It has been described as the "most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust",[5] and as "an exquisite, haunting and passionate melody that moves Kambanellis' affecting words to an even higher level".

In May 1988, the world premiere of the "Trilogy" at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria was attended by then Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky and tens of thousands of Europeans.

Approximately a year after the release of his ballad, during the premiere of the Mauthausen song cycle in London in 1967, Mikis Theodorakis was imprisoned in Greece by the recently installed Greek military junta and his music was banned in the country.

Kambanellis survived the incarceration at the Nazi concentration camp and, after the liberation by the Allies, started writing a book based on the events and atrocities he witnessed there.

[8] Kambanellis agreed and gave the poems to his friend Mikis Theodorakis who was very receptive to the idea of composing the music for them, since he was also imprisoned by the Nazis and Italian fascists in Greece during the war, and created the "Mauthausen Trilogy" which was quite unlike any of his previous works.

[5] The second song was "Αντώνης [Antonis]" (Anthony), followed by "Δραπέτης [Drapetis]" (Runaway) and "Όταν τελειώση ο πόλεμος] Otan Teleiosi o Polemos" (When the War Ends).

[5][14] In "Antonis", the suffering of the imprisoned Jews doing hard labour,[4] at the Mauthausen quarries is told, "mixed with a revolutionary and subversive mood".

[18] The music critic of the Baltimore Sun writes: "Theodorakis had the genius to set this poem with melodic elements from the hymn for Palm Sunday of the Eastern Orthodox Church, creating an exquisite, haunting and passionate melody that moves Kambanellis' affecting words to an even higher level.

[20] Sophia Richman in her book Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma writes: "The song cycle is a requiem for Holocaust victims and raised the consciousness of all Greeks.

[22] During the premiere of his ballad in London in 1967, Mikis Theodorakis was in Greece imprisoned by the recently installed Greek military junta and his music was banned in the country.

The ballad was sung by Maria Farandouri in Greek, Elinoar Moav Veniadi in Hebrew, Nadia Weinberg in English, and by East-German singer Gisela May in German.

[27] In October 2015 the municipality of Larissa in Greece included the performance of Theodorakis's ballad as part of a five-day celebration commemorating the liberation of the city from the Nazi occupation.

[28] The song "Antonis" from the ballad has been used by the Kurds as musical background in a video showing Kurdish women fighting at Kobanî during the Syrian Civil War.

[29][30] The song was also sung by the residents of Kabul in 2001 as they greeted troops of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan entering the city and expelling the Taliban.

The title of one newspaper article translates as: "[Elena] Akrita: Did anyone at Syriza pay attention to the lyrics of the piece they chose for their [advertising] spot?"

[31][32] A theatrical play based on the Trilogy premiered in Athens on 6 December 2012 featuring the music of Mikis Theodorakis and Gustav Mahler.