Thrasivoulos Marakis grew up hearing stories about the grandfather he was named after but who he never met — about how the tall man was executed during Nazi reprisals in Greece during World War II.
For decades, the only image Marakis had of his grandfather came from a worn family portrait picture.
But last month another photograph emerged. An online auction contained a photograph showing his grandfather walking calmly toward a firing squad alongside other prisoners.
The image shook the Marakis family and has stirred powerful emotions across Greece, where the execution of 200 prisoners by Nazi occupation forces on May 1, 1944 remains one of the country’s most poignant symbols of wartime resistance.
For Marakis, the photographs carry a deeply personal meaning.
“They went to their deaths with their heads held high so that we could be free today,” he said.
On Thursday, the Culture Ministry presented the chilling photographs of the execution — the first verified images ever made public — after purchasing the collection from a private collector in Belgium.
Marakis, who lives on the island of Crete, said he recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man at the front of one group — sleeves rolled up, striding forward with his head held high — as his grandfather, 40-year-old dairy farmer Thrasivoulos Kalafatakis.
He showed the image to elderly relatives and their friends, including a 97-year-old woman who lives locally.
“That’s when I got the final confirmation,” he told The Associated Press. “It was very moving for the family — deeply, deeply moving.”
The photograph shows prisoners walking under guard toward the Kaisariani firing range in Athens, where they were executed in groups of 20 in a reprisal for a resistance ambush that killed a German commander in southern Greece.
The Greek government purchased the archive from a Belgian collector for 100,000 euros ($115,700). It includes 262 photographs taken by German Wehrmacht lieutenant Hermann Heuer, who was stationed in Greece in 1943–44, along with wartime banknotes and press clippings from the period.
Presenting the material in Athens, Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said the images provide powerful documentation of Nazi occupation policies and restore individual identities to victims long known mainly through written accounts.
“The value of this collection is immense,” Mendoni said. “The photographs…are priceless, because they give a face and a visual dimension to historical testimonies.”
