Join us for a screening of the documentary film 'The Red Teacher', by Stelios Charalampopoulos, on the life and death of Nikos Ploumpidis, one of the leading cadres of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) during the World War II and the anti-Nazi resistance, arrested by the Greek post-Civil War authoritarian state in 1952, tried and executed in August 1954.
Ploumpidis’ arrest followed the earlier arrest, trial and execution of Nikos Beloyannis, globally known as the "Man with the Carnation", on charges of treason for the transmission of information to the Soviet Union, after the criminalisation of the Greek Communist Party during the Civil War. Both arrests and trials were considered a major success for the Greek regime in a period of intensifying Cold War polarisation. While, however, Beloyannis died as a hero, during Ploumpidis’ trial the exiled Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party accused him of being a secret police spy and British agent, a snitch , and expelled him from the party. Ploumpidis died alone, slandered by enemies and friends, dishonored. The mild rehabilitation of Ploumpidis by the Greek Communist Party in 1958, after the de-Stalinization of KKE did not heal the trauma Ploumpidis’ tragic story left not only on his family but on the collective memory of the Greek society.
Please register to get a seat.