PART ONE - Part 01

PART ONE

1

It was March one thousand nine hundred and forty-nine (1949). The third year of the ongoing civil war...

Who planned this war? Where? Why?

Both sides were preparing for a decisive battle…

Place - the area around Vicho Mountain.

The two warring parties were taking final steps in preparing for a bloody showdown. The main DAG forces had gathered here, in this horseshoe-shaped region, where the defensive front line was located, and the enemy had aims for its complete destruction. And while one side was finalizing its defense the other side was preparing for the attack.

The only thing missing was the date when the attack was going to begin.

The villagers from the villages near the front and those even farther away were told, at rallies, for their safety before the battle began, that they needed to take what was important to them, including their livestock, and move beyond the mountains behind the front line where they would be safe.

Mitre was pondering whether he should padlock the front gate of his house and leave with the rest of the villagers or stay and wait? Everyone was overcome by the fear that was long sown into them. Who could forget the bombs the airplanes dropped from dawn to dusk over the villages controlled by DAG (Democratic Army of Greece). Who could forget the airplanes flying over the village, along the alleys, over the gardens, on top of the fields dropping

bombs and propaganda leaflets with dire warnings? Fear was constantly poured out of the heavens.

And so snake eggs were laid in every yard, in every field and in every garden. Hatred, revenge and fear were sown everywhere. No one was sure of anything anymore, anywhere. Rare were the homes from which no one was in the mountains fighting in DAG’s ranks. Some people were even personally threatened by name. But they, on the other side, through their NOF (People’s Liberation Front) and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front) activists and agitators, who mostly worked at night, said nothing during the large gatherings so as not to sow fear and hatred against their enemies. This was similar to their call for everyone to rise up, pick up arms and give it their all for the forthcoming promised victory which was to end the misery in every courtyard, alley and every village house, and bring order, peace and freedom to everyone.

Both sides were making threats and even bigger promises...

In the fires of the war that raged on for the third year, both sides rabidly attacked one another and, in an unintended sense, sowed fear that froze the blood in their veins, a fear which every day seeped down to their bones. This fear could be seen in the faces and eyes of every villager. This was a fear that refused to go away and like a shadow followed them around everywhere, slowly oozing down to their soul.

The newspapers in Kostur and Lerin and those in the south of Greece foolishly slandered and cursed the people, threatening them on the front pages in large letters day after day and loudly calling for revenge. Everywhere and every day they spilled the serpent’s venom of malice and hatred with the sole purpose of deeply embedding fear in the consciousness of everyone who wasn’t of their race and who was still walking on the land that was yet to burn...

Among other things the newspapers also wrote: “Nobody, in whom our blood doesn’t flow, will be saved from being shot, slaughtered, hung, beaten, sent to prison, their house being burned… and if they want to stay alive then there’s only one thing for them to do – leave this country… If they feel that they aren’t part of us they should go

far away beyond our borders because they aren’t worthy of bearing our great sacred name... Let them leave, escape is their only salvation, or move them to the dry and rocky islands... This is where these snakes belong, among the snakes and let them live by eating snakes...”

Fear overwhelmed people. It drove them crazy but it was demanded of them – to be filled with fear and nothing more. It was precisely this that led to violence – an incurable disorder of the mind, soul and body. With all this in place eradication should be easily accomplished...

So, during all this time, terrifying and humiliating fear was being sown and spread, delivered into the hearts, souls, brains and bones of the simple village people, that wouldn’t only squeeze them by the throat, chest and heart, but also allowed them to say words that couldn’t be said without fear and do deeds that couldn’t be done without fear. The fear and hatred spread on both sides was an ingenious weapon through which a person’s spirit could be destroyed.

The people were already used to fearing the government army each time it approached their villages. Fear made them feel as if they had no choice but leave their homes and seek salvation in the dense forests and rocky caves of the mountains. This was an ingrained fear that had seeped into their souls from the centuries-long enslavement they and their ancestors had endured at the hands of evil. Every village had its own story to tell of how people, at one time or another, escaped capture by fleeing to the caves and dense forests where they stayed for days and nights, waiting for the bad to pass. And even though they escaped personal torment they were still tormented by the fact that their homes were looted and damaged, knowing that some personal things they cherished could never be replaced. But the people continued, with patience, sweat and tears, working hard they rebuilt their lives and replaced their stolen items. The fear of being attacked, however, remained with them and was passed on from generation to generation and so were the ways of how to find salvation in the forests, caves and dens. That was in the past when people did find salvation, but now...?

