PART TWO - Part 06

Rigas stood up and said: “I will answer your question immediately. The initial period of our educational work was very difficult due to lack of supervision over the Greek-Macedonian staff by the Communist Party of Free Greece. In the early period many positions were occupied by Tito’s people who, on the orders of the fascists, were sent specifically to carry out subversive actions. We dismissed them because they were spreading foreign ideologies... The main reason for the serious changes to the Macedonian staff was because correct personal information became available to the party. Any Macedonians employed anywhere in the future will be selected and controlled by trusted people to avoid the mistakes made in the past...”

“What?! What kind of foreign ideologies are you talking about?!” asked Dzhuban.

“Tito’s ideology! These people were influenced by Tito-ism. The children were being taught in the so-called Macedonian language which was artificially invented by Tito... Of course, we will soon bring in new teachers and educators and new textbooks that will be created and printed in our publishing house in Bucharest... By using these textbooks the Slavo-Macedonian children will learn the real Slavo-Macedonian language for which our party invested a lot of effort and knowledge to create...” replied Rigas.

“Excuse me, Comrade, what is your name?” asked Dzhuban.

“Rigas,” replied Rigas.

“Comrade Rigas, here we accepted Macedonian children. Macedonians! And you talk to me about some Slavo-Macedonian children? What does that even mean? Were we wrong?” asked Dzhuban.

“That’s right. You were wrong. You were seduced by the Tito-ists, Comrade...” replied Rigas.

“Is that so? And what was wrong with the women the children called mothers? You also removed them from the centre... You say they are illiterate… You say they wear black… You say they spread feelings of sadness in the children… And that’s why you removed them. It’s true that some aren’t literate and some only had a few classes of primary education. That is correct. But it’s also correct that they were the single strongest link in the chain: parents -language - birthplace, daily communication with the children, perhaps even more than with the teachers... They were the living carriers of their original mother tongue and reminders of their past and things that shouldn’t be forgotten... Like remembering the names of their loved ones, the names of their villages, the names of the meadows, the hills, the mountains, the fields, the vineyards, the springs and all the places where they played... These women were satisfied with the small wage, and if they demanded something it was their desire to be as close as possible to the children who had unlimited confidence in them. They wanted to have the children as close as possible to them, to caress and cheer the anguished, to calm the agitated and to wipe their tears and kiss their weeping eyes... They urged the children not to extinguish the spark of hope, to overcome their losses - fathers, brothers, sisters… who were left behind in the battlefields... You removed the mothers and now there is no one to look after the children; to cradle the very young, to warm them with their warmth, to hold them in their arms and rock them in their laps... Who will whisper stories to them about their parents and grandparents, what their names are, what their villages are called and where they are? Do you realize that by removing these women from the children you robbed them of their customs, culture and even their homeland? And one more thing! You took the children’s golden earrings, rings, chains with the cross and images of the Mother of God, which were given to them by the mothers... Why did you do that?” asked Dzhuban.

Rigas piped up and said: “That’s right! We did all this, as well as many other things, in support of the action to collect aid for the jailed communists in Greece...”

“For the children these were sacred symbols of their memories. In the souls of the children you have killed God...” said Dzhuban but was abruptly interrupted by Beata who said:

“I want to assure you that we won’t allow the children to be molded. Greek children will stay Greek, Macedonian children will stay Macedonian...”

“Sorry, Madam Comrade, not Macedonian but Slavo-Macedonian!” replied Rigas sarcastically.

The meeting ended late. Before leaving the hall Kopciński said to Ptashevska:

“We will bring up and educate the children but no one is going to educate those whom we met today...”

“My dear,” said Dzhuban quietly, “they are already educated. They need nothing more...”

“I’m surprised and amazed at their convictions and the way they think,” said Kopciński.

“Don’t let them ruin your day...” replied Ptashevska.

