START OF REPATRIATION

START OF REPATRIATION

With regards to the worker activities, it can be said that they participated in 9 different work projects including cleaning the main city drainage system, tending the park, cleaning the streets, trimming the forest at Deliblatska Cave and working around and tending to the children’s homes. The refugee children and employees were members of the Bela Tsrkva Red Cross.

In early April 1952 17 “mothers” were sent from the children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva to Gakovo. They were:

Olga Nichova, Kata Milankova, Ristana Lazarova, Vasilka Mishevska, Sofia Koleva, Krsta Tasheva, Penelopi Atanasiou, Dafina Filkova, Marika Gorchilova, Elena Eftova, Elena Shulevska, Dosta Kurti, Sofia Argirova, Maria Doneva,Vasilka Delova, Mahi Paleva and Vana Kochova.

Forty-four refugee children were also sent with the “mothers”.

Included among others who left Bela Tsrkva were:

Vasil Iovanov, Lazo Angelovski, Kiro Donev, Giorgi Donev, Petar Pashinov, Vane Ranelov and Tosho Bozhanov.

As we have seen from the evidence provided, the children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva operated for an entire decade, from 1948 to 1958.

According to official statistics, the number of refugee children accommodated in the children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva was as follows:

- 1948 212, 1949 570, 1950 537, 1951 492, 1952 455, 1953 395, 1954 354, 1955 326, 1956 266, 1957 103, and 1958 80.

As for the repatriation of refugee children with their parents, the final number was as follows: 469 refugee children living in the homes in Yugoslavia were repatriated with their parents in Greece from November 1950 to March 1952.

Due to the closing of the refugee children’s homes in the People’s Republic of Croatia and in the People’s Republic of Slovenia in April 1952, all the refugee children from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia residing in those homes were moved out before the repatriation had started. Bela Tsrkva was the only place that served as a repatriation centre. As a result 163 children were repatriated from October 1952 to September 1958.

Seventy children and fifty adults left for Australia from May to November 1950.

Eight refugee children from the homes in Bela Tsrkva left for Australia, to be with their parents, from May 1953 to June 1956.

Iordana Ianchova from the village Trsie, Lerin Region, left with her four children for Australia in July 1950.

Twelve refugee children from the homes in BelaTsrkva were repatriated with their parents in Romania from November 1955 to July 1958.

Seventy-three refugee children were repatriated with their parents in Poland from February 1955 to July 1958.

Sixty-eight refugee children were repatriated with their parents in the Soviet Union from February 1955 to March 1958.

Six refugee children were repatriated with their parents in Bulgaria from March 1955 to January 1956.

Fifteen refugee children were repatriated with their parents in Hungary from December 1955 to August 1957.

Ninety-four refugee children were repatriated with their parent in Czechoslovakia from August 1956 to November 1958.

The Red Cross Children’s homes, housing the refugee children from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia in Bela Tsrkva, operated from the beginning of April 1948 until the end of August 1958.

A LETTER SENT FROM A HOME IN BELA TSRKVA TO THE NEWSPAPER “VOICE OF THE AEGEANS”

The following is a letter about the children’s homes in Bela Tsrkva. More accurately, this letter is a typical example of what the refugee children wrote to their readers about the homes in Bela Tsrkva. The letter was published by the newspaper “Glas na Egeitsite” (Voice of the Aegeans) in Skopje. Here is what it said:

“Dear friends,

We the pioneers of the home in Bela Tsrkva, located in the III pavilion, welcome you with warm fraternal greetings.

Although we were small, we still remember the plight and suffering of our parents, our people, as well as our troubles. Many of our brothers and sisters were tortured and killed in prisons only because they fought for the rights and freedom of our enslaved people. The struggle that was led by our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, against the Monarcho-Fascists was very hot and demanding. It forced our parents to separate from us and send us to Yugoslavia in order to save us.

One part of us is placed here, in a home in Bela Tsrkva.

Our life here is excellent; we have good food and nice clothes. Each child has his or her own bed and everything they need is provided for them...

For the first time in our lives we learned to speak, read and write in our own mother tongue here in Yugoslavia. We had no such opportunities in Greece, not because we did not have conditions for development but because we had no rights. We were forbidden to speak our mother tongue and we had to learn Greek, a foreign language. If any of our elders were caught speaking Macedonian by the gendarmes, they would be detained and put in jail.

We can not forget the plight and the suffering we endured in our enslaved country from our enemies. And so we promise that we will never forget the blood that was spilled by our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, killed in the fierce fight against the Monarcho-Fascists.

We send you warm greetings and we ask that you please pass this on to our brothers and sisters everywhere through the newspaper ‘Voice of the Aegeans’...”

Similar letters were also sent to the editorial board from many other “pioneers”, including Gona Potsova and Lena Iotevska.

The care of the refugee children from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia was always in the editorial board’s spotlight. The newspaper “Voice of the Aegeans” carried a large number of stories about them. On several occasions it even published extensive reports about the homes in Bela Tsrkva where they lived.