ЦВЕЌЕ (FLOWER) - Part 02

over the USSR, Europe and Asia. Here we were divided into groups based on who was sent where in the camps. We stayed for several days in Novosibirsk. One day they took Urania and me and assigned us to clean up duty, cleaning the men’s barracks. We got a surprise. What a small world this was! In one of the cabins we ran into Kosta Tsilkov from the village Breznitsa, Kostur Region. When we saw each other there was no end to our joy. He said: “We knew about you in Tashkent. The entire leadership and army of fighters are there. They were constantly asking about you.” I said: “Here too they were asking me about you and how I had come to know you.” He said that he knew about that because they told him, he also told us that our people in Tashkent were divided. Some supported Zahariadis and others supported Markos. The allegations I had made to the interrogator about Kosta were confirmed by Kosta himself, yet he too was put in prison and did not know where they were sending him. We didn’t know where they were sending us either. Kosta was interested to know where our comrades were who were imprisoned with us. I told him: “I don’t know where they are. We have been separated since 1950 when we were taken to the USSR, who knows where and in what prison they are. I met Urania only two months ago.” That was the last time I saw Kosta Tsilkov until we met again in Macedonia. He lived in Gostivar, where he died. We were pleased to get that information from Kosta about our people in Tashkent. From Novosibirsk we were transferred to Camp Taishet. This camp, from what we learned from the prisoners, was the central peresilka. All other camps were directed from here. Men and women were sent from here to all the other camps. There were about one hundred camps in total from what we learned from the prisoners. The camps held men, women, children and “bitoviki” who were not political prisoners. They worked in farms, food production facilities, etc. We stayed here several days. A number of women were then loaded on a train and taken to a women’s camp called “Column 21.” We were issued camp clothes consisting of a black body warmer, “bruki” and a black linen gown to go with the “bruki”, looking something like a skirt and sewn on the lower right hand side was the number AO 446. The same number was imprinted on the back of the “telogrejka.” There the cold started in September. They gave me nothing for my head so I wore my own “pilotka”, but I was very cold. One of the women prisoners responsible for the camp, a Lithuanian by nationality who went by the name Laskovskaja, took pity on me and gave me a hat with ear covers; a “ushanka.” It saved me from the cold. Since that day I have worn a hat every winter. At the camp I cut my

long braided hair that had grown long for three years. I cut my braids because I could not maintain them.

At Camp 21

When we arrived at Camp 21 the old prisoners gathered around us and watched us as we were paraded through the office to report and register. From our military uniforms the prisoners thought we were English aviation personnel. I told the more curious ones: “I am Macedonian and suffered immensely from the British aviators while fighting in Greece.” They were fascinated with us. Some guessed that I was Georgian and others assumed that I was Armenian. Some gathered that I was Greek from the symbols on my uniform so I had to repeatedly tell them that I was Macedonian. The camp in Taishet housed thousands of prisoners, both men and women. The authorities here decided who was going where depending on their sentence. My group was sent to Camp 21. Among us were women prisoners from Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Macedonia and the Baltic States. After they had registered us at the office, they assigned us to a barracks which they locked up during the night. I was separated from Urania because she presented herself as an artist and was put in a barracks together with other artists. In my barracks most of the women inmates were from Russia, the Ukraine and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). I was located in the second row “nari”. Next to me was a Ukrainian woman named Elizabeta. She was a beautiful woman. I made friends with her. She said her husband was a journalist imprisoned in Vienna. She was imprisoned soon after him. When we were separated Elizabeta gave me a photograph of her two children, Misha and Vova who at the time were living in Kiev with her mother. I still have the photograph. I tried to contact them after I was released but I got no response. I don’t know where they are now. The address where her mother lived, that Elizabeta had given me, was “USSR 2 Kiev ul. Klincheskaja 23 VNIS, Raznotovskoj Barbare Vinijaminovski.” I still have the piece of paper it was written on. To my left, beside me was a teacher from Leningrad. Her name was Raisa Shahnovskaja. I still have the photograph that she gave me. She had a son but did not know where he was. Raisa was photographed on May 8, 1944 and gave me the photograph on July 1, 1954. A professor and her sister from Lithuania also gave me their photographs which I have kept and cherish to keep my memories of them alive, to remember those uncertain times at Camp 21 in Siberia. We were good friends; our common fate brought us together. Their address was “Litovskaja SSR Klamendeskaja sm G Salantam Ul. Plunches N° 13 B uda Vitas.” The sisters Natasha (Natute) and Bronja from Riga also gave me photographs on July 6, 1954. I have an address but no photograph from Karsovoj Ekaterina Aleksandrovne. Her address was “P/a Gorkino

