ANOTHER HOME FOR THE REFUGEE CHILDREN

ANOTHER HOME FOR THE REFUGEE CHILDREN

We find more testimony on the opening of the children’s home in Petrovets in the newspaper “Voice of the Aegeans”. Here is what was written:

“Last month, in 1948, a shelter was opened in the village Petrovets, near Skopje, exclusively for the refugee children from Aegean Macedonia. The home was designed to house up to 60 children. Up until now only 16 children have been placed here but more are expected to arrive soon. The home was opened by the Macedonian Ministry of Social Care which has also provided the necessary inventory of beds, blankets, sheets, tables, kitchen inventory, etc. Moreover the Ministry has made available a sufficient amount eggs, milk and cheese for consumption.

Upon their arrival at this home each child will be given new clothing and shoes. All the people working at the home, except for the teachers, are refugees from Aegean Macedonia. The manager of the home is Argir Kuzovski, a former DAG officer.

The Aegean children are already accustomed to life in shelters and will not be disappointed here. The staff too has shown great affection for the children and will look after them like they were their own.

Included among the staff in this home is Iordana Lebanova from the village Setina, Lerin Region. Her black head kerchief and her melancholic look give one the impression that she is in pain. And indeed she is; she was badly wounded during the war. Her husband died as a DAG fighter. Her only hope and joy now are her children, 11year old Vangelia and 10 year old Giorgi. In order to save her children, before the Greek Civil War, Iordana sent her children away with the other children from her village. They eventually ended up in Hungary. Now they are far away from her. And who knows how they are where they live. This poor mother constantly worries about them. She constantly dreams of how nice it would have been if they were here, beside her, playing and learning along the other children in this home! She can’t understand how the heartless Informburo can keep mothers separated from their children, ignoring their rights to be together, causing them so much pain! Her hope is that one day all the children will be allowed to return to their parents… and this too will pass.”

The Aegean Macedonian refugee children placed in the children’s homes in Matka and Petrovets were from the following villages:

Zhupanishte, Rudari, D’mbeni, Strkovo, V’mbel, Lok, Starichino, Oshchima, Mokreni, Besvina, Ezerets, Statitsa, Lobanitsa, Aetos, German, Krchishta, Dichishta, Krushoradi, Sveta Nedela, Orovnik, Trsie, Kotori, and Ludovo.

Because the number of refugee children arriving in the People’s Republic of Macedonia was steadily growing, and there was lack of space to accommodate them there, the Yugoslav Red Cross Central

Board was asked to find space for them elsewhere, in other republics outside of the People’s Republic of Macedonia. So on November 13, 1948 421 children and 13 women “mothers” were taken from the children’s homes in Matka and Petrovets and moved to a new Red Cross home in Tsrikvenitsa, the People’s Republic of Croatia. Similarly a small group of Greek refugee children was taken from these two homes and moved to a local children’s home in Bulkes, Voivodina.

On December 15, 1948 the home in Petrovets, near Skopje, was closed down. The home in Matka continued to operate.

By April 1949 the children’s home in Matka housed 40 refugee children ages 6 to 12. The home was run by a manager, an administrator, a teacher, a cook and two maids who came from Aegean Macedonia. But by order of the Macedonian Ministry of Social Care, in May 1949 this children’ home too was closed down and ceased to operate in mid-June 1949. The children were relocated to a children’s home in Prilep.

In 1948 there were children’s homes housing refugee children in Liuboino, Brailovo and other places in the People’s Republic of Macedonia. The older children from these homes were sent to learn a trade; 60 were sent to the children’s home in Tsrikvenitsa and 120 to the home in Bulkes.

The children’s home in Prilep was opened on May 12, 1949 under the auspices of the People’s Republic of Macedonia’s Red Cross and Ministry of Social Care. Initially the home housed 40 children who, until then, had been housed in children’s home in Matka, and had arrived as new refugees from the village Brailovo. Another 65 children came from Prilep and 25 more from Skopje, Veles and Kochani. Similarly there were refugees housed in the children’s home in Prilep whose parents were already accommodated and lived in Galichnik.

Housed at the children’s home in Prilep, at the end of November 1949, were 110 refugee children of whom 20 were children ages 3 to 7, 74 were children ages 7 to 14 and 16 were children over the age of 14. Of these, 88 had both or one parent living in the People’s

Republic of Macedonia, 17 had both parents remaining in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia, 4 had both or one parent living in Poland and 1 child was without parents.

