CHAPTER TWO - Part 01

CHAPTER TWO

1. An overpowering imperative

With a new directive issued by the District Committee, in May 1944, I was transferred back to the Meglen district, to Tresin Region where Bulgarian influence was high. Certain Macedonian families that were not afraid of me did not bother to hide the Bulgarian books that the Bulgarian agents handed out to Macedonian children for free.

“So what if they are Bulgarian books…?” The elderly in the family usually said, “Was it bad for you to have been educated with Greek books in Greek schools? It is easier to learn in Bulgarian than in Greek…!”

Every day, from one day to the next, young people freely left their villages in the occupied areas in Voden in order to join Comrade Dimchev’s (Bulgarian agent) units so that they could fight for an allegedly “free Macedonia”!

Concerned about all this, Party Secretary Barba Traiko (Nikos Papasermitsis, a Macedonian), one day asked me directly:

“What do you think, what is the way out of this situation…? What should we do to end this defection…?”

Having experience with this, this time I did not advise him to extend SNOF to these villages, (I did not know at this time that SNOF had already been dissolved). I said to Papasermitsis:

“Creating even one Macedonian military unit here in Kaimakchalan would make the place look like a Macedonian national revolutionary centre which then would attract the revolutionary Macedonian youth. The need for such a military unit can be justified as a counter to the Greek and Bulgarian expansion here. The presence of Bulgarian agent Dimchev together with the Greek gendarmerie here, under the same German wing, receiving weapons from the same German warehouse, will be sufficient reason to create such a unit

which then would stop the enemy units from growing and reverse their expanding influence.

To my great surprise, with certain reservations, my advice was taken seriously and immediately acted upon. But, it took me five years to find out why. On the night of June 19/20, 1949, Papasermitsis finally explained to me why he accepted my proposal and acted on it so easily and quickly. That night Zahariadis forced the leading Macedonian military and political cadres from the Party asset to step up the campaign against the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (in the spirit of the famous Informbureau resolution), and I, as a person who had allegedly fallen under the “leadership in Skopje”, was suspended from the NOF Presidency and from the World Peace League Committee. That’s when Papasermitsis acted against me and, among other things, with self-criticism, said the following:

“I activated and appointed him…” he said pointing at me with his finger. “What was I expected to do? The District Committee sent me there and told me that this man possessed special skills for working with the Macedonian population and that I should consult with him and follow his advice…?”

It is true. I brought Papasermitsis the letter from the District Committee when I went there. In other words, they sent me there as an “expert” to suppress the Bulgarian influence and Papasermitsis had to follow my advice.

However, even though he apparently was impressed and somewhat concerned by the weight and importance of my advice, despite his orders to accept it, Papasermitsis still expressed reservations by saying:

“We have no directive on this…!”

But then I reminded him that we were sent here just for that: to mobilize our people against the fascist occupation and against Bulgarian influence. We could only succeed in that, under those conditions, if we formed our own Macedonian military unit, that is, if we treated the Macedonian people as “equals” instead of just talking about it… The only thing we needed to do was have our

Regional Committee show willingness, revolutionary initiative and determination...

Given the weight of the argument Papasermitsis agreed with the Regional Committee that Macedonian military unit must be formed and personally went to get formal consent from the District Committee...

2. Establishing a Macedonian battalion...

The Regional Committee met on June 15, 1944 in order to decide the establishment of a Macedonian military unit as an inevitable imperative.

In accordance with the decision made, the next day I, and Georgi Atanasov-Blaze, at my request, went to start the mobilization while Secretary Papasermitsis went to get approval from the District Committee. Georgi Atanasov-Blaze, like his father, was a very popular teacher and widely known in Meglen Region. That was also the first time I adopted and used my nickname “Gotse” in honour of Gotse Delchev and to continue his work.

At this point I would like to say that I did not know the following at the time. But now, as I write these lines, I know that there was a document… The Voden District Party leaders and ELAS 10th Division had made a decision, according to the document dated May 30, 1944, to form a Macedonian military unit “on request” from the Macedonian CPG members and activists. I also now know that there was a decision made by the Provincial Bureau, almost a year earlier, to form one unit with Macedonian soldiers in Lerin-Kostur and Voden Regions.

But these were only elements of a declarative policy implemented at the top, at the CPG governing level. They were formal concessions made in response to pressures and criticisms coming from the outside, in this case, from the “Skopje leaders” and from the CPY. These decisions were never revealed and were unknown to those working down in the field. But these CPG governing bodies who made these “formal” decisions where the same governing bodies which in practice were trying their best to prevent the Macedonian

national liberation movement and the creation of a Macedonian military force.

