Noose – Chapter 15

Noose – Chapter 15

Thousands of children aged 16 and 17 were mobilized into DAG (Democratic Army of Greece) in 1947 and became victims in one of the cruelest guerrilla wars known to mankind. Escape from cruel death.

1.

It was a hot day, suffocating, like many days before that, but there was a breeze in the movement that needed to be taken into account. The Greek government was organizing an army under the command of General Van Fleet, the famous American general and specialist in guerrilla warfare. The government army consisted of a total of 60,000 troops organized into 6 divisions in all branches. Included in the government armaments were 200 tanks and armored cars and about 100 aircraft of all types. The Partisan force, commanded by Vlandas, had a total of 9,863 Partisan fighters and 40 cannons. The government’s offensive against DAG began with an attack on Mount Vicho and by August 13th and 14th DAG sustained massive losses with 1,859 fighters dead, wounded, missing, or captured. The government force sustained only 256 dead and 1,336 wounded. On August 15th and 16th DAG units began to retreat to Albania, but within days about 6,000 of the fighters were regrouped and transferred to Gramos to continue fighting. It was during this time that the slogan “Gramos will become a cemetery for the Monarcho-Fascists” was coined.

* * *

For several days the huge government army, under the command of U.S. General Van Fleet, had been vigorously pursuing our positions but not by classical means. Instead of using his infantry Van Fleet employed his air force to hurl firebombs at us; igniting the entire front line. We were in panic, like frightened wild animals. We were turning into dangerous animals. We were not fighting; we were just defending ourselves trying to avoid the rain of fire, trying not to get burned, trying to survive. The bombs kept on falling but not to kill us, only to frighten us to death. We were tortured by the air we breathed. Our stomachs ached, our feet burned and the yellowish clouds made us cough so badly that we all felt as if our intestines would pour out of our mouths. Thousands of burned soldiers fled from the front line position, horrified and full of fear... The front line all around us was scorched and covered in black smoke. Vlandas, our Party appointed commander, hiding behind a rock, kept yelling through a funnel: “Fight! Fight! If we Communists are defeated here it will be the death of all of us. Fight! I encourage you to fight on behalf of the Party and on behalf of our leader Zahariadis.” But nobody listened. We were all crazed and angry from our ordeal and hoping for some divine power to intervene and save us. It was dark everywhere even though it was the middle of the day. We could not hear the artillery or the rifle fire pounding all around us because of the stamping hooves of the rampaging, frightened horses running for their lives. I watched Leonidas pacing back and forth in front of me reciting prayers he had learned as a boy. Many of us were already deaf from the blasts we had experienced on the front line battles at Vicho, Bukovik, Bela Voda, Mali Madi and Lisets. We felt powerless and full of hatred in this onslaught. They were persecuting us and wanted to kill us all. We ran from the top of the hill towards the bottom and saw sharp rocks sticking out at the base of the hill. That’s where they had dropped two large flaming bombs. Famine was a nightmare in our daily lives, in our terrible struggle for survival, in our unbearable loneliness. We took shelter in the dense forest and at one point we rolled under a tree. Our friends were dead and we could not help them. During the night I saw things that I will never forget. It was high noon. The sun was baking hot and we were sweating profusely. Our eyes were burning from the sweat as we tried to wipe it with our dirty and bloody hands. The days were hot and the dead were still unburied. I was restless and in pain. Suddenly I was gripped by fear and began to shake. I was afraid that the worst was yet to come. Leonidas called me over and pointed me to a silhouette in the far distance. I was overcome with sadness as I watched the dark silhouette, especially when I realized it was a woman clenching a child in her arms. As I kept watching the woman my heart began to beat faster. “Is it possible… could that be Roxana the Nurse?” I asked Leonidas. When we came out of the dark forest we ran into rugged terrain. The hills were rocky and treeless and just below the rocks were deep and wide crevices covered with drooping branches, probably used for camouflage. About fifty yards in front of the entrance to an underground bunker, was a machine gun nest. All around the bunker large piles of earth mixed with ammunition and miscellaneous weapons were scattered, but here and there we saw parts of human bodies. When we reached the end of a long trench we found a boy, barely a young man, with his left leg blown off, lying in a pool of blood. Barely conscious with parched lips he said: “Water, water...” I gave him my canister and after taking a few sips he became invigorated. Lying beside him was a sack full of circular pendants with General Markos’s image on one side and a number on the other. “Who are you?” asked Traiko Bogdanov. “I am the commander of the youth squad and these pendants here in this sack belong to my fellow fighters,” he answered.

