GREEKS BURNED DOWN 160 MACEDONIAN VILLAGES

GREEKS BURNED DOWN 160 MACEDONIAN VILLAGES

Disturbing testimonials described by the Carnegie Commission about the cruelties perpetrated by the Greek Army against the Macedonian population

“He shot at me with his gun but missed me. I fell down and lay on the ground pretending to be dead. He then shot my mother and hit her on the chest. I heard her whisper ‘Mito, are you alive?’ as she fell down to the ground next to me. Those were her last words. Another boy came over but ran away when he saw what had happened. A soldier rode his horse after him and fired at him. He then pulled out his sword and murdered him while still riding his horse. After that I saw a girl, I knew her, her name was Kata Gosheva. She was hidden in a ravine in front of us. The soldier rode toward her but I don’t know if he killed her. A little later I ran into another soldier. He pulled out his gun and shot at me. The bullet pierced my clothes but didn’t injure me. I again fell down on the ground and pretended to be dead. He shot at me again and this time the bullet hit me in the back and came out from my chest. Still riding his horse, he then swung his sword over me and hit my hand. He injured my finger.” This is what Mito Kolev, a fourteen year old boy from the village Gavaliantsi, located near Kukush, said. It was a terrifying story which he recounted for one of the members of the Carnegie Commission. The situation was so bad that the Carnegie Endowment had to dispatch a Commission on a fact finding mission to find out what had happened after the world found out the kind of terror the Macedonian civilian population experienced during the Balkan Wars.

Mito also said, “Laying there motionless and bleeding the Greek soldier figured I was dead but I wasn’t. However I was seriously injured. I hid in a nearby cornfield and watched my village being burned down. I later ran into two people from my village and one of them loaded me onto his wagon and took me to Dojran. There we ran into his father. He took us both to Bulgaria and placed me in a hospital in Sofia.”

After confirming Mito’s story with other witnesses, the Carnegie Endowment Commission found it credible and published it in its report. This report is proof that Greek horse troopers indiscriminately killed women and children. Mito’s tragic experience is but one of the many episodes of the drama that the Macedonian population experienced during the Second Balkan War. Here Greece carried out ethnic cleansing in the regions of Macedonia, which it had been awarded to administer in good faith. This is what the Carnegie Endowment Commission said, “The list of Bulgarian (meaning Macedonian) villages burned down by the Greek Army showed, to a certain extent, the cruelty of the disaster... Systematically and in cold blood the Greeks burned down one hundred and sixty Bulgarian (meaning Macedonian) villages and ruined at least 16,000 Bulgarian (meaning Macedonian) homes. There is no need to comment on the numbers…”

After her daughter escaped, Anastasia Pavlova, a widow, was left behind and witnessed the atrocities committed by Greek soldiers in Gevgelia. This is what she told the Carnegie Endowment Commission, “After the Bulgarians left the Greeks came. From the moment they came they started killing people on the streets. A person named Anton Bakardzi was killed in front of me. I also saw a Greek woman named Helena kill Hadzhi Tano, a rich Macedonian man. There was great panic in the city as people tried to escape. Outside the city I met several Greek soldiers holding sixteen girls whom they had arrested. All of the girls were crying, some were completely naked and covered in blood. The soldiers were preoccupied with the girls as we slipped by them to escape. When we crossed the Vardar Bridge we saw small children abandoned. One was a small girl. She was lying on the ground dead. The horse troopers were coming behind us fast and there was no time for us to help the children. There was a battle taking place in the distance. We could hear cannon fire but it was not directed at us. We ran for eight days before we reached Bulgaria. Many people died on the way. When we arrived at the border the Bulgarian soldiers gave us bread to eat. I found my daughter in Samokov. I was happy to see that she was alive and had not been dishonored…”

Anastasia Pavlova had more tragic stories which she recounted for members of the Carnegie Endowment Commission. She said, “Days before the Second Balkan War started a Greek woman who had come from Solun to the village Boinitsa asked the local priest if he wanted to declare himself Greek. After he said no several Greek officers grabbed him by his beard and beat him. There were about fifty other people who witnessed the incident. And, even though they were innocent bystanders, they were all arrested. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were beaten. After that they were forced to sign a statement declaring themselves Greek. When they refused they were all taken to Solun. When they were taken away the remaining Greek soldiers attacked and raped the local women, usually three soldiers to one woman.”

The Carnegie Endowment Commission also spoke with a Catholic man in Solun. He was witness to the horrific incidents that took place in Kukush. This is what he said, “After I ran from Kukush with several thousand other refugees from all the villages in that region, I arrived in Akangeli located near the station in Dojran. On the 6th of July, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, Greek horse troopers arrived. There were around 300 soldiers and officers. The people, accompanied by a priest, came out to greet them carrying a white flag. About 120 people were tasked to look after the horses. Some people fled and nobody knew where they went. Many of the refugees and local women were raped that night several times. The soldiers were killing and robbing people. Only those who had money (five of more Turkish coins) to pay the soldiers were spared. Around fifty people from Akangeli were killed. I gave them my watch and six Turkish coins to save my life. Unfortunately my friends who had no money or valuable possessions were killed. They were killed in front of me. I also saw soldiers strip girls and women naked and check their clothing for money and valuables and then rape them. I saw many rapes with my own eyes. The rapes were committed publicly, sometimes in front of the women’s houses and sometimes on the streets and in the fields. I watched the village being burned down and another person being killed…” The Catholic man also said he saw about fifty dead bodies that had been killed. Some were executed by shooting and some were stabbed with bayonets.

Atanas Ivanov from Kirchevo (located near Demir Hisar), also spoke to members of the Carnegie Endowment Commission and told them the following, “The Greek soldiers arrived on the 16th of July. While my wife was packing her things I heard them ask a young woman, a relative of ours, to go inside her house and get them some bread. When I heard that I went outside looking for her. By the time I arrived at her house I found a guard with his bayonet on his gun standing in front of her house. I ran towards the house and when I got closer I saw one soldier raping her while the other one stood above her pointing his bayonet at her; the soldiers then switched places. The woman had given birth to a baby only three days earlier. Later I ran into Peno Penev who asked me if I spoke Greek. When I said yes he asked me to speak to the soldiers who were raping the women. When I went inside the yard of one of the houses I saw three women lying on the ground; they had been raped. One was injured in the leg and another in the arm. That was around three o’clock in the afternoon. There were many other women there, all of them were crying. I was overcome with fear and left the yard when I saw the village burning... I ran away around sundown. The soldiers fired at me but missed. I don’t know what happened to my wife but I know my children were safe…”

This is what the Carnegie Endowment Commission wrote in its report, “It was not possible that these people were not telling the truth. Most were from the villages, uneducated and terrified of the horrors they experienced, totally incapable for making up something like that. They were telling their stories with literal directness…”

Members of the Carnegie Endowment Commission also wanted to learn what had happened from the other side, from the Greek Government, but they only heard denials and silence. Although the Greek authorities refused to make any kind of statement against the accusations, they agreed that the entire region where the Macedonian population lived was ruined and almost all of the villages were burned down. According to the evidence however, Greeks were burning villages as they were advancing into Macedonian territory.

The Carnegie Endowment Commission acknowledged that Athens used brutal propaganda to ethnically cleanse the Macedonian population in the territories it occupied by referring to the Macedonian people as nonhuman wild animals. The Carnegie Endowment Commission estimated that official Athens was spreading hate toward the Macedonian population, which was confirmed by several letters the Greek soldiers had written to their relatives acquired by the Bulgarian army. In its report the Carnegie Endowment Commission quoted some of the letters as follows, “We were much more cruel to the Bulgarians (meaning to the Macedonians)...” , “Here we were burning villages and killing Bulgarians (meaning Macedonians), women and children...”, “We took prisoners and killed them, because those were our orders...”, “We had to burn villages - that was the order - to kill young people and to save only the old and the children…”, “What was done to the Bulgarians was indescribable; as well as to the Bulgarians (meaning Macedonians) from the villages. It was a massacre. There was no Bulgarian (meaning Macedonian) town or village that was not burned...”, “From the 1,200 prisoners we took in Nigrita, only forty-one ended up in prison. Everywhere we went we didn’t leave a single person alive...”, “We gouged the eyes of five Bulgarian (meaning Macedonian) prisoners while they were still alive...”, “The Greek Army burned down all the villages where there were Bulgarians (meaning Macedonians) and we massacred everyone that we found. Only God knows where this will end…”

The above are extracts from the letters the Greek soldiers sent to their families after the bloody invasion of the Macedonian villages, which they called Bulgarian, and the Macedonian people who they called Bulgarian.