KING CONSTANTINE’S TELEGRAM - Part 10

I had just published my book “Macedonians in Greece 1939-1949” when I visited the Republic of Macedonia for the first time and, naturally, with the subject still fresh in my mind, I was anxious to discuss the issues with our compatriots there. What happened was embarrassing. People there were talking about issues I had never heard of before. I just published a book on the subject and found I was completely in the dark. That’s how bad the situation with us Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia is. The 60 years of silence were real. That information never made it out of the Republic of Macedonia. Why was that? Because no one cared about our problems. Yugoslavia was more concerned about “its good neighbourly relations” with Greece than about its own citizens.

I thought I knew everything there was to know… but I was wrong. I thought no more books existed on the subject… but I was wrong.

There were literally hundreds of books written and available… all in Macedonian with no effort made by any government institution to have them exported to the Diaspora or translated into English.

I was very disappointed about this and complained as to why nothing was ever done to inform the rest of us, especially those Macedonians living in the Diaspora, like myself who couldn’t speak or read Macedonian. Many of us in the Diaspora came directly from Greece and grew up in places like Canada, the US and Australia with very little opportunity to speak, never mind read and write Macedonian.

I was given a suitcase full of books from the various people I met there, and ever since then I have made it my mission to translate as many books as possible and make them available to our people for free. My first objective was to learn to speak and read Macedonian. Since then to this day (September 2016) I have translated 23 books and I am working on translating more. They are all available on the internet in both languages. Translating has become an obsession with me because I want our people to know more about ourselves… it has answered many questions for me and helped me see the “bigger picture” which I am sharing with you today.

There are no visible divisions “of that kind” in our people here in Canada because people don’t know about them. There are divisions in the Macedonians in the Diaspora but they have to do more with “loyalties” and “obligations”. We have the “Grkomani” (Greco-phils), “Bugaromani” (Bulgaro-phils”, few “Serbomani” (Serbo-phils) and so far I have not met any “Albanomani” (Albano-phils). There is also a small division, perhaps too minor to worry about, almost racist, between the so-called “Egeitsi” Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia and “Vardartsi” Macedonians from the Republic of Macedonia. This is more like a class division than a political division mainly because of “sour grapes”.

The Macedonian refugees who fled Greek occupied Macedonia during the Greek Civil War, including the refugee children, who ended up in Eastern European countries and in the Soviet Union were offered great opportunities to educate themselves. Almost every child and adult took the opportunity to advance themselves. They were encouraged and deeply believed that education was necessary for rebuilding their homeland back in Greek occupied Macedonia. They believed that when they returned they would be useful in rebuilding their country. Greece had never offered them

such an opportunity so they worked extra hard to succeed and they succeeded. Between themselves they were educated and skilled in practically every field.

When these people arrived in the Republic of Macedonia they found the country in desperate need of rebuilding. Their education opened many opportunities which were not available to the less educated local people who followed traditional methods of working on the farm. So, the so-called “newcomer Aegeans” were seen as people who came to the Republic of Macedonia to take jobs away from the local people. Much like us here in Canada who blame the immigrants for taking our jobs when clearly they work hard to earn them and we sit on our laurels feeling privileged because we are Canadians.

Unfortunately “Aegeans” are still seen as some sort of “culprits” even today, even here in Canada. By the way it is insulting to call people “Egeitsi” (Aegean) in the Republic of Macedonia but this word is freely used here in Canada by many Macedonians.

INTERVIEWER – You mentioned that other divisions exist in the Diaspora, are you going to talk about them?

RISTO – Yes. I believe it is important not only to talk about them but to also understand their fundamental causes. The most prevalent divisions in the Diaspora are those between the Macedonians and the Bugaromani (Bulgaro-phils) and Grkomani (Greco-phils). These groups, more or less, stay out of each others’ path but sometimes they come into contact in demonstrations and more often in donut shop discussions, where they exchange insults.

I have to admit that I have not been in contact with many because they (Bugaromani and Grkomani) despise me… I think for speaking out and for not giving them attention.

Let me say that there are no Grkomani in the Republic of Macedonia, at least not in the open. But I have heard that there are Bugaromani… maybe? But I have not met any. The Grkomani “phenomenon” exists only in Greece and in the Diaspora.

