Famine is a mass atrocity as devastating as war, terrorism, and genocide. Such was the great famine that swept through Greece during the dark days of the Occupation, with its cruelest toll felt during the bitter winter of 1941-1942. The widespread scarcity of food left countless people malnourished, ravaged by disease, and helpless against the rising tide of death. The suffering was most profound in the large urban centres, especially among the lower classes. The first to fall were war-disabled individuals and soldiers who had returned from the front. The poor, workers, and employees lost their homes, their jobs, and their means of survival. The elderly and children could not withstand the harsh conditions. People died from the cold while searching for food, and most of the fallen remained nameless.
Whatever happened to the Famine dead?
Lacking fuel, the City of Athens used trucks and carts to collect those lost to hunger. Their last journey brought them to the city morgue and, eventually, to the Third Cemetery. For many families, burying their dead became an act of quiet desperation. In secrecy, they had to find ways to transport their loved ones, hoping to hold on to the cherished ration cards that might help the living survive a little longer. Even in death, the poor remained faceless. The large number of deaths led to the creation of mass graves. These graves were situated along a narrow strip of land (now section 35) running alongside the wall of the southwestern part of the cemetery, to the right of the entrance. The area measured approximately 4 by 150 meters and was easily accessible.
A Monument / Anti-Monument to hunger
In 1966, prompted by changes in the cemetery’s urban plan, then-municipal councilor Ioannis Papatheodorou (1914-1983) raised the issue of the famine victims. He requested that the site of the mass graves remain untouched and that a monument be erected in situ. Although the City Council unanimously approved his proposal, it was revoked in 1967, due to urban planning issues and because the area had been allocated for the establishment of family graves. It was decided to exhume the thousands of bones from the ground and relocate them with the intention of building a Monument-Mausoleum for those “who died of hunger.” The exhumation and relocation of 2,000 bones had already been completed, with the exhumation and transfer of approximately 8,000 more bones pending.
The monument was never constructed, and section 35 was given to post-war Greece as if it were “new,” stripped of its history. The remains of the hunger victims were moved to an honorary section, where it is believed that many now rest beneath a simple grave marked only with the words: “VICTIMS OF THE OCCUPATION 1941-1944.”
The path along the narrow strip of land in the cemetery wall is dedicated to their memory.