“What insolence, claiming that Tito created the Macedonian language and the alphabet for the Macedonians... And my university professors taught me that...” said Kopciński who was abruptly interrupted by Ptashevska who said:

“My dear, Vatslav, our friend Rigas is the fruit of a poorly planted seed and I’m sorry to say this, but he was raised at a bad time... I just can’t see a place for him in the educational centre... And not only here, but I don’t see a need for a Communist Party of Greece organization anywhere in Poland. As you know, they have created special service cells that operate like the police everywhere where refugees from Greece live and work. And all the time they submit defamatory statements against people who aren’t like-minded. They also commit acts contrary to our laws. For these reasons I’m

considering writing a report to ask the Polish state and party leadership to ban these organizations in Poland. Anyone who wants to be a member of the party can do so by joining our party. Refugees don’t have to have their own party organizations. The best way for them to organize is through various associations, clubs, choirs, drama sections, etc. This way they can successfully preserve and nurture their spiritual, national culture - songs, dances, literature and domestic customs and traditions.”

In the report that Kopciński prepared and sent to the Ministry with an indication that it would be forwarded to the PORP Central Committee (Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party), among other things, he concluded that:

“Rigas is an open enemy of the children. Immediately remove him from the state education centre and abolish the Greek administration.”

Rigas was absent during the next state training centre’s council meeting and during the next directorate meeting.

It was rumoured that he had been sent to Bucharest to do some new party task. (For more information on the fate of Macedonian children in Poland, as well as on Macedonian refugees in Poland, I would like to refer the reader to the book “MACEDONIAN CHILDREN IN POLAND (1948-1968)”, Mlad Borets, Skopje, 1987, and “Macedonian Refugees in Poland 1948-1975”, Documents, Skopje 2008.)

11

It was April.

It was spring.

Wild and tame flowers began to flourish in the meadows.

It was April, it was spring and it was the first spring here for the newly arrived refugees.

The spring was clear and warm and lush and fragrant flowers were blossoming everywhere. Time was moving, the streams were pouring and the dawn was filling with bird’s songs. The mornings were still chilly but with each passing day the breath of spring was felt more and more. The wide plains and surrounding areas in Kunuv were teeming with young and fragile greenery and the acacia trees began to flower early.

This was the first spring the refugees had experienced outside of their homeland. The feel of the warm spring sun in a foreign land spurred them to again think of going home, a belief firmly embedded in their minds since they had arrived. Their great and immeasurable hope of going home came alive again and they didn’t conceal it. They waited patiently for spring to arrive and with it the day that would take them home. They hoped for, and in that hope flowed the time during which they kept their faith and love for what they had left behind alive. They were healthy in spirit even though their hearts were broken. And in that time, the time they spent waiting and hoping, they were given the opportunity to break free from the collective spirit. To break free from believing the great promises made to them in the name of the party and the leader. Promises made to them by the same people who back home and here never stopped tightening the hoop around them. Finally they were able to increasingly distance themselves from those who didn’t stop

sowing slogans for some victory over those who had defeated them. Unfortunately they couldn’t overcome the evil that caused them pain. Their pain was still lingering, not easing, smouldering and reminding them of their ordeal...

Will this first spring, greeted here in a foreign land, be the spring of their return home, or just a dream, another broken promise, a flight of hope?

They hoped and, with a deep sigh, waited staring at the storks returning to their nests. Some storks flew across the sky, some descended on their old nests which, like baskets, sat on top of chimneys and telephone trunks and, standing on one leg, the storks kept an eye on their surroundings… The women kept looking at them and remembering the old saying that storks can cleanse all evil and bring new life. Swallows flocked in the yards in low flight and sang their songs as they built new nests under the eaves. The nightingales sang early. The bees buzzed around the blossoming flowers in the meadows... Black crows circled the freshly plowed fields swooping down looking for a meal and crowing out loud. Women crossed themselves and, while spitting to the side, said out loud:

“Stay far away from us...”

Two people from the party committee showed up in Kunuv in the afternoon when the refugees were arriving from the fields and queuing up in the common dining room. After everyone sat down at the long tables, the people from the party committee got their attention and one of them said:

“We have just arrived from Bucharest and brought your mail. We have some letters for you. We know it’s late but we’ll need some of your time and some of your people to go through the lists and identify the names and surnames of the political refugees and their place of residence.”

The two men removed all the envelopes from their old leather briefcases and began to hand them out.

The white envelopes were passed from hand to hand. When they handed them to the recipient they said to them “be proud” of what is written in the letter. They also said a word or two to comfort them and a few words of sympathy.

There were few letters that brought joy and many that brought pain.

Mothers cried.

Almost everyone was mourning. There was crying, lamenting and howling. The people were sad. Mothers were heard weeping…

They were told to be proud of what was written in the letter, but which mother was going to be proud when she found out that her son was dead… that her daughter had been killed?

There were many questions about that:

Which wife was going to be proud of her husband’s death?

Which sister was going to be proud of her brother’s death?

Which brother was going to be proud of his sister’s death?

Which child was going to be proud of the death of his mother or father, brother or sister?

Who can forget the evil and the bad that had happened to them?

“Be proud!” they were told.

The sadness, the crying, the lamenting, the weeping, the mournful sounds of people badly hurting spilled into the streets. Poles passing by listening to the sad cries wondered what was happening. Many approached the mourners and in a quiet and kind tone of voice anxiously asked:

“Co tam się dzieje?” (What’s going on?) And as they heard the person’s explanation and sad cries, some crossed themselves and

with tears in their eyes and trembling lips, took their hats off and, with a silent and gentle step, left.

The women gathered and mourned together, they cried, moaned, lamented and grieved together. Together they shared their pain, for which there was no word to give them comfort. Together they shared the joy with those who had received good news. Some comforted those whose letters brought them pain; others were happy for those whose letters brought them joy...

And in the next days, weeks and months, more letters arrived through which husbands found their wives, through which wives rejoiced that their husbands were alive and well but somewhere far away in places they had never heard of before. Mothers found their children who were alive and well and living in countries and cities they had never heard of before. It was almost as though the letters decided who was going to be a widow, who was going to be a widower and which children, who two years ago had lost the warmth of their mother’s lap and hugs, were going to be without a mother or father, or left orphans...

They cried and cried. They cried in homes… they cried over shoulders… they wept, and wept and wept...

Cry, mother, cry, weep, but your crying won’t ease the pain of a wound that hasn’t healed... Cry ... Brace yourself... Keep your heart tight... Endure...

Cry mother, cry for all the pain and sorrow… for the time lost waiting... Cry, though crying won’t lighten your fate... Cry under your black head kerchief, a mark of your unhealed wound and unhealthy pain, cry... Get it all out. Maybe crying will lift the weight that is thrown not only on your back, on your tormented shoulders, on your head, heart and soul, but also on your subjugated and enslaved hands... Cry, scream, get it all out, mother, let your cry and wail lighten the soil over those for whom you are still waiting with all your heart and soul to return… And even though you know that there is no return for them, you grieve for them, for those who are no more and will never sit on your lap again and in the grasp of your arms... cry, cry to your heart’s content and endure. Squeeze the pain

in your empty lap, hug the pain with your arms and live with it while you are still alive...

Wail, mother, wail... and let your heart and soul cry until the last sigh leaves you...

The mothers kept crying and weeping and none of them had the strength to relieve their pain that had been unleashed from their tormented souls...

The first night and the next two Kunuv didn’t sleep. It was crying, moaning, wailing and unleashing its pain...

For three days mothers, widows and relatives were awake, crying and crying. They spilled a lot of tears and suffered unbearable pain...

Who had done this to cause them such great pain?

That spring letters were also sent to the boarding homes where the children were housed. They too felt the sadness and pain, and they too cried, whined and wailed. Some found out that they were orphans. Some found out that they had lost a parent, a brother, a sister, a close relative, a friend… Their pain was great and they carried it with them every day. They kept their letters hidden in their notebooks. They often secretly opened them under their desks just to mention the names of their loved ones, whom they had lost, and to remember how life was back home when they had all been together.

They continued to hurt.

The memories of those who they lost gave them pain.

They were unable to rise above the yellow bitterness that drowned their souls and gave them such great pain. Who was capable of overthrowing and crushing the scourge that had enslaved them?

Would the pain of having lost a loved one ever subside or would it burn inside them forever?

Would there ever be forgetfulness?

It was spring outside.

The air at dawn was filled with the aroma of blossoming lilacs and the song of nightingales.

