Chapter four – Painful memories - black chronicles - Part 02

At the time when the freedom fighters were in control in Kostur, a lot of Macedonian people, in their newly discovered freedom, contemplated kicking the Greeks out of Macedonia. They often talked about the wrongs done to them and about the reasons why the Greeks were so hostile against them to a point where Greek governments wanted to exile them all out of their centuries-old lands and homes. The short Greek occupation was far more inhumane than the five hundred years of Ottoman rule.

I want every Macedonian to know that the freedom fighting movement in Kostur was a result of Greek anti-Macedonian policies and practices and the oppression Macedonians experienced under various Greek governments and under the communists.

ELAS command and the CPG District Committee, filled with Greek nationalism, failed to understand why there were Macedonian freedom fighters in Kostur and how to get rid of them. One way to eliminate this phenomenon was by meeting the people’s wishes and aspirations. But instead of doing that the Greek leadership opted for the use of military force to suppress the guerillas. ELAS units were dispatched to the village Starichani in Kostur Region on May 1st,

1943 by the Greek leadership to commit massacres. But instead of eliminating the freedom movement, the attack made it stronger.

You should also know that the freedom fighting movement was first started by the people of Kostur who were brought up in the Macedonian tradition and were followers of the Ilinden revolutionary movement. This movement was started in Kostur in March 1943 and later spread to other parts of Greek occupied Macedonia. It was a time when everyone sang Macedonian songs everywhere...” concluded Krapov with a smile on his face.

* * *

As we walked along we entered a wide cobblestone street leading to “ribarska” (the fish market) and heard the lake water splashing. Krsto Krapov then exhaled loudly and began to talk again:

“Well, this is how it was: Right here, in this wide cobblestone road, the mellow sound of a trumpet would have been heard playing under the shining summer sun. And as you moved closer you would have heard many instruments play strange music. It would have been marching music. After that you would have seen women passing by through the crowded street. You would have noticed that the women were dressed in Ilinden style revolutionary dresses, proudly walking along with a sense of national belonging with a certain kick in their step…

To you it would seem like many generations of people, stretched through the ages, were appearing before your eyes… which would fill them with tears.

You would have heard a song sung by a beautiful male voice: ‘Od grob stanale slavnite iunatsi…’ You would have also heard songs sung about our Ilinden heroes like Commanders Vasil Chakalarov, Lazar Pop Traikov, Manol Rizov, Pando Kliashev, Atanas Krshakov, Mitre Pandzharov, Pando Sindov, Nikola Dobrolitski, Kuzo Stefov, Georgi Shkornov, Trpo Georgiev, Lazaar Moskov, Pavle Hristo and many other fighters and leaders.

You would have imagined our commanders riding white horses, seeming like they were making history... And walking behind them, with a rebellious spirit, one behind another followed the Aposkepska, Setomska, Tioliska, Kondorabska, Lichiska, Gorenska, Bobitska, Olitska, Zagoritska, Prekopanska, Vishenka, Shestevarska, Pozdivska, Konomladska, Dobrolitska... freedom fighting units. After that you would have heard the march of the freedom fighters which would have gone something like this:

Ima li nekoi koi shto ne znae! (Is there anyone who does not know!) Do deka e Makedonia: (To where Macedonia extends:) Solun i Voden (Solun and Voden) Lerin i Kostur (Lerin and Kostur) Tamu se biat Makedontsite! (There Macedonians are fighting!) Borbeni chekori bea se posilni. (Battle steps are stronger.) Se slusha mashki borben glas od voivoda Dobrolitski: (The combative male voice of Commander Dobrolitski is heard:) Voivodi i Komiti! (Commanders and freedom fighters!) Brakia i sestri! (Brothers and sisters!)

Then came the speeches given by the commanders which would have gone something like this: ‘Today is Ilinden! It is a day of the future for the affirmation of the Macedonian national being.

Dear brothers and sisters! The time has come when we must say enough is enough! We must say enough to all the black gangs that sow death in our villages!

We are making history today as we put an end to centuries of drama on the soil of Kostur: to the suffering, to the invasions, to the looting, to the renaming and to the slaughter of our people...

Dear people of Kostur be brave because you are Macedonians! Because bravery is part of your tradition.

The people of Kostur have been beaten and murdered but we have not changed our national identity. Let it be known that we Macedonians from Kostur are strong and cannot be broken.

Long live Macedonia!’

