On the Road of Time – Chapter 4

On the Road of Time – Chapter 4

“This must be the house of the person we are looking for,” I said to my wife and parked the car near the wrought iron fence. Behind the house was a wide courtyard all green with low cut grass. There were blooming roses on both sides of the concrete path leading to the front door of the house. I rang the door chime by pressing the button welded to the iron gate pillar. The entrance door to the house opened and a crippled, old person appeared. Leaning on a crutch the limping person approached us and asked in Greek: “Who are you and who are you looking for?” “I am the person,” I said, “who, about two hours ago, called on the telephone…” The old person thought for a moment and suspiciously moved around. I pointed to my car and as soon as he saw the licence plate he calmly spoke in Macedonian: “Welcome, please come in.” The room we were led into by our host was wide, its floor covered with colourful rugs and hanging on the walls were many photographs of various sizes. The photographs were of people of varying ages wearing clothing, hats and hair styles from different times and different countries. The old man seemed to understand my curiosity and began to explain: “This photograph is the oldest,” he said. “Those two are my grandfather and grandmother and behind them are my father and mother and the rest are aunts and uncles. This photograph is of my father taken in America. And this photograph is of nearly all the people in my village. It was taken during Easter. It says so on the back of the photograph. The majority of them lost their lives in the mountains during the Greek Civil War. This is my son; he is the oldest. He was killed during the battle for Voden. I don’t know where he is buried. In this photograph beside him is my younger son, my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren. He was educated in Romania and became a doctor and my daughter-in-law is a professor. The grandchildren took after their father. They live in Skopje and frequently come to visit us. My wife and I also visit them but not very often. We are getting old… Honestly to tell you the truth, I am very bitter when I am there. I feel uneasy when I hear “those Aegeans this and these Aegeans that”. Listening to them bicker and argue with each other using the name “Aegeans” makes me feel as if they want to disassociate from us; as if we are not Macedonians... This person here in this picture is me. Most of the others are from neighbouring villages, some are from further away. This picture was taken about a month before the war with Italy began, which is why we are all dressed in military uniforms. They summoned us to defend Greece from the Italians. And where do you suppose the Italians would have passed to get into Greece? Most likely right through our lands, that is why none of our men fled or hid to avoid the draft. The war began in the fall and we managed to push the Italians back and pursue them to Ivan Mountain and after that to Pogradets. Our Greek superiors were full of praises speaking “big words” about us, telling us how brave and fearless we were, slapped us on the back and interrupted us to say “bravo, bravo, vre palikaria, Makedones” (bravo, bravo, brave Macedonians)… Yes, that is exactly what they were calling us… Macedonians… This picture here was taken in Ai Strati. The island Ai Strati was a prison camp before and after the war. This is where many of those Macedonian “palikaria”, who fought the Italians and pushed them back, ended up. They did not praise us and slap us on the back here, they just cursed us, swore at us and beat us with sticks, whips and rifle butts… This is me here. There were many of us there, from all over Greece. I read in the paper that now they are building a museum there. Let them build it so that the world can learn the kind of evil one man can perpetrate against another. From almost one thousand souls the Greek Civil War left only hundreds. They did not leave with the communists. They did not want to be saved by the communists.

