Ioulia Bimpa (1910-1943)

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Written by Ada Kapola & Aggeliki Christodoulou

Ioulia Bimpa, born in Samos in 1910, is an important figure of the Greek resistance during the German occupation. She joined the Panhellenic Union of Aggressive Youth (PEAN) in 1942, where she was involved in the illegal press and proclamations. She played a decisive role in the blowing up of the offices of the National Socialist Patriotic Organization (ESPO) in September 1942, an initiative that constitutes the best-known resistance action of that organization. After this action, the Nazi organisation was never reconstituted. Stolen explosives were kept in her house and she helped to construct bombs for sabotage operations. Although she faced torture and interrogation during her arrest in November 1942, Bimpa remained unmoved. Sentenced to death by the German Military Court, she showed unwavering determination and courage, as shown in her last letters. She was executed in Vienna in February 1943 at the age of 32.

Early years

The resistance fighter Ioulia Gkarbola was born in Samos in 1910. She finished primary school on the island and moved to Athens in 1930. She worked as a housekeeper and also taught in catechetical schools. She was married to Kostas Bimpa, who was blind from birth. She and her husband met in the church, where she taught Sunday school and he was a cantor. They married in 1932.

During the German Occupation, she joined the resistance movement in the ranks of the Panhellenic Union of Struggling Youth (PEAN), in March 1942, together with Aikaterini Besi, her friend and neighbour in Koukaki, where she lived. Initially she was involved with the illegal press and proclamations. She would get the forms from the printing house, take them to her house, page them and then package them to be given and distributed through the associations.

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Portrait of the Greek resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa (1910-1943)
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The illegal resistance newspaper Doxa [Glory] of the Panhellenic Organization of Young Workers (PEAN), F.3, 5/1942.The newspaper was circulating illegally in Athens during the German Occupation (ASKI, EPON Archive)

“You have to do something too. The moment demands it.”

About her participation in the Resistance, she will mention in a letter from prison shortly before her death in December 1942: “I am often asked here in prison how I, an insignificant girl from Samos, found the strength to get involved in the Resistance. I don’t know how to tell you either. Something inside me was itching. Something told me, “You have to do something. It’s time.” It might have inspired me those lads who took down the German flag from the Acropolis in May ’41. We haven’t learned their names yet. Maybe we never will. I remember that on that day, that dusk, I climbed up Filopappou Hill and looked at the rock across the way. I was looking at the Parthenon and thinking, ” Will I ever be able to do something?” Whatever! Now all that is in the past. Now I have the bars in front of me. I’ve been in solitary since last week. But I will hold on” (12/1942).

Photograph with drawings and messages of Greek prisoners on the walls of the detention centres in Athens during the German Occupation

The blowing up of ESPO

PEAN was a resistance organisation founded in the autumn of 1941, on the initiative of the retired Greek Air Force officer Kostas Perrikos. It became particularly well known for its dynamic interventions in the resistance struggle. PEAN’s most famous resistance action was the blowing up of the offices of the National Socialist Patriotic Organization (ESPO), the Greek Nazi organization, in September 1942.

In Ioulia Bimpa’s house, the organization kept the explosives it had stolen from the German Army in order to use them in the sabotage it organized. With her help, the improvised bombs that the organisation planted against occupation targets were constructed. In the preparation of the action against ESPO, Ioulia took the lead, as her fellow fighter Antonis Mytilineos described: ‘At Ioulia’s house we made the bomb that we planted on ESPO on 22 September 1942. But this time Ioulia not only helped in the construction and assembly of the bomb, which weighed 10 ounces, but also transported it in a bag covered with grass from Koukaki by tram to Kaningos Square. There, sitting on a bench, she waited for three hours until she received the predetermined cue and handed it over at the entrance of the ESPO building to Galati and Mytilineos for further action.”

The explosion of the bomb resulted in the death of 29 members of the ESPO and 43 Germans. The Nazi organisation was never reconstituted. After the explosion, the members of the PEAN who had participated in the explosion, settled in a house in Kallithea for security reasons. However, a gendarme who posed as a member of the PEAN, but who was also an informer for the Germans, gave away the names of those involved in the blast for a price.

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Cover of a printed leaflet of the resistance organisation Panhellenic Union of Young Agonists (PEAN) entitled “What we believe”, 1942, ASKI Library
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Comic by Petros Zervos inspired by the story of the resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa entitled “Kiss”, 2015

The arrest and the trial

Ioulia Bimpa was arrested on 11 November 1942, along with other members of the organisation, including its leader Kostas Perrikos, who was executed. During the interrogations, the arrested people were tortured and Ioulia took responsibility for hiding explosives to help her comrade Aikaterini Besi escape the firing squad.

Finally, on 31 December 1942, Ioulia Bimpa was sentenced by the German Military Court to three death sentences and Aikaterini Besi to 15 years’ imprisonment. She was imprisoned in the Empeirikeio Institution in Athens until her transfer for the execution of her sentence.

