МАЕЈ ЉУБОИМОИ

МАЕЈ ЉУБОИМОИ

Тои каторои љубил и љубљу, прости за все что ја приниос, не по своеј вине, за бол разлук, за гореч слез, за писма краткие с пути, за зо что не хватило сил, мне ударжат тенја, кагда вдали с фронтами, калесил недели, месеци, года.

Умна чесна Ти всјо паимјош, что глоубока љубов била, что не измена и не лоќ, Нас бурја века пронесла.

Ја серцем и душој вса тот, Апјат ја спешке ден денскои, Лиш серце радосно замрјот, чут мимо женшчина проилјот.

Напомнил что то образ твои, И хот нелзја соединит, Минувших и градјадуштих днеи, Ја всјо старијус лушче бит, Во имја памјати твоеи.

Воркута, 1. I 1954 година

Honorary citizen of Balaton

The interrogations continued in the same manner as before. They were still looking for a connection between myself and the Central Intelligence Service, the British Intelligence Service, the Military Police (OZNA) and the international bourgeoisie. All through my interrogations in all the Moscow prisons including Ljubljanka, Lefortovskaja and Butirka, which lasted 29 months, I was objective, regardless of all the pressures they put on me, and I always told only the truth. If they could prove that I was hiding something, that I wasn’t truthful about something, or if in any way I had wronged my people then let them try me before the people. I hid nothing from them, even if I had not wanted to tell them something about myself they would have found it because they had access to everything and everyone from the most honest people to the informers. It was no secret that I had been in Yugoslavia and that under the leadership of Tito and Kolishevski the Macedonian people won their national freedom, and now they have their own country; the People’s Republic of Macedonia. When I was a delegate of the Women’s Second International Congress I often joined the Yugoslav delegation on its visits to various factories and children’s facilities in and around Budapest. Rita was always with me. I tried to have a conversation with the Yugoslav delegates but they avoided me, they too were cautious. During a visit to the town of Balaton, as I remember, I was declared an honorary citizen of that municipality. At the request of the Netherlands, Norway, England, Sweden, East Germany and some others delegations, I visited some homes in Hungary that housed our (Macedonian) children, evacuated to be saved from the Monarcho-Fascist terror. While visiting these homes I met with the teachers, nurses and “mothers” as well as with the children who ran to greet, hug and kiss me. It was a moving encounter. Just then an airplane flew over and all the children, “mothers”, teachers and nurses ran inside to hide, thinking for a moment that they were still in Greece. Even after so many months away from their troubled homeland they were still not freed from the fear of being bombed and machine gunned by the Anglo-American aircraft. I used the opportunity to explain to the other delegates why these children had been evacuated. Some of the more sensitive women delegates even cried because they could see for themselves how the children reacted to the airplane. Some even realized that what Queen Friderika was doing was not right or not exactly as she advertised. As a result of this encounter the delegations of the Netherlands, Sweden and East Germany requested from their leaders to open such homes for our children in their own countries. If I can recall correctly, we sent about a

thousand children to East Germany, mostly Greek. The Minister of Education of the Interim Government of Greece, Petros Kokalis, a trained doctor, went with them and later died there. On our return from the Congress our delegation visited Romania and Bulgaria, where, as I mentioned before, I visited the children’s homes in Tulgesh and Sinaia and our wounded comrades in Bucharest. I also visited Brashov and Kostantsa. As I did in Romania in Bulgaria too I received beautiful gifts. After our return to Greece, Rula openly announced to everyone that I was given “the best gifts” about which she said: “They knew that she was Macedonian so they gave her more attention.”

