Chapter eight – Cries of a trumpet before the “fratricidal cemetery”

Chapter eight – Cries of a trumpet before the “fratricidal cemetery”

1. We welcomed the morning lying on top of the bones of our fathers and brothers. Today was “Golema Bogoroditsa” (Great Virgin Mother), an important Christian holiday when all the people from the Kostur villages pay tribute to the Virgin Mary. This holiday is celebrated annually on August 15th and I don’t remember ever forgetting to celebrate it.

Krapov was feeling a bit stiff when he asked: “What do you want to do now?” He was also feeling a bit shaken because all night he had been thinking dark thoughts. At one point he felt like proudly taking a stroll through the ferns in the dark, the same way the Ilinden rebels used to do when they were on patrol all night. But, as he used to say with a smile on his face: “People don’t like my lifestyle as a rebel…”

That’s how he was! Moral values in his life were very important. His greatest desire was to be helpful to his people. He was interested in science and in the history of Macedonia and the Macedonian people. He also loved to argue about history and about the evil inflicted against the Macedonians. A person was able to talk to him about everything. Even about immortality. He once said: “One day life will be dedicated to the wise but the fools won’t know what to do, even in an eternity.”

It seemed like the blood flowing through his veins was Macedonian history, he remembered everything evil that had been inflicted on our people by the Greeks. Many people testified to the fact that he was very brave and able to reveal the truth about Kostur and about the people of Kostur and to tell exactly what really happened in those terrible days, from then until now, revealing everything.

Krsto Krapov was all excited to get going, to be of service to the people he was guiding. Every pore, cell and nerve throughout his body was pulsing nervously. His excitement elevated the restlessness in each one of us and we too were ready to move. We were all feeling nervous as if we did not belong here, as if we were strangers in our own country.

After a short break we all gathered together and sat on the trampled ferns, contemplating what this new day might bring, while Krapov our guide, sometimes squatting sometimes pacing around, recounted his stories. A moment later he turned his eyes towards me and said: “All things that happened here are not recorded in history. We have no idea what the other face of history looks like. We only know about those who followed the path of power with no return. They will forever remain slaves to their choices, and if they truly realized their dream, for as long as they existed, they would have sunk into a deep depression. And who were they? And why did they behave this way? They were part of the Kostur Macedonian freedom fighters who fled from the ranks of the Macedonian rebels and joined the ranks of ELAS. They did this because the Communist Party of Greece and ELAS calculated that the greatest evil and the greatest threat to Greece were the Macedonian freedom fighters against whom they organized pursuers for their removal, and these are now our most beloved people whose bones we find here.

One autumn day an order was issued by ELAS Headquarters to capture the rebels, which read: ‘You are to capture and liquidate a group of 24 or more rebels who have left and are heading north.’ This information was sent to Major Arianos and to V. Himaros, Commander in Chief of ELAS in Kostur and Kostur Region.

They were informed about this well-thought out mission by Baskakis, a former officer of the Greek Army now major in the ranks of ELAS, who also shared the glory of this mission’s final outcome. It was a well-thought out mission indeed!” concluded Krapov.

I sat beside a burial mound and I couldn’t help myself but cry as I listened to Krsto Krapov tell the story.

Later, when I got close to Krapov, I said: “I was overcome by indescribable fear. I am afraid of physical pain. I am afraid of the life we have lived, of death which has passed me by several times... Every person who knows the limits of suffering is free of fear, as if they have a remedy for such fears.”

Krapov, feeling like a soldier who had fought for his country, got up and turned towards me and, as if wanting to change the subject in an attempt to calm me down, said: “No one really knows how many people were slaughtered here that damned night. Even the birds that now fly out of the old nests could still smell the blood. This part of our country was drenched in Macedonian blood; the blood of our fathers and brothers who were slaughtered here. Unfortunately history until now has said nothing about those who fought here for their national freedom, for their honour and Macedonian birthright. The only thing history has said is what the communists and ELAS wrote, which amounted to nothing. The communists anathematized the Macedonian rebels because they were against their ideology. They especially hated them because they were followers of Ilinden…

Well, today history is what the communists wrote, which is not only biased to reflect their point of view but also very sparse. Now if we look at the history written by the Greek authorities we will find that Macedonians in general do not exist and everything is Greek, everything is within the framework of Megali Elada.

What do we celebrate today? Ilinden? Is this Macedonia from those historic days or is this perhaps a likeness of a great tomb? Awful things have happened here!

Yes, my Macedonia remembers all this, but the centuries-old persecution of my ancestors scares me. When we suffer our country also suffers. We have been fleeing our country too long and that alone carries a heavy weight in my soul.

