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Greece unveils WWII photo archive documenting Nazi executions of prisoners in Athens

The Greek Culture Ministry purchased the archive after a private collector attempted to sell the material online. Athens has now announced plans to digitise the photographs and study them as part of the historical record of the Nazi occupation.

READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/03/07/greece-unveils-wwii-photo-archive-documenting-nazi-executions-of-prisoners-in-athens

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Transcript
00:01A rare photographic archive from the Nazi occupation of Greece is now in the possession of the Greek state.
00:07The material, known as the Hoyer collection, contains 226 photographs from the Second World War.
00:15Among them are images from the final moments of 200 Greek communists
00:20who were executed by Nazi forces in Athens on May 1, 1944.
00:25The photographs were taken by German Wehrmacht officer Hermann Hoyer who served in Greece between 1943 and 1944.
00:35The images show prisoners being transported by a truck from a prison camp and arriving at the firing range of
00:41Greek capital.
00:42Some photographs capture moments shortly before the execution. Others show the moments that shots were fired and the aftermath.
00:50The existence of the archive became known recently when it emerged that a collector was attempting to sell the photographs
00:58online.
00:59Greece's cultural ministry purchased the collection for about 100.000 euros in order to prevent the material from entering the
01:08international market.
01:11Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a social media post that the collection is a unique record of Nazi
01:19brutality.
01:20It has already begun to deal with the collaboration with the legislation that is provided and that is required for
01:28the newspapers.
01:50The archive also includes photographs from the daily life of the German officer in Occupied Athens, as well as images
01:58from the United States.
01:59The archive was published from his personal life in Germany.
02:02The archive was published by this spreadsheet from the elite Mamax.
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