Noose – Chapter 11

Noose – Chapter 11

Shadow of the Immortal Lion of Vicho and the Great Migrations: from Roumelia and Thessaly. (Ιροηκί φάλαηγγα).

1.

Just as we arrived at Mount Pieria we set up a guard post at a spot beside the tall pine tree forest and soberly waited for the “heroic phalanx” to arrive all the way from Roumelia and Thessaly. We had a great view of the entire area from here but about half of the horizon was quiet and swimming in fog. I looked towards the south with my binoculars, where the enemy army was expected to be, but I did not see anything. I looked again all over the sheltered side and still nothing. All I could see were sunken mounds of soil and a savage bloodthirsty wolf roaming around. Captain Giorgi Kalkov whispered to me: “They sure know how to camouflage themselves…” I could see rocks crumbling and gravel rolling down from the dark folds of the cliff. The hills were acquiring goose bumps, as if all the evil was going to flow down to the valley. Kalkov, warmed by the March sun, leaned on one of the pine trees and took off his lice infested shirt. But somehow he acted funny as if he was disturbed by something. At certain moments I could see his face twitching. I pointed my binoculars at him and watched his face twitch and his veins swell. He was a cheerful man with a smiling face. He was respected by all. He belonged to a famous family of freedom loving people, especially his grandfather, a renowned Ilinden leader. I met and got to know Giorgi Kalkov in 1945 in Kostur Region, in our end of Mount Vicho. He looked like a revolutionary leader sporting a beard and belts of cartridges around his waist and chest. This was how members of the NOF (National Liberation Front) Units used to move around the Macedonian villages in those days; spreading information about our holy struggle for a united Macedonia. In pursuit of his duties, to pacify us “rebels” and stop us from going to the Republic of Macedonia, assigned to him by NOF and the CPG (Communist Party of Greece), he arrived at the “Antihashia” Headquarters in November 1947. We demanded that we be allowed to sing our Macedonian songs which the Greeks prohibited us from doing. They would often use the excuse: “Don’t do that because the population here in these Greek regions does not know who you are.” One day, after Kalkov arrived, the Headquarters commissar placed us all in a line up, introduced him to us and said: “Dear young fighters, I am giving you an honest Party word that we Communists, after we gain our freedom through our struggle, will allow you to sing your songs as you desire. We Communists, who are followers of Lenin and Stalin, guarantee you that. Long live the revolution, brotherhood and unity between the Greek and the ‘Slavo-Macedonian’ people! Long live Comrade Zahariadis and Stalin.” At that point Kalkov was promoted to Captain of the DAG forces and assigned to the Headquarters responsible for the Macedonians, where most of us called him “Voivoda” (leader). As I kept looking at him through my binoculars, I waved at him but he could not see me. I could see him enthusiastically put his sweaty shirt back on then take a photograph of his family out of his pocket book and look at it. I could see him gently brushing the photograph with his hand. He was reminded of the faces of his wife and children. He seemed happy looking at the photograph. He then kissed the images of each person in the photograph and placed the photograph back in his faded pocket book. I became sad when I saw tears in his eyes. I cautiously said: “Voivoda, I see that you too are a sentimental. Try not to see everything with your heart.” He looked at me and continued to lean on the pine tree in the deafening mountainous silence, feeling guilty, insecure and still attempting to grapple with the Konitsa and all other defeats. He was one of those volunteers who fearlessly joined the Kostur Region Partisan Units committed to fight to the death for patriotism. Now there he was squatting like an alienated warrior. His memories had been pouring like a mountain stream, pushing and pulling him through the rapids. There was not much here in Pieria and Gramos to do but think about those tough revolutionaries from Kostur and Lerin Region who joined the struggle because they wanted to defend Macedonia.

Not for a black eye, but to save her from the urgency, to bring a better life to the homeland. Unfortunately most of those fighters died under the knife of the ELAS (National Liberation Army of Greece) Andartes (Greek Partisans). Their death was a great loss and a tragic division of a nation into Partisans and Andarte Communists. Their deaths upset the delicate balance in the Macedonian ranks. Those who survived fled Greece and, lured by General Tempo, went to the Republic of Macedonia where they joined Tito’s army as the famous “First Aegean Brigade” formed in October 1944, thus saving their lives from the Andarte knife. (The “First Aegean Brigade” was formed in free Bitola on November 18th, 1944 by combining two of the battalions of fighters that fled Greece. The First Aegean Brigade was deployed in Western Macedonia on December 28th, 1944 in Kichevo, Gostivar and Tetovo where it was tasked to fight against Albanian Balisti gangs led by Dzhemo and Mefail which were formed during the Italian-German occupation. Then by Marshal Tito’s special (strictly confidential) order number 236, the First Aegean Brigade was demobilized and dissolved on April 2nd, 1945.)

