George Bizos was born in 1928 in the Greek village of Vasilitsi. During the Second World War he escaped from his occupied homeland, becoming a refugee in South Africa at thirteen. Systematically and with determination he set about adopting his new country, graduating from Wits with legal degrees and was called to the Bar. A strong inclination towards human rights brought him into contact with the legal practice of Mandela and Tambo and he acted for many of their clients in the 1950s. His legal career is associated with all the major human rights trials in the decades of apartheid. Subsequently, he acted for the ANC at the post-1994 constitutional hearings, and is on the staff of the Legal Resources Centre. Bizos has served as a temporary judge and was appointed an Ambassador of Hellenism in 2006. One of his primary concerns in this capacity is the return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. He is the author of No One to Blame? – In Pursuit of Legal Justice in South Africa, an account of five prominent trials, and his magisterial autobiography, Odyssey to Freedom, published in 2007.