On August 15, 1947, 20-year-old Despo Ouzounidou fled her village to join the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). As a second lieutenant in the Battle of Grammos, she witnessed the first use of napalm bombs in Europe after World War II.
Narrator: Despo Ouzounidou
Interview by: Georgia Stafylidou
Podcast by: Maya Filippopoulou
Sound Design: Iason Theofanou
Audio Editing: Dimitris Papadakis
Istorima is the biggest project for recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. More than 1,000 young researchers find narrators listen, collect and preserve stories of people from all over Greece: Stories of their hometowns, stories of love, stories that changed Greece or defined it, modern or old stories. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could easily be lost in time.
It was created by the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of its initiative to Restart and Empower Youth (see more on www.snf.org). More than 20,000 stories are gradually being published in full on www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos, or written stories on www.istorima.org.