Makasi Archway

The Makasi archway is located at the Nikolaou Plastira Street and is part of the circumvallation of the city of Heraklion. It was a portal of exclusively military character which guides through a dome-shaped, 110 meter long corridor to the open place of the eastern low square of the Martinengo bastion. The facade of the archway to the city side (Nikolaou Plastira Street) was meticulously worked but is now ruined. The archway was used by the German occupying forces as an imprisonment site during the big Cretan block of 15-7-1943. At this site captives from all over Crete were concentrated and after a few days stay they were transported with the Italian ship “Madonna” to Pireus to the prison of Vourla in Drapetsona. Later, they were taken from there on the same ship to Thessaloniki and from there by train, through Bulgaria to Zemun of former Yugoslavia. After a stay of about three months a great number of captives were transported to the concentration camp of Mauthausen (where they arrived at 04.11.1943). Another group of captives from all over Crete were taken into custody in Makasi from 08.05.1944 to 08.06.1944 when they were boarded on the ship “Tanais” to be transported to Pireus. In the open Aegean Sea the ship sunk when hit by a torpedo. The present website is open to everyone who would like to provide some information regarding Greeks who were taken into custody in concentration camps of the 3rd Reich during the German occupation of Greece from 1941- 1945.

Source: www.heraklion.gr