Interviews
Greek students and migrants living in various countries of Eastern and Western Europe when the military coup took place. Victims of persecution forced to leave Greece to avoid arrest or to raise awareness of the junta’s human rights abuses. A religious Swede whose journey of self-discovery brought him to Greece under the Colonels’ regime. A Greek political refugee born in Romania. The interviews presented in this section shed light on the complexity of the European solidarity
movement, its networks, its organisational availabilities, its contradictions, and conflicts as well as its convergences. Most importantly, beyond the treasure trove of fresh factual information that the interviewees provide, they offer us their own, personal perspective, since the process of the interview gives them the opportunity to remember and reflect on their anti-dictatorship activity in various geographical locations across Europe.
The interviews presented here are published for the first time and were conducted as part of the project ‘Democracy and Freedom: Digital Museum of European Solidarity to Greece (1967-1974)’. Most were taken in 2023, the year marking the 50th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising.
The interviews focus on the dictatorship period and, more specifically, on the interviewees’ anti-dictatorship activity abroad. However, a large part is also dedicated to their life course pre- and post-dictatorship. This was a deliberate choice aimed at shedding light on the circumstances that led the interviewees to become involved in politics and the effect the experience of dictatorship had on their lives after the fall of the junta.
A special questionnaire (interview guide) was designed for each interview, comprising open-ended questions which allowed the interviewees to freely sift through their memories, recollect, and share with the interviewers the meaning they themselves assign to their actions and wider political developments of the time. There was also a sub-section of clarifying questions which prompted the interviewees to describe their contacts abroad, the Greek and foreign groups they co-operated with, and the organisations in which they were active. Although the image they paint is fragmentary, the interviews reflect the complexity, contradictions, convergences and divergences within the European solidarity movement.
Various factors determined the selection of the interviewees. The research team’s main concern was to represent to the best of our ability the full scope of the political geography of European solidarity, both in Western and Eastern Europe. Therefore, we interviewed people who participated in anti-dictatorship activity in Italy, West and East Germany, France, England, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Belgium, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. We were also interested in recording oral histories from people who were active in organisations across the political spectrum, from supporters of the communist Left and Social Democracy to the Centre and the Right. Finally, we wanted to showcase both men’s and women’s voices, even though men were more willing to be interviewed, or more visible, and therefore more accessible, to the research team.
