BANITSA FROM 1945 TO THE END OF THE GREEK CIVIL WAR IN 1949 - Part 02

They started a hunger strike in prison, demanding to appear before the mayor of Lerin District and be told why they were imprisoned. They shouted slogans for democracy, for NOF, EAM and the CPG, and they sangrevolutionarysongs. Thehunger strikelastedthreedays andforced the prison administrator and the mayor to meet and to listen to their demands, because they were joined by a hundred other prisoners. The mayor announced to them that they were accused of hostile activity in the service of another country and of undermining of the Greek constitutional regime, and that they would be tried in court.

In the following days, fifty-eight Banicheni were taken to court with this charge and for murders committed during the period of the national liberation struggle of 1941–1945. Mitse Katin appeared as a witness with his sons Janko and Blazhe, charging the prisoners with the death of his son Ilo. He said it happened because his son declared that he was Greek and did not want to cooperate with the bandits. Other witnesses were Stamati and Micho Makile, brothers who were ethnic Greeks (from Evia) but married to women of Banitsa. Stamati declared that there were no partisans in Banitsa, just bandits who were organized simply to extirpate the Greeks. Micho Makile testified that the bandits took him captive and escorted him to Radosh Mountain, but he was released after the intervention of Vangel Kujchev and then attacked again near Banitsa where he was aided by a military unit. He was then wounded.

Ilija Dzovani, a Greek, spoke as a defence witness. He was the son-in-law of Tsile Laev. He declared that the witnesses’ testimony was not correct, and that during the entire time of the National Liberation War,

52Constantine Mallin’s grandfather.

he had lived in Banitsa, and nobody did anything to him; rather, he felt like it was his hometown. Gligor Danev, a lawyer from Banitsa, acted as defence counsel for the accused.

At the conclusion of the trial, all of the accused were convicted and given long prison terms and sent to the deserted islands in the Aegean, where they served between five and fifteen years’ hard labour.

A similar process applied to others from Banitsa who were tried in absentia. These people had continued to fight against the new regime during the period of the National Liberation Movement and the time after the Varkiza Agreement. Among those sentenced in absentia were the following: Lefter Olevski, unit commander; Vangel Kujchev, former instructor for the CPG and then for the regional NOF delegation; Dine Robev, CPG instructor; Kitse Kochev, president of NOF in Aegean Macedonia; Dimitar Kochevski, unit commander and EAM instructor; Todor Kochevski-Viktor, instructor for EPON and secretary for the regional boardof EPON(NOMS, theNational LiberationYouth Union) delegation; Atanas Katinovski-Goche, former instructor for EPON and political instructor and battalion officer of OZNA, stationed in Yugoslavia; Mitse Nedelkov, CPG instructor; Micho Velikin, first president of NOO for the Lerin region, leader for the town of Kukush and responsible for the region’s agitprop and press; Sofika Petkova, AFZ instructor; and Kitse Mangov, a political émigré in Bulgaria.

Kitse Mangov was sentenced in absentia to death, and the others were sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison.

With the exception of Katinovski-Goche in Yugoslavia and Mangov in Bulgaria, all of them were active in the local area, expanding the national liberation movement in opposition to the regime.

On 1 May 1946, the inhabitants of the village of Ekshiso, Lerin District, set out to celebrate Labour Day in a place called Solinar, and they were accompanied by a partisan group under the command of Lazo Popdimitrov of Banitsa. The police were notified of this celebration and set off to ruin the festivities. The partisans had set up scouts and an

ambush, and defeated this group of policemen, killing two policemen and capturing one. The others fled back to the village. After a brief interrogation, the prisoner was sentenced to death for his atrocities and was shot by the partisan unit command. Lazo Popdimitrov took the policeman’s rifle and gave it to Mire Babulov a few days later. Babulov had a sheep pen in a place called Osojte. Popdimitrov fell into an ambush on the way back to the village and was captured by the police. They took him to the station where he was beaten and tortured, but he did not admit anything. Alas, at the same time, two couriers under the partisan commander Vangel Kujchev were captured in Tserovo, imprisoned, and tortured. One of them, Trajche Adjiev of the village of Tserovo, severely tortured and unable to bear the pain, told them of the skirmish near the town of Ekshiso. of the execution of the captured policeman, and of the transfer of the rifle from Popdimitrov to Babulov. He did not know that Popdimitrov was also in prison at the same time, and unintentionally betrayed him. A confrontation took place, and Popdimitrov confessed to leaving the rifle in Mitse Babulov’s sheepfold in Osojte.

A police squad was dispatched to surround Babulov’s sheep pen the next morning. They found Mitse Babulov in a hut with his son Stavre. Mitse was beaten almost to death but did not disclose that he had a rifle on his property. One of policemen grabbed Mitse’s son Stavre and threatened to harm him. Stavre, thinking that he could save both his father and himself, gave up the location of the rifle. The police then returned to the half-dead father and killed him. They spared the underage son. They rounded up the sheep and goats, and set the pen on fire, leaving little Stavre beside it.