Ivanovskaja oblast Rodmirovskij reon.” Her husband Karo, a scientist, gave this address to Mincho at the camp where they were serving together. Minco has one more address from another inmate from Vorkuta, from Kiev. He got his address on October 9, 1954. A German woman, a friend from camp 21, wrote her address for me on canvas. She told me that when she was imprisoned her parents and children were in Poland in the city Zgorzelets. Her husband was an SS officer. Because of her knowledge of the Polish language she was able to speak Russian well. She told me that she was transferred by plane to Moscow and was personally investigated by Beria to whom she said: “Our fascism is better than your communism.” She said to me: “Verochka, we failed because we were fanaticized.” With Adenauer’s visit to the USSR and the signing of prisoner agreements, Elizabeta Shvinkovskaja was released. I met Elizabeta again at the international camp for prisoners in Potma. I introduced her to Mincho and Paskal. She, with a number of German prisoners, left for Germany before us. We on the other hand, along with many other Partisans, were sent to the internment camps in Kazakhstan. What fate! We, who had fought on the Soviet side, who had helped them liberate themselves, were treated worse than the German fascists who had fought against them. They sent them back to their country but kept us for another year and a half before they released us to see our families. I looked for Elizabeta at the address she had given me but the people there told me she that had left. She had told me that if she was not there the people would know where she was. She was a smart woman. Why did so many women inmates give me their pictures and their addresses? Because they thought I would be one of the first ones to be freed and wanted me to get in touch with their families by letter and let them know that they were alive and well and where they were located. What happened to them later I don’t know. I don’t even know if any of them were lucky enough to see their loved ones again. Perhaps if this book is publicized enough it will fall into their hands and they can contact me. (Translator’s note: I am sorry to say that Vera passed away but if anyone wants to contact her family you can write me at: rstefov@hotmail.com ) I also met many Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian women at Camp 21 with whom I shared fate. There were also students from Moscow University in the jails, serving 25 year sentences for attempting to assassinate Lazar Kaganovich, member of the USSR Politburo. The group of young men and women consisted of 25 students so they were convicted to 25 years each. The sentences were 25 years in prison plus 5 years deprivation of political rights after being released. That is why they would say “25 and

5.” Of all of them my dearest was Ilona Lenskaja, an artist. She gave me a postcard from Red Square with her address written on the back. On the back of the same postcard she also wrote the address of her son and Raisa Alexandrova’s parents. Serving there was also a lovely young woman from Moscow by the name of Lydia Savinskaja, she was a clerk at the Indian Embassy in Moscow. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison because she had fallen in love with an Indian officer at the embassy. Her father was a colonel in the Soviet Army. One time he cаme to visit her at the camp. There I also met Tania Perepelitsina, an artist and a number of older women who worked in the library. They were personally acquainted with Lenin. They told me their stories many times as well as specific details about their meetings with him. One of them had already served her 25 year sentence but when the time came for her to leave, she refused. She told the warden that she did not want to leave the safety of the camp because she was afraid of getting into trouble in the outside world and preferred to stay and work there. There were many good people among the prisoners, exemplary Soviet citizens who were sent there because of vicious slanders. All of the women working in the library were teachers, educated women. After I left Camp 21 and was taken to Camp 9, I lost contact and don’t know what happened to them. I tried to contact some of them later, during my visit to Moscow as a tourist but I couldn’t find any of them. At Camp 21 they divided us into brigades in order to deploy us in the mica processing factory. We were assigned a special knife to separate the mica from the stone. It was very hard work. Mica is thin, barely visible and the norm was 600 grams extracted in a ten hour shift. No one could fulfill the norm. We barely extracted 300-350 and up to 400 grams. Mica is a compound that contains 32 kinds of minerals. It is used in electrical applications and in aviation. At least that’s what they told us during the lectures. They had a similar factory in Irkutsk. I hid a number of mica pieces and secretly brought them home. I also bought a book on how to process mica. I still have it. In Camp 21 I met a Bulgarian woman who was in Prilep during the occupation. She was head of one such factory. They processed mica and shipped it to Bulgaria. When I was freed, I realized why the Bulgarian woman was in Prilep during the occupation; because there was mica in Prilep.

