Front Matter - Part 05

August 13, 1949 was a beautiful sunny day. The front was still quiet, but down bellow, in Rulia, Oshchima and Zhelevo, there was a roar of bomb explosions and burst of gunfire. The roar grew louder and louder. Then, around 9 o’clock in the morning, several aircraft flew over Preval, entered Mala Prespa, dropped their bombs and then flew back in the same direction they came from. At 10 am, rockets from short range mortars and grenades were heard exploding on Preval Hill. When the mortars stopped, Monarch-Fascist soldiers were spotted climbing up the hill preparing to take it. Several aircraft flew over them, swooped down and fired machinegun bursts and dropped bombs. A huge cloud of smoke was seeing rising over the hill.

When the Monarcho-Fascist soldiers reached Preval peak and began to crest it, they suddenly stopped and dropped to the ground. A fierce firefight broke out. Then around noon, a group of Monarcho-Fascist soldiers separated themselves from the Preval front line and attempted to climb over Bariacheto height so that afterwards they could descend to Ramna and cut off the partisan withdrawal from the front line in Bela Voda and thus create panic among the partisans left behind. Unfortunately for them, this group was hindered by a strong partisan counter attack that pushed them back. The enemy pushed hard at Preval with constant waves of attacks. They almost succeeded in penetrating Mala Prespa and hampering the withdrawal of the partisan units stationed at the Bela Voda front line.

No one knew what to do at the Bela Voda front line. The fighters watched the struggle take place on Preval Hill and waited with anticipation. If the enemy gained advantage then Mala Prespa would fall in their hands and they would be cut off. The partisans on Preval Hill were fighting a stronger foe who had more advanced weaponry. The partisans in Bela Voda sat on pins and needles waiting for their

next order, hoping it would be to withdraw and abandon the line. No one was allowed to do anything without orders from Headquarters.

The aircraft started flying again around 3 pm swooping down and firing rockets and machinegun bursts. The situation from the distance appeared to be dismal. The women at the Bela Voda front looked worried and some began to cry. At 5 pm orders came to Bela Voda ordering the partisans to “immediately withdraw, leave the front and go to German”. The retreat was very difficult. The partisans had to leave the safety of their trenches and bunkers and run out in the open while it was still light outside. More and more aircraft appeared and followed their movement and would not allow them to get going. The enemy then began to fire their artillery from Lerin. The women had difficulties running and moving fast. The time was passing quickly and they were still in Bigla.

One by one they crawled towards the deep Kosara brook and regrouped there. From there they took a path that led them through a beech tree grove over the Bela Voda crest and over the hill where the water was truly frothy and white. The crest was continuously shelled. But, one by one they crossed it and traveled the distance. The women were afraid to go along so they were accompanied by men. After they crossed the ridge they followed a narrow road through Kievaintsa and landed in the flatlands below where they were joined by a column of partisans and people who had fled the front and had followed the winding stone infested narrow mountain road while pushing their way towards German.

They left the front, they left the front line which for two years the population of Mala Prespa, Kostur and Lerin Regions, had built with sweat and blood. They left the line and with it they left their greatest hope for freedom behind. This front collapsed without a single gunshot fired.

The partisans arrived in German around 10 pm. The village square was teeming with fighters. The various units that arrived from the Bela Voda front were quickly reinforced, regrouped and dispatched to Preval, to the Kalugieritsa hillside near the village Rudari. On one side of the village square about 20 older women from Buf were assembled together holding sacks with their belongings. A couple of

partisans from the people’s militia were prodding them to get going so that they could show them the way to Perovo Tower and from there to the Albanian border. The women protested and refused to go to Albania, they preferred to flee to Yugoslavia. They refused to move from the spot they were standing on. One of the partisans argued with them and one of the women yelled out loud: “Go ahead kill me then, what worse could you do to me than kill me… Without my family I am already dead. Kill me and bury me here, at least my grave will be on my soil…”

There were also partisans in the R’bi village square instructing the civilians who had just arrived from the Bela Voda front line on how to find their way to Perovo Tower and from there to the Albanian border. No one was allowed to stray from this path. Kosta Mandushev, author of this book, tried to go home to his house in R’bi to see his wife who was expecting any day now but the partisans from the people’s militia, who were there to make sure no one escaped, would not allow him. But Kosta went anyway. Being familiar with the village he slipped down the river and went home.

