NSW Premier Kristina Kenneally this week paid tribute to the 43 NSW victims of the Bali bombing, including Greek Australian sisters Dimitra and Elizabeth Kotronakis.
In sleep, I suffer nightmares – no matter how terrible they can never approximate the reality of my experience.
On the eighth anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, Kenneally unveiled a memorial wall listing the names of NSW residents who died in the terrorist attacks.
The Kotronakis sisters were in Bali with their newly-married sister, Maria, and her new husband Kosta, when they were killed in the attacks on popular night-spots in Kuta.
The Age reported in 2003 that the Kotronakis sisters had just come from the 300-person Greek Orthodox wedding in Black-town, where they were Maria’s bridesmaids.
Also killed in the attack was the third bridesmaid, cousin Christina Betmalik, as well as another cousin, Louiza Zervos, who had joined the bridal party for the holiday.
Around 100 people gathered for the unveiling of the memorial wall, including Dr Bill McNeil, a doctor who was awarded the Order of Australia for his work treating victims in the aftermath of the bombings.
He told the gathering, at Dolphins Point at Sydney’s Coogee Beach, he still struggles with the trauma.
“Unmedicated, I re-live in vivid detail each moment of that night, all making waking hours,” he said.
“In sleep, I suffer nightmares – no matter how terrible they can never approximate the reality of my experience.”