On my way to becoming a blacksmith

It was difficult working with mica and even harder breathing the fine dust. I kept thinking of a way to get out of it. Every morning before going to work, the camp director took attendance to make sure that we were all there. During war time he had married a Polish woman. He was interned with us because he had married a Pole. As we were lining up he asked if anyone among us had any blacksmith experience. I stepped up and said that I had. He then asked me from where. I said: “One of my uncles had a blacksmith shop in my native village D’mbeni. I frequently went there and helped him with his work. I used to operate the bellows and hammer out the hot iron to stretch it.” As I spoke I got a mental picture of my village D’mbeni and watched the brothers Krsto and Kosta Ratkov working in their blacksmith shop. Everyone in the line turned and looked at me. Urania was stunned and wondered what I was doing; but I was determined to do anything to get out of the mica processing plant. The warden then said: “Tomorrow I want to see you at the blacksmith shop.” Finally I was rescued from the mica plant. I was allowed to stroll around the camp. And because the work was physically more demanding I was given double the portion of food. I was with a Lithuanian woman named Natute or Natasha. She trained me. I worked the bellows to fuel the fire. We both, but mostly her, stretched the iron wire from which they made bars for windows and nails. I was with Natute for about two months during which time I felt free.

Working outside the camp

A captain, an interned Jew, from the camp came to the blacksmith shop perimeter to check it out. When he saw me in the shop he said: “Nikolovskaja, what are you doing here? Go back to the mica plant!” I said: “I was sent here by order from the warden!” But he insisted: “No, you must go back!” I then stubbornly said: “I am here, I was sent here by orders and I am not going back.” He then said: “I am sending you to work outside the camp with another brigade!” I agreed. I was deployed with a brigade of workers responsible for supplying the camps with wood and when it was snowing we were responsible for cleaning the snow off the railway tracks. The summers in Siberia were very short, a month and a half to two months long at most. During that time the climate was perfect for the infestation of small insects called “moshki.” The “moshki” flew in swarms and if you were out in the open unprotected they would eat you alive and there was no escape from them. Some of the older prisoners told us stories about how prisoners were punished by being left out unprotected and that they had died as a result of blood loss due to it being sucked out by the “moshki.” This tells me that the Jewish captain wanted to punish me for my disobedience, for not wanting to return to the mica plant. We also ate outdoors. For the Siberian winter they gave us “valenki”, “fotirani bluzi”, “fotirani bushlati” and “ushanki kapi.” When we returned at night we left our gear at a designated area to dry and be ready for the next day. Our clothes were numbered and everyone used their own gear. One day when the temperature was 40 degrees below zero they took us to load timber. The timber belonged to another camp where men were interned. We were so bundled up that only our eyes and noses were exposed. Even still there was danger that our noses might freeze so they constantly warned us to: “Rub our noses and cheeks with snow to prevent them from freezing.” The snow was frozen and could support us with the “valenki” (especially made from twisted wool to make them waterproof). You couldn’t wear shoes because they would stick to the flesh of your feet. Twice a year they allowed the prisoners from the USSR to write letters to their relatives living inside the USSR. I had no such right and neither did any of the prisoners from other countries. I counted on my Ukrainian and Russian friends who always asked their relatives to send them “slanina” (pork fat) and garlic. And when they got some they were generous enough to share it with me. They used the “slanina” to reinforce the prison food. They crushed the garlic and spread it over the bread crust to avoid getting sick. They also rubbed their gums with

garlic to prevent gum disease and keep their teeth healthy. Also included in the winter food was cooked “hvoj,” instead of tea, made from pine needles. The needles had vitamin C and kept us from getting sick. This way they could keep us half living and half dead.

Various events at Camp 21

Camp 21 was a big religious world of all sorts of sects. And low and behold a lot of them were there because of their religious beliefs. Stalin was taught religion in a seminary, at least that’s what he told these believers, especially about the Sabbath, children of Jove and others. When I started telling them that I too had studied religion in school and quoted some of the prayers and sermons I knew, some raised their hands in praise. One morning when we were all lined up, the Camp Chief informed us that some prisoners from Vorkuta Camp had tried to escape along with a pilot, who made an attempt to hijack a small plane. Among the prisoners attempting to escape was Paskal Mitrevski. I shivered when I heard his name but at the same time I felt a strange joy knowing that my comrades were still alive and somewhere in the surrounding camps, be it in one of the worst prisons - Nizhnij. The people around me noticed that I was excited by the announcement, so one of them asked me if I knew any of the names mentioned. I said: “I know one of them personally. He was a Minister in the Provisional Government of Greece.” They often told such stories in all the USSR camps to frighten the inmates. At one time new inmates were brought to our camp. I wondered where they were from. We were told that they were bringing them from the Karaganda camps. They were imprisoned Red Army officers along with their supporters who had rebelled against Soviet authority. Three days after the rebellion, tanks and bulldozers rolled in and killed most of them. The ones left alive were rounded up and sent to the camps. There was also a camp for women convicted of theft and other non-political offenses. They called these women “bitoviki” but mostly “suki” (bitches). When they quarreled among themselves and fought they bit their noses. Most of the women in our camp were Ukrainian, young girls, about whom I wrote earlier. A woman physician from Leningrad experienced a similar fate as them. She told me that during the war and in peace time physicians examined only sick patients, not just anybody. But during the siege of Leningrad she gave medical aid to all the wounded, including wounded Germans. For helping the Germans she received 25 years imprisonment and 5 years deprivation of political rights after being freed. At her trial they said that she was serving the occupier by treating the wounded Germans. The court gave her a severe sentence even though, as a doctor, she had sworn to treat everyone in need of help. The Ukrainian women, who as young girls were abducted and

forced to serve German families, were also charged with “assisting the occupier” and sent to prison. On March 5th, 1953 we received news from our camp warden that Visarionovich Joseph Stalin was dead. We were not touched by his passing, on the contrary, a lot of prisoners yelled: “He should have died a long time ago the ‘zvoloch’.” I said to Urania maybe now they would release us. And she said: “And you believe that we will go back to Macedonia!?” I said: “Yes and you will be walking around the square in Skopje.” She did not believe that, she had different thoughts. After the “sad news” nothing changed in the camp. We went to the “sofhozi” who worked the farms and planted potatoes, beets, carrots, etc. and we picked crops. The prisoners practically secured their own food, in other words the prisoners looked after themselves. We picked the food and ate some raw. We were hungry and our stomachs needed filling especially with vitamin rich raw food. The Siberian soil was fertile, unfortunately the growing season was very short. But for a two month summer, the growth did very well. I saw tiny apples there. They said the apples trees were planted there by the scientist Michurin. Besides working in the fields we also cut trees in the forest. There was nothing there to see or experience. The guards marked off the four sides of our limit of where to cut trees and we did the cutting. The limits were marked off by placing four stakes into the ground with cross planks nailed on them and with the words “Forbidden Zone” painted on the planks. One time we cut a pine tree whose top fell beyond the limits of the “Forbidden Zone” and a German woman went outside the zone to cut the branches. The guard yelled at her to “get back” but she did not understand what he said and continued cutting. The guard then immediately opened fire on her with his weapon and killed her. That day the entire brigade rebelled but before we had a chance to complain to anyone the guard threatened to kill us all saying that she was aiming to flee. In sympathy, as a sign of our condemnation, we all began to laugh! Where in God’s name would she have gone up in those mountains and how would she have survived in that cold jungle. It was funny but tragic. We were immediately ordered to load the cut timber onto the truck and go back to camp. They did not allow us to take the murdered woman with us or bury her there. Her body was left to freeze and decompose after it had thawed; like a dead animal.

