The Neighbourhood That Didn’t Forget
The Kokkinia Blockade, 1944
This project examines the 1944 Kokkinia Blockade and traces how the local community preserved and contested its memory through monuments, film, plaques, and commemorative practices from 1956 to the present
Who owns the memory of the Kokkinia Blockade, and how has a local community sustained that memory in public space?
This story matters because the public needs to know its own history, particularly traumatic episodes such as Nazi war crimes and collective punishments like the Kokkinia Blockade. Remembering these events raises awareness about the mechanisms of fascism and occupation violence and, above all, helps ensure that societies recognize and resist the revival of such ideologies
Η μνήμη της Κοκκινιάς / Remembering Kokkinia
On 17 August 1944, German occupation forces and Greek collaborators surrounded Kokkinia, a working-class refugee neighbourhood whose residents had been active in the Resistance. Men were ordered to gather in Osia Xeni Square. Identified prisoners were taken to the former carpet factory’s walled grounds and executed. This place became known as the Blockade Wall.
The project follows how commemorations and monuments preserved the memory of the blockade through the Civil War, postwar anti-communism, the dictatorship and the return of democracy. It compares photographs, commemorative inscriptions and changes in local memorial practice.
Στις 17 Αυγούστου 1944, οι γερμανικές δυνάμεις Κατοχής και οι Έλληνες συνεργάτες τους περικύκλωσαν την Κοκκινιά, μια εργατική προσφυγική συνοικία με έντονη αντιστασιακή δράση. Οι άνδρες διατάχθηκαν να συγκεντρωθούν στην πλατεία της Οσίας Ξένης. Όσοι υποδείχθηκαν ως μέλη της Αντίστασης οδηγήθηκαν στον χώρο ενός πρώην ταπητουργείου και εκτελέστηκαν. Ο τόπος έγινε γνωστός ως Μάντρα του Μπλόκου.
Η εργασία παρακολουθεί τον τρόπο με τον οποίο οι εκδηλώσεις μνήμης και τα μνημεία διατήρησαν την ιστορία του Μπλόκου από τα μεταπολεμικά χρόνια έως τη Μεταπολίτευση. Εξετάζει φωτογραφίες, επιγραφές και αλλαγές στη δημόσια μνήμη της συνοικίας.
17 August 1944: A neighbourhood surrounded
On the morning of 17 August 1944, German occupation forces and Greek collaborators sealed off Kokkinia, a working-class refugee neighbourhood with a strong Resistance presence. Men were ordered to assemble in Osia Xeni Square. Local collaborators identified people accused of resistance activity, some of whom were taken to the former carpet factory courtyard and executed. The place became known as the Blockade Wall of Kokkinia.
Execution, detention and forced labour
The blockade brought mass executions and arrests. Prisoners were marched towards Haidari, and some were subsequently sent to Nazi Germany for forced labour. The project places these events within the occupation of Greece and the systematic persecution of communities associated with resistance. The exact number of those killed is a matter for careful source comparison.
How the community began to commemorate
Commemoration began before the event could be fully acknowledged by state institutions. In 1956, a monument to those killed was erected in Osia Xeni Square, attributed in the submitted research to sculptor Georgios Zongolopoulos. The monument shows how local memory found public expression in a politically divided postwar Greece.
Film, politics and the struggle over memory
The 1965 film To Bloko, directed by Adonis Kyrou, brought the events of August 1944 to a wider audience. Filmed in the area with the participation of local residents, it became another medium through which the community could preserve and communicate an account of the blockade.
A contested inscription under the dictatorship
During the military dictatorship of 1967–1974, a commemorative inscription attributed responsibility for the killings in ways that distorted the involvement of the occupation forces and their collaborators. The author reads this intervention as evidence that memorial sites can become arenas of political struggle over historical interpretation.
After 1974: Recognition and reinterpretation
With the restoration of democracy in 1974, the place of the Resistance in Greek public life became a subject of renewed discussion. The memory of the blockade gained increased institutional recognition during the 1980s, alongside wider debates about occupation, collaboration and civil conflict.
A network of places, plaques and testimonies
Municipal plaques and commemorative practices marked streets and sites connected with the blockade. Together they make an unofficial geography of resistance visible, allowing residents and visitors to encounter the history of the neighbourhood beyond a single monument.
A memory carried into the present
The Blockade Wall remains a place for commemorations and public discussion. Its significance lies not only in the physical site, but in the generations of residents who have worked to preserve and reinterpret the memory of the events of August 1944.
From the project archive
Sources & Credits
Original project references, visual sources and creator credits are collected here in one place.
- Creator & project
Nefeli Aloniati. Bilingual digital photo essay. Who Owns Memory? Digital Public Exhibition, First Cycle 2026.
Andritsos, Giannis. n.d. “To ‘Bloko’ tis Kokkinias ston kinimatografo” [The ‘Blockade’ of Kokkinia in cinema]. Academia.edu. Accessed 22 September 2026. [Greek].
Charalampidis, Miltos. 2023. Oi Dosilogoí [The collaborators]. Athens: Alexandria. [Greek].
Kostopoulos, Tasos. 2020. I autologokrimeni mnimi: Ta tagmata asfaleias kai i metapolemiki ethnikofrosyni [The self-censored memory: The Security Battalions and post-war national-mindedness]. Athens: Efimerida ton Syntakton. [Greek].
Papadopoulou, Maria. 2020. To Mnimeio “Mantra Blokou Kokkinias”: Parethon kai paron tis koinonikis Antistasis [The “Blockade Wall of Kokkinia” Monument: Past and present of social Resistance]. MA thesis, University of the Aegean. [Greek].
Papathanasopoulou, Katerina. n.d. “Mnimonikoi topoi Antistasis sti Nikaia” [Sites of Resistance memory in Nikaia]. Academia.edu. Accessed 22 September 2026. [Greek].
Poulou, Maria. n.d. “Ena mnimeio gia tin Antistasi sti dekaetia tou 1950: To mnimeio pesonton Kokkinias tou Giorgou Zongolopoulou” [A monument for the Resistance in the 1950s: The Kokkinia fallen monument by Giorgos Zongolopoulos]. Academia.edu. Accessed 22 September 2026. [Greek].
- Visual and media material
Photographs, documents, illustrations, video and audio are attributed through the project text, captions and contributor documentation wherever that information was supplied. This exhibition page does not grant additional reuse permissions.
- Digital exhibition edition
Web presentation adapted for Who Owns Memory? (2026), with layout and language editing. The original contributors retain authorship of their research, interpretation and creative work.