Workers were installing benches at a park in the ancient Greek port city of Thessaloniki when their excavator pushed brown soil off a fragile white skull
They turned off the motorized equipment and set to work with pickaxes and shovels
33 sets of bones lay in a tight cluster of unmarked burial pits in the shadow of a Byzantine fortress
the skulls,” supervising engineer Haris Charismiadis said
standing on earth overturned by four months of digging
It’s common to find ancient remains or objects in Greece
But hulking Yedi Kule castle was a prison where Communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece’s 1946–1949 Civil War
Tens of thousands died in the early Cold War-era battles between Western-backed government forces and left-wing insurgents
a brutal conflict with assassination squads
The archaeological service cleared the site for development because the bones are less than 100 years old
a suburb of the coastal city of Thessaloniki
saying the chance find has “great historical and national importance.”
Descendants have been coming to the site in recent weeks
leaving flowers and asking authorities to conduct DNA testing “so they can retrieve the remains of their grandfather
great-grandfather or uncle,” said Simos Daniilidis
who has served as Neapolis-Sykies’ mayor since 1994
As many as 400 Yedi Kule prisoners were executed
according to historians and the Greek Communist Party
Items found with the bodies – a woman’s shoe
a ring – offer glimpses into the lives cut short
For the families of slain pro-Communist Greeks
the find in the Park of National Resistance is reviving a wartime legacy kept dormant to avoid reigniting old animosities
The small site has become Greece’s first Civil War mass grave to be exhumed
Government forces executed 19-year-old Agapios Sachinis after he refused to sign a declaration renouncing his political beliefs
“These are not simple matters,” his namesake nephew said during a recent visit to the site
“It’s about carrying inside you not just courage
but values and dignity you won’t compromise – not even to save your own life,” said Agapios Sachinis
Sachinis was imprisoned in the 1960s for his political activity during the dictatorship
the Communist Party belongs to the political mainstream
largely thanks to its role in the country’s World War II resistance
If Sachinis’ uncle’s remains are identified
he will cremate them and keep the ashes at his home
Agapios Sachinis holds a portrait of his uncle
a prisoner executed in the Greek Civil War
Greece’s Civil War began in the wake of World War II
it quickly lost international attention but the conflict marked a turning point: US President Harry Truman’s policy of anti-communist intervention – the Truman Doctrine – was presented to Congress in 1947 as a means to direct funds and military support to Greece
Etched on the newly excavated bones in Thessaloniki
is a playbook that went on to produce decades of repression
societal divisions and more unmarked graves in Asia
Governments later addressing the Cold War-era abuses and atrocities faced a painful choice: To unearth the past – as attempted with investigative commissions in Eastern Europe and many Latin American countries – or suppress it for fear of fresh division
Greek emergency laws were gradually lifted and only fully abolished in 1989
Records of summary trials and executions were never made public
No political force pushed for the excavation of suspected burial sites
Politicians still use highly cautious language when addressing the past and the Thessaloniki discovery was met with a subdued public reaction
The find has not been directly addressed by the country’s center-right government – a reminder that many Greeks still find it easier to walk past the country’s ghosts than confront them
the neighborhood park in Thessaloniki – a densely populated port city of a million with ruins from the ancient Greek
with historically strong Balkan and Jewish influences – was a field on the outskirts of the city
it’s frequented by retirees and ringed by apartment buildings filled with middle-class families
residents whispered that bones had been discovered when foundations were laid
Author and historian Spyros Kouzinopoulos holds a newspaper announcing the Sept
court ruling to execute 52 people being held at Yedi Kule prison
Executions by army firing squads extended into the 1950s and were publicly announced
spent decades researching the executions at Yedi Kule
including the indignities endured by prisoners in their final hours
After a military tribunal issued a death sentence
the chief guard would take the condemned prisoner to solitary confinement in tiny cells barely big enough to stand
Many would use their last hours to write letters to their families
the chief guard and two others would retrieve the prisoner and hand them over to the firing squad
Most were loaded onto trucks to avoid attracting public attention
Sometimes they were led to their death on foot
Most of the victims were barely adults – youth Kouzinopoulos called “flowers of their generation.”
