Athens , 1940: A little girl admires her new, shiny, black shoes while gripping her old, tattered ones by the shoe laces. Men go to work, barefoot. An omnipresent army reminds Athenians of war-wrought decade.

The exhibition, Athens in the 20 th century, The Big Changes, assembled by ERT and the Mayor of Athens, brings Athenians closer to the events of the past 100 years. The exhibit is on display in Technopolis, in Gazi, and will run through January 2006.

“To see Athens without skyscrapers and condensed apartment buildings is truly refreshing,” said Eirini Orfanidou, a visitor. Orfanidou, who attended the exhibit with her husband, said that some of the pictures feel familiar.

“My grandparents were very poor during the occupation, as many people were,” she continued, “But to see how skinny and sorrowful these people were just takes my mind away. I feel sad and grateful at the same time.”

Music from every time period saturates the atmosphere in each room. In the room that harbors the period 1901-1912, the organ grinder, or laterna, can be heard. Walk into the 1940s, and listen to the national anthem enliven posters of men going to war and women knitting sweaters for the soldiers.

The exhibit took nine months to assemble. “The idea started from ERT, which wanted to make good use of their stock,” said Olga Patouni, the exhibit’s director. “Many people come to the exhibit, not to see anything new, but to be reminded of the past.”

As visitors wander throughout the rooms, they journey back to a time when newlyweds sat in buggies, men enjoyed drinks with friends, emaciated children waited in line for pieces of bread, and mothers held care packages from the United States in one hand and their babies in the other.

“People must come to the exhibit to see how Athenians lived back then,” said Orfanidou. “It was so different.”