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Nikos Godas
The execution of Nikos Godas

Wearing the red and white shirt

The execution of a footballer of Olympiacos

His last wish To be executed wearing red and white as it happened in November 19,1948. Condemned in death Nikos Godas had already decided what he would do when the moment would come:At dawn of November 19,1948 when the guards announced him that his presence was requested at the warden office, Nikos Godas asked the red and white shirt and the white shorts and walked to be executed at the island of lazareto,in front of the port of Corfu.

The other prisoners,in the death ward,lifers or with great sentences,were packed in the iron bars of their cells and started shouting as they did in every execution:"People of Corfu tonight they choose again fighters of the National Resistance for execution''.

Prison was overwhelmed by the shouts,shouts could be heard until the houses opposite the prison,but in a few time Nikos Godas from Asia Minor,thirty eight years old,a basic footballer in the team of Olympiakos during the years of the german occupation,was standing in front of the firing squad wearing the shirt of Olympiakos.

We won-long live the olympic winners of socialism.Farewell my teammates, were his last words living prison as they were saved by his cell mate those years Stamatis Skourtis (today is the general secretary of the Association of exiled-imprisoned of Corfu).

In his book Until it dawns (page 318,Kivotos editions) describes the execution as followed:the sun bursts behind the mountains and you don't know what is more crimson,the shirt that Nikos wears on his chest which white stripes turned red from blood or the sunThe family of Nikos Godas transferred me his words in a letter of his during a period of time,since the execution was announced to the convict always during the night before he was executed:I want you to live well.I'm dying for my country and my beliefs.If you have a son,give him my name.And his brother Dimitris named his daughter Niki''.

From Aivali to Kokkinia

The story of Nikos Godas represents more or less the story of Greece:the origin of his family was from Ayvali and abandoned house and belongings to the Prigkiponissi of Ayvali at 1922.The stations of refuge:Mytilene,Crete,Kokkinia,were his family settled.

Nikos quickly showed his talent,playing at the homonymous football team of Kokkinia from which he was transferred to Olympiakos.

War began,resistance,championships and tournaments began since the end of 1942,after the winter of the great famine,and there we find Godas to be a basic member of Olympiakos,playing right midfield and score in the game Olympiakos-Appolon 4-0 and Olympiakos-Ethnikos 4-0.

A few of the photos that were saved were at the match Olympiakos-Panathinaikos 5-2,Christmas of 1943,along with Grammatikopoulos,Symeonidis,Yannis and Stelios Vazos,Anamateros and others.

At the same time with football,Nikos Godas became a member of the resistance.He was a captain in the elite 5th company of ELAS:(Greek People's Liberation Army) of Kokkinia,took part in important battles, the battle of the power plant(today the National Company of Electricity at Keratsini),the battle of March 7,in today's Kondili's street.His relatives told me that from the anti-aircraft batteries at mount Aigaleo shot down a german plane.

Stamatis Skourtis narrated me that they were fighting against the English in the cemetary of Ressurection at Piraeus(Skourtis as a second lieutenant under the orders of Godas) and Godas told him:"it would be nice to die here,we won't need a tomb".

After the December uprising he wandered with his company at Vilia,at Viotia,at Arahova,at Lamia, caught pneumonia,returned to Athens and was arrested because of a snitch as Christos Godas told me, film director,grandson of the brother of Nikos Godas,Yannis Godas,was imprisoned in the Averof prisons and then in Corfu.

Godas stayed imprisoned for three years,without signing a declaration of regret(for his political beliefs)to save himself.Stamatis Skourtis and Spiros Andreadis and two others that were condemned to death that were saved after a UN intervention in 1949 are predicative that Olympiakos's administration did not care to save Godas(according with Skourtis AEK saved her athletes,while Olympiakos no)while Godas's family attributes his execution to his denial to sign the declaration of regret,something that also is mentioned by Skourtis in his book.

Spiros Andreadis,president of the Association of exiled-imprisoned of Corfu,told me the cruel response of the president of Olympiakos at that time Mihalis Manuskos when he was asked to pull some strings to save Andreadis,because he was accused of recruiting athletes of Olympiakos for the rebels:"he can reap what he sow".

Godas was not just a good footballer.In the few years that he lived,he managed to be successful as a businessman:he started working a tavern in the basement of his father's home in Nikaia, "Arapakia",that a few years before war hosted a lot of known composers and singers of rebetiko (folklor of the era).

After his execution,his clothes and his watch were returned to his family."I'll send you back my clothes,my watch,because inside yedi kule i'll leave my youth" says an old song of Tsitsanis.

The tragic life and the pride of Nikos Godas have not been forgotten from the old residents of Piraeus.Christos Godas told me once,from a phone conversation from the usa,that once,an old kiosk owner listened that his name was Godas,asked him if he's related with the Godas of Olympiakos and came out and hugged him while bursting in tears.Maybe because as Christos Godas summarised the life and the personality of his ancestor."time respects you when you appreciate its seconds".