One might think that here in Canada we are free from the Greeks and we can freely choose our own destiny… But unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. A long time ago I used to work with an elderly Macedonian woman from Lerin region. One time I asked her a question, I said: “I can understand why Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia behaved in the way they do back home because they have no choice, but what possible reasons could they have to behave this way here in Canada where they are free from the Greeks?” She looked at me with a strange look, giving me the impression that I must be naïve to be asking such a question. She then said: “Because some of them are criminals. They are criminals. They have committed crimes against our people and they need the Greeks to protect them. They are the ones pushing the Greek government to act against us. If the Greek government decides to recognize us and accept us… then what do you think will happen to them? If we want justice and we will want justice then these people will pay. They will be exposed and prosecuted… And they sure don’t want that…”

I believe some Grkomani are criminals but not all. Some have interests back in Greece, some have relatives and friends back home who they want to protect… and so on… The Grkomani, even here in Canada, find themselves restricted by the same restrictions they were faced with back in Greece. Some even have interests here in Canada which they need to protect. But there are also those who have been brainwashed by Greek propaganda to think that somehow they are “different” and better than their Macedonian brethren and are following the Greek line… They called themselves “Greeks” but since the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence, they call themselves “Greek-Macedonians”. They call their brethren Macedonians “Slavs”.

Let me say that Greece has done a fantastic job in warping people’s minds and turning brother against brother. It is not only shameful… it is sad. There is no reason for these divisions to exist and most of us don’t know why we are divided. But this is how our enemies like us to be… and this is how we are. We just don’t have the courage to break the spell and do something about it. And the reason for that is “loyalties”… If my parents were Grkomani do I disappoint them by accepting that I am Macedonian…?

Even families here in Canada have split up over this issue. Children in Grkomani families have been disowned by their parents because they embraced their true Macedonian identity...

INTERVIEWER – What are you doing to bridge this gap?

RISTO – Not much. Not until the entire truth is told. Once people know both sides of the story then, maybe, we can have our “reconciliation” with the Grkomani and Bugaromani. I personally want the truth to come out as soon as possible and when all the stories are told, the people can decide for themselves what they want to be. We Macedonians are a forgiving and accepting people… and there is nothing wrong with belonging to more than one culture as long as we are all included. Macedonians and Greeks can co-exist just like Macedonians and Vlachs and Macedonians and Albanians co-existed for centuries. Unfortunately the Greeks are not like that. With them there is no co-existence. And for that reason, the Macedonians have been put in an impossible position where they must fight in order to survive.

Greece has tormented the Macedonian people for more than a century. It has used every opportunity to erase them. This has been going on since 1878, when the Great Powers decided to partition Macedonia and give a piece of it to Greece.

I often refer to Greece as a ship without a rudder set off on a one way course without the ability to steer. Greece was created that way and continues to function that way to this day… Unfortunately Greece can’t decide the “Macedonian Question” alone and on its own, and neither can it “stop” tormenting the Macedonian people without approval from its patrons. It would be naïve of me to think that Greece and Greece alone is doing this to the Macedonian people.

INTERVIEWER – Do you think others, outside of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania are involved?

RISTO – Yes. I explained earlier that Britain, France and Russia decided to erase Macedonia in 1878 by allowing it to be invaded,

occupied, partitioned and annexed by their protectorates Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. Then, at the last minute, in 1912 Austro-Hungary stepped in and insisted on creating an Albanian state in order to block Serbia and Russia from reaching the Adriatic Sea. As I also explained, Greece was created by Britain to block Russia from reaching the Mediterranean Sea. These acts were committed by the Great Powers, who knew very well that they were destroying Macedonia. These very same Great Powers sanctioned Greece’s draconian assimilation policies to eradicate everything that was Macedonian. Why would they do that if they “cared” about Macedonia and the Macedonian people?

Macedonia was partitioned by the Great Powers and can only be put back together by the Great Powers. No one expected the Republic of Macedonia to become an independent state. It was a complete surprise and a cause of problems for the Great Powers.

It was by no accident that the world was led to believe that Macedonians don’t exist. Greece may have been the “front man” yelling no Macedonians exist but its patrons were right behind it, supporting it. This was done because the Great Powers do not want Macedonians to exist.

