Category: History

Epaminondas Remoundakis: The Law Student Who Rebuilt Spinalonga

Introduction In 1936, a 21-year-old law student named Epaminondas Remoundakis arrived on Spinalonga as a leprosy patient and changed the island for good. Within a few years he had organised its residents into the first patients’ association in Greece and turned a place of neglect into a working community. From Sitia to Athens Epaminondas Remoundakis […]

The Doctor of Spinalonga: Emmanouil Grammatikakis, 1924 to 1952

Emmanouil Grammatikakis – Spinalonga settlement and coastal landscape

Introduction For 28 years, a single man held nearly all authority on Spinalonga. Emmanouil Grammatikakis arrived on the island in 1924 as its chief and only doctor. He was at the same time its director, its judge and its chief of police, and he kept those roles until 1952, according to the audio archive of […]