Wednesday night, July 21, 1965. The center of Athens is filled with thousands of students protesting with a pulse against the government of George Athanasiadis - Nova and the just 24 year old King Constantine II who has given the relevant mandate to the politician, writer and journalist days earlier, after first ousting the popularly elected Prime Minister George Papandreou, who had won an inconspicuous 52,72% of the vote.
The slogans that are heard are "down with the apostates", "the traitors in Goudi", "the Court will be chanted", "the people do not want you, despite your mother and forward" (referring to the recovered and the queen mother Frederick) and others similar.
Every day the same scenario unfolds both in the capital and in major cities throughout Greece. It is characteristic that from the 16th of July to the 17th of August of that hot political summer that went down in history as "Juliana", 383 demonstrations and rallies were recorded. Some of them will be dealt with by police violence.
Authorities opposed the protest with all available police forces, special services and the army. "
The 22-year-old student was also involved in such a clash between police and protesters Sotiris Petroulas that fateful night.
Born in Itilo, Mani, to left-wing farming parents in 1942, he felt early on the effects of his family's ideological beliefs. At the age of just four, he is forced to leave the village of Laconia with his parents due to the fact that his father is the target of local gangs of the Right that operate uncontrollably. After all, 1946 is the year that begins and typically the Civil War that will last until 1949.
The family takes refuge in Athens. As soon as the child finishes school, he manages to be admitted to the School of Economics and Business (now the Athens University of Economics and Business), while at the same time working to help his parents.
From an early age he has taken care to organize himself in the youth of E.D.A. (United Democratic Left), the largest legal party of the Left at the time with significant parliamentary representation.
When Petroulas was 15 years old, the E.D.A. he had come to be reduced to an official opposition, causing unrest in the political system as there were important members of the legitimate communist party in his ranks.
Both the Right. represented by the party of the National Radical Union founded by Konstantinos Karamanlis, as well as the Western embassies of the prominent American, the last to want in the middle of the Cold War, would be to see the Left "consolidated" in a country of southeastern Europe such as Greece.
The youth of E.D.A. it will not last long. On May 22, 1963, the deputy collaborating with the E.D.A. was assassinated in Thessaloniki. Grigoris Lambrakis by parastatals and about two weeks later the "Democratic Youth Movement of Grigoris Lambrakis" is founded. In September 1964, this organization merged with the youth of EDA and from this mixture will emerge the "Democratic Youth Lambraki" which at its founding conference will elect the then 40-year-old composer as president. Miki Theodoraki.
Although Petroulas has disagreed with the dissolution of the youth of the EDA, he joins the Democratic Youth of Lambraki, being a leading member of its left wing. In fact, he comes into conflict with other important members of the organization's strategy, which has the effect of imposing the penalty of blame on him.
He himself, without betraying his beliefs, continues to fight for his ideas. When the Julians broke out in the summer of 1965, he considered it his duty to take part in the demonstrations against the apostate deputies and the Crown.
He even holds one of the banners with a fellow student. In the early evening hours of July 24, the police, in order to disperse the dynamic course of the Student Union of Greece, which was heading towards the Parliament, used tear gas and mercilessly hit the people with globes at the junction of Stadiou and Eduardou Lo streets. Chaos. The dense crowd is forced to retreat.
One of the tear gas bombs hits the student Sotiris Petroulas in the forehead, who falls to the ground. The time is around 22:00 in the evening.
The policeman, whose name was never released, did not throw the tear gas canister into the air to disperse the crowd, but directly at head level. It was a pure murder that even today remains unsolved.
The first recording of the beaten young man is reported at the Red Cross First Aid Station at 03:00 on the morning of July 22nd. The forensic report speaks of death from suffocation due to tear gas. What happened between ten in the evening and three in the morning? Why was there such a long delay?
The version of Petroulas's family and several protesters who were present at the incident is that Sotiris was taken unconscious to the police cage and strangled.
What is certain is that the authorities, instead of handing over the body to his parents, tried to bury it hastily before sunrise.
However, his fellow students realized that they rushed to the morgue and with the intervention of EDA deputies. the lifeless body was given to his family.
When they took him home, they were reportedly stunned. At the morgue, the neck of the unfortunate young man had been torn millimeter by millimeter in order not to reveal the bruises and the evidence of possible strangulation.
Former Prime Minister George Papandreou will publicly denounce George Athanasiadis-Nova as the main perpetrator of the assassination who did not hesitate to paint my hands with blood in order to remain in power.
"The Nova government did not swear to be a government of betrayal. There was also a blood government. "She must disappear from the face of the earth and be held accountable for her crimes."
The rebel government, for its part, has resorted to the well-known case-by-case argument of "communist riots".
Petroulas' funeral a day later, on Saturday, July 23, will be turned into a public gathering.
Thousands of citizens will follow the hearse from Kolonos where he lived, to the Diocese of Athens where the procession took place, present in the political world of the Left. The slogan that vibrated the capital was "The Savior lives".
On the eve of the funeral, the youth of Lambraki met in order to arrange the funeral. At the head of the table sat the head of the organization and MP of the EDA, Mikis Theodorakis.
As they discussed the details of the ceremony, he sat and wrote on a piece of paper. At one point he tells them: "stop now, let me tell you my suggestion".
And he started reading them the first lyrics of the song "Sotiri Petroula" that he had just created.
The lyrics are as follows:
Sotiri Petroula, Sotiri Petroula,
Lambrakis took you, freedom took you,
Lambrakis took you, freedom took you.
Witness heroes lead,
his blue eyes call us. Sotiri Petroula, Sotiri Petroula,
nightingale and mountain lion and xasteria,
nightingale and mountain lion and xasteria.
Witness heroes lead,
his blue eyes call us.
Sotiri Petroula, Sotiri Petroula,
I led your people, I led us forward,
I led your people, I led us forward.
Witness heroes lead,
his blue eyes call us.
Sotiri Petroula, Sotiri Petroula.
* George Sarris is a journalist - member of ESIEA, honored by the President of the Republic with the Ath. Botsis Award for the objective and complete presentation of historical political issues