I sat beside him and kept quiet for a long time. At one point I asked: “Voivoda, I don’t understand why you were posted here and put in charge of us Macedonians?” Suddenly his face changed and he looked at me with astonishment. His forehead lifted, but barely noticeable, and his lips quivered. “I swear to you I truly don’t know!” he said. “Believe me,” he said, “this kind of military function in this war is ridiculous, a person like me is a tragic character and, as the Greeks say, this kind of person is αγνωµοη, meaning a person who does not have one’s own thoughts, is not independent, is indecisive, inexperienced, naïve, stupid, foolish, can’t make up their own mind, etc. In other words his spirit has been broken and he has lost everything that made him the person that he was.” He paused for a moment, looked away and continued: “I am a person of two truths and without any official status. My job is to make sure none of you know what is truly going on and at the same time, push you to organize yourselves in the name of the revolution. My blind and vague actions, as a responsible person for you young Macedonians, became apparent in the fighting in the city Konitsa, when I pushed you obedient young boys to your death. I realized then that my actions led me to a tragic mistake, a kind of mistake that I now have to live with and suffer remorse.” He paused again, thought for a moment and said: “What is the truth? The truth about us Macedonians is constituted in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and in the Communist Party of Greece (CPG). In the beginning I tried to keep quiet, but I decided I could no longer stay silent.” I was completely taken by his comments and I could not understand the expression on his face or the look in his eyes. Then, with exceptional boldness I asked him: “Voivoda, does it seem to you that we are living with hatred and war from all sides? Are we fighting a war which is not to the benefit of Macedonia? Have we become deaf, dumb and blind to everything you promoted after your return from Yugoslavia and to the fact that you were led by the CPY / CPM (Communist Party of Macedonia) from April 1945 until the October 1946 ‘brotherhood and unity’ deal?” Now one thing was becoming very clear to me and that was that we had fallen into the hands of fraudsters. I now realized who had deceived our people and who had pushed us into these mountains to be persecuted like wolves. He looked at me inquisitively and said: “That’s the way it is, perhaps unfortunate, but it is a fact and the facts themselves are articulate enough. The problems that fell on Macedonian shoulders are extensive and given the kind of people that we are, it’s a good thing that the soil can support us,” he said to me and continued: “Today, after the Second World War, there is a precarious balance held in the Balkans. We should not have any illusions that the European forces and our closest neighbours will allow the unification of the Macedonians. Now even the southern Slavic

people are against us. We should not have got involved in this war from the beginning…” He looked at me and then said: “Our truth has long been drowning in the whirlpools and rapids of the CPY and the CPG. Dishonesty has become the rule of law since 1948 and brutality is the sole method used when dealing with us Macedonians. They don’t even care for those Macedonians who sacrifice themselves for their interests. They see us as dogs and we should never forget that.” He paused for a moment, looked away and continued: “According to historical accounts, the Macedonian version of NOF (National Liberation Front) was founded in Skopje by the CPM Central Committee by order of the CPY. For more than a year since then, the CPY / CPM used NOF to conduct a huge propaganda campaign to recruit Macedonians under the slogan ‘Not a single Macedonian should be left out of the anti-fascist organizations NOF and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front)’. As a result, many supporters were recruited even at the beginning of the war in 1946, which led the Macedonian people on a one way street to their demise. The situation turned from bad to worse when Lazar Kolishevski invited activists of NOF and AFZH to Skopje and told them: ‘Now go back to Greece (Aegean part of Macedonia) and follow the directives of the CPG.’ In other words let the CPG lead you... and the many other things he told them. Since then I have been wondering and I cannot find an explanation as to why we continued on this course.” He looked at me with an inquisitive look in his eyes and asked: “Is that not vassalage? Is it not true that we Macedonians got a new master to serve? Ever since then our Organizations have become irrelevant. With the so-called “Brotherhood and Unity” they made it possible for out identity to be destroyed. From Macedonians the CPG renamed us to “Slavo-Macedonians”. Today most of us are here, in the depths of Greek territory and are being forced not to talk in our Macedonian language and not to sing our Macedonian songs. They demand of us to use our Greek given personal names in all spoken and written communications.” He paused for a moment, perhaps to suppress his emotions, and continued: “Now that Tito is squabbling with Stalin, they all look at us as their enemies. And on top of that we are being called Tito’s agents. A few days ago I found out that some of my fighter friends, with whom I was in Tito’s army, were executed, but I don’t know why. I don’t know anything any more, not even what has happened to my closest friend Vasil Bogdanov. All staff officers from Tito’s army, who were here at DAG headquarters assisting General Markos, have left, but we Macedonians stayed. We stayed to fight with the hope that we would fight for Macedonian ideals. Unfortunately by doing so we sealed our own fate.” He paused again, thought for a moment and resumed talking: “Another sad thing about this war is that they mobilized all the able men and women into the DAG units but left the very young children and elderly all alone to fend for themselves. Another difficult and terrible thing for us Macedonians, especially during 1948, was the collection of our children. They sent our children to Eastern European countries under the care of the Party. You know they will eventually turn them into ‘janissaries’. I hear they hung a medal around the children’s necks with Marko’s image on one side and a number on the other.” There was a sad look on his face as he continued talking: “You know that by doing so,” he said, “they have deprived our children of their names and if they forget their names they will forget their relationship to their fathers, mothers and families. In no time at all these children will become the children of the Party and of Markos. They uprooted the children. They robbed the Macedonian homes and families of their children and the children from their parents, cultural traditions and heritage. The children will now become part of the POLITICAL FAMILY. But let me be honest with you here, all these symptoms of our decline are a result of our false expectations and incorrect view of the world.”