It is hard to live under ideological pressures when you know so many secrets; like who killed the Macedonian freedom fighters in Kostur. It is hard to live with such secrets and painful memories, which some of us have to endure while remaining silent. Worse than that is to keep silent for a century while lies are passed on as truth. We lost many of our people to the CPG, who became internationalists and are now far away from our homeland with no hope of ever returning.

Yes, it was exactly here, in Kostur, that Macedonian blood began to flood our native Macedonia. The commanders were all here when they were running out of ammunition and the fighters resorted to fighting hand-to-hand combat with daggers, sabres, bayonets and stones. The commanders were Chakalarov from Smrdesh, Kole from Mokreni, Kote from Rulia, Mitre Vlaot and Kole from Konomladi, Kostadinov from the Kastenaria, Krshakov from Kosinets, Gelev from Trsie, Kocho and Trpche from Turie, Kole from Dobrolishte, Alekso from Ekshi-Su, Pando from Banitsa, Lazar Pop - Traikov, Kuzo the teacher from Blatsa, Hristov from Prilep, Petrov from Zhupanshta (for whom many songs are sung), the Colonel Jankov from Zagorichani and many others. These people and all the rebels gathered together in churches where they took the oath of allegiance to Macedonia...” concluded Krapov.

I looked at Krapov and said: “We Macedonians lived in a world of lies for a long time and now we still have to live sorrowful lives like vagabonds… like we are at fault for everything wrong that has happened in the world…”

Krapov stood up and, in a raised tone of voice, said: “This is our country damn it! We need to have faith in the love of our native land! We all know that the Greeks have been trying to rip it out of our souls. We have been through tough times and many of us have been exposed to temptations. We have been beaten down. We have been abused, denied, trodden down and insulted. We are filled with deep scars and insults. We have been called derogatory names… We have even abused each other by one side calling the other ‘Bugaromani’ and the other calling the first ‘Grkomani”.

All those in ELAS, the communists, the Royalists, the priests and the teachers who existed among us Macedonians, were all cunningly poisoning and cleansing our minds and making us think of all sorts of negative things, especially about ourselves. They told us lies and assured us that they were the truth. They wanted our Macedonia for themselves but without Macedonians. They didn’t need the Macedonian people because, in time, they brought Christian Turks from Asia Minor. And that has been happening to this day…

Now that we are looking at the bones of our ancestors we are consciously struggling with the prejudices of our neighbours and even with our own prejudices. Still we are not convinced that we exist and that we are responsible for our own lives and destiny. We are looking at the bones of our predecessors and are becoming more confident in ourselves and in what we want; which is the same thing they wanted; our Macedonia. But, at the same time we feel insecure…

We are a strange people, we allow things to happen... we allow destiny to flow… We wander around while being persecuted and we feel it is not our time to be persecuted… we feel what is happening is not happening to us… everything feels alien to us… Some of us have disassociated ourselves from our homeland and feel like its not ours… They say before the world that Kostur belongs to the Greeks… And what do we say about that? Nothing!”

Krapov stopped talking and looked at me, expecting some sort of response. I felt guilty because I had nothing to say, so I said: “I feel for everything you have said, but don’t expect a snap answer from me. I can tell you what bothers me right now and that is, will we be able to find the bones we are looking for?… and perhaps after we will remember the old era and will be able to tell our grandchildren about it…”

I gave him an answer, but an answer that he did not expect. Krapov looked at me with a strange look in his eyes and said: “Are we so ordinary that we get sick and suffer from ordinary things? Do we just pass our time on the road of evil, in bitter times, on top of the leftover bones and graves of the heroic fighters who sacrificed their lives to defend Macedonia?

Instead of healing ourselves from the cursed ills of fratricide and all other ills that led us to abandon our homeland, for years now we have been listening to foreign gods and ignoring the disease that has been eating away at us. It is time to face up to the truth, shake off the spell we have been under and break the shackles of bondage. These strangers took away everything they could from us and we have done nothing to remedy the situation! Let’s face it; the reason our fathers and brothers, who fought on both sides of the war against

each other, are here is because they are Macedonians, period! They fought each other because their foreign gods made them do that; they created the circumstances by manipulating both what they loved and what they hated. The same bronze church bell that rang for joy also rang for their funerals. A guilt which we, the living, will now have to bear for them for being so gullible…”

After saying that, Krapov looked exhausted but quickly recovered and said: “… ‘We choose our gods – we choose our fate’… isn’t that what Virgil the Roman poet once said?”

