Barn of Liopetri

The Liopetri Barn (Achyronas tou Liopetriou) is perhaps not only one of the most important sights of Famagusta, but also of the whole of Cyprus, located in the center of the village of Liopetri. The Cypriot problem in the second half of 1958 had taken the form of a frontal collision, with the UK trying to create conditions that would satisfy the demands of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots for partitioning the island, at the same time angering the Greeks of Cyprus who wanted the union of Cyprus with Greece. The Barn of Liopetri has an emotional resonance to the confrontation that occurred in Liopetri back on September 2, 1958, and which eventually was depicted in the Greek Cypriot collective memory as “The Battle of the Barn” or “The Holocaust of the Barn”, and it is considered until this day as one of the most important episodes of the Cyprus Struggle from 1955 to 1959.

The now restored Barn of Liopetri or, as it is also called, the new Hani of Gravia, welcomes the visitor with the dominant statues of four EOKA heroes, but without anything reminding of the battle that was given here. But once the visitor enters the heroic space and in one of the rooms inside the barn, by browsing newspapers with articles of the time, personal belongings of the dead, but also hand-written letters and photographs, he travels to one of the most historic battles of EOKA, during which the largest loss of fighters was recorded for the liberators of Cyprus. A relatively unknown holocaust when the British burned four elite fighters of EOKA and Grivas Digenis executed the brother of one of the fighters, who eventually betrayed them.

The story told by the Barn of Liopetri is as follows: Four friends and fighters, Fotis Pittas, Elias Papakyriakos, Andreas Karyos and Christos Samaras, had arrived much earlier to this particular village in order to educate their inhabitants in the war operations. A few days later, powerful English forces encircled the village, cutting out every possible way of escape for the inhabitants. Many were taken and led to questioning. Finally, the English find out where the fighters are hiding and the Barn is surrounded, until the British decide to douse the space with petrol and burn the fighters alive. The fighters, as they were killed by the enemy fire, were still shooting against them. The present formation of the Barn of Liopetri in a single monumental space was achieved by the work of Nikos Kourousis and Margarita Danou on the initiative of the Council of Historical Remembrance of the EOKA Struggle of 1955-1959 and the Community of Liopetriou.