Making memories visible: Greek victims of Nazi persecution
An interview with Loukas Lymperopoulos about research, remembrance, and returning the personal belongings of Greek victims of Nazi persecution
In June 2024, a special ceremony took place as part of the #StolenMemory initiative: a pocket watch belonging to a Greek victim of Nazi persecution was returned to his family. Vasilios Kontogeorgiou was a resistance fighter who survived the Neuengamme concentration camp; his watch was presented to his granddaughter Angeliki at the Greek Embassy in Berlin. This moment was the culmination of months of research, largely initiated and overseen by Loukas Lymperopoulos, a retired teacher based in Hamburg who researches the history of Greek concentration camp prisoners. In this interview, he talks about his work, the culture of remembrance in Greece, and how people react when a relative’s personal effects are returned to them.
Mr. Lymperopoulos, when did you first become interested in the history of National Socialism, and specifically in the fate of Greek concentration camp prisoners?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
Neuengamme concentration camp was liberated in early May 1945. Since the 1980’s members of the Greek community have laid wreaths there and held an Orthodox memorial mass every Ascension Day. When I realized that there was no Greek-language publication on the history of the camp, my original plan was to write a short pamphlet for the community. But my research quickly revealed how complex and wide-ranging the topic is. I’ve been working on it intensively since 2019.
You’re writing a book about Greek prisoners in Neuengamme. Has there been any academic research on this topic so far?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
The subject isn’t entirely new, but there’s still much to explore. There’s an article that was published by a journalist in 1998 and a book by another journalist that came out in 2017. Both works list names from the Neuengamme Memorial archives, but neither author did any further research or corrected inaccuracies in the records from the archive. A Greek historian wrote his post-doctoral thesis on Greek prisoners in German concentration camps and published some new names in connection with Neuengamme. And then there are the memoirs of nine survivors, four of which are unpublished. My goal is to fill in the many biographical details that are missing.
How did Vasilios Kontogeorgiou’s pocket watch come to be returned?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
The return of the watch was the result of long and complex research carried out by me. It all began with articles about Vasilios Kontogeorgiou and other Greek victims of Nazi persecution that I managed to have published in several local newspapers in Greece, including the newspaper in Vasilios Kontogeorgiou’s home town. A professor who researches the Second World War and oral history got in touch with me as a result. She was able to provide me with an out-of-print book from 1985 containing interviews with concentration camp survivors, one of whom was Vasilios Kontogeorgiou.
Using that interview and documents from the Greek state archives and from German archives, I was able to reconstruct his life story. Through Vaso Panagou, whose grandfather died in Neuengamme and with whom I was already in touch, I finally managed to find Vasilios Kontogeorgiou’s family. His granddaughter had been living in Berlin for ten years at the time, and she contacted me in April 2024. I put her in touch with the Arolsen Archives – and in June 2024, the pocket watch was finally handed over to the family at the Greek Embassy.
But the story didn’t end there. Since 2024/25, the Greek Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have also been involved in the #StolenMemory campaign. The personal effects of seven other people were still waiting to be returned to their rightful owners. Two schools managed to trace some of the relatives. The belongings of one of the victims were returned to his family in Thessaloniki in June 2025, and another return ceremony is planned for the fall.
Has your research turned up any information or any stories that you find particularly moving?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
The stories of brothers who both died in the camp or of fathers and sons who never returned are very tragic. It’s particularly hard when families have had no information about the fate of their loved ones since they went missing. In conversations with relatives, it’s not uncommon for them to cry – because they find out for the first time just how much their fathers or grandfathers had to suffer. For many, it’s a shock, but also a moment of relief.
How many survivors have you been able to speak to?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
When I began my research in 2019, I knew of five survivors. I was able to speak to four of them in person. They were all very open, and they were grateful that someone was taking an interest in this important period of their lives and wanted to write about it. For them, the most important thing was to be recognized as victims. The last of them died in Piraeus in February 2025 at the age of 99. The second-to-last was a 104-year-old survivor who died in Sweden in March 2024.
What role does the imprisonment of Greek victims of Nazi persecution in concentration camps play in your country’s culture of remembrance today?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
A lot of attention is paid to armed resistance. There are books, museums, memorials, monuments, etc. But there has been little research to date into the deportation of political prisoners or their imprisonment in concentration camps. After the war, many of those affected were not treated as resistance fighters by the Greek state, but as communists – and therefore as enemies of the state. Most museums with a focus on resistance are understaffed and do not have the means to conduct in-depth research into this subject. The fact that the site of the Chaidari camp near Athens is now in a restricted military area is an added difficulty. The topic urgently needs more public attention.
How would you describe public interest and knowledge about the German occupation of Greece and the persecution of Greek victims of Nazi persecution in both countries?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
Until the 1990s, the German public knew little to nothing about the German occupation of Greece. Millions of Germans went on vacation to Greece without knowing that massacres may have been committed near where they were staying. The Greeks, on the other hand, didn’t want to hold young Germans accountable for the crimes of their elders, so they didn’t bring these things up in conversation. These matters only really came into the public eye as a result of the disputes over reparations and compensation and the court cases that followed. The 2010 Euro crisis made things worse. The German media often vilified the Greeks and demanded that they repay their debts. In turn, the Greek public remembered the unpaid German war debts and missing reparations. Since then, the history of the occupation has become more widely known in Greece and at least somewhat better known in Germany.
How do relatives react when you are able to provide new information about a family member?
Loukas Lymperopoulos
With gratitude, shock, and deep emotion. Many hardly knew anything about the suffering their fathers or grandfathers had endured because they never spoke about it. It was too traumatic for them. When I give details about the camps in question, such as daily routines, executions, arbitrary punishments, death marches, brutality, hunger, etc., their relatives are often hearing about these things for the very first time. Some break down and cry, others immediately start asking questions. It’s not just about the facts, it’s also about gaining access to a painful chapter in the lives of their fathers, grandfathers, and brothers – a chapter that had been closed off to them before. And it’s about filling a void that has spanned generations.