Of course, only an alleged or tendentious historian will believe and assert that the Party did implement this policy correctly and was consistent as shown by the written documents, however they will also assert that a large Macedonian military force was not created because, allegedly, there were no Macedonians, or not enough Macedonians, to create it with, as claimed by Rizospastis when it declared that “after the population exchanges Macedonia became as Greek as Attica…!” As was mentioned earlier, during the CPG 5th Congress, held in 1934, the CPG declared that “the Macedonian national question does not exist for the Party because the Macedonian people have already been assimilated into the Greek fold and do not exist as a separate people…”

In the evening we climbed up Mount Kaimakchalan with our first 52 Macedonian volunteer partisans. Georgi Atanasov-Blaze stayed behind in our newly organized camp located over the village Gorno Rodovo, while I followed the action, but only for another three days. After that I immediately became involved with the military organization and training the fighters. Every day new volunteers arrived. The news that a Macedonian army was being created reached everywhere in the Macedonian villages...

3. Why was this allowed?

Petros (Hristos Moshos), a military Party instructor from ELAS 10th Division was the first to arrive to see what had happened.

We explained to him how it came about to form a unit of about three hundred fighters, that is, what happened after we received approval from the Regional Committee. This was the first time I understood the expression “wolf’s smile”, which I encountered several times in Gorky’s works. While exploding from rage on the inside, Petros tried to smile by only showing his teeth.

He left immediately but his visit left me with a difficult and painful impression.

The following document explains why the formation of the Voden battalion was not prevented:

RADIO TELEGRAM No. 94 To: The 10th Division

Information about Bulgarian formed political organizations in Voden.

The purpose of the Bulgarians arming the Macedonian villages is to create an autonomous Macedonia under the auspices of the Bulgarian government and with Hitler’s consent. Head of the autonomist movement is Vancho Mihailov. Their actions are concealed in order to avoid disputes with the Greek reactionaries. Many Macedonians have been drawn in. The Macedonian political cadres also sympathize and are in favour of autonomy. The political organization in Voden with Panos has decided to form independent Macedonian groups with a sickle and a hammer and a red flag. We await your orders.

Petros.

Sent on May 30, 1944 Received on May 30, 1944 (Collection: Aegean Macedonia in the National Liberation War, Volume 1, 1944-1945, AM 1971, document number 115, page 416.)

This is what Todor Simovski, a senior expert of INI in Skopje, wrote:

“According to German archived material, which is now located in the Institute of National History in Skopje, appropriate initiatives for arming the Macedonian villages and creating autonomist military units were taken at Berlin. Leading these units in Voden Region from the city Voden, was Air force Lieutenant Dimchev. Dimchev was an ethnic Macedonian from the village Bozets, Enidzhevardar Region who, as a child, had immigrated to Bulgaria. Dimchev was directly subordinated to German command and followed orders issued to him by German command in Voden as stated in the order

in Berlin...” (Article: Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia at the National Liberation War, Nova Makedonija, January 8, 1972.)

Hence, the need to form a Macedonian battalion was in response to occupier activities and not to Macedonian needs.

Of course, this was not a policy of principle but just an extravagant maneuver. In other words the Party never did recognize the need of the Macedonian people to organize and fight for their own freedom. In fact it was quite the opposite; it was precisely at this time that the Party began its attacks against the Macedonian people, resulting in the dismantling of SNOF in Lerin and Kostur Regions and launching a hostile campaign against their activists. The Party did this to defend the “Greek national interests” in Macedonia whose success could only be achieved by using the Macedonians. Thus, our “Greeks brothers”, with no less determination and unscrupulousness than our “Bulgarian brothers”, tried to exploit the aspirations of the Macedonian people for their own special “Greater Greek” interests...

4. Battalion Command

Eighteen days after Secretary Papasermitsis left, he returned. Accompanying him were the Regional Committee First and Second Secretary and Petros. They suggested that I be appointed commander of the Macedonian unit but I did not accept. It was obvious to me that I would be given provocative orders and if I followed them or not, I would be destroyed as an activist, but also, with me at the helm, the battalion too would suffer greatly. I said that I did not feel I was capable of taking responsibility for the fate of the battalion and its fighters. This responsibility was finally entrusted to Georgi Urdov-Dzhodhzo, District Committee Second Secretary. As his military assistant they appointed a Greek man from Crete named Foundoulakis. I was left third in command responsible for educating the fighters on ideological and political matters. In fact, even though I was third in command, in practical terms the battalion remained in my hands. Namely, Foundoulakis was not popular and because he did not speak Macedonian he had little or no contact with the fighters. Dzhodzho was almost illiterate and could barely sign his name. And, on top of that, he had a weak vocabulary and avoided appearing before assemblies...

