Spinalonga: an island of lepers in which the desire for life has won

The eight-hectare island is set in the picturesque bay of Mirrabello, just within sight of the port of Elounda. It was originally connected to the mainland by a narrow rocky scythe, but at the beginning of the 16th century the Venetians blew up gunpowder with the help of fifty barrels of gunpowder. In 1578, engineer Genese Bressani began extensive fortification construction and took his work responsibly. The resulting fortress survived unscathed during the four Turkish-Venetian wars, and the Venetians believed in its strength so much that they refused to hand it over to the Turkish even after the last defeat.

The semicircular artillery bastions controlled the bay, the port, the mainland and the sea. Therefore, it remained in place even when the crescent flags were already flying over the rest of Crete. Until 1715, when it was finally handed over to the Turks after a devastating attack. Since the start of the first blockade, the undefeated has survived an incredible seventy years.

The island was subsequently inhabited by families of Turkish fishermen, who, however, engaged in smuggling more than seafood. It worked virtually unchanged until 1898, when the island came under Cretan rule again.

The Cretans did not know what to do with the overly independent fortified town. According to the official text of the Autonomous Convention, Turkish settlers were not allowed to be forcibly expelled. Most Turks moved out of Crete immediately after gaining independence, but none of them wanted to leave the island of Spinalonga. Flowering smuggling was a guarantee of promising business in the future.

The Greeks, and therefore the Cretans, finally solved it in their own way. In 1903, they established a leprosarium by decree. The current inhabitants of Turkish origin then preferred to move voluntarily very quickly.

Without compassion: the powerful move the lepers

Leprosy in Crete has never been a rare disease, with almost every village in Crete facing a corral or shack of meskinies, designated for the life of local leprosy. Above all, they stood in the first batch of settlers. Four hundred gathered undead had volunteered to move, with the prospect of promised health care, others were chased on transport boats, at the behest of neighbors or official orders, like cattle. Of course, you will not read about this dark side of Crete's past in the guides. In October 1904, another 251 patients from mainland Greece were transferred to the island.

An unpleasant surprise awaited the poor after landing on the island: the authorities took care of the transports, but not the medical care. And the Turks left nothing behind. The whole island town was an uninhabitable pile of rubble, lined with old walls and artillery bastions.

Two interconnected domed buildings, the only ones with a roof, were declared a hospital, but they could not perform that function. After the first four years of operation, not a single doctor came here. And by far the worst, there was not a single source of drinking water available on the island. The whole of Spinalonga was completely dependent on supplies from the interior of Crete. And there were very few people who were interested in lepers. The weakened and starving leprechauns were simply banished to the stone pier of the old dock after landing - and that was the end of all care for them. They had to take care of themselves.

The change came with the strikers

The newcomers could only hope that, for example, once every two days, or even once a week, a ship would arrive from nearby Elounda, which would unload barrels of water and saltines in a hurry. During the unloading, the sick were not allowed to approach the dock at all, because then the frightened sailors would never want to come here again. The few patients that their Cretan relatives had not forgotten were, in fact, the only hope of all. Only thanks to them, supplies such as dates, cheese or smoked meat occasionally arrived here.

There was nothing interned left. The stronger ones were able to gain a leading position and grab some water or food for themselves. The weak gradually died. During the first five years, almost nothing has changed on the island of Spinalonga. Several shacks survived the slabs of planks, but all the building modifications ended. Nothing could be grown in the stony and rubble soil, as dry as sand. Everyday life was completely out of perspective, somewhere in the end there was only a painful death.

A significant change did not occur until the arrival of lepers from the mainland, from hospitals in Athens and Thessaloniki. They were not ordinary peasants from Crete, living down for generations with how distant people treated lepers. Despite the serious illness, they were modern-minded people with education and work experience. And they did not intend to accept the status of third-class beings.

The core of the newcomers was a group of lepers from Athens, who organized a protest hunger strike at the hospital shortly before their move to Crete. The authorities managed to end it only with the help of the police. The mere fact that the sick were able to organize an event of a similar magnitude indicated that they were not people waiting to die.

The continually infected people certainly did not want to spend their last years in the rubble. Therefore, they set about repairing houses, using their construction skills and ideas. They set up a small quarry on the island. They even managed to put the Turkish roof water collection system into operation and clean the old Venetian reservoirs. Lack of water was a burning problem throughout the colony's existence, but no longer fatal due to rainwater harvesting.

