Yanis Kanidis (January 1, 1930 – September 3, 2004) was a Greek-Russian physical education

Physical education

Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....

 teacher. When armed Chechen extremists took more than 1200 school children and adults hostage

Hostage

A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...

 on September 1, 2004 in the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n town of Beslan

Beslan

Beslan is a town and the administrative center of Pravoberezhny District of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, Russia. In terms of population, Beslan is the third largest town in the republic behind Vladikavkaz and Mozdok...

 in North Ossetia, in what has become known as the Beslan school hostage crisis

Beslan school hostage crisis

The Beslan school hostage crisis of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380...

, 74-year-old Kanidis insisted on staying with his students, helped them survive and ultimately died to save their lives.

Two days after the start of the hostage taking, a number of nursing mothers were allowed to leave the building with their babies. The commander of the terrorist squad saw Kanidis, an elderly sickly man, and offered to allow him to leave as well. But Kanidis refused, saying he would stay "with [his] students till the end". And throughout the ordeal, Kanidis guarded and fought for the lives of his students as best he could. When the children were succumbing to the sweltering heat, stuffy air and thirst, Kanidis approached the terrorists insisting that "You have to give them something to drink, at least to the smallest children". When he was heavily beaten with the butt of a rifle by one of the terrorists, Kanidis continued defiantly, "How dare you!? You claim you are people of the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

 region, but here in the Caucasus even a dog wouldn't turn down the request of an old man!" At which point the terrorists allowed Kanidis to wet one of the bibs of the children and pass it around to dampen the mouths of the smallest children who were choking from thirst.

The surviving hostages tell how he repeatedly risked his own life in order to save those of the children and how he moved explosives which had been placed near the children, and tried to prevent others from being detonated.

Kanidis was killed on the third day of the hostage taking. The circumstances of his death remains not fully clarified. According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, he was killed when he jumped on a grenade the terrorists had thrown at fleeing children, sacrificing his life to save theirs. According to the Greek/English newspaper Kathimerini

Kathimerini

I Kathimerini is a daily morning newspaper published in Athens. It is published in the Greek language, as well as in an abridged English-language edition. The English edition is sold separately in the United States and as a supplement to the International Herald Tribune in Greece and Cyprus. On 2...

, he was shot when he tried to dismantle a ceiling fan that had been wired to an explosive device. According to a feature by C.J. Chivers, Esquire, June 2006 Kanidis was killed while struggling with one of the terrorists, trying to buy time for others to escape. His last words were: "Get the children out!"

Afterwards one of the saved students compared him to the Polish man Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...

, who had accompanied his pupils to Auschwitz.

On December 9, 2004 Kanidis was posthumously awarded the medal For Protection of Human Rights by the Russian Government. Later in the same month, one of the two new schools being constructed to replace the school destroyed in the attack was named "Ivan Kanidis".

External links

• "Greek among Beslan dead", Kathimerini
  Kathimerini
  I Kathimerini is a daily morning newspaper published in Athens. It is published in the Greek language, as well as in an abridged English-language edition. The English edition is sold separately in the United States and as a supplement to the International Herald Tribune in Greece and Cyprus. On 2...
  
  , September 6, 2004. Last accessed July 15, 2006.
• "The Hero Teacher of Beslan", Joanne Jacobs, Fox News, September 17, 2004. Last accessed July 15, 2006."Pedagogical Tragedy", Rossijskaya Gazeta, September 8, 2004. Last accessed July 15, 2006.
• "The School." By C.J. Chivers. Esquire
  Esquire (magazine)
  Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
  
  , June 2006, Volume 145, Issue 6. Last accessed July 15, 2006.
• " Feat of teachers of Beslan", Komsomolskaya Pravda
  Komsomolskaya Pravda
  Komsomolskaya Pravda is a daily Russian tabloid newspaper, founded on March 13th, 1925. It is published by "Izdatelsky Dom Komsomolskaya Pravda" .- History :...
  
  , September 8, 2004. Last accessed July 17, 2006.