The great historical exhibition “1974 & 1944: Athens celebrates its freedom”, in Freedom Park from July 23 to October 28 with free admission, is presented by the Municipality of Athens.

The exhibition is planned and implemented by the Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens in collaboration with the Archives of Contemporary Social History (ASKI), the General Archives of the State and the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Athens and is the focus of the anniversary celebrations that spread across the center and its neighborhoods city ​​until November.

On the occasion of two landmark anniversaries, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Athens from Nazi occupation in 1944 and the 50th anniversary of the fall of the military dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in 1974, the exhibition goes back in time and presents a city alive, Athens, which celebrates its freedom in two different historical moments.

The aim of the exhibition, the only one that honors both of these anniversaries at the same time, is to highlight the collective historical memory and the struggles for freedom and democracy.

Divided into two large sections, dedicated to the events of 1944 and 1974 respectively, the exhibition narrates a journey from darkness to light, from the extreme cruelty of the Nazi occupation to the frenzied celebration of the first days of freedom and from the brutality of the junta to expectations born of the fall of the authoritarian regime.

Through rare photographs, audio-visual material, documents, newspapers, posters, works of art, notices, personal effects and rich archival material, the more than 500 items in the exhibition “1974 & 1944: Athens celebrates its freedom” seek and display the same hope, the same intensity and the same enthusiasm that accompanied the Athenians both in the festive days of 1944 and 1974.

At the same time, the exhibition cannot help but unite joy with sadness, redemption with pain, relief with anguish, as the double holiday outbreak is weighed down by both the shadow of the Decemberists and the fear of civil war, as well as the Turkish invasion in Cyprus.

Specifically, visitors will discover, among other things, evidence from the period of the great famine in Athens, audiovisual material related to the junta’s arrest and torture practices, an installation with personal stories of three women of the Resistance who sacrificed themselves for liberation, and also an installation dedicated to the 25 murdered activists of the Polytechnic.

At the same time in the spotlight, unique impressions from the river of people who flooded flag-decorated streets of the capital with songs and dances, tricycles, banners and improvised posters full of festive slogans, festive headlines for the triumph of democracy, snapshots of hugs with those who returned from places of exile.

Some of the bitterest moments of Athens’ modern history join the happiest, in a unique exhibition that is a tribute to two different eras and two different worlds united by the same city, Athens, but also the common demand of of its inhabitants for democracy and freedom, the collective dream for a better life.