INCLUDED IN THE PROPAGANDA

INCLUDED IN THE PROPAGANDA

Referring to the Aegean Macedonian children’s evacuation to Yugoslavia and to other Eastern European countries, author Dr. R. Kiriazovski stated the following:

“Many children in fact were sent to other Eastern European countries, they did not remain in the first country in which they were accepted. They were moved to these countries in order to join their parents or other relatives. Some children who left Greece at age 16 to 17 very quickly ceased to be on the children’s lists, a fact that changed the numbers from year to year. At the end, by 1954, about 5000 children joined their parents in Greece, Canada and Australia.

The evacuation of children by the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece was strongly condemned by the Greek government in Athens. The Athens government used the evacuation as an opportunity to start a violent and ruthless propaganda campaign against the Greek Communists, accusing them of grabbing the children by force, committing genocide against Hellenism, creating squads of Janissaries and so on.

The Americans too joined the Greek propaganda campaign. American historian Lawrence S. Vitner called the child evacuation ‘one of the worst cases of psychological warfare in the Greek conflict’. US diplomat Rankin termed the child evacuation ‘a great psychological error’ which may be used by the US and by the world

abroad as ‘useful anti-communist propaganda’. As a result of this American and Greek propaganda, the world was led to believe that the children were abducted.

At the request of the Greek government to the UN and the International Red Cross the question of returning the children back to Greece was raised, regardless of where their parents were at the moment. The UN however rejected this Greek government request and decided to send the children to their parents or relatives.

The Greek government continued to demand that they be returned to Greece, based on a request signed by the parents of 9,837 children. The CPG leadership however rejected the above Greek government request on account that that particular request was a forgery.

Regarding the monitoring, care and educational needs of the children, the CPG and the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, in May 1948, established the Eastern European Commission for Child Assistance (EVOP). Its first seat in East Europe was in Budapest, then in Bucharest. In Eastern Europe on the side of the Macedonians, the first people to join this organization were Andon Sikavitsa and later Stavro Kochev.

In its futile efforts to find a solution to DAG’s reserve problems, the CPG leadership, which proclaimed that the children were evacuated to be saved and that their effort had been humanitarian, took a turn in direction. In April and May 1949, DAG General Staff and the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece decided to conduct recruitment of new fighters from among the evacuated children who were evacuated in the Eastern European countries. For this purpose they issued appropriate orders and directives and sent special emissaries. Recruitment of children was conducted with wide propaganda and by applying pressure. Recruitment was not conducted by age but by size, resulting in the recruitment of children ages 12 to 15. They recruited several hundred children from Romania and Czechoslovakia. They then organized training centres in the village Strkovo, Lerin Region, and after a few days of training sent the children to join DAG units in the front line.”

Here is what Dr. Kiriazovski had to say about the decision taken by the top CPG and DAG leaderships:

“This decision, or action taken by the CPG and DAG, caused dismay and a sharp outcry in the parents of these children. On May 18, 1949 thirty-three mothers from the evacuated children from the village Konomlati, Kostur Region, sent a sharp protest to DAG General Headquarters seeking the return of the children to either the homes in the Eastern European countries or to their parents here in Greece.

On April 14 of the same year Paskal Mitrevski, NOF Secretary and minister in the provisional government of Greece, sent a letter to the CPG Central Committee Politburo condemning the recruitment of the children and reminding the CPG of the serious consequences that it caused through the recruitment of these children from the children’s homes. Mitrevski demanded that this mobilization be stopped and that the children aged 12 to 15 be returned back to the children’s homes from where they came.

Under intense pressure from parents and from the public, the Greek CPG Party leadership, on May 22, 1949, ordered the suspension of mobilizing children under 15 years of age and returned all mobilized under age children back to the homes. However, the order was not fully carried out. Most of the mobilized children, untrained, were thrown into battle and quickly killed. Tragic was the case of 130 children who, on their way to Thessaly, fell into an ambush and were all killed by the government army.