October 12, 1944: Athens is free
Athens was not liberated on October 12th exactly. For months, many of its districts were free thanks to the heroic care of ELAS. As we got closer to the end of September, the circle of liberated areas grew and hopelessly narrowed the center of Athens, held by the Germans. ELAS in Kypseli, Metaxourgeio, Plaka, Pagrati, Ampelokipi, Gyzi. ELAS everywhere…
The circle was getting tighter. And in the days before, ELAS was already established in the center of Athens. (…)
On the Kaisariani. While the crowds cheer and the bells ring joyfully, an old mother, some sister, a father kneel at the Altar of Liberty. Here, on this wall, one, two and ten months ago, one, two and three years ago, the child of one, the brother of another, the father of a third stood and shouted for Liberty, watered the soil with . their blood.
World in pain. The old mother cries, the father cries, the brother, the wife, the child. Loved ones no longer live to enjoy Freedom with the rest of the world. (…)
Lightened, the countless suffering world will turn again to the living to cheer with them with bitter lips. (…)
The last battle. The Germans don’t want to leave unless they complete the damage. They are frantically trying to blow up the Electricity factory in Piraeus. But the factory is defended by ELAS. The battle is fierce, furious, agonizing.
The Elasites fall, but the factory is saved. The Germans lost the last battle as well.
No one from the wildly happy world of October 12 guessed how they would celebrate the first, second, third anniversary of the historic day.
Elasitis of Elektriki did not know how he would be thrown into the street. The young people who took down the German flag from the Acropolis for the first time did not know how they would be exiled. The mother and father who shed their tears at the Altar did not know that they would lose their other children as well. The protesters did not know that the day would come when if they shouted EAM again they would be court-martialed and put on the wall or their lives would be spared to be exiled to Ikaria, Makronisi, Giura…
They guessed nothing of it. (…)
Now they enjoy it. And they are well aware that when a people is threatened by tyranny, they choose either chains or weapons.