Fyssa opened with a tribute to her son, referencing the Piraeus Workers’ Centre, which provided space for the offices of the family’s association. ‘I feel that there are not a few people here who helped keep Pavlos’ memory alive, in various and equally important ways, such as the concession of the Piraeus Workers’ Centre for the offices of our association, which for me are not just offices — they are the home of my Pavlos,’ she said.
‘The moment we were shaping this space, building it, I felt that I was building his home, and that’s what I feel until now,’ she continued. ‘I am very proud that he is there. I am proud that he is housed in this space, because he walked this space with his father for their struggles and their rights in their jobs. I am proud, but I would like the Labour Centre to be proud too that my Pavlos is housed there.’
She went on to address the wars in the Middle East, launched, she said, by the United States and Israel, before broadening her remarks to the global political moment.
‘At a moment in history when the world is burning from end to end, when people are disappearing, when the far right is spreading, the narrative that wants us to be “bombarded for peace” is becoming dominant,’ she said. ‘Resistance and organisation are the only way out. There is no longer time for dilemmas. There is only one law and the rebels have it.’
Reflecting on the years-long legal battle that culminated in the criminal conviction of Golden Dawn as a criminal organisation in 2020, Fyssa spoke of the personal cost of the fight. ‘I lost my child in peacetime and a war began inside me. A battle that I will fight as long as I live against fascism,’ she said. ‘Only those who walk in our shoes can understand what power you have afterwards. You don’t calculate anything, you can tear down entire mountains with the power you have. Being able to vindicate your child who was taken from you in this way.’
She dedicated the conviction to the mothers of other victims of far-right violence. ‘I am not fighting this battle just for me and my Pavlos. I am fighting it for all of them, for all of those mothers who did not have this opportunity, whose circumstances were such that they were unable to vindicate their children when they were executed,’ she said. ‘To these mothers, I dedicate this victory that we had, the final decision that Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation. I also give this victory to all of those executed, to all of those children whose smiles were cut off.’
She closed by sending solidarity ‘to all people who struggle, who do not bow their heads, who continue the path to freedom, bleeding’, and invoked the memory of the 200 communists executed by Nazi occupation forces at Kaisariani in 1944. ‘The daily struggle for dignity is animated by the 200 communists of Kaisariani who, with their death, taught us how it is worth living,’ she said.
‘Hold our heads high and our fists even higher. Resurrection in the souls of people.’
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