'I go up the big street that begins at Omonoia, I see, I see and I cannot take it, my eyes fill with tears. [...] I keep going up and even though I want to arrive quickly, I stop now and then. The houses that have most damage shout at me and summon me to mourn for them, to mourn with them for their misfortune. [...] The way is still long. And as no tram or car is to be seen, I will have to walk all the way. In this way I will see a big part of the wounded body of Athens, in neighbourhoods and central streets, and I will grasp what a wild war took place in the thirty-three days we were shut up and isolated, receiving only the echo of the battle. [...] I stop now and then, I look and look again as if I want to record the disaster, and here and there I forget where I am. Two and three houses in a row have collapsed, have been blown up, the street has changed, it's not the street I used to know. [...] Athens is like a face so disfigured by wounds that it's hardly recognizable. [..] From one street to the next I get used to the misfortune and I don't look for those responsible and guilty anymore. [...] I walk down, I keep on walking down the streets, where the hatred became the greatest calamity. Whole houses are missing and the street looks like an open, toothless mouth, here is where most blood has been shed. A bit further down, in the small square, which is close to our house, I see the first crosses. Among the flowerbeds of the square, in their meagre grass and their much dug earth, three crosses and three names. [...] A few days ago they were three very tall cypresses, and now they are three poor wooden crosses a few inches above the earth, in one of the patchy cemeteries, in one of the cemeteries of war and necessity.'

(Petros Charis, Imeres Orgis (Dekemvris 1944), Athens, Estia, 1992, pp. 402-405)