GIRLS SANG THE SADDEST SONG

GIRLS SANG THE SADDEST SONG

Fana, Lena, Milka and Ksantipa climbed up on the village church steeple and sang the song “Goodbye mother, father, goodbye dear relatives...”

In the summer of 1944, Fana Martinova, Lena Miljova, Milka Damovska and Ksantipa Kirova from the village Pozdivishta, Kostur Region, climbed up on the village church steeple and sang the song “Goodbye mother, father, goodbye dear relatives, I’m leaving for a distant place.” Their mothers gathered together in the village square and cried as they listened. This is what Martinova said about that, “We were friends around ten years old. We first walked around the village, and then ran through the meadows and at the end we climbed on the highest point of the village church steeple from where we could see the entire village.” Martinova was one of the thirty thousand Macedonian children that left their homeland in Greece and were never allowed to return.

Sixty years later she still could not explain or understand why those girls sang that song. When they came down from the steeple their relatives hugged and consoled them. Martinova still remembers what her aunt said to her, “You will leave, but you will come back, this damned war will be over. You shouldn’t be worried; you will go to school wherever you go.” This is what Martinova said about that, “Everywhere we went people said to us you will go to school and then come back. It was true that we all went to school and finished different studies but we never came back. Not when the war was over, not two years later, not five years later, and not even forty years later. The Greeks passed a law that did not allow us to go back because we are Macedonians…”

After spending years in the children’s homes in Romania and Poland, instead of going back home (because the Greek authorities would not allow them), Fana, Lena, Milka and Ksantipa, went to different sides of the world. Lena went to Toronto, Canada, Ksantipa married a Polish man and remained in Poland, Milka went to live

with her father in Tashkent, USSR, and Fana went to the Republic of Macedonia. They met again in 1988 in Skopje at the first child refugee meeting.

Martinova, together with 9 designated mothers and 166 children from her village Pozdavishta, left home during the summer of 1948. She was joined by her brothers Vasil, fifteen years old, and Tashko, twelve. The night before they left the entire family got together for dinner. The church bell rang one hour after midnight signaling to them that it was time to go.

This is what Martinova said about that, “We were nine in our family. Three children left, and my grandmother, my grandfather, my mother, my father and my two sisters remained at home. Everyone was mobilized in the war effort, even my oldest sister Kiritsa who had just given birth and was breastfeeding. She was in the group that knitted sweaters and socks for the Partisans. My other sister was only 17. Her job was to transport weapons and ammunition from the Prespa villages to the battlefields in Vicho and Gramos. That was a very dangerous task. The girls carried the bombs around their waists, cartridges around their shoulders while leading teams of horses and donkeys loaded with weapons and munitions through dangerous mountain paths during the dark. If there was any kind of ambush, they most likely would have all been killed. My mother told me that one time while they were cooking food for the Partisans a grenade landed and exploded inside the cauldron. There was also the danger of being bombed from above but when they heard airplanes flying they quickly hid away from the big cauldron which was resting over the open visible smoking fire. Even though he was old, my grandfather Trpo also participated in the war effort. Whenever there was war in Macedonia he was always there to fight for his country. He even came back from America to participate in the Ilinden Uprising. His motto was an independent Macedonia. During the Greek Civil War he donated his entire herd of sheep to the Partisans…”

According to Martinova, after the children left their village they traveled only at night. The older ones walked and the little ones rode on ox carts. Long before they crossed the Greek-Yugoslav border they stopped in a forest for some rest. There they met Lazo, a

teacher, who informed them that from there on the children had to be separated. This is what he said, “Starting tomorrow we will separate you into smaller groups because it is dangerous for you to travel as one big group while you are being pursued by the airplanes from above. I bring you greetings from your parents and some advice. They all told me to tell you that you must study hard and listen to your teachers and counselors. We will send over Macedonian teachers for you at your new homes. They will teach you the Macedonian language, because all of you are Macedonians, and don’t forget that.”

During the trip little Martinova couldn’t sleep for two days. On the third day she fell down and went to asleep. No one noticed until the mothers took attendance. Missing were also her brother and four year old Dantse. Dantse was found hugging a tree and crying for her mother. Her brother was found playing with Martinova’s dog. This is what Martinova said about that, “They used the dog to track me down. When the dog found me it became extremely excited like it knew I was missing. It placed its front legs on my shoulders and its head on my chest. Oh my God how sad that was… I could never forget that moment,” Martinova said and began to cry.

She also said that she could never forget little Nume. He was very sick. And even though he was only a child he spoke like a grown man. Because he was very sick he couldn’t walk and had to be carried on a makeshift blanket stretcher carried by four women. He constantly kept saying to them, “I’m sick, leave me here to die, I have two other brothers, who will live instead of me…” When the group arrived in Romania he was hospitalized and managed to recover in a short time. After that he went to school and eventually graduated as a doctor, a specialist. His brothers joined DAG, the Partisan army, and were both killed fighting.

Here is Dedo (grandfather) Lambro’s terrifying story. Because he was very old Dedo Lambro was left at home with his three very young grandchildren. When the time came for all the children to leave, to avoid being killed by Greek bombs, he took his grandchildren and placed them in bushels, loaded the bushels on his horse and took them to the designated mothers to take them away. This is what Dedo Lambro said to the women, “My son is in prison;

my daughter in law was a Partisan but died from typhus in the village German. Please take good care of my grandchildren. Take them wherever you take the other children. My grandchildren also need to go…”

After the children arrived in the village Dolno Dupeni in Prespa, on the other side of the Greek border, some were accommodated by local families and a large number were placed in one big hall. A few days later they were all loaded on trucks and transported to Bitola. In Bitola they were loaded on train cars and several days later were taken to Romania. Martinova stayed in Romania until 1955 and from there she went to Skopje.

Martinova and her family experienced the same trials and tribulations most of the Macedonian families from Aegean Macedonia experienced; now spread all around the world. After the war (Greek Civil War) ended only her grandmother Pena remained in their house. She waited for years hoping that “someone” would come back home. This is what Martinova said, “Before we left our home we the children used to draw our palms on the walls and doors of our house. From what my sister had told me, instead of praying in front of an icon, our grandmother prayed in front of our small palms and constantly repeated, ‘The war is over, why are my grandchildren not here?’ My grandfather fled with the refugees during the mass exodus and ended up in Albania. From there he boarded a ship that took him to Poland. We all hoped that one day he would go home and take my grandmother with him. Sadly they never saw each other again. The Greeks did not allow him to return. My grandmother died alone at the doorstep of our house in 1950. My grandfather left Poland and went to the Republic of Macedonia and from there to Australia to live with his daughter. He lived a long life and died when he was 107 years old. Because he was an invalid he received a pension from the Republic of Macedonia.

After the war ended, Martinova’s mother and younger sister fled Greece illegally and went to the Republic of Macedonia. They had to crawl many kilometers to avoid being caught. The Yugoslav border guards did not cause them any trouble. But if the Greeks had caught them, they would have been shot on the spot. Martinova’s father also fled Greece illegally and went to the Republic of

Macedonia. Her older sister couldn’t go with him because she had a small baby. She stayed at her husband’s house. Her husband was killed during the war. His father searched the battlefields looking for his body but didn’t find it. Martinova’s brother Vasil was among the 1,500 children recruited by the Greek Communists from the children’s homes in Eastern Europe and sent back to Greece to fight in the Greek Civil War. Eventually he ended up in Poland where he died under mysterious circumstances. Officially he was killed in a car accident, but most likely he was killed by the Greeks because of his pro-Macedonian orientation.

Martinova can’t understand the Greek Government’s attitude towards the Macedonian people. She feels sad for those Macedonians forced out of their homes and exiled during the war. And like she says, “Greece does not allow our people to return and see the places where they were born and spent their childhood…” In her book she wrote, “We too are children of mother earth... in which she conveyed the intimate drama of a child refugee, now a seventy-year old man, who will always remember the beech tree under which mothers were hugging their children for the last time. “Is that beech tree still there?” he asked, but no one seemed to know because no one was allowed to go back to Greece. When he arrived at the Yugoslav-Greek border the Greek border guard told him, “You can’t enter Greece because you are not Greek!” “I never saw my mother again,” he said. “She died in Vicho digging trenches…” His mother was one of nine women from Kostur Region captured by the Greek solders, killed on the spot and tossed in the ditches they were digging.

Martinova completed her degree in literature and acquired a PhD in history. She researched the Romanian archives where she obtained most of her documents about the Macedonian refugee children.