Greece to claim Nazi atrocity photos found on eBay, minister says

Greece will claim a World War II photo trove posted for sale online, believed to show for the first time one of Nazi Germany’s worst atrocities in the country, the culture ministry says.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni says an “entire collection” of photographs apparently taken by a German army lieutenant serving in wartime Greece was declared a national monument “due to its particular historical value.”

“They allow us to frame the drama of occupied Greece also through the eyes of the occupier,” she says in a statement.

“With today’s declaration of the collection as a monument, the Ministry of Culture acquires the legal basis to claim it and acquire it on behalf of the Greek state,” Mendoni says.

???? Shocking photographic documents, reportedly capturing the final moments of some of the 200 Greek communists executed by the Nazis on May Day 1944 in the Kaisariani district of Athens, have recently come to light.

The photographs were put up for auction on eBay by a seller… pic.twitter.com/h1akvTPnMC

— In Defense of Communism © (@id_communism) February 15, 2026

Greek Communist Party lawmaker Giorgos Lambroulis says the party has so far identified four men in the photographs.

Twelve of the photographs originally appeared on the eBay site Crain’s Militaria on Saturday before being taken down on Monday. The ministry says the photographs appeared to show “the last moments” of 200 Greek Communists.

They were executed on May 1, 1944, in retaliation for the killing of a German general and his staff by Communist guerrillas a few days earlier.

The execution at the Kaisariani shooting range in Athens was a seminal event of the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation of Greece, which was marked by several atrocities, mostly against Greek villagers.