In Ljubljanka

Several days passed without interrogations. They started giving me five minute breaks for some air in an enclosed indoor environment. They allowed me to “walk” alone. During these walks I used the opportunity to listen for sounds in hopes of hearing a familiar voice. While I heard many voices, I did not recognize any of them. One night before they gave the signal to go to bed they called me for “sledstvie.” They took me out of my cell in the usual way but we went in a different direction through different corridors, different stairs and ended up again on the ground floor in a large room. I recognized the room. This was the same room they had brought me in when I first arrived at this prison. They searched me and then escorted me to a “voronok.” The heavy doors opened, we stepped in and they closed behind us. As they drove off I could hear traffic, trams, cars etc. It was a long trip. I thought: “Are they taking me outside of the city to execute me?” I felt some comfort in that because, although this might be my last hour of life, at least I might get a chance to see my friends one last time. I was sorry that I did not take my overcoat with me. The prison car suddenly stopped and the heavy doors opened. They took me out of the car and escorted me into a hallway and into a box. I recognized the box; it was where they had taken us when we arrived from Odessa. I was back in the notorious Ljubljanka prison. An NKVD woman came and searched me. The box I was in was the size of a small closet with hardly any space to sit. After she searched me they took me along a hallway into a well-lit room where my interrogator and one other person, who I had never seen before, were waiting for me. The interrogator made a sign for me to sit on the chair in the corner as I did in Lefortov prison. The interrogator then introduced the other man as Major Afanasiev and said that Afanasiev was going to interrogate me. The translator was Professor Ianis Ioanidis. Suddenly Afanasiev started shouting at me: “Tito’s agent, zvoloch, how long are you going to lie to us, vriosh?” He did this in such a hysterical tone of voice, sounding as if he was the only one that could break me so that I would tell him what he wanted to hear. I answered him calmly and told him that I was not any of those things he accused me of being. I told him that I was a freedom fighter who fought for my people’s freedom against the German, Italian and Bulgarian fascists, against the fascist counter-bands, against the Greek Monarcho-Fascists and against the Anglo-American imperialists. “Vriosh, you secretly worked against the Democratic Army of Greece!” he said.

At those words I got angry, stood up and started yelling back at him at the top of my voice. I said: “That’s a lie, we created that army, it was our army and how could we have possibly worked against our own army, how could we have possibly worked against ourselves? The instrument that mobilized our people, the Macedonian people from Aegean Macedonia en masse was our Organization NOF! I am that person who was convicted four times in absentia and sentenced to death by the Monarcho-Fascists. Now you tell me, how can an officer of the Soviet Army tell me who I am and accuse me of things I have not done and treat me this way?” He kept yelling at me and I kept yelling back at him until he walked out of the room. At that point my interrogator said: “He will ask you questions, you answer the best way you know how.” I then asked for permission to go to the washroom. The interrogator called in one of the police women and she took me there. It was the first time since I had arrived at these prisons that I had seen a mirror. This washroom was not for the prisoners, it was used by the staff. Perhaps they deliberately took me there. When I looked at myself in the mirror I could not recognize myself. My face looked yellowish-greenish and had darkened. I scared myself. “Wow, what have they done to me?” I asked myself and almost fell to the floor from the disappointment I felt. I stopped myself from falling and bit on my teeth so hard that I broke the gold crown on one of my teeth. I had three gold teeth. One had a golden jacket, a “crown” on the outside and the inside was sealed with a piece of white dental material. Back in 1939 when I returned home from the gymnasium in Kostur for the Easter holidays, I got a toothache. After a few visits to dentist Nikos Ikonomidis in Kostur he tied the root of my bad tooth with the two adjacent teeth. He coated the healthy teeth with gold caps, filled the missing part of my bad tooth with this white material and capped it with a gold crown. My peers in D’mbeni made fun of me and called me a “show off” because I had gold teeth. On top of that, at the recommendation of my eye doctor, I had to wear glasses because I had difficulty reading and I got headaches, so I had really become the butt of all jokes. I wore the same glasses when I was a Partisan until 1943, when I broke them during a skirmish. When I saw myself in the mirror I became frightened from my own image and broke my gold tooth and the white material underneath it. At the same time I began seeing double, my headache came back and I began vomiting. The guard kept yelling for me to come out from the bathroom but I was out of it, I was stunned. Finally I came out and she returned me to the interrogation room. My interrogator Evgeny Konstantinovich Nikitin was somewhat understanding of my troubles in the bathroom and said: “Chevo vam ploho chustvuvaets?” I shook