In those days the villages of Mala Prespa were frequented by squadrons of aircraft that buzzed the sky all day long repeatedly dropping bombs, rockets and napalm. They swooped down along the road from Preval to R’bi and to Perovo Tower and then went back. The planes came from two directions, Kostur and Lerin, and mowed the terrain down with their machine guns. They dropped large bombs and destroyed the bridge in Perovo. No one could cross this bridge without being shot at. The people who remained behind had to hide in the ditches and brooks until it was dark.

In the evening the R’bi church bell began to ring and about twenty men and women arrived at the village square. The partisans who summoned them said they had orders to immediately move the villagers out. They ordered them to go to Nivitsi. Stoian Doichinov, Vasil Bechkov, Traiko Bakushov, Nacho Sekoulov and the other men and women who arrived at the village square told the partisans that they were not going anywhere. “You are not taking us from here, from our homes. We belong here and not in Nivitsi. We don’t want to be killed on the road.” They then turned around and went home. About an hour later it became cloudy and started to rain.

Columns of people with their horsedrawn carts, loaded with food and blankets, took to the road and headed for Perovo Tower and Nivitsi. The other villagers from Mala Prespa did the same.

Kosta Mandushev met no one on his way to his house. When he went in there was no one inside. He yelled several times but got no response. He stepped out to the garden and yelled but got no response there either. He then went out on the street and was met by two partisans from the people’s militia who stopped him. He explained to them that he had just arrived from the Bela Voda front and came home to see his wife. They told him that there were a few old women in the house next door and a younger woman who was having a difficult time giving birth. Kosta quickly rushed to the Sekulov house but there were partisans in the yard who stopped him. But after he explained they let him in. He quickly climbed up the stairs and entered the room where the woman was struggling to give birth. When she saw him she said: “Now that you are here I am no longer afraid…”

Kosta ran back down to the yard and asked the partisans to help him take his wife to the Markova Noga Yugoslav border because she was having problems giving birth and needed a doctor. They said the only person who could give him permission was their commander in German. Kosta ran towards German as fast as he could but his fast motion alerted the people’s militia guarding the road who became suspicious and stopped him. He was forced to explain and lost a lot of time in the process. It was midnight when he arrived in German. He explained his situation to the commander and asked him for help; to send several partisans to carry the woman to Markova Noga. He briskly said: “Impossible!”

“Yes it is possible,” said Kosta, “We constantly take wounded from the hills on stretchers, even when we are bombed. It’s a short distance and the road is flat and safe!”

“No! Take her to Nivitsi!” ordered the commander.

“She will never make it to Nivitsi, she will die on the road!” replied Kosta Mundushev.

“I have orders to send everyone to Nivitsi!” replied the commander.

“She is protected by international law,” said Kosta, “because she served in Bela Voda carrying logs. She now needs your help.” “Are you Macedonian?” asked Kosta. “I thought so, I recognize you. Now you need to save a Macedonian woman’s life… a fighter’s life!” added Kosta.

“No! It’s impossible!” replied the commander and turned to speak to a group of officers and abandoned Kosta.

Kosta returned home disappointed. The women from Buf were no longer in the village square. When Kosta got home his wife had already given birth to a girl. The people’s militia partisans were going house to house in the village streets collecting the last remaining people who had returned from Bela Voda and were now collecting the cows and oxen and loading up their ox-drawn wagons with their meager belongings. Expediently Kosta too hitched his oxen to his wagon and put his wife Dora with his new born daughter on it. He checked his watch. It was one o’clock in the morning when they left their home. The partisans stopped them at the Virishta crossroads next to the village. Kosta asked them to let them pass and help them get to Markova Noga but they refused. Dora too asked them. She became emotional and began to cry. Their reply was: “We can’t let you go. We have orders!”

They continued to travel along the valley road and when they reached the main road that crossed into Yugoslavia they found it blocked. They were stopped by a number of women partisans. Neither Kosta’s appeals and pleas nor Dora’s crying helped. The women partisans who told them the same thing that the partisans in Virishta and the commander in German had told them: “Impossible!” Kosta turned his wagon around and, 300metres away, they joined the column of wagons and people heading for the Perovo bridge.

