A woman who was to become a symbol as a heroic figure of the Resistance during the period of occupation, Despina Achladiotou, widely known as the “Lady of Ro”, passed away today, May 13, 1982, at the age of 92.

For 40 years, from 1943 until her death, she raised the Greek flag on the border island of Ro every morning and raised it at sunset. She had settled in Ro with her husband and her blind mother since 1924.

Ro is located 4 miles west of Kastelorizo and 12 miles from the Turkish coast. It is also called Agios Georgios, or ancient Rigi or Ropi. There she made the decision to stay with her husband. Kastelorizo and the surrounding islands were full of refugees. There were few families living in Roe at that time.

In 1940, Kostas Achladiotis fell seriously ill. The fire that his wife lit to warn the inhabitants of Kastellorizo and the fishermen along the coast with smoke signals was not noticed in time. Her husband breathed his last breath in a fishing boat that had picked him up late to take him to the doctor in Castellorizo.

The lady of Ro took care of the burial of her companion by herself. Then she returned to Ro again, this time with her old mother, where she spent the years of the occupation. There she would offer her services to soldiers of the Holy Company. With a “loud voice and a swift walk”, as her biographer Kyriakos Chondros describes her, she never left the island, even when Kastelorizo, bombed by the British in Italy’s capitulation in 1943, was almost deserted by its inhabitants, most of whom were forced to take the road of refugee.

“I was left alone in 1943 in Castellorizo with my blind mother, when all the inhabitants of the island were fleeing to the Middle East and Cyprus. With the Greek flag raised and the love for Greece deeply rooted in me, I went through all the hardships,” she describes.

On 13 September 1943, for the first time a Greek destroyer, the “Pavlos Kountouriotis”, sailed to Kastelorizo, where she was bombed by German stukas until 19 November 1943. The inhabitants were again forced to flee with Allied ships either to Cyprus or to the Asia Minor coast. However, the Kyra of Ro remained on the island to raise the Greek flag every morning, offering her help to Ierolochites who found refuge there. At the end of the war, some inhabitants returned to Kastelorizo in groups.

The adventures of the Kyra of Ro did not end with the liberation. In August 1975, the Turkish journalist Omar Kasar and two other people, observing Ro and taking advantage of Despina Achladiotou’s absence for a few days for health reasons, landed there and placed their flag on a 4-meter pole. The Lady of Ro took it down immediately when she returned.

Despina Achladiotis breathed her last in the hospital of Rhodes on 13 May 1982, at the age of 92. Her funeral was held with honours in Kastelorizo and her body was buried in Ro, under the mast where she daily raised the Greek flag. The funeral, which was held at public expense, was attended by the then Deputy Minister of National Defence, Antonis Drosogiannis.