It was a fragrant, blossoming spring full of bird’s songs. It was their first spring away from home. Their first spring in a foreign land, under someone else’s roof, in foreign bedding and bread baked in someone else’s oven. It was a lush spring, mostly clear but sometimes rainy. It was a warm spring, the flowers were blossoming fast and the swallows were nesting under the eaves. The swollen buds began to open and roses appeared. The meadows were adorned with blossoming flowers. The storks were repairing their nests on top of the tall chimneys. The air was flooded with the aroma of tender thyme...

That spring, the first spring spent on foreign soil, saw many tears and felt great pain...

That first spring saw no tears of joy...

And they, those who had given them the letters said unto them:

“Your loss is not just great pain but also great pride...”

Which mother is proud of her baby’s death?

What woman is proud of her husband’s death?

Which sister is proud of her brother’s death?

Which brother is proud of his sister’s death?

What child is proud of the death of their mother or father, brother or sister?

Who can forget the evil and the bad that had happened to them?

The nights from dusk to dawn became nights of torment and tears; an hour of silent weeping, an hour of heartbreaking loud wailing. They became nights of mourning for sisters, mothers and wives... They grieved and wept, wailed, moaned and cried day and night. This is how it was done in Macedonia. For centuries women spent three days weeping over the tomb and serving food and drink for the soul of the departed. Nine days after that and for the rest of their lives they kept their deceased in their memory, which never gave them comfort but kept the spirit of the deceased alive. They were alive and their presence in this world was accounted for, for as long as they were remembered. The women wore black head kerchiefs to remind everyone and themselves of their lifelong grief. And now the women were crying and weeping day and night away from home in their rooms on foreign soil. They were crying and weeping for those who were missing, and for themselves and for their uncertain destiny...

Back home their crying and weeping was accompanied by the sad ringing of the church bell which signaled to everyone that there was a home wrapped in black. But here, in Kunuv, there were no church bells. The mournful letters arriving in the bloodied briefcases of the commissars kept coming and putting more and more mothers under the black.

It was April.

It was spring.

It was the first spring in an alien world. It was the spring of a great cry, a great cry of great pain...

It was a spring of despair, bitterness, sadness and hopelessness. A spring that was sending many mothers under the black head kerchiefs...

Spring; the pain of our mothers, widows and orphans...

Mara joined both the women weeping and the women rejoicing. She cried with the women weeping and was happy with those rejoicing.

The pain of the one group hurt her and the joy of the other made her happy.

Donka always followed Mara. They were inseparable. Donka was Mara’s shadow. Donka was a tiny, sickly woman. She was one of the many women who shared her own pain and suffering, waiting anxiously and hoping to receive her joy or...

“May God defend and protect us...” Donka would often say to herself and struggle to get rid of the bad thoughts from her mind.

She waited patiently and with a lot of hope. Her time was spent waiting. Waiting and hoping... Her nights often ended with tormenting dreams, and the days with waiting. And here in Kunuv, just like at home, the days and nights were spent waiting. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she always had a great desire to see her loved ones. Nonstop, Donka played and replayed her memories like a repeating and never ending dream. She clung to those memories of her loved ones fearing that if the thread broke and she lost them her loved ones would also be lost.

After marrying her husband and bringing her son and daughter into the world, Donka assumed responsibility for the plowing, the harvesting, the gardening, the vineyard, the sheep, the goats, the cattle... She kept the house safe from winds, rain and snow. Her husband wasn’t home. He was working abroad as a pechalbar (migrant worker). Donka was left home alone with the children. During the long winter nights, after her little boy and girl fell asleep on her lap, Donka felt alone. She suffered from immense loneliness and, without regret, cursed the pechalba that took her husband away, of whom she constantly thought and whose company she enjoyed which now wasn’t there, not at home, not in her garden, not in the vineyard, not in bed, but always in her mind. After the children went to sleep, she followed her usual routine of adding more firewood to the fireplace, lighting the lamp in front of the cold icon and praying a long prayer to the Mother of God. She prayed for her husband, wherever he was, to be alive and well, to make his money and return home as soon as possible. He had been gone for a long time, immensely long for Donka who he’d left alone with her daughter and son; the daughter in the cradle and the son on her lap. The little

