PART THREE

PART THREE

Late night, a quiet knock was heard on Argir’s apartment door. Wearing his pajamas Argir slowly opened the door halfway.

“Get dressed and come down. The leader is waiting for you downstairs…” whispered a stranger.

Surprised by the news, Argir quietly told his wife who was waiting for him, got dressed in a hurry, ran downstairs and stopped in front of the building entrance where a dirty, black VOLGA car was parked. The stranger opened the right front door. Argir got in and sat next to the driver.

“Greetings, Comrade Argiris…” a familiar voice was heard saying. Argir felt chills over his entire body. He slowly turned and, with a stuttering voice, quietly said hello then instinctively raised his right hand and gave him a military salute. Sitting in the back seat right behind Argir was the leader who leaned forward and, after he was done with the formalities, said:

“Comrade Argiris, the time has come for us to become seriously involved in the lives of our political refugees. We at the Politburo have decided to bring all the refugees together in one place. Regarding this, we have asked the Polish authorities to give us one or two empty villages in the extreme southeast of Poland, villages that have been abandoned. Comrade Beirut, the President of Poland, has agreed. There, Comrade Argiris, we will establish a kolhoz. The Polish authorities have given us two villages where we will first settle your Slavo-Macedonians. Your task will be to visit them in the farms where they work and explain everything to them. They trust you. We’ll agree on what you’re going to tell them. You can count on the party and me personally to support you in this. Now, go back to your apartment, get what you will need, tell your wife that you

have been summoned to do an important party task and that you will be back home in a few days.

Argir understood and accepted the task Zahariadis gave him; it was a serious party task; as serious as a combat order. He rushed back to his apartment, gathered his things in a small old suitcase and, at the same time, quietly told his wife with whom he had been speaking, the task he had been given and that he would be gone for some time.

Four days later they arrived at the villages that Beirut, the Polish president, had given to his friend Zahariadis. They spent one day in Krakov where, after they had their baths and rest in a hotel, they did some sightseeing. They left Krakov early the next morning. After traveling over bad and muddy roads, they arrived in Ustshiki Doline in the evening. There, they were greeted by a member of the Greek Communist Organization in Poland, by the Polish United Workers’ Party district committee secretary and a dozen armed civilians. They had dinner with the border military detachment commander and leader of the district unit in a strictly secure dining hall for special guests. After dinner, which consisted of roast duck and Hungarian wines, they spent the night in the guest apartment of a villa built exclusively of pine logs. The next day they didn’t have breakfast. They had coffee and after about a half hour drive on a very bad local road, they arrived in the village Kroshchenko and went to the school building. There they had breakfast and went to tour the villages Kroshchenko and Liskovate, located beyond a small hill. There were low houses built with wood everywhere. Some were covered with sheet metal but most were covered with straw. Only the neglected school buildings and train station were built with walls and covered with ceramic roof tiles. There were pine forests and huge fields all over the place lying along the small hill, overgrown with tall grass. The arable land seemed to be fertile. There were stunted apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, plum trees… in the yards of the houses. The sight gave the impression that life was once thriving here.

Zahariadis took Argir by the arm and, after walking about ten metres away from the escort, said:

“We will turn this space into an open living space for your Slavo-Macedonians and for a large number of Greeks. This will be their

new life. Here we will establish a kolhoz and give it the hopeful name ‘NEW LIFE’.”

Argir stared sternly into the leader’s eyes and without hesitation asked:

“Comrade Zahariadis, is this some kind of new Bulkesh? Will we be building a new life here, in this wasteland where even the devil doesn’t want to visit?

(Bulkesh was a village in Serbia inhabited by Germans until the end of World War II, at which time they were expelled by the Yugoslav authorities. After the Varkiza Agreement was signed, by which the Communists handed over their weapons to the authorities supported by the British, several thousand prominent ELAS commanders and EAM and CPG political activists fled to Yugoslavia. At first they stayed in Strumitsa, Bitola, Prilep, Veles and Kumanovo and from there they were sent to Tetovo and housed in the old barracks. At the same time refugees who had fled Greek occupied Macedonia and lived in Bulgaria returned to the People’s Republic of Macedonia. The barracks were emptied of Greek refugees and replaced by these so-called “Aegean” Macedonian refugees. The Greeks were moved to Vojvodina. By the end of 1945 there were five thousand Greek military and political refugees occupying Bulkesh. There the Greek refugees formed a Greek municipality with their own administration, their own police, radio station, printing house, primary and secondary education, a school for officers, sub-officers and political commissars and their own currency. They built a state within a state. The first partisans to go to Gramos came from Bulkesh. Bulkesh was the nursery for the Democratic Army of Greece’s future command. At the end of August 1949 all remaining 1200 Greeks in Bulkesh were transferred to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Bulkesh is remembered by many political refugees as the place where many crimes were committed against dissidents.)