were executed while wearing their uniforms
“It shook me to the core,” Kouzinopoulos said
An officer reads execution orders to four condemned youths at a military installation near Athens
as members of a firing squad stand with their backs to the camera
were convicted of aiding a Communist rebellion
City officials are taking steps to conduct DNA testing on the remains
and urging families of the missing to submit genetic material
the bodies can be identified and returned to relatives
the septuagenarian whose uncle was executed
Mayor Daniilidis has ordered an expansion of the dig to other parts of the park in coming weeks
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Construction work near one of Greece’s most notorious prisons in Thessaloniki has unearthed the remains of dozens of people executed during the Greek civil war era
33 skeletons have been found near Eptapyrgio prison northeast of the city
a former Byzantine-era fortress later known as Yedi Kule under Ottoman rule
The Greek civil war lasted from 1946 to 1949 but executions of political prisoners held for alleged affiliation to the Greek communist party (KKE) continued for years thereafter
It is estimated that over 150,000 people lost their lives during the conflict
while around 800,000 people were displaced
“We are here today with very mixed feelings
we found the skeletons of the people who lost their lives for their ideas and for the country,” said the local mayor of Sykies municipality
But he added that they were “saddened
inconceivable things for today’s Greek civilisation”
The first remains were discovered in December during work on a city park
One of the victims is believed to be a woman
the area was used for the execution of political prisoners
as it was very near the prison and was uninhabited at the time,” Sykies municipality said in a statement
Many of the victims are believed to have been killed for links with the KKE
A party delegation was present Wednesday to lay flowers at the site
“Thirty-three skeletons were discovered in four clusters
The skeletons are not in very good condition due to the soil and conditions
They are very fragile,” said archaeologist Stavroula Tsevrini
The findings have been handed over to the police and efforts have already begun to identify the skeletons through DNA tests
The municipality has put out a call for relatives and descendants of civil war victims to step forward to speed up the identification process
The KKE party is compiling a list of executed political prisoners for publication
“During the civil war in this region
approximately 400 people held in Yedi Kule as political prisoners were executed,” said Spyros Kouzinopoulos
a journalist who has written a book on the issue
“The executed were buried in mass graves without their relatives knowing where each one was buried
Here the area is full of remains,” he told AFP
Miltiadis Parathyras said his uncle Rigas was executed at the location in March 1951
“He was a captain in the (communist) Democratic Army
arrested in 1949 and held in prison for about two years
He was executed at the age of 24 along with five others in March 1951
“We don’t know where he is buried
Two mass graves containing the remains of executed individuals from the Civil War have been discovered in the Sykies district of Thessaloniki
The graves were uncovered during redevelopment work around the national resistance memorial
increasing the total number of such sites in the area to six
the location was likely used for the execution of political prisoners due to its proximity to the Yedi Kule prison
The first human remains were found in late 2024
Although the antiquities authority determined that the skeletons were not of archaeological interest
municipal authorities requested further excavations
citing their historical and political significance
one of which is believed to belong to a woman
four or five skeletons appear to belong to individuals around 20 years old
Most of the remains have been handed over to authorities for further examination
including age estimation and determination of the time period in which the executions took place
Municipal authorities have also requested the return of the skeletons so they can be made available to relatives and descendants for potential DNA identification
Authorities in the northern port city of Thessaloniki have warned the public to be wary of dangerous dog packs roaming the Seich Sou forest
Neapoli-Sykies and Pavlos Melas said in a joint statement that
likely due to hunger as a result of the lockdown
packs of dogs might attack people who are still visiting the forest despite the ban on movement imposed by Central Macedonia’s Regional Governor Apostolos Tzitzikostas
“The situation is serious because we have already had attacks
with the worst one against a 22-year-old,” said Thessaloniki Deputy Mayor for Environment Sokratis Dimitriadis
referring to an attack which led to a young man being hospitalized on Monday
He added that the problem had been identified last week and expressed hope that the public heeds the warnings
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