“And what are those numbers?” asked Traiko. The young commander looked at us with fear in his eyes as Traiko, with a raised voice, said: “They have hung numbers on our children? God help us, numbers on human beings? Wow! In what century do we live?” The silence was interrupted by the young commander when he said: “You need to know that all those body parts you were stepping over belong to the youth squad, formed by the mobilization of the older children sent earlier to the various Eastern European Republics; Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary…” Angered by all of this Leonidas interrupted Traiko, who was about to say something, and said: “It is inhuman what they have done, especially if they did it with the Party’s knowledge!” Traiko then angrily added: “This is trading with human lives. These are our children, which the Party and Zahariadis have told us were taken to be saved... This is indeed painful. The beginning of a new period of Macedonian sacrifices. If this continues we Macedonians will find ourselves in a situation where, for the first time in history, we would have allowed an entire nation, our nation, to be destroyed without doing anything to stop it.” Traiko paused for a moment, looked at me and said: “The lie has always been in advance of the truth and the truth has been lagging in time so you can imagine how long it would take for the Macedonian people to learn the truth. How long would it take? How long did it take for our children, who were supposedly taken from us to be saved, to become nameless and numbers only recognizable by the Party? How long did it take from the time they were taken away to be saved to the time they lay dead in the trenches?” Traiko then turned, faced east, crossed himself and said: “Imagine General Headquarters being informed from the battlefield that the following fighters were killed fighting bravely: numbers 13, 34, 24, 29, etc... Oh my God... Let us pray to the almighty to help us stop this madness and let us pray that we stop believing in Zahariadis’s worn out slogans.” (Zahariadis’s first optimistic scenario: “The Macedonian people can have self-determination.” In other words he offered the Macedonian people a vision of an independent Macedonia??!! Then during the CPG (Communist Party of Greece) Central Committee’s Fifth Plenum, held on January 30th and 31st, 1949, Zahariadis discarded that idea. In other words he discarded the idea of an ‘independent and united Macedonian state within a Balkan federation’. After that on February 3rd, 1949, during the NOF (National Liberation Front) Central Council’s Second Plenum, he modified NOF’s principles to include ‘a future under Greece for the Macedonian people’. But that promise too was broken: On March 7th, 1949 the CPG’s Central Committee released a statement denying having anything to do, with regards to the Macedonian question, with either the January 1949 Fifth Plenum or the February, 1949 NOF Second Plenum. So, history should have taught us that any promises made during war may not be worth the paper they are written on.

Zahariadis’s second optimistic scenario: “Create a Communist Party for the Macedonians under Greece.” SUBTLE MANIPULATION OF THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR HISTORY. On March 27th, 1949 a founding meeting was called by 163 Communists, delegates of NOF’s Second Congress, who unanimously agreed to form the “Communist Party of Aegean Macedonia” (KOEM), a separate organization but part of the CPG. Some would say that this was one of the CPG’s “brightest gestures” because the CPG “truly” cared for the Macedonians. Why don’t we leave this one to history to show how truly “bright” a gesture it was and how much the CPG “truly” cared for the Macedonian people…) Our old people used to talk about how oppressive the Ottomans were and would often say that the Greeks were even worse. My grandfather used to say: “The Ottomans did not have faith, but they had pity, the Greeks have neither faith nor pity.” Traiko Bogdanov, now even more upset, turned to the half-dazed young commander and asked: “Please tell me, I had a son sent to the People’s Republics (Eastern Europe) maybe he was here with you. His name is Giorgi Bogdanov.” The wounded man looked at Traiko, sat up a bit, showed him the sack and said: “Sir, may God bless his soul, here is his pendent, he was number 12. He was among the ones who were mortally wounded but I don’t know exactly where his body is right now. I am sure it is here somewhere by the ditch you just passed…” Upset, Traiko tossed his machine gun to the ground and ran back along the trench looking at all the dead bodies, searching for his son…

2.

