The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
HISTORY OF ATHENS
The
Greek Military Junta
(Regime of the Colonels)
The Athens Polytechnic Uprising
17 November 1973
From the start
in 1967, the junta, trying to control every aspect of politics,
had interfered with student syndicalism, banning student elections
in universities, forcefully drafting leftist students and enforcing
non-elected student syndicate leaders in the national student's
syndicate, EFEE. These actions eventually created a fierce anti-junta
sentiment among students that was first manifested by the suicide-protest
against the junta of geology student Kostas Georgakis in 1970
in Genoa, Italy.
On
21 February 1973, law students went on strike and barricaded themselves
inside the buildings of the Law School of the University in the
centre of Athens demanding the cancellation of the law that imposed
drafting of "subversive youths", as 88 of their colleagues
had been forcefully drafted. The regime ordered the police inside
the Law School and many students suffered police brutality. The
events at the Law School are often cited as the prelude to the
Polytechnic uprising.
On
14 November 1973, students at the National Technical University
of Athens (also known as the Athens Polytechnic or Polytechneion)
went on strike and started protesting against the military regime.
There was no response so the students barricaded themselves in
and built a radio station (using materials from the laboratories)
that repeatedly broadcasted across Athens: "This is the
Polytechneion! People of Greece, the Polytechneion is the flag
bearer of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle
against the dictatorship and for democracy!" (Etho Polytechneio!
Lae tis Elladas to Polytechneio einai simaioforos tou agona mas,
tou agona sas, tou koinou agona mas enantia sti diktatoria kai
gia tin Dimokratia). Leftist, later to be politician, Maria
Damanaki was one of the major speakers. Soon thousands of workers
and youngsters joined them protesting inside and outside of the
Athens Polytechnic.
By
Wednesday, 14 November, 1.500 students had barricaded themselves
inside the Polytechnic. Tension grew by the hour and throughout
Thursday sympathizers old and young converged on the school next
to the Archaeological Museum. By late Friday, 16 November, thousands
of people were filling the area stretching from Panepistimiou
Street all the way to the Alexandras Avenue intersection.
Witness
accounts disagree as to which end of Patission Street the teargas
canisters came from but the asphyxiating fumes had already started
to terrify the crowd into headlong flight even before the first
tanks appeared on Patission Street from the direction of Alexandras
Avenue.
In
the early hours of Saturday 17 November 1973, about 25 AMX 30
tanks arrived at the Polytechnic. One took position right in front
of the main gate. Fifteen minutes later, a delegation of the students
requested for 30 minutes to evacuate the school grounds but they
were only given 15. Less than then ten minutes later the AMX 30
tank crashed through the gate of the Athens Polytechnic.
The
events were filmed by the Belgian journalist Albert Coerant who
worked as a correspondent for Dutch and Belgian TV in Greece during
the military dictatorship. Even though the film is quite dark
it is clear enough to show that the tank crashed down the main
entrance of the Polytechneion while students, who had climbed
on the gate earlier, were still on it.
In
recordings of the “free Athens Polytechnic radio”
that was transmitting from the school grounds, a young man's voice
is heard desperately asking the soldiers (who he calls brothers
in arms) surrounding the building complex, to refuse to obey the
military orders and not to fight 'brothers protesting'. The voice
carries on to an emotional outbreak, reciting the lyrics of the
Greek national anthem. Shortly after the tank entered the school
grounds, the radio station ceased to transmit.
Tribute
to the uprising at the Athens Polytechnic in 1973
Song
End text
Credit
To
Oneiro tou Polemisti (The dream of the fighter) by Giannis
Haroulis.
Today fascism is dying.
Dedicated to those who put the freedom of the country
above their lives …to those who have been hurt,
who tried, who bled, who died…
Athens Polytechnic School 1973
According
to a, highly contested, official investigation after the fall
of the Junta, no students of the Athens Polytechnic were killed
during the incident and only a few were injured by the tank. Unofficial
accounts differ as to how many died in the tank invasion into
the Polytechnic area but a number were killed in the immediate
area of the school. A further number are estimated to have been
killed in Patission Street by sniper fire from nervous military
guards atop buildings and in what sounded like indiscriminate
shooting that went on until the early hours of Saturday 17 November.
According to unofficial accounts, at least 24 were killed (the
number may be higher), hundreds were injured and almost 1.000
were arrested at the Polytechnic and at the Ministry of Public
Order where students also were protesting.
Although
several civilians (some of them children and even the case of
an infant) are documented having been killed in the cross-fire
of the Polytechnic uprising, there is no documented reference
to any
actual students of the Athens Polytechnic killed at the time.
Despite this, in popular opinion tens (or even hundreds!) of students
of the Athens Polytechnic were killed. It does not pay homage
to the memory of those who were actually killed to fabricate fictitious
victims.
Both
on Sunday 18 and Monday 19 November 1973 a mass of soldiers and
police prevented crowds from gathering in the centre
of Athens and there were tanks in strategic positions as well
as surrounding the Parliament Building. All of Greece was put
under martial law for one week preventing from more than four
people gathering. There also was a curfew between 19:00 and 05:00
and a number of people were shot for breaking it. Around the country
28 student organizations were dissolved and their assets were
confiscated.
17
November
Every
year the campus of the Polytechnic is closed on 15 November
(the day the students first occupied the campus) and on
17 November, all Greek schools
and universities are closed. Students and politicians
lay wreaths near the monument within the Polytechnic that
has the names of all Polytechnic students killed during
the Greek Resistance in the 1940s inscribed (there are
no names of students killed during the Polytechnic uprising).
The commemoration day ends with a demonstration that begins
at the campus of the Polytechnic and ends at the United
States Embassy.