THE AUTHOR - Part 03

and Karatemio who constantly mistreated the nurses and teachers and harassed the older children. I almost came to blows with them so I complained to the Romanian authorities and asked them to clear the unhealthy atmosphere because it was negatively affecting the children. As I learned later, some teachers with whom I had met at that time were later interned in the city Kluz; accused of being Tito’s agents. During the interrogations, among other things, they were asked: “What did Vera tell you?” This was especially asked of the teacher Kula Karantsova from the village Smrdesh. I also visited Sinaia dormitory in Romania in which younger children were placed. My elementary school teacher from my village D’mbeni, Ristana Ratkova-Rizova was responsible for this dormitory. Ristana was well respected by the Romanian authorities because she genuinely cared for the children. Her husband Yani was also a teacher but he was killed fighting with DAG. Ristana with her three children was sent to Romania by the village Organization. She was chosen to head Sinaia dormitory because of her excellent qualifications. The building in which the dormitory was located was in fact the Romanian king’s palace, his winter residence, equipped with winter recreational activities and hunting. There was also a hospital in Sinaia to which many of our sick and wounded Partisans were sent to recover. I visited the hospital as well. I had my picture taken with Done Sikavitsa there. Done was a member of the NOF General Board Secretariat responsible for all our children in the People’s Republics. I was with him as part of the delegation that attended the International Congress of Peace in Prague. When he saw me at the hospital he asked me what I was still doing there. So I said: “Please don’t ask me, it is best that you don’t know.” There I also met with Atanas Malinov who was recovering from his wounds. Atanas also served as a teacher in the Sanaia dormitory. After DAG’s capitulation he completed his medical studies and worked as a doctor at the railway hospital in Skopje. Now he is a pensioner. From time to time I look at the photograph and it reminds me of those times. In the photograph are Done Sikavitsa, his wife Mulka Dzhambazova, teacher Kula Kurantsova, Risto Poptraianov, Aleko Dukovski and others who were interned in the city Kluz as Tito’s agents and removed from our children’s educational activities. In 1965 all these people went to Skopje. The photograph reminded me of a difficult period in my life and in the lives of my comrades. I spent twenty days visiting the dormitories. I was especially glad to have visited and spent time with the wounded partisans in the hospital. I shared stories with them of fighting in the fields and mountains of our homeland.

When I returned to Bucharest I asked Apostolu if there was something there for me. He said: “Comrade Vera, believe me it is hard for me, but it was not my decision to keep you here.” He also told me that Mitrevski and Papadimitriou were there. They had apparently gone to Russia on July 2, 1949 after returning from Georgi Dimitrov’s funeral. Now they were placed in one of our houses here. Apostolu offered to take me to see them. I accepted and we went the next day. When they saw me they too wondered what I was still doing here. Paskal told me that they had lost all traces of me; they did not know where I was. He said: “Mincho is going crazy looking for you. He is constantly asking Baradzhota about you; where you are, but he always gets the same answer ‘I don’t know!’ Mincho even asked Zahariadis and he too told him that he did not know anything about your whereabouts and that perhaps you might be in Yugoslavia.” Ironically it was Zahariadis who did not want me back, making it look like I went missing so that he could add more charges to NOF and AFZH. Pascal and Papadimitriou promised me that they would take me with them when they left. Apostolu was okay with that. A couple of days later all three of us left Bucharest with proper documentation prepared for us by Apostlolu and we headed for Budapest by train. Waiting at the railway station was Hristoforos Gizidis who, like Apostolu in Bucharest, Maximo in Prague and Dafni in Skopje, was our representative in Budapest. After a day’s stay in Budapest Paskal and Taki left by plane for Albania, Greece and from there back to the free territory. I was not authorized to travel. At the same time preparations were being made to hold the International Festival of Youth. Hristoforos told me that they were waiting for the EPON and NOMS youth delegations to arrive. He said: “Why fret? Mincho too will be coming!” I asked for and was granted permission to visit the children’s dormitories and our wounded in the hospital. In the ward for the severely wounded I found some of my closest friends with whom I had lost contact. Among them was Naum Pachkov from my village, Giorgi Papadimitriou-Kotrumba from the village Rupishta, Anna Mangova from the village Zhupanishta (she later married Giorgi), Paskal Hristovski from Breshteni hero of Vicho and Gramos and some commanders and commissars. They were all severely wounded. I spent several days with these brave men and every hour I asked Hristoforos if there was anything new for me. But it was not until August 5, 1949 that Zahariadis approved my departure. I got the news from Hristoforos at dinner time, in front of everyone. He said that there was a ticket for me and that I should leave the next morning. I was ready to go at four o’clock in the morning. I put my uniform in my backpack and traveled dressed in civilian clothes. They gave me all