It was by no accident that “no one” investigated any of the “genocides”, “atrocities” and “human rights” violations committed against the Macedonian people in Greece. And if any investigations were done, they were done for “other” reasons. I say this because “nothing” was ever done for the Macedonian people in Greece.

Find me a single book published by western authors after 1913 and before the Republic of Macedonia became independent, that show me a reference that says Macedonians exist in Greece. There isn’t one. Is that because these Macedonians don’t exist or is it because “someone” very powerful does not want them to exist?

Then, when the People’s Republic of Macedonia became independent in 1945, it was immediately labeled an “artificial creation”, created by Tito. And so was the Macedonian identity. Some western sources, quoting Greek sources, even claimed that Tito created the Macedonian identity so that he could lay claim to

“Greek-Macedonia” and that the Macedonians living in Macedonia were not Macedonians but “Slavs”. Do you think “denying the existence of Macedonians” was just a coincidence? No. These were perpetrated acts, perpetrated by the Great Powers and then propagated by Greece.

So, going back to our original question, how does one explain a people who allegedly did not exist yesterday suddenly exist today? Think of the implications this will have on history. History will have to be re-written to explain the “Macedonian phenomenon”. How is history going to explain this when, up until now, history tried to bury it? Naturally, any historian worth their salt knew the truth but chose to ignore it. This is true for western historians as well as for Macedonian historians who taught during the Yugoslav era. Now they are apologizing to their students for “lying” to them all those years.

What’s going to happen later, when the Macedonian people start to “look for justice” and would want those who abused them punished? What will happen when the genocides committed against them are investigated?

So I ask you. What path would you choose; choke the life out of Macedonia now, or allow it to live and face the consequences later? Which would you choose if you had the power to make this “problem” disappear now?

Now perhaps we can all understand why there is great “reluctance” on the part of the Great Powers to put Macedonia back on the map. Many countries, including those from the former Soviet block and from former Yugoslavia, even some which did not qualify, like Bosnia, were put on the map, but not Macedonia. Why?

Let me put the question to you another way. If the Great Powers wanted a Macedonia to surface wouldn’t they have made even the smallest effort to find a place for it in this world? Wouldn’t they have left some room in history for it? But they didn’t. They gave everything that was Macedonian to the Greeks and Bulgarians.

Now if the Macedonian people “take back” their heritage, the same heritage that was given to the Greeks and Bulgarians, what will be left for Greece and Bulgaria, particularly for Greece? Nothing!

Everything and I mean everything, the world values today has been attributed to the “Greeks”. “The Ancient Greeks did this for us and the ancient Greeks did that for us…” Where is this going to go when it turns out that the so-called “Ancient Greeks” are a 19th century concoction just like the “Modern Greeks”?

Every day in school, on television, you hear and learn of the many things the ancient Greeks “gave us” and did for us… So many things that can fill libraries... But one needs to ask “Where did this 2,500 year-old information come from?” From where was it obtained? From the “inscribed stones” in Athens? From the “goat skins” found in caves? Did the so-called “Ancient Greeks” from 2500 years ago leave us “that much” information on stones and skins? Or was this “somehow” concocted in some Western laboratory over the years just like “classical history”?

What will happen when the world discovers that Ancient Athens was just a “village” in comparison to Alexandria of Egypt with its grand library, schools and museum? What will happen when the world finds out Alexandria was a Macedonian and not a Greek city? What will happen when the world finds out that the Macedonians and not the Greeks translated the Bible from Hebrew to Koine, sponsored and paid for by the Ptolemais, a Macedonian royal family? Should I go on? There are thousands of such examples I can give you of things “wrongly” attributed to the Greeks, including the so-called “Greek gods”. Really? Even the gods were Greek?

I have just given you a small sample of what will happen if Macedonia comes into being. It will be a massive revolution that will shake up the academic world and not only expose its lies but will embarrass academia for turning a blind eye to this for so many years.

I am not denying that the ancient people in the Greek peninsula existed and made some contributions. All I am saying is that their story and contributions have been “greatly exaggerated”… at the

expense of the Macedonians who not only created a great empire but also greatly contributed to world civilization… much, much more than any Ancient Greeks have done. But like I said, the modern world leaders have given it all away to the Modern Greeks, a kind of people who would take away everything from you, toss you out of your home and make you feel guilty for being alive. A kind of people who don’t care about anyone but themselves and who believe they are entitled to everything, even if it doesn’t belong to them.

