The military dictatorship imposed on April 21, 1967 by the colonels, overtaking the generals at the corner of Aspasias and Pyrrhos (in the apartment of Michalis Roufogalis, as legend has it), was not a picturesque seven-year period, where some illiterate, sworn officers, took power, ruled with the doctrine of "Greeks-Greeks-Christians" ... but we slept with the front door open.
The front doors were closed and they were pounding on them looking for the usual suspects. My mother still remembers the ... visit of the police officers of AT Byron. They had scoured the house, looking for "suspicious material" and the father himself, who, like most leftists, hid for two or three, or even more, evenings. The resistance was organized, people lost their lives and were brutally tortured, exiled.
From its first moments the junta was nothing more than a rigid, fascist regime, which did not hesitate to target, killing innocent citizens, for no reason. The first three dead of the dictatorship and the way they were murdered prove the truth of the saying.
The 24-year-old Maria Kalavrou she received a burst from the tank turret in Patision, because passing by with her sister she threw a munja. Vice-captain Ioannis Albanis responded to the "insult" by pulling the trigger.
"He called me an idiot" was his explanation when asked by an eyewitness why he killed the child.
15-year-old Vassilis Peslis was shot dead in Attica Square . He had gathered with the other crowd to see the tanks marching by, when Sergeant Lymberis Andrikopoulos (later a policeman) drew his revolver and fired. "He called me an idiot" was his explanation to an eyewitness question as to why he killed the child. The report of the medical examiner Aioutanis distorted the truth, speaking of the ostracism of the bullet and an accident. The trial after the fall of the dictatorship revealed the truth, although the sentence for the perpetrator was only 8 years in prison.
The historian and journalist Tasos Vournas was an eyewitness to the murder of Panagiotis Elis , who together with other political prisoners had been gathered by the hordes of the electors in the Faliro Delta. Still wearing his slippers, he was unable to walk around, as a jailer suddenly ordered. In the second observation Elis, an old Makronisian, fell dead from two gusts of the viceroy Konstantinos Kotsaris
The junta did not dance picturesque kalamatianas and scramble eggs with the soldiers at Easter. He relentlessly threw wood on the roof of Bouboulinas Street in the security, in the dungeons of the EAT-ESA, he sent thousands of exiles to Gyaros which remained open until the end. Inhuman torture marked the lives and bodies of thousands of fighters. Men and women suffered at the hands of various Theophilogiannaks and Spanas, who had no problem leaving an honest officer, like Spyridon Moustakles, paralyzed.
The "bodyguards" were described in his book of the same name by Pericles Korovesis. The emblematic resistance journalist, had given an excellent interview to NEWS 247 and Ioanna Bratsiakou, speaking through the hell of the ESA and now Freedom Park, on the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the dictatorship.
Opposition at every opportunity
Apparently a lot of people collaborated with the junta. The academics who listened attentively to the delirium of the dictator Papadopoulos, the judges, the professors, the "mayors" all the "national trunk" that ended up in the torturers uniformed and not. Others, more astute, found the opportunity to multiply their capital, finding fertile ground for dictators willing to sell out everything.
In its majority, however, the people never agreed with the practices of the dictatorship, the Greek-Christian culture that it tried to impose and the decisions and decrees of Papadopoulos. He may have put up with the "bird and the phoenix" over his head when he got the chance, but he still demonstrated his anti-dictatorship sentiments.
The funerals of George Papandreou and George Seferis turned into anti-dictatorship demonstrations, later thousands gathered at the Polytechnic to support the student uprising. Papadopoulos didn't manage to finish his speech at the Panathenaic Stadium when the students started laughing non-stop, ignoring the paranoid leader of the "revolution".
From the very first day, when the arrests began, the resistance began. The security daily recorded the creation of resistance organizations, large and small, with people - not only on the left - finding a way to say no. Eleni Vlachou, editor of Kathimerini, closed her newspaper (as well as Mesimbrini, which also belonged to her group), denying any contact with the dictatorship and managing to escape its close surveillance, arriving in London and joining her voice in the anti-dictatorship struggle.
There abroad, the music of Mikis Theodorakis vibrated the concerts, the voice of Melina Merkouris called for democracy and back in Greece, bold patriots like Alekos Panagoulis set fire to the anti-dictatorship dreams of the whole country. Papadopoulos, who anyway feared death, after the attempt on him, lived every day with the anxiety of whether another Panagoulis would be found...
Press control and the Evening
The press was a target of the colonels right from the start. Censorship (led by those who had worked in that field for... Silk) was suffocating, although there was always a loophole for whatever papers remained open. Some publications such as "democracy fiesta" by Apogeumatini, for Portugal, or "parents beware of the books you let your children read" under the news of "Neo" about the release of Papadopoulos's memoirs, passed under her nose censorship and angered the juntas.
Apart from Kathimerini and Mesimbrini, either immediately, "Ethnos", "Eleftheria" and "Athinaiki" suspended their circulation, while the junta closed "Avgi". Later in 1973, after the assumption of power by the "invisible" D. Ioannidis, "Vradini" will also be closed.
As the same newspaper post-dictatorship revealed that on December 1, 1973, 20 ESA members in political uniforms invaded the Piraeus Offices 9-11, blocked the exits and forced the editor G. Athanasiadis to leave, putting a "lockout" as characteristically the head of the company, major Triantafyllopoulos.
"Karamanlis is coming"
I will close with an anecdotal story, which was told to us many times, by Mihalis . A good friend, who passed away, just like the other protagonist, Vassilis. It unfolded in the last days of the dictatorship in July 1974.
So, somewhere in Athens, Vassilis, organized in a resistance organization, was looking to find an unmarked house to sleep and hide a bag of propaganda with notices. When he met Michalis, he asked him to spend a night at his house. Unsuspecting Michalis, hosted him normally. Except that Vassilis was being watched by the security.
Breaking into the house, he found the notices and Michalis ended up a prisoner. "Speak, know everything" shouted the commander who threw him two or three undone cuffs. For two or three days Michalis had to explain how Vassilis and the notices were found at his house. He had to "give" the mechanism of the organization, without knowing what was going on.
Suddenly, he was released. "I guess they figured out I'm not in a relationship" he muttered and ran to the first stand to get cigarettes. Suddenly he sees the historic front page of "Vradini", with the photo of Constantinos Karamanlis and a huge "It's coming" (the newspaper was republished on 7/24/1974, Athanasiadis made three reprints and the newspaper with "It's coming" sold 320,000 sheets , all-time record number)
Michalis thought he had gone mad. He was well aware that "Evening" had closed the previous December. Suddenly he saw her again in the stands, with Karamanlis face-to-face. He timidly asked the booth what was going on and then he understood. The police released him, but forgot to inform him of the most important thing:the junta had fallen, definitively...