Hygiene has become a critical point of dignified survival. For lepers, with bodies covered in wetting ulcers, any cleansing is associated with considerable pain. But personal hygiene is one of the necessary conditions so that the disease does not worsen sharply and so that other infectious complications do not add to it. So the operation of the spa began here, each inhabitant of the island had to wash in boiled water at least once a week. Bed linen and clothes were boiled. The Athenian lepers also managed to grow the first orange and palm trees from their seeds and gave the island several shady corners.

Even so, they ruled stronger

However, the leprosarium on Spinalonga Island did not become a paradise. The right of the stronger still prevailed here, and behind all the achievements of an orderly life was the violence of one group against another. Those who guarded it were the first to receive the water, then those who stood in front of it. And those who could not stand in line or criticized the ration system? They were thirsty. This was the case until about the 1920s.

Exceptionally, healthy people have settled in the leprosarium. Among them was Antonis Papadakis, kareklas, a wandering lyre player from Rhetymnon. He decided to spend his life among the sick and to help them find peace with his music.

Spinalonga was a completely closed world. Of the Cretan politicians, only Eleftherios Venizelos, who organized several charitable collections for the benefit of patients, became more interested in what was happening on the island. Conditions on the island were finally improved only in 1932, when Dr. Grammatikakis was appointed the new administrative governor. He arranged for the construction of a new hospital, recruited staff, and gradually enabled family visits. However, none of the patients could get out of the island, it was a prison. It is said that a patient's wife even stabbed herself with a used syringe to get sick with leprosy and get to her husband permanently.

The power of an unbreakable spirit

Despite all the isolation, several children were born on the island, but they were taken from their mothers immediately after giving birth and placed in a special orphanage in Athens. If they did not get leprosy by the age of eighteen, they could integrate into Greek society.

Gradually, step by step, the lives of the exiles began to improve in at least some areas of everyday life. The new disability pension of thirty drachmas per month, which gave the islanders minimal financial independence, contributed to this. Thanks to the money, local fishermen from Plaka and Elounda began to load food and goods on Spinalong on a regular basis. For example, the poor people of Merambello began supplying firewood.

In 1936, Epameinondas Remoundakis, a 20-year-old man who made life in the hall of death, arrived on the island. He knew well what awaited him, his sister was already dying here. In the following years, both hands and eyes were lost (limb amputation was often the only way to keep him alive), but nothing stopped the invincible human spirit. Remoundakis founded the "Brotherhood of Patients", which internally and externally defended the interests of lepers.

And Remoundakis was really heard with the support of his fellow patients. In Heraklion and Athens. Do you want to whiten houses with lime to finally disinfect? There's a supply ship in two weeks. Do you need more fruit, bandages, medicines? It is enough for Remoundakis to threaten in the right places by letter what would happen if the 600 infected inhabitants of the island went back to the mainland.

The power of mutual assistance

"We are not alive dead. We are alive and awaiting death, just like you! ”He said. He managed to get an electric generator for the sick, which was the first of its kind in these parts of Crete. In his unpublished autobiography, he calls himself an "wingless eagle" - and it is not a hyperbola. Thanks to his activities, a theater ensemble, a cinema, three small cafés and a barber shop were established here. A school began to operate on the island, which was open to all residents at various times. Satirical newspapers were published, and music was playing through loudspeakers in the streets and alleys.

"Remoundakis was able to remind the lepers of some of their past lives and reawakened humanity and the desire to help each other," recalled Manolis Fountoulakis, one of the later cured. "The island has not been a purgatory since then. It was simply a village affected by both good and evil. "

Solidarity with others has become a new feature of the lives of the infected. "We were all lepers here. It didn't stop bothering us, but it didn't seem unnatural anymore. We were all the same, "says Fountoulakis.

Finally treatment

The better off Spinalonz, the worse it was on Crete. During World War II, after the invasion of German and Italian soldiers, it became an occupied island. "Spinalonga was probably the only piece of Crete where the leg of a foreign soldier never went," joked Dr. Grammatikakis. Although supplies were stalled during the occupation, German officers avoided Spinalonze with an arc and contented themselves with overseeing that no one left the island town.

After the war, in 1948, there was the last major change. Waiting for actual treatment has replaced maintenance and maintenance care for patients. The staff also strengthened. From the administrator and the governor to the quaestor, accountant, five nurses, disinfectant, priest, there were already four chapels, eight to ten guards, ten spa nurses washing patients and ten nurses, especially a member of the charity.

Thanks to consistent care and targeted medication, the deadly disease has become a common disease. And the final exile on Spinalonz became "only" a temporary forced stay. The last patient left the island in 1957. Symbolically, he came out at that time through the so-called Dante's Gate, which so far served exclusively to receive patients.