Krapov looked at me with a forgiving look, as if saying, well we all make mistakes, and continued: “We will remember the Ilinden Uprising and our grandfathers, the Balkan wars, the First World War and our fathers, the Second World War and the heroic Macedonian freedom fighters, the Macedonians in ELAS who fought against the Macedonian freedom fighters, our fathers and brothers who were tortured on the Greek islands, the Greek Civil War 1946 – 1949 and the ethnic cleansing, and the eternal search for the bones of our dead. We will forever remember our fatherland that was taken away from us and that we can never go back to because we are not ‘Greeks by genus’.

It was a golden opportunity for the Greeks in ELAS and for the Greek communists. The Greek communists, with their propaganda, succeeded in brainwashing the Macedonian population into accepting the ‘ideological tattoo’, which lasted up to the end of the Greek Civil War. The CPG and the Greek communists shackled the Macedonian population and did whatever they wanted to it... With their strategies, the communists succeeded in convincing a large portion of the Macedonian people that the Kostur Macedonian freedom fighters were the greatest evil in the land. This part of our past tells me that all the great sufferings that took place was actually done at the behest of the ideological Macedonian activists in ELAS who agitated, perhaps unbeknownst to them, to have us all exterminated.

Did we Macedonians have faith in the CPM/CPY Central Committee that Macedonia was going to be reunited as we were told by NOF and AFZH? As it turned out, it was not possible. Also, by

the time it became clear to us, we were already swept by the winds of doom and branded with the mark of the ideological tattoo. Putting it another way, joining the Greek Civil War was one of the greatest mistakes we ever made. We allowed this stupidity to take place and fought like lions against each other, and when the war was over we were exiled from our homeland… We ran like cats up a tree in fear of a stray dog.

Today we look at our true history. Today we look at our bones. We look at actual crimes that were committed right here,” concluded Krapov.

* * *

As I mentioned earlier: “One autumn day, an order was issued by ELAS Headquarters to capture the Macedonian freedom fighters in Kostur, which read: ‘You are to capture and liquidate a group of 24 or more rebels who have left and are heading north.’ This information was sent to Major Arianos and to V. Himaros, Commander in Chief of ELAS in Kostur and Kostur Region.

They were informed about this well-thought out mission by Baskakis, a former officer of the Greek Army now major in the ranks of ELAS, who also shared the glory of this mission’s final outcome. It was a well-thought out mission indeed!” concluded Krapov.

Krapov looked down for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, and said: “Aristotelis Arianos, commander of the infantry battalion, paced around inside the dark room in the village house where he was stationed for a few days. By now they had decided who and how many ELAS fighters were going to participate in the liquidation of the group of 24 or so Macedonian freedom fighters who were fleeing north and were hiding somewhere in Strashilovo locality between the villages Turie and Bapchor.

Speaking to Baskakis, Arianos, pacing back and forth, said: ‘‘You made a good choice. It is good that you have chosen to take the most recent of the arrivals from the ranks of the rebels. Is it true that they have Greek influence and we can we trust them? Now go and ask

them to show us how good and loyal Greek citizens they are or send them back into the ranks.’ ‘Leave it to me!’ answered Baskakis and explained that even though these rebels (Macedonian freedom fighters) were some of the fiercest fighters they were doing this to save their own necks.

The pursuing squad, consisting of former rebels who had joined ELAS, was exclusively made up of Macedonians who were now under the influence of the ELAS communist Macedonians. The pursuing squad was also approved by the ELAS Commander in Kostur, whose plan was to have Macedonians killing Macedonians.”

As if not believing what had been done, Krapov tightened his lips, shook his head and said: “How cunning of General Headquarters! The craftiness of Arianos and Himaros! The moment those fools finished the job of killing their own fathers and brothers they were brought back to base and, one by one, liquidated by chosen ELAS fighters who were loyal to Greece. And this is exactly what happened!

These chosen ELAS fighters would enter the forest, disappear into the tall grass and ferns, then reappear, a while later, sweating with blood-stained daggers in their hands. The cries of those slaughtered could be heard for miles, except their screams were masked by machine gun fire. The machine gun burst lasted only a second but its echoes over the mountains lasted long enough to cover the gruesome sounds of people being murdered…

Those on watch did not know who was firing, but when they saw the dead body being carried away they figured it was a revenge killing… a retaliatory killing by fanatical rebels for having left their ranks and joining ELAS. The people were told it was a revenge killing by a group of rebels for having killed the 24 rebels that were north. Very few people knew the truth; that all these killings and murders were organized and carried out by ELAS units in order to liquidate the freedom fighters in Kostur.

Our people used to say: ‘When a man believes he is loved, he becomes crude and knows nothing of what awaits him...’