They were frightened but were they frightened enough, as the others wanted them to be? They endured everything in the three-year storm. They endured pain, fear and humiliation but they also experienced courage and perseverance. They suffered the pain of having lost family members, having their homes burned down, having their houses plundered, living in poverty, working under hazardous conditions digging trenches, carrying huge logs for building bunkers, and so on.

Now, as the final battle between the two warring parties was approaching, there was great anxiety… The people were left holding their naked lives in their own hands.

The villagers were repeatedly told that when the government army started to approach their village they must run away because if the army caught them they would lock them up in the city prisons and use them to blackmail their children to stop fighting on DAG’s side. They were told that the government army would force them to write letters to their sons and daughters begging them to toss their rifles aside and stop fighting. And if they didn’t surrender their parents couldn’t be saved. But if they did toss their rifles away and surrendered they would not only be saving their parents but themselves as well. And this was exactly what the Greek government offered the villagers. But, as it turned out, the other side of the warring faction imprisoned the parents of those children who surrendered to the government army. The village Drenovo, located on the shores of Little Lake Prespa, was turned into a prison camp. After their properties and family possessions were taken, the relatives of those children who surrendered were jailed and forced into slave labour, digging tunnels for DAG to hide its weapons and ammunition.

It wasn’t an individual fear but a general fear, a fear whose vice would be squeezed with intent from both sides...

August was approaching and the wheat kernel was baking in the fields under the hot August sun. The bread in it was ripe. But the reapers didn’t reap; instead they dug trenches and built bunkers on the hills. There was a general mobilization in the spirit of the slogan “The enemy will not reach Vicho”.

2

Well-trained messengers were dispatched on foot and on horseback to go to the villages, knock on doors and shout in the streets: “Leave, the front has been broken, the Greek army is coming!” They began to harvest what was earlier sown. The great fear sown over time that revenge was upon them was enough to scare people to leave their homes and run for the road to the Albanian border.

The people in the surrounding villages packed in bags what they could carry or what they thought would be useful to them.

How much would they need? How much of their assets and property could they carry, which they had accumulated over generations? What should they take from everything that was part of their home for which they had worked hard to accumulate? What was most valuable in this kind of situation? With trembling hands they picked and picked. They only chose the most urgent items in the time they had - covers, blankets, plates, photographs of their dead, of soldiers who had served in foreign armies and wars, of those crippled in prisons and camps… They took the letters and addresses of the migrant workers living in palaces. They took their photographs in their suits, with gold rings on their hands and carefree smiles on their faces... They tied everything in bundles, placed them in bags, sacks and saddle bags. From all the property they had amassed themselves and from what was left to them by their ancestors, they could only take what they could carry on their backs and shoulders.

“Mitre, you open the secret pit and I will take whatever household items we need from it. Do it now!” insisted Mara while pulling out and collecting bed covers, pillows, pillow cases, small rugs, basins and other household items. She didn’t forget the old cradle she had kept for her new grandchildren. She put the big pot and kettle to the side beside the already filled bags. This is where she had put the most valuable and most needed items.

From all the items collected over the years, what should they take first? What should they take from the closets, the cellars, the large boxes in the barn, the cauldrons, the rakia and wine barrels…? No matter how much they took almost everything they had would be left behind!? And what would they do with the ten sheep they had in the great herd? And what about the two oxen and the milking cow…?

The secret pit was very old. It had been dug deep under the house foundation by Mitre’s great-grandfather who needed it to hide valuables from Ottoman raiders, plunderers, Greek Andartes (Greek armed gangs, so-called Macedonian fighters attacked the Macedonian villages, carried out massacres and looting), Greek soldiers during the Balkan Wars, French and English soldiers during the First Great War. It was later needed to hide valuables from the Madzhiri (Greek refugees from Turkey after the defeat of Greece in the war with Turkey (1918-1922), about 600,000 who settled in the Aegean part of Macedonia) who, after the Second Great War, looted Macedonian villages.

“What do we do with this?” asked Mitre while pointing to the gium (a large vessel used for storing and boiling water). “Did you forget this?” “Are we hiding it?”

“No, Mitre, I haven’t forgotten it. We will take it with us. We will need it. Wherever we go, we will need it,” replied Mara and then asked, “Did you cover the pit well? Check again...”

With a heavy heart she, like the others, put a padlock on the front gate and walked away... Suddenly she stopped, turned around, looked behind her and ran back home. She unlocked the front gate, ran up to the guest room and, while trying to catch her breath, took the icon down from the corner, took it with her, locked the front gate again and ran back to catch up with the crowd of villagers that were leaving. She looked ahead and noticed the cloud of dust being raised on the road by the feet of the people and the herds of cattle and sheep walking away from the village.

It was August 10, 1949, five o’clock in the morning.

It began!

The airplanes didn’t leave the sky from dawn to dusk. The cannons thundered nonstop all day long. Fires were burning beneath the mountains and the hills were all aflame.

Above, under the burning sky where it met the hills and peaks there was smoke and flames and above them it thundered steadily... There were strong flashes and flames followed by the rumbling of thunder. The thunder was carried from hill to hill, from peak to peak and the earth trembled and lost its breath in its presence...

The enemy, about which was boasted all year that “it will never reach Vicho”, destroyed bunkers by day and overran trenches by night. The enemy, which was never to reach Vicho, climbed bloodily over the Vicho hills and trampled on the corpses of the DAG fighters who were bleeding and dying defending the mountain...

At the very top of Lisets Mountain was a big bunker which housed the XI Division Headquarters commanded by Pando Vaina. This is where, during the night of August 11, 1949, it was decided to withdraw.

The enemy did reach Vicho...

It broke the front.

That was the time when the villagers from Kostur, Lerin and Prespa Regions were told to flee and save themselves. They were told they would find salvation in Albania and were pointed in that direction. They were told to take the trails through the forests and over the hills which would lead them to the Albanian border. Their children who had abandoned the battles were also fleeing in panic in the same direction.

There was a blackness of people and their herds of livestock. Above them were screams and clouds of grey dust. Moving crowds roared, rumbled and swarmed, filling all the paths with chaos, piercing

through the forest thickets where new waves of men and women, carrying bundles of what they needed most, joined them.

Their flocks of cattle and sheep traveled in front of them. The ruthless and angry crowd pushed on. It grew and swelled as it pulled more people into it. It rippled, squeezed, swelled and thickened as it gained momentum and pushed its way towards the border. As the people moved on at a rushed pace some groups broke apart and scattered. There were constant shouts. Someone shouted loudly. The shout drove the crowd into a frenzy making it run even faster towards the hill. People were screaming and crying. There were screams and cries of women and children, children clinging to their mothers. A horse roared as it pulled away from its bridle – running wild stamping on everything in its path. There were scattered herds of cattle, scattered flocks of sheep… A hoarse voice was heard yelling:

“Run!” This was the only word heard along the road from Zhelevo to Smrdesh...

The people from Prespa, with all they could carry, made their way along the road that took them to Markova Noga hoping to make it into Yugoslavia. But instead of being welcomed, the Yugoslav army greeted them with machine gun bursts and loudly yelled:

“Back! Go back and take the road towards the Kulata, cross the bridge to Vineni and from there go to Albania. Go back! It is forbidden for you to come here!” shouted a loud voice while bullets fired by machine guns whistled over their heads.

A group of older women went towards the machine gun barrels pointed at them and in kind voices begged:

“Please let us pass... There,” pointing with stretched arms, “in Dolno Dupeni, Liuboino and Braichino we have our relatives... They will open their doors for us… They will take us into their homes and when all this is over we will return to our own homes… Please let us pass...”

“No, you can’t go to Tito!” said the detachment commander as he stepped forward.