When I heard this speech it touched me and I immediately went to the Headquarters where I took an oath that went something like this: ‘I Krsto Krapov, solemnly swear to my last drop of blood that I will fight to free Macedonia! I will be loyal to the Kostur Committee and will never become a traitor! If I break these rules then I accept the fate delivered to me by the pistol and dagger over which I swear! Freedom or death!’

On April 9, 1943, for the first time after 30 years of harsh Greek rule, the local government finally fell into the hands of the Macedonian people…

Local committees, consisting only of Macedonians from our villages, were formed…”

Krapov paused for a moment, smiled and then continued: “We, the Macedonian freedom fighters, for the first time since the 1913 Greek occupation, came to an agreement with the Italian Kostur garrison commander and chief commander of the occupation zone Kostur and Kostur Region, a colonel named A. Vinieri, and on April 9, 1943 took over the local government and our people, for the first time, governed themselves with their local committees, which until the day before had been under Greek rule. This is a documented fact which can be found in the Italian archives. This fact should have been made known to everyone a long time ago and not after a century of silence, because it was part of our history!

A month after the Kostur Committee was formed we were visited by Colonel Vinieri who delivered a letter (No. 617) to the ‘Macedonian Kostur Committee’ regarding the security of the region in which he proposed that the Greek authorities be expelled from the Macedonian territory. The region was then to be divided into zones and each zone was to be protected by appointed Macedonian volunteers with their own commanders who then would be attached to a single command located in one of the nearby villages.

According to this agreement, between Colonel Vinieri and the Macedonian Kostur Committee, the Kostur Italian occupied territory was divided into 15 zones with their own centres as follows:

Zone 1 – with its centre located in the village Orovo, Prespa Region; Zone 2 – with its centre located in the village German, Prespa Region; Zone 3 – with its centre located in the village Zhelevo, Lerin Region; Zone 4 – with its centre located in the village Breznitsa, Kostur Region; Zone 5 – with its centre located in the village V’mbel, Kostur Region; Zone 6 – with its centre located in the village Dobrolishta, Kostur Region; Zone 7 – with its centre located in the village Pozdivishta, Kostur Region; Zone 8 – with its centre located in the village Chetirok, Kostur Region; Zone 9 – with its centre located in the village Kostur; Zone 10 – with its centre located in the village Zagoricheni, Kostur Region; Zone 11 – with its centre located in the village Dranichevo, Kostur Region; Zone 12 – with its centre located in the village Zhelegozhe, Kostur Region; Zone 13 – with its centre located in the village Gorentsi, Kostur Region; Zone 14 – with its centre located in the village Radigozhe, Kostur Region; Zone 15 – with its centre located in the village Hrupishta, Kostur Region;

Each unit was assigned to protect four villages. When they were attacked by ELAS fighters they combined forces and, with help from Kostur, they jointly fought back.

Believe me, our fight for our homeland was easy, but then everything got twisted by other people’s ideologies and we all became victims of the struggle for the liberation of Macedonia.

I saw freedom fighters with my own eyes dying with the words: ‘Long live Macedonia, long live our motherland!’ The rebels loved

and felt connected to Macedonia. The rebels also knew how to live at the bottom; being humiliated, being spat on, being angry at, having no joy, being constantly criticized and never praised or recognized for their deeds. The rebels did not easily give up and knew how to cast a shadow. They were proud people, never wanted to be unjust and always searched for the truth. And above all, they remembered when good or evil was done to them and so they in turn paid it back.

When they were in trouble, the rebels showed no distress, they sang, worked, dreamed… and knew that their existence in the city might be brief and painful. Even though the rebels were dragged through hell they were still spirited, rebellious, violent and wild. They were smart, loving and honoured tragedians.

Because of the courage, devotion and sacrifices they made for their country, the people of Kostur were safe from being slaughtered.”

Krapov paused for a moment, looked at me and excitedly began to tell me about the unprecedented bravery of Commander Bai Kolio. Krapov admired Kolio very much and was very excited when she spoke about him, so excited so that his heart began to beat hard, so hard that it was ready to explode out of his chest. Watching him made me very sad and to avoid getting emotional I bit my lip.

Krapov continued: “My parents were pious and devout,” he said. “They knew that I would willingly volunteer to join the movement. It was a virtuous time. Then when I took the oath that I would fight for the freedom of Macedonia and to free Kostur, my parents surprised me by congratulating me and wholeheartedly giving me their blessings. I was also congratulated by the oldest rebels, which made me feel good. I felt so much love that I could not hold back my tears. And thus my love for Kostur and for Macedonia became permanently imprinted in my soul.

