Iro Konstantopoulou… A high school student. A symbol of the Greek Resistance during the Nazi Occupation. She was tortured by the occupying forces and their local collaborators—traitors to their own people. Through her sacrifice, she taught us the meaning of dignity, struggle, justice, freedom, defiance, pain, purity, bravery, resistance, and solidarity.
Seventeen bullets pierced her body after days of brutal torture meant to force her to talk. She never gave in. Her suffering became a testament to her unshakable commitment to her ideals.
She was only 17. A member of EPON—the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth, the youth wing of the resistance movement. On this day, 16 July 1927, she was born.
And she never truly died.