After 80 years, the German Arolzen Archives, whose presidency Greece has assumed this year, returned her grandfather’s watch to the granddaughter of a political prisoner of the Nazis.«#Ευρεθέν. Vasilios Kontogeorgiou” writes a poster of the Arolzen Archives depicting an old clock. But what are the Arolzen files and who was Vasilios Kontogeorgiou. And what does Greece and Germany have to do with all this? The Arolzen Archives based in the German city of Bad Arolzen manages documents and findings of concentration and forced labor camps from the National Socialist period, documenting crimes, identifying victims but also locating relatives of Holocaust victims or descendants of political prisoners, providing them with their belongings, which were found in these martyred places.

Vasilios Kontogeorgiou was a prosecutor in Volos, when he was arrested by the Nazi SS. On May 25, 1944, he was transferred as a political prisoner to the Neuengame concentration camp, from there to Salzgitter-Battenstedt and from there to Ravensbruck. He had been displaced along with three of his companions from the Resistance. Only he survived. After the war he returned to Greece, worked in a bank, raised a family and died in Larissa in 1997.

Identifying Nazi hostage items

The Arolzen Archives had found Kontogeorgiou’s lost watch in the concentration camp and in cooperation with the volunteer and researcher of the history of the camp, Louka Lymberopoulos from Hamburg, and also the relative of another victim, Vasso Panagou, they reached the traces of Kontogeorgiou’s family and specifically to Vasilios’ granddaughter, Angeliki, who actually lives in Germany, specifically in Berlin.

“It is incredible. I can’t describe the feeling. After 80 years I have taken in my hands an object of a person very close to me, which was confiscated by the Nazis when it arrived in a German concentration camp”, says Aggeliki Kontogeorgiou to DW.

The “course” of the clock, from the moment of its discovery until its delivery, was followed frame by frame by the archaeologist Stelios Lymberouloulos, brother of Loukas Lymberopoulos. Of interest is the overall history of the mapping of the objects found in the specific Archives. “The Arolzen Archive has many items from Neuengame’s Greek hostages. The Archives told my brother, who worked there, that they had wedding rings, chains, pocket watches, wristwatches of the hostages and asked if someone could intercede for their relatives to get them. Loukas Lymberopoulos turned to Greece and then wrote in several local newspapers that the belongings of certain hostages are in Germany and they are looking for their owners, i.e. the descendants of their owners,” says Stelios Lymberopoulos.

The price of freedom

Kontogeorgiou’s watch was finally handed over to the granddaughter of the Nazi hostage in a moving ceremony at the Greek Embassy in Berlin on Thursday, at the initiative of Georgios Polydorakis from the Historical and Diplomatic Office of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with Ambassador Mara Marinaki. A few days ago, Greece assumed the presidency of the International Committee of the Arolzen Archives. “An important juncture, for democracy, freedom and also Greek-German relations”, as the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Greece in Berlin, Panagiota Konstantinopoulou, emphasized in her greeting.

Speaking to DW, Director of the Arolzen Archives Florian Azoulai observes: “This is the first time we have delivered an item of a prisoner to his family from Greece. In this way we honor the memory of a man who, being young, was ready to sacrifice his life for freedom, to fight for Greece against the Nazis. He himself returned to Greece but his fellow fighters from the Resistance all died. In this way we remember today that freedom has a price, which our ancestors, our grandparents were willing to pay.”

Six folders are looking for recipients

In addition to the watch of the pre-war prosecutor of Volos, the Arolzen Archives are looking for the descendants of the owners of at least six other folders with personal belongings of Greek prisoners of the Nazis. One can read their names on posters in the Archives: Dimitrios Vatiadis, Evangelos Kerasotis, Theofilos Simonidis, Georgios Sagmatopoulos, Christos Taktikos, Nikolaos Fassouliotis. The aim of the Archives is to locate all six families this year.

As Florian Azoulay notes, 80 years after World War II, there are still unknown aspects of the horrors of National Socialism. “80 years later grandchildren and great-grandchildren of hostages or victims come to us to find their roots. People from all over the world are asking questions and I am still amazed when I realize how many people fell into the trap of Nazism. We can learn a lot about history but also see what can happen again when authoritarian ideologies come to power. But also how the person can resist to gain a new life.”