Front Matter

Guilty Without Guilt Short Version

By

By Stoian Kochov

Contributor: Spiro Mavrovski

Translated from Macedonian to English and Edited By Risto Stefov

Guilty Without Guilt

Short Version

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December 20, 2019

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ARGUMENTS (1945-1949)

WHO ORGANIZED THE PEDOMAZOMA (CHILD COLLECTION PROGRAM) AND COMPILED ITS HISTORY?

NATIONAL HISTORY OF THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE IN GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

An explanation is needed as to why 28,000 children were taken from Greek occupied Macedonia, under the guise of “saving them” during the Greek Civil War, and not allowed to return to their homes unless they declared themselves Greeks by genus?

Who planned the genocide against the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia in the period from 1945 to 1949?

This book will deal with the historiography of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

I (Stoian Kochov) dedicate this book to the fallen partisans who were forcefully and violently mobilized into the DAG military units.

The child collection program, under the guise of saving the children, took away 28,000 children from their mothers and homes with no intention of ever bringing them back. They were given a one-way ticket out, and for the Macedonian children, the ultimate goal of genocide… This was a politically motivated degradation of human dignity, murderously wounding the Macedonian nation.

The parents of the children who, on September 12, 1948, were fighting in a battle in Malimadi, located between the villages Dambeni and Sliveni, were deprived of the opportunity of seeing their children one last time before leaving their bones in the battlefields of Gramos and Vicho. Before dying they all fought and struggled hard with the hope that one day they would see their children again.

The children, those who were brought back from the Eastern European countries to fight at the front and were all killed, fought

hard hoping that one day they would see their parents again. Sadly they too were deprived.

One of those 28,000 children taken and brought back to fight in the battlefields for DAG was my cousin Mitre Novachkov. A few months after he was sent to an Eastern European country, to be saved from the Greek bombs, he was brought back and turned into a child soldier. His qualifications: he was tall enough to carry a rifle. Sadly he too was killed… during the last battles in the Greek Civil War… in a war which DAG was destined to lose.

Here are some facts:

This is what Ipsilantis, a DAG general, in a sincere confession, told Risto Kizov (son of hero Tanas Kizov) while Risto was searching for his father’s grave:

“Elite Macedonian units of Macedonian fighters from (Greek occupied) Macedonia were sent to Grevena to occupy the city and put it under partisan (DAG) control. The commanders who were sent were Giorgi Kalko from the village Visheni, Tanas Kizov from the village Nered and Pando Shiperkov from the village Smrdesh. Sadly, even though they fought heroically, they were all killed. These great and heroic Macedonians paid with their lives in this fateful battle. But that was not all for the Macedonian people; they were exiled from their homes and ancestral lands…”

This shows the courage and heroism demonstrated by the thousands of Macedonian fighters and heroes sent to Vicho and led by GIORGI KALKO, ATANAS GIZA (Tanas Kizov), PANDO SHIPERKOV…

These are facts and evidence of our Macedonian existence and our participation in the Greek Civil War. This, without a doubt, shows that we fought as DAG fighters together and shared our fate with the communist Greeks in the bunkers and trenches in Vicho, Gramos...

I was one of those fighters. And that is one reason why I have dedicated my entire life to earnestly document all possible events that took place during the Greek Civil War and tell our side of the

story and the genocide perpetrated against the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

Another reason for my deep involvement in the history of the Greek Civil War is to expose the tragedy the Macedonian people endured, to a point of genocide, in silence for over seventy years with no one to speak for them…

INTRODUCTORY NOTES

Had we gone back in time and followed the historical footsteps of our national defeat, despite the painful truth, we would have unequivocally placed the Macedonian people on the right path. Unfortunately we did not do that and have not done it for over seventy years. Not doing that proved to be very harmful to our people as was confirmed after World War II, with the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia who, after Macedonia’s partition in 1913, found it difficult to survive spiritually united as one people.

Our history has yet to properly record the Greek Civil War. Our people do not know, and have yet to learn about the greatest evil perpetrated against them: the seizure of 28,000 children; the tearing apart of the Macedonian home; the reshaping of the Macedonian family; and finally their genocide and eradication which brought catastrophic changes to the entire nation. The most unfortunate thing about this is that for over half a century Macedonian history did not want to know the truth; did not want to recognize what truly had happened to us. Our history, especially that of the Macedonian people living in Greek occupied Macedonia, was pushed to the side and marginalized. But the truth is slowly starting to come out, especially the truth about the Greek Civil War (1945-1949), a period of uncertain political tactics orchestrated by the CPM / CPY, in first forming NOF with a political and military identity and then easily abandoning it to the CPG after the so-called “brotherhood and unity in 1946”. In doing so, the CPG not only dominated NOF but also placed the Macedonian people in DAG uniforms and sacrificed them while pursuing its own interests. And those who it did not manage to liquidate it gave a one-way ticket out of their homeland and sent them to roam the world. It did the same with their children in 1948.

In other words, we the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia were subjected to a foreign force which did not oppress us, but as a result of its dominion we lost our own power. We were never free to hear our voice of reason. We were never able to hear the voices of truth because we relied on the voices of power above us to tell us what to do. We listened to the CPM/CPY and to the CPG to guide us.

So, how should we interpret this two-dimensional reality?!

The material in this book is mostly dedicated to seeking answers to the essential questions about the brutal act known as “Pedomazoma” which represents a huge and terrible collective human tragedy.

NOTE: The Greek word “Pedomazoma” refers to the child collection program implemented in 1948 in Greek occupied Macedonia that involved about 28,000 children ages 2 to 14. These children, under the guise of “being saved”, were taken from their homes and families in Greek occupied Macedonia and sent to various Eastern European countries and were never allowed to return.

I must admit however, that the process of researching these political processes has been complex and sometimes dependent on philosophical references but, nonetheless, it is possible to find answers outside of the ideological systems.

My aim in this book is to:

Seek facts and not opinions and come face to face with reality which, so far in our history, has been pushed aside in favour of daily politics. In other words, we want to achieve a realistic assessment of events, confirmed by facts and arguments, and stick to the historical past without causing too much turmoil. So, how do we do that?

The Greek Civil War was fought with the Greek government in Athens and its armies on one side and the CPG, the Provisional Democratic government in Greece and DAG on the other. In all this, the most devastating act for the Macedonian people in the 20th century was the loss of the Macedonian children. This was an unheard of and unprecedented act in human history. This is a reality which the Macedonian people have to live with, which has placed a dark mark on their psyche.

Considering that childhood is the most beautiful part of a person’s life, and if pain and sadness is experienced instead of happiness and good times, then it deeply stigmatizes the person’s psyche and

leaves a lasting mark. This is what Greece did when it instigated the “ungodly” migration process to remove the Macedonian people from their ancestral Macedonian lands. And this is exactly what the Pedomazoma was about.

By doing this, was it possible to re-educate and transplant a Macedonian person?! YES it was! Half a century later it shows that it was possible...

Taken away from their parents, friends and home environment, the Macedonian children, trapped in orphanages in foreign countries, not being allowed to return home, were left to experience absence of parental love and family support… craving and dreaming about it forever.

The younger children, uprooted from their parental bosom, too young to remember their parents, were left to wonder: “who am I?”, “Where do I come from?”, “Do I have parents, brothers, sisters, and relatives?”, “What happened to them?”, “What is going to happen to me?”, “Who brought me here?”, “Where am I going from here…?”

The answers to these questions were many and varying… But, worse than that was that the children, engulfed in their daily routine, were under the watchful eye of the Party and bombarded with propaganda in the Party spirit…

And in that spirit, before each occasion or when they were lined up or attending a ceremony, they were loudly asked:

“Whose is General Markos?!” And they loudly replied: “Ours!” They were then asked: “And whose are we?” And they loudly replied: “We are General Markos’s!”

And again a young child would wonder: “Who am I? Where do I come from? Do I have…?”

The parents of these children were also under a special regime. They were mobilized by DAG and sent to the fronts to fight. The CPG

had placed them under unprecedented pressure and demanded from them that they fight hard: “To destroy the Anglo-American occupier” if they wanted to see their children again…

This was confirmed by the mothers at the front, who were left wondering “when would they see their children again?” And were told that they would see them when: “they defeated the Anglo-American fascists!” And to defeat them sooner they would all have to struggle their hardest… The women who built bunkers and trenches on a daily basis had to work even harder because this was their struggle.

They were told: “Tonight you must build three more bunkers than usual so that you can get your children back home faster and so that your fathers, mothers, husbands, brothers and sisters can go home sooner...”

Religion has taught us that a person is responsible for their actions and is judged based on those actions. Communist ideology has taught us that a person must fulfill the tasks of the Party – and that is exactly what the CPG demanded from NOF, AFZH and NOMS! Ideological activists, despite their personal assessments, had no right to contradict Party policy. In other words, an ordinary person had to refrain from individual thought and become completely subordinate to the wishes of the Party because only the Party had the power and magic to know what was best... This is a fact. The Party was responsible for everything, relieving individuals of any accountability and allowing them to be proud of themselves for doing the right thing in allowing the Party to make decisions for them.

This brings us to NOF, AFZH and NOMS! What was their responsibility?

