‘What I didn’t know was whether I would die like a dog or with some dignity’

His grandfather, Yiannis Dedes, was a member of the Political Committee of National Liberation, widely known as the "Mountain Government," of the Communist-led EAM-ELAS resistance movement. His uncle, Sotiris Dedes, was a founding member of the Democratic Defense, an anti-dictatorial resistance organization in which his father was also actively involved. In 1968, his father was arrested and sentenced by the junta's military court to five and a half years in prison. "He passed away in 2022, leaving behind a request that no formal funeral be held, instead requesting his body be donated to the Medical School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

"You can understand that, from a young age, I was deeply influenced by the value of contributing to society - long before I read Pericles' words in the Funeral Oration: 'We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs...