FACTS AND ARGUMENTS

FACTS AND ARGUMENTS

Let us now begin with Evdokia Foteva – Vera’s book “To hell and back”, published by “Az – Buki”, Skopje in 2005.

In her book “To hell and back”, Evdokia Foteva - Vera, introduced us to her own experience in the Greek Civil War by offering us sensitive testimony through a painfully recorded autobiographical story (with her ideas and ideals, consciousness and conscience, dreams and longings, joy, sorrows and pain) with many personal emotions, harsh truths with traumatic consequences: despair, disbelief, disintegration, violence, powerlessness, apathy, hatred, divisions, separations, upheavals and conflicts. Perhaps the title of this book should have been “A WORLD OF DREAMS AND A NATIONAL CATASTROPHE”. The text in this book, in its own way excites, attracts and pushes the reader to think about the place and role of Macedonian fighters and the NOF and AFZH leaderships, then and now more than a half century later. In certain chapters the book carries Vera’s thoughts, her dreams, her actions, her sacrifice (self-sacrifice), her life and ideals. It leaves an impression of a constructive, tolerant, democratic, non-sacrilegious and “non-authority-loving” person.

The text is composed along the axis of time and from the first to the last sentence this autobiographical story suggests to us that this is exactly the truth. Many events of historical and family significance related to the life of the Party, to the author, to her “openness” and overdosed in exalting in her career - the words fly from her mouth like bullets. She writes with a language of hatred and, with her

triumphal-ism, sets herself up as the new orator of the correctly written official (sectoral) history for the Aegeans.

On page 13 (9 in the translated version) of her book Vera wrote: “The honest, worthy leaders and sons of Aegean Macedonia suffered the worst. Those who encouraged our people to fight deserted and abandoned them. They were also the ones spreading the lies in the Republic of Macedonia. They were the ones who slandered those who sacrificed themselves for Macedonia. They were the ones who portrayed the struggle and all that happened in a light that would personally benefit them the most. They thought that “it was all over” and those who knew the truth would never return. They convinced many politicians and historians to rely on their lies in order to get to the bottom of things. After DAG was defeated, members of the NOF, AFZH and NOMS (Youth Organization) leadership from Greek occupied Macedonia were charged with being “agents” of Yugoslavia, Tito and Lazo Kolishevski. We were arrested and placed in a detention centre in Burreli, Albania and from there we were sent to the prison camps in the USSR. Instead of protecting us and advocating for our liberation from the allegations, the deserters and closest comrades with whom we shared both good and evil in the struggle, did everything in their power to turn us into scapegoats in order to save their own skins, thinking that we were doomed anyway and would be dead in no time. However, that did not happen, we all endured torture but survived with our honesty intact. So, we who did nothing wrong to tarnish our image, the image of our homeland and that of our people were released from prison and allowed to go the Republic of Macedonia. But when we arrived there we discovered that the deserters had turned the truth around 180º. They were startled by our arrival, but did not lose their positions and privileges in society because every government needs sycophants and informers.”

Instead of being satisfied with the conciliatory “we are all guilty”, here, even 55 years later, Vera seeks revenge and wishes to achieve it via “communist methods”.

NEW HISTORICAL FRUSTRATIONS AND RETURN TO A CENTURY OF AGONY UNDER THE IDEOLOGICAL WEB

Why not kneel before myths, with great illusions, with victims and criminals? Isn’t it about time for us to find out who displaced us from our homeland? The evil in Aegean Macedonia did not fall from the sky?!

Vera’s book is complex and full of incredible incidents and even absurdities: “The past is interpreted from the Party’s position”, once in favour of the CPG, other times in favor of the CPY. Is this an attempt at historical regression… part of someone else’s centuries-old political action?

We lost our struggle to unite Macedonia, especially during the Greek Civil War, because we embraced ideological-communist cosmopolitanism and did not follow the ideas set out for us by our grandfathers from the Ilinden era, who aimed to preserve our centuries-old national values: dwellings, properties, tradition, faith and sanctuaries, dignity and the aroma of our homeland – our Motherland. If we had not abandoned our centuries-old heritage that originally belonged only to us Macedonians, we would not had to justify our self-sacrifice, the genocide experienced and the disintegrated Macedonian reality.

All throughout the book, Vera’s mind often plays between remembering and forgetting, but goes exactly along the line (current) and the boundaries that were strictly determined by the Party. She describes what she remembers as a moment of truth and strongly condemns the massive violations of human rights. In the book, he made a worthy moral condemnation of the communist totalitarian regimes. But forgetting some events seem to pass easily, with a kind of temporary amnesia. She also praises herself from a historical perspective as a leader of the Macedonian women.

On page 236, with misuse of the word and with a raised voice and bitterness, Vera wrote: “When I write these lines, various thoughts come to me. Why, despite our great ability, we in Macedonia are suffering? Why do the foreigners manipulate us? It will be like this until the national wrongdoers 4 are revealed, until the national rises above the personal...”

4 On the same page under wrongdoers (traitors), Vera listed the following names: Pando Vajna and Stavro Kochev. Historian Hristo Andonovski in his book At the same time Vera said: “For my merits in the Anti-Fascist and Greek Civil War, I have been awarded the following awards:

1. - Order of Courage, 2. - Order of Fraternity and Unity with a Silver Wreath, 3. - Orders of Merit for a People with Silver Rays, 4. - Plaque of the Union of fighters of Yugoslavia, 5. - Jubilee medal from the Russian Federation, on the occasion of 50 years since the victory over fascism, 1945 - 1996, 6. - Order, 50 years of DAG, 1946 - 1996, 7. - NOF medal, 1941 - 1949.

Also, I am the recipient of numerous recognitions and praises, plaques, etc.”

Even more than 55 years later, Vera never did distance herself from her fears and from her past and never did gain the courage to freely speak about the hidden secrets of her past or to admit perhaps she may have been wrong about some things?

Perhaps she needed more time to make the necessary historical adjustments? As the leader of AFZH Vera should have had a better grip on certain issues of national interest. But, instead, she clearly depended on the foreigners (CPY/CPG) to guide her with regards to interpreting the history of the Aegean people - precisely in the interest of those same foreigners. She needed to answer for things because she herself was the person approving and implementing directives that drove the political and military actions that led the Macedonian people living in Greece to experienced genocide.

For us ordinary DAG fighters, that war keeps coming back like a deafening echo which refuses to be silenced. One thing that could

“Macedonians under Greece in their struggle against fascism (1940 - 1944)” on page 115, wrote: “The Macedonian communists and resistance movement cadres from Sorovich District, Lerin Region were: Kiro Pilaev, Jorgi Turundzha, Stavro Kochev, Vangel Koichev, Trifko Popovski… They were the core of the SNOF leadership in Lerin Region. The most active group of Macedonians in the city Lerin were Ilija Dimovski - Goche, Kocho Kalinov, Lambe Popov, Mihail Trpkov, Pando Durdulovski… Also, the newspaper “Iskra” had been published in the Macedonian language since 1941... have lessened our grief would have been if Vera made a historical correction on the most painful topics, especially the Greek Civil War, for which she did not testify above admitting that she received praise and high national recognition. She never did say anything about those who turned Aegean Macedonia into desolation sending our people into chaos.

She never asked or answered for example “Who was responsible for what happened to our people? How can we find the right answer? Who is at fault for what happened? Are we at fault? What is our reality?

We were a people with a past, who deeply carried the faith and traditions of our ancestors, a people with a long history and centuries-old existence.

We have been deceived many times. We know that this is the case even now, but nothing has been said about it this far.