He stopped talking, looked around and then looked at me as if looking for answers. He then said: “An objective past does not exist for us. In other words, today we are victims and accomplices in our own uprooting from our historical memory, from our identity, from our traditions, from our songs and from our homeland. Now we have no one’s support.” He looked depressed as he gazed down at the ground. He stopped talking. Now was my chance to say something: “Voivoda, in 1947 when they brought you to the ‘Antihashia’ Headquarters and, in accordance with Party lines, they put you in charge and made you responsible for the Macedonians, all 320 of us revolting young people from the Kostur and Lerin Region villages saw you as our saviour. Now we get to experience the same wrecking waves of our ugly and ignorant fate together. More than half of us have disappeared and will forever remain guarding Konitsa and the surrounding hills. Is there a need for all of this to be viewed as indifferent? Should we trust the promises of those who robbed us of our children and destroyed the Macedonian home? Now there is nothing left of NOF and AFZH and of CPM and Tito. Now it is only us, scattered in the battlefields of Gramos and in the depths of Thessaly and Epirus, experiencing our intimate and personal drama.” He looked up at me and said: “It makes me sick to think about our ruined families and the kinds of senseless deaths our Organizations brought upon us, especially those thoughtless and irresponsible people from AFZH who in front of our eyes took away countless numbers of our children. It rips me apart to think about our endless national shame and the suffering of those countless young, Macedonian mothers. They are our wives, our sisters existing inside these fronts aggravated by fear, apprehension, despair and depression. And every time they hear the whistle of a bullet, in their prayer they ask that it be their final rescue. I think it is a sin to be silent about these things. We Macedonians in this generation have been born without sufficient interest in the destiny that awaits us. As the old saying goes, ‘In order to defeat evil, you must first find it, recognize it and understand it.’ But now it’s too late... Do not be afraid of death, but be afraid of the evil that found you in life.” He looked up towards the sky at the tip of the great beech tree and, while thinking about how we were ruined, he wanted to say: “Ask the wind which leaf of that branch will be the last to fall...”

2.

I stood there stunned. I looked around searching for people but the place was a wasteland, a slaughterhouse... I realized that no one was going to pass in this damn place. The Voivoda was silent for a long time breathing slowly but deeply. He was hit by the first barrage of flying bullets. It was around seven o’clock in the morning when our unit was sent to a frontal position on the highest slope of Mount Pieria, near the hilltop in Kundazhupia Region. Kalkov struggled to snap out of it but the pool of blood under him kept swelling. Age-wise, Kalkov was a middle-aged man but had the heart of a warrior. Finally he spoke and said: “The bullet came from behind, I was shot in the back while facing the enemy, but I am not giving up no matter how much the wound from an evil bullet hurts! I am Voivoda “vishenski” and my only resolve in life is to shed my blood for Macedonia.” I said to him: “I remember you like this from the past, with a big beard... and there were so many of you with big beards then, but why now, why after 1948, here in Gramos, why are they killing you like Tito’s officers?” He bowed his head and hugged me by my waist and said: “I am dying under alien skies in the mountains of loneliness, beside the young Macedonian soldiers who left their bones here. They died bravely under my watch. We Partisans are all without helmets, without hats and even after our death the wind will still wave our black and blond hair.” Many wounded were passing by us with their heads wrapped in red dressings, supporting one another along the rocks and trees. Someone was praying out loud. Roxana the nurse touched his head, stroked his hair and helped him stand up and straighten his shoulders. Kalkov, holding his picture of his wife and children, kept kissing it with passion. He then swallowed hard, suppressed his tears and said: “Oh, where are you MACEDONIA?”