Athens commemorates the 71st anniversary of its Liberation from the Nazi Occupation with a series of events taking place throughout the month of October in several venues across the city.  

Seventy-one years ago, on 12 October 1944, the Nazi forces that had occupied Greece since April 1941 vacated Athens and began their northward retreat, concluding their withdrawal from Greece October 17. That day, "the best day and sweetest in the world" according to Nobel prize winner poet Giorgos Seferis, the people of Athens, who had survived a cruel and devastating triple occupation by the Axis powers, saw the last German soldiers driving out of the city, passing through excited crowds who waved Greek flags at the sound of ringing church bells. The Greek government-in-exile arrived on October 18, and Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, in a moving ceremony, raised the Greek flag on the Acropolis, addressing the assembled Athenians at Syntagma Square from the balcony of the finance ministry. 

The programme of festivities, held under the auspices of the President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos, opened with the photographic exhibition “October 12 – Athens Free” at the Municipal Gallery of Athens. Events include historical walking tours, concerts, documentaries, history lectures, various tributes and seminars for secondary school teacher, with the collaboration of, amongst others, the National Archives, the Contemporary Social History Archives, the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Arms. 

Watch archive footage: Athens liberation from the Nazi occupation, Finos Films Archive