All the stories of children wearing pendants around their necks with a number on one side and with General Markos’s picture on the other turned out to be true. Only a select few people at the top knew who these boys were; their names, their parents and where they came from. To everyone else they were just numbers. The young commander continued: “We were rushed to the Tulgesh pavilion from everywhere, like a swollen river, where we joined with many others in the huge yard. The first thing we did was look for our siblings and friends; brother looking for brother, brother looking for sister, but the most difficult part was trying to find our ‘mothers’. There were many children there who did not know their own name, surname, date of birth, place of birth, or the names of their mother, father, grandfather, or grandmother. From the moment we were gathered at the camp across the border and for the years we were away, like shadows, we kept searching for our loved ones and for our identity. We felt alienated as if General Markos slowly was becoming our father. That’s exactly what we would say when our teachers asked, ‘To whom do you belong?’ and we would all yell out, ‘To Markos,’ and when they asked, ‘To whom does Markos belong?’, we would all yell out, ‘To us’.” He paused for a moment, took a deep breath and continued: “But for some reason, perhaps to make us all equal, or who knows why, when we were stationed in Kalimaneshti they decided to take away our names. Our name was the last symbol that reminded us of our home, of who we were and of where we belonged. That is when they hung a circular metal plate around our necks with a number engraved on one side and General Markos’s image on the other. That pendent replaced our Macedonian name and our identity. I was number 520 and when they summoned me in Romania I had to answer back with the words ‘Chinch sute douzen shi o’ (five hundred and twenty).” He paused again, thought for a moment and continued: “Towards the end of 1948 we were taken to Poland by train. There at the border we were greeted by Polish officials, medical staff and various other services. The Polish people there were very kind to us and at the same time they were dumbfounded as to why children of Partisan parents fighting in the Vicho and Grams battlefields would have no names? When we arrived at the “Baburka” dormitory we were given new clothes. Our old clothes were collected and tossed in a great big pile which looked like the clothing of an enslaved army. The only thing we kept from our old clothes were the pendants hanging around our necks. Life was often full of cruelty and fierce games.” He trailed off for a moment and began talking again: “We considered the Poles to be good people and respected pan Piotr Pshezhinski the most. He also respected us and would often call us ‘descendents of a doomed army’. He was an old, experienced Pole, a former businessman and philanthropist. He himself had spent many years in camps and felt sorry for us. He often used to say that we shared a similar fate because he too wore a number around his neck when he was held captive, but his pendant did not have the image of a leader. ‘Your destiny is more difficult because you carry General Markos around your neck, a man who came to your country as a colonist and enjoys all the rights, while you and your parents, indigenous to those lands, are persecuted...’ I kept quiet. What could I say? I just kept looking at the pendant with indignation and horror. Well it was NOF and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front), our own people after all who promised us that this was a war of liberation and now all these children are numbers, part of a nameless army.” The silence was broken when Traiko Bogdanov, the grief-stricken father, began to cry and scream. At that point the wounded young commander said: “Looks like Bogdanov found the dead body of his son Giorgi. Giorgi was a brave boy but kept crying out for his father to come and get him.” “When and how did they bring you to the front?”