Lazo Popdimitrov was taken to the Lerin prison, where he was charged with the murder of the policeman and treasonous activities in the service of a foreign nation (Yugoslavia). He was sentenced to death by firing squad, but an appeal to superior court commuted his sentence to 18 years at hard labour in the death camps on the islands. There he remained for 18 years where, according to his story, he worked 15 to 18 hours a day with poor rations and mistreatment. Whippings and solitary confinement were commonly used in the camp for everyone, including

him. He survived because of his relative youth, and was released after serving 18 years. He returned home ill. He sought medical care, but was refused. He crossed the border illegally near Bitola, where he was accepted and sent for medical care.

About the same time, in a single action, Krishe Kochev and Pavle Kitse Apchev were taken into custody and subjected to psychological torture.53 They did not reveal anything about the partisans of DAG. Krishe Kochev survived the torture and beatings and was released. Because of the persistent mistreatment, he emigrated to Canada to be with his family and died there in 1980 as a severely afflicted invalid veteran of war.

The second prisoner, Pavle Kitse Apchev, survived all of the torture in Banitsa police station and with injuries, was transferred to the Lerin prison without any medical assistance. Bravely enduring all the methods of torture, he told his torturers to their faces, that he if he survived, he would take revenge, and if not, his comrades would do so. He was brutally killed in the Banitsa jail without ever being tried or convicted.

Pavle Apchev was born in 1925 in Banitsa to a working-class family. As a young man he worked in the coal mine. After the occupation in 1941, he became a member of the communist youth movementOKNEand actively participated in the collecting ofarmsand military equipment. He was accepted as a member of the CPG near the end of 1941 when he joined the Banitsa partisan detachment. He participated in all actions within the ranks of ELAS until the spring of 1945, when he returned to the village and continued his activity until being arrested. The peoplelost yet another warrior. The Banitsa military battalion and the local police unit started a fight with Banitsa youth. Taken into custody were the underage youths Gjorgi Malinov, Taki Kochev, and others. The police tried, through beatings, to extract

53According to Evan Blage Mallin, his father-in-law Krishe Kochev (Harisios Kotsopoulos) was also severely beaten and never completely recovered.

information from them. Despite the torture, the young people remained silent and were released after the intervention of the local authorities. In June 1946, there were clashes between the partisans and government forces in in the place called Jachevo Field, Lazhani-Armenoro-Lerin, area. Sofika Dzugomanova of Bitola, member and instructor for the regional committee of AFZ, Lerin District, was wounded and captured. Kitse Kochev, less seriously wounded, withdrew with his partisan unit and was sent to Bitola for treatment.

In the Lerin prison, Sofika Dzugomanova was tortured and humiliated to get her to give up her comrades-in-arms, but she did not talk. She was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment and forced labour in the death camps of the Aegean islands. She endured her insufferable imprisonment without begging for mercy.

During the month of June, Banitsa was blockaded and the police arrested Krishe Kochev, MitraKocheva, StavreBabulov, BogleBoglev, Stavro Lulov, Kole Popdimitrov, Stavro Popdimitrov, and Mile Popdimitrov. These persons were accused of supplying the movement and the partisans with food and other necessities. They were tortured for a long time in the Lerin prison.

Asrevengefor thekillings of threepolicemen on Kiselarmountain, the monarcho-fascists arrested a large number of villagers in the village of Ekshiso and took them to the Lerin prison. Many people were shot without legal process during July 1946.

Bulkes Meeting54

In May 1946 the commander in chief of the CPG held a meeting in Bulkes with all of the political cadres, where the political and military situation in Greece was reviewed, along with the possibility of returning some operatives to Greece to launch political and military activity

54Bulkes was a village in northern Yugoslavia taken over by Greek communists and their families after WW II when the German inhabitants were forced out by Tito. The Greek Communists used it until 1949.

against all the more-organized monarcho-faschism. After arriving in Bitola, they contacted the Political Commission for Aegean Macedonia and put themselves at its disposal. The departure from Bulkes was because of opposition to the CPG due to major disagreements between the Macedonian and Greek operatives.

Formation of a Macedonian partisan military headquarters on Vicho Mountain

During August of 1946, the majority of partisan operatives returned from Yugoslavia to their hometowns in order to form bigger partisan units and unite the already-existing partisan units on the ground, in order to protect the population from the terror attacks. The organizing of NOF and other social-political organizations began. The people had to organize themselves and find the most appropriate forms of self-protection from the monarch-fascist government.

During June and July, Macedonian operatives gathered on Vicho Mountain and formed a Military Staff as the highest military body to lead the operational Macedonian military units in the Lerin-Kostur region and Koreshtia.

Members of the Military Staff included Pando Shiperkov as commander and Kendro Strato as political commissar.

The other members were Lefter Olevski of Banitsa, Mihali Graniti of Krchista, Gjorgi Sharini of Bapchor, and Risto Kolentse-Kokinos. The unit commanders were: Vangel Kujchev, commander of the partisan unit for Lerin District; Vangel Mangov, commander of partisan unitforKostur;and GjorgiKalkov,commanderofthe third Macedonian partisan unit for Koreshtia.

The fourth Macedonian partisan unit was formed later on Sinachko Mountain with the commander Karabera, Barba Kicho.

Vangel Kujchev left for Yugoslavia and the unit was taken over by Lefter Olevski. Risto Kolentse-Kokinos also returned to Yugoslavia.

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