Vangelitsa Kousiantza 1918-1947

Vangelitsa Kousiantza was born on 1918 in Palamas, a village in central Greece. After qualifying as a teacher, she devoted all her life to the fight against the German Nazis and Italian Fascists who occupied Greece from April 1941. Before joining the partisans in the mountains and the EAM (the National Liberation Front), the main movement of the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece, her efforts were spent in educating her students on political questions and recruiting them to the national resistance.

Kousiantza was  recognised as a valuable member of the KKE, the Greek Communist Party, and the EAM. She worked tirelessly, traveling from village to village to stir up the hearts of the Greek people against the fascist occupiers.

Kousiantza and all fighters of the National Resistance, didn’t give up the fight after the liberation of Greece from the German occupation in 1945. They kept fighting for social liberation and for socialism in Greece. As a result, she was continuously under persecution by the Greek authorities. She had been under arrest and cruelly tortured several times. Moving to the mountains of Karditsa was the only option left to her and other partisans. There she organised and coordinated the political and military struggle in cooperation with the armed sections of the Democratic Army of Greece.

In April 1947, the Greek army, with incomparably superior forces and firepower, trapped her Democratic Army battalion. The only point where they could pass to the safety of the mountains, which were under Democratic army control, was an inaccessible path; the neck of Niala. It was  12 April 1947. Kousiantza’s batallion decided to take the path through an unprecedented blizzard. Kousiantza was the only woman who survived. She and the other survivors were captured by the Greek army and imprisoned. Kousiantza with other fighters of the Democratic Army and other KKE members were sentenced to death in a rigged trial.

On the day of her execution, Kousiantza wore her red dress of silk, which she always carried with her for special occasions. Facing death she started dancing and singing partisan songs, encouraging others to follow her in a last protest against her executors. Her last words were ‘We give our life for this noble ideal. Let our blood be the last to be shed. The people will not forget us. Don’t forget us!’

Vangelitsa Kousiantza was buried in her red dress. On her grave is written ‘Teacher and fighter of the Resistance. A heroine of the people!’.