A RIDGE OF WAVES - Part 01

A RIDGE OF WAVES

I successfully completed grade 11 in the month of May 1957. Despite the fact that I was not serious about learning, I still graduated with a 4 average. I was interested more in Macedonia and solving our problems than learning. I was living an unhappy life during those miserable years. My parents were poor and could not afford to buy nice clothes, not even a suit for my prom, but those were not the most important things in my life. I never felt deeply that I was seriously deprived or demanded that my parents buy me anything they could not afford. I was not like my brother who, for example, when he was about ten or twelve years old would run to the street crying and lay on the ground on his back, digging his heels in and demanding that our parents buy him a pair of shoes or something else that he wanted which they could not afford. He was not like that later in life. I was never like that because I knew that our parents were poor and barely made ends meet feeding us. For many years my father worked as a clerk at the “Kocho Mavrodiev” school in Petrich from where he retired and received a modest pension. My mother worked on a farm in Petrich as a labourer. I was the third child in our family. I have two older sisters, a younger brother three years younger than me and an even younger sister born six years after my brother. We lived poorly but we were a hard working family. We had to cultivate ten acres of tobacco just to make ends meet. It was not easy growing tobacco. Before my brother was twelve years old, I regularly went digging, planting and harvesting tobacco. We had a three acre tobacco field six kilometres away from Petrich, near the village Mitino. When we picked tobacco from that field I felt like crying because I had to make three long trips, leading a donkey carrying a load of harvested tobacco, every day before noon. I was also completely dedicated to learning in those days. From the top to the bottom of my report card there was no mark other than 6 (excellent). Every summer I was chosen for free leadership courses at a holiday camp. Unfortunately I could not go, not once did I ever benefit from these well-deserved rewards. I had to work on the farm because there was no one else to transport the tobacco. When my brother turned twelve, he took over for me and I went to work at the “Prombkombinat” factory in Petrich making bricks so that I could earn some money and buy new shoes, shirts and pants. We were very poor those days up until 1957. One day when I was returning from the brick factory in the summer of 1957, my neighbour stopped me on the street. At the time I did not

know much about him or about his life because I was not interested in those things. Bebo Kika, as we used to call him then in our neighborhood, asked me if we could talk in private that evening at 8 o’clock. I accepted his invitation and as agreed, we met at the “Belasitsa” restaurant where he worked as manager. He said not to be afraid of him and that he knew that I was tortured for my involvement in Macedonian issues. He wanted me to organize a large group of people who would struggle for the unification of the three parts of Macedonia - Vardar, Pirin and Aegean. “I am prepared to do anything if it is for Macedonia!” I said to him convincingly. We agreed on how to search for members, what kind of people to recruit, the kind of activities the newly recruited members should be involved in and to keep two lists of names, one for him and one for my records. We even drafted an application form which when filled out looked something like this: “On this 21st day of July, 1957 I, Stamat Aleksov Meshkov, in the presence of Stoian Nikolov Georgiev, am here as per our prior agreement to be accepted as member of the Macedonian organization which will fight for the unification of the three parts of Macedonia. I swear that I will work honestly and diligently for the Macedonian people and should I do something harmful to the good name of the Organization or to its members, I would be prepared to accept strict punishment.” So in the next three months I managed to recruit 70 members into our Organization, some without filling out an application. There was a serious like-minded person in my town from the “Vizdol” District. His name was Vangel Urdov. He was not well-educated but was very devoted to Macedonia and Macedonia needed men like him. I had met Vangel at the brick factory some time ago and by mutual agreement I put him in charge of recruiting members from his district. He also attracted the likes of Ivan Karamandzhulov, Bisto and others whose names I did not want to know. Many times Vangel tried to introduce me to a young man named Boris Popov, born in the village Vishlene. Boris had a high school education, which Vangel thought would be of value to the Organization. Boris, on the other hand, wanted to talk to the organizer of the recruitment program - that was me. Without thinking much about it, one day I accepted Vangel’s suggestion and made an appointment to see Boris. On the evening of August 20th I met with him at the “Partok” restaurant where Vangel introduced us. After exchanging a few general stories I asked Vangel to leave us so that we could have a more private conversation. Vangel said goodbye and wished us a pleasant meeting.