my head confirming yes. He then left the room and for the first time ever brought me a glass filled with a not so sweet and not so sour liquid. I drank it and felt slightly better. I looked so bad that even my interrogator was worried that I was going to die. After some time Afanasiev returned with a typed up paper and said: “This is the protocol from the interview I did with you. I need you to sign it.” There was not much written on the paper except that I had worked against DAG in favour of the Monarcho-Fascists and that I had aided the Anglo-American imperialists by being an agent of Tito’s. He accused me of all those things and now he wanted me to sign as if they were my own confessions. If I had been suffering from anxiety before, it was nothing in comparison to the anxiety that I felt after that piece of paper was shoved in front of my nose for me to sign. It made me truly angry! I would have rather died than sign this document. I somewhat calmed myself down and said: “This is not what I said. What you have written in the protocol is not what I said. I can’t sign something like this!” I told Afanasiev. He got very angry and began to yell at me calling me “zvoloch” and “inaetchija.” He said I was as stubborn as “my” Tito and that I should sign it. I then angrily said: “Sign it yourself, you invented it. These are your words not mine!” Major Afanasiev then took the paper and threw it in front of my interrogator and went outside. Evgeny Konstantinovich went after him and they left me alone with the interpreter Ianis Ioanidis. He immediately began to advise me, telling me not to be like that, because I was young and I should be helping the Soviet Party. I said to him: “The Party taught us not to lie, if we now start supporting the Party by lying, then where is the legitimacy of the Party?” Two NKVD agents then walked into the room and one said: “Vstavaj!” I stood up and was taken to another room. Evgeni, my interrogator was standing behind the table. He ordered me to sit on that damn chair in the corner. The interpreter was not there. He then said: “Smatri Vera,” and took the typed paper, lit a small butane torch that was sitting on the table and burned it. Afanasiev’s protocol was burned to ashes. He then said: “If you don’t agree you don’t have to sign, we don’t force people to recognize what they have done.” Yeah right I thought to myself, you are so very kind. After that they took me to the box, had me searched again, put me back in the prison car and drove me back to Lefortov prison where they searched me again. The officer on duty this time found the several pins I had stuck in the collar of my military blouse. I had always carried pins in my military blouse since I was a Partisan. I also carried a needle and thread, a knife and scissors and pinned several pins in my collar in case I needed them. They had confiscated everything else but until now they had not found my pins. The NKVD

woman was pleased with her find. She first instinctively smiled but then became angry and started asking where I had gotten the pins. I said: “I found them at the place where I was.” When they were transferring us from prison to prison, they always did a full body search. They put me back in the same cell, cell 105, third floor, third wing. Ah I said to myself, I am “home” again. There I found my small military blanket and my overcoat exactly where I had left them.

My interrogator started calling me “Verochka”

The interrogations, no matter how difficult, insulting and slanderous they were, were still better than being all alone in my cell. At least I got to talk and interact with people. All I did in my cell was sit and think and go over past proceedings and wonder what would happen next. If they called me to interrogation, no matter how difficult, no matter what they thought of me, I knew it meant that they needed something important from me and they were looking for it. It also meant that as long as they needed something from me I was important to them. How one acted in this situation depended on what kind of individual they were. No one and nothing could break those with a solid character. Again I was not called for “sledstvie” for several days. All that time I thought about my comrades. What were they doing? How they were doing and where they were? Were they doing to them what they were doing to me? Were they finding the interrogations difficult? Etc. When I was least expecting it I was “invited” to “sledstvie” again. As usual I went escorted, one in front and another behind me and me in the middle with my hands tied behind my back. Aristotelis, the interpreter, was always polite to me but this time even my interrogator seemed a little different, somewhat kinder. I thought to myself, was Evgeni attempting to use a different tactic? He even asked how I was. I told him I was fine, I experienced a bit of dizziness, I had a headache, some problems with my eyes but other than that, I was fine. “Do you want to read some books?” he asked. “Yes, I would be happy to do some reading!” I promptly replied in case he changed his mind and retracted the offer. “But they will be in Russian!” he explained. “I can read Russian,” I said, “only a few of the letters are different but most of the letters in our alphabets are identical but I can learn the different letters, no problem.” “We will give you some works of fiction,” he assured me. “I have read the Russian novels ‘Maladoja Gvardija’ and ‘Kak zakaljalas Stal’ and have watched a Russian film in Skopje about Zoja Kosmodojmjanskaja,” I said, but from the look on his face he did not believe me. He did not think these things, especially the film, were available to the general public in Yugoslavia. I said that he could check with his embassy and find out. I also told him that Gustav Vlahov taught at the Party school in Skopje about the structure of the Soviet Union. We also read “Volokolamskoe Soshe" and other books. For the first time I saw a change in my interrogators face and he called me “Verochka.” He said: “Verochka ti v rjosh.” After that he always called me Verochka and I signed the protocols with both Evgenia Baleva and Vera Nikolovskaja.