the necessary documentation but would not allow me to take my personal belongings, except for my uniforms and my transistor radio. More suspicious obstacles I suppose. No one would believe the anguish that I went through in those two and a half months. A great deal of psychological pressure was put on me but I remained as I always was, I was not willing to compromise and say black was white and white was black. But at the same time I did not know why this had been done to me and what I was required to do. Nobody openly told me anything. No one told me why I had been kept there. No one told me that they did not approve of my Organizations. All I received was treachery, unheard and unseen treachery, impropriety of the worst kind, the kind that they had reserved for common people, not for the communists and definitely not for the top leadership. Anyway on August 6th, 1949 I departed and through Belgrade I flew to Tirana where I was received by Nikos Fereos, the person in charge of “Iafka” in Albania. I knew Nikos from previous visits. He arranged a jeep for me that took me to the village Breznitsa in Kostur Region and from there I took another jeep and went to the village P’pli, Prespa Region, to the NOF “Iafka”. When Paskal and Mihail Malio saw me they greeted me with enthusiasm and after a brief discussion about my ordeal I left for my station. I was stationed in the same cottage where the NOF Main Board Headquarters was located. None of the women, my co-workers, were there. I asked for my gun and my purse with relevant documents, pictures and other materials that I had left with the Main Board. Paskal told me that everything I had given to Mincho for safe keeping after my departure, he had hidden somewhere before he left for Gramos General Headquarters, which included my camera and some other things. Paskal did not agree that Mincho should take all of my things and hide them, but Mincho told him that it was not his business. Mincho did not want anyone to have any of my personal things after he sent me to the village Rabbi on April 9, 1949. I had not told anyone about my connection to Mincho. Many however knew or assumed that there was something there between us. Even Zahariadis was interested in exactly what was our relationship. Zahariadis, in the presence of Mihail Malio, NOF Secretary, and Tane Naumov asked Mincho what our relationship was. Mincho told him that it was personal business. Only my friend Hrisanta Tsanzovska, who now lives in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a member of the AFZH Board, knew about our relationship. I went to the village P’pli to the seat of the National Liberation District Board for Lerin Region. There I met President Risto Kolentsev. After we greeted each other he smiled and said: “Where have you been

all this time? I want you to know that I missed you very much.” There I also met my friends from ONOO, also members of the AFZH General Board. Among them were Malina Markovska (mother of two sons and one daughter, all partisans, her daughter was killed in combat. She was a lieutenant in DAG), Foteitsa from Zhelevo, Aleksandra from Shtrkovo and many others. Some time later my friend Marika Elkova, member of the NOF General Board Secretariat, arrived. In my absence she had acted as my replacement. I went with her to another room of the building for a private conversation and there she informed me about the AFZH status in Lerin and Kostur Regions. She said: “We have remained the same as before, nothing has changed except that we lost some of our friends. They were killed in the battlefields.” Saddest for Marika was that she knew nothing about the fate of her fiancé Tanas Papatriandafilu. A month and a half later I found Tanas in Elbasan where we were stationed, he had fled there with the refugee people. We were so happy to see that he was still alive. When we asked him where he had been all this time, he discreetly looked around, making sure no one was listening, quietly told me that he had been imprisoned in Korcha and that there were many other Macedonians imprisoned with him. Among other things, in the prison in Korcha, Tanas was asked about me, if he knew me and what kind of links I had with Yugoslavia. Based on these questions Tanas figured that they were interested in me so he warned me that he would not be surprised if I was arrested. I thanked him for the warning and after many years when I met him in Skopje, I again expressed my gratitude. Marika and I traveled to the village Bukovo. That’s where our Agitprop was located. From there we went to Orovo and then to Zhelevo where I met with Mahi Pilaeva, AFZH secretary for Lerin Region. Mahi informed me about the current situation of our Organization and about the high morale of the population. She even said: “The enemy will never take Vicho. Our fighters and our people are ready for the decisive battle.” The mountains Bela Voda, Lunzer, Vicho, Malimadi etc. were all equipped with bunkers and trenches built by our AFZH women and fighters. Truly the enemy could not pass their ring, but we did not count of the Monarcho-Fascists being supplied with heavy weapons and aviation by Truman. They not only took Vicho but they also entered Prespa. We made many sacrifices but we were forced out. We had no choice, both military and civilians, but to withdraw across the border into Albania, to Elbasan, where Marika caught up with her fiancé Tanas Papatriandafilu. From Zhelevo Marika and I went to the village Oshchima to meet with AFZH secretary Liuba Dzhigerova. The next day Marika and I

went our separate ways. She returned to Prespa, while I visited the villages Trnava, Rulia and Breznitsa. In Breznitsa I met with my friend Urania Jurukova-Pirovska, who was performing several tasks on behalf of KOEM. At the NOO District I met with NOO President Krsto Mangov, also my uncle, my mother’s cousin, with whom I had grown up. My meeting with him was emotional. He also gave me a personal message from Mincho. I found out from my uncle, for the first time, that there had been a meeting in some cave somewhere in the so-called “Africa” locality during which Pavle Rakovski had brought a letter from Yugoslavia and during which Zahariadis accused Mincho of being an agent of OZNA and what Mincho had to say about that. My uncle took Mincho to the side and told him to keep quiet and not to talk back so much. But in the situation in which we found ourselves, no one paid much attention to that meeting, it passed and it was not a decisive battle for life and death. I met with Urania again on August 11, 1949. Both of us did our chores from the previous day and went out to the outskirts of the village Breznitsa to visit with Krsto Mangov. I got a strange feeling when my uncle took me aside, hugged and kissed me and said: “If you should die, I will never leave Vena,” Vena was my mother, “but if I should die please look after my mother and my children.” Baba Ristovitsa Mangova-Lina and my mother lived together in one room in Bitola in Zhivko Delkov’s house located at number 6 “Mirche Atsev” Street. Krsto’s wife and his youngest girl also lived there. The other two children were sent to Romania and were living in the Tulgesh dormitory. The grandmothers Yana Balova and Mara Karadzhova also lived in Bitola. I said goodbye to Krsto and Urania, took a jeep and went to NOF General Board Headquarters located on a hill above the village P’pli. When I entered the cabin, I heard NOF Secretary Mihail Maliov talking with someone on the telephone. He signaled with his hand that we should wait. From the expression on his face we concluded that there was some bad news. I immediately thought of Mincho; maybe he had been killed. I shivered when Mihail hung up the telephone but did not say anything. He kept looking at us with a serious look on his face. “Tell us what happened!” I asked. He said: “Krsto Mangov, along with General Skotida, is dead; killed by the same shell. I just got the bad news from Headquarters. They are leaving for Breznitsa right now.” I dropped everything and immediately ran to the Motorized Unit led by Sterio Mavranza from Rupishta. We got a jeep and left for P’pli. I asked my friends to drop me off in Breznitsa. When I arrived on the scene, two DAG officers from General Headquarters took General

Skotida’s (Nikos Teoharopulos) body in a jeep and buried him somewhere, where I don’t know. General Skotida was one of the most liked of all the DAG generals. During ELAS he served in the 28th ELAS Regiment. He loved the Macedonian fighters. Krsto Mangov’s body was blown to bits by the shell. Whatever remained of him we buried in the village Breznitsa beside the graves of Pere Temelkovski from Prilep and a sergeant from ELAS. Their graves are now unmarked. The words that Krsto spoke to me only days before came true; he died. I picked up his bag and his suitcase full of documents, the broken watch he was wearing on his left hand and the hand woven rug made for him by his mother, my grandmother Ristovitsa. Ristovitsa died in Bitola and was buried by my mother in the Bitola Cemetery beside my grandmother Iagna. It was hard for me not being able to fulfill my uncle’s wish because when his mother died I myself did not know where I was. I only know that I was in prison somewhere in Moscow. Many times I told myself that Krsto was lucky to have died then because if he were alive he would have been in prison with us or in a prison in some other People’s Republic. With Krsto’s death, Vicho fell on August 15, 1949. His bag and suitcase, along with all my documents from NOO were taken from me by Piraklis Miroviglis. My uncle’s rug I left in the prison in Tirana.

NOT TO ROMANIA; They are taking us to the USSR

The ship continued to sail, floating along for another one or two days. We realized that they were not taking us to Romania; that they were taking us to the USSR. And that’s how it was. On December 23rd, 1949 we arrived in the port of Odessa. Mihail Maliov and Paskal Mitrevski suggested that, since they had not taken us to Romania, they would surely be taking us to the USSR. We guessed that they would be taking us to some kolkhoz to re-educate us. Maliov said: “They will take us to a kolkhoz and we will shower and shave, we will get a haircut and then we will be re-educated.” Lazo Poplazarov and Lambro Cholakov seemed to concur. Mincho, who had overheard the conversation, kept smiling at the notion but then said: “A hungry chicken dreams of millet. You know the proverb? But in reality they will probably be taking us to one of Peter the Greats’ prisons. There they will shower and shave us nicely and then they will re-educate us.” Paskal laughed and said to Mincho: “Typical Mincho, what else can we expect from you? Why don’t you say something nice for a change?” We hoped that it would not be like that. Paskal and the others were basing their feelings on an imagined impression of the USSR. At the time we had a different impression of the Soviet Union than we have today. At the time we thought that jails did not exist in the USSR, the people were good and they would employ humane ways to re-educate us. How were we expected to know what really awaited us and that Mincho’s sarcastic words would come true? Sarcastic or not, Mincho’s assessment was the most accurate. To pass our time in the bowels of “Michurin”, the ship we were on, we made playing cards of the packages of cigarettes we were given. The biggest smokers were Paskal, Kolentsev and Maliov. We played for cigarettes. Whoever won got a cigarette. In the morning of December 25, 1949, down in the bowels of the ship, we were visited by two Russian officers belonging to NKVD. They summoned us by name. There were 11 of us but only 9 came out of the depths of the ship. The officers started yelling and calling out the names of the missing two. The officers were speaking Russian of course but none of us knew enough Russian to truly understand what they were saying. We knew very little Russian, only what we had learned from the ELAS and DAG Party line. The ones missing of course were Mincho and I. We were locked up and still sleeping in what we called “the closet of happiness.” Paskal then came and knocked on our door and yelled out: “Come out, let’s go!” The closet was high and when we opened the door we both went flying out and

fell to the floor. The officers cracked up laughing, but we told them that we were a married couple. December 25 was Christmas in Greece. We thought that if we turned to religion maybe Christmas might help us. Yes, it helped us all right; we ended up in prison for the next seven years. During the night of December 25th, 1949 two prison cars arrived at the port of Odessa. We later found out that, according to prison jargon, they were called “voronki.” They shoved us into the cars and took us to a prison in Odessa. They grouped us in threes and fours and put each group in a separate cell. They put Urania and I together in one cell. We stayed five days in the Odessa prison.

From Odessa to Moscow

Ah, fate! We celebrated the New Year in jail! And where? In the USSR of all places! Early in the morning on January 1st, 1950 we were taken from the Odessa prison, again in the same “voronki”, and delivered to the railway station. During our trip in the prison cars I managed to look around and see traces of the war: ruins, scattered piles of iron, piles of stones etc. I got shivers all over my body looking at the destruction. I said to myself: “Who knows how many Soviet troops were killed here in this place, defending their homeland.” They loaded us in a prison rail wagon and locked us in. There were iron bars on the windows and doors. They put Urania and me in the same compartment while the men were paired up and placed in other compartments. We were constantly watched by the NKVD agents who were also placed with us in the same wagon and who constantly warned us not to talk to each other. We spoke in Greek mainly about the “hospitality” we had received from our Soviet hosts and about them taking us to the “kolkhoz” to re-educate us. Clearly that could be read from the “perfect” attitude of our escorts. And this is how we officially “awaited” the New Year in 1950. Reception was on the evening of December 31st, 1949 in the Odessa jail and New Year’s Day was only a dream of taking a walk in Moscow. I say “dream” because everyone had a different idea about the USSR based on what information they were given. Let’s say that there was not a Communist in the world who did not dream of going to Moscow at least once. And even then we too were “filled with joy” to have traveled through it. We arrived in Moscow on the evening of January 3rd, 1950. When we were getting off the train I read “Kiev Vokzal” (Kiev Railway Station). There are several railway stations in Moscow, accessed by the different routes trains take. We were given a “stately” welcome by a team of NKVD agents and one by one we were loaded onto the “voronki.” We were honoured by being placed in separate cars. There were no windows and the only light came from a small lamp. The seat was so small that there was hardly any space to move. It truly was a “stately column” of “voronki.” I barely managed to wave goodbye to Mincho and my other friends, not knowing that I would not see them again for five and a half years. As for Mihail Maliov and Leonida; I never saw them again.

“LJUBLJANKA” Prison

After a long ride the “voronka” stopped. I turned my attention to my ears and listened for sounds. A heavy door opened, the “voronka” moved forward and stopped. They unlocked the door. Someone got off. They unlocked my compartment and took me, “the great enemy of the USSR,” out. One agent stepped in front of me and another followed behind me. They took me into a room. An officer with some papers in his hands came in and asked me my name. I told him who I was. He left and locked the door behind him. That’s when I realized that I was in some kind of prison and it was not an ordinary prison. About half an hour later a woman my age or maybe a year older came in. She was wearing a uniform and ordered me to undress. “Undress yourself like the day you were born and follow me,” she said in Russian. She took me to another room with a shower. I laughed when I thought about what Paskal and Mihail had said in the ship about taking us to a kolkhoz for a shower, haircut, shave and to re-educate us. I also especially remembered what Mincho had said about taking us to one of Peter the Greats’ prisons. But this was not one of Peter the Greats’ prison. I laughed out loud when I was showering. My guard looked inside through the spy hole and warned me twice not to laugh. I pointed with my hands to my tormented naked body and said: “I am laughing at this. Look at it!” My condition was deplorable. The guard unfortunately misinterpreted my sarcastic laughter as an insult to Soviet power, so she became frustrated. But there was also some truth in that. I had imagined that the Soviet state was a lot different. After my third outburst of laughter the guard opened the shower door. She angrily ordered me to get out even before I had had a chance to rinse the soap out of my hair. She took me back to the same room where I had undressed. I dressed quickly. While I was combing my hair, trying to get the soapsuds out, she came back, unlocked the door and pointed to some items that I should take with me. Among the items that were given to me there was a green army blanket. She then took me to another cell. There I found Urania. “It’s good that we are together,” I said to her but our time together did not last long. They unlocked my cell door and again took me somewhere along a narrow corridor with many doors and up and down some stairs. Finally, after a long walk, I was put in a box with hardly any space in it. They locked me in and told me to sit, then every minute or so they looked in through the spy hole to see what I was doing. I was puzzled! Was this a dream? Was this real? My brain was getting a workout from the many thoughts that were going through my mind. But no matter how hard I

thought and speculated about everything I still could not understand what wrong I had done and how I was at fault to deserve this. A little later another woman, a NKVD agent, came and undressed me until I was completely naked, like the day I was born. She cut all the buttons from my officers’ overcoat and blouse. I want to mention here that on April 20th, 1949 when I was a delegate at the Second International Congress for Peace in Prague, my friend Sinkova had those clothes tailor made for me. Sinkova was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. She took Rula and me to a shop where a seamstress sewed these uniforms for us. They were made of pure wool and were gifts from the Czechoslovakian women. I took my old uniforms with me. The overcoat I acquired from a Monarcho-Fascist officer in November 1948 when I was with the units of DAG in the 18th Brigade, fighting at Siatista. Unfortunately it was riddled with several bullet holes. The Soviet NKVD agent cut all the buttons and my DAG emblem out of my clothing and took away my army belt, my long socks, the shoelaces from my army boots, a red silk scarf that I always wore around my neck and my mirror. In the end she ferociously removed the various decorations from my blouse, given to me at the International Congress. At that very moment I felt like my soul was being torn out. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. With her other hand she banged hard on the box door with her keys, signaling that she needed help. My act was an act of anguish, that’s how bad I felt. I said to myself: “God, what have I done to these people to deserve this? Why are they so rude to me?” She lifted her leg up and hit me hard in the stomach. I was still naked. I felt dizzy but there was no space in the box for me to fall to the floor so I struck her back with my foot and leaned against the wall. She angrily yelled at me: “Zlochi eto ne dlia tebia.” It was foolish of me to have done that. She later stuck her fingers in my female organ to check if I had something hidden there but I believe it was done to intimidate me. When she was done she took my things, slammed the door shut and locked it behind her. She treated me as if I was some kind of murderous beast. Perhaps at that time this was how I had been presented to the Soviet authorities.

Cell 105

I can’t say exactly what time it was at night, it may have been around midnight when they unlocked the box door again and a NKVD agent yelled out: “Vihadite!” Again they took me along the long corridor, up and down stairs and out to the yard through some doors. Waiting outside was a “voronka.” They unlocked the back door, locked me inside and took me away. I heard noises from other vehicles and going over railway tracks. Later I found out from my lawyer that they had taken me to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1968, during an excursion, Mincho and I visited Moscow and went to “Dzherdzhinski” square where we saw Dzherdzhinski’s monument, but we couldn’t see anything behind the walls. Hidden there was the dreaded “Ljubljanka” prison where we had been locked up. From the noises I could tell that the “voronka” was driving over a cobblestone road, over some tracks and back onto an asphalt road. My midnight ride may have lasted over half an hour. The “voronka” stopped. A heavy iron door opened. The vehicle entered the yard. They unlocked the “voronka” doors and gave me a sign to get out. I got out. They took me through a long corridor. Again they told me to undress like the day I was born. Again my clothes were searched. They examined my mouth, my hair, my female organs and gave me a sign to get dressed. Two young NKVD agents that just had arrived ordered me to lift up my arms and escorted me, one leading and the other following, up the stairs to the third floor, to one of the prison wings, to the right through a hallway. I looked down to my left; it was a long way down. I contemplated plunging down and killing myself but I couldn’t do it. I noticed that there was a net over the lower windows. We continued to walk down the hallway. On the way we met one of the chiefs who stood in front of a cell. When we reached about the middle of the corridor he signaled us to stop. He unlocked the iron door of cell number 105 and gave me a sign to go inside. Just as I stepped in, the door was closed behind me and locked. I could not see anything around me except darkness. As I stumbled around the cell I tripped on something and fell on the floor. I began to weep and cry out loud. I could not calm myself down. “God,” I said to myself, “I am in a Moscow jail locked up like a traitor! Terrible! To think that when our Aegean Macedonian Brigade was formed, on November 18, 1944 and when they were looking for volunteers for the USSR, I was first to volunteer. In December 1944 when I was in Bitola twelve of us volunteered to go to officer school. I volunteered to go to the aviation school and was signed up by Giore Gioreski from Prilep, who at the time was an instructor at SKOJ in our

brigade, but when the time came to go they left me out. I complained about it to SKOJ Secretary Mincho Fotev who later became my husband. It was for that same Moscow that I grieved then so much because I could not go in 1944!” Well, this is how they are repaying me for it now. The fault for not going however lays with my uncle Krsto Mangov, my mother’s cousin who at the time was Battalion Commissar, Filip Kalkov, brigade quartermaster and Mincho. They agreed not to let me go. Later one of them said: “Why would you have gone to Russia when the war was still going on. You are your mother’s only child. What if you had been killed?” Some of the volunteers heading for Russia were turned back when they reached Belgrade, but most left and ended up in the military schools in the USSR. Included among them were two of my classmates from my village, Panaiot Ralev (who completed artillery school and served as an officer in the Yugoslav National Army in Bitola, now retired), and Risto Tselev (who after finishing school married a Russian woman and remained there. He later came to Skopje to visit his relatives and also visited with me). My 1944 desires to go to Russia kept turning in my head and so did my current status in Moscow. I cried louder to ease my pain. At one time Moscow for me was a sublime, human, humane place but now look what it had turned out to be? “Mincho,” I yelled out as I cried, “where are you Mincho! How did you know that they would lock us up in a Peter the Great prison? No, no, I am not a traitor; I do not deserve what is being done to me…” At that time I did not know that “Lefortovska tjurma” was one of Peter the Greats’ prisons. Lefortov built this prison and that is why it bears his name. In my anguish and crying in the dark, feeling as if my heart had been ripped wide open, I did not hear my cell door open. When I came to my senses I saw the same officer, who had opened the door earlier and shoved me into this hellhole, standing behind me. He yelled out angrily: “Vstavaj” and I stood up. With a sharp tone in his voice he said: “Nelzja plakat, nelzja krichat, denje nelzja lezhat, nelzja smejatsja!” I wiped my tears, looked him in the eyes and with a sharper tone in my voice yelled back at him: “Nelzja, nelzja, nelzja!” I don’t know how horrible I must have looked when I did that but he turned away, slammed the iron door shut and locked it. Standing up I looked around the cell. I saw an iron bed with its feet stuck in the concrete floor so that it could not be moved. Left of the bed was a small table, again with its feet stuck in concrete. On top of the table was a bowl turned upside down, on top of the bowl was a plate also turned upside down. On top of the plate were a cup turned upside down and a spoon sitting on top of it. On the right side in the corner,

beside the door there was a toilet bowl. On the opposite wall was an iron faucet (tap), a small sink and underneath it a bucket of water for flushing the toilet and washing. In the left corner there was a radiator giving off very little heat. In the middle of the ceiling there was a lamp wrapped with wire and a tiny window. The walls were black, the floor was made of concrete and it had turned black. The door was made of iron and it too was black. I washed my face after crying and felt a bit better. I combed my hair and then measured the cell with my feet. I counted 16 long and 8 wide. I sat on the bed. I felt as if someone had flipped the lid on the spy hole and was peeking at me. There was a small window in the middle of the large door. Someone opened it and said: “Lazhites!” I stretched out on the bed with my long coat on, gazing at the ceiling. My entire life was passing me by as if I was watching it on film. It seemed as if I was watching my mother. I felt as if a large force was building up inside of me and I began to yell loudly: “No, no, no... I must see my mother again because she has only me; she has no one else...” My thoughts were again interrupted when the door flung open and the same officer entered my cell and said: “Na sledsvie!” He gathered that I did not understand what he said so he signaled me with his hand to get out. I gathered my wits and with my head up high I came out. He ordered me: “Ruku nazad!” One guard in front, another behind me and I in the middle. The guards kept signaling with their fingers and knocking with their keys all along the corridors and stairs where we passed so that we would not meet other prisoners. They were taking me to the first “sledstvie” (investigation, hearing). That was on January 3rd, 1950 at three o’clock in the morning, in “Lefortovskaja tjurma”, one of Peter the Greats’ prisons. Oh Mincho, how could you have known that they would take us to such a prison?

My first “SLEDSTVIE” (interrogation)

They took me to a huge room. In the middle of it was a large table with several chairs around it. As I walked in I instinctively sat on one of those chairs, but a NKVD agent came over and said: “Vstavat ne zdes kavana!” I stood up and then sat on the chair in the corner of the room to which he pointed. I made another mistake by crossing my legs, to which the agent pointed and said: “This in not a café where you can sit like that!” I put my leg down and placed my hands on my knees as ordered. I was dressed in my beautiful Haki-military uniform, custom made for when I was in Prague, a delegate at the Second International Peace Congress in April 1949. The only other person who had such a uniform was Rula Kukulu, PDEG President and Nikos Zahariadis’s concubine. An officer came close to me and, in a highly offensive tone of voice, began to yell at me: “You are an agent, you are a spy and you are Tito’s agent.” I looked at him with surprise; I looked into his eyes with wonderment. Who is this man and how could he speak to me like that. I was furious, listening to a stranger repeating the same hurtful words and insults hurled at me by Zahariadis in Bureli in front of three thousand DAG fighters. My blood was boiling. I suddenly stood up, went close to his face and shouted at him even louder than he was yelling at me: “No! I am not anyone’s spy; I am a Communist Partisan!” I said it as best as I could, I did not speak the Russian language well enough to say anything more. He took a step back and asked me: “Do you know where you are?” I said: “Yes I do!” “Where?” he asked. “In Moscow,” I replied. “And you know what Moscow is?” he asked. “The capital of the Soviet Union,” I replied like a student getting a geography lesson. From the tone of his voice and from the questions he was asking I understood that he was attempting to influence me to cooperate with him. Strangely, I gained strength from his insults and a growing desire emerged in me to fight back, so I raised my voice and said: “I am a communist, I am a Partisan, I am a Macedonian!” After a brief pause he asked me in what language I wanted to give my testimony. “In Macedonian,” I said. “In Bulgarian?” he asked. “No, in Macedonian,” I said “I don’t speak Bulgarian!” “In what language do you want to have this discussion?” he asked. “In Greek,” I said. He then said: “My name is Evgeni Konstantinovich Nikitin.” He knocked with his fingers on the door and the door opened. The two previous NKVD agents took me again, one in front and the other behind me, and escorted me back to cell number 105, where I stayed for a year and a half, all of 1950 until July 1951.

I stretched out on the bed with my coat still on me and covered myself with my military blanket and on top of that I put on the prison blanket. I did not know how many degrees it was but it was very cold. January in Moscow was not a joke, especially in my tiny cell. I constantly kept thinking of things. How the ambience could change overnight. I met many strangers here and was wondering who was worse than whom. These were rude and bad people as if they were not born from mothers. As I tried to fall asleep the door opened again. The duty officer entered my cell and said: “Hands up! Your hands must be visible and uncovered when you sleep!” “God, what else will these inhumane people think of?” I asked myself. I was too tired from my day’s ordeal to think about it so I went to sleep, I think with my eyes open staring at the ceiling. Again, still during the night, my door, the small window inside the large door, was opened and a voice said: “Vstavaj!” The duty officer had informed me that six o’clock in the morning was the time to get up and bedtime was ten o’clock at night and that lights out was after the third signal. It now was six o’clock in the morning. I got up and washed at the tap. A while later the small window in my cell door opened and I was handed a slice of ten grams of bread, a cube of five grams of sugar, a cup full of boiled water and a few grams of dried fruit. When the dried fruit was placed in the hot water it gave it some colour and flavour, a substitute for tea. The bread was to last for the whole day. Unfortunately the bread was so bad I could not eat it during my first days there, so I threw in the toilet bowl. One morning they caught me and told me not to do that. The guard told me: “You must eat it, nelzja.” Everything there was “nelzja.” Around noon I think, I don’t know what time exactly, but from the small window in the ceiling I could see daylight, they again opened the small window in my cell door and asked me to hand them my plate. They handed me back fish soup and a spoonful of porridge. The soup was full of bones and during my first days I could not eat it. In the evening, I don’t know at what time, the little window was opened again and they handed me a spoonful of mush, at that time I did not know what it was made of. The routine in my cell, cell 105, was the same for three days. They did not call me for questioning, only the duty officers kept interrupting me and teaching me the rules and the signals of the prison; at what signal to turn off the light, at what signal to go to bed and what was expected of me at wake-up time at six o’clock in the morning etc. All the time I constantly thought about my miserable situation for which I could find no fault. From the bottom of my soul I hated the investigating officer’s words when he called me “a spy and an agent…” The more I was reminded about those offensive words, the more I had a

strong desire to meet with that officer again. I was very familiar with the methods employed by our comrades in Greece organized by the fascist Metaxas government, even with those employed after the fascist Italians and Germans had left. These methods were at least fascist against communist and not communist against communist like in this communist prison, in this communist society and of all places in Moscow, in the Soviet Union; the country that we had all idolized during our struggle. I finally started to wake up from my delirium. I said to myself: “You will all see that I am not guilty, not guilty. I am not guilty of being Tito’s agent and even Tito too is not guilty! The guilty ones and the ones to be blamed are the English, the Americans and Greek Monarcho-Fascists. Even Zahariadis believed in Tito and often said that Hari Polit from England and Tito from Yugoslavia were his best friends from the Comintern. He now only trusts Stalin and no one else, not even the truth.” These thoughts that I had were the reason why I was so anxious and willing to meet with my interrogator and to set him straight; to say right to his face “Evgeni Konstantinovich Nikitin, you are wrong!”

Hearing on January 7, 1950

The light bulb went on and off three times on January 7, 1950. It was the signal to let us know that it was time to go to bed. I lay down with my coat on because it was very cold. I first covered myself with my tiny green military blanket which I had brought with me. I got that blanket in November 1948 when I was fighting in Siatista, when we took DAG General Aleko-Ruso Iptsiladis’s fiancée with us. The General was among the first to return from Tashkent to Greece and joined the PASOK Party as an administrator in the Ministry of the Interior. I then covered myself with the prison blanket. I placed my hands over my head uncovered, in full view in accordance with prison rules. I could not sleep and I was still awake when the small window of my door was opened and I was told: “Padjom na sledstvie!” I got up, got ready and they opened the cell door. It was around 10:30 pm when they took me, one in front and another behind me. They escorted me along the hallway, down the stairs and finally to the ground floor in the same office where the interrogator was, but in another smaller room. Sitting beside the interrogator was a woman dressed in civilian clothes. I entered the room and greeted them politely. They did not reply. The interrogator pointed at a chair in the corner of the room. I sat on the chair and instinctively crossed my legs. The interrogator then yelled at me: “Sit properly, this is not a café!” Interrogator Colonel Evgeny Konstantinovich Nikitin, sitting on his chair behind the desk, started questioning me. He asked a lot of questions, what was my name, last name, first name, when I was born, where I was born, my nationality, where my parents were etc. Before that he introduced the woman in the room. He said: “This lady here is Tsakalopulu, she is a lieutenant in the Soviet Army and will translate from Greek to Russian and vice versa.” Regarding his questions and my answers, he also said that he would follow protocol, draft a memo which, when completed, I would have to read and sign. I was ready to truthfully answer all the questions and recount all events as they had happened. I was determined to get the truth out and only the truth and to make sure I did not make any mistakes, not about the CPG and not about the Soviet Union. “My name is Evgenia Baleva,” I said. “No,” he said, “you go by a different first and last name.” “Yes,” I answered, “they call me Vera.” “Yes Vera Nikolovskaja. That is your pseudonym,” he said. “From now on,” he said, “we will lead this investigation under both names and surnames: Vera Nikolovskaja aka Evdokia Baleva.” “You can call me whatever you want, I am the same person,” I said. Throughout the entire investigation, in the internment camps, in the prisons, in my