We were both pleased to discuss issues about Macedonia. During our conversation Boris said that he had been fired from his job because he “felt” Macedonian. He then said, “How else should I feel if I want to become a member of your organization?” So I said, “You should feel like a Macedonian here in your heart first, after that you can be a member of our organization!” “I felt like that a long time ago!” he said. “But I had no one to work with before.” “When you feel like a Macedonian, you will have all the opportunity to sign up and be an honest fighter for our Macedonian rights,” I said. “I pledge everything for Macedonia!” he replied. There was nothing in his tone of voice to suggest anything dishonest so I had no doubts about his sincerity and his readiness to struggle like me in the name of Macedonia. So, after scheduling a meeting for the same time and same place for the following evening, I wished him good night and left. The next day when I arrived he was already there waiting for me. That showed me that he was serious about his commitments. I suggested that we go home to my place. Along the way we talked about ordinary things. I asked him where he was from and where he worked. He said he was born in the village Vishlene and used to work in the “Forestry industry” in Petrich, as a general laborer. When a person believes everything someone tells them, that person should expect that they have been lied to. I trusted Vangel a lot and to this day he has remained a passionate worker for Macedonia, but I did not believe him when he told me that he personally knew Boris because I knew that Boris Popov was not a peasant boy. For many years I regretted my irresponsible approach to meeting Boris, or as Vangel used to call him “that village ox”. I blame myself for not following up on his job, finding out who his friends were, etc. I also blame myself for letting him get close to me. After he became a member of our organization I allowed him to come to my home almost every night. I told him how many members we had and allowed him to see some of the applications. He was very happy that we had other members, that we were not alone in our struggle and that there were other “burning hearts” like us. He also promised that he would create small organizations in all the villages in the Ograzden locality etc. At eighteen years of age I was too blinded with enthusiasm to question some of the things he was saying, especially about the “burning hearts” and that we were “not alone in our struggle”. I could not understand what he meant by “burning hearts” when all mother Macedonia needed was “honest hearts”.

Thirty-six days after my arrest on Saturday October 5, 1957 I found out that Boris Popov did not have a decent heart. He betrayed me and the entire Macedonian nation. I will tell you about that later. Today, Saturday, May 26, 1990, as I write about all these things in my journal, I find myself in Skopje in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. For thirty-three years I have been separated from my youth, when everything was wonderful, despite the poverty. I was happy to have struggled for Macedonia, I was happy to have continued Gotse Delchev’s work. I found that it made sense to live. I used to say to myself: “A person deserves to live, to suffer and to die for mother Macedonia!” It was like that then. But since then, I don’t believe anything has changed in me to make me feel any differently about mother Macedonia. So let us go back far into the past to October 5, 1957. The previous day Boris Panchev, director of “Promkombinat” in Petrich, gave me an envelope with a letter inside it and a bag of three or four kilos of chestnuts and said: “Take these to Comrade Pene Aleksiev, Vice President of the City Council in Sandanski. Please give him my regards and tell him that we need to create a ‘dyeing plant’ in the Sandanski Territory.” About twenty days after the end of the brick season, I went to work at “Promkombinat”, a yarn dyeing plant in Petrich. I couldn’t have ever imagined that I would become a pawn in the State Security Services games and that the Plant Director was part of it. Everything seemed as it should be; how was I supposed to know that it wasn’t? So on October 5, 1957 at 7:30 in the morning, I got on the bus and went to Sandanski. After a forty minute ride the bus stopped at the then town square in front of the “Republika” restaurant. I got off the bus with the envelope and bag with chestnuts in my hands and went towards two men standing 5 to 6 metres away from me, being distracted by the passengers getting off the bus. “Excuse me, may I ask you something?” I said as I took a few steps towards them. “Of course you may! Please do! How may we help you?” asked one of them. “I need to find Pene Aleksiev, Vice President of the City Council,” I said. “Don’t you know him?” the other one asked naively. “He just passed by a couple of minutes ago. Please come with us, we will take you to him,” he advised. The three of us then went for a walk along the street where most of the town’s stores were located and not once did it occur to me what was happening. As we moved along they started to ask me questions, like where I was from, whether I had ever been to Sandanski before etc., until we got to a place located two minutes away from the bus station.

