The Greek culture ministry said on Friday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with a Belgian collector to acquire a series of photographs that showed the final moments of 200 Greeks before they were executed by a Nazi firing squad during World War II.
The pictures were put up for auction a week ago, stirring outrage among many in Greece. The photographs are believed to be the only existing images of a mass execution of communist prisoners that is considered one of the worst atrocities of the Nazi occupation of Greece. The photos show men walking in a double line and being made to stand against a wall by uniformed soldiers.
The 12 photos were put up for sale on eBay by Tim De Craene, a Belgian collector of World War II memorabilia, on Feb. 14, and the pictures soon gathered attention on Greek social media.
On Monday, Mr. De Craene stopped the auction. In a written statement shared with Greek and Belgian news media, he said he was “open to constructive dialogue” with the Greek authorities.
The Greek culture ministry said the same day that it was “highly likely” they were photographs of the execution of 200 prisoners at a firing range in the Athens suburb of Kaisariani on May 1, 1944.
Independent experts confirmed the authenticity of the photographs during a visit to Belgium on Friday, Lina Mendoni, Greece’s minister of culture, said in a news release. The ministry said it had signed a “preliminary agreement” with the seller about the collection.
Polymeris Voglis, a professor of social history at the University of Thessaly, said in a phone interview that the photos were “of very great historical significance” because they were the only visual evidence of a massacre that has been “carved into the national conscience” of Greece.
Mr. Voglis said he, like most Greeks, was shocked when he saw the photos. “After 82 years, we saw the faces of these people going to their execution, for the first time,” he said. “I was struck by their unyielding stance.”
The fact that the pictures had been offered for sale to the highest bidder caused outrage among some Greeks. “These documents are not commodities,” Sokratis Famellos, the leader of the Greek leftist party Syriza, said in a post on social media.
Ms. Mendoni, the Greek minister of culture, had described the pictures as “extremely important documents of modern Greek history” in a news release on Wednesday. The ministry said the pictures were part of a larger collection of 262 photographs compiled by Hermann Heuer, a former Wehrmacht lieutenant who had been ordered to observe, and possibly assist, in the execution.
The entire collection was declared protected cultural heritage by the ministry on Wednesday, a move that it said created legal grounds for claiming the pictures on behalf of the state.
Mr. Voglis said the photos should be included in Greek schoolbooks. “It’s important for historical memory that children can learn about the bravery and sacrifices of those who resisted the Nazi occupiers,” he said.
Mr. De Craene runs a company that sells German military memorabilia, including postcards depicting Adolf Hitler, pins and armbands featuring swastikas, along with pictures of killed soldiers and civilians.
Mr. De Craene did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement shared with Belgian media on Friday, he said he was relieved that an agreement had been reached and that the images would “benefit the Greek people and their collective remembrance of a dark episode in their history.”
Shortly after the pictures began circulating online, a memorial at the execution site in Kaisariani was vandalized. Marble plaques listing the victims’ names were found smashed, the municipality of Kaisariani said in a statement posted on social media on Sunday.
The vandalism highlighted the enduring tensions in Greece over the legacy of the communist resistance.
The circulating pictures have sent a “wave of emotion” through the public, said the municipality of Kaisariani. “Historical memory cannot be erased, however much it might bother some people.”
Koba Ryckewaert is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Brussels.
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