Camp 9

In 1954 I was transferred from Camp 21, to a camp called “Shtrofnaja Kolona.” Urania remained in Camp 21. Some of my friends, of whom I wrote earlier, thought that I was going to be released, so they gave me their photographs and addresses in hopes of contacting their families and themselves when they were released. The camp to which I moved was smaller, with fewer prisoners. Most were Romanian, Czechoslovakian, German and Russian women. Most of the Russian women had previously lived in China. The German women were Russian citizens who had lived in Russia for a long time. Some were Ukrainian. In other words they were mostly foreigners. There I met a Ukrainian woman who told me a horror story that a person simply could not believe. After the October Revolution, before the Second World War, when their village was turned into a “kolhoz” (collective, SR3), that is, when their land underwent collectivization, many people became very poor and turned to cannibalism. There was nothing to eat so people started eating people. She was so frightened that she ran away from her village on foot. When they found her they put her on a train to Moscow where she was taken to a home. During the war, along with many Ukrainian families who had fled from the Ukraine, she was taken to Siberia to work in a factory that built pipelines. She told the story of what had happened and why she had fled but no one believed her. For fleeing she was sentenced to ten years in prison to be served in the prison camps in Siberia. She was a beautiful girl. When the Ukrainian women got together they sang “chastushki”, they had wonderful voices. It reminded me of my village D’mbeni of when the girls used to get together and sing as a group. We were called the “Kosturianki.” Conditions in Camp 9 were appalling. Soon the snow began to melt. We were cutting trees up in the mountains where they said they were preparing the land to build a town. They pushed us hard to clear the ground and prepare it for building houses. In July two groups of prisoners were dispatched there to a large meadow. They gave us scythes to cut the grass that had grown quite high. The place was called “Mishova Koliba.” There we were greeted by a Siberian man who lived somewhere nearby. We cut the grass according to his instructions. A few days later, after the grass had dried we picked it up and stored it in a silo as cattle feed for the winter, but we did not see any cattle anywhere. They probably had farms somewhere nearby. The place got its name from Misho, the hermit. Here I got a “promotion.” They put me in charge of one of the brigades responsible for cutting the grass because the

Siberian man thought that I was an excellent grass mower. In the fall they took us back to where we were cutting trees. By then the place had been cleared, probably by a brigade of men from the camps. In the “Taeisheski” terrain, “Irkudska” Region, as we were told by the old camp inmates, there were about one hundred male and female camps of political prisoners and of “bitoviki.” The houses in the area were built with pine and cedar tree trunks by the male prisoners. Our brigade’s job was to plaster and paint the insides during the month of November. It was not an easy job because the mortar would not stick to the wood and kept falling off. It was torture. The houses were short. One day a Romanian woman, named Ira, and I climbed on the roof of one of these houses to build a chimney. I put mortar on the brick and the mortar would immediately freeze. We were unable to build the chimney no matter how hard we tried.

I heard the best news – of freedom

While Ira and I were torturing ourselves trying to build the damn chimney we heard the woman responsible for the “bitoviki” camp shout: “Nikolovskaja, na svoboda!” “Nikolovskaja na svoboda!” I tossed my trowel and told Ira to build the damn chimney by herself. I then jumped off the roof and, together with the woman in charge of the camp, went to the governor’s office. He took both of my names and surnames and said that, as per the USSR Supreme Prosecutor, I was exempt from the penalty and prosecution and I was free to go but I would have to wait until others were available to travel. Ever since Stalin’s death I had expected that something would happen to us because we were innocent of the charges leveled against us. Many of us who were freed from our charges gathered together. Most were German women who were covered by the agreement between Chancellor Adenauer and the Soviet authorities. The Germans, until Stalin’s death, were living in miserable poverty. With bags in their hands they gathered crumbs and other refuse from the tables to survive. After the agreement was signed they began to receive letters and packages of food. They suddenly raised their heads and became superior to us. What misery! They quickly forgot that until then we had shared everything and fought together to survive. At the end of January 1955 they loaded us onto a train and as we passed from station to station where they loaded all the prisoners that were freed from the other camps. When we came to the main railway station in Taishet they loaded the men; Germans, Russians and other nationalities in separate cars. The prisoners told us that in 1954 they also released Ruslanova, a popular singer who opposed Stalin on behalf of her husband. Stalin had her jailed just for that, so after his death she was freed. She traveled with us. On the platform in Taishet she asked for permission to sing to the prisoners. After she was released she sang for a long time. We heard her voice on the radio when we were interned in Kazakhstan. She was one of the most popular singers in the USSR.

I met up with Mincho after five and a half years of separation

Our travel by train, with the stops we made at all the stations and by changing direction to accommodate all those being freed from all other camps, lasted nearly two months. We arrived at Camp Potma, at the camp station for all foreign nationals, in early March 1955. When the camp gates opened I saw Risto Kolentsev wearing an “ushalka” hat without ties and “botinki” without laces. He recognized me from my uniform and said: “Vera, Mincho is here and so is everyone else!” They didn’t come with me here because they had to return to the barracks. Our group was asked to go to the camp admission office to fill out some paperwork. A while later Mincho arrived with Paskal. I had a hard time recognizing Mincho. Physically he had changed a lot. After they took my information at the office I got to visit with them. Risto had told them that I had arrived here and they rushed over to find me. Mincho said: “We have been waiting here for more than a month and I have been asking everyone if you were alive and why you hadn’t arrived? Because we were interned for the same offense, you too should have been released the same time I was.” From there we went to the barracks to visit with Lambro Cholakov and Tashko Hadzhiianov, who had arrived from the Vorkuta Camp, and Lazar Poplazarov from Siberia. There were many Yugoslavs in the barracks, mostly Serbs and a Macedonian from Skopje, a lieutenant. Most had been with Mincho in Vorkuta. We were still missing Rakovski and Urania. We hugged and kissed each other, being grateful that we were still alive and for a moment forgot our troubles and our long suffering in silence. Potma was a huge camp, a collection of all foreign nationals. We were sure that from here we would be going to Macedonia. All other prisoners, every day, were being sent to their home countries; especially the Germans who were asking to go to West Germany. Mincho at the time met up with Milan, a Serb with whom he had worked in a coal mine in Varkuta. Milan had given Mincho a cigarette box which he had made from lignite coal and engraved with dates. Mincho had told him about me. They came together. As I got to know Milan I found him to be a wonderful person. He told Mincho: “Let's go to Aleksandar’s.” Aleksandar was also a Serb appointed “narjadchik” of the entire Potma camp. Aleksandar asked us to go with him. There was a separate small room in one of the barracks which belonged to a Hungarian woman. We all went together. Aleksandar asked the woman to vacate the room. He said: “Please go somewhere else. This room now belongs to the most beautiful couple in the camp who for years has been separated and did not know about each other or if they were alive

or dead!” The Hungarian woman left without saying a word and immediately moved into the general barracks for women. Aleksandar told everyone that “Verochka and Mincho, the most beautiful couple in the camp, were separated in Vorkuta and Siberia for 5 years and now finally they are together.” Being located together in that room gave our friends a chance to find us and visit with us. Everyone had a story of suffering to tell us. Paskal named us “the happiest couple in the camp” In the camp I also met up with my friend Elizabeta Shvinkovskaja, with whom I had spent time in Camp 21 and who had written her address on a canvas for me to contact her family before I was moved to Camp 9. But instead of releasing me earlier they released us both at the same time. Elizabeta was happy to see me again. I introduced her to Mincho and Paskal. We were there together for ten days. She was familiar with Mincho’s and my situation. She left before we did. She said that in Germany she would preach socialism, we had had enough of wars and separation of families. For the first time they gave us permission to send cards to our families through the International Red Cross. From all my friends I was the only one who remembered my mother’s address in Bitola (6 “Mirche Atsev”). I sent her a card to let her know that I was alive and well. I dated the card March 1, 1955 and I still have it. For days my mother slept with it. She got it two months after I sent it. She told all our relatives and friends, got them together and cooked roasted lamb for them to celebrate. My poor mother, she had only me. The card did not have my address because I did not know where we were.

Interned in Kazakhstan instead of going to Macedonia

We were expecting to be released so that we could go home to Macedonia but instead they told us: “You are not going to Yugoslavia; you are going to prison in Kazakhstan, in Alma Ata.” I was not given the “news” directly about this but when I found out that I would be separated from Mincho I reacted sharply. I wanted to know from those making these decisions: “Why are you separating us again?!” As much as the world is large it is small, as much as it is beautiful it is loud! The German fascists were rehabilitated and everything was forgiven. They were released and allowed to go home but not us; the people who had fought on their side against fascism. Some Justice this was! Since I was not told in person that I was going to Alma Alta, Mincho and Paskal figured that maybe they would be sending me to Macedonia. Paskal said: “Maybe they will let you go to Macedonia and from there you can help us.” We were to be separated again and sent into the unknown. A few days later Pavle Rakovski arrived followed by Urania Pirovska. I introduced Urania to Milan. We were housed in the barracks for women. I thought that Urania would remain in Irkutdsk and work in the mica plant because that’s what she had told me before I left for Camp 9. She told me this because she did not believe they would be letting us go and it would not be possible for us to go to Skopje in Macedonia. As it happened however, Urania was released and arrived in Potma and became friends with Milan. On March 25th the authorities summoned Pavle Rakovski and myself and informed us that we too would be leaving for Kazakhstan. They gave us civilian clothes and a sealed envelope with information on where to report in Alma Ata. We received rations of bread and canned food for five days. Urania remained in the camp with Milan. Rakovski and I arrived at the Alma Ata railway station on April 2, 1955. The first thing for us to do was report to the police station in Alma Ata, but how were we to go there when we did not know where it was or how to get to it. Even if we had known where it was we had no money to pay the fare to get us there. I had a pair of shoes that the Red Cross had given me with my civilian clothing. I said: “Pavle why don’t we sell my shoes. I don’t need them, they are too big and they are men’s shoes.” We summoned a taxi and as it happened the driver was Russian. I said: “We have no money but we need to report to the main police station. We are not from here. Will you take these shoes as payment? How much will you give us for the shoes and also to take us there?” The man had had experience with people like us. He paid us 10 rubles for the shoes; he kept 8 for the ride and gave us 2. The taxi driver took us and left us in front of the police station. They were

expecting us. They had been warned of our pending arrival. We presented ourselves and our information to the police and asked them where we could find our comrades who had arrived there a short time before us. They told us they did not know exactly where they were located because they were supposed to go to a “sofhoz” out of town, but they did not want to go there and told the police that they would be on their own for a while. The police had no problem with that as long as they reported to the police station once every month. So where were we going to go now?! The police told us to report to the Red Cross and perhaps they could help us and maybe they could tell us the whereabouts of our comrades. We took a streetcar and went to the Red Cross but it the town Red Cross. We needed to go to the National Red Cross. Again we got on the streetcar and went to the National Red Cross where they told us: “Two people were here inquiring about you because the police had told them that you would be arriving.” “So where do we look for them?” I asked. One of them said: “They were headed towards the green market” (Alma Ata had a green market). We again got on the streetcar and criss-crossed Alma Ata. Fortunately we managed to travel all over this unfamiliar city with only two rubles and with some “kopejki” to spare because a streetcar ticket cost only two “kopejki.” When we passed through the green market I spotted Mincho and Lambro Chokalov on the left side of the pavement, walking briskly through the market looking for us. They had been looking for us all day. When I saw them through the streetcar window I screamed as loud as I could: “Minchooo!” They heard me and turned towards the streetcar. “We kept going back and forth from the police station to the Red Cross looking for you,” Mincho explained. “Where are you located?” I asked. “When we were coming to Alma Ata we met a disabled Russian military man returning from Sochi, where he was on vacation, and he invited us to stay at his house. His house is located at the end of the last station at number 9, house number 92,” Mincho explained. With our last “kopejki” we took the streetcar back to the man’s house where all the others were also located. Valendin Diukov’s house was a single storey building. It had three rooms and a yard. When we arrived we were greeted by Valendin and his wife, Aunt Shura. They were good Russian people with hospitable souls. They were happy to see me because Mincho had told them about me. Valendin said: “Ah, you must be Misha’s friend?” They called Mincho, Misha. They gave Mincho and me the smaller room and the others, Paskal Mitrevski, Lambro Cholakov, Lazar Poplazarov, Hristo Kolentsev, Tashko Hadzhiianov and Pavle Rakovski were placed in the large room. Most had to sleep on planks or on the floor. It was

important that we were all indoors and not under open skies. On the other side of Valendin’s fence there was a house that belonged to his sister and niece Klavdija. The fence had a door through which you could go to their garden. A day or two later Lambro, Lazar and Tashko relocated there. A few days later we all went to the National Red Cross to seek help. We were received by Ana Mitrofanova Chernish. She was Second Secretary and according to the Party line, she was responsible for providing assistance. She advised us to report to the “Profsojuzi” so that they could give us work. Lambro and Lazar left immediately to make contact with the “Tras Sibirska trasa” contractor. We had no means of getting food. During our first days there we ate all of Valendin’s potatoes, which he used to feed his pig. He gave us those potatoes under the condition that we replenish them as soon as we got paying jobs. One day when we were returning to the city by streetcar, we went into a shop, not to buy anything but just to see what they were selling. We spoke Greek so that the shop clerk would not know that we had no money. But, as it turned out, that benefited us more than we could imagine. The clerk approached us and said: “Are you Greeks?” One of us spoke up and said that we were from Greece and explained our situation, that we had been in the prison camps, had been released and that we were now interned here in Alma Ata. The woman told us that there were many Greeks and their families from the Caucasus interned there who were relocated from the camps. Our mercy! The clerk filled a bag with rice, sugar, bread and other products and gave it to us. It was encouraging to hear that there were Greeks employed in the hospitality industry and that they would help us find employment. The clerk’s name was Maria, a young woman. We told her where we were located and that we would be seeing her again. We thanked her for everything she had done for us and told her that we were indebted to her. On the way home Mincho and I were joking around quoting folk sayings: “Oh mother give me birth with luck, toss me on the manure heap and I should be okay!” Some “okay.” But the proverb was coming true for us. One morning while going to the green market in that part of town, Mincho found ten rubles. This was another surprise. At the market we met another employee named Maria, an older woman, who had heard about us from the younger Maria from the store. She had heard what had happened to us. Both her son and husband were taken to the prison camps. She lived here with her mother-in-law. So it was true that “many Greeks lived in Alma Ata.” She told us that Stalin had moved the entire Caucasus to the prisons here and that they were all getting by, working in the catering business. Maria also introduced us to Aunt

Evgenia. Her brother Savas Kostandinidis was director of the “Stolovi i Restorani” enterprise in town. She also introduced us to him. They had a sister who had moved to Solun but they did not know her address. We said that if we ever returned to Greece we would try to find her. Human destinies! After a week or two, thanks to Maria and Evgenia who vouched for us at the “Profsojuzi”, we were hired in the hospitality industry. Mincho was employed at the enterprise “Stolovi i Restorani” where Savas Kostandinidis worked and I was employed at the XIII “Stolovaja” canteen. It was a canteen for the medical faculty. I was accepted very warmly by the staff. All these people were martyrs like us, Greeks, Russians, Chechens, Tatars, Jews, Gypsies and us, nine Macedonians. Risto Kolenchev was employed at another canteen in shipping and receiving where he received goods and then shipped them to other canteens and restaurants. Tashko Hadzhiianov worked with him. Paskal Mitrevski was employed as a controller in a bus station. Only Pavle Rakovski at the time was unemployed. He stayed with us in the small room. At our jobs we were also given food and little by little we began to gain back our physical stature and began to look more like human beings again. Lambro, during his first days in shipping and receiving, broke his leg and had to take sick leave. In the meantime Urania arrived from Potma. She also came to live with us and was employed as a controller at the bus station. But soon all of the men found themselves girlfriends and one by one moved out. Urania went with Lambro. Pavle Rakovski met a teacher named Maria, a Ukrainian woman whom he introduced to us. She was a Partisan in Brezhnev’s Unit. Brezhnev then was appointed Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan by Khrushchev. We were all employed; I worked at the canteen where Aunt Maria, a lovely Jewish woman who cared for me, was in charge. Maria did not know the whereabouts of her own family or if they were alive or dead. She put me in charge of cutting bread for the tables for the students. After they were finished eating whatever bread and other food was left over I collected in a bag and took it home for the others. I walked to and from work because my pay was only 16 rubles a month and I wanted to save my money. I knew a shortcut which took only 20 minutes. Aunt Maria was educated and was a very smart woman. One time she asked me: “Verochka, why do you collect the leftover food from the tables? We feed that to the animals.” I was embarrassed and began to cry. I told her about my situation and my concern for my friends. She then said: “Listen Verochka, from now on take a whole uncut loaf of bread, not the leftovers.” A couple of days later she said: