George Seremetis


George Dimitriou Seremetis was a prominent Greek lawyer and the mayor of Thessaloniki during World War II.
Seremetis was born in 1879 in Skamnia Elassonas, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Shortly after his birth, the city of Larissa was liberated and his family moved there. In 1897, George Seremetis started his studies at a law school of the University of Athens. He graduated in 1902. He was a lawyer in Larissa for ten years.
He moved to Thessaloniki in 1913 when the city was liberated from Ottoman rule. From 1914 to 1922, he participated in the administration of the Thessaloniki bar association and from 1922 to 1926 he served as general secretary of the bar association. In 1922, Seremetis married Calliope Tatti and raised two children.
From 1926 to 1945, he was elected president of the Thessaloniki bar association by a large majority. He later succeeded with the help of D. Vlachos to establish a "Lawyers' Fund of Welfare" in Thessaloniki. In 1943, the mayor Konstantinos Merkouriou of Thessaloniki died. Thessaloniki was at that time occupied by the Axis forces. Bishop Genadios asked for a secret meeting with the representatives of the resistance organizations and they asked Seremetis to become mayor of Thessaloniki. Seremetis with the help of the Red Cross managed to provide the hospitals with medicines. He also managed, with the cooperation of the doctors and the medical staff, to help resistance fighters escape.
In 1944, again with the cooperation of Bishop Genadios and the Red Cross representatives, he managed to convince the German authorities to leave the harbour facilities of Thessaloniki intact during their retreat.
Shortly after the liberation, he served again for a while as the bar association president, but later resigned due to ill health. He died in 1950 of a heart attack.