Examples: Selected Short Biographies

These short biographies give an impression of the diversity of the interviewees' experiences and life stories.

Efi Papatheodorou

Efi Papatheodorou was born in 1938 in Sitaralona, Aitoloakarnania, the second child of the doctor Thanos Papatheodorou and his wife Panagiota, born Papaioannou. During the occupation, her father joined the National Liberation Front (EAM) and later the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), and the family was forced to relocate to the partisan-controlled areas of Aitoloakarnania and survive in hiding. Efi confronted many difficulties and met with some Jewish families who had been evacuated from Agrinion with the assistance of EAM. After 1945, the family experienced political persecution because of the participation of the father to the leftist resistance. Efi studied acting in Athens and Montreal, and has become one of the most famous and beloved actresses of Greece.

Stavros Papoutsakis

Stavros Papoutsakis was born in 1925 in Meskla Chanion, Crete. At 18, he joined the local ELAS partisan unit and participated in numerous clashes against the German forces and Greek collaborationist groups. In February 1944 he was arrested and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp with other 400 men from the whole region of Chania, and survived the forced labor in the camps Gusen I and II and Steyr-Münichholz. His brother, also an ELAS resistance fighter, was murdered from Greek collaborators back in Crete. After his repatriation in September 1945, he joined the Republican Army of Greece (DSE) during the Civil War. Because of his political beliefs, he was exiled to Makronissos island. Today he lives in Meskla and is still active as a farmer.

Clemenceau Filippakis

Clemenceau Filippakis was born in 1919. His father was a staunch venizelist and decided to name him "Clemenceau"  to honor the French Prime Minister. He graduated from high school in 1939. In 1941 with his father, they supported the first British Liaison Officers who infiltrated Crete by orders of the Allied Middle East Headquarters to set up an espionage network. Because of this action both were forced to emigrate to Egypt, where Clemenceau was admitted to the Greek Royal Navy Academy in Alexandria. After graduating in the spring of 1944, he took part in various allied operations in the Mediterranean. During the military dictatorship (1967-1974), he was forced to retire for political reasons. After the restoration of the democracy in 1974, he was reconstituted to his ranks, honorably retired and appointed prefect in Thesprotia and Samos.