“Here we are. Here is where Pene Aleksiev is located,” said one of them pointing with his hand to the entrance over which was a beautiful sign with the words “Regional Administration of the Ministry of the Interior – Sandanski” written on it. When I saw the writing on the sign I felt a cold sweat cover the entire back of my body. So I thought to myself, oh this is who the “kind and helpful” citizen of Sandanski is. I looked at the sign and I still did not believe that this could be happening to me again, not until one of the agents led me to the stairs of the narrow entrance of the building. Waiting for me inside was “my” old acquaintance Nikola Mitev, chief interrogator at the Ministry of the Interior’s Investigative Department in Blagoevgrad, now promoted to Captain. Because of the good service they had provided for their country uncovering “traitors” like me, the People’s Government had rewarded people like Mitev with higher ranks and more incentives to go after the Bulgarian people’s “enemies” with even greater enthusiasm. I just want to make it clear at this point that we Macedonians respect the Bulgarian people and their rights but at the same time we also respect ourselves and our rights to be Macedonians. And because of our desire to respect ourselves and our rights, the situation was made very complex for all Macedonians in Bulgaria. We feel that we deserve to be free like the Macedonian people who lived in the People’s Republic of Macedonia because we are a part of the same people. We admire the songs and marches transmitted over the airwaves by Radio Skopje. There was no television then. When we entered the office, the captain greeted me: “Oh, hello old friend. What brings you here?” he said. “I don’t know,” I said, “your people led me here!” “You’re wrong ‘dear’ friend,” he said, “not they; you have to tell me why you are here!” I did not know what to say, all I could muster was a deep sigh. I stood there stunned looking through the open window, beaten like a trapped lion in an iron cage, without the slightest hope of ever seeing freedom in the prairie from which I had been snatched. I kept quiet and thought about what had just happened, without the least of blame for the situation in which I found myself. I really did not expect them to slyly trick me into coming to Sandanski alone where they could nab me and put me in jail without anybody seeing or knowing. But my “friends” had already had thirteen years of experience in the exposure and apprehension of “traitors” like me. They certainly had vastly greater experience than me, who was only 19 years old and could never have guessed that they would apprehend me in this way.

Captain Mitev was talking to me asking me something but I was so stunned that I could not understand his questions, even though his questions only required mechanical answers like “yes” or “no”. As soon as Mitev realized that I was stunned and would not be able to answer his questions, he ordered the duty officer to take me down to the basement where he carefully searched me and locked me in a dark, cramped cell. He left me there for about an hour and then put me in handcuffs and escorted me outside where a jeep was waiting. After about an hour’s ride the jeep pulled into a wide yard guarded by a policeman. I assumed that this was the Regional Administration office of the Ministry of the Interior in Blagoevgrad. The duty officer here searched me again and took me through a long corridor in the single storey two-sided building with twenty symmetrically arranged doors at a distance of about two metres apart. We stopped in front of door number 4, the door opened wide and the duty officer ordered me to: “Get in!” I got in the cell as the officer ordered and he locked the door behind me, turning the key twice. I stood there all alone in the middle of this dark cell. Lying on the wooden floor I noticed a mattress covered with a tattered army blanket. Placed at the head of the mattress were a pillow and a white pillow case. It had not even been a year since I had last escaped the clutches of the State Security Services in 1956 and now here I was back in their grip again. This time I was in a new single-storey building, not like last time when I was in a basement. It didn’t matter though because there was no sign of sunlight anywhere in the cell area. Day and night the cells were illuminated by a buzzing electric light which drove me crazy. But in order to avoid conflict with the guards and the interrogators I had to be very patient and very quiet, as quiet as possible in order to survive, stay healthy and stay alive. I had a lot to think about. I had had many conversations about our Macedonian issues with many people in the last three months. There were indeed many things to discuss about Macedonia’s tormented past and present and about its future and the miserable ways in which the Macedonian people had been treated. I had said plenty and heard plenty from other people. I was now left alone, all by myself with no one to see and with nothing to discuss except to think about simpler times and the meetings and conversations I had had with the various people in my past. This whole experience was like a film running through my mind, recalling memory after memory, remembering various scenes from this uncut animated film, remembering scenes that I wanted to forget but couldn’t.