It was like that Indeed! My grandfather used to say: ‘You should never trust a Greek, like you never trust that a rabid fox will not bite you…’ This is exactly what happened to those Macedonians who left the rebel bands and joined the ranks of ELAS… They were stupid to trust the Greeks and to think that the Greeks would love them for killing their own… They were fools to believe and respect the ‘communist brotherhood’! This is what happens to people who refuse to take lessons from history or to even learn from their own mistakes!

Look at what happened to us in the end. When the Macedonians left they found themselves exiled from their own ancestral lands. Do you think that was done by accident? No! It was a perpetrated act… committed by design… But some people, even today, have difficulty believing that!

People are generally guided by emotion and not by facts and arguments. They refuse to believe that the ideology for which they fought so hard could have worked against them. In those days, like we do today, we were led more by our emotions than by reason… that is why we took the road to oblivion. Unfortunately, not one from the NOF or AFZH leaders was called to answer why and how we lost Kostur and our entire fatherland when the communist ideals were flourishing from 1941 to 1949! No ideological activist was punished for causing this disaster against our people… In fact many of the ‘ideological activists’ were rewarded and celebrated as loyal fighters of the Communist Party,” concluded Krapov and suddenly stopped talking.

I looked in his direction. His eyes were tearing as he tried to compose himself. I slowly turned and looked away. A moment later, eyes still dripping with tears, he began to tell me what the gravedigger of the “fratricidal cemetery” had told him. He said: “That was then… The Macedonian communists in the ranks of ELAS had accepted the idea that the rebels (Macedonian freedom fighters) had to be liquidated. The Macedonians belonging to the CPG and ELAS, it seems, were slaves to the general communist ideology and did not care about the cruelty and inhuman treatment inflicted on their opponents, including on those who expressed

Macedonian feelings and aspirations for an independent Macedonian state.”

Here is a brief excerpt from what Krapov had told me about the rebels. He said: “… a rebel does not obey… he knows how to communicate. He is proud. He never wished to be unfair. He follows the truth. He accepts and returns and remembers both good and evil… The rebel sings, dreams, works and knows that he will feel pain for what he does for his place of birth… His temperament is often blustery, rebellious, violent and wild. He is often bright and endlessly patriotic…” that’s what I remember.

The last thing that Krapov said to us about the rebels, as I remember it, was: “The lie was converted into truth and truth into a lie. The ideologues were masters at their job… Those who do not resent evil are its promoters...” After that we all sat in silence.

Saddened by our parting, Krapov came over to me, gave me a big hug and began to cry on my chest.

At daybreak, when the first rays of the sun appeared out of the clear blue sky and hit the top of the mountains high above, a white-winged bird, peacefully and serenely flew over us. It seemed like it wanted to greet us, to welcome us to the peaceful green valley full of morning dew and a variety of aromas. The bird circled around and flew up towards the mountain peak and disappeared in the deep blue sky. The terrain was completely peaceful at the break of dawn. It was a special moment for all of us… a once in a lifetime moment. It felt like our hearts belonged to nature…

As we began our departure we felt uneasy. We felt the turmoil and the darkness of Satan inside of us, the heavy bells of Hades ringing inside of our heads. As we approached the exit of the cemetery, we felt like lightning had struck the ground and a huge underground tomb had opened up and swallowed the sky, with its flaming tongue. Along the way the ground was sloping and covered with large intertwined roots sticking out of the barren soil. It was a frightening sight. We took many quiet, gentle and unsure steps, strangely creeping out of the great “fratricidal cemetery”. We felt both pain

and excitement from what we had seen and experienced here. Now we will at least be able to write what we have seen and what we discovered about the bones we found.

Today, the Greeks and many other nations mark many victories. What do we mark? Do we even mark our tragedies? We are victims of exoduses, massacres, slavery and assimilation. There is not even a single small monument anywhere here in Kostur that commemorates our tragedies, our loss of hundreds of thousands of Macedonians who fought and fell for their ideological strategies in foreign armies. Our homes and villages were burned down and our people were forced to flee… as far away as Tashkent...

I looked at Krapov and noticed that he was looking up. He was looking at the clear blue sky. We again heard the insidious scary giggle coming from above. Who might that be? Who was laughing at us? Perhaps it was the executioners and assassins of those whose bones are resting in the cemetery… perhaps they are pulling the strings of our destiny?!

We all heard the insidious giggle followed by an evil sounding voice which said: “The bones are yours but the mountains are now ours!”

We all kept silent. How could we accept such fate? Then Krapov loudly spoke up and said: “This country of ours is soaked with our blood and it is up to us to tell its story in our future history. Someone must take the initiative to record its memories. If no one does, all will be lost. I stayed behind… I took the task… Even though these memories were painful and ate away at me, I swore that I would do everything in my power to the end of my life to record them so that one day our future generations could have their Macedonian history; with all our known and unknown Macedonian heroes.