The Macedonian people also need to wake up to this and begin to understand what is happening to them and that it will take “a world revolution” to free themselves from this predicament.

INTERVIEWER – You sure paint a bleak picture for the Macedonian people, don’t you?

RISTO – Yes. But I hope I am wrong. We all hope that this will “go away” one day on its own but then I am a realist. I am looking at the situation realistically. And like I said before, we can only move forward if we understand what’s behind us. The things I am talking about here need to be understood by the Macedonian people. After they understand them it is mandatory that the rest of the world understands them too. This will basically level the playing field for us. Both the lies and the truth need to come out, to be told. The truth shattered the old belief that the earth was flat and the truth will shatter the Greek myth and set the Macedonian people free. I never said exposing the truth was going to be easy, but it needs to be done… and the sooner the better… our story needs to be told and heard now.

INTERVIEWER – This all sounds promising but how would you go about educating your people, never mind educating the world?

RISTO – It takes will, the will of the Macedonian people to do what is necessary… tell their story and learn about other people’s stories. I have met many people who are more than willing to tell our story but are frustrated because they don’t have the resources or a medium to turn to. Also, our enemies are prepared to refute anything we say and provide their own explanations. The Greeks, Bulgarians,

Serbians, Albanians and their patrons have made sure their stories have been well-publicized and it will take a revolution to undo that.

And because they have been beaten down for so long, the Macedonian people are unwilling to accept just anything, even the truth, without much convincing. So we need to do much more than what we have been doing so far to get our message out there.

We also need to go on the offensive and challenge those why deny our existence. We need to challenge them on factual matters and issues that matter to us. For example, Greece is obviously a modern creation created for the first time in 1828, so how can a new nation have historical rights that stretch beyond 1828? Once we make the point to our people to understood that Greece did not exist before 1828 then every argument and claim Greece makes can be easily challenged. We know the Greeks were created by assimilating the Vlachs, Albanians, Turks, Macedonians and other ethnicities that existed in that region before Greece became a country. So Greece’s “real” history lies in the history of the Vlachs, Albanians, Turks, Macedonians and others. But according to history the Vlachs and Albanians arrived on the Greek peninsula sometime during the 11th to the 13th centuries AD. The Turks arrived much later, so where do the Greeks get the idea that Macedonia belongs to them and not to the Macedonian people?

It is arguments such as these that our people, especially our politicians, must know and employ, no matter how ridiculous they sound, in order to bring the Greeks back to reality. And the reasons such arguments are not used is because our people either don’t know “real” Greek history or don’t have the courage to stand up to the Greeks. But problems such as these can easily be remedied… with time… and with much effort. I know arguments such as these may sound completely ridiculous in view of the modern image of Greece, but the truth is the truth. They are no more ridiculous than the Greeks telling the world they are the “descendents of the Ancient Greeks”, and that Macedonia belongs to them because of that.

As for educating the world, like I said before, we need to take the initiative and tell “our story” the way it happened, the way we

experienced it, the way we see it, instead of reacting to Greek provocations and issues that are of no value to us.

INTERVIEWER – Thank you Risto for your time and for your thoughts.

RISTO – I also want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with you some of the issues that are near and dear to me.

Analysis of historical events in Greek occupied Macedonia Part 3

An interview with Risto Stefov

Analysis of historical events in Greek occupied Macedonia An interview with Risto Stefov Part 3

Published by:

Risto Stefov Publications rstefov@hotmail.com

Toronto, Canada

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review.

Copyright © 2018 by Risto Stefov

e-book edition

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April 12, 2018

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INTERVIEWER – In this interview I would like to ask you some questions about your family and verify some of the things your dad and uncle had said to me in their interviews.

Was your grandfather Risto involved in the Illinden Uprising? I remember seeing a photo on someone’s wall. What can you tell me about his life in the village?

RISTO – My grandfather Risto was not involved in the Ilinden Uprising because, from what my father had told me, he was not in Macedonia. He was on pechalba (migrant work) but I don’t know where and for how long. He purchased a rifle and wanted to return but the borders were shut and he could not come back in time. He did come back later and brought the rifle with him and gave it to his oldest son Lazo who then used it during the German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation when he was a partisan for a brief period of time before he died in 1943.

Here is Risto’s story in brief:

Risto was the second child of File and Stamena. He was born in 1883 in the village Oshchima and died in 1951 in Zgorzelec, Poland. As a youth, Risto received no education and remained illiterate for a large part of his life. Risto’s mother tongue was Macedonian but he also spoke some Turkish, then the administrative language in Macedonia (before 1912).

During his youth, Risto learned some skills which he later applied to make a living. The more prominent included house painting, bricklaying and masonry work. He was also a capable woodworker, lumberjack and carpenter.

During his adult life, Risto was a pechalbar (migrant worker) and traveled from place to place looking for work. He traveled to Prespa, Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Central Greece and Canada. One specific trip to Bulgaria became very important for him. Due to severe weather he was stranded where he worked and could not depart for home. During his stay, he attended school and learned the Cyrillic alphabet enabling him to read the Macedonian language. On another occasion, while working in Turkey (Anatolia), Risto lost his

Uncle Kale in a construction accident. Kale fell off the roof of the building where they were working and died.

While seeking work on long journeys the cost of travel was high. To offset some of the cost, Risto and his traveling companions begged for food while traveling from village to village.

Risto did not speak Greek and, while traveling to central Greece, depended on his first cousin Tase and other co-workers, who spoke a little Greek, to seek directions and acquire work contracts.

Risto traveled to Canada three times. He worked in tanneries, restaurants, and laid cobblestone in the streets of Toronto. On one occasion when Risto came back from Canada, an entourage of people from Oshchima came to greet him as he entered the village. There in front of him stood his wife Sofia with two young girls of the same age in her arms. She said, “You’ve been away so long I bet you can’t recognize your own daughter”. Risto, in a clever response said, “Put the girls down and the one that comes to me is my daughter.” Sure enough Dafina rushed to him, proving him right.

With the money earned, in 1922 Risto built a house in Oshchima on the ruins of the Iofkova house. As payment for the plot Risto offered Bosilka Iofkova and her daughter, Sofia, free room and board for life. To expand his farmland, Risto purchased land from Tase who moved to Lerin and no longer needed the property. Risto gave some of the land to his older brother Vasil.

There is a tale told by Oshchimians about Risto’s money. After returning from Canada, Risto converted his earned wealth from gold into Greek currency to purchase building materials for his house. Unfortunately, at the same time war broke out and the country’s currency lost its value. Tragically, Risto lost his wealth. It has been rumoured that his wife Sofia cursed him for leaving her alone to bear the burden of looking after the children and the farm. There is also a rumour that Risto did not convert his gold to cash but instead buried it somewhere in Oshchima, never to be found. These, however, are only rumours?

For years, Risto traveled to Prespa and Albania to work as a painter, bricklayer, plasterer and, occasionally, as a carpenter. According to some of his clients, Risto was the best chimney builder in the land.

From 1920 to 1922, Risto was drafted by the Greek army and served as a border guard at the Albanian-Greek border. In 1948, during the Greek civil war, he was drafted by the Partisans to build bunkers.

In 1949 Risto, along with many other civil war refugees, left home for the last time and never returned. Accompanied by his wife Sofia and son Alexander, Risto on August 10, 1949 left for Albania. From there he was sent to Poland, where he later was reunited with his daughter Sevda. While in Poland, Risto became very ill and disabled, dependent on his wife and daughter to look after his daily needs. In 1951 he fell from a window and died. Risto’s body was buried in Poland where it remains to this day.

According to those who knew him in person, Risto was a gentleman well respected by all. He was a hard worker and an honest man.

There is one peculiarity about Risto’s family worth mentioning. Many Oshchimians claim that the family was continuously involved in arguments and that the children were loud and rude. These “facts”, however, must be corrected and the truth be told. The children were loud, but they were not arguing or being rude. Sofia their mother, in early childhood had contracted polio which left her deaf and unable to hear normal speech. To keep her in conversations, family members had to speak loudly. Growing up under these conditions seemed normal for the children, inside or outside the home. To this day, Risto’s children are still loud and the peculiarity continued with the next generation.

INTERVIEWER – What do you know about Risto’s wife Sofia and her family?

RISTO – Risto was first married to Kita Popovska from Oshchima, who tragically died from tuberculosis, along with Risto’s first daughter Zoia. Risto later married Sofia Badzhovska from the village Labanitsa Kostur Region.

As I mentioned in his story, Risto worked in various places during his life, and one of those places was the village Labanitsa. He was widowed when he met Sofia, who was ten years younger than him, but because she was deaf and her prospects of marriage were slim she decided to marry him. Of course in those days permission had to be obtained from Sofia’s family which Risto had to seek from Sofia’s father. When everything was worked out, Sofia came to live with Risto in Oshchima. Other than that, I don’t know much about Sofia’s family.

INTERVIEWER – How did Risto die and what was his life like in Yugoslavia?

RISTO – As I mentioned in his story my grandfather Risto died in Poland. He was never in Yugoslavia. He left his village Oshchima as a war refugee in 1949 and went on foot to Albania. From there he was sent to Poland where he died in 1951.

INTERVIEWER – Your dad Nikola was interesting, he showed me his woodwork, his library and his Che Guevara poster and we had a laugh. Was he a leftie all his life?

RISTO – My father did some woodwork and did have a library of Macedonian, Greek and Bulgarian books but he did not have a poster of Che Guevara. He may have had a small picture of Che Guevara in one of his books but not a poster. I donated all his books to the Canadian Macedonian Historical Society here in Toronto and found no such poster.

And no, my father was not a “leftie”. He spoke a great deal about the communists, particularly about the Communist Party of Greece, because it had influence on the Macedonian people, but I don’t believe he was a “practicing” communist. Let me put it to you this way, he was never a member of the Communist Party and had not joined any communist party organizations or practiced communism in any shape or form. He was a villager with a grade three education, a land owner and, to a very small extent, a practicing capitalist. Before he left for Canada he owned a number of land plots in Oshchima and a medium size herd of sheep. He lived a simple conservative life.

He only supported the communists during the war years and only because the Communist Party of Greece was the only party in Greece that showed any interest in the Macedonian people. And from what I have learned from my own research, its interest was not to help the Macedonian people but rather to involve them in its messy war. It promised to recognize the Macedonian people as “Macedonians” with equal rights as the Greek people, which did not happen! And since then, to this day, the CPG has insisted that Macedonians don’t exist. So, my father was not only “not a leftie” but he had no reason or incentive to be a “leftie”.

INTERVIEWER – What kind of work did your father do in Canada?

RISTO – When my father arrived in Canada he briefly worked in a restaurant doing various jobs in the kitchen and afterwards got a job in a car parts manufacturing factory where he operated a punch press making bumpers for cars and trucks. He retired from that job.

INTERVIEWER – What was it like growing up with him as your dad? Was he bitter about the time he served in the Greek islands? How did these experiences affect him?

RISTO – He often spoke to me about it in bits and pieces, that is, about his personal experiences in the Greek island prisons. I found out more about his experiences from films and books which showed a more complete picture of what was done to prisoners there. One thing that he regretted was not knowing why he was sent to prison. He died without knowing what he had done wrong to deserve being sent to prison for five years. His time in prison did affect him, not because he lost five years of his young life, age 19 to 24, but also because he was tortured and abused in ways we can’t even imagine today. But, he wasn’t bitter about it. He accepted it like it was his fate. Why? I don’t know.

In my own research I did find out why he was sent to prison but it was too late for him. He had died by then.

As I said in one of our previous interviews, my father Nikola was forcibly taken from his village, along with a number of other men,

on April 17th, 1947 and sent to the Greek island prison camps. He was kept in prison until January 17th, 1952, the day he arrived back in Oshchima.

On several occasions I asked my father what he had done and why he was sent to prison but until the day he died he did not know, because no one would tell him. All he knew was what his jailers told him, “that he was a danger to the Greek state”.

Later, as I began to research the so-called Greek Civil War, I found out that my father was a victim of American policies in Greece. He was a victim of Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet’s military tactics.

On March 1, 1947, U.S. President Harry Truman announced the decision to proclaim the “Truman Doctrine” for engaging the U.S. in Greece. Greece was granted credit and advanced military equipment to equip its government army. At the same time Van Fleet, an American General anti-guerrilla specialist, was made available to the Greek government.

With Van Fleet’s strategy and tactics applied in the last battles fought in the Vicho and Gramos battlefields, DAG was defeated and ejected outside of Greece.

So what exactly was Van Fleet’s strategy and how did it involve my father… and he didn’t know about it?

Van Fleet was familiar with the concept of how to starve a guerrilla army. In order to do that, he said, you will have to rob it of the ability to feed itself and the ability to recruit new fighters.

Most of the food and recruits that supplied the partisan army came from the Macedonian mountain villages.

To stop the food supply all residents from the small villages were removed and placed in towns and large villages. These places were guarded by the Greek army and the Greek police. Curfews and restrictions of movement were then placed so no one could move

without authorization. This cut off most of the food supply to the partisans.

To stop the partisans from recruiting new fighters, the Greek government arrested basically every man, capable of carrying a gun, who was not loyal to the Greek government or was affiliated with the partisan movement. All these people were sent to the Greek island prison camps.

My father was affiliated with the partisan movement. All his brothers and sisters were partisans and fighting in the war. He was the only young person left home to look after the farm and his aging mother and father, so he became a target of Van Fleet’s strategy.

So, to starve the partisans out, Van Fleet basically emptied all the small villages of their population and arrested every man who might be a potential partisan.

The people from the small villages were moved to the large ones because the Greeks didn’t have enough policemen to send to every village. The move, of course, was done by force.

All the villagers were moved. They moved them into already occupied houses and told the people that they had to share the space and the food. Then the Greeks went looking for and hunted down partisans who were on the move.

The civilian people had limited mobility and curfews were in effect, even in the large villages where the people were guarded by the police.

INTERVIEWER – You are doing a lot of work for the Macedonian cause online. How much of this do you think was instilled in you from hearing your father’s stories and those of others from Oshchima?

RISTO – I was twelve years old when my father left Oshchima for Canada and all I knew by then was that we were not Greeks, and that we were Macedonians, something that had to be kept a secret. My parents told me that we were not Greeks in order to shut me up

from singing Greek patriotic songs about the so-called Greek heroes who fought in the so-called Greek struggle in Macedonia. Those so-called “Greek heroes” were the “cut throats” that terrorized the Macedonian population and killed a lot of Macedonian people in order to make Macedonia Greek.

It was after we immigrated to Canada that I began to discover the wider picture of who we were and what was done to us over the ages. Most Macedonians, who were aware of the various struggles and conflicts in which we had been involved, were able to tell me what happened and who did what to whom… but very few to none could tell me “WHY” these things were done to us. That I found out on my own, through a great deal of research.

What I discovered I published on the internet in various forums. After that I began to develop a growing list of readers who demanded more and more information. Of course I didn’t know any more than what I had learned from reading books and from what the old people had told me, but that seemed to resonate with my readers.

I had to learn to read Macedonian in order to read Macedonian books and access the Macedonian archives, initially for my own interest, and later to translate material for my readers. Eventually I began to translate entire books.

INTERVIEWER – Some parents chose not to tell their children about what happened to them in the war as a way of shielding them and preventing them from inheriting traumatic memories. Do you think it’s a good idea to do that – just forget after immigration?

RISTO – No! Absolutely not! In my opinion it would be a crime to hide the truth from those who are most important to you. Children can’t and won’t inherit traumatic memories from a bygone era that they themselves did not experience. But they can certainly appreciate it… or not… If they know the truth of what their parents have gone through… then it would be their choice to do what they want with that knowledge…

Ask yourself this; is it a good idea for the Jews not to tell their children about what happened to them during the Nazi occupation? I

don’t think that you will find a single Jew who will agree with hiding that information, especially from their own family.

One way or another the children or grandchildren will find out from other people… that is about what happened to their parents or ancestors and they may find themselves in precarious situations. Like a Jew, for example, who did not know what happened to the Jews, showing sympathy for the neo-Nazis…

How would a child or descendant who had supported the Nazis feel if they discovered their parents or ancestors were gassed to death by the Nazis… and their parents neglected to tell them that?

I am of the opinion that parents should not keep big secrets from their children. Those secrets one day will come out.

INTERVIEWER – What drives you to find Macedonian stories and translate and publish them?

RISTO – Basically growing up in a western society, I was under the belief that the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia had no books and the books written by Macedonian authors were not worth the paper they were written on. This, by the way, is a belief of many people here in Canada. The credentials and experiences acquired in non-western countries are not recognized in Canada because of that. Doctors, dentists, engineers… etc… are required to have a Canadian education or “Canadian experience” to be considered for employment because many people here believe that somehow “we have higher standards here”. But that’s not always true.

I did not find the true value of Macedonian books until I started reading them for myself. Let me put it another way. I was left with no choice but to turn to Macedonian books to find out things about us Macedonians. I knew that the Macedonian people had a Macedonian national uprising against the Ottomans in 1903, they participated in driving the Ottomans out of Macedonia in 1912, they fought in the Albanian front against Fascist Italy, they fought in the Greek Civil War, they were evicted from their homeland… etc. But none of this was recorded in western books.

These were experiences in which even my own family had taken place. Yet, I could not find a single book in western libraries that mentioned anything about that. Was it because we do not exist? Westerners, including countries like Greece and Bulgaria, which occupy Macedonian territories today, say “YES! MACEDONIANS DO NOT EXIST!” So, which is it? Do we not exist or not? Who should I believe, my own people or strangers who don’t care if we live or die… and only care about their own interests?

So, now you can see why I turned to Macedonian books. I consider myself lucky to have learned to speak and read Macedonian but most Macedonians born in Greece, now living in the Diaspora, and their descendants, can neither speak nor read in the Macedonian language, even though they consider themselves staunch Macedonians. I translate the books for them. This, I hope answered your question.

I should also mention at this point that the reason why Macedonians born in Greece cannot speak or read Macedonian is because the Greek state has banned and made the Macedonian language illegal. The Macedonian language in Greece has been banned since Greece occupied Macedonian territories in 1912, 1913 and made it illegal to speak in 1938.

INTERVIEWER – A Greek academic wrote in an academic paper that you promote “irredentism” on the internet. Can I get your response on that?

RISTO – You can call it what you want… Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It may be “irredentism” that I am promoting to the Greeks; but it is human rights that I am promoting to the Macedonians...

But the academic is not far from the mark. After all “irredentism” is “nationalism advocating for the regaining of a culturally or historically related region”, in my case Greek occupied Macedonia, “now under foreign rule”.

Let us face the facts: the Macedonian territories which I call home have been occupied by Greece since 1912, 1913 when Greece

invaded Macedonia, occupied it, partitioned a large chunk of it (51%) and annexed it for itself. Then it did everything in its power to destroy everything that was Macedonian, including its people. After that it made every effort to assimilate the Macedonian people into the Greek fold. Those who refused to be assimilated it exiled, jailed, tortured and downright murdered. It then changed all the people’s names from Macedonian to Greek, renamed every place name from Macedonian to Greek and erased every trace of everything that was Macedonian. On top of that it banned the Macedonian language and made it illegal to be spoken… even by people who could speak no other language. And if by asking to have a small semblance of what was once mine, like to be able to speak my own mother tongue in my own homeland, is “irredentism” then I am an “irredentist”!

INTERVIEWER – I was afraid to meet your Uncle Vasil because I had heard so many stories about him; that he killed a Pontian (a Christian Turk colonist settled in Greek occupied Macedonia by the Greek state) in Mikrolimni in the first communist attack against the Greek police. Was he that high ranked in DAG and then in Tashkent?

RISTO – This is news to me. I have known my Uncle Vasil for almost my entire life and I have never heard him say such an outrageous thing.

Here is my Uncle Vasil’s story:

Vasil, son of Risto and Sofia was born in the village Oshchima on August 15th, 1925 and currently lives in Toronto, Canada (he is now deceased). Vasil attended school up to grade 6 and was proud to say he graduated with a mark of 90%.

After completing grade school, Vasil went to work on the family homestead on a full time basis. After the death of his brother Lazo, Vasil being the eldest male living at home assumed responsibility for most household activities. His father Risto worked outside Oshchima, sometimes abroad, and was unavailable for household duties for most of the year. Yields from the land were not sufficient to support a family of twelve so Risto had no choice but to seek