Dr Kafcaloudes Phil CF
Author and broadcast journalist
Christos and the Haidari 200
Abstract
My father always claimed that his father, Christos Maniarizis was one of the Haidari 200, the Greek political prisoners who were shot at the urging of Adolf Hitler on the 1st of May, 1944, the eve of the Nazi withdrawal from Greece. Christos was a Volos-based left-wing journalist with a young family when he was arrested and who had been jailed by the Greek dictator General Ioannis Metaxas in the 1930s. He and the other like-minded writers had written articles critical of the legitimacy of Metaxas his regime. Many times during their almost decade-long incarceration, Metaxas offered the men their freedom if they would sign a document promising loyalty to the General and his government. This they always refused. Until his own death, Christos’ son resented the fact that his father chose honour over his family and his own life. This paper looks at the Haidari 200 events through the history of Christos Maniarizis and questions why he, like so many others did not choose freedom when they had the chance. It also traces the journey of the presenter in finding the story of Christos when so much of his story was considered important enough to be documented, by Metaxas, the jailers or the germans who killed him.
Biographical note
Dr Phil Kafcaloudes is an author, journalist and writer who presented the breakfast program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Australia for nine years, including the ABC’s first English language program from China. In 2022 the ABC published Australia Calling, his history of international broadcasting. He has taught journalism at La Trobe University and at RMIT, earning him a teaching award from the Journalism Education and Research Association. He has also taught journalism internationally ( South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, Fiji, Samoa and PNG). For a Churchill Fellowship, he studied journalism trauma training worldwide. In 2011 his third book was published, the novel Someone Else’s War, which told the story of his maternal grandmother, who was a spy in Greece in WWII. This was translated into Greek for Europe as Olga’s War. His 2020 PhD looked at oral history storytelling, which involved adapting the novel into the play Of Forgetting. Excerpts of the play were presented at the Athens Center in Athens in 2023, and in 2024 the full play was staged at the La Mama theatre in Melbourne. Among his academic papers are works on the anglicisation of Greek migrant names, and a survey of the adaptations of the story of Ulysses. In 2025 his biography of the rock band Deep Purple was published in the UK, the US and Australia. He is currently editing his second novel.