5. Proclamation to the Macedonian people

Similar to the Lerin Region villages; Buf being under Bulgarian influence and Rakovo being under Greek influence, the villages Pozharsko and Baovo in Meglen Region had also long been under similar influences. That is, Pozharsko being under Bulgarian and Baovo being under Greek influence.

According to my understanding, and not that of Petros’s, one of the first basic tasks for the Macedonian battalion was to attract those Macedonians who had leanings towards the Greek and Bulgarian positions into the ranks of the Macedonian battalion and to cleanse them of those leanings.

I visited both Pozharsko and Baovo and, on the spot, did my due diligence in explaining our situation and called them to arms. Unfortunately it was not physically possible to visit all the Macedonian villages or to rally the people in Voden while the city was under occupation. That is why I made the following declaration to the Macedonian people:

BROTHERS…!

Please understand that this great struggle is not a Greek fight against the Bulgarians, it is not a Bulgarian fight against the Serbians here in the Balkans, but rather it is a struggle of all nations against the cursed Fascists. The same struggle is taking place all over the world. United with the USSR’s Red Army all nations are fighting for life and death against the Fascist tyrants. For as long as Italian fascism was alive and German fascism was strong, the people’s forces here in the Balkans fought only against them. But after the German fascist hordes were summoned to the fronts and the Italian Fascists fell, the German fascists began to arm the Greek fascists and, in order to attract our Macedonian children, they brought some fascist dogs, servants of fascism, the likes of Kalchev, Dimchev, and others like them to deceive our children. They filled their heads with dreams, gave them arms and turned them into servants of German fascism.

Our Macedonian People’s Army, united with the Greek People’s Army, is now fighting here against the German and Greek fascists and against our own children…!

The Greeks fascists and our tricked children are getting their weapons from the same warehouse…! We all know why the Greek fascists and the Greek gendarmes are fighting. Our children, lied to by Kalchev, Dimchev and others, united with the Greek fascists and gendarmes under the same German fascist wing, are fighting not for Macedonia but for fascism which is fighting against the Macedonian people’s army and against the Macedonian people…!

DEAR MACEDONIANS!

Our path is not with the fascists. It is with the democratic people of the world. We will gain our rights and freedom only if we join the democratic Greek people and all the other democratic peoples in their struggles.

Fascism will die…! The Italian people have risen against it. The Romanians are doing the same and so are the Czechoslovakians, the French, the Finnish and the Bulgarians…!

Children of Macedonia!

Join the ranks of the Macedonian army and let’s move forward against the fascists. We will fight together with the Greek people’s army against the cursed Greek fascists and against all fascists…!

Grab the guns carried by your old fathers and become SOLDIERS of the Macedonian people. As a separate people, we should have our own people’s army.

Forward…! Rifle in hand and forward…!

Macedonian fathers!

Donate your guns…! Don’t be bad Macedonians by hiding your rifles, allowing them to rust, instead of donating them to the soldiers of our people…!

DEATH TO THE FASCISTS - FREEDOM TO THE PEOPLE – LONG LIVE THE NAME MACEDONIA!

Leading the main headquarters of the Macedonian army are DZHODZHO, BLAZHE, GOTSE, GUSHI, SOTIR...

Understandably, I omitted the name Lefteris Foundoulakis, the Greek officer, for obvious reasons. I put Blazhe right after Dzhodzho because he was there and, as I already mentioned, widely known in Meglen Region. I was Gotse while Gushi was well-known in the villages Teovo, Nisia, and generally in Ostrovo Region, as well as in the city Voden because he was from Voden. Sotir was from Ber Region or from Solun, I am not sure which one.

Publicist Hristo Andonovski, among others, who at the time was a political worker, said the following in his own publication about this proclamation to the people:

“The first call for joining the Macedonian battalion, made in the Macedonian language, was made to the population in Meglen and Voden Regions, where the goals of the anti-fascist struggle were introduced... History has no record of such a massive turnout as was the case in the Meglen Region villages, Baovo and Pozharsko in particular, from which over one hundred fighters immediately emerged, and many of them with their relic weapons that their grandfathers had hidden in their homes...” (Hristo Andonovski: Macedonians under Greece in the struggle against fascism, INI Skopje 1968, p. 178.)

The battalion grew from hour to hour just like the stories told about it. There was such a great influx of new fighters coming from the villages and from the city Voden that it created concerns among the Greeks. So, in order to slow it down, even reverse its growth, a “medical commission” was appointed to examine the volunteer fighters. Petros made sure of that. In its great wisdom the commission began to turn back most fighters telling them that they were “unable to fight” because of medical reasons. But, even this scandal could not influence the rapid growth of the battalion. About a month and a half later, sometime at the end of July 1944, the

battalion had six complete units with their own organizations, seamstresses, shoemakers and weapons workshops. There were a total of about 750 fighters.

Then, the order from 10th Division (Petros) came ordering us to stop receiving volunteers...

This, under the circumstances of the time, actually meant to stop, or to prevent further mobilization of Macedonians into the army and to stop the creation of a Macedonian military force…!

In addition to the news embargo placed quietly on all news coming out of the Lerin and Kostur Regions about the development of the Macedonian anti-fascist national liberation movement there, there were also other limitations placed on us, such as:

SNOF being limited to only Lerin and Kostur Regions. Not allowing SNOF to expand into Voden Region. Dissolving SNOF in Lerin and Kostur Regions.

This order – the ban on receiving volunteers in the battalion, was yet another CPG anti-Macedonian act…!

6. The Macedonian alphabet

The battalion stopped growing in numbers. Without seeking help from anywhere, and feeling the urgent need to do something, feeling it was my revolutionary obligation to somehow fend off this blow against the development and strengthening of our liberation movement, I decided to create a Macedonian alphabet. I decided to do this because of the existence of the six Macedonian units - in which the Macedonian fighters were craving to sing Macedonian combat songs everywhere, where the units appeared and acted admirably among our people.

I realized that their success would be even greater if, besides speaking and singing in Macedonian, they could also read and write in Macedonian with their own Macedonian letters instead of “borrowing” letters from the Greek and Bulgarian alphabets. It was

clear to me that neither the Greek nor the Bulgarian alphabets were acceptable to the entire Macedonian nation as their own.

After I created the new alphabet I began to first teach it to the fighters… to everyone. To make that easier and more accessible, I had the alphabet written on a large billboard in various colours and had the billboard hung on a beech tree in the centre of the camp. The billboard and colour idea was the work of my assistants Petre Sarakinov and Dinko Dielov, both of Voden. Each one of the fighters then wrote the alphabet down in their notebooks along with the combat songs. In other words, they wrote the songs using the new Macedonian alphabet. But that did not end there. They also began to write letters to their parents, friends, relatives, in the Macedonian villages using the Macedonian alphabet. On top of creating the billboard, I also printed and sent convenient leaflets to the villages with the alphabet and Macedonian combat songs. At the same time, I began to look for ways to find the necessary people and technical equipment for publishing a Macedonian newspaper...

I am not a linguist. But I knew what I wanted and how to achieve it. It is true that the Macedonian people from this part of (Greek occupied) Macedonia, from the second half of the last century (1850-1900), found themselves under armed threat from Greek propaganda on one hand and from Bulgarian propaganda on the other. Even when I was a student in the gymnasium I knew that the churches St. Georgi and St. Nikola in Lerin were seized by the Greeks, and the church St. Panteleimon and the gymnasium building were seized by the Bulgarians. The school building in the village Buf was taken over by the “Bulgarians” and the people of Buf were mainly under Bulgarian influence. The village Rakovo, on the other hand, was mainly under Greek influence. Besides the large passive population living in our villages and towns in general, there were active rival groups commonly known as “Patriarchates” and “Exarchates” or as the Macedonian people called them “Grkomani” (Macedonians loyal to the Greek cause) and “Bugaromani” (Macedonians loyal to the Bulgarian cause) operating. And while being scornful of each other, they were mainly responsible for propagating Greek and Bulgarian propaganda. This was done mostly in the past but is still present to this day. Namely, apart from the elderly people, like it or not, the Macedonian people were forced to

learn the Greek alphabet. But, on the other hand, we can’t underestimate the effort of the Bulgarian propaganda during the fascist occupation... The alphabet I compiled was tailored to combat this situation and remove the Greek and Bulgarian influences. The conditions during the struggle were right for the Macedonian alphabet to be easily and quickly accepted and adopted without too much resistance and thus be transformed into an instrument of the Macedonian antifascist national liberation movement…