Unfortunately the Kostur revolutionaries have now been forgotten. Forgotten are the Ilinden fighters who fought against the cutthroat Greek Andartes. Forgotten are the Kostur rebels who fought against PAO and ELAS…

The persecution of our rebels inside our homeland and outside is like an illness which still sits like a lump in my soul. The real heroes who fought for Kostur and for Macedonia’s freedom are condemned and persecuted while the criminals, the Andartes and the ELAS traitors, are praised for their deeds... What a shame…

Today both the rebels and the communists find themselves on foreign shores, scattered throughout the world and feeling homesick. I know the rebels fought for Kostur and for Macedonia but I don’t know what the ELAS fighters and the communists fought for? They certainly did not fight for Macedonia or for Macedonia’s interests. I hope they realize that…” concluded Krapov who then went silent.

When I try to think of what took place in the years 1940 to 1949 all I remember is my life passing me by like a film. Sequences strung together of the joy of my childhood and my love of Kostur... All this reminded me of silent witnesses passing through strange passages…

“My father used to say,” speak up Krapov, “Communism is no good… Religion is no good... One and the other are the opium of the people. We learned a great deal of how religion can be abused from Bishop Karavangelis. He sold religion and by doing so not only managed to sneak the Greek Church into Macedonia but convinced the Macedonian people to believe that the Greek Church is God’s church and either defrocked all Macedonian priests or turned them into Greek priests.

He persuaded no one that faith was a good thing, he just used it to do malicious deeds to Hellenize Macedonia and to expel all those Macedonians who refuse to bend to his will.

A few decades later, again in our lifetime, the Communists did the same thing by forcefully propagating communism; calling it a great ideology. But for who? Not for the Macedonians!

My father used to say that the Communists are people who, while wanting to learn to swim, keep one foot in the water and the other on shore. But as time has shown they learned neither to swim nor to remain on shore. Now far from home, living in isolation, some are

willing to admit that perhaps some of this so-called great ideology was incorrectly applied.

The communists or former ELAS fighters, both Greeks and Macedonians, who fought together against the Kostur rebels, after the war ended were taken to Tashkent and left there. Then, when the time came to return home, only the Greeks were allowed to enter Greece, the Macedonians were left to roam the globe homeless. Perhaps there is a lesson in there somewhere…” concluded Krapov.

* * *

Krapov, for some reason, began to look more nervous than usual. He raised his shoulders and looked at me with a stern look on his face. It seemed like something was bothering him.

He opened his eyes wide open, at which point I noticed a vein on his face pulse at a fast rate. He was in deep thought attempting to organize in his thoughts what he wanted to say. Then, suddently, in his usual tone of voice he began talking. He said: “I can see that you want to know more… more about how the rebellion was born…

Clearly we are all familiar with the Nazis of the Third Reich who wanted the Jews to disappear. The Jews, on the other hand, could not accept that they had to disappear because the Nazis wanted them to. The same thing happened to us Macedonians. The Greeks were publicly saying that we too should disappear… ‘We don’t need the Macedonians, we just want Macedonia!’ they used to say. And they succeeded in getting it. For more information on this see Karvitis. Karvitis was one of the first Andart executioners to come to Macedonia in 1903. He wrote about this in his book “O makedonikos Agon”.

Well, this was the strategy of the conventional Greek state: one king, one nation, one language and one church.

But if we look closer at the Greeks, they had two languages; the Katharevusa and the Demotic.

While they had two languages we were not allowed to even have one, that’s why many Macedonians in Kostur and throughout the whole of Greek occupied Macedonia were boiling in anger.

Greece always treated the Macedonians, not according to the reality of the situation but according to its bilateral national interests (for example at the Asia Minor and at the Italian front the Macedonians were placed in front line combat and the results for the Macedonians were catastrophic).

The rebels had an aim: Give voice to the oppressed because injustice was painful!

Allow me to tell you a thing or two about our past, about our Macedonian truth. When your enemies bury your history you can never find the truth. Macedonia’s enemies have buried Macedonia’s history and there is very little that still remains out there but it is not how the ideological activists tell it.

Let me put it this way: Right in front of us rebels stood the enemy who clearly wanted to destroy us as soon as possible…”

For some reason I felt the need to interrupt and ask: “Who? Who organized the destruction of the rebel movement?”

I guess my interruption was premature because it was followed by a long and tense pause as Krapov stared at me intensely like I was a little child standing in front of my front door waiting for something to happen. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me but he did not, he said: “We the rebels were sworn to tell the truth! Our commanders used to say: ‘We must not leave our offspring in burden and in shame’. We were determined to fight to the death. That’s how we operated. Yes, those were the times, but since then we Macedonians have changed. The people of Kostur have disappeared from Kostur and from Kostur Region; they are all over the world now...