They saved themselves by hiding in the forests and damp mountain caves. When the bad passed they returned to their homes. The Greek Civil War not only caused devastation but it eradicated our people. Those who left to be saved were exiled and gone for good. If it wasn’t for the communists they too would be home now. Very few of us are left now but we are at home… I am telling you that two or three years after the Greek Civil War was over they released us. Those of us who were serving time in prisons and in the dry Greek island camps were let out, they let us go. We were able to return to our homes. We found our villages empty, desolate. We started rebuilding from the ground up; we began a new life if I can call it that. We were ordered once a week to report to the police station so that they could see that we were still here and to warn us that the prison camps still existed. And not only that, they sat you down on a chair and a policeman sat on other side of the table, to the left and to the right also were policemen leaning on their hardwood clubs. The policeman sitting in front of you persistently looked into your eyes, pierced you with his eyes and with his fist, slowly as if counting blows, pounded on the table. At the same time he continuously tapped the floor hard with his boot. The look, the pounding, the tapping noises overpowered you, caused you to sweat, caused your mouth to become dry, your throat to tighten, to run out of air, everything went black before your eyes, your heart beat faster, your body contracted… The policeman kept doing this until fear penetrated your bones, until fear overpowered your mind, until fear grabbed you by the throat, the chest, it squeezed you, it choked you, it drowned you and when he saw that you were choking, shaking, ready to pass out, then he knew that he had you where he wanted you; that’s when the boot stopped banging on the floor and the fist stopped pounding on the table… Finally the blood of fury spilled out of his eyes and out of his lips came some hidden wisdom and, without taking his eyes off you, he handed you a piece of paper and silently, almost good naturedly, said: “Read out loud!” Then you read: “I the undersigned, of my own will, consciously and without coercion, before the competent authorities, declare that I resign from being a communist”... He then would take the signed paper, put it in an envelope and say: “Excellent! You are free to go but come back in a week!” The next week it’s the same thing, sometimes worse. Again he would hand you a piece of paper and tell you: “Read! Read out loud!” And again you would read: “I the undersigned, of my own will, consciously and without coercion, before the competent authorities, declare that I will be loyal to the state and will respect all laws.” He then would take the signed paper, put it in the same envelope and say: “You are free to go but come back in a week!” You go home with an expressionless, dehumanized face. You go to bed in fear, you dream fear and you wait for the next day in fear. With terrible threats, glaring looks, tight fists, whipping rods, whips, wooden bats, slapping hands, wild yelling, listening under your window and winking at the collaborators who spied on you, they sowed fear into us, the “Palikaria Makedones” (brave Macedonians)… Fear on the road, in the field, in the vineyard, in the garden, at the market, in the store, at the post office, in front of the window. How can you overcome the fear? How can you free yourself from it? They found a way – a passport and a one way ticket. This is how many were freed from the fear and the Greek state from them. They stubbornly stared into your eyes and waited for your muscles to quiver, your hands to shake, a pale complexion to develop on your face, sweat to form on your forehead, your chin to tremble… Fear for the individual and fear for the masses. The fear of one to be transplanted into another until it grabs everyone. The police were not the only entity that sowed fear, there were also the village mayor, the teacher, the priest, the judge and the court system, the military, the church, the radio and the newspapers.

For example the newspaper “Φωνη της Καστοριας” (Voice of Kastoria), wrote something against us every day, it was calling us all kinds of repulsive names like snakes, savages and calling on all of us to “go to Tito”, to disappear from the face of the earth... I am telling you, the next week I went to the police station, I sat on the same chair at the same table and I took a look at the open piece of paper that the policeman shoved under my nose and ordered: “Read the part that is written in black ink.” I looked at it and recognized it to be my son’s handwriting. “Read!” the policeman shouted at me.

The letters sent to us from the countries behind the iron curtain were not delivered to our homes by the post office. When such a letter arrived, the post office informed us to report to the police station where the letter waited for us. We went to the police station to pick up our mail. “I am waiting!” hissed the policeman while pounding his boot on the floor. And what do I read in the letter? A request for me to fight against the Greek Monarcho-Fascists and against Anglo-American imperialism! The moment I read that part, “slap” the policeman hit me on the face, full force, with his hand, turning the letters on the page into stars in my eyes… A few days later the post office advised me that another letter had arrived and that I was to report to the police station to pick it up. The policeman handed me the letter and said: “Here, they are calling you to go to war again.” The call to war was a bit longer in this letter but the handwriting did not match that of my son’s. Another hand had written this letter. The policeman put a piece of paper in front of me and said: “Read! Then sign it!” I read it out loud: “I the undersigned, of my own will, consciously and without coercion, before the competent authorities, declare that I renounce my son who is now behind the Iron Curtain in communist countries...” I stopped reading, returned his paper and said to him: “My son wrote only what someone else told him to and you know who told him to do that, so go and ask him to explain and have him sign the paper…” and then I left without asking for permission. They called me back wanting to see me again. But this time it wasn’t just me. Several buses were parked in the village square and there were men present from the surrounding villages. Someone said that we should board the buses. After we did they closed the doors and told us that we were going to the village Melas, known as Statitsa in earlier times. We stopped for twenty minutes in Aposkep, just enough time to enjoy the beautiful Kostur and Lake Kostur scenery and after that we arrived in Gabresh. The old village was on the left of the road; it was now desolate. The houses built out of clay bricks had fallen. All that was left of Gabresh were walls and gaping holes where the doors and windows used to be, looking gruesome. To the right, on the other side of the river, was the new Gabresh and in front of the bridge was a house with writing on top of the door which read “Police”. The new Gabresh resembled a small city with a public school, high school, post office, a new church, a drug store, several café’s, running water, sewerage, electricity, paved streets and a police station. “Neo Gavros” (New Gabresh) was constructed to gather all the villagers from the surrounding villages into one community supposedly to give them a better life but it was done for better control.

