The previously unseen letters that Einstein and intellectuals worldwide wrote for Themos Kornaros and the other political prisoners’ release in the 1950 from the concentration camps in the Greek desert islands.
After the Second World War Greece is plagued by catastrophic Civil War. Many intellectuals are imprisoned, sent to exile and some of them even face execution.
For the first time in Greece, Cretalive and Mr. Mavrikakis today present the correspondence of the Nobel prize winner Albert Einstein and the world’s top intellectuals during the period 1950-1954 concerning the release of the Greek author Themos Kornaros and his fellow inmates from the concentration camps for political prisoners placed in Greek desert islands.
Today, at a time when fascism is looming again over Greece and Europe these letters kept in the "Einstein Archives" at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, are an extremely important historical document that sheds light on a troubled time of our country’s contemporary history. Historical evidence through which younger generations can be acquainted with the true face of fascism and totalitarianism.
In November 1949, Themos Kornaros with a stirring two-page letter written in English titled "A Letter about Peace" with high lyrical and intense poetic elements, with a quote from the lyrics by the Greek Communist poet Kostas Varnalis, makes an appeal to the intellectuals all around the world to denounce the cruel face of fascism in Greece and raise awareness in the West about the inhumane violations of the human rights that take place in the country as well as about the persecution of the country’s intellectuals for their beliefs and ideas. He concludes with the dramatic epilogue: “… I blush before the spiritual guards who are so eager to be deceived or to seek shelter with empty words. We must not play with words any longer. Silence is now better. Deep concentration, work and serious spiritual work are vital, since after the war the lights of the spirit will not fade any more. Human beings are strong. They will eventually win, regardless of the price that ideologists and writers will have to pay”.
Intellectual circles across Europe learn about the brave political prisoner in the Greek barren island. Among those intellectuals is Einstein who writes to Kornaros in the island of his exile.
