On Thursday 17 August 1944 the blockade of Kokkinia was carried out by the Germans and the Security Battalions. At dawn the telegraphs called for men between 14 and 60 years old to report to the square of St. Xeni, which was filled with people. The informers first pointed out the organized resistance cadres, who after being tortured were taken to the adjacent area of the junkyard of the Pagiaslis textile factory, at the junction of Kilikia and Theiron streets. In the area of the mantra 75 people were executed (other sources report 78 executed). The exact number of those executed in the Mantra, as well as in the other neighbourhoods of the city, remains open to investigation. A first account lists 148 people, a second estimate puts the number at over 200, and other sources report that there were more executed.

After the recognition of the National Resistance (1982), the site was expropriated at the request of the Municipality by decision of the then Minister of Planning Antonis Tritsis. In August 1984, the redevelopment project was put out to tender and handed over to the Municipality in 1986 under the mayoralty of Stelios Logothetis. In 2004, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Blockade, the interior was renovated with an artistic intervention and the photographs of the fallen and objects of the resistance struggle were placed. The busts of Aris Velouhiotis and Stefanos Sarafis were placed in the exterior (donated to the Municipality by the artist Michalis Papadakis). Today, organised visits, educational programmes and selected cultural events take place at the monument. The Blokos Mantra is a monument - a place of memory - for the liberation struggle against the German occupation, which reminds us of the good of freedom and peace, as well as the struggle against all forms of fascism.