Lambrakis, Gregoris

Born Apr. 3, 1912, in the village of Kerasitsa, Arkadhia; died May 27, 1963, in Salonika. Greek public figure. The son of a low-level office worker.

Lambrakis was a physician by profession. During the fascist German occupation of Greece (1941–44) he joined the Resistance. In 1943 he joined the National Liberation Front. In 1961 he became a parliamentary deputy from the Union of the Democratic Left. He was a delegate to the World Congress for Universal Disarmament and Peace (Moscow, 1962). In 1963 he participated in peace marches against atomic armament, the Marathon march in Greece and the Aldermaston march in Great Britain. In 1963 he was vice-chairman of the All-Greek Committee of Struggle for an Easing of International Tension and for Peace. On May 22, 1963, he was mortally wounded by neofascists who attacked a meeting of peace advocates in Salonika. The assassination of Lambrakis aroused deep anger among the masses of Greece and led to the fall of the reactionary government of C. Caramanlis. The World Peace Council in July 1963 established an international peace prize named for Lambrakis and a Lambrakis silver medal.