From my own experience I knew that the longer I remained silent and in solitude the more memories would emerge from my consciousness like scenes from a film. But with time, those early short animated scenes would grow both quantitatively and qualitatively and turn into full feature movies. The conversations and exchanges of ideas I had had with the various people I met would become clearer and more defined. So, all I did day and night in isolation was think about everything I had seen and heard. The duty officer came to my cell and said it was time to go. When we entered the interrogation room the duty officer asked for permission to leave and the interrogator and I were left alone in the room. We looked at each other in silence for about 30 to 40 seconds, each busy with their own thoughts, until the interrogator finally spoke up, breaking the awkward silence. He said: “Welcome old friend! Welcome and sit there!” pointing to a chair. “Thank you!” I said and sat down. “It is time for us to resume the conversation that we started yesterday in Sandanski!” he said with a gaze fixed directly at my eyes. “What is there to talk about?” I asked. “Oh, there are plenty of things we need to talk about, my ‘dear’ friend!” he said. “And, should a person have no desire to talk about these things?” I asked half jokingly. “Even if you don’t have the desire, we have the means and the time to make you talk. There is only one thing that you need to understand – the more open you are, the more honest you are with us the easier it will be on you. You also need to understand that it is in your best interest to go back to the beginning and tell us everything, in the smallest detail, from start to finish after your release in the month of December last year,” he said. The interrogator spoke softly, friendly without having to raise the tone of his voice and I just kept silent. When he was done he said: “Okay, start talking!” “I don’t have much to say!” I replied. “Are we going to go through the same scenario again?” he asked. “There is nothing else to do but talk!” he pointed out. I stubbornly kept silent while staring at the Persian rug lying on the floor, wishing that I had been brought here to study its rich craftsmanship, a wonderful human creation. But instead I had to talk to him, who I felt was losing patience with me with every passing second, despite his attempts to be very patient with me. I stayed silent for a few more minutes not realizing that the Captain had completely lost his cool and had jumped on me with fury, beating me hysterically. “You Idiot!” he yelled out. “Who do you think you are playing with here?” He then put both his hands around my throat and squeezed, while shaking my head and hitting it against the wall behind

me. After receiving five or six blows to my head I spoke up and said: “What do you want from me?” “Tell me about your friend Kika, when you met him for the first time and what he told you to do,” he said. “Well, that’s something else!” I said triumphantly, a bit distraught from my episode with the Captain. Because I was detained in Sandanski much earlier than anyone else, I had no idea if anything at all had happened to the other members of our revolutionary organization... I call it ‘revolutionary’ because we then envisaged the use of force to resolve the Macedonian question. We thought that if we started fighting in Pirin Macedonia, our free brothers in Vardar Macedonia would come and help us. Besides living free and being recognized as Macedonians today, many of them had spent many years in Yugoslav prisons because they also wanted to unite the three parts of our divided country. So surely they must have known how it felt to be occupied and oppressed! But how were we expected to know how people felt about us on the other side of the border when we were separated from them for many years with barbed wire and closely guarded by Bulgarian border guards? From 1940 to November 10, 1989 Bulgaria was one huge prison, one great big concentration camp in which no man could say a word or complain about the establishment and not get caught and arrested. At that time two out of three people were directly or indirectly connected with the State Security Services. As a result thousands of people were prosecuted and sent to jails and concentrations camps where many found their end. My faithful service to the Macedonian people must have troubled them deeply. Being here again in Nikola Mitev’s office I was reminded of what he had said to me last time and I was struggling to find out who the person was who betrayed me and all the others. I no longer needed to keep silent so I briefly told him about my talk with Bebo Kika. As I kept talking the Captain kept asking questions and typing away on his typewriter. Finally, after about an hour and a half of interrogation, I read the three pages he had typed up and then signed them. When we were done he called in the duty officer and he took me back to my tiny cell. And thus began my second journey into uncertainty. Almost every day and sometimes twice a day I was taken in for interrogation. I was asked a thousand questions about this, about that, multiple times about the same thing; once, twice, three times, four times, etc., etc. I told them many things and many things I hid from them. During my thirty-sixth day of imprisonment the interrogator forced me to sign the following statement: “I, Stoian Nikolov Georgiev, the undersigned,

with this signature certify that my testimony is complete and that I have left nothing out. Otherwise, I accept all consequences!” After I signed the statement, the Captain took it and began to read it out loud with a triumphant smile on his face, extending from ear to ear. When he finished reading it he began to laugh hysterically. “What’s so funny?” I asked. “You will not regret your impudence!” he said with an irritating tone of voice. “I will not regret it!” I replied decisively. At that point he walked over to his desk opened a drawer, pulled out a folder and slammed it on the desk and shouted: “Read these and tell me who wrote them!” I took the folder, opened it and what did I see? The application forms which I had written myself, I recognized my own handwriting. I looked at them, then I looked at the interrogator who at that point was carefully watching my reactions. I again looked at the application forms and then at the interrogator. I then suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter which lasted about a minute. While I laughed tears ran down my cheeks. I had never felt such shock in my entire life. I laughed and cried simultaneously because now I finally understood that I had been played and I had finally got my clue as to who had sold me out. The application forms that I held in my hand were filled out by me, which I had hidden at home in the opening of our fireplace chimney. They were well-hidden and very difficult to find unless someone knew about them. So how did the interrogator get his hands on them? The only other person besides me who knew about their whereabouts was Boris Popov, that pretend Macedonian patriot from the village Vishlene, whom I had unfortunately and completely trusted. Well it was my own fault, my “naivety” made me both laugh and cry. Unless you have experienced something like this in your life, it is difficult to explain how I felt. A minute or two later, the interrogator said: “Well, what do you say now my ‘dear’ friend?” “I have nothing to say!” I replied. “Do you think we don’t know anything?” he said. “Do you think we are wasting our time here with you and with others like you? No, young man, we know everything about you, Toma, Stamat, Vangel, about your teacher “Kika” and all the others in your organization. We know your pseudonym is “Sukarno” etc. Now tell me, what were you going to do after you created your organizations?” he asked. “Our aims were to get the Bulgarian State to recognize us as Macedonians.” I replied. “What Macedonians?” snapped the interrogator infuriated! “We are Bulgarians since time immemorial!” he insisted. “No, my dear friend, I am not Bulgarian, I am Macedonian!” I replied. “And where do you know that from?” he asked.

“Where do I know that I am Macedonian?” I repeated the question. “From my own mother!” I replied. “Her father Nako Ivanov was born in the village Matnitsa, Aegean Macedonia. He was put in the “Edi Kule” prison in Solun for five years because he fought for Macedonia’s freedom. My grandfather Tomo, from my father’s side, was killed in 1912, again for the honour of Macedonia. From all this I know for a fact that I am Macedonian!” I insisted. “So then how do you see the realization of your ideals? With arms in your hands?” he asked. “I believe the Macedonian issue can be solved within a Balkan Federation, as Dimitar Blagoev proposed during his time,” I replied. “Those are childish and naïve ideas that can not be attained!” he retorted. “Do you mean to tell me that Dimitar Blagoev was naïve and childish when he put his idea before the Bulgarian National Assembly on November 14, 1917, when he said: ‘I am Macedonian and the Macedonian people are different from the Bulgarian nation!’” I asked. “Well, Dimitar Blagoev made a big mistake!” he replied. “And did Gotse Delchev, Yane Sandanski and thousands of Macedonian fighters who laid their lives before the altar of Macedonia; did they all make a big mistake?” I asked. “But they all felt Bulgarian and fought for the liberation of Macedonia and its annexation to Bulgaria,” he insisted. “Unfortunately, that is not the truth!” I replied. “They fought by all means possible against the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek propaganda,” I concluded. “Leave history out of this, just look after your own situation!” he said. “Look after what? It is clear: I am here and what happens to me depends on you,” I replied. “Young man, it does not depend on us, it depends on you. Last year I advised you not to get involved in these damn Macedonian matters, but instead of heeding my advice you completely ignored it! Now you will face the consequences,” he exclaimed. “So, this must be my destiny then,” I said calmly. “Perhaps you’re right!” he said and pressed the button on the side of his desk. Seconds later the duty officer appeared and took me back to my cell. So, day after day time went on slowly and torturously for 113 days, until the investigation was completed and we were sent before the District Court in Blagoevgrad. During the trial, which took place on February 8, 1958, the prosecutor accused us of wanting to destroy the People’s Republic of Bulgaria’s socialist order and break away the territory of Pirin Macedonia from Bulgaria. For that we were given 5 to 15 year jail sentences. According to the judgments made and charges read, I was charged as follows: “The District Court of Blagoevgrad, by ruling number 142 of 08.02.1958, in accordance with NOHD Article 93, paragraph 1 of 2

in conjunction with Article 82 and Article 36 of N.K., condemns Stoian Nikolov Georgiev to four (4) years imprisonment. He is also to be deprived of his rights under Article 28 of N.K. for a period of seven (7) years and to be fined 200 leva in favour of the state. This judgment shall enter into force on 17.09.1958.” Kiril T. Ruzhkin (Bebo Kika) was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Stamat Meshkov and Toma Ivanov were sentenced to a year and a half each. Vangel Urdov was given a 2 year sentence. The trial was held behind closed doors. Many of our friends from Petrich came to the Court but only our closest relatives were allowed in. My trial was attended by my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law and by my brother Ivan. At the time I was still not married and had not done my army service. When the trial was over we were given ten minutes to see our relatives and after that we were loaded on a truck and taken to the Sofia central prison. Here they separated us and placed us in jail: Bebo Kika was placed in a cell with other inmates, Vangel and I were placed together in the same cell with several others, Toma and Stamat were placed in a different cell. On the twentieth day after we had been put in jail, they transferred Stamat, Toma and Vangel to the Starogorsko regional jail. Bebo Kika and I were transferred to division five of the same jail that we were in and we were put to work in the sewing workshop. After three months of working in this jail I quit my job because I did not have enough time to read and study French. As a result, they transferred me back to division seven where I spent the next seven months. After that I was transferred to the Starogorsko regional jail. As soon as I arrived some of the prisoners, when they found out that I was from Petrich, told me that Vangel, Stamat and Toma were also there but were working at the quarry near the village Kaloianovets, in Starogorsko Region. I asked the administration to transfer me there. A week later my transfer came through and I was back with my friends Toma, Vangel and Stamat. We rejoiced that we were back together again, safe and sound, even though we were in jail. Here I met and got to know Ivan Kuchkuderov, a young man from the village Chereshnitsa serving a two year sentence, convicted of pursuing the Macedonian question. I knew about Ivan from Dimitar Terziev with whom I had spent about a month when we were being investigated in Blagoevgrad. In the Sofia prison I also met a young man named Timlio Zaprev from the town Gotse Delchev. He had been convicted three times for pursuing the Macedonian question and each conviction carried a three year prison sentence. Others that I met in the Sofia prison included Ivan

Bikov from the village Samoilovo, sentenced to two years in prison for pursuing the Macedonian question and Stanko from the village Cherniche, Blagoevgrad Region, sentenced to two years imprisonment for pursuing the Macedonian question. At the Starozagorski prison I met Kitan from the village Gara Pirin, sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in 1949. He along with 148 other defendants were tried in a large trial and convicted for pursuing the Macedonian question. Here I also met many young men from Pirin Macedonia who had spent a good part of their lives in jail, put in prison by the Bulgarian authorities because they were fighting for the rights of the Macedonian people. Looking at it philosophically, what is a prison? A prison is a place of isolation, where the convicted serve their sentences without freedom. Freedom is a great asset, greater than having millions of dollars. Nothing can replace freedom because it is a much desired gift of nature! As it was written in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, people are born free and equal in dignity and rights, regardless of race, colour, political views, social status, education, gender, language, religion etc. People are free regardless of where they live be it in a free territory or under a protectorate. Every person has the right to be free and every other person must respect that right. Those sacred human rights are missing in a prison! Here people have numerous duties and are entitled to work and rest only in accordance with prison rules – this includes political prisoners. Life in prison is grey and monotonous but slightly more bearable than that of a person going through interrogation. I became used to being in prison and sometimes I thought that I had been born there and that another world, a different world outside of the prison, did not exist. Well because of this kind of mindset and because of this kind of mental state, a person ceases to feel imprisoned. Take me for example; I felt I never had enough time in prison, even though we were awakened at 6 o’clock every morning. I was busy all day, I constantly read books and sometimes drew pictures – of which I have none to show. Everything was confiscated in the prison. Every three months they came into our cells and took everything that we had written or drawn. I drew Paul Gauguin’s “the girl with a fan” and that too was confiscated. While I was in the Starogorski prison during the spring of 1959, for example, I translated the history of the Ancient Macedonians chapter from the French book entitled “History of the Ancient People”, but that too was confiscated. I was unable to bring it outside the prison walls. While still serving my sentence inside Starogorski prison, I also wrote a letter to Todor Zhivkov, Minister, President and First Secretary of the

Communist Party of Bulgaria, in which, among other things I said: “Sir, until when are you going to play politics with Macedonia and with the Macedonian people? You, Mister Zhivkov, in recognition of their States, have hosted ministers from Cuba, Ghana, Cameroon etc., but what have you done for Macedonia? Where does your loyalty lie, Mister President?...” Because I wrote this letter, about three months later I was taken to see Colonel Tonev the prison inspector. When I entered his office I greeted him with the words “Good Day!” “Good!” he replied coldly without inviting me to sit down even though there were six chairs in his office. By his mannerism and by the expression on his eyebrows, I knew I would be having a conversation with a “not very nice” man. “What is your name?” he asked. “Since you invited me here, surely you must know my name?” I replied. “You must answer!” he yelled out loud. “Stoian Nikolov Georgiev,” I said. “Where are you from?” he asked. “I think you know where I am from,” I replied. “Young man, you need to understand that I am asking the questions here and you need to answer them!” he explained. “I am from the city Petrich,” I replied calmly. “Why don’t you want to sign the agreement for the socialist competition?” he asked. “Because I feel that only free people should compete; if I were free out there then I would sign, but not in here. It seems to me that you are deliberately entering competitions between mine pits in order to find out who agrees with your politics here in the prison. I cannot accept all that as normal,” I replied. “So, what are we doing with the prisoners?” he angrily yelled out loud. “You beat them and mistreat them!? I replied. “What were you convicted of?” he asked. “The Macedonian question!” I replied. “So, you are a little man trying to solve big problems, eh?” he said. “No! I just wanted to understand the problems. And that’s why they put me in here,” I replied. “How many years are you in for?” he asked. “Four,” I replied. “You are lucky they only gave you four! They should have given you more!” he said. “Obviously those who sentenced me were not as stupid as you!” I replied angrily. The Inspector found my reply a little hard to swallow so he called in the duty officer who was waiting in the hallway and listening to our conversation. When the duty officer appeared at the door, the Inspector ordered him to: “Take this idiot to solitary!” The duty officer grabbed me by my arm and pulled me out into the corridor. Here he tried to hit me with his fist, but I successfully blocked his blows with my hands and slipped back into the room. When he realized that he would not easily beat me down he slyly said: “Get out here!”