At the same time, for the sake of quick and greater success, I started with the living Macedonian language, my mother tongue, to which I was introduced when I was a child in my own village, in the surrounding villages in Lerinsko Pole, in the city Lerin and later in Voden Region. Namely, the letters sounding: Б(B), З(Z), Ж(ZH) и Н(N), С(S), У(U), Ш(SH), Ч(CH) are sounds of the Macedonian language and, as Slavic letters, are also found in the Bulgarian alphabet. The rest of the letters: А В Г Д Е К Л М О П Р Т Ф Х (14) (A V G D E K L M O P R T F H) are sounds of the Macedonian language, and are found in both the Greek and Bulgarian alphabets.

The Greek alphabet, of course, was more widespread in this part of (Greek occupied) Macedonia. It was known everywhere, practically in every Macedonian home. But from it the letters Iota (ι), Epsilon (ε), tough (τ), Zita (ζ), Ni (ν), Sigma (σ), psi (ψ), Omega (ω), I left as unnecessary for the Macedonian language and alphabet. Also, I left out the Greek letters (ξ) and (ψ), which could be replaced by the double letters (ks) and (ps).

I have included the letter (ь) in the alphabet, starting from the fact that this short silent sound is present in the Macedonian language, in many words. And as they say here in Voden Region and in Lerin Region in: K’lan, K’lkam, P’lnam, K’sam, G’ltam, M’lzam, V’lk, K’lk, S’lza, S’ntse, K’chevski, K’chishta, ‘rsh, ‘prgia, etc...

7. A Flyer sent with the alphabet

The alphabet was printed on leaflets and distributed with a flyer in the Macedonian villages on behalf of the Voden ELAS Macedonian Battalion. The caption on the flier read:

BROTHER! The Macedonian army is the strength of the Macedonian people. The Macedonian army is struggling to provide freedom for the Macedonian people as a separate nation, with full rights where our mother tongue can be spoken in our churches and schools.

The Macedonian army is guarantee that our people will freely speak their native language forever. Our villages should now open Macedonian schools and teach Macedonian with Macedonian teachers.

The Macedonian army is fighting against the tyrants, not only with weapons in hand, but also with enlightenment. It brings self-awareness to our people and fights against other people’s propaganda and influences.

We believe that all Macedonians want to read newspapers and proclamations written in their mother tongue. So we believe that they will immediately learn the following 24 letters:

А Б В Г Д Е З Ж И К Л М Н О П Р С Т Ф Х У Ч Ш Ь.

This, for now, will be the Macedonian alphabet. It is very easy to learn. It is not too short for our language and it is not overloaded.

All Macedonians who want to read newspapers and leaflets in their mother tongue should learn the alphabet. Soon we will begin sending them to you...

Long live the name Macedonia! September 5, 1944

The above text was taken from my manuscript which has been preserved in the Macedonian archives in Skopje. The language it appears in here has been slightly changed to correspond to the modern Macedonian language. The original was written in the dialectal language corresponding to the Lerin and Voden Region dialects. You can say that it was written in my original “Slavophone” Greek language. Namely, it was written in a mixture

of words and expressions from the Lerin and Voden Region Macedonian dialects, which today linguists and historians will find very interesting...

8. We and the Bulgarians

One day an old man, a parent of a fighter, came to the camp to see his son. He wanted to see what his son looked like as a partisan, as a soldier of the Macedonian army. While looking at the placard with the alphabet written on it he asked: “Why didn’t you use the entire Bulgarian alphabet, with all its letters? With it you could have written any Macedonian word.”

I explained to him as simply as I could that even though our two nations have much in common, there are some things that are different. The words “people” and “father”, for example, are basic words in the life of every particular nation. Every special nation, in its language has its own special names for them. The Bulgarians call “people” “hora” or “horata” and “father” “bashta”. Here they differ from us Macedonians. We Macedonians call “people” “lugie” and “father” “tatko”. Accordingly, even although both languages have common Slavic roots, our language and the Bulgarian are different branches… in other words they are different languages. This means that our and the Bulgarian language and our and the Bulgarian people have been individually developed and shaped.

Yes, indeed, the Bulgarians do say that we Macedonians are Bulgarians. But it’s just a policy for their ill-gotten gains. Can you imagine Bulgarians agreeing to partition their lands with their neighbours the Serbians and Greeks if those lands were indeed Bulgarian…? Of course not! There is no Bulgarian who will agree to that! However, the Bulgarians in 1912 did agree to divide Macedonia with the Serbians and Greeks after they snatched it from the Ottomans. Even then, during the division, they started the Second Balkan War and fought amongst one another… as a result of that division.

We are definitely a unique people, with our own unique language and therefore we should have our own separate Macedonian alphabet. The time will come when Macedonian scholars will

compile a complete Macedonian alphabet. This is only temporary, for now... I concluded.

The old man thought for a moment and then walked away…

Unfortunately my plans to further the spread of the Macedonia language did not come to fruition. The publication of the planned Macedonian newspaper never materialized. Soon afterwards, while I was absent, (I believe it was) Petros (Hristos Moshos), an ELAS and Party official, arrived at the camp and tore up the placard. After inquiring and finding out what the letters were he got very angry and ripped it up...

He then said: “Now is not the time for such things!”

On October 12, 1944, the same day the Germans were leaving Athens, I put myself in charge of the battalion and, through a number of maneuvers, managed to avoid colliding with the ELAS forces sent to disarm and dissolve our battalion. This took place on the night of October 12th to October 13th... On the morning of October 12th, Dzhodzho took it upon himself to “detach” himself from Levertis Foundoulakis, his Greek officer in charge of “assisting in military matters”. Dzhodzho caught up with the battalion at Tikveshia at the Vatasha...

9. Rochko “the aficionado”

Things went something like this:

On October 10, 1944, a villager took me aside to speak to me privately. I accepted. He told me that an official from that Macedonia behind Kozhuv Mountain was on vacation and for treatment in the free territory in Karadzhova, Meglen Region. He was now located in Sarakinovo. He rode on a strong and beautiful horse. He wanted to know if I would agree to secretly meet with him, to speak in private, without telling anyone anything…

It was very interesting and unusual. But what was all this about…?

I agreed.

Was it a provocation…? No. I did not think so. At that moment I was in Krontselevo, writer Tashko Georgievski’s village. I needed to go to Sarakinovo, a neighbouring village, the village of Georgievski’s hero, Done Kielavio the leading character from his book “Black Seed”... This was also the Battalion’s place of birth and where it grew. The villagers and the Battalion of 750 fighters were one and the same. And I can tell that no provocateurs can survive here under these conditions. Neither Greek nor Bulgarian...

A got on a horse around midnight and took to the road for Sarakinovo. With a big stick in his hand, the villager led the way. When we arrived in Sarakinovo we went into his yard. We climbed up the stairs and went into a guest room. The lamp was lit and was shining bright. The official was sitting at the end of the long table.

It was Rochko from Vatasha.

The villager closed the door behind me and left. I sat at the other end of the table. We were alone sitting opposite to each other. He spoke slowly and carefully, in circles, a little like a diplomat. He was unsure; he did not know how I was going to react. Then it became clear to me that they, from that part of our homeland (Republic of Macedonia), were concerned about the fate of the Battalion and about our liberation movement in general...

It was wonderful to know that…!

And, as the expression goes, I decided to show him all my cards. Yes, I said, our relations with our Greek friends are not good at all. The Party leaders act like provocateurs… They are openly anti-Party and anti-Macedonian. There is no longer anything in the party line that supports equality. SNOF was dissolved last May and they have generally banned all Macedonian organizations. They rejected our new volunteers in the Battalion and stopped us from creating a Macedonian revolutionary military force. We now expect that they will dissolve the battalion any day. The trainers from Voden Region recently had a conference in Krontsedevo. They received a directive to open schools in the free territory. And only Greek schools… everywhere…. also in the Macedonian villages… The same way it

was before. In short: they are struggling with all their might to stifle the Macedonian national liberation movement. That’s how things are here with us…!

We had no problem coming to an agreement. We decided it was best if the battalion temporarily took shelter in them (Republic of Macedonia). It will be well-armed, as much as possible, and, at a suitable moment it will come back and organize a mass Macedonian uprising against the occupiers and fight for the freedom of the Macedonian people.

This is how it was with Dzodzho. He was an ambitious person. He received directives and blindly followed them… without thinking. He was arbitrarily appointed in the wider composition as member of the Provincial Bureau for Macedonia and Thrace. His position was CPG District Committee organizing secretary for Voden Region. He would not even take a step without a directive, let alone secretly transfer the battalion to the other part of Macedonia (Republic of Macedonia) in the territory of another Party... I believe it was a good decision but, obviously, I was the one who had to find a solution. And I found it. I then asked Rochko if he could, as a member of the Macedonian National Liberation War Main Headquarters, see Dzhodzho and present him with the full directive:

a) The battalion will be placed under the command of the Macedonian National Liberation War Headquarters and will be proclaimed as the 21st Brigade of the Macedonian National Liberation War,

b) The battalion should immediately transfer to the territory of Vardar (Republic of) Macedonia, where it would be reorganized and properly armed,

c) After it returned to its own territory, the battalion would organize a Macedonian general uprising...

Rochko said he would do it.

After our quick agreement was concluded I returned to Krontselevo. The next day the villager appeared again. He said he had something

important for Goche (Rakovski) and Dzhodzho. Dzhodzho and I went to see him together. When Dzhodzho found out what this was all about he began to turn his head. The conditions… the secret meeting with a representative from that part of Macedonia… were all a shock to him...

While the villager waited outside, Dzhodzho and I had a talk and decided it was unfair to deny the man the contact he requested. I said to him let us first hear him out and then we will see what happens...

We arrived in Sarakinovo around midnight. We went to the same house. Dzhodzho listened to Rochko very carefully. Not knowing how to answer, he asked me to go down to the courtyard with him and have a discussion. Rochko waited in the house...

It was not hard for me to convince Dzhodzho to accept the proposal. If we are going to start a revolution, I told him, then let us start a revolution and not follow this nonsense of a directive “not to accept volunteers…!” Think about it: We will go there and come back fully armed with good weapons and ammunition ready for a general uprising! In a short time we will have one, two brigades, and maybe an entire division. The Party has opted for an armed struggle against the occupiers. No one will hold it against us if we carry out the party line with much success. Obviously, the moment is right and critical for a revolution. The moment calls for an extraordinary revolutionary initiative and revolutionary consistency. If we accept, our Macedonian revolution will become massive. Our revolution will be able to break all restrictions imposed by the provocateurs. Our revolution will be recognized and affirmed... If we don’t accept, there will be no revolution. SNOF was disbanded… they will also disband our battalion and there will be nothing else. Our people will be nowhere. The other side will not want to hear a word about any rights for the Macedonians. They will be saying where were you? Where did you disappear? Do you remember, nine years ago at the CPG V Congress they insisted that a Macedonian national question did not exist for the Party and that was because supposedly no Macedonians existed as a separate people?

So, I asked him: “Are we going to be revolutionaries and show everyone first, that we are here and, second, that we and those people behind Kuzhuv and Kaimakchalan Mountains (in the Republic of Macedonia) are one and the same people, or are we going to be cowards and, fearing the provocateurs, betray our own people…?!”

I had his ambition in mind when I said this. And I was not wrong… He obediently followed his ambition… But at a given moment, only revolutionary disobedience could have elevated him to become something and someone, even a historical figure.

We went back to the room where Rochko was and shook hands on it...

10. Commander Lefteris

The next day, October 12, 1944, we concentrated all five units in the camp above the village Gorno Rodovo. (The first unit, the best one, was absent, detained at Paiak Mountain, under direct command of the 30th ELAS brigade). During the night, I spoke to all the commanders and commissars and told them:

“Without rushing I want you all to get the troops ready to leave in thirty minutes. The direction and goal will be communicated to you in time... Any question? No. You are dismissed…!”

I kept Giorgi Iakata-Gushi from Voden behind. Iakata was the commissar of the second unit. I told him that his troops will follow at the end of the column. The third line, the bottom one, will be strengthened by adding five or six fearless fighters and all the machine guns and automatic rifles from the other two lines. The other lines will remain with rifles only. Your task is to protect the column from enemy forces that may attempt to break us up.

Iakata smiled with understanding. He knew that under the given conditions the only enemy forces we would be encountering would be Greek ELAS units.

A detailed plan was worked out: What distance to follow behind the column, how long to protect it, how to maintain permanent contact with me personally, how long before abandoning his position and, in the end, how to get away and join the column above the village of Zborsko...

When we were returning from Sarakinovo, Dzhodzho asked me how were we going to handle his “assistant in military matters” Levertis Foundoulakis, the Greek officer. What will we do with him? We should not let him see anything, nor should we allow him to suspect anything. We should get away from him. Shall we kill him…? he asked. No. Far from it..., I said. It’s pure meanness. The man is an anti-fascist (Dzhodzho had confirmed that Foundoulakis was a Communist, a member of the Party) but we do have to get away from him.