asked Mitre Zhitarov, who also had two very young children and a young wife sent to the Eastern European countries. His wife Ristana was an “omadarhitsa”, a corporal responsible for taking care of ten children. The wounded young commander with the missing leg began to twitch with pain as he resumed telling his story: “A few months after the people from NOF, AFZH and the CPG gathered us and after our departure from our villages we were sent to the Eastern European states to be saved from a certain death and from hunger and illness. But the same people who took us to save us brought us back into the hell of this war. It started around the end of 1948 and early 1949.” He held his breath for a moment in anticipation of more pain, let out a sigh and continued: “It was March 15th, 1949 at 8.30 pm when they called us to gather together in a large group. The Dormitory Director told us that after lunch a delegation from the CPG Politburo would be arriving at our dorm. Then exactly at 16.00 hours a big limousine pulled in and before our visitor had a chance to enter the main door we began chanting slogans and singing Partisan marching songs. As soon as the limousine stopped, Miltiadis Porfirogenis stepped out. Porfirogenis was a member of the Politburo of the CPG Central Committee and Minister of Justice in the Provisional Democratic Government. After the festive dinner, which we enjoyed very much and during which we kept quiet, the Director announced that he wanted all boys and girls aged 15 and 16 to attend a meeting in the same hall at 20.00 hours and all others would go to bed by 19.30.” He paused, adjusted his wounded leg and resumed: “At 20.15 hours our guest entered the hall and we gave him a long applause and greeted him with the slogans: ‘Viva Markos! Long live the CPG! Long live free Greece!...’ The minister then took his place and sat down, after which we also sat down. He then stood up again, towering like a mountain over us children and in a quiet voice began to tell us about DAG’s combat successes over the monarchist forces. He said: ‘DAG has in its hands 25% of the whole of Greece. Each village has a popular government, national boards, national courts, rural cooperatives, established national hospitals and cultural and folk societies. The people feel free and we estimate that within days the cities Lerin, Kostur, Voden and others will fall into our hands. We know that 1949 will be the YEAR OF VICTORY!’ We were so happy at that point that we began calling out: ‘Long live free Greece! Markos won! Markos is victorious!’ Then after we had finished yelling he resumed talking: ‘Dear youth, sons and daughters of our heroic fighters of the democratic army, I was sent here by the Politburo of the CPG Central Committee and by our Interim democratic government to invite you all to come back to our fatherland and join our holy struggle which is in need of young people, young fighters, worthy of their fathers and mothers who regularly achieve combat success against our enemy the Monarcho-Fascists.’ The Minister took a sip of water from his glass and with a hidden smile on his face, continued: ‘By coming back you will have the chance to see your beautiful villages, your parents, relatives and all your friends. Therefore I urge you all to ‘voluntarily’ return to free Greece. Please step up and sign up for your return right here.’ The Minister had a list with all our names on it.” The wounded young commander was in pain. He paused to regain his strength and began talking again: “We all lined up one behind the other and signed the list beside our names. The list contained the signatures of 31 boys and 8 girls. After that our guest addressed us again: ‘I want to let you know that volunteers from Romania and Bulgaria have already returned to ‘free Greece’ and, in a relatively short time, had been issued weapons and have joined the famous ranks of DAG as regular soldiers. Many of your friends from the other democratic countries are also on their way to our homeland and shortly you will be able to join them.

But I want one thing from you: do not say a word to anyone about your repatriation. Not to the locals, not to your caregivers, not to anyone, understand? If anyone does, he or she will be considered an enemy of our holy struggle.’ The next day, after lunch, we ‘volunteers’ were gathered together and the director told us: ‘From now on until you depart, every night you will have night training in the field to learn how to fight at night. Not a word to anyone about your return to Greece, not even to your younger brothers and sisters. Anyone who dares to speak will be expelled from the dormitory and severely punished,’ he said to us.” At that very moment we heard a loud shot. Zhitarov suddenly grabbed me by my arm and we both dropped into the ditch and ran like mad. On the way we ran into Traiko Bogdanov. He lay there dead beside his son’s dead body. He had shot himself because he could not bear the pain... I tried to delete this horrific memory from my mind; seeing a father and son ending up like this…

4.

Leonidas, mad and upset, said: “The number of reasons for abusing child soldiers are many. Here is what the Party has been saying: ‘We are conducting a revolution and we need to give them Kalashnikovs in place of notebooks. They are inexpensive to maintain because most eat less than adults and are more obedient. They can easily be mobilized and ordered around. The capitalists are doing the same thing. They can be sent to the front and assigned various functions in military service. They can serve as living land mine detectors. They can be used in the camps to perform slave labour, prepare meals and clean. They are docile and more easily manipulated and because of that they will work and do jobs that adults refuse to do.’ This is disgusting!” Leonidas looked me in the eye and continued: “According to claims made by psychologists, children can easily be turned into killing machines because they are capable of ignoring reality much easier than adults. ‘Child soldiers are very good fighters because they don’t think of anything else but their own task. They fight with no thought of returning to their families and they are not afraid of anything,’ said a rebel officer in the Congo. There are always a few children who may voluntarily join the fighters, either to exact revenge or due to hunger. But in order to become such fighters they first need to be physiologically broken and brainwashed. They do that by putting the children through terrible initiation rituals which include forcing them to kill and torture ordinary innocent people...” Leonidas paused, thought for a moment and continued: “But here is how the Party and its Leader Zahariadis looked at this issue during our historic military meeting held just recently: ‘It was noted that the Leader experiences pleasure when he leads others and when he attracts their attention. He, as a youth, experienced joy in his superiority over others. Step by step, in an informal way, Zahariadis climbed his way up to the top of the leadership during his career with the Party. He made progress on his own like a feudal lord. This was his way... That’s how Communists are groomed... Anyone who is familiar with the soul of a young man will know that the young man likes to hear stories about combat and fighting. All revolutions have been led by young people...” Leonidas smiled and said: “His fast climb to the top has turned his head, given him invisible powers and brought him success, but in the wrong direction. It has made him reckless in thinking that he can handle military and strategic issues. During one of the sessions the Leader, to appease everyone’s concerns, took the position of a wise man and said: ‘When a victory is described in detail, it ceases to be distinguishable from a defeat. In both cases you have losses but here you have described the losses in such detail that you took away the meaning of victory. Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism always pushes a person, as a conscious creature, before itself, to constantly set goals and objectives. Struggling to achieve these goals, the person looks into the future and thus denies the present. Once a person accomplishes one task, they seek another and so on until the end of life. We are revolutionaries and do not expect new visions and new victories for communism! That is important for the young. They are the future of this country. The realization of these visions is actually the realization of our goals, the happiness of mankind and the working class.’ That’s what Zahariadis said.” Leonidas paused, took a deep breath and then said: “The biggest fear in the Leader’s mind was negligence and the Party membership losing its class consciousness. At the end of his speech Zahariadis exclaimed: ‘Long live the Red Army fighting for world peace, freedom, democracy, socialism and a bright future for humankind.’ Those were his last words.”

* * *

After the historic military meeting, the Leader (acting modestly, as if the entire world was silent) made changes to the military Headquarters and appointed Giorgios Gusias to the position of General. Gusias was an ignorant person and not respected by others. Some wondered how and why a shoemaker like him would be made a general and who had brought him here? And why was the Leader appointing ignorant people to important positions? Some were saying because it would be easier to remove them and others, upset and confused, remembered the saying in the Gospel: “The road to destruction is wide and long.”

* * *

After arriving at Headquarters, General Gusias changed the rules and replaced everyone with his own choice of people. The only one he did not replace was Samaridis whom he left in his old position and for whom he expressed peculiar respect. The General’s aim was to bring discord among his subordinates. His biggest dream was to create a network and to control everything to the smallest detail. Because he adopted new rules and methods for doing work, he opened new opportunities for, what he called “professional advancements.” So people had a choice to adapt to his rules and survive or be removed. For as long as the General’s “newly chosen” people accepted his rules and did not do a lot of “whispering”, the General was generous towards them and ready to wrap his short arms around them. One of the high ranking officers that Gusias removed, after toying with the idea for days, called on Gusias to ask him how long he was going to hide the truth that he was incompetent as a military strategist and tactician. The officer said: “The ugly envy you carry inside of you is hidden in the form of fraud. You have expressed desire for something that does not belong to you and you feed off the successes of others... You may be faithful to the Party but everyone knows that you are only a shoemaker, but military science, knowledge of the theories of strategy and tactics, you have none.” Gusias blushed and reached for his revolver.