That day the interrogator did not ask me about “intelligence activities.” Pretending that he had forgotten to ask, he asked me where I had gotten the pins they found in my blouse collar. I said: “I had them stuck in the collar of my blouse since my early days as a Partisan, way before I was brought here. I was searched three times before but they were never found until recently.” After that he left me alone with Aristotelis Papunidis, the translator, for some time, so that Papunidis could advise me on matters of importance. Papunidis said: “Now is a good time to tell them what they want to hear because Tito will soon be overthrown. There are groups of Partisans who have begun to rebel against Tito and the Tito regime will soon be overthrown.” “Tell them what?” I said. “I can’t lie to them, this is how it is and there is no other truth.” When the interrogator returned he gave me two packs of low quality “Boks” brand cigarettes. The interrogation was finished earlier than usual, before five o’clock in the morning, exactly what time I don’t know. I was asleep when “Padjom” was called at six in the morning.

Interest in ties with OZNA and more slander

There was no daylight in the cell all winter long. In fact the light above was constantly on, day and night. In the summer I could see a bit of the sky through the window above. Some days the good duty officer gave me more sugar cubes than usual. They still had not given me any books to read. I smoked the cigarettes which were like poison but I smoked them anyway because I enjoyed smoking. From the cigarette butts and paper I continued to make little chicks, birds, little boats, crosses etc. and continued to line them up in rows on my table. When I had made about twenty, the little window in my cell door opened and the duty officer asked me what they were. They are nothing I said and he slammed the door shut. When the good duty officer came every third day and gave me extra food, I knew he would not react like the others, so when he asked me what they were I said they were General Markos’s little army of Partisans. He then asked me if I was Greek. He said: “Vi Grkinja?” “Njet!” I said, “Ja Makedonka”. So now “my” officer knew what I was, maybe they had told him already. Who knows what he thought of me. Maybe he simply felt sorry for me for being a young woman. Anyway, whatever his reasons, he always gave me the leftover food when he was on duty. For lunch that day I had rice and “shchi” and kasha for dinner. Without knowing what day it was, for me that day was a holiday. But as it turned out it really was a holiday, it was November 7th. I found that out the next day when they gave me the same food as before. Twice a year they gave us “special food,” on November 7th and on May 1st. That was why my interrogator also gave me two packs of “Boks” brand cigarettes. He too celebrated those days with his family. I was in solitary confinement in the Lefortovskaja tjurma prison for 18 months. They moved me out of cell 105 for only a few days. Those days I spent in a small square box in the middle of the hallway on the same floor. I suspect they moved me there because they were perhaps searching for something. One evening, in the dark of night, they told me to gather my things, searched me, put me in a prison car and took me for a “ride.” I thought they were taking me to trial. But again I found myself in the box of the famous Ljubljanka prison where I was again searched and thrown back into a cell. There was no table or chair in this cell. I had to curl up like a dog in the corner to get some sleep. Then I heard the annoying “Padjom.” I picked up my things but they told me to leave them there because I wouldn’t need them in “sledstvie.” In the room, standing at the end of the table were Pandeleev and Moionidis, the translator. I was used to my own interrogator but with Pandeleev I felt somewhat

