WALKING ON ICE OVER THE MOUNTAIN IN BARE FEET

WALKING ON ICE OVER THE MOUNTAIN IN BARE FEET

Friendship between Vaska Petrovska, a Macedonian, and Vasiliki Damianidis, a Greek, lasted more than half a century

Vaska Petrovska, a Macedonian woman, and Vasiliki Damianidis, a Greek woman, both child refugees, had a unique friendship which lasted more than half a century. It started during difficult times when both spent eight years in children’s homes before they were reunited with their parents. Vaska remembered the exact date when they met for the first time. It was August 13, 1956. They were traveling together going to Nove Gradi, Czechoslovakia where their parents were waiting for them. This is what Vaska said, “We were together on the train the entire time. When we arrived, the two of us and all the children traveling with us were sent to an old folks home. This was one of the homes where Macedonian refugees were sent after DAG was defeated in the Greek Civil War. Since then Vasiliki and I became inseparable. We went to school together to learn to speak the Czech language…”

From all of the children in that home, only Vaska and Vasiliki went to medical school while the others were learning handicrafts, sewing, bricklaying, house painting, etc. As for their friendship; a Macedonian and a Greek being friends? Vaska believed it was not acceptable to everyone. This is what Vaska said, “Our friendship disturbed some of the Greeks so they tried to separate us. I will give you an example of how much the Greeks disliked the Macedonians. Even though our parents fought together on one side during the Greek Civil War, when Vasiliki and I were accepted into medical school Vasiliki was given a medical textbook and I wasn’t. Our instructor was Greek. One day when he was absent a substitute instructor was sent to teach. When he asked us to take out our textbooks I told him I didn’t have one. He insisted that everyone was issued a book and wanted to know why I wasn’t given one. He then

went and looked through the drawers of the teacher’s desk and found a book. He said this is your book and gave it to me…”

After Vaska and Vasiliki finished school in 1961, Vasiliki got married and they separated. This is what Vaska said, “I lost track of her for forty years. I had no idea where she was. Then, in 2001 she ran into my brother and asked him for my phone number. She called me and several months later she came to Skopje to see me. I went to the airport to meet her. We did not recognize each other. We had both changed physically. We were old but our friendship remained the same, it didn’t change. The next year my husband and I went to visit her in Volos, Greece. She then visited us. We frequently talk on the telephone. The first words she says are, ‘Hello my friend,’ and I know who it is. We will see each other again this year…”

The issue that Greece has with the name Macedonia has not been a problem for Vasiliki and her husband, because they both know to which nationality the name belongs. This is what Vaska said, “For her I’m Macedonian, and for me she is Greek. I feel sorry that she has forgotten how to speak Macedonian. She understands everything but can’t reply. Because of that, when we are together, we speak Czech to each other.

Today Vaska Petrovska lives with her husband Ahil in Butel, Skopje but the road she took to get there was long, difficult and traumatic. She was only seven years old when all the children from her village D’mbeni were gathered together in the village church and told that they were going across the border where they would be given a lot of candy. This is what Vaska said, “I grabbed my mother by her skirt and told her that I wanted to go. They knew where we were going but we, the children, didn’t. And so we left near the end of March. I remember how I was dressed. My mother knitted a dress for me, it was turquoise in colour. She also knitted a hat for me from the same yarn. My parents also bought me a new pair of white rubber boots from Kostur. My mother gave me a little bag full of bread for the trip. My mother took our donkey and came with us. My sister Toma, who was ten years older than me, my grandmother and grandfather stayed home. My oldest sister Evgenia had already joined the Partisans and was fighting. My father had to look after our sheep outside the village. When we climbed up the mountain the

ground was frozen and covered in snow. We all got wet. My mother accompanied us to the village Rula before she turned back. I know she hugged me and cried but for some reason I don’t remember it. I later found out that when she was going back, she found one of my boots. I had lost it. She was really worried about me when she found it. I walked with one bare foot on ice and snow but I can’t remember any of it…”

Vaska does not remember how they crossed the border or how they arrived in Bitola. She was supposed to go with her brother to Czechoslovakia but in the chaos she got lost and continued with the children that got off the train in Belgrade. Her brother ended up in Czechoslovakia. The first thing they did in Belgrade was cut the children’s hair, bathed them and then drenched them in pesticide to kill the lice. All of them had lice. From there they were transported to Bela Tsrkva.

Vaska’s family was spread all around the world. Evgenia, her Partisan sister, at the end of the Greek Civil War married a Greek; she got pregnant and was sent to Albania to give birth. This is what Vaska said, “My sister Evgenia told me that she and her child were sent from Albania to Russia on a cargo ship, in which she experienced a lot of hardship. They were traveling illegally during the time of the Inform-biro (when Stalin and Tito were feuding), when Yugoslavia had closed the border. Around twenty women with small children were placed on a cargo ship carrying cattle. Each time the ship crossed a checkpoint they had to hide on the lower decks. They were told to keep silent and hold their children’s mouths so that they didn’t cry. When Evgenia arrived in Uzbekistan she had nothing and existed in great poverty…”

Evgenia now lives in Athens with her husband and they have three children. Vaska’s brother remained in Czechoslovakia where he married a Czech woman. Vaska’s younger sister moved to Macedonia. Her mother and father also ended up in Albania as refugees and from there they were sent to Czechoslovakia on a cargo ship. This is what Vaska said, “I had not seen my parents for eight years. To be honest, when I saw them for the first time, I didn’t feel like they were my parents or that my brother was my brother. I grew up in children’s homes and had lost all my feelings for family. Even

after that we didn’t have much time to get used to each other; we didn’t live together long. My parents died in a car accident in Bulgaria…”

Vaska’s mother suffered a lot from being away from her children. When she lived in her village she received a picture from Vaska, in which Vaska’s finger was bandaged but looked like it was cut off. That deeply upset her. When they saw each other for first time in Czechoslovakia, her mother ran and gave her a hug and then examined her hand. She was relieved when she saw that all her fingers were there.

This is what Vaska said, “After my sister Evgenia, who lives in Greece, received her share of the money from the sale of our property, she contacted us and told us to send her our information so that she could send us our share of the money. We sent her what she asked for. Later she called us and told us, that she had received money for her share but not for ours because we were not ‘Greeks by nationality’. They gave her the share of her money because she was married to a Greek. All Greeks received money from the sale of their properties. They received a lot of money. However, my sister didn’t tell me how much she received. She said, ‘It will make you sad if I told you…’ Evgenia is not only Macedonian but a patriotic Macedonian. She speaks and can read and write Macedonian. Unfortunately she and her husband constantly argue over the name Republic of Macedonia. This is what Evgenia said to me, ‘Every Greek should accept the name of the Republic of Macedonia… I’m Macedonian, I speak Macedonian, my father was beaten in the village because he was Macedonian, and how can they now say we are not Macedonians, and you don’t have the right to use that name Macedonia’…”

Vaska continued, “My husband Ahil was from Orovo, Prespa Region. He had two brothers and a sister. His oldest brother Kote was a Partisan and died during the battles on Gramos. His other brother Tsvetko and his sister Atila were refugee children. They lived in children’s homes in Czechoslovakia. After DAG was defeated, his parents were sent to Poland as refugees of the Greek Civil War. But his father did not want to bring his children with him, as the Communist Party of Greece (CPG) had requested because at

the time they were both studying in Prague. This is what he said to the CPG, ‘I will not stop my children from completing their education. I don’t want them to come here. We will go there.’ Unfortunately the CPG would not allow them to go to Czechoslovakia. We saw my husband’s parents for the first time in 1963 when they came to our wedding in Czechoslovakia. My husband’s brother and sister were already married by then. Their weddings were without their parents. I remember my mother-in-law taking off her black head kerchief for the first time at my wedding. She was grieving Kote’s death. According to my husband Ahil, the Aegean mothers are the real heroes of this war because they suffered the most. They had no future without their children especially those who fought in the war…”

This is what Ahil said, “When we left, they told us that we would come back after two weeks, and that there across the border they would give us bonbons. However, that never happened. The Greek authorities never allowed us to come back…”