14 Facts About Beata Kitsikis

Beata Kitsikis, was a Greek feminist and a Communist fighter in the Greek Civil War at the end of the Second World War.

Beata Kitsikis's husband was Nicolas Kitsikis and her son was Dimitri Kitsikis.

Beata Kitsikis had two daughters, both University professors, Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos, an American citizen, and Elsa Schmid-Kitsikis, a Swiss citizen.

Beata Kitsikis was born in Heraklion and settled in Cairo as a businessman.

Beata Kitsikis married in Egypt Corinna, daughter of a Greek-Italian count from Trieste, conte d'Antonio.

Beata Kitsikis's courageous stand during the lawsuit impressed public opinion who started calling her the Greek Pasionaria.

Beata Kitsikis was tortured but she never agreed to sign the usual declaration of repentance condemning communism.

On May 1,1948, Christos Ladas, the Minister of Justice who had signed her death penalty, was assassinated by a member of the OPLA militia and the newspapers accused Beata Kitsikis of having ordered the minister's murder from inside her prison.

Nevertheless, because of the influence her husband Nicolas Beata Kitsikis still enjoyed in the upper circles of Greek society her execution did not take place and she was released from prison at the end of 1951, after the civil war was over.

In 1955, Nicolas Beata Kitsikis had talks with representatives of Beijing in Stockholm.

Nicolas Kitsikis answered he would ask his wife Beata to do the job.

Beata Kitsikis immediately organized what was considered the greatest success of Chinese presence in the whole of Europe at the time.

Beata Kitsikis's husband died in 1978, and she died on 7 February 1986, after a long-life struggle with tuberculosis contracted in 1940, when serving as a nurse in military hospitals.

Beata Kitsikis was honored by the Communist Party of Greece.