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The first victim of the Holocaust of Kalavryta
For the old to remember and the new to learn…
The person depicted is the late Konstantinos Rigogiannis, brother of our grandfather Panagiotis Rigogiannis. He belonged to the elite battalion of the Greek army and served in the Fort of Rupel, where the German battalion paid tribute to the Greek soldiers who served in the fort for their bravery.
When the administration of the fortress was surrendered to the Germans because they had been informed of the possible capitulation of Greece to Germany, the Germans took Konstantinos Rigogiannis prisoner and then spared his life.
He later returned to his native land in the village of Planitero. On the morning of December 12, 1943, the German army searching for prisoners captured Konstantinos Rigogiannis and forced him to follow them. In the afternoon he was executed in cold blood in the village of Mazi, in retaliation for the execution of the German officers who learned at that moment that the rebels had been executed. Along with him they killed Seretis Ioannis.
His mother, Zoitsa Rigogianni, searching for him in the mountains, found his lifeless body in Mazi and carried him on her shoulders to the village of Planitero.
At dawn, the Germans broke out at Planitero, Lousoi, Clitoria and Kalavrita, where the holocaust followed on 13 December 1943.