nervous. Pandeleev was a Major by rank but always dressed in civilian clothes. “What was your relationship with OZNA?” Pandeleev asked. “I had none!” I said. “When you were in Bulgaria who did you meet with?” he asked. “I went to Bulgaria on behalf of NOF and DAG at CPG General Secretary Zahariadis’s request. In the delegation with me were Pavle Rakovski (with whom I went to the International Congress in Prague), Vangel Nichev, Viktor Kochev and Tane Naumov. Viktor and Vangel were supposed to leave after that for Eastern Macedonia. We went there at the invitation of the Bulgarian delegation that attended our NOF Second Congress on March 25th, 1949, which consisted of Risto Stoichev Kliashev, member of the BRP(k) Central Committee, Risto Kalaidziev, President of the Macedonian Association in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a woman. Our delegation stayed with the Macedonian Association in Sofia. Risto Kalaidziev gave a speech about Iane Sandanski’s leadership activities which he had undertaken during the Macedonian Ilinden Uprising. In his speech he criticized Yugoslavia, especially the Macedonian Party leadership and the Macedonian state. Among other things, he said that the Macedonian language was Serbian. We from our side, especially Viktor and I, immediately reacted to these allegations and stated that: ‘The spoken Macedonian language and the letters used in the People’s Republic of Macedonia are NOT Serbian because we the people of the Aegean par of Macedonia speak the same language and use the same alphabet, which you can verify, but the slogans that you have written here are written in the Bulgarian language’.” “The participants from the Macedonian Association in Sofia began to look at us strangely. If I can remember correctly, Maria, Gotse Delchev’s sister, sat in the first row of seats. No one reacted to our objections. Pavle Rakovski and I stayed with the Macedonian Association in Sofia for several days as guests of the Association. Unfortunately we were not lucky enough to attend the memorial service at Iane Sandanski’s grave at the Rozhen Monastery on Pirin Mountain. Pavle and I received orders from the Greek “Iafka” in Sofia to immediately depart for Prague. So on April 19, after being supplied with the necessary travel documents and airline tickets, we left for Prague. Comrade Maksimo was waiting for us at the airport with a car. From there he took us to the “Paris” hotel where we met up with the other members of our delegation. The delegation was led by Miltiadis Porfirogenis, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government of Greece. Among the others attending were Rula Kukulu, President of PDEG, Done Sikavitsa, member of the NOF Central

Committee responsible for the Macedonian children sent to the Eastern European countries, Pavle Rakovski and myself,” I concluded. “Nikolovskaja, we don’t need to hear all that, what we need to know is what your relationship was with OZNA!” said the interrogator. “I had nothing to do with OZNA!” I replied. “With whom else did you meet in Sofia?” he asked. “One of my cousins worked at the “Slavianska Beseda” hotel where we were accommodated. His name was Vancho Shimbov. He was from Aegean Macedonia, from the village Kosinets. He served in our brigade but because his mother, sister and two of his brothers lived in liberated Bulgaria, he left and went there in 1945 when Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations were good. When Vancho found out that I was with the delegation, he immediately came to my room to visit with me. After that he invited me to his home to visit with his mother. I told my friends that I was going to visit one of my aunts. The visit only took a couple of hours then I was back in the hotel with my friends. I also informed Risto Stoikov, originally from Macedonia, from the village Smrdesh, Kostur Region, representing the CPB (Communist Party of Bulgaria). Risto was responsible for our delegation. In the evening we were supplied with tickets to visit the opera and see the play “Evgenij Onegin”. Escorted by Risto Stoikov, our entire delegation attended,” I said. “Nikolovskaja, you are not being honest. I have asked you about your “podrevnaja” work in Bulgaria!” Pandeleev reminded me. I said, “Wait, give me a chance to tell you all the details. The next day a car arrived during the day and my cousin said that some friends wanted to see me. When I came down to the front door of the hotel, the driver called me and asked me to get into the car. I saw that the car had diplomatic license plates. They took me to the house where Naum Peiov and his family lived. At the time Naum was an officer of the Yugoslav Embassy, a military attaché in Sofia. When we arrived I met his wife and grandmother and we had lunch together. Naum then asked me to visit Vasil Ivanovski at his home and ask him what he thought of the Macedonian situation in Yugoslavia.” “After that they drove me back to the hotel. We were free in the afternoon so I decided to visit Vasil Ivanovski-Bistrishko at his home. I found his wife alone in the apartment. I told her who I was and where I was from and asked if I could see Vasil. She told me that Vasil was not on good terms with the Bulgarian Party and was currently unemployed. She asked me to wait because he was going to be home soon. A little later he arrived. I greeted him on behalf of Paskal and Mincho. Vasil and Mincho were relatives both from the village Luvradi, Kostur Region. Vasil’s family moved to Bulgaria during the population exchanges between Greece and Bulgaria that took place between the