Also included among the civilians and wagons in the large column heading for Perovo Tower were partisans carrying heavy weapons and ammunition, horses and mules with heavy loads, elderly men and women and livestock. The column looked like muddy rainwater

traveling down a river after a strong rainstorm during dry weather. Everyone was rushing trying to get ahead and cross the bridge before dawn, before the aircraft came back. Kosta and his family arrived at the bridge around 3:30 in the morning. The bridge was bombed the previous day and was demolished but the engineering units worked on it and it was now repaired. An older officer sat about 20 metres away from the bridge and informed all those who crossed where to go. Soldiers were stopped about 100 metres from the bridge and were assembled to the side. There were a number of officers who immediately assembled teams and sent them to Nivitsi Mountain to guard the road and bridge. The civilian population continued on its way to Vineni and to the Albanian border.

The road from Perovo to Vineni passed over Mala Prespa Lake at the Nivitsi Mountain pass where there were large boulders and many curves. About 50 metres past the lake, the uphill road was rocky and uneven. The wagon could not travel as fast over the rocky road as it did over the sandy flat road between the two lakes. The oxen were not outfitted with metal shoes and had difficulty walking on the stones. The wagon too shook and tilted from side to side making it difficult for Dora and the young passenger. Dora began to bleed. Dawn was breaking and the airplanes would soon be arriving. The wagon was going slowly. Other wagons that followed behind were in a rush to get by. People came over to help but there was nothing they could do. The road between the two lakes, past the last mills in R’bi stretching about 8 km to the bridge was covered with partisans returning from the front. All these people were rushing to cross the bridge before dawn and hide in the Nivitsi Mountain rocks and trees.

At about 4:30 in the morning Kosta noticed seven aircraft coming from the Bela Voda direction, swooping down over German and R’bi and attacking the road to Perovo Tower. People suddenly rushed towards the bridge and every which way, many fell to the ground. The aircraft went back up again, circled over R’bi and came back attacking the people on the road again and again. Two aircraft returned back to R’bi and followed the road to Vineni and the Albanian border. The planes swooped down low and machine gunned the people, the wagons, the livestock and the horses carrying the heavy loads. Many people and livestock were killed during the first pass. When the aircraft appeared over German, Kosta was on

Krina Hill opposite the island Ail. He tried to get Dora and the baby off the wagon but by then the airplanes were over them so they took shelter near the wagon. Bullets were flying all around them and several rockets exploded nearby, covering them with dust and smelly smoke. There are no words that Kosta could use to describe his experience that day. “I would never, ever want to relive this day again…” he said.

Located about 20 metres away, opposite Ail Island, was a larger boulder and several juniper bushes. Kosta and his family spent the day there while they watched the helpless people and their livestock moving by from P’pli and R’bi and heading for the Perovo Tower, as well as from Perovo to Vineni along the 15 km long road while bleeding and dying along the way. It was a sunny day. The airplanes circled around the sky like vultures swooping down and spreading death and destruction to countless defenseless people and livestock.

The airplanes created a lot of carnage with the first attack on R’bi and Vineni. Many people and livestock were killed, cut down as they attempted to cross the bridge. People who made it past the bridge were assisted by the partisans who, from the mountains, fired at the aircraft. The hardest hit were the people with wagons and families, who were on the road during the first attack. Many were killed and even more were wounded. Many abandoned their belongings, left the road and ran into the mountains to hide. Some took the wounded and tried to get help. The oxen and other animals pulling the wagons such as horses, donkeys and mules were left on the road. Most were killed throughout the day. The only people on the road before the bridge who remained alive after the attacks were those who fled the attacks and hid in the mire of Lake Mala Prespa and in the waters of Lake Golema Prespa. Those who were closest to the bridge and tried to cross were cut down by the aircraft.

Nikolitsa Ushlinova from German was about 1 km away from crossing the bridge when she had her traumatic incident. She was leading her donkey loaded with her possessions with one hand, and in her other arm she carried a two-year girl. The donkey was hit and fell down wounded. She too fell down but was lightly wounded. Also beside her were partisans who were killed and wounded. Nikolitsa got up, ran towards the lake and covered herself and the

little girl with sand. Then an airplane was shot down by the partisans and it fell beside her. She became very frightened and when the airplanes withdrew from the attack she got out of the sand, took the little girl and ran for the bridge. The partisans at the bridge ran to help her. They grabbed the girl and her and ran over the bridge. From there she was sent to Nivitsi and to the Albanian village Zrnosko.

