What terrible torments that the Roman Empire has endured!
A historical tour of the prisons in the city of Patras, from the Ottoman period to the present day…
Photographs, literary excerpts, memoirs, period newspapers, contemporary documents, as well as testimonies from both living and deceased key figures, paint a picture of the city’s correctional facilities over the past 200 years.
Ottoman and medieval castles, neoclassical mansions, historic buildings, military installations, children’s camps and schools, warehouses, as well as correctional facilities themselves—all housed criminal and political prisoners, resistance fighters, and patriots during the German-Italian occupation, adults and minors, Greeks and foreign nationals from a multinational society, intellectuals convicted for their satirical poetry, prominent citizens, and public officials who were imprisoned for their ideology…
Travelers and health officials visited the refugee camps in Patras, providing us with information about living conditions, while relatives—mostly women—mothers, wives, and sisters—arrived with bundles and supplies, trying to improve the prisoners’ living conditions even slightly. The exhibition begins at the Ottoman castle of Rio and ends at the modern correctional facility of Agios Stefanos, subtly reflecting in its narrative perhaps the very course of the city itself from its liberation in 1828 to the present day.
Exposure factors
Curated and written by: Androniki P. Chrysafi, historian and archaeologist, M.Sc.
