Internal exile in Greece

20,000 political prisoners were banished to Gyaros during and after the Greek Civil War.[1]
Makronisos from a ferry
Democracy Museum in Ai Stratis
Political detainees were deported to Anafi since the 1910s
Thousands of people were banished to Leros during the Greek junta

Internal exile was used to punish political dissidents by various Greek governments, including the Pangalos Regime (1925–1926) and the Metaxas 4th of August Regime (1936–1941), the government during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), and the Greek junta (1967–1974). Those targeted were typically sent to smaller, often uninhabited Greek islands.[2] Many of these island sites operated only as prison islands, among the most notorious including Makronisos, Gyaros, and Agios Efstratios, where barracks and facilities for housing prisoners served as concentration camps. Over 100 locations across Greece were used for political exile at various times in the 20th century.[3][4]

  1. ^ Papadimitriou, Yanis (11 June 2017). "Yaros, the forgotten prison island". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  2. ^ Mamoulaki, E (9 March 2016). "Pictures of Exile, Memories of Cohabitation: Photography, Space and Social Interaction in the Island of Ikaria". In Carabott, Philip; Hamilakis, Yannis; Papargyriou, Eleni (eds.). Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-17005-1.; Papaeti, Anna (2013). "Music, Torture, Testimony: Reopening the Case of the Greek Junta (1967–1974)". The World of Music. 2 (1): 67–89. ISSN 0043-8774. JSTOR 24318197.; Michou, Maria (27 March 2017). "Inhabiting the memory of political incarceration in Greece: two women's narratives from the Civil War and the Junta". In Karakatsanis, Leonidas; Papadogiannis, Nikolaos (eds.). The Politics of Culture in Turkey, Greece & Cyprus: Performing the Left Since the Sixties. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-42821-3.; Asimakoulas, Dimitris (2005). "Brecht in dark times: Translations of his works under the Greek junta (1967–1974)". Target. 17 (1): 93–110. doi:10.1075/target.17.1.06asi.; Pantzou, Nota (2015). "War remnants of the Greek archipelago". In Carr, Gilly; Reeves, Keir (eds.). Heritage and Memory of War: Responses from Small Islands. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-56698-4.; Kenna, Margaret E. (2008). "Conformity and Subversion: Handwritten Newspapers from an Exiles' Commune, 1938–1943". Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 26 (1): 115–157. doi:10.1353/mgs.0.0006. S2CID 144654989.
  3. ^ Pantzou, Nota (2011). "Materialities and Traumatic Memories of a Twentieth-Century Greek Exile Island". Archaeologies of Internment. Springer. pp. 191–205. ISBN 978-1-4419-9666-4.
  4. ^ Πικρός, Γιώργης (1978). Καλπάκι, φυλακές - ξερονήσια (το μαρτύριο ενός λαού) (in Greek). Καρανάση.