two World Wars. From a young age Vasil joined the ranks of the CPB, contributing to it in some capacity and was even sent to the USSR. In 1942 he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. In the middle of 1943, together with a group of political prisoners, he was transferred from the Plovdiv prison to the Udrizovo prison in Skopje where he wrote a book entitled “The Macedonian Question Past and Present.” After escaping with the other political prisoners, in 1944, he joined NOBM. He was elected delegate at the First ASNOM Session. He was a member of the Agitprop Agency for Information at the ASNOM presidium and became the first chief editor of the newspaper “Nova Makedonija.” After the liberation, in addition to leading “Nova Makedonija”, he was appointed Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Social Welfare but because of a conflict with official policy he resigned and in November 1945 returned to Bulgaria. I asked Vasil about the Macedonian situation in Bulgaria and what the thinking was after the Cominform resolution was adopted (labeling Tito a traitor). Vasil told me what had happened was not good. He said it was pure hatred and things could only get worse. Vasil said that he did not agree with the CPB Central Committee position regarding Yugoslavia. I told him about our reception by the Macedonian Society in Sofia and about Risto Kalaidziev’s comments. He asked me about our situation in Aegean Macedonia. After that I left Vasil’s house and returned to the hotel. (In 1949 Vasil Ivanovski was arrested and convicted in connection with Traiko Kostov’s trial.) The next day Risto Stoikov-Kliashev and I went to a department store and I bought myself everything that I needed, including civilian clothes, for the trip to the Congress. I was also given all necessary documents for travel, tickets and anything else I needed. I again went to Naum Peiov’s house and briefed him about the conversation that I had had with Vasil Ivanovski. I also gave his wife two pairs of “kaproi” stockings. She had asked me to get some for her during my previous visit with her at her house. The next morning Pavle Rakovski and I were driven to Sofia Airport and left for Prague via Belgrade Airport. This is all that I can tell you about my stay in Sofia. I had absolutely no contact with any intelligence services. You can interpret what I have told you as you wish, it is your prerogative,” I concluded. Pandeleev informed me that he had a written statement that contradicted what I had told him about my stay in Sofia. And indeed he had one. Some time later during a confrontation I had with Pavle Rakovski, Pavle said something that was not true. During the same confrontation I told him to his face that what he was saying was not true; it came from his own imagination. Many years after my return to

