ALONE IN THE MOUNTAIN WITH HUNGRY WOLVES

ALONE IN THE MOUNTAIN WITH HUNGRY WOLVES

Wanting to save their children, families from Chegan left donkeys in the ravine to feed the hungry wild beasts

Wolves were howling from all sides when thirteen families, women and children, from the village Chegan found themselves helplessly looking towards the sky and praying to God for someone to come and save them. When the hungry beasts came closer somebody suggested they sacrifice their donkeys to save themselves. They immediately offloaded and pushed them into a ravine. In no time the donkeys were attacked and the wolves devoured them. That bought the families some time before armed Partisans arrived and chased the wolves away. This story was told by Mile Brzovski, the oldest boy among the children and mothers in the group. Mile, together with his mother, two brothers and three sisters found themselves on the mountain in the middle of winter.

This is what Brzovski said, “It was December 22, 1948 as I remember. It was a cold winter day and after traveling a long time we were all tired and exhausted so we stopped to get some rest. We started a fire to warm ourselves and dry our wet clothes. Around midnight we heard wolves howling. When the howling got closer we could see the wolves coming towards us. We started screaming for help but there was no one near to help us. Then we took one of the donkeys and pushed it down into a ravine. The wolves went after it and tore it apart. After they were done they started coming towards us. We sacrificed a second donkey but it wasn’t enough to satisfy them. Lucky for us some Partisans who were nearby heard our screams and came to our rescue. They shot at the wolves and they immediately fled…”

This, however, was not the only mishap the Brzovski family experienced. Before the wolves attacked, while they were traveling across the mountain, they lost Mile’s younger sister, who was only seven months old. This is what Brzovski said, “While fleeing from our home we took two donkeys loaded with food, clothes and other things that we needed. We ran into deep slow while crossing the mountain and the donkeys kept getting stuck. We had to dig a path for them with shovels. Since I was the oldest in my family, fifteen years old at the time, I shoveled the snow with my mother. While we were helping the donkeys walk through the snow, my mother put Letka down on the snow. We were so busy shoveling we didn’t notice that she was getting covered with falling snow. When we realized that she was gone we panicked and started looking for her but we couldn’t find her. We had a dog with us. The dog found her covered by the snow. My mother ran back and yelled, ‘There she is, she is alive’…”

There were families from the villages that did not want to flee to Yugoslavia and remained near the battle zones hoping that the Partisans would win the war and they could go back to the village. Mile’s mother with six of her children decided not to go far from her village Chegan. Her husband was a Partisan and she wanted to stay near him. She and her children were placed in one of the cottages on the mountain. This is what Brzovski said, “When we heard airplanes coming, we ran and hid in a cave. One time a bomb fell on the cottages and three were destroyed. Luckily we had left in time before the bombs fell. We lived on the mountain for five difficult months. We were hungry most of the time…”

When spring came the women and older children were put to work for the Partisans, delivering ammunition to the battle zones with donkeys and horses.

This is what Brzovski said, “One night an order was given for the people to prepare and leave their villages. The Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) was losing battles and the Greek government army was getting closer. Not only did the Greek government army have more soldiers than us but it was being helped by the Americans and the British, who supplied them with weapons and airplanes to bombard us. We heard that DAG was defeated and started retreating towards Albania but we didn’t know where we were supposed to go. My father found out that we were still there and one night came to Popadia to get us out. We were so happy to see him alive because

many Partisans by then had been killed. The next morning all thirty families that were living there crossed over Mount Kaimakchalan and went into Yugoslavia near Mariovo. We were accommodated there in a small house in which I saw two pictures hanging on the wall. Later I was told that one picture was of Marshal Tito and the other was of Lazo Kolishevski.

From Mariovo we were taken to Brailovo where we remained for two months. Later the children were placed in children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva, Prilep and Valandovo, and the women were sent to Galicnik where they were put to work with wool. My father Krste arrived later. Before that he was imprisoned in Vojvodina. That was the time of the Inform Bureau when many DAG soldiers were imprisoned because they were suspected of being Stalin supporters. When they realized that my father was not a Stalin supporter they sent him to Galichnik to be with my mother…”

Brzovski continued, “The luckiest year in my life was 1959 when all my brothers and sisters, living in different children’s homes, came together again in Bitola where all of us sat at the same table and had our meals. I remember one time my mother started crying and said, ‘Our suffering is behind us now. My heart feels full to see you all alive and well and here with us’…”

Chegan, Mile Brzovski’s birthplace, is located on the other side of Kaimakchalan. At one time there were 85 houses with large families in which 1,227 people lived. The village celebrated “Spasovden” (St. Spas) during which all the people gathered in the village square and sang and danced to the bands playing folk music. In the summer of 1949, however, instead of gathering in the village square and dancing, the people, dressed in black, gathered together in the village church to pay their respects and pray for the souls of those who had been killed in battle. There was not a single family which did not lose a family member or members during the Greek Civil War. Fifty young men and women died in the battles of Gramos and Vicho alone. No one knows where they were buried, or if they were buried. One of their fellow villagers who came for the occasion from abroad had a camera and took a picture of the Chegan ceremony.

Mile Brzovski visited his birthplace in 1988. This was the first time he was allowed to go back since the war. This is what he said, “When I went to my village I didn’t know if I was walking on the ground or on air. I found my family home… It was in ruins… Ours was one of the best looking houses in the village but it was ruined and used by the Greek police at the end of the war. There is still life in the village but the population has dropped to about 700 inhabitants. The village is no longer where it was originally. After it was destroyed the people of Chegan rebuilt their homes further down in another location. When I went there for the second time in 2003, the picture had changed. Wealthy people from Athens and Solun had come and built big villas in place of our old houses. My family’s house no longer existed; someone had built a two story villa in its place. People now ski near the village and go there during the winter. Chegan has become an attraction for tourists. The old village was located at 1,190 m above sea level and it was surrounded by forests and water…”

According to Brzovski, his family had a large property in the village, which his relatives looked after. His grandfather had gone to America twice to work as a migrant worker. The first time he brought back two saddlebags of gold and the second time he brought back three. This is what Brzovski said, “The first time my grandfather came back from working in America he bought a farm. The gold he brought back the second time he buried somewhere, which to this day no one knows where it is. My grandfather had 16 children. Very few people believe that my grandmother gave birth to 16 sons and daughters and they all survived…”