ones were growing fast under Donka’s watchful eyes. The little girl she rocked on her knees and the little boy in her arms. The little sprouts grew and grew. And she was growing old without him... and he was there in America, growing old without her... Donka never left a field unplowed, never left a grain field not harvested, the grapes in the vineyard not picked… Her barns, storage houses and barrels were always full. And so were the yard and the stables. The roof didn’t leak a drop. The livelihood of the village flowed well with hard work and sweat… Donka was one of the hardest working people in the village… Even without her husband she did well… That is until the days the Great War (WW II) ended and the bad days began. There was a lot of talk that people in the cities were arguing and fighting, that authorities were opening prisons, that the Madziri (Turkish Christian settlers) were robbing the Macedonian villages, new songs were being sung in the forests, shooting and fighting was taking place in the mountains and that the battles were getting bigger and bloodier. And so one night during those turbulent times, some armed men came and gathered her son Krste and many others like Krste, and took them to the partisans. That’s what they used to say then. After the harvest more armed men came and took the healthy and tall girls. Donka’s daughter Sofka was healthy and tall but very young in age. They told her to go home; she was too young to be taken. Year after year they came back and took more children. One year they came back and took all the children. They told the parents that they were sending them across the border to other countries but promised that the children would be returned soon. Sofka wasn’t taken with the other children. Donka was told that she would be sent to study and become a nurse. They sent her but they didn’t dress in a white uniform… The village was left empty without children and so were the laps of their mothers...

And after that?

Then came the black news and cries of mothers and widows...

With a trembling body and fear in her heart Donka waited day and night.

And those who said that they were fighting for justice came to the village and, without justice, took away Donka’s wheat, corn, sheep,

goats and ox. Then they took her horse named “Sivcho” (grey), on which they loaded the wheat and corn. They told her they would return the horse but they never did. They did the same to all the other villagers. The armed men then gave Donka and the others each a piece of paper and promised them that when the people’s government came to power it would pay them back for everything, for every grain they took. They came back again and again demanding that the people donate everything they had for the struggle; bed covers, pillows, plates, spoons, shoes, socks, shirts, sweaters, gloves, shovels, picks and the strength of their arms, legs, shoulders and backs to carry the wounded, weapons, ammunition, to dig trenches and to carry thick and long logs to build bunkers high up in the mountains so that the enemy would never take Vicho.

Lucky for Donka they didn’t find her cellar. At least her wine and rakia remained intact. Her wine was fermenting in oak barrels and waiting... for weddings, baptisms, holidays... waiting...

Sitting on the doorstep Donka waited. She waited for Krste and Sofka and for him, the Pechalbar (the migrant worker), she also waited for him. In her mind she searched the roads and wondered; which road would they come from, the upper or the lower? When it was dark she lit the lamp in front of the icon of the Mother of God and, kneeling down, prayed. She prayed, and when she couldn’t sleep at night she prayed more. She prayed in the white dawn when she woke up. She prayed when the sun shone a bright beam of light into her dark room. In the prayers she always begged and hoped for her husband to come home. She desperately wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, to look into his eyes and melt in his arms... And she begged for her son and daughter to come back as soon as possible... In her waiting, like a small glow in the darkness, like a spark in the stove and like a tiny flame in the lamp, there was modest hope circling… They will come, she would whisper, they will come, she would say out loud. And when she set the dinner table she always put three extra plates; one for him, one for her daughter and one for her son... Without him and without them the table was empty, the house was empty, her heart and soul were empty… her arms and lap were empty...

Empty arms, empty embraces, empty laps… There was no one for the mother to hug, to caress, to whisper stories, to sing songs...

Desolation...

Frostiness...

Silence...

She counted the days, months and years in solitude.

She waited and remembered…

She waited day and night. She got up early in the morning before dawn. She washed her face with cold water to expel her nightmares and drank a few gulps of water, enough to rinse her throat and wash her bitterness. During the cold and rainy days she waited with her face glued to the glass of the fogged up window... Her gleaming hope never left her alone. She fed her hope with the thought that at some point in time, day or night, her husband would arrive and then she would cry on his shoulder and pour out all the pain from her heart, all the bitterness of her lonely life and all the anxiety of having to wait for him. She would then look into his eyes and cry with joy until he cried… She would weep until she expelled her entire affliction accumulated in the depths of her soul.