Her fellow fighter Antonis Mytilineos later mentioned in a television program about Ioulia: “She was a woman who entered the struggle to die. She was so enthusiastic, so passionate, so spontaneously acting that, admittedly, when we remember her, it brings tears to our eyes. We lived so short a time, it would not have been three months that we knew her and lived together; and what can I have to say, she is still in our hearts.”

Front page of the illegal newspaper of the Panhellenic Organization of Struggling Youth (PEAN), Doxa [Glory], 1943. On the front page, reference to the leader of the organisation Kostas Perrikos who was executed (ASKI Library) - ASKI

Front page of the illegal newspaper Doxa [Glory], 1943

“We Samian women are tough as bones…”

Ioulia Bimpa’s sentence was death by hanging, while her fellow fighters who were also sentenced to death – such as Kostas Perrikos – were sentenced to execution. From the letters of Ioulia Bimpa that have been published, we know little about the conditions of her detention and the way she faced the prospect of execution. She writes to her friend Anna Patera: “Don’t worry about me, tell others not to worry. We Samian women are tough as bones. Just get me a blanket because I sleep on the concrete and sometimes I get cold. Bring me some oatmeal and if there’s none, bring me some chickpeas. (…) It’s strange how many things one remembers when one sleeps on the concrete. Hold on…”

Handwritten letter from the Greek resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa (1910-1943)

The torturous death in Vienna

The information we have about her life, her resistance activity and her imprisonment are scarce. Her few surviving letters that she sent to her mother and a friend – Anna Patera – when she was in prison, as well as the testimonies of her fellow fighters, but which focus on the blowing up of the ESPO, are the only traces we have of this woman’s story.

However, her bravery and self-sacrifice are nevertheless striking, even when it is now certain that her death sentence is certain and irrevocable. In her last letter from prison, before boarding the train that will take her to her torturous death, she writes to her friend Anna Patera: “In solitary confinement the walls are dripping with water and I’m cold. Make sure you get me a robe or I’m freezing to death. But I’m fine. I can stand it. I hear they’re getting ready to send us to Germany. That’s all right. I’ve got a hill ahead of me and I’ve got to get to the end of it. Step by step, maybe when I reach the top, the world will look more beautiful from there. I might not even need my robe there anymore. Courage. Regards, your friend Ioulia.”

In February 1943, he was taken from Athens to Vienna by train, where he was killed by decapitation on the 26th. He was only 32 years old.

Death certificate of the Greek resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa, 1943

“There was only one thing she knew, how to fight and die for Greece and freedom”

The newspaper of PEAN, Doxa [Glory] reported about Ioulia Bimpa: “She was sentenced to death twice, together with Perrikos, on 31 July 1942 and was sent to Germany a few days ago to be executed by firing squad. A poor woman of the people, she did not know much literature, she did not understand, nor did she want to understand anything about “political consciousness”. There was only one thing she knew, how to fight and die for Greece and freedom”.

In Athens, at the junction of Gladstonos and Patision streets, there is a monument dedicated to the protagonists of the blowing up of the ESPO building, where the portrait of Ioulia Bimpa is located.

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Publication of the illegal newspaper Doxa [Glory], on the death of the resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa, 25/3/1943 (ASKI Library)
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The monument dedicated to the heroine of the National Resistance, Ioulia Bimpa. Ioulia Bimpa, a member of PEAN, was one of the first, along with other fighters, to blow up the building of the Greek pro-Nazi organisation ESPO in September 1942. She was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in Vienna. The memorial is located in Athens on Gladstonos Street

Sources

Comic by Petros Zervos inspired by the story of the resistance fighter Ioulia Bimpa entitled

Bibliography

Letters of Ioulia Bimpa from prison, Donated by Antonis Mytilinaios, Historical Archives of the Benaki Museum

” Gynaikes stin Antistasi” [Women in Resistance], Movement ” I gynaika stin Antistasi” [The Woman in Resistance], Athens 1982 [testimonies of Alekos Bimpas and Antonis Mytilinaios about Ioulia Bimpa, pp.150-153]

Chatzivasileiou Evanthis, “Panellinia Enosis Agonizomenon Neon (PEAN) (1941-1945)» [Panhellenic Union of Young Agonists (PEAN) (1941-1945)], Athens 2004

Panellinios Enosis Agonizomenon Neon (PEAN) [Panhellenic Union of Young Agonists (PEAN)], Mystikos typos tis Katochis [Secret Press of the Occupation], Diogenis

Audiovisual archives

Broadcast by Freddy Germanos, I anatinaxi tis ESPO [The blowing up of ESPO]

“Chroniko tis Ethnikis Antistasis” Chronicle of the National Resistance”, episode 013 “I gynaika stin antistasi” [The woman in resistance]

Documentary produced by COSMOTE, “Aftoi pou tolmisan : Ioulia Bimpa” [Those who dared : Ioulia Bimpa], directed by Kalliopi Legaki, 2017