“Yes. Here, Comrade Argiris. Here we will wage a great battle to bring life back. The work has already begun. Brigades of carpenters and electricians are being assembled to install doors and windows as well as electricity, and only then will we bring our people here. Your party task now is, Comrade Argiris, to go back to the kolhozes

around Zgozhelets and convince the villagers from Kostur and Lerin to accept their new place of residence. The houses they live in now, as I was told in Warsaw, have already been given to the expatriate Poles from Western Ukraine and Belarus, territories they call Kresi. Now let’s go back to town and talk to the local authorities about urgent matters that need to be taken care of. After dinner and a good night’s sleep, we’ll return to Zgozhelets where we will explain the new tasks to the CPG land party committees for Poland, and then you will go back to the kolhozes, which the Poles call State farms, in which our people now live, and do your part. Is that clear?

For an old communist, a battalion commander in the Greek Civil War, and now an ordinary textile worker working in a textile factory in Legnitsa, the leader’s word, oral or written, for Argir had always been clear and unmistakable.

Argir was also very ambitious. He had studied Polish for a long time, at night and during his free time. He wanted to enroll in a two-year high school course that would give him the opportunity to continue his education in a special course, and from there he wanted to go to college. He wanted to study mechanics; to become an engineer. This was his greatest wish to which he dedicated his entire free time. But his desire wasn’t going to be fulfilled… A week later, he was sent to the farms to visit with the refugees so that he could explain to them that they would soon change their residence. A few days later, he visited the Kunuv agricultural farm, where people from Kostur and Lerin Regions worked. This wasn’t his first meeting with them. In fact Argir himself was from a village in Kostur Region. When he was young he worked as a cow herder and a shepherd. Later, as a young adult, he fought in two wars (WW II and the Greek Civil War). He often visited the Lerin and Kostur villages during the wars where he was welcomed and looked after with food, drink and lodging. Many of the villagers’ sons and daughters served in Argir’s battalion, some of whom had left their bones on the battlefields. He tried to comfort them… to minimize their pain. And for that every meeting with them was difficult but he found relief in his heartfelt conversations with them. At the gatherings with the villages in Poland, which lasted from early morning until late afternoon, and sometimes until midnight, he explained to the people that there was a plan to move them to the

new villages which the Polish authorities had awarded them. In his talks Argir convinced them that a kolhoz had already been created where each family would have its own house, with a yard, a piece of land where they could plant tomatoes, potatoes, onions and even watermelon. Where they could raise a few chickens and, in due time, one or two cows. He assured them that those who worked at the kolhoz would receive a regular state salary.

He would often say:

“And so, my dear friends, every family will have its own house... And any surplus harvested from your gardens, or extra eggs collected from your chickens, you will be able to sell in the town market which will allow you earn more money...”

“And you, Argir, where will you live?” a voice was heard coming from the back rows.

Argir smiled and said:

“There, at the kolhoz, together with you...”

“For sure?” someone asked.

“For sure!” replied Argir.

“And there, at that kolhoz, will there be a canteen like we have here and food from the same cauldron?” someone asked.

“No!” replied Argir positively. “There we will have a restaurant, a tavern, a club, a cinema, a theater and two schools. If any of the parents want to take their children from the boarding houses they can. The children can live with them and study at the kolhoz schools. As for the cauldron, it will be gone... Everyone can cook at home whatever they want...”

Argir ended every meeting with the people with this kind of promise and assurance.

During the entire foggy, rainy and cold week in late autumn 1951, trains kept arriving at the old, now restored train station in Krushchenko, built at the time when the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled. Refugees kept pouring out of the old wagons, Macedonians and Greeks who lived and worked in the state agricultural holdings in the area around Zgozhelets. With them also came the Macedonians from the State Agricultural Company in Kunuv. The newcomers were greeted by a white canvas sign hanging in front of the train station which, in large red Greek letters, said: