More than 3,000 kilometers, from Evros to Crete, will be run from April 3rd for 50 days by the Spartan athlete Stergios Arapoglou, a doctor-surgeon of the ESY, and crossing the martyred villages of our country, his goal is to send everywhere the a message of struggle for the “memory and justice of the victims of the Nazis”, as he typically says.

Starting from the village of Marasia in the prefecture of Evros and ending in Kato Zakro in the prefecture of Lasithi in Crete, Stergios Arapoglou, under the auspices of the National Council for Claiming Germany’s Debts to Greece, will carry out a road project that will pass through the most important cities and villages of mainland Greece and Crete, which suffered Holocausts, during the time period 1940-1945.

His route

In mainland Greece, as stated in today’s relevant announcement, approximately 2,350 kilometers will be traveled in 38 days. Transit will take place through the geographical divisions of Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, Central Greece and the Peloponnese. In a total of 22 prefectures and through 465 cities, towns, villages, seaside, mountain and lowland settlements, a stop will be made at 23 Holocaust Memorials of Mainland Greece. In Crete, Mr. Arapoglou will travel approximately 700 kilometers in 12 days. It will pass through all four prefectures (Chania, Rethymno, Heraklion and Lasithi) through 183 cities, towns and villages, stopping at 39 Holocaust Memorials of Crete.

The purpose of the project is to highlight the fight to claim the German debts and to support the proposal to the Institute of Education Policy and the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs that students of Primary and Secondary Education be taught through textbooks, as well as other teaching materials, print and digital, the history and effects of the Holocausts, massacres of civilians, the famine of the Occupation and all the Nazi and fascist atrocities committed by the occupiers in our country during the period 1940-1945. “Delivering justice and preserving their memory for future generations is the most important deterrent for their repetition in our country and wherever the paranoia of war prevails,” the statement said.

The specific running project will be carried out exclusively at the expense of the runner and – to ensure its reliability – will be recorded simultaneously and continuously with two GPS devices, while it will be possible to monitor it in real time from the internet through an electronic communication link that will be announced a few days before the launch.

It should be pointed out that the route by car has been fully surveyed and the complete and detailed timetable for passing the Holocaust Memorials is ready.

In this context, the Network of Martyrdom Municipalities, Victims’ Associations, Resistance Organizations, Cultural and Sports Associations are invited to support the road project of the doctor-surgeon, organizing, among other things, commemorative events, in the villages where the ultra-marathoner-combatant Stergios will pass Arapoglou, and cultural and sporting events.

Who is Stergios Arapoglou?

Stergios Arapoglou was born and raised in Kalochori, Thessaloniki. He is married to Sevasti Athanasiadou, with whom they have four children, Eleni, Sofia, Dimitris and Anastasis. He is a general surgeon at the Hippocrates Hospital of Thessaloniki, at the 5th University Clinic of AUTH. Since 2018, he is a doctor of the School of Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

He is a member of the Medical Society of Thessaloniki from 2008 to the present, the Surgical Society of Northern Greece since 2005 and the Hellenic Surgical Society since 2018. Regarding his scientific work, he has published dozens of papers in international and Greek medical journals, he has announced a number of of research and other works in conferences inside and outside the Greek borders and has participated as chairman in scientific banks of surgery conferences in the Greek area.

In fact, he is a member of the 5th University Surgery Clinic at the “Hippokrateio” General Hospital and participates in the education of the students of the Medical School of the AUTH, both with courses from the amphitheater and in the patients’ wards. He has been trained in the use of modern therapeutic techniques, covering a significant range of surgical specialties, both with classical and laparoscopic methods.

What is his athletic resume?

Since 2007, Mr. Arapoglou has finished dozens of Asphalt and Mountain Marathons in Greece, while in 2008 he started participating and finishing in dozens of ultramarathon road distances, both on asphalt and in mountains. In 2009, he successfully finished the 215 km race “Euchidas Double”, Delphi-Plataies-Delphi, and gained the right to participate in the “Spartathlon”.

In 2010, he successfully finished the longest and most difficult ultra-distance mountain race, in the Rhodope Mountains, the “Rodopi Ultra Trail”, with a total length of 164 kilometers, running for 43 hours continuously, while the very next year he finished in the “Spartathlon”, which is considered the most difficult race of its kind worldwide, from Athens to Sparta, 246 kilometers.

In 2012 he participated in the mountain crossing of all of Crete, through the European path E4, with a total length of 595.7 kilometers, in 10 days. The crossing was made for the financial support of the “Smile of the Child”.

In 2016, he ran from Megalo Zaloufi in Eastern Thrace in Turkey to Kalochori in the prefecture of Thessaloniki, a route of a total length of 573 kilometers, carrying soil and water from the homeland, with the aim of planting two olive trees in the square of Kalochori, in memory of of two little deceased brothers of his grandfather, who were buried in the forgotten homelands.

In 2018, he crossed the whole of mainland Greece from its northernmost to its southernmost geographical point, from Ormenio Evros to Cape Tainaron in the prefecture of Laconia, covering a total of 1,519 kilometers in 23 days. The purpose of the project was threefold: Respect for the teacher, clean sport, without anabolics, and the prevention of traffic accidents.