The Haidari Camp, Haidari – as it remains in the consciousness of our people – was not just a prison for hostages for the Nazi occupiers during the Occupation; nor was it a place from which the fascists simply gathered people to lead them to execution.

It was – as Themos Kornaros himself rightly claims in his compelling narrative – a frantic battle for who would win the soul of the condemned, the soul of the people. The prisoners, despite being constantly threatened by death, had the following goal, which originated primarily from cell 1 of block 3 of the Camp, from the block of imprisoned communists, Akronafplioites, whom the Metaxas dictatorship handed over to the Nazi occupiers: Unyielding will, unwavering personality, the strengthening of the condemned’s endurance!

Thus, the prisoners felt that they were participating in the greatest battle in world history: The history of life, because there they would face death, not as its slaves but as contemptuous adversaries.

And indeed, the inmates of Haidari achieved this, led by the 200 communist heroes of the people, whom the fascist occupiers executed on May 1, 1944, at the Kaisariani Shooting Range. Kornaros dedicates a significant portion of this work to this execution, highlighting an unknown aspect to the general public: How the announcement was made by the camp commander regarding the communists who would be executed, the stance of the 200 led by Napoleon Soukatzidis, and how the other prisoners reacted to the announcement, and then to the news that came to them regarding how the execution unfolded at the martyrdom site of the Shooting Range.

There, even the SS were forced to bow to the dignity with which the 200 faced death. The “testament” that the 200 bequeathed to their fellow prisoners was that: “The fighter is the guardian of human achievements and a soldier in the front line for new conquests... Comrades... keep the freedom that we conquered with so much blood and pain.”

The last chapter of Kornaros's work on the Haidari Camp, titled: “The Testament of the Heroes,” is missing, which, as the author himself states, was lost in research. Kornaros deliberately chose not to rewrite it, intending to remind his readers of the eternal disgrace of the collaborationist state that succeeded the Germans, which even surpassed them.