Diomidis Komninos

[2] On the night of Friday, November 16, 1973, police forces started confronting the thousands of protesters gathered inside and outside the Polytechnic campus, located on Patission Street, one of the busiest in Athens.

It is reported that Komninos went from the student side to the middle of the street toward the police lines and raising his hands he told them from a distance of about forty metres: "If you are men come and hit us from up close".

Nevertheless, the Polytechnic uprising was used as a pretext by junta hardliner Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannides to overthrow George Papadopoulos on November 25, 1973, and to put an end to a "liberalisation process" headed by Spiros Markezinis.

Poet Anestis Evengelou has created a collection of apostrophic poems, resembling hymns or prayers, titled after Komnenos in which he mentions: "Seventeen years old.

[14] His torn shirt is exhibited at the memorial of the victims of the Polytechnic uprising and was held by Hortensia Allende to wipe her tears, during her visit there.