The 40 Dead of the Polytechnic Uprising

In 2003, Leonidas Kallivretakis, Director of the National Research Foundation, began a study titled “Polytechnic Uprising 1973: The Victims, Dead and Injured.” His findings, presented here, offer a detailed list of the known deceased.

“Our research aimed to collect and analyze, using scientific methods, all available evidence, ranging from contemporary media publications to hospital records, subsequent interrogations, judicial investigations, issued verdicts and testimonies in the subsequent trial, as well as personal interviews with eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims. This rigorous process led us from initially exaggerated casualty figures to a limited, thoroughly verified and substantiated number of deaths, leaving little room for doubt,” Kallivretakis said in an interview.

The Deniers of the Junta’s Casualties

“The historical research has tried to approach the events with objectivity, especially because we believe that the chaotic and undocumented information surrounding the Polytechnic Uprising has allowed indirect or direct supporters of the regime and various ‘revisionists’ to dismiss the events as ‘fables’ or claim 2-3 deaths from stray bullets,'” he noted.

As for the deniers of the junta’s casualties, Kallivretakis opined, “They would never be convinced even if they were presented with the dead and allowed to ‘put their fingers in the holes of the nails. Their attitude, if not malicious, is still ideological and not about the persuasiveness of the evidence”.

40 Identified and Unidentified Victims

According to the study, 24 individuals with known identities and 16 unidentified persons lost their lives during the uprising and its associated events. Additionally, 1,103 people were hospitalized with injuries, while the number of those injured but not treated remains unclear.

Beyond the Polytechnic Campus

Several victims were located away from the Polytechnic campus, highlighting the widespread nature of the tragedy. It is obvious that the uprising touched lives far beyond the university’s gates.

Testimonies

In September 1974, following the end of the Military Junta, the prosecutor Dimitrios Tsevas was appointed to conduct a preliminary investigation for the dead of the Polytechnic Uprising. There are numerous testimonies about the events at the Polytechnic. “A guilty conscience led me here,” Dimitrios Pimpas, a former KYP agent, is reported to have said in his testimony to Tsevas, later referring to “450 dead and mass graves in the Zografou cemetery”.

Journalist Grigoris Papadatos presented Tsevas with a list of 59 names, claiming that they corresponded to the dead from that period. Tsevas, however, considered Papadatos an unreliable source, as he was found to be walking around the Polytechnic area with a military identification card. Furthermore, he was found to have been the head of the press office of the “Royal Union” during the December 1974 referendum, campaigning for King Constantine.

Another witness, Pantelis Tsagkournis, a soldier serving at the Pentagon during the events, testified that he had seen a report by Colonel Dertilis stating that “the death toll was 423”. In court, however, he retracted his statement, saying he was unsure whether the document said “423 dead or injured. Nevertheless, the preliminary investigation had already identified 1,103 injured.

The Victims List

The list includes diverse individuals, from a 76-year-old woman to a 5-year-old boy, who was killed while crossing with his mother the intersection of Orini Taxiarchia Street and Papagos Avenue in Zografou. The boy was fatally wounded in the head by military patrol fire.