What do you think, who has remained in Kostur? …Only Greeks and Grkomani (Macedonians who think they are Greeks).

Now there is no one left, no rebels, no Macedonian ELAS fighters and no Macedonian communists to send us down the river. There are no more communists with easy answers to everything, claiming to know what Marxism was all about and how future communist societies were going to look like. There are no more communists who believe that all Macedonians, including the people of Kostur, will find and obtain all their human rights. It was a time of lies and deception. Yes it was… After that we had the people of NOF pushing us to join DAG, telling us to fight for Macedonia and against the king, and in the end, they too were sent to Siberia. That’s how it was…

Our old people used to say: ‘The Greeks who wanted their king were the same Greeks who wanted Stalin…’

Look at them now, all happy and proud living good lives in our homes and lands and we Macedonians, being lied to, have lost our homes and our lands forever. We Macedonians lived in an era of endless war and the majority of the people of Kostur in the 20th century spent their lives fighting.

And as my old Kostur fisherman grandfather Doro used to say: ‘Only our swearing gave us relief from our pain.’ We easily fled abroad, leaving the beauty of Kostur in ignorance, abandoning it to the newcomer Madzhiri (Turkish Christian colonists and settlers deposited in Macedonia by Greek governments) and allowing them to become the masters of our country,” concluded Krapov.

May 1943

In May 1943, almost thirty years ago, Krsto Krapov joined a rebel detachment and fought against PAO and ELAS and since then, with his courage and determination, became a commander at age 23. In October 1943 he was wounded during a brutal battle in the village Zagoricheni, near Sveti Vrach. But this was not the last time he was wounded. In 1944 during the final year of the Second World War, he was again wounded and captured by ELAS. Those who captured him were Macedonians, activists and faithful ideological servants of ELAS.

“Ideology in those days,” continued Krapov, “was a hot commodity jovially accepted by every Macedonian, especially since it was recommended and served by Macedonians in authority wearing beautiful uniforms and carrying red cards in their pockets.

Fear of a Macedonian Resurrection with a Macedonian revolutionary platform

In the end, our cemeteries and graveyards grew and multiplied. In time more and more of us died. We died by the hundreds, gone forever, vanished in history, not as Macedonians but as unknowns… people without identities. We were killed in groups and not as soldiers with a military existence, with our own physiognomy, revolutionary character, hopes, wishes and plans for a free Kostur... We died and disappeared… as if we had never existed… Look at Kostur’s history for the first half of the 20th century… what do you find? It reads as if we never existed… no human endeavours… no struggles for liberation… only dirty politics put there by our occupiers and neighbours to enable themselves to kick us out of Kostur. As you can see we have no past… no history… we live in the present… everything else is memories, heroes and graves. Shadows of history!”

Twenty or so years later, Krapov, 75 years old now, is left only with his memories of those days in 1943, memories which are intertwined with everyday effects, an experience which has left him with deep scars.

He said: “The past for me is more important than the present. For a long time, even to this day, I am unable to uncover: WHY?!”

Now, most of all he loves the spring, he loves it even more than the fall. He loved the rain, the silence, the isolation, to be alone… He always loved the spring more than the summer.

I got enough courage to ask Krapov another question. I looked in his direction and said: “Were the rebels familiar with their own debt and power?”

He gave me a sharp answer: “The rebels,” he said, “loved and protected our fatherland. It was their own homeland from a long time ago and their place of birth. They were not cosmopolitans like the communists who served only the Communist Party. Those Macedonians in the ranks of ELAS had not developed abilities of deep reasoning about their own country like the rebels had, whose interests were in Macedonia and about the freedom and well-being of Macedonia and the Macedonian people. The communists just followed orders like slaves and were easily manipulated by those who led them and as a result remained under the strict control of foreign gods.

After failing to destroy the rebels, Siantos, leader of the CPG, sought help from the CPY by meeting with the Montenegrin, Tempo.

In their talks in August 1943, Siantos asked Tempo to create special units in Greek occupied Macedonia to agitate and spread propaganda in the Macedonian language. This is how the first lies were spread. Concretely SNOF was orgainized but not by the Macedonians.

Concern for the Macedonians or total manipulation?!

SNOF (Slavo-Macedonian People’s Liberation Front) was created on October 20th, 1943 in the village Snichani, Kostur Region by Christos Kalfas-Andreas, CPG District Committee Secretary for Western Macedonia, Antonis Andonopulos – Periklis, CPG District Committee Secretary for Kostur Region and Thanassis Kartsunis, CPG District Committee Secretary for Kozheni Region. All this was done with the intent of attracting and breaking up the rebels by assuring them that SNOF was a Macedonian established organization.

Immediately after their creation, the Macedonian SNOF battalions received orders to liquidate the rebel formations. On August 21, 1943 the Kostur battalion attacked several armed rebel villages and managed to disarm a large number of rebel fighters. Towards the end of August, 300 rebels from Kostur Region joined the Kostur-Lerin Macedonian battalion.

Unfortunately organizations such as SNOF and others like it were disbanded on September 26, 1944. By signing the Caserta agreement the fate of the Left including the fate of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia, was definitely sealed. The Macedonian people put their hope and trust in the Leftists, only to be betrayed.

With ELAS’s defeat and the signing of the Varkiza agreement on February 12, 1945, a new situation was created in Greek occupied Macedonia.

I often wondered: ‘Was the eradication of the Macedonian rebels part of some early plan to perpetrate genocide against the people of Kostur and Kostur Region? How can communism be so hypocritical? Perhaps the people who abused communism were hypocritical but then it is difficult to call them communists.’

SNOF’s political program was a platform for a joint struggle between Macedonians and Greeks. It called for mass mobilization of Macedonians in ELAS units for the purpose of conducting an armed struggle against the Macedonian rebels and against the occupiers.

You will find more information about this in a book (“Yugoslav Communists and the Macedonian Question” by Steve E. Palmer and Robert P. King, Archon Books, 1971, p. 94-95) where the following was written:

‘In the beginning of May 1943, Tempo established contact with the Greek Communists, in an attempt to establish domination of the CPY in Greek occupied Macedonia, which smouldered from the repressive measures applied by the Metexas dictatorship before the war. The situation was ignited by the Italian occupiers who organized special Macedonian gendarmes (Kostur rebels) to fight against the Greeks. The Kostur rebels received carte blanche and their influence was dangerous for CPY plans in Macedonia in a Yugoslav framework. Tempo suggested that it would be good to allow Tito’s agents (Macedonians in ELAS and the CPG) to organize and lead the Macedonians in Greece. The Greeks refused. Tempo however took his case to the Supreme Command of the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) which then allowed the

Greek Macedonians to organize the Slavic National Liberation Fronts (SNOF). ELAS Command immediately agreed to combine military actions with the Yugoslav partisans but, of course, was not thrilled with the formation of separate Greek Slav units because it seemed like a move to enable Yugoslav efforts to create a Greater Macedonia. It was possible that Greece could lose Aegean Macedonia and that was the main black point of the Greek communists. Agreement to such a proposal, no matter how it was camouflaged in plans for some kind of Balkan Communist Federation, was going to strongly jeopardize their mass support.’

On August 8, in a letter to the CPG Central Committee, Tempo accepted the Greek Communist insistence to preserve discretion: ‘The Greek party has the following position on the issue of Macedonia. I.e. the Macedonian minority in Greece will gain its freedom and will be safe from any kind of national oppression.’ They did not recognize any right to self-determination for the Macedonian nation.

The turmoil triggered among the Macedonian people by Siantos and Tempo is incomprehensible even to this day. It is hard to believe that Macedonians, participants in the ranks of ELAS, took part in the destruction of the Kostur rebels. It is hard to believe that they attacked 9,800 armed rebels in 64 villages; Macedonians who stood bravely against Hellenism to protect our people and our national identity. Instead of valourizing these brave fighters as a Macedonian national resistance dedicated to protecting Macedonian interests, we blackened our own history by attacking them! And whose interests were we protecting when we did that? The Party’s? What is funnier about this sordid affair is that in the end, the rebels left alive were recruited to fight for the communists… The best sons of Macedonia were recruited to fight for the interests of the Party…

If ever there was a nation in the world that had broken something created by its own people eons ago, then we the Macedonians must be the first. Our biggest sin was the destruction of the Macedonian rebel fighters in Kostur.

The appearance of the Kostur rebel fighters was an extraordinary moment in Macedonia’s reality, but in place of showing respect and

dignity for them we entered a new political game and destroyed them. We now have to live with that sin.

We also need to know that the rebels experienced the worst discrimination from the Greek state since the day they were born, but on top of that the Greeks made sure that they were vilified, recklessly anathematized and their history, along with their sacrifices, were forgotten,” concluded Krapov.

* * *

I looked up at Krapov, paused for a moment and apologetically said: “For a long time I wanted to return to Kostur, to my native roots, to my birthplace, but had no idea how severely the Macedonian population was opressed and this was done in one decade from 1940 to 1949 and since then everything that was sacred to us has been erased. What can you tell me about …?”

Before I had a chance to finish asking my question, Krsto Krapov excitedly interrupted and said: “Well, I remember everything as if it happened yesterday. We used to call the Macedonians ‘our people’ and many of those Macedonians who had joined the ranks of ELAS had participated in the destruction of the rebels. Many shot the rebels in the back. What kind of depravity was that? Where was the honour in shooting a man in the back; a fellow Macedonian no less… And for what? For defending your home and your honour? How is our Macedonian history going to deal with that? How is our history going to deal with crimes committed against our people by our people? They were killing our defenders and fighters who fought for a United Macedonia. Unfortunately they were labeled and anathematized as autonomists and separatists by strangers. We believed and put our trust in strangers above our own people… And this was done by Macedonian ELAS fighters who were fighting for whose interests? They were certainly not fighting for Macedonian interests? That’s for sure! No wonder we lost everything including our native hearth…

The Macedonian population here in Kostur Region suffered immensely from ‘split personality disorder’… that’s for sure,”

concluded Krapov, pausing for a moment, looking at me and continuing:

“The battles that took place here in Kostur and Kostur Region, for example, opened many questions about our lives and everything that happened here. Unfortunately no one wants to take responsibility or show any guilt for what happened. When asked, ELAS fighters swear up and down and insist that they were fighting for Macedonia.”

Krapov showed anger in his face. He had difficulty calming down. This was anger that had been building inside of him over the years and was about to erupt.

“I have difficulty rationalizing what happened here,” he said, “and find it impossible to accept, especially after what happened to us. Now we feel like strangers in our own birthplace, in our beloved Kostur and in our own country… we feel this way every time we return to our homes.

This question too bothers me: ‘Why did CPG Secretary General Siantos not negotiate with the Macedonian communists in the Republic of Macedonia or with those in Greek occupied Macedonia? Why did he not negotiate with the Macedonian ELAS fighters? Why did he ask to negotiate with a senior representative of the CPY -Yugoslavia? And after he did, how did the Macedonian communists react?’

They did not react at all! They just accepted what Tempo had offered them. Tempo was all for a Macedonian movement with pro-Yugoslav tendencies. The Greeks too placed their faith in Tempo believing that the CPY was all for removing or eliminating CPM General Secretary Metodi Shatorov – Sharlo along with the idea of a spiritual unification of all of Macedonia. In other words, the CPY had plans to destroy the spiritual unification of the ethnic composition of all of Macedonia and the Greeks were happy with that plan.”

Krapov raised his shoulders, looked at me with a worried look on his face, which made me worry even more, and unrestrained began to speak again, telling me more details:

“About us Macedonians, especially about us here in Greek occupied Macedonia,” he said, “after this became evident, no matter what kind of action we took regarding a united Macedonia, we would have been stopped by the CPG and by the CPY.

So, now everything was political conducted at Party and State level between Greece and Yugoslavia. The same thing was done with Albania. On June 20th, 1943 a protocol for close military cooperation was signed at the Albanian National Liberation War Headquarters by political representatives Svetozar Vukmanovik – Tempo of Yugoslavia (CPY), Enver Hoxha of Albania (CPA) and Verberis of Greece (CPG).

Papandreou’s government in Cairo insisted that this kind of agreement be made at this level. Keep in mind that this agreement and this level was accepted and resolved in Yugoslavia by subordinating Sharlo and the entire CPM Party leadership and its new platform. Papandreou’s government demanded that the CPG and ELAS not accept compromises with the Macedonians: whether they were from Greek occupied Macedonia or from the Republic of Macedonia; no compromise that might bring historical consequences for Greece and its sovereignty. I don’t know what more needed to happen in order for the Macedonian Communists in Greek occupied Macedonia to realize that, for the CPG and ELAS, they were not a political entity. They were only a temporary fake entity fabricated by Tempo’s lies.

Allow me to also emphasize that this agreement, now signed by representatives of the CPY and the CPG, was an extension of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest signed by Yugoslavia and Greece, among others.

