In the heart of the Kaminia neighborhood, next to the lines of the OSE, is the old “Papadogeorgi” camp where anti-dictatorship fighters were imprisoned and martyred during the junta period
In the heart of the Kaminia neighborhood in Piraeus next to the OSE lines, on the border with Agios Ioannis Rentis, is the old “Papadogeorgi” camp, where anti-dictatorship fighters were imprisoned and martyred during the junta period.
Almost half a century later, the monuments of the brutality of the junta of colonels remain “alive”, despite the abandonment of the site, an area of approximately 12 hectares.
“This place is the place where the ESA company operated during the dictatorship, the local EAT-ESA (Special Investigation Department of the Hellenic Military Police), the local place of torture and imprisonment of the people arrested by the dictatorship. Fighters of the anti-dictatorship struggle have passed by and this space remained until the end of the dictatorship, while it then functioned as a recruiting office for many years,” Nikos Belavilas, professor of urban planning and city history at the National Technical University of Athens and elementary school teacher, explains to APE-MPE consultant Piraeus.
In the EAT-ESA buildings, torture took place during interrogations and according to testimonies from the military trials, the doctrine of the ESA was: “Whoever comes in here comes out friend or cripple”.
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The 952nd ESA Company had settled in the “Papadogeorgi” camp. It is an area with several buildings, in which many prisoners were tortured with extremely cruel and inhumane methods. References to this area were made during the trial of the junta torturers at the end of 1975. Among those who testified was Alekos Zografos, who was arrested on April 21, 1969.
“Captain Laocratis” of ELAS, as Alekos Zografou’s nickname was, specifically mentioned in the trial that followed about what he experienced in the 952nd ESA company: “I was ordered to stand up. But I was exhausted and fell to the ground. Then they picked me up and took me to the discipline room, which was behind the kitchen of 952 Company. They put handcuffs on my hands and passed the chains from the handcuffs to the railings of the only window. So I was literally hanging 15 feet above the ground. I was receiving dirt all over my body…”.
A few years after the collapse of the junta, the space functioned as a recruitment office, and later, homeless people and all sorts of suffering people found temporary and even long-term accommodation.
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