Her waiting became her life. And every spring, when the fruit trees and flowers blossomed, her youth withered away...

And here in Kunov she is still waiting. Every day, every night, every waking hour, she is waiting. She is waiting here like she waited on the slope in Pegin where she searched the entire side of the road, looking under every stone, under every blade of grass, in every crack for a piece of rolled up paper. She is waiting here like she waited at home where the door in the yard was always wide open, where the door to her home was never locked. She stood for an hour and then she sat for another hour at the outer gate. She did the same at the doorstep of her house. She waited. She waited with her face clenched in her palms, kneeling and rocking. With her glances and teary eyes she measured the length of the road and the length of

time. The village road ended up there and there at the end she cast her view and waited as she gazed. Time flowed across the hills and across the mountains... When an army without government markings passed by, she and many other mothers rushed to the road, impatiently waiting for the soldiers to pass by so that with hope and desire and with trembling and prayerful voices, they could ask:

“Do you know…? Have you seen him…? Have you seen her…?”

There was only silence… And that could only mean “NO!”

They were silent. Their wide open eyes anchored on the faces of the mothers, watched as they passed by and left... Some soldiers slowed down, but only for a short moment, and stared hoping to see their own mother.

“No! That wasn’t my mother...” they would say to one another.

The boys and girls in uniform passed through the village and left. They passed in front of the many mothers with high hopes who stood at their gates. The mothers stood there and waited, and in that long, promising wait they drifted into silent prayers which, like the beads on a silk thread, moved along one by one expressing their greatest desires. They stood there and waited. They prayed. They hoped. They used the end of their black head kerchiefs to wipe away the tears of pain, bitterness and sadness.

Donka waited on the doorstep in front of her open gate.

All the other mothers in the village waited.

They were waiting, our mothers were waiting...

The mothers waited, and in that long and agonizing wait on their faces lay an inexpressible spasm of pain, their silence was relentlessly fatal and boiling over in their eyes was immense suffering and sadness. With a shriek from their souls and with long sighs from their hearts, the hoping mothers waited in front of their houses as the boys and girls in uniform passed by and left. And on their way to the battlefields, their desire to see their own mothers

were unfulfilled, mothers who would soon be left with empty arms and empty laps.

The soldiers followed some other roads to the mountains and hills and from there some other roads which led them to the battlefields...

In the meantime their mothers waited patiently for a long time for them to return.

The mothers, standing in the doorway, waited for their children to return...

They waited and in that waiting, their empty arms and laps were filled with the rumblings of immeasurable hope and wishes that couldn’t be properly expressed with words...

They waited in silence, enduring their pain, crossing themselves, praying to all the saints and to the heavens for their children to be alive and well and to return to them soon...

Day and night they continued to hope, they continued with their prayers without interruption. They prayed and prayed and those who had lost someone who was very dear to them; they painfully cherished memories of them and carried a wound that wouldn’t heal and would never allow them to remove their black head kerchiefs from their heads...

Here in Kunuv, like back home, and like on the slope in Pegin, Donka waited without interruption. All the mothers and wives waited the same way...

Every time Donka met someone, every time she briefly passed someone, people close to her or people she barely knew, they would say to her:

“Don’t worry, your daughter is alive and well…”

Even the women with whom she boarded consoled her with those same words.

A lot of hope and faith burned in her. There would be no life for her without hope. Her life became waiting and hoping.

Donka waited but no letters arrived for her.

She knew that her son Krste was alive. Someone gave her a leaflet that they found on the road back on the slope at Pegin. She kept that leaflet in her bosom and there was no day that passed that she didn’t take it out, unfold it and look at the three or four words that told her that her son was alive. With shaking fingers she unfolded the piece of paper to make sure those three or four words were all there... That leaflet was the remedy that kept her alive and warmed her hope. She kissed the piece of paper with all the warmth of her soul, caressed it tenderly, warmed it on her cheeks and exhaled. Then after pampering it she put it back in her bosom, where her heart was beating the strongest.

About the daughter… there was only silence...

It was April here, her first spring of exile.

It was April.

It was spring.

The days were filled with a lot of crying and with great pain...

Those passing by listened and wondered. They stopped for a moment or two… they listened, took a long breath, and wondered:

“Dlaczego płaczą Macedońki?” (Why are the Macedonians crying?)

It was April.

It was spring.

One afternoon, far away from his village, Kiro died. He died in Kunuv. They lay him down on an iron military bed in a small semi-dark room and covered him with a white sheet, after sunset. A plate of flour was placed on top of a small table covered with a white

tablecloth and in it stood a lit candle whose flickering flames spread light on Kiro’s soul. Three women whimpered quietly and made sure the candle was always lit. They burned one candle after another until the darkness was pushed away by the arrival of dawn.

What kind of pain squeezed the life out of him and laid him down on the hard iron bed? There were questions asked and assumptions made. Some said it was his incurable restlessness that wounded his soul and melted his heart. Others said his loneliness exhausted him. And others, repeatedly repeating the eternal, said it was his fate; this is what had been written for him.

Kiro’s body was buried at noon outside the German cemetery on the other side of the high stone fence.

“May God have mercy on his soul and may the foreign soil be light on him...” This was the only desire the living had for Kiro after his death.

There were a bunch of letters on the little table beside the bed, in the room where he stayed alone. These were his only companions and his greatest joy. One of the letters, stamped with a postage stamp from Bucharest, said that his wife was in Krnov, Czechoslovakia. She had been sent there by train. She, along with many others, was taken off the boat and loaded onto train cars. Next to that letter was an envelope on which were written, in capital letters, the words Tashkent, USSR. Kiro knew where USSR was but hardly anyone could tell him where Tashkent was. Some jokingly said: “It’s probably somewhere on earth and somewhere under the sky…” So, somewhere on earth and under the sky, was Tashkent, where his son, along with the defeated army, had been taken to Odessa by ship and then by train through the deserts to the end of the world - on very warm ground and under a very hot sun - in the city called Tashkent since time immemorial. The pile of letters also contained envelopes with postage stamps from the post office in Debretsen. People told Kiro this city was in Hungary. The name sounded strange to him at first, but after they told him it was the name of a Hungarian city he knew from the letters that there were boarding houses there in which his two sons lived. Kiro often opened the envelopes read the letters and put them back, ironing each envelope

with his warm palm. He read and re-read the letters many times and each time he read them the words momentarily alleviated his great affliction. He knew by heart what each letter said. Sometimes he received a picture or two with the letters. The people in them looked the same as they had a year or two ago, when they were at home. Those he had pinned on the wall with little pins and often looked at each and spoke to them, laughed with them, taught them, reprimanded them, caressed them and gently and warmly kissed them...

And so Kiro’s fractured family was united in the letters and pictures in his little room in which, besides his great joy, he often was overwhelmed by painful feelings of loneliness...

It was April.

It was spring.

It was Easter.

Christ has risen!

Happy Easter and may we celebrate it for many years!

In the next two months four more graves were dug beside Kiro’s grave. Without a priest and without a church bell, more bodies were buried behind the tall stone fence outside the deserted German cemetery, overgrown with tall grass and brush. One by one our old people cast their souls under these strange skies and rested their bodies under foreign soil. A new resting place was found for them outside the fence of the German cemetery. This corner would be their eternal resting place; a growing new settlement outside the wall and iron fence. That little corner came to be known as the Macedonian cemetery.

Women dressed in black went to the cemetery and performed the usual rituals and ceremonies that they had performed at home to commemorate the diseased and to pray for their souls so that they might find peace.

Life continues in their long prayers for the living and for the dead and will remain as such for as long as they are remembered.

And this is how it was in April and the following days and weeks, during that first spring of exile.

Many of those who were of age didn’t see another spring. In their eyes, time blurred the life-giving light and shortened their walking path.

The silence coupled with the great desire and undiminished hope, deeply rooted in their souls, to return home soon, shortened their lives and many, in the years that inevitably flowed, didn’t wait for a new spring.

With the heavy pain in their hearts they disappeared into the darkness in this strange land that wasn’t theirs...

May God forgive their sins...