I proposed a plan, and Dzhodzho accepted it:

11. Withdrawal of the battalion

Dzhodzho was to call Foundoulakis in the morning (October 12) and inform him that he had received information that the Germans were planning to re-occupy Karadzova (Meglen Region). The Germans were planning to attack and destroy our units in order to secure the railway and the road passing through the Voden-Ostrovo pass and that we needed to give the Germans an appropriate welcome. For that purpose, both of them (Dzhodzho and Foundoulakis) needed to leave right away and spend the whole day looking for suitable places along the Voden-Supotsko road to organize an in depth resistance -three strong ambushes, one after another and some distance from each other.

In the evening they were to go to Supotsko for a well-deserved rest. Dzhodzho was to visit his fiancée Katina, and Foundoulakis’s his wife. The next morning they were to return to the camp… That was what they had to agree to. But while Foundoulakis was resting at night, Dzhodzho was to take Katina to the village Zborsko and from there travel over Kozhuv Mountain and join the battalion at Tikveshia...

This plan was hatched to the last detail without any difficulty …

Transferring the battalion, however, was something completely different. Unbeknown to us, we had official enemy agents among our fighters who had joined the partisans as “volunteers”. One of those “volunteers” was a beautiful woman who had recently escaped to Voden. She had come together with a larger group of people from Voden Region. I believe she was the child of immigrant parents from the Turkish part of Thrace. All the time she tried to hang around headquarters, especially around me. One evening she asked me to explain the Macedonian alphabet to her. She wanted to know how I composed it and how each letter was pronounced. Then, with a seductive look, she asked:

“Please write it down for me, I want to have it as a souvenir from you!”

I did what she asked and immediately sent her to her unit. Whether she was frightened or simply finished her task, the next day she deserted and, through enemy channels or connections, found herself in Voden.

We also had many cases of “volunteers” reporting to the corresponding services such as the ELAS X Division, the XXX Brigade, the District Committee, etc. There was no escape from them so the only thing left for me to do was to hold off on informing the commanders of the battalion’s real motive.

First, I ordered a slow preparation for the movement…

If I ordered a more urgent preparation it could have led them to think that it was a more serious situation which needed to be performed unexpectedly, unnoticeably and under disguise.

I said nothing about the direction we were taking or about the purpose of this movement.

The officers and fighters were left uninformed. They had to wait a long time before they could figure out on their own which direction the battalion was headed and what its mission was.

Instead of going north, the initial heading for the battalion was south.

This, I figured, would undermine their vigilance, and suggest to them that we may be going to perform some kind of night action on the rail line or on the road at the Mauem An (Voden-Ostrovo) pass, or we were transferring the battalion to the opposite side of Mount Karakamen (Vermion).

The weather was cloudy which made the night very dark. I used the cover of darkness to change the battalion’s direction which made it unnoticeable. We took to the southeast, then east, northeast and north, avoiding populated areas. We arrived in the village Zborsko at dawn on October 13, 1944. After a short break, we set off for the Tikveshia overpass...

Just as the fighters figured out where we were going some of them suddenly took “ill” and were unable to follow the column...

I decided to pace back and forth inside the column and somewhere under the village Baovo, in the flat area, I found a grouping of fighters who had stopped moving. The reason for that, I was told, was because of the hurdle they ran into attempting to cross a brook that had flooded from the rain. There was no bridge to cross, only two logs that substituted for a bridge. Everything was wet and very slippery. It was raining gently. It was also dark and visibility was very poor. The whole mission could have failed because of this so I decided to cross the brook myself by walking through the running water. It turned out to be knee high. I came back to the bank and ordered the fighters to march through it. We threw the two logs into the water and sent them down the torrent. They disappeared into the darkness...

We were wet for many hours. I knew that hardly anyone complaining of being sick was actually sick but I decided to “help” them anyway. I gave orders that each sick person be accompanied by his or her closest friend to help them go back…!

I was certain they would go back running.

I saw no harm in doing that. By the time these “sick” fighters informed the ELAS units, sent to disarm and dissolve the battalion, where the battalion was, it would be too late. They couldn’t even reach us or cut us off with motorized vehicles, if there was a way to do that...

We arrived at the first village under Mount Kozhuv in Tikveshia just before noon. I immediately prepared a leaflet informing everyone why we were withdrawing and that we were doing it in protest... I immediately sent back five fighters to the villages in Karadzova, Ostrovo Region in Voden to distribute them to the people.