UNSUNG HEROES - EPISODE 15: PANAGOULIS (Greece)

Aléxandros Panagoulis (1939-1976) - The Blood of Greece

The Greek hero par excellence, a free spirit, in his youth he joined the party of the Union of the Centre Papandreou. He became a fierce opponent of the colonels’ junta. In 1968, he decided an attack against the dictator Papadoupoulos. He failed and was arrested and sentenced to death. Hideously tortured, he never delivered any names. And from his prison, he wrote his best poems on the walls of his cell or on microscopic ink papers, often from his own blood. Released with the return of democracy in 1974 he became deputy and continues the fight against his former torturers. On 1 May 1976, at the age of 38, Panagoulis dies in a car accident, trying to escape from enforcers and this, a few days before the revelation of an explosive issue on security agents of the military junta…

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