free as an invalid. For the first time in his life, Mikis visits Crete. But even there he must suffer the »falanga«-torture by the gendarmes of Chania. After that, his mother has a nervous breakdown.

15.10. Official end of the civil war. The government is victorious.
 
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