Lela Karagianni Executed (1944)

Fri Sep 08, 1944

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Eleni “Lela” Karagianni was a Greek anti-fascist leader during World War II, executed in the Haidari concentration camp on this day in 1944. Today, a central Athens street that runs close to her home is named in her honor.

The wife of an Attican pharmacist and the mother of seven children, Karagianni worked to coordinate Greek resistance cells and their activities against the occupying Axis forces.

Karagianni formed her own cell within the wider movement, code-named “Bouboulina” in reference to Laskarina Bouboulina, a female Greek captain who had fought against the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence.

The cell operated out of her husband’s pharmacy, distributing information to other cells, smuggling wanted individuals into areas controlled by Greek partisan forces, forging documents, and coordinating with British military intelligence to disrupt the Axis occupation.

In July, 1944 Karagianni was captured by Nazi forces and sent to Haidari concentration camp, where she continued to organize a resistance against the Germans before being executed on September 8th that year.

Her name has been given to a street in central Athens (Lelas Karagianni St., formerly Limnou St.), close to her house, which is now a protected monument.