This grave, with no additional identification or details in the Archive of the Third Cemetery, embodies the fate of the nameless dead from the Occupation. It is believed to have been established after exhumations and holds the remains of individuals buried in mass graves who were never identified, including famine victims. It is thought to have been created with the assistance of the Association of Occupation Victims “The Phoenix,” which collaborated with the Panhellenic Union of National Resistance Fighters to build a monument to the 1941-1944 National Resistance from the mid-1960s onwards.
Adorned with a modest marble cross, this grave now rests among contemporary temporary plots. The absence of named memorials or even mentions for the famine victims inspired the creation of this 1940- 1944 Remembrance Route.
The grave, as suggested by its title, serves as a communal burial site and evidently refers to anonymous dead. The “unknown” individuals, according to civil registry death records, were primarily civilians who died from hunger, cold, and disease. They were buried in the narrow strip of land along the cemetery wall. This group also included several executed individuals found in streets, ditches, ravines, and even wells throughout the city.
In the early postwar years, the identified victims, most of them executed, were moved from temporary graves to permanent individual or collective graves. However, this was not the case for the anonymous dead, as no one came forward to claim them.
In the 1960s, two issues were hotly debated: the recognition of the National Resistance and the creation of German war cemeteries. Resistance organizations and victims’ associations strongly lobbied the authorities to honor the victims of Nazism and erect a National Resistance Memorial. The heroic narratives, the resistance struggle against the occupiers, Nazi atrocities, and the demand for justice took center stage. In 1965, the Athens City Council addressed the idea of building a monument to the victims of the German occupation. After lengthy discussions, it was decided to “erect a monument to the victims of the National Resistance during the foreign occupation.”
However, the issue of honoring the victims of famine as a distinct category of Occupation deaths was not raised by the City of Athens. It was first introduced in 1966 by then-municipal councilor and later mayor, Ioannis Papatheodorou. Although a dedicated chapter for this purpose was included in the city’s budget, the Famine Memorial was never built. According to City Council records, the victims were exhumed, and their bones were to be transferred to Section 18. With no further information available to date, it is assumed that their “orphanhood” ended with the inscription: “Occupation Victims 1941-1944” in Section 18.
On the other hand, the famine of the Occupation is commemorated at the more grand First Cemetery of Athens in the postwar sculpture “Occupation” by Kostas Valsamis (1908–2003), also known as “The Mother of the Occupation.” This sculpture, a private initiative funded and installed during the dictatorship, was inspired by a scene Valsamis witnessed in 1942 on a street in Piraeus: a dead, skeletal mother with her baby at her dry breast, still trying to nurse. The figure is depicted as rigid, elongated, and monumental, reflecting how the image appeared to the sculptor. This elongated composition would have been fitting for the narrow strip of land at the Third Cemetery, where the famine victims were buried, but this possibility was never considered.