I put my hands down and took a step out towards the corridor. The old bully then took advantage of the situation and, with lightning speed, punched me hard in my stomach. The blow was so strong I folded over forward. He then took advantage of that and gave me a hard blow to the back of my neck. A second or two later, he kicked me in the butt. I barely could refrain from hitting him back. At one point I felt like hitting him but then I remembered where I was and decided not to. It was wise for me to refrain because a couple of days before one of the prisoners here was brutally beaten for defending himself and they had to put him in sheepskins. Thinking about this made me endure my beating. I had to remember that those who dared stand up to these bloodthirsty bullies paid with their lives. If I fought back the other guards in the next room would have beaten me to death. So after my “conversation” with the Inspector, which took place at the end of July 1959, I was put in confinement twice, 14 days each time, which I will never forget. The confinement room was located under the kitchen of the Logorska prison. It was a dark airtight room 2 x 2 x 2 metres (or 8 cubic metres) with a wooden floor. The only hole in that small room was a door 190 x 80 cm. When the door was closed the cell was completely dark and without any air circulation. The only amenity available to us inside the room was a bucket of water which was emptied once a day in the morning. After they put us in confinement they locked the door with a padlock from the outside. There were five of us in this small room. One of us was a fragile old man. His name was Kolio. He was from one of the Starogorski villages. This man sat day and night, because there was no room for him to lay and stretch out his legs. We the younger ones, Milche, Ivan Koshlenski, Pesho and I stood upright most of the time. The weather outside was very hot which made it hot and stuffy inside but we were not allowed to open the door. To get some fresh air I secretly forced open the corner of the door a crack and waved my shirt vigorously to circulate air. Unfortunately the guards caught on to me and put two padlocks on the door. Now the door was completely shut along the entire length and we were forced to breathe stale air, panting like dogs in hot weather. In the morning, at lunch and in the evening, when the guards opened the door to give us our soup and bread, they ran away to avoid breathing in the putrid air that gushed out of the room when the door was opened. They were not even able to stand for a couple of minutes what we had to endure for a whole 14 days and nights! To protest these conditions the four of us, excluding Kolio, went on a hunger strike and refused to eat for six days. We demanded to see the District Prosecutor

to let him see for himself what was going on here. To see for himself the conditions under which the prisoners in confinement had to live. But neither the Prosecutor nor the devil came to see us. The guards said that these were not fascist times where you could demand to see the Prosecutor. So we continued to endure hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation for the first fourteen days, after which they let us out. Then in the evening of the same day they grabbed the four of us, excluding Kolio, and shoved us back in confinement for another 14 days. Thanks to my strong will and good health I was able to survive my ordeal. On the twenty-eighth day when I was finally released from confinement and let loose among the “free” prisoners something happened to me. After my release from confinement I went straight for the outdoor bath located inside the camp. The bath was well-guarded by an armed policemen and specially trained dogs. After I had my bath, my helpful best friends Vasko Zafirov and Kiro Tushev Dinev, both Macedonians, prepared lunch for me consisting of bread and sliced salami. I sat down, bit a chunk of bread and then some of the salami and began to chew. After I swallowed the food I felt something hot going down my esophagus. A few seconds later I felt unusually warm all over my body and began to tremble uncontrollably. My friends asked me why I was trembling. Then my jaw began to shake from shock. That too I will never forget. And so day by day the ugly days went by, without anything memorable to mention and finally January 30, 1961 came, the day I was released from the Stara Zagora prison. I heard an expression that: “A man coming out of prison should never look back because he may end up in it again”. But I was never superstitious and did not believe in such things so I turned back to have one last look at this Bulgarian Bastille where I had spent the best years of my intellectual consciousness of Bulgaria and Macedonia. There I spent three and a half of my younger years, a time when I should have been in school, when I should have been in love, when I should have been serving my country as a soldier etc. But most of all I missed playing soccer, a much loved sport! But other than that, it was my destiny and I had to follow what was preordained for me; perhaps that is why I boldly turned to look back, to have one last look at the prison and to remember it not only for its inside but also for its outside. I arrived in Petrich on January 31, 1961 at 9 o’clock in the morning. When I got close to our street I ran into Aunt Maria, a neighbour of ours. She instantly recognized me and said: “Is that you Stoian?” “Yes Aunt Maria. It is me. You haven’t forgotten me?” I replied. “No young man, no I haven’t forgotten you!” she said and came over and gave me