Yugoslavia, Vangel Aianovski-Oche, in his book “Egeiski Buri” (1945) on p. 342, wrote about our stay in Sofia, but not the way it really was. Risto Kiriazovski also wrote something about this in the “Vecher” newspaper in July 1989. That clearly showed that even then false statements had been made against me. It became clear to me that the CPG DAG Security Services, from earlier on, had followed my work, my movement in NOF in AFZH and in DAG. That is why my friend Afrodita had warned me when we were at the Women’s Second International Congress in Budapest and in Bulgaria to be careful, but they had no concrete evidence of me doing anything wrong, except that I had visited Yugoslavia. But I made no secret of it. Unfortunately it was sad and low that my friends allowed themselves to make defamatory statements against me. That is why I was kept under house arrest in Romania. Pandeleev became frustrated with me and in a loud voice said: “Nikolovskaja, tell us what kind of connection you had with OZNA?” I said: “None! I used to go to Yugoslavia to meet with my friends who were interested in what was happening in Greece, with the Monarcho-Fascists and with the Anglo-American imperialists. They wanted to know more about the reactionary regime in Greece.” Suddenly at the top of his voice he yelled: “Enough! Even here you are trying to defend your Tito. Your husband said the same thing. He too is stubborn with his attempts to exonerate Tito and his leadership.” I said: “Do you think we are that mighty and powerful and that close to Tito that we are able to impose his views on you? Or do you think we are telling you about our situation the way it really was? You know very well where we stand. If you are looking for connections to Tito why don’t you ask Zahariadis and Ioanidid, they can tell you about their personal connections to him.” I signed one more of the toughest protocols, a result of yet another interrogation full of insults, humiliation and even hatred. What I endured would make one’s hair stand up especially since I was innocent of all the fabricated accusations leveled against me by this interrogator.

Lefortov Prison cell 86

During the night they loaded me onto a “voronok” and brought me back to Lefortovskata tjurma. I was a little braver tonight because Pandeleev had mentioned Mincho. It appears that Pandeleev is Mincho’s interrogator. I could see that Pandeleev respected Mincho from the comments he made when he said: “It is a shame that he is so misled, he is such a smart man.” I could not describe my joy to know that Mincho was here and to find out that he too was “playing the game” with the interrogators. Upon my return to Lefortovskata tjurma Prison they put me in a different cell, in cell 86 on the ground floor of the left wing. They didn’t call me to “sledstvie” for two months, July and August 1951. Lieutenant Pogrebnjak called me only one time to ask how I was doing and gave me two packs of cigarettes. One night while I was sleeping I got a bad nose bleed. I did not feel it at all but the duty officer who regularly checked on me through the spy hole must have noticed that I was bleeding and called for help. When I suddenly woke up two women in white coats were hovering over me demanding to know why I wanted to commit suicide. I was surprised by their comments and said: “That’s not true, I don’t want to die; I want to live!” Then one of them asked: “Why are you bleeding then?” Up until then I was not aware that I had been bleeding. Then I looked at my pillow and noticed the blood. At the same time the blood in my nose had clotted and my nose was dry. When I realized that I was bleeding from my nose, I explained to them that it was only a nose bleed and this was not unusual for me. My interrogator knew about it, I explained and it had happened to me several times before. “You can ask him if you don’t believe me,” I said. The reason that I mentioned my interrogator was because I wanted to know where he was. They gave me some powder and other drugs for several days. Both the interrogator and the interpreter, I found out, were not there, they had gone to Tashkent to gather more libelous statements, no doubt, against us from the people who knew us.

Poem - Allegory of my life

Every bit of loneliness I filled with recollection. I constantly thought about why I had fought in NOBG and in the Greek Civil War and why this was happening to me here in Moscow. I thought about how low I had fallen and how Moscow was not at all what I had imagined. What I imagined would be paradise had turned out to be hell. From my thoughts, spontaneously, verse by verse, I composed a poem, an allegory of my life. I began writing in cell 105 and finished in cell 86 in May 1951, at the Lefortov Moscow prison. Of course I had to compose the poem orally, as I felt it in my heart, because I had no pencil or paper to write it on. I was not allowed to have writing material. So I carried the poem in my memory and repeated it in all of my cells all the way to Alma Ata where I wrote it on paper. At the end of the poem I wrote: time (1. V. 1951) and place (“MoLeTjur”). The place is short for: “Moscovskaja Lefortovskaja tjurma” or “Moscow Lefortov Prison.” I allowed myself to quote the poem here because it was torn from my soul and composed under extremely unbearable circumstances.