13

“We knew all the trails and crossings from the previous year. We knew where we left rock bunkers last year, and there were no trenches because we didn’t dig any. We piled stone on top of stone and those were our bunkers. Those built from logs, stone and earth were blown up by bazookas, by the new weapons the Americans brought, and by the bombs dropped from aircraft. We traveled at night, doctor, at night when the shadow wasn’t visible. We charged our enemy at dawn. We were greeted by a storm of bullets. They were expecting us. They were waiting with their fingers on the trigger. We walked right into their line of fire, right in front of their machine guns. They were waiting for us behind every rock, behind every stone, behind every tree trunk lying down or upright. There was no place to take cover. We were all targets. We were falling like flies. Gramos has no soil, only rocks, stones, blood and bones. There was a hailstorm of bullets coming at us. You can say they could hit us right between the eyes. That’s how they were positioned. They were thousands, we were hundreds. They lay down, we ran at them standing. We had to jump over our fallen comrades and attack upright. We ran forward upright and no one turned their head to see who was left behind. We were children, doctor… children! Children were killed and mutilated. I lost many of my friends and my own life was destroyed because of what happened there. The machine gun fire, the hand grenades, the bombs… They weren’t only crushing stones but evaporating lives. Their bombs ruined many lives. We were children, young girls and boys; they were men, seasoned and experienced fighters. Children fighting against men! Inexperienced boys and girls fighting against experienced fighters. They nailed us to the ground. Orders came to withdraw. And as we pulled out, we became targets again. A boy fell down in front of me. I fell next to him. He was breathing. He was wounded but alive. I made my way under him and slowly tossed him on my shoulder. I crawled on the ground on my hands but couldn’t see where I was going. I ran into a rock. I laid the boy down. I tried to stand up but

my legs wouldn’t support me. I was hit by a burst of gunfire and felt the bullets stinging my legs. I noticed some of my comrades going by me. Some were running and others were crawling and begging for help. I was unable to move. I lay on my back and watched the clouds of fog and smoke rise. I couldn’t see the sun. I couldn’t see the mountains, the hills… Everything was covered in smoke. I felt very tired and wanted to sleep… That’s all I can remember…” said the young fighter.

“What happened after that?” asked the doctor.

“I don’t know. All I remember after that is being shaken… Up and down motion… I suspected I was being carried on a stretcher. I woke up but I didn’t have the strength to figure out who was taking me and where. I don’t know how long that shaking lasted. When I woke up again I saw myself lying down beside others in a truck. I could hear voices, howling, screaming and swearing but my world went black and I passed out again. The shaking of the truck and the loud cries kept waking me up. I could feel great pain burning and biting at my legs. The good thing about the pain is that it was telling me that I was still alive…” concluded the young fighter.

“What happened after that?” asked the doctor.

“After that they lay me on a flat board, tied me up, tied boards on both sides of my legs, and stood me upright. I couldn’t move at all. I wasn’t alone. Next to me were many beds, all occupied by wounded young men and women,” said the fighter.

“What happened after that?” asked the doctor.

“After that I rolled left and right. I lay tied tight on those boards but I didn’t know where I was. I no longer heard cries, gun shots, or smelled gunpowder... I figured I wasn’t on the battlefield. When I realized that I was laying on a soft bed I knew I was in a hospital. After that I paid careful attention to the voices and heard another language being spoken, which I didn’t know but could understand a few words. Some words, like those of body parts, were similar to those of my native language. I could hear the doctors and nurses speaking but could only understand the words for hurt, wound, eyes,

nose, voice, foot, just like they were said in my language. I realized that I was in good hands. The word for ‘good’ is the same in both languages. Doctor, I look forward to seeing you in this hospital room… always smiling... I often wondered: Lord, God, why does this man have such a gentle smile, so much warmth in his voice, such a gentle look in his eyes? When I think of his tenderness and his gentle touch, I cry. When I look into his eyes I see a reflection of my pain. Doctor, what kind of man are you?” asked Sofka, the young female fighter.

Sofka spent her days with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. There hung all her questions, doubts and hopes. There she looked for answers as to how her life was going to be. Her left leg was cut above her knee, her right leg… Dr. Barchikovski and the other doctors were consulting each other and thinking about it. Their last decision was to remove the part of the leg that was turning bluish, but a few days later black spots began to appear...

She looked at the ceiling and quietly said: