Andreas Polentas

Andreas Polentas (; 1908 – 23 December 1942) was a Greek partisan executed by the Germans during the Axis occupation of Greece in World War II.

Early years Andreas Polentas was born in 1908 in Sfakia, Crete to parents Pavlos Polentas and Anna Mpolioti. His father was a merchant and around 1915 he moved with his family to Vryses. Polentas graduated with honors from Vamos High School and then enrolled in the Law School of Athens.

Although an admirer of Eleftherios Venizelos, Polentas came into conflict with the Venizelists due to the enactment of the Idionymon law that restricted the activities of workers and students. During his studies, the 4th of August Regime was imposed, with which Polentas clashed. He was thus forced to suspend his studies and return to Crete, where he fled to the White Mountains. After the declaration of the Greco-Italian War on 28 October 1940, Polentas enlisted in the Greek army and served on the Albanian front.

The statute of AEAK appointed Dr. Ioannis Paizis as its representative for Chania, Col. Andreas Papadakis for Rethymno, Titos Georgiadis for Heraklion and Ioannis Ioannidis for Lasithi, while Polentas himself was appointed general secretary. In a very short time, Polentas founded fraternities and swore representatives as a result of which the whole of Apokoronas was organized. At the same time, in cooperation with the representatives of the four prefectures, he liaised with Allied agents, established armed resistance groups and organised the evacuation of Allied troops to Egypt. Komnas was sentenced to death in absentia by the Revolutionary Military Court of Crete and a group of guerrillas undertook the execution of the sentence, stabbing him in his house in Chania.

A bust of Polentas has been erected in Vryses.