Cleaning of historic Madras Blokou Kokkinia, vandalized with far-right slogans, has been successfully completed.
Crews from the Cleaning Department of the Municipality of Nicéia – Ag. I. Rentis, the Technical Services Department as well as the Culture and Education Department.
Mayor of Nice – St. Renti Konstantinos Maragakis notes:
“I want to thank my colleagues from the Cleaning, Technical Services, Education and Culture Departments because I consider employees as partners as well as the Competent Vice-President Mr. Nikolaos Kardia, Mr. mobilization. Cleaning the Madras monument was a matter of utmost priority for us. All necessary actions have been taken to restore the monument and remove the slogans and we will proceed with additional drastic measures to protect the area so that no one tarnishes the historical memory of our city again.”
BRIEF HISTORY
On August 17, 1944, at the historic Red Block site of Madras, 74 Greek patriots, fighters and fighters who actively participated in the country’s liberation struggle against the German occupier and the Resistance were executed. The photos are housed at the Memorial and the names of those executed are listed, most of them young people. The total number of deaths, those who tragically lost their lives in various parts of the city, reached 300. To understand the events of those days, it is appropriate to refer to the historical climate of the time, the period of the German Occupation, and let’s see – briefly – how the scenario of this bloody tragedy takes shape and develops.
Greece in the period 1940-1941 suffers a double blow, as it is necessarily involved in the Second World War. On the one hand he tries to repel the Italian attack, on the other he accepts the invasion of German Nazism, which proves to be stronger and more destructive than Italian fascism. In this painful historical and economic situation in which the country found itself during the period 1940-1944, organized resistance was a necessary and inevitable solution. EAM, the National Liberation Front, managed to unite the Greek people and foster the vision of a free Greece. From the depths of the EAM emerged its armed section, ELAS, the Hellenic People’s Liberation Army, which intended to liberate the country and defend the freedom of its people.
The blockades that occurred during the period of the German Nazi Occupation were very well planned military operations, and were carried out mainly in districts that had intense resistance activity, such as Kokkinia. The aim of the blockades was: to weaken the resistance movement, to limit the influence of ELAS and EAM on the people, to turn citizens against organized resistance. The blockades were a form of retaliation, a systematic method of intimidating the people on a Pan-Hellenic level. The Battle and Blockade of Kokkinia are two important pages in Greek history written during the period of occupation.
The Blockade occurred five months after the Battle of Kokkinia, which took place in March of the same year. In the early hours of August 17, 1944 – around 2:30 in the morning – the drama of mass extermination begins that will culminate when the sun rises. While the people sleep, 3,000 Germans and their local collaborators – dosiligos and guerrillas – invade heavily armed Kokkinia. After 6pm, they call the population of the central square over loudspeakers: “Attention-attention! The security battalions are talking to you. All men between 14 and 60 years old must go to Osias Xeni square for identity verification. Those caught in their homes will be shot on the spot.”
Around 8am, Osia Xeni square and the surrounding streets are packed with people. Thousands of people are gathered and divided into five with spaces between them, so that the hooded traitors indicate who will be killed. The place of execution is the city’s former inactive carpet factory, where the Madras Blokou Kokkinia monument is located today. The curtain on the tragedy closes at 6pm with the release of 8,000 hostages, who are taken to the Haidari camp. From there, around 1,800 people were sent to concentration camps in Germany, from where many never returned. On September 24, 40 days later, the Germans attacked Kokkinia again, shooting at the crowd gathered after the memorial prayer ceremony in Osias Xenis square, increasing the number of victims.
The monument, which today hosts organized visits and selected cultural events, recalls the horrors of war and highlights the importance of peace, as it transforms into the painful liberation/anti-fascist struggle of the Greeks during the German occupation.