The refugee children housed in the children’s home in Prilep were from the following villages:

Aetos, Zagorichani, Aposkep, Kromni, Buf, Kupa, German, Mokreni, Gornichevo, P’pli, Gumendzha, Trsie, Zhelevo, Chegan and Zabrdeni.

I.e. from Lerin, Voden, Kostur, Drama and Solun Regions.

In the middle of 1950 the Yugoslav Red Cross Central Committee decided to close down the home in Prilep. A committee to address the situation was formed, which included Red Cross members Dimitrie Goncharov, head of the financial department, and Militsa Pamuchina, a clerk from the Yugoslav Red Cross Central Committee. This committee arrived in Prilep on August 26, 1950 and selected 33 school age children to be sent to the children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva. At the same time the committee selected 11 pre-school children to be sent to the Red Cross children’s home in Stara Gora, Slovenia. The committee also reconnected 10 children with their parents. Many more parents were invited to come to Prilep and pick up their children but due to lack of housing, lack of jobs, lack of good living conditions, etc., many parents did not respond to the invitation. This also applied to the parents who were placed in Galichnik.

Because of this lack of response on the part of some parents, the Yugoslav Red Cross Central Committee decided to send some children to live with their parents anyway. If, for example, both parents were alive and living in Yugoslavia they were to receive their child or children. If only one parent was living in Yugoslavia then their child or children would remain in the children’s home.

However, there were some care organizations which did not agree with the Red Cross decision regarding this approach. Included among those who disagreed were the trustee for social care in Prilep and the main board of the Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia in

Skopje. These organizations argued that some families were not materially ready to look after their children under the current condition and that the children were better off staying in the children’s homes.

At the end of January 1951 30 children from the children’s home in Prilep were sent to learn a trade. Of the 30, 10 were sent to “11 October” in Skopje and 20 were sent to “Tome Zhelezarcheto” in Bitola. This enabled the children to be educated in practical schools and become proficient in their trades. This move was sponsored by Dimche Mire, Minister of Education, Reis Shakiri, Minister of Social Welfare, and Dimche Delevski, head of the refugee program in the Ministry of Social Care.

At the end of January 1951 31 more children were reconnected with their parents and the Red Cross children’s home in Prilep was closed down.

The children’s home that was opened in Valandovo in 1952, in the care of the Ministry of Social Welfare, in 1953 housed 238 children ages 8 to 16. These children were sent to Valandovo from other children’s homes and stayed there until they were reconnected with their parents who lived in various other places. This home became necessary because many parents did not have the means to support both themselves and their children.

The people responsible for running the Valandovo home were Gligor Todorovski and M. Pavlovski. The children accommodated in this home were from the following Aegean Macedonian villages:

Lerin Region villages:

Armensko, Neokazi, Asano Selo, Nivitse, Banitsa, Ofchareni, Bapchor, Oshchima, Buf, Papazhani, German, Prokopana, Gornichovo, Rakovo, Gorno Kotori, R’bi, Dolno Kotori, Rudari, Embore, Sekulevo, Zhelevo, Setina, Krushoradi, Trnovo, Kupa, Chegan, Chegan, Negochani and Strkovo.

Kostur Region villages:

Gabresh, Nevin, Zhirovish, Pliashchishta, Kosinets, Preshchani, Lichishta, Chetirog and Mokreni.

Voden Region villages:

Bahovo, Iuguntsi, Pozharsko, Rodivo, Tushima and chernishevo.

The Valandovo children’s home housed refugee children who, from 1948 to 1952, were housed in Red Cross children’s homes Bela Tsrkva, Tsrikvenitsa, Stara Gora and other such homes. In addition to their regular schooling, the children living in the Valandovo home also participated in numerous other extracurricular activities. There was a choir, a soccer team and a library in this home. The children were also regularly taken to see movies and presentations.

On October 7, 1952 the Valandovo home was visited by Bent Oman, a Red Cross delegate from Sweden. In his report on the Valandovo children’s home, among others, he wrote: “From individually examining many of these children I found that a large number of them have parents in Yugoslavia. There are also a small number of children whose parents are not in Yugoslavia…”

The Valandovo home in 1953 housed 229 Macedonian children from Aegean Macedonia, 1 child from Serbia and 8 German children from Voivodina.