A woman with a baby in her arms knelt in front of the commander and in a crying voice said:

“Let me go, son. I have a daughter in Dupeni. She’s married there. This child belongs to my younger daughter. She’s now with the wounded...”

“No, people, we have our orders. You can’t go to Tito...”

“Well, I,” said the woman, “I will go to Dupeni to my daughter, not to Tito. Now get out of my way, I am going to my daughter...”

The soldiers let out a burst of gunfire in which the voice of the woman and those of the crowd, which were getting louder and louder, were lost.

“Let us pass!” insisted the women. “We’ll go to our relatives in Dupeni, Liuboino and Braichino. We have relatives there. They will take us and when the storm is over, we will return to our homes...”

They wouldn’t let them pass. They fired machine gun bursts and forced them to return to Prespa via the road leading to Vineni. And as the unfortunate civilian refugees ran down the dusty road the airplanes flew over them and fired bullets and dropped terrible burning bombs on them. Those bombs were terrible...

The people ran...

“Run!” a person was heard shouting. The people, overwhelmed with fear and panic, ran as fast as they could.

“Run!” another person yelled out loud.

The people kept running...

Crowds of people running behind more crowds of people.

They were running and dragging with them the things they had brought from home...

They were crying and screaming... it was madness… it was chaos…

It was darkness…

Above them thundered a black cloud from hell. Cannons fired at them, airplanes dropped bombs on them and everything around them, the stones, the trees, the rocks, the grass and the earth burned. The water was evaporating from them and from everything that was touched by the hell fire. Flames and smoke were rising and only ash was left on the ground...

And as the thunderstorms intensified and the flames grew higher and howled, above them a cloud of black smoke was growing, becoming larger and pushing its way higher into the Prespa sky.

With a bloody bandage on his head and left arm, a dirty machine gun over his right shoulder, a man was limping and dragging himself behind the crowd. Occasionally he stopped walking, stood upright and in silence, with bloodshot and blurred eyes, gazed at the vastness of the crowd feeling gripped by darkness. His mouth was blackened. It felt to him that it was bubbling. The long-burning slogans that were shouted establishing his belief in a better tomorrow, with which he had grown up, were coming out and being torn out of him. He was told that life would change for the better for him and for everyone around him. And he stood there stunned, listening with a smirk on his face and an open mouth. Maybe that was why he got into this whirlwind without thinking about the consequences. Obedience, faith and trust in the leader and in the party - were a roadmap for him. They taught him everything from top to bottom. They convinced him that the leader was everything. The leader was smart and responsible for thinking and performing everything. But now he was forced to face reality, to witness before him not the beautiful future he had imagined which was deeply rooted in him by the uneducated party secretaries, but the despair with no end. He seemed confused and hoped that there would be better times ahead. And where did that flawless, unconditional, unwavering, blind, hard, huge and unbreakable faith go now? He

looked hazily around at the shouting and weeping crowd of refugees that looked like a huge black cloth covering the landscape. Again and again it seemed to him that a mysterious voice of reason, conscience and condemnation would reach out to him somewhere from the heart of the thick and centuries-old oak trees growing on the opposite side of the ocean, and ask: WHY? WHOSE VOICE DID YOU LISTEN TO AND WHO DID YOU OBEY?

He was unhappy, naked, torn and betrayed. He felt empty, lost and deceived. Now he didn’t know what to believe in and what to hope for. Had he made a mistake? Had he picked the wrong side? Had he taken the wrong road? He was unable to get these questions out of his mind; they felt like an open wound, like a blow after a blow, and the pain, the torment and the grief… were layered and layered.

His lost hope was painful. He was stunned, betrayed, defeated, embittered… everything was bothering him. He was standing on the hill depersonalized, naked and discouraged. He understood clearly that there was no escape from the evil that had already been done...

He saw desolation in front of him, and desolation behind him!

Everything was burned to ashes.

As the sun began to set, he stood there dumbfounded before the lamenting black multitude.

3

That day enemy airplanes flew low over Prespa. Their loud noise and the loud thunder of exploding cannon shells and napalm drowned out the weeping, wailing, screaming and cursing. Fire poured out during the day and the night breathed with bloody open wounds.

The dirty forces of hell opened the way to fear, suffering, misfortune and incurable diseases.

That day was the Great Mother of God holiday. The bells didn’t chime that day. And instead of them being gathered in the yards of churches and at big fairs, that day the believers ran through the narrow forest paths and up the mountain beaten down by exploding cannon shells and machine gun fire...

“Run!!!” called those who until yesterday had loudly promised and preached freedom, but were now the first to cross the border.

“Run!” called those who yesterday had taxed the people’s lives, property and goods for the sake of the struggle.

“Run!” called those who had first gathered the older children and sent them to the mountain battlefields to be slaughtered. Then they gathered the younger children and sent them across the border, and since then no one had told their parents where they were and how they were doing. The only thing the people were told was that the enemy would be driven out soon and the children would return. The people were even promised that every single sheep and oxen taken from their flocks would be returned.

“Run! The enemy broke through the front!”

“Run!!!” yelled the messengers running through the streets.

“Run!!” yelled the voices of fear.

The same voices were strong and powerful in making promises during village gatherings.

So, what happened to those promises?

The villagers believed those people and their promises. So, what had happened to that flawless and unconditional, unwavering, blind, hard, vast and unbreakable faith? Those who were now leading them vaguely looked at the shouting and crying crowd of refugees. Again and anew it seemed to them that the mysterious voice of reason, conscience and condemnation was reaching out to them from the heart of the great centuries-old oaks standing tall above the altar on the opposite side, and they seemed to be asking: WHERE? WHY? Whose voice did they listen to and obey which created the conditions that tore the people running in front of them from their hearth and sent them naked into despair, that made them feel empty, lost and deceived? What was there to believe in and what was there to hope for? Their beliefs crumbled and they became disillusioned. Had they made a mistake? Had they joined the wrong side? These difficult questions wouldn’t leave their consciousness. They felt like an open wound, a blow after a blow. Their pain, their torment, their depression was layered and layered as they searched for answers. They were bewildered and crushed and everything, even words, became bitter. They became depersonalized, naked, discouraged and understood that there was no deliverance anymore. People were abandoned in front of them and behind them. They silently walked with a view laden with uncertainty, dark screams and cries, before a setting sun.

Until yesterday that same voice adorned the people’s lives with great promises, too many to count or remember, and the people listened to it and believed it. At every gathering, they were strengthened and faith was instilled in them from the promises made at party plenums and consultations.

In the storm of many voices shouting Vera’s was the most recognizable. Her voice was often heard at village gatherings where she promised people that there would be happy days ahead after the

people achieved the ultimate victory that was needed. She told the women not to mourn the lives of their husbands, sons and daughters who had heroically sacrificed themselves for victory. But in order to achieve victory, necessary sacrifices had to be made. She repeatedly reminded them that they needed to give more… everything for this victory – their lives, their possessions, their clothing, their furniture… everything. And with the slogans “Death to Fascism”, “Freedom to the People” and “Long live our most Beloved Leader” she departed from one village and went to another to give the same speech. She was often seen wearing a military belt, a leather shoulder bag with pencils strung on it and dirty, high heeled shoes. She was also remembered for her persuasive talks to parents to let their children be collected and sent outside of the country. A year later she visited the boarding homes in the Eastern European countries where the children were living and, with her victoriously persuasive voice, influenced the fifteen and sixteen year-old boys and girls, convincing them that they were needed to go back home and fight to achieve the ultimate victory.

“We are ready! Lead the way!” yelled the children happy to oblige her, convinced that without them there would be no victory.

So, once again all the Macedonian people, young and old, male and female, were summoned to give their all for this promised victory... During AFZH and NOF rallies and meetings Vera was heard shouting: “All to arms! Not a single Macedonian man or woman must be left without a rifle in hand...!” Now, in a hoarse voice she was calling on them to “run”. But the people couldn’t get her voice out of their heads. Only yesterday she had a powerful, resolute voice calling, stirring, encouraging and promising... This is what she and others like her were doing before the enemy broke the front. The people of Kostur, Lerin and Prespa Regions trusted her and all the others like her and looked after them more so than they looked after themselves. Every time they visited their villages, the people made sure a feast was prepared for them. They were given the best and warmest beds to sleep on, even in the inn, and it was all free. They came at night and left at dawn. The villagers made sure their bags were filled with food and other goodies before they left. They were treated like kings and queens. Everything was about the struggle… about the victory... The people gave everything they had because

they believed and trusted Vera and all those like her and hoped that what they were talking about at the village gatherings would soon come true. Their mouths were full of words about the good victory would bring if everyone fought in the battles. “And who doesn’t love good things?” the villagers whispered to one another. “They speak to us, well may God bless them and give them good health and a long life…” This is what these poor people were saying and wishing until yesterday… and now?

