“Allow me to contribute my small part to the edifice of freedom.”
The 17-year-old Iro joined EPON and fought with zeal, courage, and passion until the very end. She was arrested by the Security Battalions in early July 1944, but her family managed to free her. The German SS captured her again on July 31, 1944. She had participated in the bombing of a train carrying ammunition. She was brutally tortured in Merlin but never broke. She was transferred to Chaidari with the note “extremely dangerous” and a red cross next to her name. She was executed on September 5, 1944, in Kaisariani.
Excerpt from a half-cadastral map of the Attica Basin, noting the grave of Hero Konstantopoulou, Athens, ca. 1955 [Historical Archive of the Municipality of Athens]
“[..] her unfortunate father, after finding her buried in the ground the day after her execution, drowned in blood with a coup de grace to the temple, purchased this grave and interred her there.”
Excerpt from a letter by Eleni Konstantopoulou, Hero’s mother, to the City of Athens asking for the forever preservation of her grave, Athens 1974 [Archive of the 3rd Cemetery]