Beata Kitsikis

Beata Kitsikis (Greek: Μπεάτα Κιτσίκη; July 14, 1907, Heraklion, Cretan State - February 7, 1986, Athens), was a Greek feminist and a Communist fighter in the Greek Civil War at the end of the Second World War. She was born Merope Petychakis (Greek: Μερόπη Πετυχάκη). Her husband was Nicolas Kitsikis and her son was Dimitri Kitsikis. She also had two daughters, both University professors, Beata Maria Panagopoulos (Kitsikis), an American citizen, and Elsa Schmid-Kitsikis, a Swiss citizen.

Her father, Emmanuel Petychakis (1842-1915) originated from a famous Cretan family from the cities of Heraklion and Rethymno. He was born in Heraklion and settled in Cairo as a businessman. He married in Egypt Corinna, daughter of a Greek-Italian count from Trieste, conte d'Antonio (David Antoniadis). Emmanuel died in Heraklion in 1915 and his widow, Corinna, 19 years younger than him, lived in Heraklion with the most famous lawyer of the city, Aristidis Stergiadis, 1861-1949, of the same age than her, who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos as the high commissioner of the Greek Occupation of Smyrna, in 1919-1922.

In 1921, Nicolas Kitsikis,(1887-1978) the civil engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Athens, was building the new harbor of Heraklion and there he met with the then 14-year-old Beata who he took back to Athens and married her in 1923.

Beata never adapted to the high society of Athens in which Nicolas belonged and revolted against what she considered a useless oligarchy. During the war of Greece against the Italian invasion of Albania, in 1940-1941, she volunteered as a nurse in the military hospitals in Athens, crowded with the injured soldiers brought back from the Albanian front. During the German Occupation of Greece (1941-1944) she joined the Resistance Movement National Liberation Front (Greece) EAM (Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο) as well as the Communist Party of Greece, the KKE. By the time Athens was liberated she had joined the communist militia OPLA (Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle).

...
Wikipedia