The “Sotiria” sanatorium, a legendary piano and Polydouri

Where once was the sanatorium of “Sotiria”, the “hell of the living” as the hospitalized tuberculosis patients used to say, in a short time from now an excellent museum will be operating, through which all that hard period will be “revealed”.

THE ERT show “Fasma” and journalist Elvira Krithari, revealed “pieces” of this story. The museologist Ms. Asimina Grigoriou spoke on the show, who referred to how all the valuable objects that will be exhibited in the museum were collected and revealed that one of the most important exhibits will be a piano for which it is said (but it has not yet been proven that it is so) what Sofia Schliemann’s piano was like. Yannis Ritsos had mentioned in an interview that he was playing the piano there, Maria Polydouri heard him and came down from her room to see who was playing and that’s how the two met.

Mr. Michalis Toumbis, professor of pulmonology, president of the museum, also spoke on the “Fasma” show hospital “Salvation”

“Yannis Ritsos, unfortunately, from childhood he suffered from tuberculosis and in fact his whole family suffered from tuberculosis. From time to time he was hospitalized in various sanatoriums. The “Sotiria” sanatorium was a micrograph of Greek society. At the time when Ritsos was hospitalized, the conditions in society were miserable and the struggles to claim rights were at their peak. And Ritsos was one of the leading rights claimants. In fact, in Crete, in a sanatorium that was there, the tuberculosis patients woke up and the decision-makers were then forced to change their hospital, in better conditions!

At the end of the 70’s, Ritsos was hospitalized again at “Salvation” and the impressive thing was the following: The man was well known, recognized, and was hospitalized in an 8-bed ward and did not want to be hospitalized in better conditions, with less beds. He was very open to the world, he spoke, recited his poems and created a very positive atmosphere around him. If I wanted to characterize Ritsos, I would say that he was a noble personality, full of kindness and understanding for the sufferings of the world.

There was a time when here at “Salvation” there were ten times as many as the buildings could accommodate. Most of them lived in makeshift tents, huts under miserable conditions. They were just looking for a corner to rest and die. All they were offered, in the early 1930s, was a plate of food! The poverty and despair that these people had no fate in the sun, creates the conditions of the revolution!”.