Ten kilometers or so later we arrived in Statitsa, or Melas as they call it now. Melas was the new name given to this village to honour a Greek person (Pavlos Melas) who, with a handful of paid mercenaries (himself also paid), came from Athens to free Macedonia from the Ottomans. The Greeks say a Turkish bullet cut him down in Dolno Statitsa. But with so many Turkish bullets flying that day, why was he the only casualty? Let me say that the Turkish army was not looking for Melas, it was looking for some Macedonians, leaders from the Ilinden Uprising. The house in which Melas was killed is still intact and has been turned into a museum dedicated to the Macedonian struggle, as the Greeks call it, especially dedicated to Pavlos Melas who they made into a legend. There is no school in Kostur Region where a portrait of Melas does not hang. There is much written about Pavlos Melas, but nowhere is it written where and when he led a battle, even a small battle, against the Turkish Army to liberate Macedonia. No one has written about what really happened to his backpack after his death, in which he had gold to pay his “Palikaria” (braves), his spies and collaborators… Every year after his death, on the day of Melas’s anniversary, the village holds celebrations dedicated in his honour. Police officers, bishops, priests and many cousins of Kote from Rula, attend the celebrations. The military band plays marches while bishops and teachers give speeches. And those, the locals making fun of him, now very few in number, in his memory quietly hum a song written about him a long time ago by the pranksters from the surrounding villages, which goes something like this:

Е, ре Павле, ре Павле, (Oh, Pavle, Pavle), Паметвиш ре Павле, (Do you remember, oh Pavle), Кога се криеме о ена воденица, (When we were hiding in a mill), О која најдоме ена вдовица, (In which we found a widow), Која ни даде биеница, (who gave us buttermilk), И му трнаме по ена палица? (And we each put in her a rod?)

(The above text belongs to the Kostur Region folk language and the accent falls at the end of each word).

On our return from Melas some teacher, and after that a bishop, attempted to convince us that the language we spoke at home was “nasty”, “ugly”, “funny”, “unfriendly” and very hostile and detrimental to the Greek spirit. Some time later the men from our village were gathered in the church yard. The church bell rang, the Greek flags were swirling and a military band played Greek patriotic marches; mostly the following march:

Μακεδονια ξακουστη (Celebrated Macedonia) Του Αξανδρου χωρα (Alexander’s country) Εδιοξες τον Βουλγαρο (You banished the Bulgarian) Και εισε ελευθερη τωρα (And now you are free)

While the music was playing and thundering, priests and bishops were gathering on the stage all dressed in their best robes preparing for a great service. There were senior army and police officers all decked out with decorations hanging from their chests. Also in attendance were the Mayor of Kastoria, village teachers, village mayors, journalists and all sorts of other people. There were more of them than there were of us ... and all around were soldiers and policemen.” The old man suddenly stopped talking, took a long sigh, opened a cupboard and took out a bundle of papers. He blew the dust off the papers and with trembling fingers untied the bundle and began to arrange the yellowed newspaper clippings on the table. And while straightening the crumpled up edges he asked: “Can you read Greek? If you can’t, I will read for you.” He then divided some paper clippings from the pile and while mixing his Kostur dialect with the Macedonian literary language, he said: “Written here is when we swore that we would never speak our language again. Look and see what is written… The paper has yellowed but you can still see the black ink, the words are still legible. Look and see what’s written. I will read it to you in Greek and after that I will tell you what is says.” He coughed, adjusted his reading glasses, and with a shaky voice began to read: “Υποσχοµαι ενωπιον του Θεου, των ανθρωπων και των επισηµων αρχων του κρατους µας, οτι απο σηµερον θα παυσω να οµιλω το σλαβικον ιδιωµα, που µονον αφορµην προς παρεξηγησιν διδει εις τους εχρους της χωρας µας, τους Βουλγαρους, και οτι θα οµιλω παντου και παντοτε την Ελληνικην, εις την οποια ειναι γραµµενο και το Ιερον Ευαγγελιον του Χριστου µας.” (I promise before God, before the people and before the Government officials of our state, that from today forward I will refrain from speaking the Slavonic idiom, which is only a false cause for the enemies of our state, the Bulgarians, and that always and everywhere I will speak only the Greek language in which the Holy Bible of our Christ is written.) After taking the oath and kissing the bishop’s hand, who stood by the church yard exit, we left for home. When we arrived at our houses, my neighbour leaned over to me and quietly whispered in my ear: “Now that we have taken the oath that we will never speak our language again, how will we communicate with our wives?” We looked at each other and hid our laughter by covering our mouths with our hands. Then when I entered my yard, even before I had a chance to go inside the house, my wife asked: “How did it go, what did you do?” I

yelled at her, “Don’t ask stupid questions, just get us something to eat…” forgetting the oath I had just taken. All of Greece learned about the oath we took. It would seem that there was no newspaper that did not jump at the chance to write about this great Greek state accomplishment. Listen to what the newspaper “Eleftherotipia” wrote on July 7th, 1959: “All the inhabitants from the village Karidia (Macedonian name Tremino), Ptolemaida District, were gathered together in the courtyard of the primary school. There, during a solemn service, the villagers took an oath that they would never speak the Slavic dialect again, at no time and in no place. After that various officials spoke, including the President of Kozani District, the Chief of Police and others, expressing hope that the residents of Karidia would be an example to all Greeks at the border zone.” The next day the newspaper “To Vima” wrote: “It can’t be perceived that which took place in one of the Kailari Region villages, when in the school yard the local population was gathered and took an oath not to speak in the Slavo-Macedonian dialect. That decision shows to the Macedonians that the Greek consciousness has never gone away in the Greeks of Macedonia and that the language that was used as a habit and as a result of pressure imposed in old times, does not change their feelings towards the Greek homeland. The Slav-Macedonian language should have been banned a long time ago. But now it is still not too late and it should be underlined and used as an example for other Greeks settled in Macedonia who now speak that language, something that is used by foreign propaganda to challenge the Greek character of Macedonia’s population.” The old man stopped reading and asked me: “What did you understand from this?” I expressed amazement with my eyes and he continued: “A month later on August 4th the Solun newspaper “Elinikos Voras”, with large letters, informed its readers as follows: “Moved by the excellent initiative of patriotism expressed by the village Karidia in Ptolemaida District, the residents of the beautiful Kostur Region village Kria Nera (Macedonian Ludovo) who until now, besides Greek, spoke a foreign dialect, and in the presence of the competent authorities, spontaneously resolved to take an oath that they would completely forget that language and in the future they, along with their children, would always and exclusively speak the Greek language. The villagers, each raising their right hand, swore by repeating word for word the entire oath read to them by the blessed metropolitan, in an extremely heartening atmosphere.” In the Athenian newspaper “Kathimerini” on August 11th, 1959 the following was written: ‘A ceremony was held in the Lerin Region village Atrapos (Macedonian Krpeshina) in which the village residents took an oath that in the future they would not speak in their Slavonian dialect. The ceremony was attended by representatives from the Florina authorities and from one hundred local district boards along with many peasants from the surrounding villages. The prefect Depas gave a speech in which he praised the initiative taken by the Atrapos residents.’” The old man placed the newspaper clippings in my hand and, looking into my eyes, asked: “Are they heavy?” I moved my hand as if to measure their weight. “It’s paper…” I said in a stretched out tone. “As papers they weigh nothing, but what is written on those papers, is that heavy?” he asked. We looked into each other’s eyes in silence and at that very moment it seemed to me that the black letters were beginning to get hot and started burning my hand… With a deep sigh I returned the clippings and he carefully placed them back in the cupboard and, after closing the door, he whispered: “And just like that, whether you were home, on the farm, in the vineyard, garden, or market and after returning home, you constantly thought ‘how can I get rid of this fear?’ And while you were thinking about that, they had already conceived of a way to free you from your fear.

They called you in and told you, ‘They are seeking workers in overseas countries’. Do you want to toil in poverty here or do you want to go there with your whole family? You will receive a passport and a ticket for free provided that you won’t want to return here... And as such many were liberated from their fear and at the same time Greece got rid of them... And that time was a time of lies, of humiliation, of betrayal, of cruelty, of spite, of neighbour turning against neighbour, of slander, of distortion, of destruction of what life meant; it was a filthy and inhumane time. And as much as it was ugly and damned, that time should be remembered because we were in that time and because that time swallowed us. And those times made time to be the worst and to be more injurious because that way fear could be delivered fastest and roots could be uprooted easiest...” The old man stopped for a moment, coughed into his hand and said: “It’s better now. They don’t oppose us. We speak our language inside our homes and outside. We listen to the radio on all frequencies and in all languages. We watch television on all the channels we get and can understand. I have two antennas; one looking to the north and the other looking to the south. They don’t prevent our guests from coming to visit us and they don’t call us to the police station after we return from our travels. Those in Athens are concerned a lot about us, have done and are doing a lot for us, but for you, for those of you who want your lands and citizenship back, those in Athens did their math which can be shown by this equation: A1 + A2 + A3 = 0. And you know how you solve this equation? Like this: A1 is the group of people who were born between 1895 and 1915. All those in A1 have now died and left those born after 1915, meaning A2. A2 is the most hated group because it participated in the Greek Civil War and was spread over the communist countries. And that too is coming to a close. To this group they added the group indicated by A3, which is the group of children collected by the communists and taken to Eastern European countries. Now they will wait a little longer, ten to fifteen years until A3 also disappears. And after that they write down the result ‘ZERO’. You ask, ‘What about the children from the A3 group?’ For them, the places where their fathers and grandfathers were born will remain a memory. And this is the math perpetrated by Athens.” Time kills…