Without the slightest doubt o Civil War is the worst kind of war. The worst crimes are committed in these wars. This is the war that has a "name". A foreign conqueror will be imposed, he will also commit horrible crimes, but he will remain anonymous even after he leaves. In a civil war, however, perpetrators and victims will have to live together after the end of the war. This is what keeps wounds from closing and burning for many decades to come.
Nobody and nothing is forgotten. This is what happened in the case of the actress Eleni Papadaki. A horrible event, almost cataclysmic, that even today causes unimaginable tension.
Eleni Papadaki was an adored theater actress who for many in the few years of her career on the stage managed to show her undoubted talent, which at some point would make her the best Greek actress. Fate, however, had other plans…
The aim of the tribute you are reading is not to be spent on Papadaki's career and her building. All this is known and it is a given that they would lead her to the top. However, the rise of Eleni Papadaki to the top seems to have played an important role in the subsequent tragic development.
The explanation is simple since there are many who, being cool observers of a complex case, and with the comfort that the passage of time now gives them, claim that all this was a game of envy and jealousy which at some point escaped from every control, passed to the political level and finally to the criminal.
Papadaki has been in the sights of many since the time of the occupation. The accusations that he had an illicit affair with the docile Prime Minister Ralli were circulating not only in artistic circles but throughout Athens.
The truth is that no one really knows if the two had an affair. That they were close to each other was a given. For some this was enough. The charge was launched and, as usual, it does not return.
This is exactly the element that seems that Papadaki's rivals wanted to take advantage to "overthrow" her from her throne.
October 1944 could be described as the point where the "clock" begins to count down to the end. The Association of Greek Actors, led by Emilios Veakis, at the end of that month compiles a list of names of actors who should be deleted because during the occupation they had one way or another retained one (and this is a extremely mild characterization) pro-German attitude.
Hold on: Dismissal from the Greek Actors Guild at the time meant the end of his career at National Theater. Theoretically, then, many or many had an interest in Papadaki being on this list.
Elected members (either as a coalition or as an opposition) in that board of SEI were holy monsters of the artistic space such as Horn, Kalouta, Rena Vlachopoulou, Orestis Makris and Vassilis Avlonitis (from the right wing) and Emilios Veakis, Manos Katrakis, Titos Vandis, Dimitris Myrat, Christos Tsaganeas (from the faction supported by EAM).
In the rudimentary trial that preceded the publication of the list, few (from both factions) chanted a few objections to Papadaki's presence on this list.
During this trial, the voices that were heard louder were those of Papadaki's opponents. One of them was that of Miranda Myrat, Dimitris Myrat's half-sister, who used sidewalk phrases and an incredible euphemism for her supposedly friend and neighbor. The pre-war zen premiums Giorgos Pappas and Nikos Dendramis tried to articulate a contradiction but without success.
The trial is completed through various statements and the presidium (Theodoros Moridis, Spyros Patrikios, Christos Tsaganeas, Panos Karavousanos), decide that Papadaki's name should be included in the list.
From November 1944 onwards, the country was moving rapidly towards the Civil War and the damn December. In this climate, people like Eleni Papadaki who were on similar lists were in a difficult position.
Friends and people close to her favorite actress had told her to hide for a while until the "storm" passed because it was a given that OPLA. (Organization for the Protection of Popular Fighters) its famous militia KKE would have been aware of this list and would have searched for it.
She, however, refused and so the evil did not take long to happen. The following is the shocking description of Dimitris Myrat about the arrest (on December 21) of Papadakis:
"On the afternoon of her arrest, she was at our house, just below hers. He hung out with my mother, despite the big age difference. In the next room, my father was playing cards with some friends. I do not play cards, I watched. Suddenly a frightened young man enters with an extended pistol: "Papadaki, where is Papadaki?". Seeing so many men gathered, the invader lost the little courage he had left: "I arrest you all, go ahead, let's go to the Militia".
He forgot Papadaki and started to leave. And here is the fatal moment. The door opened and Eleni appeared. "Here I am, sir, what do you want?" The candle had started to go out!