So, what did this mean for us Macedonians? By defending the communist ideology we not only lost many lives and suffered immensely, we lost our homes and identity. We took our destiny in our hands and handed it over to our occupiers when we partnered

with them and they in turn evicted us from our ancestral lands and told the world we don’t exist. But that was not all…

The second lie – Following Tempo and Siantos’s Agreement

On September 1st, 1943 the wise CPG, EAM and ELAS leadership established the all-Macedonian ‘Lazo Trpovski’ Detachment in the Beriki locality in Kostur Region. This detachment was part of ELAS and its appointed commander was Naum Peiov.”

I interrupted Krapov and asked: “Is there anything more undeserving than to have the disposition of the strong dependent on foreign cruelty?”

He said: “You know that wild animals become tame towards those who feed them, why wouldn’t man. In situations such as this the wise do not get angry at those who make mistakes.

A lie such as this had success even in the early days. Those rebels and other Macedonians who refused to serve in the ranks of ELAS were now sticking like flies in honey.

Back in the spring of 1944 Greece became disturbed by propaganda being spread about an independent Macedonia. This was especially prevalent when the Party oriented itself towards a new direction and associated with SNOF.

It took SNOF six months of its existence to win over the rebels in Kostur Region and to swell its own ranks with more than 4,770 fighters. This can only mean that the Macedonians believed that: ‘SNOF was a People’s Liberation Organization which was going to meet the national and social demands of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia. This was confirmed in the newspaper ‘Slavo-Macedonian Voice’ published in April 1944. It was rumoured that: ‘SNOF was the new IMRO of the Macedonian people, which was going to bring the Ilinden work to its conclusion...’

This kind of news angered the Christian Turkish colonists and settlers in Greek occupied Macedonia, led by Captain Markos

Vafiadis who ordered the ELAS fighters to: ‘Destroy the rebels’. Vafiadis also said: ‘It is not enough to just destroy the rebels, we must also destroy their habitat and all those who took guns and their families who support them and all those who think of creating a United Macedonia.’

Vafiadis also said: ‘Now, like never before, we who came to these new lands and created a new life for ourselves here, with the help of the Greek government must deliver a powerful punch to make them understand that we are not colonists and we will not give up Greek Macedonia for some kind of United Macedonia.’

There were also colonists who called for a relentless struggle against the Macedonians saying: ‘Comrades! It is our duty to fight, to run them out of here or they will run us out back to Anatolia.’ But, as you know, it was clear to me that we did not want to fight for a United Macedonia. No one here amongst our people was prepared to fight for a United Macedonia, or to serve or be the slaves of the so-called ‘Slavo-Macedonian, whoever they may be. It was all a lie!

There were also those colonists who followed the Greek propaganda which told them that this (Macedonia) was paradise and that they (the colonists) had been brought here and given the best properties that were taken from the Turkish lords. ‘We invite you! Get drunk, people, and be merry, eat and drink well! Be happy and remain certain that you can preserve Greek Macedonia to remain Greek, because this is what’s important. Don’t wait until tomorrow; paradise is here for you today! This is exactly why the (Greek) government brought you here to this paradise from Anatolia, to grant you the properties taken from the Turkish agas.’

Johnny Stefov who had just arrived here from Canada a few days before said to me: ‘I listen to you talking and think to myself that we Macedonians are as small as we are sad, we are an unhappy, dependent and jealous people. We start out by encouraging and helping each other and talk about uniting. Then we begin to listen to strangers who do their best to put a wedge between us and divide us like they divided us into communists and rebels and made us fight one another. We fought each other because that’s what outsiders and strangers told us to do and we did it until we put ourselves to ruin,

until we disappeared. This tells me that smallness and greatness are only distinguished by our size as people and not as ambitious subjects.

People, this makes me so angry that I feel like yelling out loud so that the entire Balkans can hear me!’ That’s what Johnny Stefov said...” concluded Krapov as he stopped talking and, after a short pause as if organizing his thoughts, said:

“On June 18, 1943 the ‘Joint Headquarters’ was created and recognized the ‘resistance forces’ as a United Army headed by Eddie Myers.

The next day newspapers revealed that talks had taken place between EDES, ELAS and the British Chiefs of Staff for the Middle East, and that a CPG and an EAM delegation had arrived in Cairo in August 1943 to negotiate terms of unity and a joint headquarters with the Greek government in exile and with representatives of other civil and political parties. A joint headquarters was formed on June 18, 1943, which recognized the resistance forces as a United Army under the leadership of Eddie Myers. At this point the National Liberation Movement in Greece was subordinated to the English General for the Middle East. Following the same lines of thinking, the Lebanon protocol for joint military cooperation was also signed.