Kosta and his family spent the entire day hiding from the airplanes under the heat of the summer sun. The planes kept flying in and out from two directions, from Kostur and from Lerin, all throughout the day, bringing death and destruction. By the end of the day the entire place was burning. The lake was within reach but no one dared go and get some water; everyone was burning with thirst. Many people gave up getting their wagons and oxen. They just left them on the road and fled down the mountain to the village Orovo and from there to the Albanian border. These poor people had been tormented for centuries; killed and chased and now they were being driven out of their homes forever while leaving their blood behind. The century-old injustices could no longer be tolerated and the people were left with little choice; fight and die or run. Their blood now flowed marking the soil and depositing in it their great pains and sadness, remnants of their glorious history.

A nurse and several partisans bandaged the wounded. A partisan came over to Dora and gave her several pills. She caressed the baby girl and called her Vasa. This was the name of her sister who was killed in the battle for Gramos.

The road from Orovnik via P’pli, Strkovo and R’bi was mined by the DAG saboteurs. When the government army tanks tried to cross it they were turned into scrap metal, dust and smoke. At about noon a few tanks arrived in R’bi followed by a large number of government soldiers. They launched a fierce attack in the flat areas and around the village R’bi. It was a fight of life and death. The helpless partisans and remnants of the civilian population were cut to pieces in this battlefield. It was a sad sight and a disaster. The people who were hiding in the ditches, fields, reeds and swamps between the two lakes were sought out and executed by Monarcho-Fascist executioners, who slaughtered them like ravenous beasts.

Some Monarcho-Fascists preferred to kill partisans with their knives, slicing their throats open and watching them struggle while they were dying. People who were on the mountain above Perovo watched their friends, relatives, fellow villagers and Macedonian compatriots being murdered and they could do nothing to help them. Many could not watch and looked away. Thank God the airplanes were withdrawn and not able to take part in the carnage. The Greek army unfortunately took their place. The aircraft were now redirected to pour fire down the road and around the road from the bridge to the Albanian border where the population and DAG units were attempting to cross into Albania.

The Greek Monarcho-Fascist butchers took the opportunity to kill as many Macedonians as possible during these crucial moments when the population and the partisans were most vulnerable. They took advantage of the people fleeing along the road from Drenovo to Albania to mercilessly butcher them. DAG had already lost the war and would have fled on its own and there was no need for the slaughter. The civilian population had done nothing to provoke this wrath and was only attempting to save itself. It was unarmed and helpless, so why did it have to be slaughtered en masse? These were genocidal crimes committed by the Greek government for which it has yet to answer. Zahariadis too was guilty of these crimes because he was the one who committed the Macedonian people to take part in this genocidal war. There is no doubt about it that this war was staged to destroy the Macedonian nation in Greek occupied Macedonia.

All the prisoners kept captive by the partisans in Drenovo were surrendered to the people’s militia to escort them to Albania. But metres away from the Albanian border the Greeks executed many of them. Included among those executed were Bogoia Pandovski from R’bi, Bozhinitsa and Donevitsa Giakov from German, whom we earlier mentioned were tried for attempting to flee in Yugoslavia.

When the tanks arrived in R’bi, one tank broke off and, followed by government soldiers, took the road to Perovo. They went and examined the wreckage of the downed airplane and then returned back towards R’bi. The Monarcho-Fascist generals, it seems, were in a hurry to do something. They wanted to cut off the column of

refugees from reaching the Albanian border, as soon as possible, so they diverted the tank and the soldiers to go in pursuit. But when the tank came to within a kilometre of the bridge, the partisans blew up the bridge. The partisans shot rockets and mortars from the hill above and downed the bridge. Several soldiers were killed but the tank survived and returned to R’bi. After this incident the enemy tanks and units halted their movement and diverted their attention towards the Sveti Ilia church behind R’bi. This helped the remaining DAG units to withdraw to the Yugoslav border.

People in Markova Noga could hear gunfire in the fields of German and R’bi. Some of the partisan units were cut off and were making attempts to break through but without success. They found themselves in a dangerous and dismal situation. Many were killed and some were wounded and captured. Some fled to the mountains in German and others crossed the Yugoslav border. The first to flee to Yugoslavia were those partisans who guarded the roads at Virishta, preventing civilians from going to Yugoslavia. The very people who would not allow the civilian population to go to Yugoslavia now themselves fled to Yugoslavia. R’bi and German were only 3 km away from the Yugoslav border, yet Zahariadis ordered the civilian population from those villages to travel 15 km to the Albanian border and face butchery and unbelievable horrors. One cannot help but ask “why?”

In Albania

As soon as it got dark and the airplanes left the skies, Kosta and his family continued their trek towards the Albanian border. They first helped the people move the remaining living oxen, horses and donkeys from the road, moved aside some of the wagons blocking the road and continued on their way on foot. The oxen were hungry and thirsty and found it difficult to pull the wagons. Kosta, his family and the refugees traveling with them spent the night in Vineni and Orovo and crossed the Albanian border at dawn on August 15, 1949 and landed in the Albanian village Zrnosko, located on the shore of Golema Prespa Lake at the foot of Ivan Mountain.

During the night of August 15, 1949 DAG saboteurs widened the riverbed in Perovo connecting the two lakes and the next day water flowing from the smaller lake to the bigger lake had eroded the river bottom and made it impassable for the government troops and tanks. At the same time the partisans also planted some mines.

The first thing the people, who survived the attacks and arrived in Zrnosko alive, did was to immediately run to the lakeshore and drink water. The oxen too ran along with them, wagons and all, and lined up on the lakeshore extinguishing their thirst. Still frightened from the attacks, the people quickly dispersed into the woods around the village and stayed there until the evening. There were people lined up for approximately 2 km along the lakeshore drinking water all day long. Some left and others arrived. Some of the women even washed their clothes. Men brought their wagons and soaked their wheels because they had dried and were falling apart from the heat of the sun. Some men repaired their wagons of damage caused by the exploding bombs and shells. Many of the wounded were placed in a sheltered ditch above the village. The sheep that were given to the cooperative and the cattle that were grazing in the fields were collected by a number of partisans and also brought to Zrnosko. Some of the farmers who brought their sheep with them slaughtered some, lit bonfires and roasted and boiled flesh meat. The people were curious to know what was going to happen to them and to their sons and daughters who were still fighting on the other side of the border. They were asking one another questions but the partisans kept separating them, insisting that they don’t discuss such matters. The partisans tried to maintain order and would not even allow them to light fires for fear that the smoke would give their position away and the airplanes would come and bomb them. But no matter how hard the partisans tried, many people were so disappointed that they no longer cared if the planes came and bombed them. Dora was bleeding again and the nurse gave her more pills and an injection to stop the bleeding.

With time, more and more partisans and people kept arriving in the Albanian village.

On August 15, 1949 a bulldozer and a priest were brought to a mass grave near R’bi to bury the hundreds of partisans and even more

civilians who had been killed by the Monarcho-Fascist air strikes and shelling. A priest and a bulldozer performed the funeral. The Monarcho-Fascists gathered all the bodies scattered across the fields and dumped them in a common grave which the bulldozer had excavated earlier. The priest then performed the ritual and the bulldozer covered up the bodies with soil. There were no relatives, friends, comrades, flowers, or wreaths at the funeral, no honour guard to honour the fallen soldiers and no farewell speeches.

When it got dark the column was assembled again and it continued on its way into the Albanian interior. When it reached Leska, the oxen could no longer pull the wagons uphill and the people were forced to push them one by one until they reached the top. They were at Golem Zavoi on Mount Ivan by dawn and before noon on August 16, 1949, they arrived at the Maliki meadows. They remained there for three days. The oxen were let loose to graze in the swamp and disappeared in the tall reeds. On the third day the oxen were collected and brought back. While the people were stationary in Maliki meadows, a number of trucks arrived and brought them food, mostly bread and canned meat. Two women took Kosta’s newborn girl to the village near the meadows for a mother, who had just given birth, to nurse her. Many bonfires were lit during the night which gave an indication of the vastness of the refugee camp. There were many, many people assembled at the Maliki meadows.

After three days of rest, on August 18, 1949 at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the long column began moving again along the road to Pogradets. The sun above was grilling hot and made the trek difficult. Albanians workers working in the fields stopped working and kept gazing at the masses of the unfortunate passing by. Even small children came out to gaze at them. The travelers looked dirty and tired and stared down at the ground as they continued their trek to oblivion. The oxen walked very slowly, their legs were swollen. When the front of the column reached the gardens at the outskirts of the town, the skies became cloudy and it began to thunder. When the cloud came over them the sky opened up and spilled everything it had on them. Hail the size of walnuts began to fall and turned the ground into white ice. The people were traveling under open skies and were drenched by the rain and pelted by the hail. The column

stopped until the cloud passed and it had stopped raining. The column then continued with everyone walking wet and even more down-spirited and miserable.

They passed through the town in the dark and stopped above the road on the shore of Lake Ohrid, 2 km away from town. The people immediately started looking for suitable places to camp. Some went to collect wood and start a fire to warm up and dry their clothes. The weather began to turn ugly again with lightning and thunder heard in the distance. A half hour later it began to rain. The rain was mixed with hail and strong winds. The lake waters began to rise and waves began to splash the road. The people, who arrived late at night and were not familiar with the terrain, camped near the road. They were pounded by the heavy rain and splashed by the waves. Others camped near a brook which quickly became flooded. A child drowned. This created a major stir and panic in the campers everywhere. Voices could be heard screaming and crying in the dark. The wind began to blow, wildly dispersing the clouds but also creating wild waves slamming and pounding the shoreline. The strong north wind was cold especially on the wet bodies. Many spent the night shivering and shaking.

In the morning many woke up stiff and frozen cold. From the night before Dora had a fever and she seemed worse in the morning. There was no doctor to be found. Kosta began to believe the refugees were cursed. He thought to himself: “Where were these clouds, the rain and this wind in Perovo when we needed them, when we were pounded by the Greek airplanes… when so many of my people were killed and wounded. If we had this kind of weather not only would we not have suffered so much but many more people would have been saved. What did these people do to deserve this? Isn’t it enough that they struggled and suffered in the war from the oldest adult to the youngest child? Where will all these people be accommodated now? Why were they driven from their homeland? They all had homes… their own houses and their own beds. They had their own fields, vineyards and barns filled with grain, and vats filled with cheese. These are hard working and obedient people. These people now have neither homes nor a roof over their heads. They are left under the open sky, victims of someone else’s grand plan, driven out like wild animals… like they had no human

feelings… like they felt no pain… beaten down by a storm from which they don’t know how to defend…”

The next day, August 19, 1949, the weather was sunny and warm. There were clothes being washed and dried for a length of 2 kms along the shoreline of Lake Ohrid. The same day an order was issued ordering everyone who brought livestock with them, to surrender their animals to the Albanian authorities. The oxen, cows, sheep, etc., were to be taken to the town park and passed on to the Albanian authorities. There were people seen kissing their animals goodbye when they were separated, just like they were family members.

On August 20, 1949 about 5,000 men, women and children were loaded onto trucks and taken to the town Elbasan. They were offloaded in a large fallow field, in front of the large hospital located near the city, where they spent seven miserable days baking in the sun.

There was only one fountain of water in the entire camp. Hundreds of people continuously waited in a long queue just to get a drink of water. There was no water for washing clothes. Every morning Kosta got up very early in the morning and waited in a long line just to get some water to make tea. He did the same at lunch and dinner. The food they received from the cauldron was inedible and Kosta often threw it in the garbage.

Among the large number of patients housed in the big hospital, there were also many partisans recovering from the wounds they acquired in the battles they fought during the Greek Civil War. The next day after the refugees arrived in the camp, many went through the hospital rooms looking for friends and relatives. Many found their sons and daughters, some without limbs, missing a leg or an arm. Some were disfigured and were missing eyes, teeth, etc. In many of the hospital rooms lay young men and women who could not even move from their beds. Many people who arrived during the second wave of refugees, because they were cut off by the bombing from the first wave, found many of their villagers, relatives and friends here who had been butchered by the Greek aircraft. Some found out about the fate of their sons and daughters who fought alongside with

the patients and who lost their lives in the battles in Gramos, Vicho, Preval, etc. When the mothers found out their sons and daughters had been killed and their bodies were left on the terrain, or buried without a marker, they all broke down and cried and covered themselves in black. They mourned and pulled their hair for days. The campground in front of the hospital was dotted with mourners crying over the ground like it was a giant tomb, but without a single grave.

There was no one capable of calming down the situation or the grief-stricken mothers mourning their dead children. It was a catastrophe. How could anyone calm them down when mothers found out their children were killed, wounded, or captured by the Monarcho-Fascists and sentenced to death? What could one say to a mother who found her daughter mutilated and disfigured? How would she have children? And if she managed to have children, how would she look after them? What man would even want to marry a disfigured, armless, or legless woman? Who would give this poor woman a grandchild? And who was going to look after her when she was old and grey and could no longer look after herself anymore? The poor grieving mothers had enough to worry about being thrown out of their homes and now this? They crossed the border and no one had told them where they were, where they were going and when they would be returning to their homes, if ever. What would happen to their houses, gardens, fields, vineyards, furniture and when would they marry their young ones? Not knowing all these things and knowing that their children were already dead and gone, many of these women saw no future and no cause for going on living. These people began to hate themselves. They saw themselves as cursed and did not want to even look at themselves. They did not want to look at those around them. They hated themselves. They hated everything around them. They did not want eat or drink.

Word got out that they were going to the People’s Republic of Poland. Unfortunately these words had no effect on the gloomy situation in the camp. “Where is Poland?” someone asked. “Why are we going so far away?” someone else asked. “They killed our children, they destroyed our families, houses and livestock and now they will be sending us to Poland?” said another. “Will they give our properties and houses to the Greeks?” asked another. About the

same time the rumours were started about the refugees going to Poland, representatives from the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece were sent to diffuse the situation in the camp and to confirm that indeed the refugees would be going to Poland. During a gathering the government representative said: “In the People’s Republic of Poland you will meet your grandchildren who left your homes last year. You will meet your children who were wounded and sent to Poland to be treated in the hospitals and who are well now. You will gather together your families and you will live well in Poland…” He then said: “Poland is a great and rich country; it has a well-developed and major industry. You will live in cities and you will work in factories. Your children will be educated in middle and high schools and will be able to work in various crafts…” The only thing that mattered to the Macedonian refugees, especially to the grieving and heartbroken mothers, was the hope they would again see their grandchildren and surviving children. And indeed that helped enough to give the hopeless some hope.

Permanent eviction through migration

A boat trip to the People’s Republic of Poland

On August 27, 1949 past noon, the trucks that were sent to take the refugees to the port of Durres began to assemble and load people at the back of the hospital. As the trucks arrived at the port of Durres the people were immediately escorted directly onto the ship. Standing at the ship’s entrance was Barba Traiko with several of his people. They examined each person who arrived and everyone that looked young and healthy was set aside. They were not allowed to board the ship. Barba Traiko had orders from Zahariadis to assemble new groups of young and healthy Macedonian partisans and send them back to the Mountains in Greek occupied Macedonia so that they too could be “consumed” by the Monarcho-Fascists.

On August 28, 1949 the Polish ship “Koshchushko” left the Albanian port of Durres at dawn and sailed the blue waters of the Adriatic Sea headed to the People’s Republic of Poland.

“Koshchushko” in its bowels carried the wounded and tormented mourners, the kind of people who had only bad memories, especially of their conquerors and tormentors, the Greeks, all varieties of Greeks, including the communists led by Zahariadis who had prevented the Macedonian people from Mala Prespa from fleeing to Yugoslavia. So many more people would have been saved had Zahariadis allowed them to cross the Yugoslav border located only a few kilometres away. Instead he sent them to hell, to cross the Albanian border far away through an abyss of fire. It was Zahariadis who ordered a mass evacuation with the intent to uproot every single Macedonian from their ancestral home and forced them to abandon their place of birth where they lived for centuries. It was Zahariadis who loaded the Macedonian people onto the cargo ship “Koshchushko” and exiled them permanently, and then looked at others to put the blame on for his own failures. Perhaps they were not failures; maybe this is what he always wanted. Maybe this was part of the long-term Greek plan; the Greek dream to have a Macedonia without Macedonians? Then he had the nerve to blame the Macedonians for failing to win the war. An un-winnable war, an

impossible war, controlled and intentional war perpetrated by Zahariadis himself.

When they boarded the ship everyone looked for a comfortable place to sit but this was a cargo ship and there were no comfortable places, only a floor. Immediately after the ship sailed the captain visited the passengers. He said that he was honoured to have them on his ship. He was honoured to be carrying the fighters and heroes of communism and internationalism, the kind who are rarely found in the world. He apologized for placing them in a cargo ship unfit to carry people and promised to do everything he could to make the trip more comfortable. At the same time a nurse, followed by two sailors, went around checking everyone sprawled on the floor looking for sick people. Anyone found to be sick was carried off by the sailors and taken to the ship’s infirmary to be examined by the ship’s doctors. The two sailors took Dora and her little girl and placed them in a separate room. Here she was seen by a doctor, given plenty of food to eat and new clothes for her and her baby. There were many wounded on the ship who were looked after by a team of doctors who were on top of the situation. During lunch and dinner the people were taken in groups to the ship’s mess, in an orderly fashion. Twelve days after the ship sailed the refugees arrived in Poland at the port in Gdinia.

Most of the people traveling on this ship were seeing the sea for the first time. They were all excited and wanted to go up on deck and watch the water and the islands. The weather was beautiful and the sea was calm. They saw many airplanes fly over. People unfortunately were not allowed to go on deck during the day but some were so excited they took risks and snuck out.

They traveled with high hopes that they would meet members of their families in Poland, and with the change of environment their nature began to shift and the people seemed a little happier. Unfortunately this sentiment was short-lived. When the ship entered African waters the sun again began to beat down on them. The cargo chambers they lay in turned into ovens. This was the first time these poor people had experienced high temperatures like this. The women suffered the most because they were wearing thick and heavy clothes. They stripped down to their undergarments but still it

was not enough to keep them cool. The men stripped down to their underpants and managed to keep a bit cooler. They dripped of sweat and being unwashed for a long time made them look like wild African tribesmen.

After they passed Gibraltar and entered the Atlantic waters they ran into a big rain and windstorm. From being cooked to death they were now freezing in temperatures that dropped below 20 degrees. Most of them began to shiver from the cold. Now they were happy to put on their thick woolen garments. As the ship traveled further into the Atlantic the storm intensified and huge waves battered the ship, lifting it up high and dropping it low looking as if it was about to be swallowed by the sea. Almost everyone became seasick and many vomited all over the place. The more the ship rocked the more they vomited. Then, when they passed the channel Lamansh, Naum Plaskov from German died. The Poles gave him a funeral in accordance with the rules of the sea and tossed his dead body into the water.

Two children were born during this voyage. The captain and the ship’s staff were overjoyed.

Landing on Polish soil

The ship entered Polish waters on September 9, 1949 and anchored at the port of Gdinia in the evening. The Polish sailors helped the old people descend the ship’s stairs while the wounded were lowered by cranes. They all boarded a train that waited for them on the rail tracks next to the ship. The Polish military was present all around them and kept watch. There were also many Poles around who tried to get near the train but were turned away by the Polish soldiers.

Their arrival in Poland was a new experience for the refugees. It was an unforgettably pleasant experience. They were welcomed with sincere friendship and with complicity, understanding that they were victims of a war and that they had been exiled from their homes and lands. They understood that they were a tormented and tortured people who were carrying their pain and burden with them, so they made sure everything was done to facilitate them in the best possible

way. After the train left the port and headed for the interior, an older Polish man went around the cars and shook hands with everyone. He was welcoming everyone to Poland. The refugee children who were evacuated to Poland in April 1948, through Yugoslavia, were now in boarding schools and were cared for by the Poles. There were several of these children in each car on the train who were serving food and drinks throughout the entire trip. These children were the first joy the refugees had had in a long time. Some children even met their parents on the train.

The next day the train arrived in Vrotslav and as it passed through the city everyone went to the windows to see the magnificent city in which several hundred-thousand Poles lived before the war. It was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and now all that was left were crumbling buildings and streets littered with waste. And as one of the Polish workers on the train explained, Poland suffered immensely during the war with Germany. Poland alone lost over 7.5 million people to the German crematoriums, mostly young men and women, and now all its cities were desolate and in ruins. The Macedonian refugees, without exception, immediately fell in love with the Poles because they realized the Poles were victims too and had been butchered, just like the Macedonians. Lazo Sekulov from R’bi, who knew a few Polish words which he learned from the Polish people when he was in America, said to one Pole: “We have been tormented by the Ottomans, Germans, Italians and Bulgarians, but never as much as by the Greeks…” The moment the Polish man heard that he excitedly asked: “But aren’t you Greek?” “NO!” Lazo replied loudly. “We are Macedonians!” “So you are Slavic people, just like us…” said the Pole and hugged Lazo. Even outside of Greece and a few thousand kilometres away from their homeland, the CPG still insisted that the Macedonians were Greeks.