Lately we have had many and significant losses. Important Greeks have ‘left’ us who defined their eras, who had established names for themselves – and Greece – under difficult conditions and on an international level.

The feeling one experiences is that the torch is being passed to another generation, less ‘heroic’, so it seems, at least for the time being.

Initially, I was prompted to write today by the death of Dimitris Pandermalis, the great archaeologist who played a decisive role in the creation of the Acropolis Museum and was the chairman of the Board of Directors since its foundation in 2009, when it opened its doors to the public.

I had the pleasure of working with him for a year, as a member of the Board of Directors, and I know firsthand his love, his care, his pride for this museum, which is objectively one of the best in the World. It is no exaggeration to say that he considered it his own.

The Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni – the Acropolis Museum is under her purview – in her announcement about the death of Pandermalis, among others things noted the following:

“His great work, his life’s vision, was the Acropolis Museum, which he served from the first moment, with all his strength. He was the soul of the Museum, when it still existed only on paper. He was there, at every stage of its creation and until its last moment. We owe it to him that Greece has one of the greatest and most beloved museums in the world, a museum that is a model of cultural management, which honors our culture and our homeland.”

And the director of the Museum, Nikos Stampolidis, said, among other things:

“… I will speak about the love, care and devotion with which he surrounded the Acropolis Museum years before its creation and throughout its 13 years of operation.”

We also lost the great actress Irene Papas, who had an international career and will be remembered for her role in major movies like The Guns of Navarone and Zorba the Greek, works that made marks on all our lives.

Finally, the passing of Kostas Kazakos is a also great loss.

Everlasting be their memory!