In the Militia we followed the militiaman, together with Eleni, Emilia Karavia and me. They held Eleni, they chased us wildly. As soon as Captain Orestes arrived, the leader of the Patission Militia began to parade in front of him. As we learned in the trial, Eleni passed, the captain took her rings and sent her for hostage. When a dozen others passed, she remembered her. "How did she say her name? Papadaki? "Isn't she the one who was convicted in the Actors' Association?" And he gave the order of death. "
That same night, Eleni Papadaki and other detainees were transferred to a secluded location at the OULEN refinery in Galatsi. There, after he was horribly tortured, he was executed with two bullets in the neck by the executor of OPLA. Vlassi Makarona. Orestes' order was to execute with an ax ("for the enemies of the people we do not waste bullets"), but Macaroni probably regretted it and preferred a more "painless" way.
For a month Papadaki was considered missing. But everyone knew what had happened. Her body was found a month later. Her funeral took place on January 26, where mourning alternated with rage. Her colleagues are present Vassilis Logothetidis, Dimitris Horn, Anna Kalouta, Andreas Filippidis, Melina Merkouri, Costas Mousouris, Marika Nezer, Marika Kotopouli and others.
Alexis Solomos closes his funeral with the phrase "Eleni, forgive us!". On the verge of collapse, Achilles Mamakis says: "You are a victim of a vulgar and indecent artistic envy νες You erased them from the stage and they erased you from life so that your audience would not have you as a measure of comparison and superiority". THE Angelos Sikelianos wrote a dedication epigram:
Mnsthiti Lord: For the time when the killer blade flashed
and all the god of Tragedy appears.
Remember Lord: for the hour that suddenly, all nine sisters bowed
to be crowned for centuries.
Even Miranda Myrat long later took back what she said about Papadaki, emphasizing that she was seduced by the communists. But now it was too late.
When Papadaki was arrested, relatives and friends were informed by the Patission Militia that she would be questioned about her relationship with Ralli and would be released. This testimony seems to fit perfectly with the testimony of the KKE leader Vassilis Bartziotas (Fanis) who wrote about that story:
"When sections of the People's Militia arrested the well-known actress Papadaki, mistress of the main quiz, Giannis Ralli, we gave an order not to disturb her. We had a lot to learn from her. "
And this is exactly where the dangerous game of envy-jealousy, passed to the political level and finally to the criminal. To reach this last stage, however, it took the intervention of Captain Orestes who decided to execute her, and in fact the same night before anyone could even interrogate her.
It is worth noting, in fact, that neither the representative of EAM, medical student Costas Bilirakis, nor the old Akronafpliotis and captain of ELAS managed to be notified about Papadaki's arrest. Nikos Andrikidis. The latter, in fact, was the one who ordered him EAM An investigation was launched to locate Papadaki's executors. Andrikidis completed his investigation and in his report pointed out that Orestes had from suspicious to criminal behavior, there were many complaints against him, while he himself confessed that he was the one who gave the order for the execution of Papadaki. Andrikidis, in fact, emphasizes that "as the interrogation proceeded, it was revealed that he was an agent of the Intelligence Service on our lines"!
In a short time, the perpetrators were tried by a Rebel Court which charged them with acting on the orders of the British to defame EAM, were sentenced to death and were executed in public in Koliatsou Square.
The natural perpetrator of Papadaki's execution, Vlasis Makaronas, was tried, convicted and executed in 1948. During his apology, he had said: "In fact, I killed her, they let me hit her with an ax. I couldn't and I killed her with the pistol. I do not remember how many bullets I threw. One or two να I did this execution because I was threatened and forced by Orestes ".
The criminal act of her murder was later denounced by the KKE, through, in fact, his own Nikos Zachariadis. In the 12th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the party he recognized the execution as "excess" and condemned it…
Finally, what is worth mentioning is that the biographer of the undefeated actress Polyvios Marsan, has said that the main reason for Papadaki's murder was the envy of her colleagues while the actress's family was filing a lawsuit against her colleagues at SEI.