After SNOF completed its task of dissolving the rebel bands and swelling up its own ranks with rebels, which turned out to be a total manipulation and a perfect political and physical way of liquidating the Macedonians and eliminating them from the world political scene, practically accomplishing what the Greek government wanted to do for many years, the leadership of the Greek resistance (CPG, EAM and ELAS) decided SNOF was no longer needed. The elimination of SNOF was the price the Macedonian people had to pay in order for the Greek parties to achieve ‘national unity’. On May 20, 1944 the CPG signed the famous agreement of capitulation and thus sealed the fate of the Macedonian people.”

After Krapov stopped talking I was not clear about something so I asked him: “Is it true that SNOF was formed under pressure from Tempo’s Yugoslav Communist Party?”

He replied affirmatively and said: “Yes! The CPG gave its consent in order to attract those Macedonians who had refused to join the ranks of ELAS and EAM.” he then went on to tell me about more agreements that the CPG had entered into without Macedonian consent.

He said: “Another agreement between the CPG, EAM, ELAS, Papandreou’s Greek government in exile and the British headquarters for the Middle East was signed on September 26, 1944 in the Italian town Caserta. This agreement called for the transfer of command of all Greek guerrilla forces to the Greek government in exile. The Greek government then transferred control of all its forces to the English General Scobey.

This agreement unfortunately had unprecedented consequences for the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia. The absence of the rebels along with the absence of other Macedonian fighters, the Greek Rightists came right back and they began to conduct unprecedented terror against the Macedonian civilian population. They wanted to terrorize the Macedonian people in order to fully expel them outside of Greece’s borders.

According to the English ambassador in Athens, the English were in agreement with this.

The idea of displacing the Macedonian population outside of Greek occupied Macedonia was carried forward by Mr. P. L. Liper in November 1944, who then concluded that it was not possible at that time. Liper’s idea however was realized during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) when around 50,000 Macedonians were expelled. Around 28,000 children were also taken away by DAG and by the Greek Queen. Those taken by DAG, as you know, were sent to various people’s democracies such as Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, the USSR and others.” concluded Krapov.

After a few moments of silence, Krapov looked at me with a serious look on his face and said: “After the rebels were liquidated, due to its policy of bargaining with the right, the CPG made a few decisions.

On July 16, 1943 ELAS Commander Sarafis and English Mission Military Chief Colonel Edie Mayers signed a joint declaration by which ELAS was recognized as an army and was subordinated to Middle East Command.

On February 12, 1945 the Varkiza Agreement was signed by the CPG and EAM, on one hand, and by the Plastiras government and British General Scobey on the other. With this agreement EAM and ELAS practically handed power to the right. This also meant that Greece would not be a socialist country.

Even though the Second World War ended, the Macedonian people still remained under the control and watchful eye of the CPY and the CPG even outside of their homeland.

It was an Easter morning in April 1944 when our lives began to turn for the worst. Here is what historian Apostol Goranov said:

‘What happened on that great Christian holiday was the arrival of the first and second National Brigade of Tito’s partisans from Vardar Macedonia - Yugoslavia who held a magnificent rally and speeches in the middle of the village Bapchor. Tito’s army, which consisted of Macedonians from Vardar Macedonia, crossed the Yugoslav border on Good Friday and rushed through the Voden, Lerin and Kostur Region villages with songs and gunfire. The villagers of Bapchor, along with representatives from the villages Turie, Trsie, Lagen and Prekopana on that Easter, after all the great speeches, sang all the songs of their ancestors, convinced that this, on this great Christian holiday in 1944, would bring them hope and optimism after Macedonia’s division in 1913.’ Other incidents also took place that morning but in the beginning it seemed like they were not connected to this event.

Giore Velkovski, representative of Tito’s Yugoslav partisan units, spoke at the rallies.

This was confirmed by Chakalaro (Naum Peiov) who one day said to me: ‘I have a need to tell you what I know, what I experienced in my lifetime, because I feel torn between the truth and the cruel political propaganda which, with the power of ideology, has skewed our reality of what really happened.’

Following the Easter morning event, a sinister turning point for us Macedonians, we took the first steps to what history would call an open conflict between ELAS and those now called ‘Tito’s agents’. After Giore Velkovski spoke, a few Macedonians, former members of ELAS and members of the CPG and EAM, fought for opening a minimal program; an ominous move seeking a fragmented solution to the Macedonian Question but with no mention of autonomy. The point brought up was nothing new, it was well-known and part of the entire neighbouring communist movement programs. I should also add that these same Communists who made this move were committed to all the communist movements (Yugoslavian, Greek and Bulgarian).