Time and time again the CPG promised the Macedonian people many things but time and time again failed to deliver them. In military terms the NOF, AFZH and NOMS leaders were deceived, manipulated, threatened and made to feel hopeless.

What about the Macedonian women? What did they experience? “Is it possible for a relative’s heart to go against nature?” NO!

Many of the women who had a chance to leave with their children during the Pedomazoma decided to stay and fight at the front. They felt it was wrong to leave their brothers and sisters to fight alone. Once removed from the war zone, they knew the children would be safe. They had full confidence in the women who went with the children and felt they could contribute more to the struggle if they stayed and fought side by side with their kin.

These women and all the fighters who sacrificed themselves during the conflict firmly believed in what they were doing because the CPG had reassured them, while at the same time demanded their full dedication and nothing less from them. This was total subordination of will on the part of the Macedonians! And, given the way events unfolded, the CPG took no responsibility for its actions. More than that, in the end the CPG blamed the Macedonians for losing the war. This was an unprecedented abuse of power.

The fact that the CPG demanded full dedication from the Macedonian people was evident in its aggressive propaganda campaign through which it strongly insisted that every living Macedonian join the struggle through its slogans:

“No Macedonian must be found outside the NOF anti-fascist organization”

“Only organized will we be able to destroy fascism and gain our rights and the right to self-determination”

“All Macedonian women must join the Antifascist Women’s Front (AFZH) for the complete destruction of fascism, for our freedom, for our rights”

The cruel Greek Civil War left a painful wound on the Macedonian people not only on those who fought in it but also on those who were evacuated, as was the case with the refugee children who then lived in the boarding homes all over Eastern Europe. Despite all attempts on the part of the CPG to turn the children into drones and

child soldiers, some of the older children still remembered who they were and constantly felt homesick and desperately wanted to go home and be with their parents, family and friends. This went on for years…

Many of the adults regretted leaving their homeland and constantly questioned their actions and decisions. Remembering their past they often asked each other: “Who made us leave?” “Who did we serve?” “Whose interests did we protect?” “Why are we bound to suffer?” “Are we alone to be blamed for what happened?” “What about the orders given to us…?”

In other words, there is a need for a national pardon!?

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A question that comes to mind is why haven’t the CPG, CPY, CPM, NOF, AFZH and all other “ideological activists” apologized, even over half a century later, to the children, mothers and fathers for permanently separating them and for exiling them from their homeland. Why do they still insist that they “saved them from the claws of the Monarcho-Fascists”? This is truly a painful hypocrisy! Where should we be looking for answers? Should we be blaming the ignorant and naïve for longing to be Macedonian and for wanting their rights and freedoms promised to them…?

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Another question that comes to mind is did we Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia have a strategy for our spiritual and physical survival in our ancestral homeland?

Obviously we did not. If we did we would not have sacrificed our people for “someone else’s” interests. NOF was not exactly what our modern history professes it to be because in its historic existence it came into conflict with Macedonian interests many times. First, it had an ideology that had no human context which related to the Macedonian villager in Greek occupied Macedonia. Instead of protecting the naïve people from the fraud perpetrated against them

by foreign interests, it deluded them into believing that the impossible was possible!

We know that NOF alone was not responsible for what happened to the Macedonian people. We know that NOF was only an instrument of someone else’s creation but the question is who stood behind it? In other words, who wanted the peaceful Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia to become involved in Balkan socialism and why? Why did we Macedonians become involved in the Balkan socialism model after World War Two ended and when that model was already exhausted and pointless? By then Europe and the Balkans were divided into spheres of influence and the question of borders and political systems was already settled.

So, what exactly was our strategy for getting involved in a struggle that was not only detrimental to our cause but in the end brought us catastrophic losses? Unbeknownst to us, was this someone else’s plan to fulfill a long Western Power wish to have a Macedonia without Macedonians?

No matter how we approach the problem in the end we will conclude that it was not our aim to become involved in the Greek Civil War. The reality is that, foreigners, through ideological activism, convincingly forced the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia to not only accept their demise but also keep quiet about it for over half a century. It was someone else’s idea for us to become involved in this conflict with the ultimate goal of driving us out of our homeland. And once that process was started apparently nothing could stop it. What took place during the Greek Civil War was not at all our doing, and unlike the Ilinden Uprising which was organized and led by Macedonians, this conflict was organized and led by outsiders so we can dismiss the idea that the Greek Civil War was a continuation of Ilinden as some of our historians insist!

Here’s why: NOF was not a grass roots organization born out of the Macedonian people’s desire to fight for independence. NOF was not independently led by Macedonians. NOF was created by foreigners and subordinated to foreigners. In other words, the actions NOF

took during its existence worked against Macedonian interests, leading to grave consequences for both the people and the country.