From the Archives: Όχι Day in Athens, October 1951

Background 

October 28, 2026, occurred in the middle of last week. Here in USA, it was just another Wednesday (other than our standard political turmoil and high-level fraud in Washington). 

But in Greece, October 28 is a profoundly important national holiday, Όχι Day. Oxi means No in Greek. It commemorates the beginning of World War II for Greece when General Metaxas told Mussolini's envoy, "Όχι." It marked Greece;'s entry into World War II and the remarkable first defeat of the Axis powers.

From Wikipedia:

Shortly after 03:00 on 28 October 1940, the Italian ambassador in Athens, Emanuele Grazzi, delivered an ultimatum from the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, to Greece's leader, Ioannis Metaxas, at his residence in Kifissia. The ultimatum demanded that Greece allow Axis forces to cross the Greek-Albanian border and occupy certain "strategic positions" within Greek territory, or else face the prospect of war. Metaxas refused, replying in French, then the language of diplomacy: "Alors, c'est la guerre" ("Then, it is war").

Italian forces stationed in Albania, then under Italian rule, attacked the Greek frontier in Epirus at 05:30, half an hour before the ultimatum expired. The Greek army halted the invasion by mid-November 1940 and then counter-attacked into southern Albania.

  

30 October 1940 newspaper with editorial about Oxi (from Wikipedia, in the common domain)

My stepdad was a newly-graduated surgeon and was drafted into the Greek Army. The army marched to the Albanian frontier. The Greek forces pushed back and devastated the Italian troops, pushing them  into the mountains of Albania.  

As the winter of 1940-1941 progressed (one of the most severe of the century), the Italian troops were woefully unprepared. They had not been equipped with winter clothing or cold weather equipment, and they suffered horribly. My stepdad told me that he frequently amputated toes and fingers of Italian men who had suffered frostbite and developed gangrene. Note this is a Greek surgeon saving Italian soldiers in a Greek field hospital.  

Adolf Hitler reluctantly decided that he needed to rescue his Italian ally, Benito Mussolino, whose army was bogged down in the mountains of Albania. Another consideration was if Greece remained in Allied hands, British bombers might be able to bomb the oil fields in Romania, whose oil was crucial for Germany's economy and Hitler's planned invasion of the Soviet Union. 

The German army invaded Greece on April 6, 1941. The German forces rapidly overran Greek, British, Australian, and New Zealand defenders and ended the battle decisively by April 30. 

My stepdad said after the surrender, the Greek army was disbanded. He and other officers used mules and long marches to return to Athens. (Note, it is a long trek across the Pindus mountains from Albania to Athens).   

The incredible battles in the mountains of Albania may have ultimately led to the failure of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. After conquering Greece, the German troops and equipment had to return to Germany for reequipping and reorganization. They invaded the Soviet Union on June 22. Had they started a month or six weeks earlier, they might have been able to reach Moscow before the onset of the terrible Winter of 1941-1942. Adolf Hitler himself blamed the failure of his invasion of the Soviet Union on Mussolini's inability to conquer Greece. Historians will debate this indefinitely. But for the sake of this blog, let's conclude that the Greeks saved the western world.   

Here are some of my dad's Kodachrome slides from Όχι Day in 1951. 

Syntagma

Hellenic Parliament building (formerly the Royal Palace)

A cowgirl and a Scotswoman?

Corner of Panepistimiou and Kriezotou Streets

 

This was the view from a balcony on the Hotel Grande Bretagne. The hotel is one of the most fashionable accommodations in the heart of the city. 

Odos Panepistemiou

 

Schliemann mansion, now the Numismatic Museum of Athens

Fortunately, Heinrich Schliemann's (the controversial excavator of Troy) magnificent neoclassical building has been preserved and houses the Numismatic Museum of Athens. 

Papudov Mansion (no longer extent)

This building may be the former Papudov Mansion, at the corner of Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and Panepistimiou. It was built in the late 1890s for a Russian banker, Aristeidis Papudov. In 1970, a developer demolished the grand mansion and replaced it with a revolting glass box hotel, which failed soon after. 

The frantic building boom of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s destroyed much of Athens' neoclassical and Art Nouveau architecture. Today, much of the city is a concrete jungle of uninteresting and tired square buildings of no architectural merit, far too little green space, and congested streets.

 

 

An American in Paris Athens

My dad took these slides with Kodachrome film with his Leica IIIC rangefinder camera and a 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. This Kodachrome had a film speed of Weston 8 or ASA 10. He measured light with a GE PR-1 light meter. I scanned the slides with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner running under Nikon Scan 4.03 software.