Now they were cursing...

Until just a few days ago, that voice was a voice of hope, now it was a cry of despair, a voice of despair, a memorable voice, which sowed not only faith but also hatred and fear in the villages. Not individually, but generally. With wide waving arms and malice on its face, in long speeches, that voice darkened the minds of the people and filled them with hatred for the enemy, instilling in them the uncertainty of day and night.

That voice made many promises.

Was it now the voice of salvation or the voice of despair?!

Those flaming eyes, from which only yesterday it seemed like lightening was bursting, and those broad waving arms, threatening to hunt down and kill the enemy, were no more. They fell down like a house of cards and all the best these “prophets” could do now was yell for the people to “RUN!” And among them, those who yesterday were building pillars of hope now looked like shadows of frightened foxes...

Run!

One crowd was chasing another.

The men were swearing and the women were cursing. Anger poured from their swearing and cursing. Anger that all was lost and every promise was a great deceit...

They fled frantically, scared, lost, mourning, wailing and swearing. Eyes filled with tears and great frowns on their faces, they cried out, calling names and searching for one another… and most of all cursing...

“Run!” cried the voice of despair loudly.

They ran back to the border as fast as they could. They ran up the steep hill as fast as possible and then down because they were told that there they would be saved from the avenging evil... They quickly ran down, down the slope where they would save themselves and stay alive... Running uphill prevailed. They ran downhill - steep, hard, stony, grueling, dusty, thorny. They ran but didn’t see anywhere in that valley the lighthouse that would show them the way and illuminate their path to return.

In those desperate times, while trying to escape death there was no time to think where this path would lead them and where their lives would end. They had no idea where they were going and where the path they took would lead them.

They had no idea if they could even catch their breath.

The promises made of beautiful times ahead now became times of despair, times of searching for salvation, times of running to escape the evil they were promised they would never have to face...

They were promised the light of great hope. They were promised the light that would disperse the gloom of martyrdom and eliminate the darkest corners of suffering… That light was now extinguished.

With the great promises, invented at party plenums and council meetings, the architects of this conflict instilled faith and confidence in the people that they were powerful and nothing could break them. The architects were saying: “How could that cursed enemy crush those seemingly large and awesome wooden and stone bunkers strung along the mountains and hilltops? How could the enemy succeed in breaking the will of the people?” From the peak of the Party leadership down to the leaflets pasted on rocks, on the walls of village houses and churches, great promises were made which raised

hope in people. Sadly those promises were all false, not worth being written in mud.

The people could see no road to salvation in front of them. All they could see was the trodden down unfamiliar space on which they ran… and all some could think about was that this was someone’s plan to plunge them into an abyss and be done with them.

“Run!” an anxious voice cried out loudly.

They ran and behind them they left the light taken from them and a piece of their soul.

“Run!” yelled the voice which until yesterday was promising them the sun and the moon...

They were running on an unfamiliar path, on their way to their extermination. This was supposed to be their way to liberation so no one ever thought that this would be someone’s well-intentioned, deliberate and permanent seal of extermination and exile…

Will there be anyone who will name “the bad fate” which led these people down the road of no return?

Where and with whom will these people find support? Under which sky will they find a small place to cry over their bad destiny? Will they ever be able to find peace, rest and take a breath of relief?

To the hatred filled architects who, for years and with unlimited persistence, yearned for the Macedonian people’s eradication, their greatest wish came true. The Macedonian people were never allowed to return to their ancestral home. The Macedonian people never found their way back.

For all those who wished them ill, the Macedonian people were turned into permanent refugees and sent on the road of no return. Even since then, to this day, these refugees have nothing but contempt and many curses for them...

Will that river of refugees ever regain its source?

The cruelty of forcing them to become refugees caused them a lot of pain...

4

A lot of people, crowds of people, passed through the forests, the paths, the crossings between crumbling cliffs to get to safety. Men, women, weeping children as well as very old men and women gathered together in groups and squeezed and pushed their way onward, trampling one another in the mad rush, pushing forward like a flooded river during a rainstorm. Their flocks of cattle and sheep traveled in front of them. As they moved along at a rushed pace their groups broke apart and scattered. There were constant shouts from mothers looking for their children, from wives looking for their husbands, for relatives looking for relatives, friends looking for friends and neighbours looking for neighbours. Every time they encountered a different group, people inquired about the whereabouts of their living, lost or dead relatives or friends. There was a lot of crying and talking. Some were praying out loud and some were cursing. Next to them, between them and in front of them were their beasts of burden; donkeys, mules, horses, wagons pulled by oxen carrying their belongings.

There, on the side, on the grassy patch - they, those blown out of the trenches and bunkers who longed to defend Vicho but had failed, but it wasn’t their fault, they lay there powerless and afraid; some with heads and arms bandaged were ordered to prepare defensive positions so they picked up their weapons and swiftly set out on the other roads, on a new task of sacrifice.

The long columns and crowds flowed along the dusty trails and paths to nowhere. They were afraid, sad, whimpering and filled with curses and contempt. They were also overwhelmed by the heavy baggage they’d managed to pack and take with them. In their hasty retreat to save their lives and preserve them they took many things from their homes that they felt they would need. They had no idea how far they would have to carry them on their backs and what treacherous conditions they would be facing on the road of no

return. In fact they had no idea if they would return at all or if these were the things they would need to survive when they returned to their home after the enemy burned down their houses. The great thirst to escape, to save their lives, left no time for them to ponder and think…

They continued to move...

The ravens didn’t stop circling in the purple sky before dusk as the red disk began to disappear beyond the mountain. The traveling column continued to quietly cry, swear, curse, wail and painfully utter words of remembrance. A full moon began to shine from behind the hill.

Krstovitsa saw an unoccupied spot on the ground and went for it. She took the rolled up red woollen bed cover off her shoulder, lowered her bag and other items from her back and placed them on the ground beside her. She leaned her head and shoulder on a stone and felt its radiating warmth. A cloud overshadowed the moon and darkness ensued. Saddled and dumbfounded strangers silently walked in the darkness past her as if she didn’t exist. People kept passing by her, walking and driving their herds of sheep, goats and cattle. Babies were crying and old people complaining. In a loud voice a woman yelled and cursed only to be drowned out by the crying and sobbing...

Krstovitsa stretched out her arms in front of her, touched her feet and then the ground. Her short rest relaxed her body and allowed her to breathe easier. She took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off her forehead and face and then covered her head with her black head kerchief. She looked up in the sky and watched the stars flicker. Occasionally there was a brief silence during which she could hear the roar of cannons in the distance and feel the faint vibrations in the air. She leaned her head on her red bedcover and imagined she was home in her hearth sitting by the fireplace where the embers she covered with ash before she left were probably still smouldering. She imagined she was in her beautiful guest room where she would spread her worn out, red woolen bedcover and watch her children play on it and grow. And where were they now? She knew her oldest son was dead resting under a rock on Ivan Mountain. She

knew her second son was in Canada working in a mine. She knew her daughter Kotsa was serving a prison sentence on one of the Greek dry islands in the Aegean Sea. She had been sent to prison because her husband, who served as a partisan, left Greece and went to Yugoslavia with the Aegean Brigade. She knew that her two grandsons were left in pieces on Gramos last year. She had learned that her granddaughter had been wounded on the back of her shoulder when she was withdrawing from the battle in Negush and was left there lying and bleeding in the snow. They told her and she still believed that her granddaughter was alive and on her way to Vicho. Krstovitsa’s thoughts kept taking her back to the beginning. Over and over again she kept thinking of the past, remembering everything she had gone through. She now suffered from an incurable pain, an incurable pain which tore at her heart. Her heart was torn when she found out that her son Pavle had been killed on Ivan Mountain. The Greek military sent her a letter signed with a royal seal informing her that her son died heroically on the Albanian mountains, heroically defending the Greek homeland against the Italians. Krstovitsa wanted to but didn’t have the courage to ask the man who read her the letter bearing the royal seal why her son was now a hero? Why wasn’t he a hero in 1936 when he was sentenced to serve six months in prison in the dry Greek islands in the Aegean Sea for saying “good morning” to his neighbour in Macedonian? He spent six months in jail for saying two words in Macedonian! If he was such a hero why then did they also give him castor oil and embarrass him for speaking his native mother tongue? They read the letters to her in Greek about her two grandchildren who last year left their bones on the rocks on Kleftis in Gramos, and in them the Greek government proclaimed them heroes who fought heroically for the glory of Greece. But deep in her heart Krstovitsa felt no pride and no dignity, she felt bitterness and insults. We Macedonians have our own country and our own roots soaked with the blood of so many Macedonian heroes. She was bitter and insulted because in the letters they said her grandchildren died as Greeks for Greece. Krstovitsa too was hated because she didn’t speak the Greek language. She didn’t understand the Greek priest giving liturgy in Greek and didn’t know how to pray to God in Greek. For that they despised her. When her husband Krsto didn’t return from the war the Greeks fought against the Turks in Asia Minor, a Greek representative with a letter in hand came knocking. He read the letter

which said, “Stavros, famously fell in Ali Veran for the greatness, glory and honour of our great mother Greece.” Even then (1920s), after his death, they didn’t have the decency to call him Krsto. Before that, when they forced him to wear a Greek uniform, they called him “neznamitis” (someone who constantly said I don’t know) because to every question asked in Greek, not knowing the Greek language, he answered “I don’t know” in Macedonian. The “neznamitis” died in a foreign country but his wife was sent a letter with a royal seal. This is how the Greek government treated the mothers and grandmothers of the dead Macedonians. They were told that their sons and grandsons died for the glory of Greece. But in reality they were only worthy to Greece when they died for Greece shooting and killing others to glorify Greece with their blood. This is how it was. The “neznamitis” were only loved and glorified after they were dead fighting for the Greeks, beckoning their calls to the tune of their military trumpets and marching to their loud drums. This was the only time the Greeks tolerated the “neznamitis” speaking their language. This was also the time when the Macedonian language in Greece was forbidden. Macedonians were forbidden from expressing their pain, grief and anguish in their own language. They weren’t even allowed to write the Macedonian name of their dead on the crosses. By the power of Greek law even God wasn’t allowed to listen to prayers other than those uttered in Greek. According to the Greek patriarch, Almighty God ordered some to rejoice and others to suffer in silence and to be fed not with the goodness and love of God, but with the bitterness of humiliation.

Thus, in those days a Christian God was glorified but not all were allowed to send prayers to Him in their own language and to glorify His name. Every Sunday and holiday wherever church bells rang aloud, Macedonians prayed without words. They spoke by expression and body language and barely noticeable movements of their lips. The only thing they knew to say aloud was “Amen” and quietly, silently say “Christ has risen” and for “many years” (live a long and healthy life). And when they received letters from the battlefields with bad news they ceased to fear the castor oil, the whip and the dry islands in the Aegean and screamed and cried in their own Macedonian language because this was the only way they could express their pain in the deepest, most painful, most shocking way. They lamented in Macedonian to relieve their pain as their grieved

for the loved ones they lost. Krstovitsa endured this kind of pain and lamented loudly many times, during holidays, during weekdays, during gatherings, during funerals and during many waking hours. Before the war with Italy broke out, the Greek language was taught to Macedonian adults in night schools. With much difficulty many managed to learn the first lines of “Our Father” in Greek. Soon after that the bad news began to arrive and as much as they prayed in Greek it didn’t help. It didn’t help Krstovitsa even though the Greek priest and Greek teacher convinced her that God would only hear words and prayers whispered in Greek. There was no forgetfulness in her memory, neither for good nor for bad.