Burned Final

Stefanos A.
Gerontis
The burned villages

Memories of the destruction of the western villages of Ierapetra in 1943
LASITHI PREFECTURE 2008
Stefanos A. Gerontis, The burned villages. Memories of the destruction of the western villages of Ierapetra in 1943 Translation: Yiannis Pontikes 1st edition: August 2008 ISBN: 978-960-87025-8-5
Lasithi Prefecture I. Politehniou 1, Z.C. 72100, Ayios Nikolaos Crete, Hellas Tel. 003-28413-40421, Fax 003-28413-40422 e-mail: prognal2@lasithinet.gr http://www.holocaust-lasithi.eu Map Selena Editions - Giorgis N. Petrakis Thalita 13, Z.C. 71202, Heraklion, Crete Tel. 003-2810-242012, Fax 003-2810-282630 e-mail: selena1@her.forthnet.gr Layout Printing: Graphic Arts TYPOKRETA Heraklion Industrial Park, Crete Tel. 003-2810-382800 e-mail: info@kazanakis.gr http://www.typokreta.gr This publication was made under the project Memories from the holocaust of Ierapetras western villages of the Europe for Citizens Programme 2007-2013, Action 4: Active European Remembrance and was financed with the contribution of the European Commission.
Coordinator: Stefanos Gerontis Personnel: Konstandina Daskaloyianni This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
How many wrongdoings do the sun witness during the day, the moon at dawn and the stars during the evening
Chrisanthi Kasokeraki
Introductory note for this publication The Lasithi Prefecture within the framework of the project: Memories of the holocaust of the western villages of Ierapetra, has proceeded to the publication of the present book aiming at preserving the memory of the holocaust in the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra, focusing on the villages of the western Ierapetra. This project is part of the program Europe for the citizens, 2007-2013, action 4, Active European Remembrance and is co-funded 60% by the EU. The goal of the project is to record the testimonies of the survivors that are related to the Nazi holocaust of the villages in the western Ierapetra, in September of 1943, keeping this memory alive for the present and future generations. We consider that the promotion of the historical memory to the youth is important. The linguistic directness of the speech of every narrator is without academic verbalisms and therefore, understandable, comprehensible, and above all, familiar, thus guaranteeing the response of the young community. The protection of the memory of the struggle and of the testimonies of our people is a priority of the Lasithi Prefecture that proceeds to an act having as direct recipients the young population by using the mere voice of those that lived the destruction: our grandfathers and grandmothers. We warmly thank all the narrators for their kindness and response to our effort. We assure that we will continue in the same spirit and with the same eagerness in the close future to strengthen and expand this effort, giving the floor to our fellow citizens themselves, in order to communicate their experiences and their views on important personal and, by extension, historical issues. Agios Nikolaos, August 2008 The Prefect of Lasithi Antonis Stratakis
Acknowledgements I would like to thank all those that supported this effort and contributed to the creation of this edition. The head of the Planning and Programming Department of Lasithi Prefecture, Manolis Zaharenakis, for his support throughout all the heavy bureaucratic burden and also my colleagues Yiorgos Marakis, Yiannis Panteladis, Yiannis Kefaloyiannis and Vangelia Visviki for their constructive criticism in many conversations during the project. Hristos Zafiropoulos, who even though was far away, helped decisively whenever asked. Magda Pontiki and the personnel of the Transcription Department of DEPANAL, who despite their tight schedule embraced the project and responded perfectly to their assigned work. The participants of the 14th Panhellenic Post-graduate Seminar Conference for Doctorands organised by the Workshop for Social Analysis and Applied Social Research of the Department of Sociology of the University of Crete for their comments and help at the beginning of the project and specially Skevos Papaioannou, Yiorgos Tsiolis and Manos Savakis. Also Yiannis Hristakis and Yiorgos Hristakis, unwearying scholars of their local history who immediately embraced and supported the project with all means at their disposal. I sincerely thank all those who opened their home doors and accepted me as one of their own, surprising me with their kindness and hospitality. They will always have a special place in my heart. I hope I havent let them down. Finally, I want to thank Vicky, always there, patient, critical, caustic when required, but above all helpful and supportive in all my efforts.
INDEX
PART I
Greece under occupation ........................................................................................ The destruction of the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra ................................... The Narrations ..........................................................................................................
PART II
15 17 21
Narrations Mirtos Evangelia Dimitrianaki Andreopouli ..................................................................... Manolis Daskalakis ................................................................................................... Antonis Papadakis .................................................................................................... Gdohia Maria Archontikaki Dimitrianaki .......................................................................... Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki ........................................................................................... Father Yiannadakis Kostas ...................................................................................... Giorgos Daskalakis ................................................................................................... Mournies Evangelia Kimaki Samprovalaki ............................................................................. Yiannis Samprovalakis ............................................................................................. Yiannis Damaskinakis .............................................................................................. Riza Giorgos Doksanakis ................................................................................................. Chrisanthi Kasokeraki Alexomanolaki .................................................................. Manolis Kartsomichelakis and Maria Alexaki ...................................................... Vangelis Christakis ................................................................................................... Males Galatia Mathioudaki Terzaki ................................................................................... Michalis Ksiristakis .................................................................................................. Iordanis Tsakirakis ................................................................................................... Mithi Yiannis Christakis .................................................................................................... Manolis Vagionakis .................................................................................................. 33 57 64 85 93 101 111 126 139 154 170 191 204 206 231 238 253 268 283
Ierapetra Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki ............................................................................. 288 References .................................................................................................................. 297
PART I
Greece under occupation The resistance of Greece against the Axis has been a brake on its desires, from the moment Mussolinis ultimatum was rejected on the 28th of October of 1940. In that winter, the initial restraint of the Italian intruders in Pindos mountain ended up with their repulse in Albania. The subsequent involvement of Germany left no room for illusions and from the 6th of April of 1941, Wehrmacht commenced its passage reaching Athens on the 27th of the same month. The final blow came at the end of May with the conquering of Crete, that gave in after resisting for many days. The machine could now make its way, without distractions, to the Soviet Union. What followed still echoes in everybodys ears with terror: the occupation. The first example is set in Kandanos of Chania on the 2nd of June: three hundred inhabitants are executed and the village is eradicated. The German forces, now being occupational ones, write on their leave: There was Kandanos once here1. The first period of activity between the forces of the Axis in occupied Greece concludes with the determination of occupational zones (Mazower, 1994: 46-48) with the Germans being in Crete (apart from the Prefecture of Lasithi that belonged to the Italians), Piraeus, Thessalonica and the mainland in Macedonia, Evros, Limnos, Lesvos and Chios. Their Bulgarian allies possess eastern Macedonia and western Thrace. Finally, the Italians dominate in the rest of Greece. The occupation (that will end with the repulse of the German forces in the autumn of 19442) is characterised by incidents and actions that
1
For a concise presentation of the victims by mass executions and holocausts in Greece during the occupation, see National Council for the assertion of Germanys debts to Greece, 2006: 60-91. 2 The Fortress Crete (now in Souda) was surrendered in 9th of May, 1945.
16
THE BURNED VILLAGES
will remain as indelible memories for many generations of Greeks: financial collapse, actions of expropriating and looting which lead quickly to economic crisis (unemployment, inflationary pressures, black market), the famine in Athens, roadblocks, individual and mass executions, holocausts, displacement and extinction of the Greek-Jews, are only parts of the suffering during occupation. Nonetheless, in this dark play there is a great protagonist too: the National Resistance that succeeded in juxtaposing the legitimate government in Athens with a free pole in the mountains of Greece. The account can only be an approximation (National Council for the assertion of Germanys debts to Greece: op. cit.: 126): 13.327 dead during the 40-41 war, 56.225 executed, 7.120 dead after bombings, 105.000 dead in concentration camps, 20.6503 dead in battles of National Resistance, 1.100 dead in the Middle East, 3.500 casualties in the Merchant Navy. In addition, 600.000 estimated dead from hunger and diseases. Regarding Europe as a whole, the losses in the war are literally impossible to calculate (Mazower, 2001: 210 Hobsbawm, 2002: 64-65). Is there any value after all to the statistical accuracy, if there were six, five or four millions of Jews exterminated, if there were five hundred or two hundred thousand of Roma that died, if among the 5.7 millions of USSR war prisoners in Germany 3.3 millions died, or if the total number amounts to forty million approximately? The numbers fall short compared with the conclusion that WWII was a total war, a war to the extreme, of domination and survival. Fascism, the main ideological pole of the era between 20 and 40, comprises, according to Payne (2000: 36-37): ...a form of revolutionary ultra-nationalism for national rebirth that is based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the Fhrerprinzip, positively values violence as end as well as means and tends to normatize war and/or the military virtues.
2 3
The Fortress Crete (now in Souda) was surrendered in 9th of May, 1945. German data.
MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA
17
What frightens us even more is that fascism was born, matured and spread by our fellows. Attributing fascism to the other one as something foreign to us is an irresponsible and ultimately dangerous position. The understanding of the devastating WWII can not be achieved through analyses that refer to the psychopath of insane dictators such as Hitler (Mazower, op. cit.: 42) or to innate tendencies of the German life: according to Payne (op. cit.: 218-219) the understanding goes through the perception of interaction of destructive ultranationalist tendencies with the unique chain of crises and traumas which afflicted the German society in the two decades between 1914 and 1933 that were without precedence in the history of other European countries. In any case, the memory and the interpretation of our past is a crucial point for the present and the future. We thus turn our attention to those who lived this total war asking them to recall it to their memory. The destruction of the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra CRETANS During the last days, armed gangs were engaged in insidious operations against German soldiers in a particular part of the island, during which a number of German soldiers were killed or wounded. It has been ascertained with certainty that the inhabitants of the referred areas not only were aware of the existence of these gangs, but in addition supplied them with food, shelter and in general all possible support. Against this part of the island severe measures have been taken and a number of these communities ceased to exist. With the present document, an imperative appeal is addressed to the peaceful population, to report with no delay to the nearest German authority all noticed gangs created, thus preventing themselves and their relatives from the fortune of their compatriots that have been deceived by the anglo-american and communist propaganda. 13 September 1943 The Commander of the Fortress of Crete
18
THE BURNED VILLAGES
The above announcement (Hristakis, 2000: 205) by Bruno Bruer in Cretan newspapers follows the spirit of the euphemisms of the Third Reich4. The phrase has been ascertained with certainty is followed by the cease of existence of the villages in the area: all people and everything cease to exist. The machine unveils its horror upon civilians. The leading command goes to divisional commander Mller who commands (Christakis, op. cit.: 206): Destroy the region of Viannos. Execute at once, with no procedures, the males older than 16 years old and everyone arrested in the country, irrespective of sex and age. The insanity of the expressions while the massacre is in progress, stops against nothing (Mazower, op. cit.: 218): Operation Viannos: 280 Greeks were shot by now, as they were running away. The region of Viannos till 1934 was subjected to the prefecture of Lasithi. Its administrational structure included the part of the region that belongs today to the prefecture of Heraklion as well as the villages of the western Ierapetra that belong today to the prefecture of Lasithi5 (up to the river that flows into Mirtos). The group of the villages that were the target of the German troops those days, lay in the south part of mountain Diktis up to the seaside zone. In Diktis, groups of rebels were based in their hideout at Hametis since early 43 and were operational in the broader area. The man in charge was Manolis Mpantouvas. The prefecture of Lasithi, since late May of 1941 when the troops of division Siena disembarked in Sitia (Kokolakis, 1988: 24), was under Italian command experiencing an occupation with mild characteristics in comparison of course with the occupation by the Germans (Kazantzakis, et al., 1945: 335). The signing of the truce by Italy in September of 1943 triggered the initiation of tragic developments in the area (Kazantzakis et al., op. cit. Hatzakis, 1961 Hristakis, op. cit. Papadakis, 2002, Dimitrianakis, 2003 Hristakis, 2007):
Mazowers (1994: 271-227) analysis that deals with the massacre in Kommeno of Artas on the 16 of August in 1943 is interesting. It is on the role of the vocabulary used by Third Reich within the framework of legitimising its criminal actions. 5 By the law 5480/10-5-1932 (/A/159/1932) put in effect in 1934, the administration of these villages was transferred to the region of Ierapetra.
4
19
8 of September Official announcement of the truce between the Italian and the Allied forces that had invaded Italy. 9 of September Extermination of the German guardhouse by a group of rebels with two German soldiers as victims. 11 of September A decision is made by the rebel groups to defend Simi from probable invasion by the Germans. 12 of September German forces have gathered in Ano Viannos and march to Simi with a small number of civilians captured for their protection. In the morning, they fall into an ambush set up by the rebels and are inflicted utter defeat by the afternoon (Battle of Kato Simi). Twelve Germans are captured by the rebels and are led to Hameti. 13 of September A forbidden zone is declared that extends from Ano Viannos to Parsa, including the seaside zone. The German troops in the region are reinforced and they commence their operations. Habitants of the villages Sikologos and Kalami are captured and transported to the high-school in Ano Viannos. Kato Simi and Pano Simi are set on fire. 14 of September (day of the Holy Cross) People get captured in Ano Viannos and are transported to the high-school. Executions6 in Ano Vianno (2), Vaho (22), Amira (114), Kefalovrisi (36), Krevata (21), Agios Vasilios (33), Pefko (16, from
The number of the people executed is provided in brackets, according to the village they were from. The majority of the people executed coincides with the place they were executed apart from the case of Parsa (today called Metaxohori) where they were all executed in Riza (the editing of the name list of those executed in the region of Viannos in the period 19411944 is found in Hristakis, 2000: 443-455).
20
THE BURNED VILLAGES
the 12th of September till the 17th), Kato Simi (22, in 14th and 16th of September), Sikologos (17). Pefkos is set on fire. 15 of September (day of Saint Nikitas) Executions in Mirtos (17) and Christos (9). Mirtos is set on fire. 16 of September Executions in Gdohia (38), Riza (20), Mournies (17), Males (17), Parsa (7) and Mithous (4). Gdohia, Mournies and the Kaimenos settlement in Riza are set on fire. 17 of September A price is put by the Germans on the head of the Italian commander General Carta who has joined the Allied forces and he is eventually helped to escape from Crete (20 of September). 19 of September The groups of rebels abandon the hideout and mountain Diktis and leave behind a group with few members to set the prisoners of the Battle of Kato Simi free. They set them free indeed. The prisoners are executed eventually in another location by a group of rebels under the commands of Christos Mpantouvas. 26 of September The prisoners in the high-school of Ano Viannos are released after the efforts made by clerical and other authorities. 30 of September An order is issued to evacuate the villages Sikologos, Kalami, Simi, Pefkos, Kefalovrisi and Krevatas. 14 of October Specially trained German teams start blowing up houses with explosives and demolishing the houses in the afore-mentioned six villages. 17 of October A German airplane drops leaflets in the broader area that state,
7
Executed in Gdohia on the 16th of September.
21
among other things (Dimitrianakis, op. cit.: 403): The forbidden zones in the regions of the gangs are lifted. People started to return gradually to the villages of the western Ierapetra, Gdohia, Mournies, Riza and Mithi. A five kilometres long forbidden zone by the seaside, that includes Mirtos, still remains. A precise account is difficult to be made. The move of the German troops is characterised by dispersion whereas the executions took place outside of the villages too, whenever they found civilians in the wider zone. The total of the victims these days amounts to at least 400. At least 129 of them are from the villages of the western Ierapetra (Mirtos, Gdohia, Riza, Mournies, Mithi, Males, Christos and Parsas). According to the Ascertainment Report of the Central Committee for the Atrocities in Crete, by Kazantzakis, Kakridis and Kalitsounakis (op. cit.: 307), the total number of houses that were destroyed comes up to 945. Out of them, 360 account for the villages of Ierapetra (110 in Mirtos, 100 in Gdohia, 110 in Mournies and 30 in Riza). The German troops withdrew from Viannos in September of 1944. In 1947 (April-June) the formation and extermination of the new rebels movement in the mountains of Viannos by Yiannis Podias followed: Greece had now entered the era of civil war that engraved indelibly its modern history. The narrations Advancing from Ierapetra toward the west, a few kilometres before you reach the seaside Mirtos, you come across a scenery that transforms along your way: the relatively arid and indifferent zone is metamorphosed into a landscape full of green with spectacular mountains in the horizon that accommodate the so-called, burned8 villages. The seaside town of Mirtos provides a contemporary picture of a growth model based on tourism that managed to sustain its population
8
In Cretan dialect: Kaimena (in Greek: ).
22
THE BURNED VILLAGES
by offering incomes beyond the customary ones coming from agriculture and stock-breeding. All other villages, as you climb the foot of mountain Diktis, make you feel that they strive for survival. Their populational development from the war till today is declining, whereas as you reach the villages that are higher in the mountain, the desertion becomes all too apparent9. These villages comprise the theatrical scene for the operations of the German intruder after its march from the villages of Viannos. In the entrance of the village or in the main square, a war memorial is standing, enumerating names and reminding that something evil took place here: Mirtos Murdered by the Germans, Gdohia Executed by the German troops, Mournies Executed by the Germans, Riza Executed by the Germans, Mithoi Died for the Country, Males Mass Execution by the Germans, Christos In Memory of those Executed by the Occupational Army. As you wander, you run into people in the rhythm of their everyday activities. Curious as to how and why you found yourself there, they open at once the door of their houses and talk with you. Our meetings had an unexpected topic for them: to record their narrations for the events of that September, the experience of the occupation, their subsequent effort to recover. No matter how unexpected it seemed it was nonetheless familiar. In view of the intimacy of death, of hunger, of resistance fight, of exile, of fear, of courage, of struggle for survival, we gave and give our full attention and respect.
Actual population of the villages of western Ierapetra:
Mirtos
Gdohia Mournies Riza
Mithi
Males Hristos
Parsas -Metaxohori 281 55 -80%
1940 2001 Change
397 277 440 92 +11% -67%
234 83 -65%
138 77 -44%
289 287 -1%
1.193 499 -58%
683 110 -84%
(Data for 1940: Ministry of Interior Affairs, 1962 Data for 2001: National Statistical Service of Greece, n.d.).
23
1. The narrators In our effort we have not included narrators from the villages of Viannos. Factors relating to time, financial and geographical constraints did not allow us to head to these villages too. Narrations from the habitants of Viannos will be able to provide additional dimensions of the destruction (in the broader meaning) by adding new expressions. This was our priority and there have been contacts with authorities for our future collaboration within the framework of a similar effort. The narrators therefore, are or were inhabitants of the villages of western Ierapetra10 and lived directly or indirectly the events of that September. They were born between 1913 and 1937 (they were between 6 and 30 years old in 1943). Eight of them are women and thirteen are men.
10
Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki who lived in Ierapetra is an exception.
24
THE BURNED VILLAGES
Since October 2007 we have been in contact with experts and key persons whereas in the same time we have been inside the villages promoting our effort and getting to know the inhabitants. The process of composing the group of narrators followed the principles of the theoretical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 201-215) that escalates the gathering of information which comes to cover as far as possible the topics that the narrators themselves define. 2. The interview Out of the great variety of methods and techniques in our armoury, the narrative interview is the chosen one within the framework of our interviews. This method is part of a broader framework of a biographical approach of the historical and social surrounding of the narrators (Thanopoulou & Petronoti, 1987 Hristakis, 1994). The starting point of this approach is the subject and this is what makes it different from other approaches. In contrast to quantitative methods (that are regarded as tougher therefore right) the qualitative method is necessary and irreplaceable in cases where the goal is to bring to light aspects of the lives of the narrators (Alheit & Bergamini, 1998: 124-5). The person being questioned is urged to present his story11 through a narration of his life. The narration is literally a way of revival and this is what makes it so interesting (Alheit, 1998: 135). The narrator recomposes scenes of his life, his activities as well as his emotions. He is not interrupted in his free course of narration and after concluding, additional and clarifying questions concerning his narration are addressed. At the end, review or/and other questions can me made. The topics in the structure of the interview covered areas such as family life and history, the presence of the occupying forces in the village and the wider region in general, the events in those days of September and its implications to their lives. The biographical narrative interview (Tsiolis, 2006: 171-2) is therePeople were prompt as: I would like from you to narrate me the story of your childhood up until after the holocaust by the Germans in September of 1943. You can mention any events or experiences you regard important. I will not interrupt you during your talk and if I have anything to ask, I will do so after your narration.
11
25
fore a form of free interview where the narrator has the ability to shape his narration freely and thus a narrative speech is produced that has biographical characteristics. 3. The narrations The narrations can be interpreted in multiple ways offering each time a different aspect of reality. But which reality? We must not forget that we deal with memories which are recalled within a historical and social frame: Memory is related to the narrative ability and the language, with the meaning the individuals attach to their past and the importance they attribute to their experiences (Andriakena, 2001: 33). The procedure of recalling the memory to the present gives birth to the frame of a potential interpretation of the narrations. However, reality is the testimonies of our narrators: as Van Bushoten (2002: 136) reports: they dont stop representing one, maybe even subjective, truth. The oral memories we collected refer to experiences of at least sixty five years. The narrators report what happened, what probably happened, what they remember that happened, what they wished had happened or even too, what never happened. The pauses? There are many intermediate levels between experience and memory, memory and its recall and its recall and the shaping of the narration. On the other hand, as far as our position is concerned regarding these narrations, we should bear in mind that: The memories and the sources of oral speech are like the bottom of the sea as we observe it through the crystals of a diving mask, which magnify it and change its shape by focusing on it (Vilanova, 2000: 64). We all wear the mask. Acknowledging that, we move forward making the most now of the new narrations of the elderly of the burned villages. Our intention is to lay the foundations for the possibility to trace (or interpret) the representations of our narrators, since their generation will not be with us for ever. This course is not within the framework of this book. The narrations offer us many dimensions of their lives and we can find in them memories that cover many categories. We must not remain attached to the confirmation or no of the events, to the accuracy of dates or characters. We can seek to find how they perceive the de-
26
THE BURNED VILLAGES
struction out of which they survived, how they rationalise its insanity, where they put the blame for it and why, where the memory of the individual differs from the collective memory as well as the official (even the established) history, why some times they dont focus on the destruction but on the subsequent split as more substantial and crucial. Let us see some of the topics that are developed within the framework of the narrations: The occupation Various aspects of the occupation are presented. The arrival of the occupational forces (Italians) is not the evil that most of the narrators were expecting. They recall to their memory the financial struggle in the family for survival (in the household) that was taking place under difficult conditions in order to cover their basic needs but the needs too of an entire occupational army. The comparison between poverty before and after the destruction is apparent and emphasized in all the narrations. A different dimension of the occupation is provided through the compulsory labour. Most men narrate the way they were chosen, their efforts to avoid it as well as the working conditions in the places of the works. The resistance The narrators provide us with different aspects of the National Resistance, depending each time on the extent of their involvement in the operational or in the supportive branch. Thus, they appear as liaisons, carriers, armed rebels in the mountain, even as spies12. They bring back to their memory their decision to draft, the fund raising activities (for example, the theatre in Gdohia), their life in the hideout, the battle of Kato Simi, the extraction of information from the Italians or the Germans etc. In many narrations there is even criticism regarding the operational choices of the armed fight pointing out different approaches based on the social or the political characteristics of the narrators. Taking them by surprise The narrators didnt have a clear picture of the situation that had been shaped after the battle of Kato Simi and the arrival of the German troops did not mean to them devastation except only when it was already too
12
See the narration of Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki.
27
late. They didnt think they would proceed to executions or to the destruction of the village judging in retrospect that they had nothing to do with an event that took place so far away from them. On many occasions they ask the question why they were the victims for actions they did not even know that had taken place (meaning the destruction of the guardhouse in Viannos and the subsequent battle of Kato Simi). The executions The narrations of the executions of their relatives (and not only) can be characterised nothing else but shocking. On some occasions they were eyewitness and on some others they were not. The narration of the loss is done with hair-raising details in many cases. From the time of arrival of the troops in every village, the narrators unveil their confusion and desperate effort to get away saving their lives and as much as they could from their belongings. They recompose a picture where groups of a few or more people move frightened in various areas trying to find a way out, within the zone the Germans established. The quest of information for the survival or no of their relatives and, at the end, their burial, starts a new chapter in their lives that has been scarring them ever since. The exile All the inhabitants of the villages Mirtos, Gdohia, Riza, Mournies and Mithi left their homes for months. During this period we find them in neighbouring villages (Metaxohori, Males, Anatoli, etc), in cottages in the area outside the zone, as well as in Ierapetra, Kentri, Kato Horio, etc. On many occasions the existence of relatives (close or distant ones) is the criterion for selecting the place they temporarily stayed. Within this framework, they narrate their survival conditions that are now extremely difficult in the light of their destructed property and of the inability to exploit their landfills. The reception and the way they were treated by the inhabitants of the other villages are of crucial importance as they themselves experience difficult conditions. At this point, many of them started to go about begging. The struggle of survival Most of them found their houses burned after they returned. The total most of the times destruction included the stored goods of the house whereas the inability to find resources forces our narrators themselves or
28
THE BURNED VILLAGES
their close relatives to resort to beggary (mostly elderly women and children). This compulsory way out of the financial problems creates an intense emotional charge to many narrators that were children at the time. On the other hand, the non-resorting to beggary is a great fortune and is brought out as such. References on the issues of state help, compensation or pensions of the relatives of the victims are also interesting. The state help after the liberation is characterised as minimal, abandoning them this way in a desperate survival effort by own means. The absence of the leader (male) in families with children leads to narrations that focus on the struggle for survival and the consequent difficulties (marriage of the women, studies, etc) rather than on the time during occupation. There are cases too, where the narrators went to the army and left their family alone to manage only with the assistance of the broader family circle. The civil war The time of the civil war is not the main point in the narrations apart from a few exceptions. The involvement of the Greeks in a war that shaped post-war Greece is imprinted in these narrations, and in most of the times, the narrative mood is disrupted. Many times, great emphasis is given on its side-effects rather that on the war itself as a historical fact that left marks in the region. Germans and the Italians Our narrators make a clear distinction between the Italian and the German occupation. The presence of the Italian forces reveals a co-existence where the conqueror is presented more as a necessary burden rather than an apparent threat to life. On the contrary, taking into consideration too, the devastation the German forces brought about to their places, the Germans are portrayed many times as bloodthirsty conquerors that cause only fear and terror (we should not forget the absence of the Germans from the region till the September of 1943). Nonetheless, on many occasions the narrators, reconsidering the behaviour of the troops, seek and identify samples of humane deeds and at the end, they dont result in ascribing liability to plain soldiers or the entire German nation for the evil that fell upon them. Most of the times, they rationalise the insanity of the massacre by ascribing responsibility to the insanity of their leaders.
29
Life afterwards The success of the efforts of the narrators is personalised in their children, their grandchildren and their great grandchildren: their raising, studies, professions and families constitute the crowning of a nearly tragic life. In many incidents, joy is not entrenched in the close family circle but it also includes the children of brothers etc that got lost at that time. There is the wish that such things should not be repeated. The comparison with todays affluence, in which we live, makes them happy but sceptical too in relation to the fact that war is so distant for the younger generations that seem unable to comprehend its brutality. Some narrators, participating in the public affairs, focus on their efforts to establish democracy and the common good emphasizing on everyones obligation to participate in this effort. 4. The transcription and the reading There can be no substitute for an interview fully transcribed that contains all the linguistic and paralinguistic elements of the interview; or in other words, everything. At the same time, even the full transcription is an interpretation of the recorded interview. Based on the existing general trends (Atkinson, 1998: 54-7 Thompson, 2002: 314), the one that provides a compressed version of the interview is the one applied in order to facilitate the reading. The principle of preserving the character and the meaning of the original has been the guiding line during the transcription process of the interviews. In many cases, new meetings took place with the informers in order for them to clarify points of their narrations and to check the accuracy of the meaning of their opinions. There has been a segmentation of the narrations into topics with head titles to assist the reader during his study. The topics are presented in a sequence that is in accordance with the place the narrator lived in September of 1943 and not with the place the narration took place. Afterwards, for each place, the narrators that lost a close relative (of first or second degree) are presented first and the narrators with resistance activity are presented at the end (without of course excluding both).
PART II
Evangelia Dimitrianaki Andreopouli I was twelve years old when war was declared. I was born on the 9th of August in 1928 and the war broke out in 1940. You must have heard of the events, people were excited those days. My father loved his country deeply. He was a great patriot and the president of the village. I presume you would have heard from your grandparents that we used to raise goods back then. Being twelve, I remember many incidents very clearly. My mother and I used to spin sheeps wool. There was nothing to buy. Spinning wool was my mothers and grandmothers task. We thus produced the yarn, which we call here in Crete as orgo13, and used it to knit sweaters and socks to send them to the war front. Not really sure if they ever made it to their destination the soldiers who survived say they received only a few things. They were overwhelmed by the cold and the frostbites. From what I am aware of, everywhere in Greece people were offering goods those days. The whole of Greece was offering, everything within the power of each individual, primarily in clothes made of wool. We had a stable right here, with a sheep and a goat, and my father would give wool and even more of our goods, for we were in a good financial condition. My family My father had three siblings. Two brothers, one of them was an officer in the gendarmerie, and one sister, my aunt. My father was a restless mind and went to America. He stayed there for thirteen years and came back to Greece in 1927. He brought back with him two hundred thousand drachmas. He married my mother in April. She was a beauty. Nonetheless, she was left a widow with a baby child at the age of thirty
13
In Greek: .
34
THE BURNED VILLAGES
three. Alice, my younger sister, was still breast-feeding. They used to breastfeed children those days and they grew big. And we were exiled. What can I say now our region paid a high price for the occupation and the destruction of the villages. To begin with, my father was sacrificed for the village. He spoke Spanish as if it was his mother tongue. He read Spanish newspapers and had read to me V. Hugos Les Misrables a number of times. He also spoke English very well. But of course, he spoke Spanish as his mother tongue since he had been to South America: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. He worked in those places all jobs possibly imaginable. He joined the police force but was also head manager of a huge ranch the size of Crete. He had a number of tasks there and a horse as well, to range up and down. This land was enormous, like Crete, or like half of Crete? I dont remember now. A vast expanse he would ride with his horse all over to inspect. The property of each landowner was fenced with barbed wire. They usually breed sheep there. He stayed for some time on the ranch before working for the police. He spent most of his years in Brazil. My father left Greece when still very young, just twenty years old, and came back in January of 1927. He was from Mournies, a village near by. All four children in his family were left orphans at a very young age and as soon as he finished his military service he left for America. As soon as he returned, he married my mother at once in April and then, in August of 1928, I was born. Yes, I was born then and my brother in 1932. He became a judge in the Supreme Court of Appeal and reached the highest levels in hierarchy. Yet I had the misfortune, as if it wasnt enough to lose my husband, to lose him too three years later. My brother and I were born four years apart we were the seniors and later, in 1943, Alice was born, the younger one. That became the best part, I still have her I wouldnt have survived had it not been for her. It is hard to describe; as she grew up together with my son it is as if I have a daughter. They only have an age difference of two years. They never called each-other aunt or nephew; they feel like brother and sister. They had a house in Ierapetra with two small rooms and stayed together in highschool, also later at University. They had two lovely rooms in Ampelokipoi, Athens. My sister studied literature, my son studied law. The
EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI
35
same applies for my grandchildren; my sister is like a second mother to them, how could I describe it? I had been in the first year of an eight-grade school. It was an eightgrade school during the days of Metaxas. Have you heard of this educational transformation? As soon as Metaxas took over in 1936, I sat exams and was transferred from the fifth grade of elementary school directly to the second year of the eight-grade high-school. For highschool those days was not the six-grade high-school we are accustomed to. It was only after 1936 when Metaxas came into power that he implemented the transformation changing the whole scenery and converting it to an eight-grade high-school. Children would then attend first grade of high-school after the fourth grade of elementary school. I had not finished elementary school, sat exams, came first and was transferred directly to the second year of the eight-grade high-school. I skipped the first year. I went to a high-school in Ierapetra where I had great teachers those years before the war. Our high school principal was Zouraris; they had a ceremony for him once. Our mayor had organised events to honour all deceased teachers and those still alive recounted their works. I was invited and went along with my sister. A great ceremony indeed! What a great honour did the mayor offer to my husband; only his son would have honoured him equally. They also presented me with an inscribed honourable plaque: To the family of Giorgos Dimitrianakis, in honour of their valuable donation of G. Dimitrianakis historic-folk collection to the municipality of Mirtos, Ierapetra. August 2001. People gathered from both Agios Nikolaos and Heraklio. It was summer and the ceremony took place in the yard of Agios Antonios14 church. The bishop was there, the entire population of Heraklio! What more could be said! Only his son would have honoured him in such a manner. I got married and still needed two years to finish high-school. I had
14
Church of Agios Antonios: Church of Saint Anthony.
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THE BURNED VILLAGES
a grandfather my story is bizarre, I mean not bizarre and not extraordinary. We were left orphans and my sister was still breastfeeding. My brother was ten years old and I was fourteen, fifteen, since in 1928 I must have been fifteen for sure. Yes, and still had not finished highschool, I needed two more years. My grandfather was protecting us. Mirtos was a neutral zone. Where shall I start from, these are endless stories: Neutral zone. All living beings arrested within the region of Mirtos will be executed on site. The Germans said that after burning us down in 1943. In September of 1943, we and our villages were burned down. They blew up Simi and Kalami as well; I think Kalami, not sure actually. But they blew up Simi for sure, Sikologos too, they used dynamite to blow up all villages. You may have heard that two Germans were killed by some hotblooded, thoughtless men. There was a guardhouse in Kato Simi with two soldiers. They were nice, poor fellows, they didnt hurt anyone at all. And they were treacherously invited to dinner by the locals who were supportive of Mpantouvas, having connections with him and the rebel groups. You must have heard of Mpantouvas, the invincible. So these hot-blooded young men thought of it as a great achievement; they got them drunk during dinner and had them killed. They placed them afterwards on a donkey and threw them off a cliff. It is worth the trouble to go to Simi in the summer and have a look. It is a mountain village which reminds you of Switzerland. There is Kato Simi and Pano Simi. However, only Kato Simi is inhabited. Pano Simi is just for the summer-time and belongs to a different community. They are close to each other, less than half hour distance, fifteen twenty minutes more like it. Kato Simi has permanent residents, but they go to a suburb nearby called Loutraki, for it is very cold up there in the winter time. They killed them, threw them off the cliff and from that moment a series of events happened. The Germans realised it and blew up My husband provides a very detailed description in his book15, I was young. We were also exiled to Ierapetra. Each one would go wherever it was possible. In our case, we had certain
15
She refers to the book Dimitrianakis, 2003.
37
bonds with Ierapetra: my siblings were baptized by locals and my grandfather, this holy man who raised us, was an officer in the customs office. He was an officer in a good post in Sitia and received a decent pension. But money those days was deprived of any value: someone would give, lets say, a million to buy half a kilogram of cabbage, we call this kind of vegetable fillades here in Crete nothing. Yet he never left us hungry. He only had one child, one daughter, my mother and he adored the only grandchildren he had, as he had no other: our baby, Alice, my brother, ten years old and me, fifteen. Germans execute Dimitrianakis family before they reach Mirto My father was a hero. He was sacrificed for his village, for he was the president. A German squad arrives and my father says: We must welcome them folks in a nice manner, let us be gentle with them. They had sensed their visit meant no good, so they slaughtered two sheep and cooked them right away. My aunts husband, the one living here across the street, was a butcher. They grilled the meet, brought along wine, raki, to serve them nicely. The first squad was nice, they showed no malicious intentions. Then a death squad from Gdohia arrived. They had executed forty I think, I dont recall right now; my husband has written down all the facts in his book as they really took place, without a single inaccuracy. So they arrived and met the first ones who were reasonable. They didnt seem malignant although they had already killed my future-to-be father in law. For my husband and I were young those days and we only got married two years later. The Dimitrianakis family had heard of something and they were worried for they had land in a location nearby. They owned a large area of land, in Agios Panteleimonas, a beautiful location next to the sea. Apart from my future-to-be father in law, his son in law the husband of his daughter and his two fine sons, (one married, aged twenty six, the other one eighteen), were with him. They had become suspicious that the Germans had burned down Simi and Sikologo, which they had actually done. So my father-in-law proposed they should be peaceful and look like farmers, as they really were And they started building small walls, dykes, in the places where the ground
38
THE BURNED VILLAGES
had an inclination. The first squad did not harm them. The second one, the death squad, placed them in line and executed all four of them: my husbands father, his two brothers, one married, twenty six years old, the other one, eighteen, a fine looking young man tall as a cypress tree and his brother-in-law, his sisters husband. You cant possibly imagine the hate my husband had for the Germans! The Dimitrianakis family was the first to be executed. They were thought to have been rebels, whatsoever, and were placed in line. Before the Germans arrival, when they were seen from a distance approaching, my husband said to his father: Father, I have an appointment with Leonidas to meet him in Anatoli; I am on my way. Where will you go my child?, his father replied. I know father, there is a way through the mountains. Our appointment is before Anatoli a village north of Ierapetra. We have an appointment and I ought to keep my word. He asked: Giorgos, my child, where do you think you are going? They will see you; you will meet them and they will execute you on site. He replied: Father I cant, I have an appointment, there is no way I wont go, he is waiting for me outside Anatoli and I am leaving. Sit down! Stay! his father became furious and almost slapped him in the face. And my husband said: Regardless of anything you say father I am going, I cant stay for he is waiting for me and he may get hurt if I dont show up, should I not keep my word I am leaving. He was afraid that his friend would run into any of the squads patrolling on the mountains nearby; they had the full control of our area, Ierapetra and Viannos. And so he left by force. Later on, his family was executed. And my late mother-in-law used to say: I wonder if he had thought of it. He left and saved himself. The other four were killed; their bodies fell upon each other. So they were gone. My husband Giorgos Dimitrianakis and the Germans. My husband had a profound, beyond description, despise for the Germans. He could not even stand a German made appliance. He wrote a big sign on the museum those days, the museum was in one the classrooms of the school saying: Entrance is forbidden to Germans. That raised a commotion and the Ministry sent him a letter kindly ask-
39
ing: Mr. Dimitrianakis, such actions belong to the past, the man who ruled this nation was an insane, that is the man who caused these events, Hitler of course. I fell on my knees before him and told him It isnt right. And then a German university professor came and he let him in. He was a professor in the university, a great mind and personality; we still correspond with each other. I will read you his last letter, only to see that he speaks better Greek than us: Dear Ms. Evangelia, we salute you. We hope you are in good health. I who am writing this year have not seen you or your village for years. I am in no position for long distance travel for I am in constant need for medical supervision. Nonetheless, Angeliki16 came to Crete as a tour guide in May. Unfortunately she did not find you home. Be always sure of our love to you. Merry Christmas, may the new year bring you at least some of what you desire. Greetings to all those who remember us from the old times. With appreciation and love. Peter Venendi. He is a great philhellene, what more shall I say. A human with all the meaning of the word. You heard his Greek. He loves Greece deeply and was raised to be an anti-fascist. He is a special soul and we are honoured he loves me too with his friendship. My husband never let a German step his foot at the school. It was only after he received a somehow kindly-suggesting letter from the Ministry, stating that The man ruling was an insane Mr. Dimitrianakis, these events should be left behind, the new generation is not to be blamed and me and my brother talked to him, that he finally allowed them. And the professor wrote to me in his first letter, I cant recall now where I have placed it, That I was the first German he allowed to enter the school, that is the museum actually, for he could not prohibit school entrance. He lived in Ierapetra then, was not here therefore, yet the museum was
16
His wife.
40
THE BURNED VILLAGES
his creation and he owned it in some way. And he let me enter and he honoured me with his friendship, the man who used to turn on the lights outside the school so that I could climb the stairs and I shall never forget him. He has been coming every summer ever since. It now seems that he has some kind of health problem and he has not been here for two years. These are very good people, he and his wife, great philhellenes, democrats down to the bone. He is exceptional in all aspects; I am telling you a truly outstanding personality. The Germans arrive at Mirtos My father was the president of the village and spoke English rather well. An interpreter of the Germans came and proclaimed in the streets: The village should be evacuated within half an hour, that is how he put it. My father was the president of the village. What shall we do, what shall we take, what could we do in just thirty minutes time? We had donkeys those days for our transportation, no cars were available, nothing, how could we make it? He said to my mother, Kalliopi: We have to get going in half an hour!. What would she do first? We also had my grandmother ill, anyway. And he said: I will go and ask him, he seem a nice person. I think he was a colonel or a major, he was highly ranked. So he approached him and spoke in English: Please could you afford us a time extension of thirty minutes so that people could make it on time? For we have to go to the cellars and take a bottle of oil; we need some time to take something along. We used to make bread ourselves, but you have not witnessed those years. Each one would prepare his home made bread, a rusk made of barley. But the German replied: No Mr. President, no extension is to be given. My poor father walked away and told my mother: Kalliopi, get our stuff ready, he gives no time extension. But I will go again to see him, to ask him again. So she told him: Time is limited, we cant make it by the time we put a bottle of oil, take a lot of bread... Those days we had rusks instead of bread; no bakeries were available so we prepared the bread in local ovens. Sixty okas of barley with wheat, for those who had wheat, otherwise we used barley alone. ...to take along a bag with bread, how else can we make it? How, how can we leave? I am begging you. And
41
the German replied: No Mr. President, no time extension can be given, please. This man talked with courtesy, he seemed to be a nice person, I mean with good intentions. He went back for the third time, to cut a long story short, and he told him: President leave; didnt I say that no time extension is to be given? And so he left. At the last minute my mother stuffed a few basic goods in the sacks, and we placed them along with my ill-prone grandmother on the donkey. There was an aunt of mine from Mournies with her little daughter; she was the wife of my fathers brother, most dear to us. My uncle had been heroic and pushed down two Germans in a basement, it is also written in my husbands book. There was this terrace, lets say here, where the Germans were standing. He says: Let me go down to take a couple loaves of bread. My uncle was at the mountains, a wanted man, and somehow they found out or they got suspicious. He was also an officer in the local police. They say: Where are the goods to be taken? And he replied: Have a look, see below, and he gave them a push throwing them down the basement. The terrace was at a great height, yet they were not killed but most probably severely injured. Nonetheless, there was sufficient time for my uncle to run away and so he made his way to the mountain and saved himself. So, since he had been wanted, he had sent his wife and daughter here, to our home, just in case. My uncle too had a donkey. And we placed my grandfather on the first donkey, my grandmother on the second one, being at that age they were not that old but more ill-prone. And we loaded anything we could: bread, rusks, a five-okas bottle of oil we called these bottles pentares for they could take pente17 okas of oil some legumes my mother found, a bit of sugar for the baby and we started going. Alice, a baby back then, was still breastfeeding, an infant she was. My father returned the last moment We had a piglet with us that my cousin, my uncles daughter, a little girl herself, used to hold on a leash. And we also had my grandfather and grandmother sitting on the two donkeys, my mother and aunt were leading the way. But the pig
17
Pente means five in Greek.
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THE BURNED VILLAGES
was not fastened tight and all of a sudden, got loose and escaped. And my father said at once: Oh! The pig is gone Kalliopi, I am going to bring it back, we cant go to the mountains without it, we need it!. Oh, my dear mother ran to him, held him tight, and said: Where do you think you are going? Where will you go looking for the pig? Let it go! And he replied to her then: Eh, poor woman, our children will be hungry up there in the mountains; I am not going to leave them. And as soon as he turned the corner, it was already too late I cant understand it, an educated man, had been to America for thirteen years and was full of experiences, why did he do such a thing. He went back to capture the pig and got arrested. He was executed within two hours along with eighteen more. The president, the vice-president and eighteen people right here behind the church of our patron saint. Thats where they placed them and executed them. In exile We continued our journey without knowing. We waited, waited for him to catch up with us. We went to the mountains, to Trouli in the beginning. My sister was still a baby, still breastfeeding. There were some caves there and we entered one. It was not cold yet, for these events took place on the 15th of September, the day we honour Agios Nikitas18, a day after the day of the Holy Cross. From there on, a million misfortunes followed, you can not possibly imagine. We had an uncle in Trouli, who was a shepherd and had his sheep there. Trouli is really close, it is considered as part of the same region; he had his sheep up in the mountain, where it is like a plateau with a number of caves around. His name actually is Dimitrianakis for we were also distant relatives with my future-to-be husband. Water, water, who could find water? Where could someone find water? My uncle used to take the donkey and bring a pitcher back, filled with water but that was far from enough. And the baby? We had no water, we were thirsty most of the time but then again we only spent two nights there. My other uncle came then, my fathers brother, the one who was in the resistance.
18
Agios Nikitas: Saint Nikitas.
43
He took us to a farm, in a spacious stable where they used to house oxen inside. The baby was thirsty during the days we spent in Trouli, two or three, I dont remember. What would she do? It was raining the whole year then. However, the rocks on the ground were rather flat and usually not tall. A number of potholes were formed filled with water we called them gouves or gousakia. Nonetheless, young frogs were inside, tadpoles: that is young, just born frogs. So, my mother used her kerchief to filter the water from the frogs and separate them in the cloth, I cant describe it differently. She would then place the water in the flask my blessed uncle had given her. It was a rather big one, dressed with felt; a gift from the Italians. She kept the water overnight in the container, outdoors, and was somehow purified and drinkable, reserved though for the baby. We used to drink from the potholes, after separating the frogs, the tadpoles. So many sufferings... We went to a farm in Mournies and lived together with twenty two other people from other villages. That was a stable actually owned by some farmers that spent the winter there. They used to plough the fields so the stable was spacious twenty two people. What more shall I say, I am telling you we had a baby thank God we had two goats with us. We stayed there for five days and then went to Anatoli. Alice was baptised by how can I put it, the finest man in Ierapetra. He was a very wealthy wholesale dealer, Aerakis was his name (he also died very young). He had been to Anatoli too. For Anatoli was not a neutral zone and one was still allowed to be there. We also had an uncle, my grandfathers brother, living and married in Anatoli; his name was Charalambos Chatzakis. And so we went to Anatoli. Other people from Viannos were also there, like the children of the old doctor Papamastoras, one of the finest families in Crete. His son was a doctor, the other one an officer in Albania, wounded, having lost a leg and a hand, also hiding. Where could we go? In Anatoli there were no Germans, we also had my aunt there, the one who married Charalambos Chatzakis, my grandfathers brother. So we stayed there with all the rest: Papamastorakis family from Viannos, that is the two doctors and the officer, my old aunt, called also the Papamastorakis, with her two daughters, Spanakis the doctor; around twelve people, I cant recall
44
THE BURNED VILLAGES
right now. And we would lay a shoddy on the floor; thankfully the weather was still warm for it was only September. In Mournies we stayed for five or six days, I am not really sure, living together with people from other villages. The stable was lets say the farmers used to plough the land in winter time it belonged to a farmer from I dont remember the owner, a rather big space, nonetheless a stable, he housed donkeys and oxen inside. They were not there then of course, it was empty and we all stayed together. But lice were such an issue, words cant describe it, luckily I was fifteen then and I remember. Have you ever seen ants walking on the ground? That is how lice were. And naturally we all caught lice, but the baby was sensitive. When we went to Anatoli, late Aerakis, the man who had baptised Aliki, gave us some petrol and we boiled the clothes in a marmite. Aliki was swollen from lice and her sensitive and tender skin was covered with sores. I defy words! And my poor mother kept on boiling clothes. Fortunately, the village was not burned down so we still had the marmites which we used to warm water and wash our clothes. Eh, we were relieved from lice somehow! My grandfather, from my mothers side, was an officer in the customs office. He was highly ranked in Sitia and knew the officer in the customs office in Ierapetra. The latter one, sent him a message (dont know how he managed to do so, there were no telephones those days) to come to Ierapetra for he had two rooms in the office waiting for him to come he was senior in rank My father had accommodated him in our home a number of times before the war, for we had guests regularly in our home then. He should come and I have arranged a house ready for him to stay, with his grandchildren, his daughter, his whole family. We waited for my father. We were told different rumours: that they kept them hostage in the high school of Viannos, that my grandfather should go and give them money I am telling you we had a certain financial standing and didnt resort to beggary; most other people did though. We also had many friends of my father that would contact us and my grandfather would go to load the donkey with peas, beans, various goods. We also had the time to take along two big bottles of oil, five oka each, and somehow we were not left without oil. In any case, we
45
didnt starve, thank God. It was my father only. They even told us once, that the Germans keep the ones arrested in the high school as hostages. My grandfather, sent a trusted man to go and look, my mother was his only child, we were his only grandchildren and my father his only sonin-law after all. Nothing. Just a rumour. Then they told us they had them hostage in Timpaki. We sent a man to Timpaki, another one to Sitia, in all possible places we heard a rumour about, being certain of nothing and aware it was probably nothing but rumours. Just to verify if he was being held hostage indeed. The burial of those executed in Mirtos Mirtos was a neutral zone. It was forbidden: Any living being arrested within the region of Mirtos will be executed on site. It was written both in German and in oratorical Greek. And then, one day, Germans commandeered two fishermen may they be blessed to come to the region of Mirtos and fish on their behalf. Three men came with their boat, all experienced fishermen from Ierapetra, Dedeletakis was one of them. And the Germans had them fishing all day long, supervising them. But there was a day when the Germans wanted fresh water to fill up the tanks. So, they let them go ashore in order to go to Mirtos. They had manual pumps those days; one would move the lever up and down to induce water flow. As they got off they saw a homburg drifted from the air towards the beach. And Dedelatakis, the senior in the group of fishermen, said: Holy Mary, I know this hat! It belongs to Somara. I remember it because we used to make fun of it and I would take it and put it on. They moved further up a bit, passed the road next to the coastline of Mirtos enormous sand beach, and sensed an unbearable smell. They were driven by the smell, only to find eighteen people, one on top of the other, right here, behind Agios Antonios19, church. They broke the news as soon as they came back. They identified each individual from the clothes he was wearing; my father from his shoes. They were left for twenty days out in the country I dont remem19
In Greek: which literally means Saint Anthony.
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THE BURNED VILLAGES
ber clearly. I would rather not be inaccurate; they stayed for many days nonetheless. They came to us and told the news to my late grandfather. They told him the whole story and that they identified the president. They said: We could tell him from his white shoes. They had also identified the vice-president and another man from Ierapetra who happened to be there. I am telling you, it must have been ten to twelve people; I dont want to be mistaken. For they also killed four or five people out in the fields. A total of eighteen people were executed. Should you visit the war memorial you will see the names of all men executed in Mirtos written down. And they tell him: Papadakis, thats the name of my grandfather, so and so, we identified the president, your son-in-law. And he stayed there for twenty-eight days, I dont remember how many exactly so I would better not say for I will be inaccurate, in decomposition of course. There was a heroic interpreter working for the Germans, her name was Antonia Mathioudaki. She was in the resistance of course and therefore working as a spy too. She offered great help to the resistance and was later married to an Englishman, living happily ever since. Although I dont know the exact year she was born, she is definitely older than me, she should be around eighty five for sure. And she used her connections so that Germans gave their permission for the burial. My mother and my grandfather came and everyone else too who had a dead man. They had them buried right there, behind the church of Agios Antonios. And my mother, along with another relative of ours, found a sheet from a tax officer we used to know, a colleague of my grandfather. And everyone in general who had a relative, went there carrying their own sheet, so as to cover their beloved ones. And each family member dug a pit for his person so as to know who was who. After the liberation, the Greek government gave permission and their bodies were transferred. A unit of four to six ELAS police officers from Agios Nikolaos came and presented honors to the dead. I am not sure about the exact number for I was a child then and very emotionally upset. In a years time, we made a wooden chest and placed the bones of our people inside. Now that I buried my husband I found this little chest which had
47
the inscription: Michail Andreopoulis murdered by the Germans. My family name is Andreopoulis. I placed it in the family tomb, next to my mother and husband; all my beloved ones gathered. They are in the cemetery of Agios Vasilios, in Mirtos. It is beyond description what followed. My mother had two sick parents and a baby child, still breastfeeding. But let me tell you a real event, true all the way from the beginning to the end. When my mother came and buried my father, my sister was more than a year old. They used to breastfeed children even when they were relatively grown up. And my sister could speak rather clearly; she could say words from the age of nine months old. So she said: Mama, zizi! which meant Mama, offer me your breast. My mother washed herself as quickly as possible in order to feed the child. I am very accurate in the description, it is a true event. My sister tasted a bit, and said Ah, it is bitter!. She never came close to my mothers breast again. I swear she said: A mom it is bitter!. She was talking in Cretan dialect, saying piki instead of pikro20. As we Cretans says, her breast sakase. Life in Gdohia moves on We didnt return to Mirtos. In Gdohia, that is the village nearby, we had an old house my grandfather had had repaired and some property. I am telling you, we didnt starve nor did we go begging for we went to our house in Gdohia. We still have this house although it is completely ruined now. Gdohia was not a forbidden zone, unlike Mirtos, and we were allowed to go there after the incidents in Mirtos. We had relatives there and property; we have olive trees there nowadays. Both my mother and husband are from Gdohia. In Mirtos one can find people from Mournies and Mirto, yet the majority, I would say four fifths, are from Gdohia. And we go there, and an uncle of mine had planted tomatoes, okra and vegetable marrows. He was a dear relative of ours so we had supplies in a way. They had also produced oil on our behalf, actually simisiako, meaning that the one who collects the olives keeps half the production giving the other
20
In Greek: and , both meaning bitter.
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half to the owner They produced eighty okas! Eh, and day by day time passed. We didnt starve, nor had my mother or grandfather to go begging. We were helped. My father had friends, important acquaintances. He had a beloved friend, like a brother to him, doing well in Lasithi, who said: You tell Ms. Kalliopi to send me over a donkey and a man along, at any cost, for I will find the way to send her something. And so we did. My brother, being only ten, and a man we knew as his escort, went there and had our donkey loaded with potatoes from Lasithi, legumes and all kind of things. And my grandfather too had friends after spending thirty years as a tax officer in Sitia. And they sent men, for there were no telephones those years, to tell us: Do tell Mr. Papadakis the tax officer, to come himself or send anyone he wishes, for we want to help. They even sent rice for the baby, Aliki, and some sugar as well, for we had none and used xaroupia-syrup instead. There was a big factory those years in Ierapetra, Minoas, that supplied us with locust-syrup. And as for the coffee, we used to roast barley and blend coffee with it and chickpea. But, thank God, we didnt resort to begging, as most people in need were forced to. Our friends had helped us, may God forgive their souls; they have been of great assistance, a great help to us. They even gave us a marmite, large enough to grind peas inside and make fava21. We didnt starve. We faced difficulties but nothing like the others. May God forgive their souls, my grandfather especially, for my mother was his only child and he was a great guardian to us. My marriage with Giorgos Dimitrianakis In the meantime, since my father was reputable, two men came to ask me from my grandfather to marry them: one from another village and the other one from our region And my grandfather told me: I will give my consent for I need a man to protect the family; children are still young and I cant protect our property any longer. You will take one of them for sure. He was old-minded, yet I didnt have any emotions for them.
21
Fava is a food made of grinded peas.
49
We were distant relatives with one of the two. He was a third-degree cousin to my mother. He was finishing high school at that time and was practising teaching. He was from the same community and was teaching children from Gdohia. The school was burned down so he used to teach in the church of Agioi Deka. The children would cut and curve trees, find trunks or stones to sit on, and each family would offer him an oka of oil per month. There were many children then and he was left all alone: his sister was a widow, his sister-in-law, that is the wife of his brother, a widow too, and his younger brother, Michalis, an eighteenyear old fine man, killed. His father was fifty two years old and his mother, my future-to-be mother-in-law, still young, around fifty three. Having three widows in the same house is a tragedy. So, he was a teacher, supposedly educated for he had only finished high school, and we used to attend his classes. I had not finished high school; I was sixteen and still wanted two more years. An uncle of mine had salvaged some books from being burnt and kept them in a stable. We would then exchange books and talk; being also relatives made things easier. I am telling you this is an endless story. My grandfather wanted the other man for me. I felt as if there was something repelling, I couldnt even face him, whereas I felt an attraction to the other one. I swear we never said I love you or sent each other a letter like people in love do. We would only act sophistically and he would give me an old book. For reading is even up to now my pleasure. It relaxes me, I feel rested. I have a full library and I prefer reading than watching television. My grandfather wanted the other one for me since he was educated: He already has a career, he used to say. He was old-minded and wanted someone to share the responsibility; he may have been right since we were three orphan children. But I didnt want him. I felt attracted to the other one, the one who later became my husband, and also had mutual feelings for me. I used to bring along my baby sister to church so as to see him teaching. And my sister would tell me, in broken Greek: I want to leave now Vangelio, this is not the place for me, I want to go and play with Kostakis, Kostakis was a neighbour we had there, to play, I dont
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THE BURNED VILLAGES
want to. There was an old chandelier hanging there that he would take the prisms off and give her to play with, just to keep her quiet for a while, before she would start wanting to leave again. Of course, I would take her then and leave. We used to talk about literature; he would give me any book he could find from his friends in Ierapetra. We never said on what shall I swear? On his soul, we never said I love you, or went on a date nor exchanged any love letters, nothing. Nonetheless, my grandfather wanted me to marry the one I felt repelled to, I could not bear facing him. I felt attracted to the teacher, but had never thought that I couldnt sort out my feelings then. But my uncle, a Dimitrianakis too, apparently understood, judging from the sweetness we talked to each other. We were neighbours with my uncle. He used to live in a half-ruined house next to our also ruined house. We used to visit his home and, apparently, said to my future husband: Giorgis, I am aware that you have feelings for Vangelia, the grand-daughter of the tax officer, that is how they referred to me, but he will get her married; one of these days he and Vangelias aunt will move on, my aunt being my fathers sister. My grandfather was stressed and wanted to avoid responsibility. Thus his desire was to marry me with the one already appointed, having a career. I took him with no possessions at all; he had just finished high school. He went to the Academy when we were married. He studied merely for three days and passed third. He was an extraordinary genius, what can I say? And he says to him: Tonight he has scheduled an appointment for this man to come to ask her and her aunt Maria is supportive. My fathers sister Maria was making the arrangements. To continue: If you dont take her tonight he will give her. I know that with certainty for the tax officer told me so. I was present in this discussion: And he will come to shake hands tonight, to marry you my child tonight, so you take her first. He told me the same too, gave us a push and we were gone. Where could we go, what a strange case my God! For my future husband had no idea since I had not mentioned that my grandfather was making arrangements for me to marry the other man. And where could we go to? It was almost kidnapping. We went to his village. His relatives
51
were also distant relatives of mine. We left wearing cork22 shoes. You and your parents were obviously unborn so you dont know. These are shoes with a sole made of wood and a strip of rubber on top of that, right underneath the bone. So I left wearing these shoes and black clothes He turned out to be nice. He was perfect, perfection in flesh. And my grandfather came to like him for he did all sort of things. But my mother said nothing, she was bittered. When I took him, he had not studied or been to the army. And then we had to go to Grevena for five years approximately. But he was so nice that we struggled through all the adventures of life together. He was a great genius, he had managed to pass in the Higher School of Commerce during the occupation without sitting any exams. A great mind indeed. But an obstacle came in the way and had to stop: he couldnt find a ship to embark. Ships those days were once a week and he missed it. He had to stay at my father-in-laws sister, so we had loaded his belongings on a donkey along with two containers filled with oil. But the container broke, the oil was spilt and he missed his ship A long story, I wouldnt like to be tiring. In any case, one of his colleagues, I think his name was Makrakis, dead also nowadays, told him: Giorgis, it will take time before the next ship arrives, my poor friend, what will you become? You dont have time to confirm your registration. Indeed, as I said, there was only one ship a week those days, I think its name was Kadio. To continue: Why dont you try for the Academy here?. And my husband replied: My dear friend, how am I going to give examinations for the Academy in Heraklio?. And he replied: You will study and you will see. He gave him the books, for he was in the Academy himself too, and studied for three days. He spent three days studying and passed third. And he constructed an oil-lamp from a tin he found thrown by the Germans. He folded it three times, so as to keep the oil, and asked somebody elses landlady for a bit of cotton and he made three lamp wicks out of it. And he managed to be the third one in score, by studying under an oil lamp for three days. I swear to God I wish I had a newspaper from that time.
22
In Greek: .
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So he passed third in the Academy and attended successfully the first year. But we were facing financial difficulties: I was young, we had our first child only after a year of marriage and my mothers support was not enough. My mother was receiving a pension since my father had been executed. And my grandfather too had a good salary but money was deprived of its value then. It was only after the liberation that its value was regained. So, we were poor, yet an aunt of his (his fathers sister) may God rest her soul, told him: You should come to Athens dear Giorgos She, her husband and her children are all saints. The Germans had killed the children of her brother and she wanted to help with all her heart: You should come to our home, although their lives were far from being lives of ease. They were carpenters but had a number of projects running. They even had a house of their own. You should come, my child, the following year. He spent his first year with difficulties and registered in Maraslio Academy of Athens the following year. I think I have his diploma here. He received it with honours, his grade is eight and a half; there was no one else with such a grade in Maraslio. He went to the army as soon as he finished the Academy. Being considered a patron, he spent only a year and a half in Lamia. He was appointed afterwards to the municipality of Gdohia as a teacher and later on in Grevena. Eh, we have been through all difficulties of life having also my first child, Manolis, at the age of seventeen Patrick Leigh Fermor in our house My father had assisted two units of Englishmen flee. Being the president of the village, he was also in the resistance. Every month they would send him a report from the Middle East. He would receive the report and say: Come Vangelio, read it for me, and so I used to read it, every single month. Yet I dont know how he received it, I never asked. And it used to say on the top: Patience and patience, endurance and endurance, and this uphill will lead to a downhill. He also accommodated Patrick Leigh Fermor, a great figure. He was English and participated in the abduction of Kreipe, the German General. Have you heard of these incidents during the occupation? Kreipe, the commander of the German forces in Crete was kidnapped. Patrick
53
Leigh Fermor was here, with two more English, dressed in the traditional Cretan outfit, i.e. wearing Cretan breeches and boots23. They pretended to be Cretans. I have lived these experiences, Virgin Mary! I dont know if I have omitted anything, for I havent yet felt that I am becoming slow. Up to now, my mind is in perfect shape, the only thing still working intact, for my legs and my other members... Patrick Leigh Fermor is married to a Greek woman and now lives somewhere in Peloponnesus. I still remember him here wearing Cretan breeches and boots, behaving and talking like us, like Cretans. We accommodated them. And my mother had a rooster slaughtered for the occasion although we had many chickens; a rooster she was saving and didnt want to slaughter. And she made a delicious soup out of it as she used to half-cook the chicken or the roaster, use the stock to make a soup, and then boil the meat in red sauce accompanied with fried potatoes. So, Patrick Leigh Fermor and his comrades, who knew nothing of Greek and could only understand Patrick Leigh, had a royal feast, at least in that time frame. Later on he stayed in Crete along with the rebels in the mountain and was the key figure in Kreipes abduction. They had him robbed, kidnapped and sent over to Egypt. The Italian presence in Mirtos The Italians were very nice. Nonetheless, they used to steal a bit for they didnt have much. It seems that their diet was also different... and they couldnt satisfy their hunger. But there were some things in their diet too. I was feeling disgust: they used to eat cats. What else is there to say? There were quite a few, a big detachment, Company Julia. There were successive bombings the days before the invasion in Sitia and we were all afraid. In Ierapetra they bombed and destroyed Kato Mera. Try to ask an inhabitant there of my age. All this area was reconstructed afterwards. They threw a couple of bombs here too, thankfully in the river, in the rural part of Mirtos. In fact, there even was a victim: a donkey. At that time we left our home and camped outdoors. We went to the upper
23
Cretan breeches and boots: in Greek, .
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part of town, right next to the river, in a place referred by the name of Peters. We have a large estate there, a vast vineyard that demanded once forty workers. But later on it wasnt profitable and my husband uprooted the vines for he was an excellent farmer and he excelled not only in this profession and planted young olives trees that we Cretans call mourela. Today it is very productive and those called mourela trees are referred to as liofita. That was the place we went and camped with two tents. My grandfather, grandmother and us, the children, were sleeping in the first one, whereas my mother and father in the second one. My other grandfather was still in Sitia, on duty. As soon as my father found out that Italians had arrived, he said to my mother: Kalliopi, I am going to meet them, I am the president of the village. I am not altering anything, these are the exact facts. My poor mother wrapped her arms around him and said: Where will you go, to continue: where to? Why do you offer yourself to the beasts, to have you killed, to leave young children alone? You have two young children, why do you want to fall in their hands? That was two children of course for my younger sister was still not borne. I am going, he replied. He had a high sense of duty. I told you before that he had helped two Englishmen flee in a submarine that came and collected them from a deserted beach in Vatos. Of course I was not present but I have heard the stories. Besides, he used to read me the reports since he loved me and knew I was a well-behaved child. Where will you go? she told him, Where?. I am going, its my duty, was his reply. He got up, took the donkey and made his way to the town. The first ones to arrive in Mirtos was Company Julia. He found them and, according to his narration afterwards, introduced himself: I am the president of the village. The Italian was named Donna Rumma I think, I am not sure, a holy man. I am glad to meet you Mr. President. He was a very sweet, young man, a lieutenant. And it was in this very room My father replied: Come to my home, come Mr. Temente, lets go. To continue: What shall I offer you? There was plenty of wine, raki, oil and bread in the basement, we had left there everything. The field we were staying at was not far from there so he used to take the donkey and visit the house in order to take supplies for a day or two. He asked: Do
55
you have wine Mr. President? to respond: I do!. Our nearby vineyard was producing tons of wines. Eh then bring some! And do you also happen to have a glass?. Of course we have glasses. I am telling you, I am very accurate in my narration, it is exactly as my father told us the story. And then asked again: And is there also any egg?, so my father said: There is egg too. He poured the wine in a water glass. Any sugar?. My father replied: Yes, some people gave me, still have some, not much, half oka, not really sure. And the Italian: Eh, put some in the glass of wine. They talked Spanish and a bit of English to understand each other. My father didnt know much of Italian, it is similar though to Spanish which he spoke like his mother tongue yet, with a bit of English that my father spoke rather well and the Italian could also speak, they managed to communicate. And he added the egg to the glass of wine, and said: Sugar should you spare some, otherwise honey will suffice. I have both honey and sugar. In any case, we gave him some, and then the Italian mixed the blend thoroughly and he drank it. My father later said to my mother: Kalliopi, I was disgusted only at the sight of it. Eh, afterwards, he gave him a hug and talked for a long time: We have good intentions. Indeed, they killed nobody, they didnt all right, they did a bit of stealing with the vegetables, the potatoes and we had half our field planted with potatoes. They would enter our gardens and steal cabbage, we call it fillades in Crete, and in general all our garden truck. Yet, they did no harm. They beat nobody, they killed nobody. And then, as he finished drinking his wine it is as if I am listening to my father telling the story he gave him a hug, kissed him and said: Let us leave Metaxas and Mousolini resolve their differences, we are brothers, arent we, Mr. President?. And my father responded: Brothers. The Italians had resided there whereas Germans would come every now and then. The Italians were cantare24: they were sitting by the school, singing mama son tanto felice, very nice Having spent a few days here, this nice man, Donna Rumma asked: President, could you name me which are the poor families?. They commandeered the house of Aliki and made it their commanding headquarters. That was one of
24
In Greek: , from the Italian word cantare.
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the two or three finest houses in the village those days; if you want us to take a look, it is visible from Agios Antonios. The officers used to stay there. And says: Please inform me on the poor families, Mr. Podest, that is how they called the president25, which are the families in need in Mirtos?. And my father named two or three that knew were in great need, and he offered them kouramana, rice and some sugar. My father also gave him oil, wine and raki. They loved raki, it reminded them of their own grapa, they went crazy over it. And they would sing at the school. They didnt hurt a man. Nonetheless, they would enter gardens sometimes, stealing beans, potatoes, making a mess... even if the vegetables were not mature yet. Ah, they had their share too! My father couldnt stand them at all. Only Donna Rumma was a philhellene and a couple more. This is the story in short. I mean all I remember. But I have not spoken of any inaccuracies. All I said is verified facts. Its only that I may have omitted many facts for my memory is weak.
Podest is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state but also as a local administrator.
25
MANOLIS DASKALAKIS
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Manolis Daskalakis The society here in Mirtos was a closed society. In our childhood, there were not many things for a child. There were the usual toys of the children, but in any case, I can say that the life of the children wasnt that bad. Children always find something to play with; they find something to pass their time with. The years were difficult of course in terms of nutrition for the children (in general). Most villages were poor because of the tight economy: our village was a little worse off than the other ones, but in any case, there was poverty in all the villages. Of course, I can say that the years of our generation werent as hard as they were for the previous generation. The previous generation suffered greatly: my fathers life was full of wars and dictatorships. That is, my father spent eight years in the army and two years as a prisoner in Turkey. He went first to the Balkan war and then to Asia Minor where he was kept captive for two years. I mean that the previous generation was how can I tell you it was not a life those people went through. Our generation of course also experienced a number of events but nothing similar to what our parents went through. I was born in 1928. I remember the dictatorship of Metaxa, but I was young and it didnt affect me so much. The dictatorship of Metaxa was in 1935 and I was seven years old: I went to school, I was Skapanitis then, because you had to become Skapanitis, you couldnt do otherwise. It was an organization of Metaxa, they organized themselves. It didnt affect me as much as the occupation did. The occupation affected us all deeply for they were All right, we had a good time with the Italians. They were little thieves but they werent tough persons. I mean, the Italian would not kill you for no serious reason. The Italian could come and steal your chickens from the coop. If you were there you could hit him with a stick and he would get away without talking to you. We helped the rebels then. They made collections here; and they said they made collections, various collections for food and all the food went to the rebels. All the foodstuffs, the bread they collected, whatever they collected, was for the rebels. The territory provided for the rebels. The Germans knew. They were well informed; it wasnt that they didnt know. Those who burned us down knew what they were doing. We were
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not burned by chance. Most people were involved in the resistance. Few people didnt know what was going on. The events in Simi Now, later on there were the Germans: the whole story with the Germans was triggered by a guardhouse that was in Simi. It was said that the purpose of the guardhouse was to get potatoes: they got five, ten kilos out of one hundred, at most. I believe that that was not the purpose. I believe that this guardhouse was over there in order to be able to check the activities of the rebels. This is what I believe. Dont take into consideration what many people believe. There are people that believe that it was for the potatoes. I cannot believe that there were four Germans in Simi to get potatoes: even if they got all the potatoes of Simi they wouldnt get more than two tons of potatoes. That is to get all the potatoes, not to leave some behind as they did. If they built a guardhouse in the Plateau of Lasithi it would be ok for potatoes, but in Simi? Even if they got all the potatoes that were produced, they could have managed with fewer than four soldiers in the guardhouse. This is my opinion: they had the guardhouse there (armed, tidy) only, in their way, to keep a close watch on the activities of the rebels. One day, people from Simi went to this guardhouse; it is said that they were drunk. People from Simi got drunk every night, how come it occurred to them to go and kill the men in the guardhouse that specific night? For one more time, I am of the opinion that they killed the guards because they were driven by the spies, in order to create some kind of disorder in the war. Because it was then that Italy had collapsed, that is, Italy had withdrawn from the agreement and had capitulated. This story took place around these days. I believe that the entire story took place as some kind of war play: aiming at delaying the Germans here. How come they suddenly got drank, they suddenly got mobilised and this entire story happened so suddenly? So they killed the Germans. When the Germans found out that their guards had been killed, a battle took place, a proper battle, between the Germans and the rebels. Then the German Kommandantur ordered Bruer and Mller that were the chief-officers then there (one was garrison commander while the other
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I dont know what the hell he was), to have all the villages in the province of Viannos burned down. We are not of course part of the province of Viannos, yet they relied on old documents that included us in that region. From that moment on, it is said that the order was to kill all living beings. Then the church intervened; the Metropolite of Heraklion, Psalidakis, who was enlightened. Had he not intervened, things would have been more difficult. Eh, and they started from three directions: from south, from the centre and from north and they killed whoever was found in their way. They killed approximately four hundred in the entire province. However, if the Metropolite had not intervened, the disaster would have been greater because they had five hundred fifty people locked up in the high-school of Viannos ready for execution. They also had in the church of Agios Theodoros some citizens too, that were one hundred, ninety, I dont know exactly how many they were. If all of them were killed, the disaster would have been equal to the one in Kalavrita. There were many, they would have killed many people. They destroyed all the villages. They burned down all the villages except... The intervening of Metropolite saved some villages: it saved Mithous and it was not burned, Metaxohori, Christo; these villages were also in the schedule, for they killed some people from there too, few of course, as many as they found. The villages there were mountainous and it was harder to find people. Germans in Mirtos The day the Germans came here, paradoxically, the village had many people. They had come from other villages as well. There were some from Ierapetra that were permanent residents of the village here. So the Germans came and they camped in an olive grove, where the church is now, but they spread afterwards to all the hills and they controlled the entire area; there was no way you could leave. The president, a young man who spoke German, went to the German who asked him: The village is small but it presents great activity. Why?. The president told him that: There are fifty families here from Ierapetra that are spending their summer vacation. It was September. They were permanent residents here because the village was productive. And then the German said:
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Those from Ierapetra that are on vacation here should leave at two o clock. And along with those from Ierapetra most of us left as well. At two o clock the village was evacuated. And we left too. Four of us left: my brother, I, my father and my mother. And many others. They killed those who stayed and were caught after two o clock. They killed twenty people; they had them captured by two o clock. They made a neutral zone; the zone was six kilometres, I think, from the beach. We go to Anatoli We went to Anatoli because my mother was from there. The rest of the people went to Ierapetra, to Kentri, they went to different villages. They went wherever they found people that provided for them, because there were villages that did not bother. We lived in Anatoli for fifteen months. It was September when we left; we left on the 14th of September and on the 30th of September the Germans left Crete. They all gathered in Chania. They left smoothly without gun shouting. They left quite smoothly. In Anatoli we rented a house and we stayed there. First of all, we also had relatives in Anatoli, my mother was from Anatoli. But life was very hard. Every ten days, every eight days, they allowed one day, Thursday I think, from eight o clock in the morning till four o clock in the afternoon, for people to go and water. Delegations of our people had gone to them, saying that we owned trees, which is true, and because of that they gave the people one permit every eight days to come over here to water and leave. But still, they would kill you if you went beyond the permission. They killed one, two people and the reason was that they entered the zone. In Anatoli there were also our fellow villagers and my father opened a small grocery store there, small coffeehouse and we got along. Our relatives also provided for us. Anyway, people were more sensitive then than they are now. Other fellow villagers too, that went to various other villages, had a nice time. In other villages, north of us, they returned after twenty days, one month. We couldnt return because of the zone, the neutral zone as it was called. The Italians There were numerous Italians here: there was a company of soldiers
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and a platoon of fascists, black berets, the ones with the black shirts. They were Mussolinis fascists, this unit belonged to Mussolini. They were a little harsh but for the most part they controlled their people. The other Italians were not cruel, they didnt believe in the war first of all. They used to sit in the coffeehouses with the citizens and drink with them. Eh, that doesnt mean they werent the occupying army of course, but not the tough German one. The German wouldnt give you to eat even if you were dying, whereas the Italians Back to the village After we returned here we found all our houses burned. All the houses were burned: they had all fallen down; you had to remove the soil, to remove the ruins. At the beginning we housed ourselves somehow or other, with lumber, with soil, with anything we could, and later on, when the cost of living began to rise it was very hard. This residence26 has been rebuilt four times since 1943 when we were burnt. And we started building the coffeehouse and the houses, all the houses, in any way we could. We used lumber and soil for the roof to be able to stay inside. And then, little by little, people started constructing the houses properly. But when you came here, you had fifteen days, one month, to make something to house yourself, even if it was a hut. We did it at first with sixty cm wooden middle beams, as we say, then we demolished it and we made it from concrete and then we re-demolished it because it had no foundations, it had nothing. Hence, it was a great disaster: we returned here only with our shirt. We lost whatever things a house has, because there were supplies in the houses those times (not like now that you have nothing in your house because you buy everything from the super market). Those years, you had in your house whatever you wanted to eat. We left with a shirt, we came back with a shirt. Those years were very bad. Life got better after 1950. What got better? At least, you had the ability not to be hungry. The school was not burned. It was a fortune that the school was not burned. I didnt go to high-school. My other brother went, he finished it and became a lawyer. I didnt go because
26
He means the coffeehouse the interview was taking place.
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the family had a hard time then; we couldnt support the studies of both of us. I was also older than my brother. The civil war Here in Crete, during the civil war, we didnt have many things going on among us. I dont know, some small events took place in Heraklio, but we didnt kill each other afterwards in Crete. Up there, they killed each other, brothers with brothers. Here in Crete, who was fast enough to prevent us from suffering the damage? Eh, small damages now I mean, there were some troubles here too. There were troubles here too, lets say: if you were even slightly democratic you didnt get hired by the army, you couldnt get hired by the gendarmerie, even if you wanted to, you couldnt get hired as a clerk, you didnt get hired here, didnt get hired there. Those that were leftists27, and their fellow-travellers as they used to say, those that were not informers, were all under persecution. In the public affairs I was involved in the politics very early, eighteen years old. Ever since I was a young boy I enjoyed getting involved in the public affairs, I enjoyed getting involved in what was going on in my village and here, if you read this, my whole story is in here28. After coming back from the army I joined the council, I joined the municipal council at the age of twenty five. Ever since, I was most of the times, president of the co-operative or president of some kind of delegation in the village. That is, I was a councillor for five times at the municipal council and served for three four-year terms as president of the community. I mean, I got involved in the public affairs at the age of eighteen and I have been involved for my entire life. Now its been a couple of years since I quit. A total of around fifty years: I am eighty years old now, two years since I quit, I have been participating since I was twenty five years old. Sometimes I served at the Prefectures Council representing an organization,
27 28
i.e. democratic Mr. Daskalakis held the speech he gave in an event that took place to his honor for his contribution to the local self-administration, when he was retired.
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sometimes I was with the Municipal Council. After all these years of experience you are left with both good and bad ones. However, I think that experience is good. I believe that a man should get involved in the public affairs. When I first started, people were more tight, things were harder. First of all, to refrain from lies, local self-administration became meaningful after 1981. I can say that Gennimatas initiated the local selfadministration. What self-administration has gained, has gained it with the governments of PA.SO.K.29 The people I personally believe that the people are never to be blamed. Hitler used to say that Crete is barbaric. Is there any German now that believes Crete is barbarous? Are Cretans barbarous? He wanted to create the impression to the Germans that people in Crete are primitive, the same for the Greeks. Does any German believe today that it is like that? I think there is no German citizen that thinks so. As I do not believe that there is a Greek citizen that thinks Germans are so barbarous. Irrespective of the atrocities they did to us here. We should be aware that wars have always cruelty. But the people are not to be blamed. I mean, are the Americans to be blamed that are in Iraq today? Or, are the people of Iraq responsible for what happened to them? That both of them have troubles and kill each other? How will people manage to assert themselves and prevent wars and troubles from happening? This is where the great art lies.
In Greek: .., i.e. , (Panellinio Sosialistiko Knima) stands for The Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, which is a Greek centre-left political party.
29
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Antonis Papadakis Of democratic, liberal principles My family, my grand-father, my father and all Papadakis family members, were of democratic, liberal principles. Thus, since my childhood, as a student in the preliminary school and high-school later, I have been against any violence and any non-liberal measures. I was deeply moved, I dont remember exactly who politician had said that, I think it was Plastiras, by: One night at the palace and after nine months, a king is born, while it will take centuries for a Venizelos Eleutherios to be born. That made a tremendous impression on me and it was implanted in my soul as a doctrine and I was against the king, against the dictatorship, against the junta; I was against the junta. Thus, I never kept a canary or a partridge in a cage, because I considered it as a non-free action. This attitude caused me problems in my life, because I experienced the movement of 35. Before Metaxa, the democratic defence had taken place; after Venizelos death, they didnt permit his body to pass through Athens. Leuteris Venizelos died in France and his dead body wasnt permitted to pass through Athens, because they said he was a bad politician, that he destroyed Greece. They brought him to Chania and his burial took place. After Venizelos burial at Akrotiri, Cretan school games took place: Venizelos wife made a donation to the municipality of Chania and they built the stadium in Chania. Around fifteen, twenty students from every high school of the entire Crete had been chosen (one for javelin, one for running, one for various sport games). They were chosen by the trainer and they went to Chania to celebrate the opening of the stadium. Because of Venizelos recent death and burial at Akrotiri, the students were asking to go and see Akrotiri and all the teachers went (the teachers and the students went). There was no proper road then, for it was still under construction. Well, we also went with our trainer, who by coincidence was extremely rightwing (and our headmaster also extremely right-wing) and we asked him to let us go too, to take us all as a group. He says: You didnt come here for political reasons. A group of us, three children went there. We took bicycles to go but it was an uphill. We had a picture taken at Venizelos
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grave. With our childhood enthusiasm we showed off this picture to the rest of the children when we returned to the high school in Ierapetra. We said: Here, the headmaster didnt allow us, the trainer didnt want to, but we went by ourselves, three children. During the break, he saw the group of students that was next to me and said: Whats this, whats this?. I tell him: We went to Venizelos grave and we had a picture taken. He says: Are you going to transform the high school into a Byzantine horse track?. He proposed that I should be expelled due to disobedience. I was forced to attend the fifth and sixth grade of high school elsewhere, in another high school. I had to leave Ierapetra that was a neighbouring place of mine, and go to Kastelli Pediados. There was no transportation then, from here, Mirtos, Viannos, to Kasteli, only by donkeys. The headmaster was threatening that he would expel me completely (he had expelled me two or three times) from all high schools. He called the teachers association and proposed that I should be expelled from all the high schools of Greece, as a disobedient and troublemaking element. So I went to Kastelli Pediados and I finished high school there. It was difficult for me because my parents couldnt support me. Over there, I had the same attitude. My teacher, a teacher, used to address the children during the lesson by their nick-names. We had a child who was gimp, with crutches, and he says: The gimp shall be examined. All the children laughed with the supposed joke of the teacher. I didnt laugh and the teacher says: They all laughed with my joke. Only Papadakis didnt laugh. He is playing the serious, but whoever beggars came to my house, were all from Viannos, from the villages of Viannos that Papadakis comes from. Is he playing the aristocrat and that comes from a big family?. I said to him: Mr. Headmaster, Viannos has indeed given birth to beggars, but there are also people of literature, Yiannis Kondilakis , who had written Patouxa, When I was a teacher, I dont know who your place gave birth to. Thus, I finished high school there, at Kastelli Pediados. There, I met other children that followed my way of living (the democratic and the liberal). The student pressed charges against the Headmaster at Kastelli Pediados (he wasnt a Headmaster but was acting as one, in the absence
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of the Headmaster) and he wrote in his suit that he called him gimp because he referred to him as Teacher. And he told him: I am a Headmaster and he struck the student with the ruler. The student had left the crutches near the wall, crawled as he could, took the crutches and went out. We, the students, defended him and expressed along with the senior classes (fifth and sixth grade), with my prompting, our disapproval for the teacher. Anyway, the teacher was transferred afterwards. This is how, psychologically, psychically and mentally the occupation of Greece from the Germans found me: prepared to fight. The occupation of Crete and the resistance During the withdrawal of our army from Albania, I found myself in Athens as a recruit, destined for the school of Reserve Officers. When we left Chania for Athens, on that day, the Germans declared the war on us. I didnt expect that the Germans would occupy Crete because I had seen and believed in the sea empire, the domination of England at sea, and therefore the occupation by the Germans found me in Athens. They had spread the rumour then that the Germans would take captives from the Greek army and that they would send them to dig entrenchments at the war front with Russia. And I thought: I am not staying alone to be captured by myself. I will leave. And I left by the last train the Englishmen went away from Greece, through Githio of southern Peloponnesus. We left by the train of the Englishmen. We went in, to be on time for the boats of the Englishmen that departed from Githio. We were forced to spend the night at the station. The Germans occupied Corinths isthmus with parachutists. We reached Nauplio though. I found there a group of officers, five people of the Greek army, and I told them: I know about sailing. Since we didnt catch up with the Englishmen, we will go to Githio, to find a boat to pay for. These officers had got their salary and had money. I didnt have a single drachma and I said: I will contribute my sailing knowledge supposedly sailing knowledge, and you will pay the boatman. And we went from Kithira, to Antikithira and we reached Crete. I thought and believed that Crete would not be occupied. I say: How will Crete be occupied since the English fleet is powerful, since Eng-
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lishmen are in Souda. How will it be occupied?. No one expected the parachutists. When finally, the island and the airports were occupied by the Germans, some Englishmen had been left here that had not managed to retreat (to leave for Egypt) as well as some young boys from the School of Euelpidon30. Before the Germans bombed Crete with the parachutists, the Euelpidon School as well as the government officials had come to Crete. What would we do with those young boys? We hid the Englishmen wherever each one could. I had classmates that had been to Euelpidon School and they signalled me: We are hungry. Where are we going to hide?. We were hiding them above Tertsa, in all the south parts of Crete, in Arvi, in Psari Forada, wherever we could. But they wanted food, they wanted clothes, they wanted various things and we were trying to make connections to enable them to leave by submarines. Thus, from the first days of occupation and even before the organised resistance groups were formed (E.A.M. and E.O.K.31) a lieutenant colonel, Raftopoulos Aleksandros, had formed a committee of revolutionary liberation. I was linked to that committee, through someone called Fragkakis, a lawyer from Kato Simi. Not directly with Raftopoulos but via Fragkakis. Eventually, Raftopoulos was betrayed and he was killed. After that, the teams of Mpantouva, of Petrakogiorgi and of other ones were formed, that later on were unfortunately split up. I was in charge of the E.A.M. of my territory. Thus, E.A.M. found me organised in the resistance since I was in the team of Raftopoulos (through Fragkakis). With the withdrawal of the Englishmen, we kept contact indeed with Egypt and we helped a lot of people to escape. And many left Ierapetra by boats hoping that they would find an English boat in the open sea to pick them up. The extermination of the guards So, the rebels group of Mpantouvas had been formed at Hameti. The
That is the School of the Officers for the Greek Army. In Greek: ..., (Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo). The National Liberation Front was the main movement of the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. In Greek: ... (Ethniki Organosi Kritis), stands for National Organisation of Crete.
31 30
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Germans had been informed and made a guardhouse at Kato Simi with two soldiers, supposedly to collect potatoes; this was the nearest place to Hameti. The rebels of Mpantouva went and killed those two Germans. We, at the provincial committee of E.A.M., were against the murder that took place without our knowledge. It is said that it was an intervention by the English in order to mislead the Germans. There are two versions: the German front had started staggering and we waited for a landing, yet we didnt know whether it was going to take place in Greece, in Dodecanese, in North France or elsewhere in Europe. Mpantouvas killed those two people in order to mislead the Germans and make them believe that reception activities for the allies start in Crete. During the disorder of these events, a detachment of the English fleet occupied Dodecanese and liberated them from the Italians. We tried during occupation to keep the morale of the people high. Crete had been split in two occupied regions, into two states: the Germans governed Chania, Rethimno, Heraklio (three prefectures) and here, in the prefecture of Lasithi, there were the Italians. Our borders were in Viannos. Well, when they killed the two Germans, the Germans sent a company to go and make reprisal in Simi. The rebels of Mpantouva set up an ambush in the gorge and they shot and killed many Germans. The Germans in Mirtos After that, they burned the villages of Viannos. We didnt expect it here in Mirtos because the village was by the sea and we had an Italian guardhouse. We believed that it wouldnt happen, that they wouldnt burn our villages: Mirtos, Mournies, Gdohia, Mithous. When we learnt that the Germans were one or two kilometres away from Mirtos, at the location Vatos, I called the elders of the village, as the person in charge of the region, the liaison of E.A.M. with Mpantouvas. I called them and told them: We should leave. I called the elders of the village to a meeting, the president and many others. I made the suggestion to all the elders: We should leave because the fire and the gun shooting are surrounding us and we dont have a way to escape due to the plains and the sea. How are we going to escape if the Germans start slaughtering?. The elders didnt agree on my suggestion and particularly the president of
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the community, who thought that if he would take good care of them, if he would slaughter animals for them, if, if, if the Germans wouldnt hurt us. But I said: If they do hurt us though, we are going to pay this mistake with our lives. We will pay for the mistake. Lets go because an old saying goes: an hour of life, can not be replaced. That is: We should leave now and save our lives and God will help us later. I didnt persuade them though and I told them: I dont obey and I am going. A rumour had been spread then that a rebel had joined the Germans and that he was wearing a German uniform so as not to be recognized and I thought: If they gather the people and frighten them, someone may be found to say that Antonis is responsible. And I tell them: I am leaving. It was summer and we were here wearing shirts, it was 15th of September, and I say: I am going to stay until they come. I will stay at the village until the Germans get in. If you see me wearing the jacket, this is a sign that I am leaving. And indeed the Germans came, the president took care of them and I didnt obey, I left. Many people from Ierapetra had left and had been to the villages because the Englishmen had bombed Ierapetra with allied airplanes. The fishermen of Kato Meras of Ierapetras, came to Mirtos because it was by the sea. In addition to the fishermen of Ierapetra that came to Mirtos, the most frightened people from the nearby villages came here too for security, because they thought that the village was peaceful due to the Italians. They thought: Since there are Italians there, it is more peaceful. When the Germans came, they asked: Although the village is small, we see a lot of people. What is going on?. And the president told him, through an interpreter: We are more than those who have been born here, because the Englishmen bombed Ierapetra and the fishermen of Ierapetra got frightened and came here to Mirtos which is a smaller village. There are thirty families and the population is higher. Then he asks secretly the interpreter: Which building is bigger: the church or the school?. Since he asked which building was bigger, I thought: They will put us of course there all together and they will kill us and they are going to put a fire. I decided then that I was going to leave. I was present at the conversation. The conversation took place between the president of the community and the German who came here as the person
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in charge of the death squad. The interpreter was a child, who knew some German and could understand. The German asked him in private (all previous questions were in front of us) and he told him: Which one is bigger, the school or the church?. I saw that the German was asking the child in private and I suspected that something bad would happen. The child was from a poor family with many members and his name was Kornaros (if I am not mistaken). I had treated him to bread a lot of times (our house was full of food and we never got hungry before the burning because we lived from the soil and we had barley, wheat, beans, chick-peas, we had everything). He felt obliged and revealed to me what he was asked secretly. I say to myself: Antoni leave. Then my mother told me not to leave and she hung herself from my neck. And I left. My mother was telling me not to go and that: Whatever is going to happen to all the people, is going to happen to me too. And I said: I dont know what is going to happen to all the people but it would be dangerous if they betray me as I was involved in the resistance, You should all leave at the first opportunity. I left my mother. The Germans said to the president: The people from Ierapetra should leave immediately and the people from Mirtos should stay until three o clock in the afternoon so we can tell them what to do. People started being afraid and started leaving with the people from Ierapetra. However, the death squad arrived at three o clock through Gdohia. Then the Germans burned the village down. They captured and killed eighteen people. Their names are written on the monument in the village. Then they declared neutral military zone: that is, neither a frog could live inside the zone. When we came back here, all the houses of the village were damaged. One or two houses had remained untouched, they were saved from fire. The Germans killed people up to the boundaries of Mirtos river because we were administratively subjected to Viannos where the Germans were in charge. They wouldnt kill you if you had crossed the river. They finally killed the president. They defined a place for us, they forced us to stay in Ierapetra. Exiled to Ierapetra They gathered us the day after the burning of the village in Ierapetra
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(they had heralds to gather us at the square) and an officer came and said: Mpantouvas left. We were forced to make reprisal. We said: What is our and the babies fault?. And I went with someone called Leonida Pigiaki from the resistance and we presented ourselves (such boldness, the boldness of an eighteen year old) and told him: Mr. General, OK, Mpantouvas left he called him Mpantouvas32, but why is the childrens fault that are hungry and have no milk, have no father, have no mother, have lost everything? You should help us live because our village is a neutral zone. How did we dare? They answered: You should address yourselves to your authorities. In our village, the Germans had killed the president and the vicepresident and a counsellor was left, Papageorgiou was his name (he was the father of Papageorgiou the doctor). To be able to survive by ourselves we formed a rescue committee for the fire victims and asked the Red Cross for food. The Germans were forcing us and collected 10% of barley and wheat from the threshing floors. We formed a rescue committee for the fire victims of which I was in charge. We were self-appointed in that committee. Our effort during the occupation was to keep the morale of the people high, not to have relationships with women and girls, etc, because it was dangerous. Our aim was to save them from hunger. We formed a collection committee and we set up a caldron when we came to Ierapetra. When they burnt us and forced us to stay in Ierapetra, we occupied the preliminary school (we went inside the preliminary school). It is a miracle that we stayed! We were sleeping on the floor without knowing where the child was, where the father and the mother were, they were all spread around. We went to Kato Mera in Ierapetra and made a collection; we collected enough to set the caldron and we had a mess. They gave us some beans, some gave us some chick-peas, fava-bean, whatever each one could offer from his house and we set a caldron and had a mess for the fire victims that were saved. We called the Metropolite then, the bishop of Ierapetra, to find help for us and he said: May God help you. So, we stayed at that school
32
In Greek, the punctuation of the name of Mpantouvas is in the last a whereas the German punctuated the first one.
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all together, except for those who got a room in a friends house. Specifically for the village of Mirtos, the German Kommandantur had specified to reside in Ierapetra, because only Mirtos was declared a neutral military zone. We continued to stay until the liberation. I am not mentioning any details now because there are too many: we asked the national Red Cross for food and they gave us beans and mostly wheat. They had created a food store and did a distribution every two, three or four months. Wheat for bread. I was in contact with a worker in the resistance and inside the car we transferred the foods for the distribution from Agios Nikolaos, where the storehouse of Red Cross was. We put, we hid materials for the resistance: newspapers, guns, medicine, anything necessary for the fight of the resistance. There was the rebels movement. When we came back to the village after the liberation, we had neither a fork, nor a spoon, or anything, because the Germans ate the food preserved in tins and they lanced them with the bayonet so as not to be used by the population. They got that awful! They lanced the tin they ate the meat from with the bayonet so as not to be used and we couldnt even use them for cupping (that for which we use glasses). We almost got captured! My mother in Mirtos saw that I hid the material for the resistance in a chest. I had some letters from friends of mine in the chest and she took those letters with her when she left. The Germans, when they intended to do the killings, said: The people that come from Ierapetra should leave. The locals from Mirtos should stay until three o clock that Kommandantur will answer us. When the people saw that those from Ierapetra were leaving, they left too. My mother took those letters and she put them in her bust. There were some emotional letters too about school loves. My mother didnt know that it was this kind of letters but she thought it was material of the resistance and she took them with her. She thought: If they find them with my childs name written on, he is in danger. When we went to Ierapetra to a friendly family, whose house we were staying at, I say: Hide that envelope for me and when we get free, if we are alive, you will hand it in to me. Otherwise burn it. And
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that woman put the letters in a chest with her clothes, without knowing exactly what it was. Her father though was a merchant and sold dynamite along with other materials to the fishermen. He was a grocer and sold dynamite too. One night, the Germans set up a roadblock and were searching at Yerapetro (Ierapetra) because they were after something. They made a search inside the house too and they reached the chest where the letters were hidden. I was ready to jump from the window to get away. Underneath the letters, just underneath another piece of clothing, the ladys father that accommodated us in the house, had forgotten a pistol. The German saw the letters tied together, neatly wrapped and he thought it was material for the resistance and he took me to the Kommandantur. He pointed me out with his pistol, there were two Germans with the pistols pointing at me, and we went to Kommandantur. I say to them: These letters are emotional. I love a classmate of mine, and here are the letters. He says: Ah, I have one too. I have an amore. He didnt go to see underneath. That is, the letters saved the house, because if they hadnt found the letters and they had picked up the other piece of clothing, they would have found the pistol and we would be in trouble. So they found that material and they took it. The interpreter, Antonia Mathioudaki that was a classmate and a friend of mine, confirmed (after she read the letters) that they were indeed of emotional context and by Gods will it so happened that the German had an affair too with a German lady, secretly from his mother. Moved, as he was, he said to me: Go, you are free. These letters saved my and the others lives. The burial of the executed Since they made the village a neutral military zone, we didnt know what happened to those missing; there were about eighteen, twenty people missing. We didnt know where they were. And then one that sneaked into the zone, saw them killed. They had killed them in an entrenchment near the preliminary school that exists today and they had thrown them in there. They had placed them in the entrenchment that they had made for defence, should the English land. They had made entrenchments as we call them in the army. They set them up at the edge of the entrenchment and after that, they got the machine guns
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ready and killed them. They pushed them and threw them in the ditch. When we learnt that the missing people were there, killed (after twenty days) I asked permission from the German Kommandantur to go and burry them. We had Antonia Mathioudaki inside the German Kommandantur, who was in the resistance (she stayed undercover: we were only two persons that knew that she was in the resistance). She says: Dont ask to go and burry them. You put yourself in danger. And she came with the wives of the victims to burry the dead. Their bodies had started disintegrating, because twenty days had passed, and an oil stink had been formed on the ground by the sun. It was September. And I went to grab a dead man by the hands, a man who had been shot, and his hands and legs broke off. And I saw a father and his child and they had fallen in the ditch, apart from each other, (they were separated by three other bodies) and they had their arms extended to say goodbye: they fell down alive, that is, they werent dead when they fell in the ditch. To say goodbye. I still shudder when I think of that scene: their hands were only ten centimetres apart. Then the Germans tried to assert that they were killed in a battle. When the trial of Nuremberg took place, the secretary of our community went there as a witness. He went as a witness to say that the Germans had killed civilians that had not hurt the Germans. They claimed that they gave a battle. Thats why they put the killed people of Mirtos in the entrenchment: to claim later that it was a battle. They had foreseen that thing. Resistance activities and events When Romel was fighting and winning down to Africa, the Germans needed supplies and used to say that a drop of gasoline or water is worth nine soldiers. Well, we had to do sabotage and the resistance team burnt the airport of Kastelli Pediados and intercepted the replenishment of the Germans. I wasnt actively involved in that, I had political responsibility, I didnt have military control. I knew though what was going to happen. Porfirogenis, a man from the central committee of the Communist Party, had stayed in Crete and we had to accompany him to leave for
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Athens. I managed to do it. In order to board the boat, the caique that connected Crete, you had to apply to the port authority in Souda that was occupied by the Germans and you were examined very thoroughly by them in order to see who you were. I said that: There is a way to get in. So I found a child that was in the resistance; he kept the list of the approved names of those who would go and he called them. There were German soldiers standing right and left by the stairs of the dock. You had to get a permission to go to Athens. To get this permission, you had to go through thorough control by their people. And he says to me: Do you have the courage when I call Antonis Papadakis to say present even if your name is not written on the catalogue?. My name wasnt written in the catalogue to go, but he said: Do you have the courage not to lose your temper, not to get dizzy, when I call Antonis Papadakis and to say present? And I will provide for the rest. Finally I went in and we accompanied Porfirogenni. We were of course at a distance and we didnt have any contact for security reasons. The Germans had set in Ierapetra a long range wireless to communicate with Africa. We had teams then to keep the morale of the population high and we had small opportunities for gathering and chatting. There was a German in a neighbourhood who was the electronics technician in some way, of the wireless, and we had met him. He was against fascism and he told us: I will see that the radio never works. And he did a smart sabotage pretending there was something missing. We had managed I mean, to have German friends too. We had met this German that was against fascism in the neighbourhood and we understood from what he said that he was against fascism and he confessed to us that the wireless wouldnt work. He would delay it as much as he could. Indeed, it never worked. There was here in Mirtos too a wireless, but of local range, for the Prefecture of Lasithi. I had a chat one day with the sergeant at the wireless (his mother was Greek and he spoke Greek). He said to me: I want you to tell me the truth, what you firmly believe: who is going to win, the allies or us the German Italians?. I say: Who is going to tell you the truth? Since you are in the military and you have the guns, the other one is afraid. He will tell you that he believes that you are going to win. But
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I will keep it only to myself . Who can trust you? I said to him. He said: But I say that to you Antoni, I am asking you. I am asking you, because we have some kind of friendship between us. I was fishing information. And I told him: I dont believe you. But I swear to you, Santa Madonna, this is how the Italians called Virgin Mary that I wont say anything if you tell me the truth. I told him then: Take off your cap, take off your jacket the jacket with the chevron You are a citizen now. You are not an Italian. And I told him: The allies are going to win, that is, the English-French because you cannot harm America. You were secretly equipped, cannons, tanks, etc, but since America got in the war in favour of the allies you cannot bombard it and it will surpass you. Until that point, you will be winning You have, lets say, fifty tanks, the allies have fifty more. Then you will start going down. He was moved and he said to me: I give you my word, that I will keep my word, I will keep my vow. I wont betray you, but will you hide me when the English land?. I said: I will hide you for a couple of days, two days, three days, four days, and provided I find a way to escape, OK. If I dont find As I said, that is how we tried to boost the moral. That is, above all, to boost the moral of the people. The cooperative I was forced immediately after the liberation, around 45 if I am not mistaken, when we came back here, to found the Agricultural Cooperative of Mirtos. We saw that we had no choice. I founded the cooperative of Mirtos, to be able to obtain a few loans from the State for reconstruction and we also formed the union of the fire victims. The union of the fire victims was founded and we tried through the union and the cooperative to take a loan, whatever we could for foodstuff. We took the loan and we didnt have the ability of paying it back. We took the loan from the Agricultural Bank and we didnt have the ability of paying it back because we spent it for our survival and not for the field. I didnt want to be the president of the cooperative. I never wanted to be a president. I was the founder and the treasurer of the cooperative, the secretary, but they didnt let me. Because as the bank said once, I
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was of free and democratic principles: Since the signature of Papadakis and the rest of the counsellors will be on, we will not accept the loan request. We were forced to resign. What should we do? There are documents I mean, there are such kind of documents. The cooperative still exists but is in decline because conditions have changed. In the past, people took a loan through the cooperative and they also gave a small amount of money back if they could. The time they took the loan, lets say a loan for cultivation, to plant bananas, the cooperative approved of it. They went to the bank and the bank approved of it as well and they took it. After a year or so, it had to be returned. But the time you gave them the loan, lets say 5000 drachmas to plant bananas, they either planted them, or they didnt: many times they were spending it to survive. Each one gave a penny to the cooperative and it could buy the writing materials and sustain itself. From there, little by little, through many and different efforts, we made the storehouse; a storehouse for the cooperative, two hundred square meters. We took a donation from the State through my efforts and we took a loan too and we established here a centre of fertilizers and did deliveries. At that time, the fertilizers were under the control of the State: their commerce wasnt free. The price was the same throughout Greece and we delivered fertilizers from Pefko of Viannos to the villages here in Ierapetra. That is, the cooperative helped the people to survive, irrespective of the fact it couldnt pay its debts. We gave a fight again not to pay our debts, to have them given to us for free. They honoured others and we were on the run: The good deeds of fascism I had finished high school and my father asked me to go to university. When I finished high school I disagreed with my father. He asked me to become a teacher and I said: I want to go to university, or else I am not going to become a teacher. I mean, am I going to degrade my life and go to some poor and mountainous village with crows?. My father said to me: What should I do first? Provide for the family? Will I rebuild my damaged house? We have no oxen, we have no cows, we have no goats, we have no spoon, we have no fork. What should I do?. I said to him
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then: I wont go. If I go, they will exile me because they were after the people that took part in the resistance. Unfortunately Greece has committed a big crime by persecuting the people of the resistance. Where they buried the dead that I mentioned previously, I drew a red arrow on a corner wall and wrote: Tombs, the good deeds of the fascism. The arrow was pointing to the place where the people from Mirtos had been killed by the Germans. And the gendarmerie of the time, right-wing and non-democratic, asked: Who has written that?. And they learnt it was me, Antonis Papadakis, and they passed by the coffeehouse I was at, and took me there, with the bayonet at the ready, behind my back. And he said to me: Who wrote it?. I said: I wrote it. Why did you write it?. I said: Do you mind? Is it bad? Did we insult Greece? Did we insult the King? Did we insult the government? Did we insult anyone? Tombs, the good deeds of fascism. Fascism ruined us. He said: Erase it with your tongue. I refused and they grabbed me by the hair, pushed me and rubbed my nose, my face, against the wall to erase it with my blood. Very difficult years, terribly difficult. I went to countries such us Czechoslovakia and if I am not mistaken, two young boys of the resistance had been hidden in a basement and killed the deputy commander of Hitler when he was making an inspection. Czechoslovakia and the allies, to honour the resistance, expropriated a big area and erected a great altar in the centre with a flame burning day and night. They erected a sacred place and had offerings from all the countries of Europe in honour of the resistance. They made monuments for those that were in the resistance for two hours and we demolished Gorgopotamos bridge, we burned things, we had guerrillas: our resistance was the greatest one in the whole Europe. And they were after us afterwards because we had fallen into the nets of the cold war. I didnt go to the rebels movement armed, I was politically in charge: I had disagreed with my people too because they shouldnt have signed Varkizas treaty. It damaged us. Then, Aris Velouhiotis who didnt agree, left. They went after him; that is, we were split too. We suffered losses. I see now (is it an impression?) that whenever the right-wing came to power in Greece, that power caused damage: why did they want to
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kill Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus? Didnt they make an attempt to assassinate him? Didnt they make an attempt then, against Venizelos Leuteris who made Greece greater and made it the country of five seas and of two continents, as they say? They said in Asia Minor that Venizelos was bellicose and that he was going to ruin Greece and eventually he was the one who made peace with the Turks. Venizelos shouldnt have held the elections in 1921, when he was voted down. My father did seven years as a soldier: he went in the army in 12 and he was discharged after the tragedy of Asia Minor. And they say to mother: If you want your husband to return, you should vote for the popular party. If you vote for Venizelos he might never come back. That is, some messages that hurt, bad advice that can be easily implanted in the mind of the people. The good can not be implanted easily! Personal interests and the common wealth (the road) After the liberation, we got down to work to reconstruct the village. The social, political, financial conditions change, everything changes. I served the community for about fifteen years: I was the president of the community of Mirtos for three terms before Junta dismissed me. We agreed then, that an agricultural road was where an animal loaded with bales of hay, two meters wide, passed through. Well, we opened the road and we tried to get a car to pass. We asked for signatures and one said: Yes, I sign (for the road) to run, the other one said: Yes I sign but the other one said: Not through my property!. Do you know how hard you have to fight today to have this progress achieved in the isolated villages? To have the road constructed, provided it does not run through his field! To have something done, provided he gives nothing. And this is contrary to his interests! I was the president before Junta: we had just found peace and Greece had been somehow democratized and I ran for president. The road Viannos-Ierapetra didnt exist, a motorway didnt exist. In every election (and before the war) they put numbers on the rocks and said: We will open a road to go straight ahead to Ierapetra and when the elections passed they did nothing. The same in every election. When they finally decided to construct the road, an engineer from Viannos undertook the
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design, and I said I would run for president because if the road ran two kilometres above the village (they designed the road two kilometres away from the village) Mirtos would be buried! What should we do? And I say to the fellow-villagers: I will run for president of the community just to make sure that the road will run low, by the sea. I am not coming to anyone to ask for his vote and as soon as I make it happen I will step down. And I was a candidate and the people voted for me. So I started and when I took the oath officially I went to the Ministry, to discuss our issue. Eventually, I went more than forty times to Athens. And we managed to construct the road low. Since the road ran low, we converted fields that were for oat and barley into building sites and some fellow-villagers were cursing us! The one that had his field taken then is rich now, since he has greenhouses and a house constructed on that lot. That is, the road you come from now, was designed by us. I mean, you have to spit blood, to fight until death, in order to be the president of the village. And they curse you on top of that. And by the time he sees what was done, it is too late. He will realise that he was wrong after five, ten years. But the point is how you make it to that point. Me and my grandson At the beginning, then, during the reconstruction, there was a committee for the lumber used for housing. They weighted it for us to make a fair distribution: that is, they gave fifty kilos of lumber to you, fifty to the other one. They didnt give it to you according to the meters of length, only by weight. Greek stupidities. Moronic ones. Our family house was here but they had burned it. My daughter and my grandson live in another house now. He has toys now and he throws them away. Back then in my childhood, where could we find a toy? We went to the beach and the sea was washing sponges ashore during the storms. The wave was uprooting them and grandmother wrapped it all around with a piece of clothing and she made a little ball. Because the sponge was pressed, the ball was bouncing and that was our toy. Or when the butcher slaughtered a pig, we were standing and helping him (we gave him water, we helped him slaughter the pig) in order to take the uri-
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nary bladder, blow it up and make a ball. Where are those years? Now my grandson has dozens of toys, he throws them down, he smashes them in a second, and if you see the house it looks like a bombarded one. His grandmother buys toys for him and he damages them. Children today have other things. Life conditions are different today, they have changed a lot. The Germans today I believe that most of the Germans have realised that Hitler eventually did harm to them. Do you know that they had eugenics institutions and that they wanted to make the superhuman? Someone said that if you take a selected man, healthy and strong, and you pair him off with a girl of the same characteristics, they will produce a superhuman. They wanted to create a new German race. That is, the Germans declare that the only pure race is theirs. This is their teaching. They separated Germany into East and West, constructed then the wall of Berlin. There was no freedom. Russia collapsed; the world was ruined because the counter-balancing fear went away. Now there are the Americans: Does the donkey fly? Yes it does. Does the marble fly? Yes it does. The butterfly flies: the same for the butterfly, the same for the marble. I mean to say in a few words that I have no hate for anybody. I accommodated a group of Germans (about one hundred) here, during my days as a president. We had no place to house them then, we hadnt recovered at all, we had no houses. They had an educational conference here in Mirtos and they stayed for about fifteen days (they paid for this). I have no hate for them, because they told us then: Why is it our fault? We were brain-washed. It is just like the janissary that the Turks took. They took a Greek child and made it into a janissary. Is it the childs fault that he was after his father afterwards? I dont see them as enemies now. I look at the politics, the leaders. I am interested in the leaders. Messes The Italians had commandeered the printing-house of the newspaper Anatoli and were publishing a newspaper that was called Stampa. I had read in Stampa that a little boat from Ierapetra, which was in-
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volved in smuggling between Ierapetra and Piraeus, was confiscated. At the time, there was excess of oil here and excess of tobacco in Athens. It was terrible to smoke here: people in order to smoke went and removed the bark of some trees, like the bark of rush, mostly of rush (a tree with low branches) and made cigarettes. We didnt even have paper to wrap it and they went to the churches and took the paper from the Books of Psalms and made cigarettes. So, I had read that they had confiscated their cigarettes (it was considered smuggling then) and that they were going to be distributed to the population. As soon as I read it, I went to the Prefect as the president of the committee for the rescue of the fire victims and I said to him: I want you to give me cigarettes from the ones to be distributed. He said: The committee didnt have a meeting yet!. I said: I cant wait for the committee to have a meeting. There was someone else inside, some mayor of Kritsa, he wore breeches. I had a long dialogue with the Prefect: I cannot wait. I have no bread for our survival and we want And he said to me: And what, are the cigarettes going to save you? Will they satisfy your hunger?. I said: Yes!. He said: Yes?. Yes! I replied to him. Arent you ashamed of yourself? he said to me. I told him: I will give the cigarettes to buy bread, I will give them to the bakery to buy bread, I will give the cigarettes to the pharmacy to take the medicine for my child. He said: Say it, you just drove my crazy. I did it though to irritate the Prefect. He said to me: And how many portions do you want?. I told him: Five hundred: with one portion of cigarettes I take one portion of food. He said: And the babies? Do the babies smoke too?. I said: The babies smoke too: how am I going to buy the medicines for the babies? I will give the portion to the mother and the poor mother will give it, but is it enough? If she has three babies, is one portion enough for the three babies she has, three young children?. Then the mayor of Kritsas that was inside, got up, stood still and said: Mr. Prefect, would it be possible for me too to report to your excellence my requests? and then the Prefect said: Speak up the way he did33 and you will take. That is, it takes cleverness. The mayor wanted to take a portion too, but by saying: would it be possible for me to have also the pleas33
Pointing to Mr. Papadakis.
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ant leniency to be heard and with the many excellency etc I mean, I was respected: he said: Speak up the way he did and you will take. I organised here messes for the children after the liberation. In no place in Greece was there ever a mess set up for the children in a small village. I made it, through the director of the Red Cross of Agios Nikolaos, because he admired me secretly since I insisted on the distribution. I had weighted the beans and we had received about one hundred fifty drams of beans per person. But because three months had passed from one distribution to the other, I made my calculations and said: Every family had to put two beans in the pot. So I managed with cleverness and with their kindness of course and by putting things in a logical order to take some more. Finally, they sued us too. Let it be. After the allies came, they made a committee, the so-called EMEL, committee EMEL of the allies: food distribution for the destroyed villages. That is, the allies were generous and did some food distributions. We got, if I am not mistaken, five hundred one portions. That is what the population of the entire village was. The Germans were still in Chania: when Germany capitulated, the Germans were still in Chania. They had entrenched themselves in Chania and had also a problem of survival. Nathenas, the General, had ordered a mobilisation if I am not wrong. He mobilised those capable of being drafted or former soldiers in order to go to Chania and encircle the Germans because they were going out to the villages taking foods. And Germany had capitulated. The Germans spent four, five more months in Chania. Well, he says to me: All right Papadakis, we will give you. How many portions?. I say: Five hundred and one. He replies: Five hundred and one? Dont you have men drafted?. I say: No. He says: It is not possible that you have no men drafted!. They wanted to cut off the portion of the soldier, of the father that was mobilised, he should not take it, because he ate in the army and I stated that I had no soldiers. Is it possible not to have any soldiers?. I say: I have none. Now, the rightwing ones wanted to take us out of this distribution committee: But we cannot take them out because the regulations were not that strict yet. They said: But they are left-wing, they are communists, this committee is He says: But we cannot exclude them for political reasons.
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So he remembered our conversation about the drafted ones. He said: Do you have men drafted?. He replied: Yes. Check the catalogue to see. He brought the papers of the distribution: Have a look to see if you have any soldiers. And he found someone and said: Yes! Hes got a soldier!. He said to me: You have soldiers too! and they sued us for mismanaging of state property. I had thought cleverly and when I was giving the woman, Sofia, Maria, I said: the regulation, the order, says that your husband should be excluded. You are one, and three children that youve got, four, and your husband, five. You took five portions. You shouldnt have taken this portion. I said that you had no soldier and I am giving it to you, because the government should have helped you, the families of the soldiers, and not deprive them of bread. And I wrote a letter, a nice one: I took a note book of twenty pages and I apologized in writing to the Public Prosecutor. And he replied to me: As a Greek citizen, I praise you. As a judge, I am going to put you on trial for mismanagement. I kept this certificate as a holy icon. Finally he acquitted us: Due to overwhelming patriotic zeal. I said to him: Gentlemen, instead of him helping my mother!... Smoke was still coming out of the house. Smoke was still coming out of our houses when this event happened! Do you know what mental strength you need to fight in a village? People should realise this.
MARIA ARCHONTIKAKI DIMITRIANAKI
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Maria Archontikaki Dimitrianaki I am a hundred years old my child. I was born in 1913, but God does not take me with Him and gives me nothing but sufferings. I was born in 1913. My father was in Asia Minor. He left in 1913 and spent thirteen years in Asia Minor. They fought the Turks. We didnt see a Turkish face. We had Turks in Ierapetra but they were nice, they loved us. My grandmother went to Velisarios in the presence of my father and he gave her barley and candies and meat to give to the children of the soldier. It was I, my brother and my father. He had two at that time: my older brother and me. When my father came back from the war, we didnt want him, we didnt know him, we didnt want him. We went instead to a nearby house when he came and we didnt go home. We said that we have no father. Dad is gone, he is dead, we didnt know. Our uncle told us: Come my child, it is your father. No way could we be convinced. We didnt want him, didnt know him, how could we want him? He left in 1913, from 1913 to 1923 How should we know my father? We left. We had no wars at that time and people were peaceful and had a good time. Yet they fought in Asia Minor alone. Many people from here left and went there. My husband, Giorgos Archontikakis, was conscripted in 1926. We were fortunate, lucky at that time, condemned later on. Neither my husband nor my brother went to the Albanian war. They didnt make it, didnt make it. In the meantime, we had the occupation and so they didnt go. No one went; neither did my brothers, nobody. They just came later on and killed us here. I had a good childhood for I had my father. My father went to Italy too for he was an inventor: of citron-tree, of sour citron-tree and of sweet lemon tree. He brought them here and made a plantation. They caught him. They kill my family in Vatos We were six siblings, three boys and three girls. They killed the two boys whereas the third, the teacher, was the last one and died recently. My
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brother the teacher, the husband of Vangelias, would have been the last one to be killed but he was saved as if it was a miracle. Had he stayed there... We left the place here, the day of the Holy Cross. I cooked, we ate and we left and went to an estate called ston Tourkon ts Aspes34. According to the legend, in the past, there were some Christians that killed two Turks and threw them over a cliff. That estate is named after that, ston Tourkon ts Aspes. And we went there and stayed and we were supposedly building, pretending that we worked. My father got ready to go to Vato, which is by the sea, where the church of Agios Panteleimonas is. There, we had a big donkey, please pardon me, and a smaller one without a saddle; he wanted to water them and fill up the pitchers. In the meantime, my father came back and said: Children, I see a lot of people gathered in Vatos. It is the Germans. (My father came back). In the period in-between, ups!... two men showed up from the other side. One of them was Austrian, he was a good man the poor fellow, he would have let us go. The other one was a bloody German, and he had no teeth. Virgin Mary! And he had the skull there35. And a tall one, he reached the roof, very tall, a savage. The other one was good, dark coloured, like the Greeks. And they took us from the fields and loaded the war supplies they were carrying and took us directly to Vatos. The poor Austrian fellow said: Poor people, what (evil) came upon you. He was a good one and consoled us all the way, as we were taken to Vatos. We reached Vatos and saw a field-guard on the side of the river. He was eating while on patrol. They told him: Stop! And the field-guard told us: Poor people. He was from Viannos. We went to the place where he was sitting. There were thousands of weapons with the barrel upwards. I was afraid over there, looking at them. A German came, put his gun on my back and asked me to leave. I didnt leave. My poor husband said: Go away for they may start beating you in front of me. At that point I left. In the meantime, my sister in law, my brothers wife, came. They had taken him barefoot and his wife carried his shoes to give him, to take them to him. I had moved closer to them, a few steps, not many, and she
34 35
In Greek: ' . Shows her forehea
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came to my place. I said: They sent me away. You should try in case they let you give the shoes to your husband. And we heard the gunshots and we found them dead there. She said: I saw nothing, just dust and gunshots. I found them dead there: my husband, thirty-five years old, my father, fifty-two, my brothers, eighteen and twenty-five. My brothers name was Michalis Dimitrianakis, my other brothers name was Yiannis Dimitrianakis, my fathers was Manolis Dimitrianakis and my husbands was Giorgos Archontikakis. They had a guardhouse there, in Vatos, (the Italians had the guardhouse first, the Germans went later) and they killed them there, they put pine lumber on top of them and burned them. We went later and we found them after a year. We took them and we brought them here to the cemetery. I had a grandmother and she wailed for my husband and said: And Archontikakis ..., that was his name, ...that did a lot of favours..., for my husband did a lot of favours to the people in the village, that was a great householder. That is how my poor grandmother said it for me, my grandmother that wailed for him, singing mirologia36 as we call them. My third brother Giorgos, had he stayed to take the Vatos road, he would have died first. Vatos is the name of that place. My father shouted at him to stay but my mother didnt let him: Go my child, go so you will come back. So he went from the road that is over here, and went directly with another young man, I dont know what his name is, to Ierapetra. No German met them, no German face. The executions in Gdohia They killed us later and they brought us here my child and kept us locked in the church of Agii Deka, men and women. Inside the church of Agii Deka. They did us nothing, they just kept us indoors. We did not know what they would do to us. The last night they took us to the settlement that is far apart, in the school, but we were too many. They kept all the men in the Agii Deka church, they didnt let anyone go. Only we, the women and the children, were taken to the school and to a neighbouring house, because we were too many, and placed us there. As a mat36
In Greek: which is a wail, i.e. mournful song.
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ter of fact, a German came for I had my young child with me, and brought black bread and a little piece of cheese for my child to eat. And a German brought water too. We didnt stay in the school. From the noon they caught us till the next morning. We spent there only one night. We heard gunshots in the night and dogs barking and we thought they killed the men that were in Agii Deka, but we did not know for sure. In the morning they were all killed. All the men, my child, in the field with the olive-trees, over there. They were all killed, all killed, no one was left. No one was left. The Metropolite of Heraklion then intervened for they wanted to burn us. They wanted to burn us, that is for certain. There was a man called Daskaloyiannakis. The poor man didnt leave, he was crazy as I am, and they placed him on a donkey without a saddle, and took him down there, close to Mirtos. They took five, six people there, killed them on site and left them there. They killed the other ones over here. They killed anyone they found, wherever he was. There was also a man that had baptised one of my siblings, the poor man, he was a butcher, he had animals and went to the top of the mountain there. They killed him at the place they saw him. They killed the men wherever they saw them. They didnt hurt the women. However, as they were coming to the village, from the sea, from Vatos, there were three women and a baby in a field. And they shot and killed the baby as the mother was breastfeeding it. They killed all women there, all the poor women. They didnt hurt any other women, they didnt kill other women, no they didnt. In the meantime, there was a doctor here also from Kato Simi, a relative of ours, Nikos Manusakis was his name. He had studied in Germany and had a German identity card; he was with his mother and we had him hidden in the house, in a barn. His poor mother went and told him: My child, they will burn down the village and they will burn you too if you stay where you are. Come, I will dress you a woman and we will leave. I am not getting dressed as a woman, to cause troubles to the women and the children. Mother, I will go and present myself . His mother was over there, in Agios Georgios; that is where they had camped and stayed. Eleni left and he got up, shook off the straws and went and presented himself. A German that spoke Greek told him:
89
How come you are here?. He replied: I study in Germany. Here is my identity card. He showed him his identity and they did nothing to him. They just gave him a piece of paper, that big, but I dont know what was written on it. Later on, he led all women and children; he went ahead and we followed. We didnt meet any Germans. We were taken to Ierapetra. They drew a line37 there; from there to where you are, and from there to where all of you are, inside a school. The Metropolite and the richer people of the village came. We got away from there at once, we went to a home, for we had acquaintances. My poor husband had many acquaintances in Ierapetra and we all found houses and stayed. We didnt stay in the school, we found houses. We had a man there we knew, he was named Karadinos, Nikos Karadinos. Little by little we managed That was my life. Later on, I had my child and we came over here, we didnt have a house, nothing. And she was hungry: I want bread. I said: Go my child and eat some carob beans and an orange. What would we eat? Nothing. We could find nothing. We had just oil, thankfully. We had oil because of the olive trees that we still had. We ate greens with oil, otherwise Later on, we were given chick-peas of Morocco, that were full of big worms, and groats. They also gave us rags. What a struggle. I didnt go about begging. We were hungry. We had a grandmother, the poor woman, and she went to Lasithi to bring potatoes. She went about begging and we survived. Eh, we managed somehow. I also went to Agios Nikolaos and they gave me two kilos of pea shoots whereas they gave nothing to other people. They gave to nobody but us: we were around ten women and we went on foot till Agios Nikolaos. We went there to beg the poor women. Later on, they gave us the pension. We managed step by step and I built my house. Actually, the priest built it again; I was given lumber from Ierapetra for I was a victim. When the year passed by and they left, we were given the pension immediately. We took the pension. My husband was already on military pension as well and they gave me that one too. And we had a good
37
She points at the floor implying that they drew a line as a dividing line.
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life afterwards. Later on, I found my priest38; this is a fine young man. I had no siblings anymore, they were all dead, killed, and I wanted a family that had siblings and good parents, one that was as I wished for. What could I do my child, we went through a lot, we went through a lot. But I just wish I had not lost my daughter. Bring the picture to see my daughter, the wife of the priest. She was born in 1932. The Italians We had property in Mirtos and my father (he was very smart and knowledgeable) had a large stone there that he had made a table out of. And my younger brother, the eighteen year old one that was killed, used mud, clay, and made Mussolini and armed him with a gun too. And the Italians went over, saw it and asked: Whose is it? and took a step forward to take my father. They took him to Mirtos and he showed them the documents that he had been to Italy. They accepted them, otherwise they would have killed him. Yes, children are demons and do evil deeds: he used mud and made a man, Mussolini, and wrote underneath Mussolini. Yes the children, devils. Italians did no harm. There were just thieves and stole turkeys, galines as we say them, and went to the vineyards and picked grapes. But they did no harm, no harm. They stole a hen from my sister in law, the wife of my brother they killed. She rushed at him, took the chicken back and gave him a blow that made him fall down. Afterwards, he came laughing and didnt speak. The Italians did no harm, they did not hurt us. Italians had no malice but the poor fellows were miserable. They were miserable, they had no malice. In another incident, we had a donkey. There were still Italians here, Germans had not arrived yet. And they were all down in Vatos: the police sergeant named Mpirgalieris and all the police officers were there; they had their beds in Agios Panteleimonas. My husband and my father told me: You are a woman and they will not hurt you, but as soon as we speak they will take us. And I didnt let go of the donkey, for they wanted to put the saddle on and it was young. And then they took it and took me, my husband and my father as well to Vatos, right there in Agios Pan38
She means father Kostas Giannadakis, the husband of her daughter.
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teleimonas. And Mpirgalieris sent us later to Mirtos where the senior officer was and they put us in jail for a night. In jail, I went to jail! For I didnt let go of the donkey. But the door was open and an Italian cook was there and gave us food. But we didnt want it, we were disgusted and we didnt eat. And they let us go in the morning, they didnt hurt us. Yet they put me in jail and the cause was that I didnt give the donkey. The Italians did no harm to us, they did no harm. It is only that they were miserable, miserable. They were hungry, the poor fellows, they were hungry my child. Once, they slaughtered and ate a dead donkey. The Germans I was afraid of the Germans. A German came here and entered the room. He carried a canister to fill it up with oil and he was staring at the pithoi39 and kept saying: Oil here, oil there, you rich. And we had a kitten, a small cat, and I took it and petted it. That was before they killed us, when they first came. And he filled the canister with oil and left, but I didnt talk to him. What could I do? We were afraid of the Germans, we didnt want them, we didnt want them at all, we were afraid of them. Whenever we saw Germans they were fierce my child, they were not human beings. Imagine, they killed that three month old baby, the one I dont know what his name was; and they killed him and the baby too. The Germans came and harmed us; may God pay them back for what they did here. What did women and children do to them that they had to kill them? What did the civilians, the poor ones who were here, do to them? They were peaceful, staying at home and made their living working honestly. What was our fault? My child, they killed one hundred year old men. What was the fault of those old men? Did they go to war? That is what the bloody Germans did, actions that can not be undone and no God or man will ever forgive them. What can I do? That was all, that was our story; it is in our mind and never fades away. It will never be erased or deleted from our memory and our brain. Can you imagine that they killed my father-in-law, my husPithoi (singular pithos) is the ancient Greek word (, ) for a large storage jar of a characteristic shape.
39
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band, my father and my two brothers? What can we do, this is part of life. My family today After all that, I was left alone with my child. What can a hungry and exhausted woman do? And we lived on our fortune. We had some property that was of high worth back then: we produced oil. But I couldnt work at all, I couldnt. So, it was only the pension that they had given us that we lived on. Later on, my daughter married her husband and he was a fine man, he was still studying, my child was still studying. He spent another three years in military service, went to study and spent three years more, but thank God, we got along fine. Eh, but then she died and I had no other, my child, only her, she was the only one I had. She burned my heart for I had no other child. However, I do have two grandchildren: one is a priest in Ierapetra and the other one was here the day before yesterday and spent a couple of days. He is in Athens and has a good marriage too. He has a son and his wife is a teacher as well, a professor. Children are the beauty in the house. Many children are happiness, I wish I had twenty. I want children and I like having them. I have my grandchildren and a great grandchild over here in Ierapetra. He married last year, he has a baby too. All is well, thank God, all my children do fine, they do well. My grandchildren, I dont have a child, only grandchildren and that one over here40. I have a great-great grandchild too, that baby. They bring it here and talks and chats and it is splendid. It is a good child, the child is good. If only He gave me... I fell down my child, I was not like this. I fell here in the yard and broke my legs. I was in Ierapetra in the hospital and they brought a German lady, later on. I said: Unless you take her out of here, I am leaving and they were laughing. And the doctor that was treating me, the one who made me the operation, asked later: Did you have her taken out of here?. I dont want her, I heard a German! I have no more to say. I, the poor woman, described my life and the sufferings I had in the war.
40
She means father Kostas Giannadakis, the husband of her daughter that was sitting in nearby room during the interview.
FOTINI DASKALAKI PIGIAKI
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Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki My family I was born in 1928. My fathers name is Pigiakis. His first name is Yiannis, baptised Ioannis; my grandfathers name is Nikolaos. My mothers family name is Papadimitriou and is a native of this village, Mirtos. My father was from Gdohia. Marriages those days were arranged, there was no falling in love. Instead, someone would act as a match-maker. My father was alone. His four brothers and mother died from the flue; so he was raised without her. Later on, my father got married to my mother and they had three daughters. He was sad though: Girls are fine, but if I only had a son There were circumstances where he longed for a son. We were not in the position as girls those days to offer the assistance a man could provide. Nowadays women can succeed in life even better than men, but then I was married to Manolis in 1952. He joined the gendarmerie. He had sent me a letter once but I did not reply. I was afraid. Even if you wanted the man you loved those days, you were afraid of society and of your family. A woman those days could not get married if she was in love with someone or after being left a widow. There had to be a marriage offer. I had an uncle who was a teacher. He had published a book and I had read it. He said that, in older times, the wise men of the village would call a meeting in the community before the marriage, where they would go and ask of possible diseases the family had been through. That was nice in a way. For they had a role and wedding was a matter of consideration. And according to the wise ones our marriages were arranged. My first sister was married in this fashion; I was born later and have only heard of the stories. My first sister was born in 1916, my second one in 1924 and I was born in 1928. My father was a prisoner of war during the Turkish war. He spent seven years in Turkey. He was regarded dead. We had even held a memorial service. And when he returned, my sister already being a student, gave him flowers. He had taken part in the Minor Asia war and had gone as far as Smyrna41. They had him yoked afterwards, pulling
41
Nowadays, Izmir.
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some kind of carts. And he had something like calluses, right here42, on his forehead, which I used to take care of. And he would say: Leave them there, my child, for these are souvenirs. They yoked him with a strap. They would place it like that43. Maria was the oldest one. Our father left when she was still a baby. My mother had her at the age of seventeen. People used to get married at a young age. When my father went to war and was caught as a prisoner, we had no information as to what had become of him. He had spent there quite a few years, seven or eight, before he returned home. We didnt know what had happened. Apostolis Papadakis came and said that he had buried him. He had also held a memorial services. Eh, and then he showed up. He sent a telegram before that they had been released. His daughter welcomed him with flowers. He didnt know that this girl was his own child, the one he had left as a baby. Later on, my parents had my other sister and me. There is a great age gap between me and my older sisters. All three are alive, but the oldest one is in better shape than all of us. Born in 1916, she is quite old today. We had some very bad times indeed. If I hear a woman now complaining, my daughter lets say, I scold her at once. For we used to wash our clothes in the rivers; we had no running water at home, no washing machines, nothing. We had to go to the mountains to find herbs. We looked for a tomato plant to make a tomato and waited for it to grow bigger before we could use it in our food. What is missing now? We have plenty, yet life is expensive and Italians in Gdohia I first met the Italians that were in a nearby guardhouse, in the region of Vatos. My parents were farmers and used to go there to reap and thresh our crops. I used to go along, since I was still a child then. That is how I learned about the Italian guardhouse. Although those years were difficult, the Italians loved me a lot. They gave me chocolates and candies, right there in the field, as we threshed. My father too became
42 43
She points in front of her ears. She makes a move, like folding something around her forehead.
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friends with an Italian he used to go hunting with. And when my father got sick with pneumonia, it was this Italian who helped him by providing whatever he needed for the cure. Because there was no rubbing alcohol, no sugar, nothing, during the years of occupation. I dont remember any Germans in Gdohia. I had been in Simi once where there was a German guardhouse and had also seen them a couple of times from far away. Our region here was controlled by the Italians. They used to steal though chickens and turkeys in order to eat them. I remember my married sister, living in a cottage in the upper part of the village, coming out in the earthen terrace, above the doma as we Cretans say, shouting: The crows are here, referring to the Italians, ...let us hide our chickens for they will take them (our village is divided into a number of compartments-cottages, each one named after the owner: Daskaliana from Daskalakis family, Papadiana from Papadakis family etc. The village was organised this way because in older times janissaries used to operate and villagers were hiding from them). I remember all these incidents for I was a grown-up. But the Italians were not malicious. All they did was looting so as to satisfy their hunger. The Germans arrive Later on, we heard that a guardhouse in Simi was blown up and that Germans had been slaughtered. They had been in a cave but the Germans in Viannos found out. And they were descending now, burning down all villages on their way. We didnt expect they would come down here to burn us down. For here is a different prefecture from there. But in the meantime, they had already reached Mirtos. The night they came to our home in Gdohia, they took us all to the school. In the morning, they took the men without our knowing what they would do to them. We were later told to leave and go to Ierapetra. Of course we left, but that was me, my sister and my mother. They had taken my father and grandfather and we didnt know what would happen. On our way to Ierapetra we took a path through the mountains since there were no proper roads. It was then that we came across six dead men. We felt despaired, afraid that our people were also dead. We reached Ierapetra where they
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offered us the Emporiki. We stayed there, we had our meals, but we knew nothing of our beloved ones. My father survives the execution When the Germans took our men to execute them, they tied their hands in such a manner so that one mans hand was joined to the other mans hand. My father was narrating me stories. There was a child from Sikologos; he was short and the shot missed him. The bullets went high without hitting him but he got afraid and started running. My father had fallen in a bush and he could see the whole scene. He was not injured at that time. The Germans caught the child, hit him on the head with the gun and pushed him down over a cliff. The cliff was right next to the place they had taken them. At that moment, my father moved and the Germans realised he was still alive. They fired a burst of gunfire at him and my father was wounded in his hand and head. Afterwards, I waited there for a while. No matter what they would do to me, he says, I had my senses. And when the Germans got away, I stood up and saw a child I had working for me in the fields, writhing, but there was nothing I could do. I left and went to a river for I was thirsty from the wounds. My children, I remembered, he was telling us, the time I used to go there and set an ambush waiting to shoot grouses. He was a great hunter. (They used to wear breeches those days) I went there and I took a handkerchief from my vest that was all covered with blood. I soaked it in water, wrung it and drank water. And when I stood up in order to leave, I heard noise again and sat down, in the bushes, to avoid the Germans. And I found a first cousin of mine saying to me, Yiannis, dont be afraid, here I am, dont be afraid. And he took him five hundred meters further down, where those who had escaped from the Germans had slaughtered a free-range lamb, in the absence of any shepherds. They had placed it in a metal container and were boiling it inside there in order to drink the stock for they hadnt eaten anything for six or seven days they were in the mountains. And the moment he approached them and sat amongst them, an aeroplane showed up and shot up a flare. They had spotted the fire and made a signal to the Germans. Our people realised what had happened and they all run to hide. I, he said,
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where could I go? There was a tree there and I hided myself in the branches, waiting for my death. I was more afraid then than when they had me waiting for my execution. And they came, shouting in their language and threatening with their guns, took the container with the boiling meat and threw it away and finally left. They had not seen him. And when they went across the street, I counted twenty two Germans and a poor Greek field guard from Viannos. They were dragging and torturing him. When the Germans disappeared, he kept on moving and eventually was left with only one hand. He had a mechanical hand ordered from America and placed on his arm. The recovery One day there appeared one of my sisters from Anatoli bringing with her my father who had survived the execution. The other fifteen twenty men, with my grandfather included, were all dead. After the gun firing, he got up, found a blanket to cover his arm (we call them patites here in Crete) and moved on to go where? To Anatoli, to find his daughter. And his daughter brought him to Ierapetra. What could they do then? They had to be discreet for the Germans would kill him if they found out. And a nice doctor came and helped us, Papageorgiou was his name. He cleaned his wound with a hydrogen peroxide solution worms were coming out of the wound placed a stick and tied it around his arm. After finishing, he told my father: I will give you a piece of paper Mr. Yiannis so you can go to Heraklion and get cured. As far as we are concerned, dont ask. I was a little girl back then and followed my mother and father. They placed him in a truck on a rainy day. The doctor gave him a piece of paper stating he was the one who offered him the first aid and that he was the one to be killed should they seek for the man responsible. There were no hospitals those days, like now. There was only Pananio hospital. It is not operational anymore. I stayed there. They offered meals too. There were other wounded people as well. They used to get up from time to time and take a stroll in the yard. They would go then to a small tavern near by and have a cup of coffee. Those years were difficult but the people, the doctors, everyone, were more compassionate. My father was in that hospital. No, I am wrong.
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They took him first in another clinic, it was named Yiamalakis clinic. My mother told the doctor: Doctor, what you see is all there is. All our belongings are burned down. I have nothing left besides this child and my husband. If something changes in the future I will come and pay you. Should I not be able to make it, you will have to help us for free. My father spent fifteen twenty days in Yiamalakis clinic, whereas I slept on the floor on a blanket I had brought with me from here. And when the doctor used to pass to see his patients every morning he would use his leg to push aside the blanket. He never insulted or scolded me. You cant do the same things nowadays. I dont know what is happening, but Later, my father went to Pananio. I spent a few days there too and later, my uncle came with someone named Dagianta from Anogia and took me with him. My mother stayed with my father looking after him. I couldnt live in the hospital. I went with my uncle, a captain of gendarmerie, to Anogia. I spent quite a long time there, almost a year. I had a nice life there. I just saw a man from Anogia selling cheese and I was touched. We stayed in Armi, right up there in the centre of Anogia, at the house of Giorgos Kalomiris. My uncle had rented an apartment upstairs for he lived there as he was the captain. My father was still at the doctors. He was trying to recover in the hospital for he had a serious wound. He had been shot in the neck too and they had the fragments removed. My father used to go to the tavern and they were told that a woman had heard a German (apparently she could speak the language) saying that they would come and have them arrested. They wanted to send them to Germany, to the gas chambers. My father left on foot. The others didnt leave and they were taken. Some of them returned; some didnt. My father went on foot from Heraklion to Emparos. He walked for two days through the mountains. He had a friend there who took care of him and cleaned him of the lice with boiled water. We all had lice then. Back to the village It took them a long time before they gave their permission for people to return to Gdohia. I dont know when my family returned for I had gone to Anogia and came later. But my father returned after one
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year at the most. All the houses and villages were burned down. What should they eat, what should they do, what would they become? A committee came and collected the dead from the fields here and there. We lived a tough life. I grew up in my fathers place till the age of twenty three when I got married. I used to change his bandages on his hand. He was never given a pension. He was the unhappiest man. He was an orphan after losing his mother and his four brothers from the flue. And then he had to go through all these sufferings. He had buried his father, the man who raised him. He was shot dead at the execution place, the same place he also was. He had to go to this place again and collect his fathers bones. They all lived a tough life. We were all suffering hardships till I grew up. The houses in Gdohia were burned down. Everywhere else too: in Simi, in Amira, in Kefalovrisi; everywhere except for Sikologos. In Mournies too and in all the villages, all the way to the river of Mirtos. There was nothing left from our house or anybody elses in the village. A teacher we had, used to say that: The owls and the vultures from the mountains live in these places and they too mourn as they see the horrible disaster of the villages. Everything had fallen apart. We went to the mountains and chopped woods to construct a house to accommodate us. Everyone was striving; we would cut branches from the trees, take soil as well and use bed sheets for doors in order to make ourselves a small house. More than forty had been killed in our village by the Germans. Everybody was a relative, cousins etc. In a small community, everybody is a relative; a first or a second cousin, from your fathers or mothers side etc. There was beggary too. Most women were deprived of everything and resorted to beggary to assure a piece of stale bread for their children. But to be honest there were other women too, not in such despair, which would take advantage. They made trips to Rhodes and other islands. There were women with four or five children, eating stale and dry bread, and suffering from dysenteria. They ate anything they could get. What could they eat? For a year and more, they could not seed or reap anything. How could they survive? A lot of beggars did not make it and died.
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The nations Let me tell you, I love all foreigners. Because they are the victims. The nations are the victims. You and the other one, men in power, dont come down here. How can I hate a poor German or Italian, a man staying here embracing us and kissing us? Whats his fault? Others were the cause for this, in Greece and other countries as well, everywhere. Wars are organised by the great minds. I made this hotel and this shop with my husband and my first customers were both locals and foreigners. And I have even greater expectations; I wanted to see more people here. I have been working with my husband and we have managed to make a fortune but we would have made even more had we started our lives now. For those days, there was no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity, nothing.
FATHER KOSTAS YIANNADAKIS
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Father Kostas Yiannadakis My father was a priest here, father Manolis Yiannadakis. We were eight siblings. I was the fourth to be born. I was born in 1926. The war was declared in 1940 and I was in Pano Simi. We used to spend the summer vacation in Pano Simi, because there was no electricity, no refrigerator, nothing. We spent our summer vacation there, after the farming tasks. My mother and my father had a fortune, a good one. However, my father was solely occupied with clerical tasks. But my siblings did all of the farming work. And I would like to say, that we didnt suffer during the occupation. We only suffered from lack of sugar and coffee because people here cultivated cereals, olives, everything. Eventually, the houses were full of goods, when they burned us down in 1943. Cereals and such things; we only didnt have... I mean, there was no coffee and sugar, such things; that was the only need we had. I was in the second grade of high-school. Since we were in Pano Simi, my father took me to sit exams in Viannos which was closer, instead of going to Ierapetra (where there was no transportation). And it took us twenty eight days exactly, till the 28th of October that war was declared, when the high-schools and everything else was shut down and we came back. It was occupation then etc and the National Resistance, that is the rebels, was formed here in the mountain. I was a high-school student then and we went on the stage down here, in theatre lets say, and we supported the rebels. And as a matter of fact, they had me as their liaison, to bring them the news (I even have a diploma, they have me honoured with a diploma, which is due to this story). I want to say that I put the paper with the news deep inside my shoe and I went from here and brought it to Kalami, to Sikologos. And I communicated the news... because I was a child, a student they thought, it is possible not to The sign I carried with me was an olive tree branch. I held with me an olive tree branch, this was the sign then, the point that the others too understood, it was commonly understood. This is how I communicated the news; we played in theatre and sent the news and helped the rebels in the mountain (all the grown ups here, my father and all of us were all
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in the National Resistance). Later on, when we started recovering and the high-schools started to open, both my grandfathers were in Kato Simi where they had their properties. They lived there. At that time the children were back and forth. The school started to work on a three-day basis, three days a week. Therefore we could not stay. We could not rent a room as we used to do before. And I and many children, some of which are still alive, went back and forth to Kato Simi. We left in the morning. I had my grandmother who prepared a hot drink for me in order to leave quickly. My father had made a pair of shoes for me. Let it be, we were barefoot at that time, but I had a pair of shoes to put on when I sat exams. It was a brand new pair, I sat exams wearing it. So we went back and forth to Kato Simi, imagine three days a week on foot, from Kato Simi to go to Viannos. How long did it take us, was it two hours? Two and a half? On foot, all the students over there. So, I took the shoes off outside the village and put them on near the high-school. And then, I want to say, that children were barefoot until they finished high-school. Where would they find shoes? It was occupation; there were no shoes, there was nothing. So, in 1943 the Germans burned us down. I passed the third class that year without taking exams, according to a directive issued by the Ministry of Education, for my grade was higher than 14 in the primary lessons. However, in order to continue here in Ierapetra, I had to graduate in 1943, when the Germans burned us down here and killed the people. I want to tell you that it was really very difficult for I had to study hard in high-school. I rented a room in Ierapetra and my father used to come there. I went as a student, rented a room and we went to school. I had no time to cook; I cooked a couple of times a week, you know, things were difficult. And my father came one day and he saw boxes with mould. So he talked after that to a restaurant owner over there and I ate on a monthly basis, like two other children. And I ate there on a monthly basis, and was therefore relieved in order to be able to read and study. And so, I graduated later on and finished here in Ierapetra. Things were very difficult, you see, there wasnt then only a couple of children from here went to high-school. Their parents could afford it; they had a fortune or where sufficiently well off. Three children from here went to
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high-school, what do you think, it was a difficult situation. Germans come to the village: wandering in the neutral zone In 1943, the Germans burned us down. That was due to that incident in Kato Simi, where the rebels killed the two Germans. The Germans were spread here afterwards and went to the villages. No one stayed and I left on that day. My brothers and I scattered. I was here, my brothers took different directions and they didnt see each other, we hid. The day the Germans came here, the first ones they killed were my in-laws. There was a Memorial Service then and I, as a student, was the chanter for my father at the church. We chanted and left after the Memorial Service. The following day was Holy Cross day, in 1943. Well, that was the day we got away and my brothers scattered. The only time my father left was then. Because, when the Germans attacked (after the events that had taken place in Kato Simi), they took the priest from Amira to Krevata. They took him; they placed the people in front and him in front of everybody (when the battle of Kato Simi took place here). They had taken the old-priest along with the people. But the rebels that set up the ambush then were careful not to kill our people. This old-priest got away later, went to the mountain, what could he do? Now that they had found my mother there, they shouted44: Where priest?. They were affected by the events there too. He was saved; it was the first time he went away. As soon as we saw that, we left, we hid here in the forest, there was a forest up there. They searched for my father but he had gotten away, he had hidden. She had given him a bit of bread and some water and he was hiding in a bush behind the church of Virgin Mary. I met my two brothers, Giorgos, the senior one, and Yiannis, and along with other people we went up here, where there was a forest more or less, and hid. The Germans came. The first Germans that came here had killed, I am telling you, my father-in-law; there were four or five people gathered and they caught them. The Germans did no harm the first day they came. The so-called death squad was behind them.
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In broken Greek.
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Those who came later didnt leave a thing. Riza overlooks the place we were. We hid like so many others. It was September; the moon was so bright as if it was day-time. The Germans were coming down from Riza (where they had done what they had done and so many executions). Here, a woman from our place, shouted for her husband, Nikos Yiouvakis, Nikolio, eh, Nikolio! she said. The Germans were coming from above and started shooting as soon as they heard her. We hid for a moment and later on, when we saw that they were shooting from above, we split up; my brother Yiannis, I and my brother Giorgos. We lost each other from that point on. Each one went his own way. I took off my shoes and headed down; I found a creek over there and moved on slowly. At one moment, the Germans fired a flare across; it would have been a hundred meters away more or less. I had not seen them but I heard the flare they shot and hid myself there. I went down, hid myself in a pit, in that small river, the creek, that had a recess lets say. It was night. I said: Now wait. They came from above, shooting, shooting. I said: They must have seen me by now, they come this way. In any case, they passed by and didnt see me. In the meantime, I heard some footsteps in the night. I said: He walks slowly, he is not German, he is one of us. He had Italian made boots; he was an in-law from Kato Simi. I signalled to him and he came close and we spent some time together. It was dawn by now. But they had set the entire village on fire and it was burning. We were hungry now, so we went to eat carob beans from the carob trees. We went down from there to eat carob beans. The village was burning. But we were thirsty afterwards; we had to go to a water source. And we got away from there and headed towards here in Metopes as we say (that is the crossroad today that leads to Riza or Kato Simi). There was a small tap below; there was water, a spring, we wanted to go there. So we go slowly, carefully, and as we reached the slope of the mountain, we saw that Germans were also there, on the opposite side. We turn back and go down here to a forest in a mountain and at that moment we see other people waving to us. They had hidden themselves inside; they were some villagers from my place.
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Well, in order not to make any noise I spent the night sitting as I am sitting now. There were rocks there, I took out a stone at a time, slowly, to make space to sit, not to sleep. I must have fallen asleep and in the morning they were coming down here from the old road (there was an old downhill road from Stravada as we say; this was the only road that went down). I woke up at that time, for I heard the noise they all made: was it a battalion, a company, what was it? Anyway, I thought they were close by. I had just woken up. So we leave. They did not follow the same route the following day. We had no water to drink here, for I say to my in-law: We will die. The other ones didnt move. In-law, I say to him, ...shall we leave? Lets go towards Maheridi. There is another area here with a small tap and gardens that we could go to drink water. What was there to do here? We should take the decision to leave. And we take the decision and go down there to Maheridi: there was water, we drank water and we ate some citrus also that were over there. We found some other people there. Pigiakis was also there. I didnt see him. He was by that small tap, wounded. So we found there a group of people and they had slaughtered a lamb and had set up a cauldron. A child (that is dead now) had a call of nature and went a bit farther away from the spring and he saw them coming. They were in that small pathway heading towards us. And at that moment we split and got away from there. We went towards the river, each one wherever he could go. We got away from there and went to Loutraki. I left and went to Loutraki, over there, by the river, where Trapeza is. That is a settlement of Loutraki. We went there, by the river, where we found other people we were acquainted with, other fellow villagers. They had gone there from a cottage house that had basil planted in tin gas containers and they had taken one; the villagers had slaughtered a lamb. The animals were all over the entire area. Those years, people had animals, you could see animals. As a matter of fact in the journey there, but I return now to the previous topic, he drank from the goats teat. My comrade says: Come, I will give you. No, I couldnt drink. I want to say that the animals were all over and their breasts were full of milk. So, I ate a piece of meat in that place there. I never forget that as long as I live. That was my meal, that is, a piece of meat. They gave me that and
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I was revived. But we were on guard. There was a big rock next to the river, a tall one and we had a clear view from there. And we guarded on shifts and kept an eye on the Germans so that they would not come to us from there. I mean we were on guard. We got away from there later on and came up here, to Kourkouva as we say, which is another river here. We were later informed by other people we met (for we saw there another group of people and they had done the same thing in order to slaughter an animal etc) that my father was hiding behind the church and that a man from Pefkos passed by and gave him food and water. And he told us so now. My older brother, Giorgos, went. That is where I met Giorgos, my brother. As far as Yiannis is concerned, my brother, when I got away from the place where I had seen the Germans, he was hiding in a bush in that pathway (it was the main pathway and they were descending) and they didnt come across him. Then, my mother had made a vow to offer a lamb, seeing that he too was saved and was not caught. She took the lamb to the church afterwards. We found my father and he came there and there was Giorgos, Yiannis, I and my father. Concerning my other brother, he had been captured here in Kato Gdohia and they had him locked up down in the church of Agii Deka, just as they had taken the other ones too and killed them over there. But he got away and he was saved. He got away when he came out. He came out and he was saved. Well, at the place down there that we left, we were informed that they had declared the river of Mirtos neutral zone. From there and beyond you were not in danger. And so we got away from that river, we passed Mournies, from the south side. The Germans saw us and fired at us, for the Germans were still here. They fired at us, but we were far away and they missed us. We came down here to the river, and after we passed to the other side, we were somehow relieved, for we thought: It is not a neutral zone here. Outside the neutral zone, we end up in Turloti And from there, we went to Karkasia, below Anatoli. My family was there, my mother and all the rest. They were over there, we met them there in Karkasia: it is a region in Anatoli that has a spring and had set-
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tlements too at that time. Later on, we got away from there, we went to Ierapetra, to Kentri. Many people gathered there. Since my father was a priest they couldnt support us. People were very hungry, it was during the occupation, things were tough that is, not even the people in the parish could support us. What helped us was that my mother came here to Gdohia later on (they had given her permission then) and she took an animal, a cow that we had over here, and took it back (and one more that was born over there). She took also some books from the church and clerical stuff that my father had. And that cow was a big help to us. Later, His Grace, Filotheos the First, says to my father: Father Manoli, come, I will send you to Turloti. They dont have a priest. And we lived there on our own. We were on our own, and therefore the people helped us, all the people, since he was the priest there. But I wanted to continue high-school, that was the problem. I say: I will go to high-school. Where will you go? he says to me. I had left with a pair of short trousers and a shirt with short sleeves. That was my dowry over there, no-one could take anything with him. And so we left. I mean to say, they didnt want to send me to high-school, for it is a long distance to travel from Turloti to Ierapetra. In any case, I managed to persuade them and after we had recovered a bit and had some food that people had given us, I came here to Kentri, in Ierapetra. They brought me there. I rented a house over there. But I went to school only for two months, so I didnt take exams and lost that year. That was the year of 43-44. I went back and forth to the school there with the children from Kentri, on foot, as they did too. And the children from Kato Horio and other neighbouring villages went on foot too. But due to absences, I didnt attend for more than two months. Later on, we wanted to return to the village here. In spite of the support from the people there we wanted to return to the village. Return to Gdohia After having spent six to eight months in Turloti, we left. We didnt stay there long and we came back. Here it was nothing but the trees were left: there were olive trees and so on but no house was left. None. I mean, there was one house not destroyed here, another one in the set-
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tlement of Papadiana, another one in the lower settlement. So, we found a house down here and we stayed. But how could someone live those days with the distributions that the church council provided and distributions from others that gave us clothes? People lived from the distributions. Concerning distributions now, there was a commission here that went to Ierapetra to take the foodstuff they gave them there. They took the foodstuffs from there and distributed them. And they went there with the animals, through non-existing roads, roads paved with gravel. They loaded and brought them back. Occasionally they went through Agios, from here through Males. That is, we were sustained by the distributions, till we recovered and people started cultivating. It goes without saying, we were in a bad situation. It was terrible, where would we stay? And we were hungry and ate dried greens most of the times. Later on, we had the olives and people picked olives; but we were hungry, people were suffering. Life was very difficult, life was really very difficult. And after a while, little by little of course, there were people leaving the place here for Mirtos. The main (population) core of Mirtos is from here, from Gdohia: Pigiakis family (the doctor and the rest as well), the whole family of Daskalakis (they are our relatives) etc. Progressively, people managed to recover with the distributions. People started to sow wheat in the fields, so little by little they managed to produce bread and house themselves Let it be, this was no life, it goes without saying. Very difficult years. Had we not have this happened, people would not have suffered here. That is, suffered from what? From (lack of) rice, pasta, sugar, coffee and so on. That is how life flowed, that is very difficult, really very difficult. The village recovered little by little, because the people got back, they returned here again, to the terrible conditions that we were in. People recovered little by little, and I remember fifty, sixty children at school. People had returned for sentimental reasons; they wanted to return to the place they were born. I continued high-school here, as I said before, and finished in 1948 in Ierapetra. I remember that after the liberation the rebels were up on the mountain. I was in Ierapetra then (we were in high-school). I re-
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member that the National Resistance was split. They got us to split even though there was E.A.M., that is the liberation front, and everyone was in E.A.M.. But then they spread dissention in this situation, this was wrong. Anyway. I remember now when they came down the so-called Podias, who was from the other group, came down and killed a gendarme and also took from us the chocolate bars. They gave milk to the students at school in the morning. And so we had a small can for the milk and they poured it in there. They boiled the milk and gave us a chocolate bar too some times. And the rebels took the chocolate bars from us then. They came by the house I used to rent in Ierapetra and took a man that had the dealership of cigarettes. I say: That is the end now, they will kill him. But thankfully he gave them cigarettes and whatever else the rebels wanted and they left without hurting him. Italians and Germans We didnt see the Germans frequently, they were in Ierapetra. The Italians had a guardhouse; it was here in Vatos. They stayed there at the church. We saw only Italians; they used to come and take a chicken by force I remember, they wanted to take a sheep from my mother (she was hefty) and she didnt let them do it. We didnt interfere. Italians were softer people. He pulled from one side, she pulled from the other and she didnt let him have the sheep. We didnt interfere, for as you know she was a woman and no matter what So, there were only Italians, Germans were only in Ierapetra. Italians were nearby. It is true that we were not in favour of the Germans. It was not their fault, they were not to blame. It was one mans fault. There was one man that time. They had conquered practically the entire world and using only this method, that is by killing and putting people in prison, that is how they dominated. For how long? They dominated and fell apart later. What did they do? I mean, I want to tell you, that it is not their fault, we can not see the German people like that. It is not the fault of the people. It is the fault of Hitler and Mussolini, two dictators that went and caused bloodshed to the world. And to be honest, especially the Italians were not cruel. They were softer. They sank them. I remember in Tourloti when the Italians had ca-
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pitulated with the allies. In Turloti, in Mochlos, down by the sea, I remember a caique that was full of Italians and they fired at it and drowned them. And we were watching it then, yes, of course. The Italians were good for nothing for the Germans later on because they had capitulated. It was one of the big caiques. Lets call it a big caique and they fired at them and drowned them. They didnt let go of them. Life was difficult here, because we had to start from scratch again. Everything was burned. A great many generations were affected, how can I describe it now? There were dowries from great-grandfathers, great-grandmothers and ever since they were burned, people started to change: whereas they weaved in the workshop and made a dowry for the girls, starting at a young age, they thought: This can not be done here. And they started buying since they could afford it. They weaved only a few things because they saw that everything was burned, that there was nothing left.
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Giorgos Daskalakis When I finished primary school I was twelve years old and I didnt go any further. My father was a field guard in Mirtos, from the river and on, towards Ierapetra. I was in charge of managing the house. We were five siblings and I was the first one. We had two oxen and I had taken on the ploughing the fields, seeding, all the fuss. That is when I wore stivania45 boots because the stones were hurting my feet and since then I am used to wearing boots. A period passed by in this way. This kind of life I had till I grew up and became twenty years old. The resistance Then the occupation came, that is, we had the war, the occupation. The Italians came here. The Italians were in control of the prefecture of Lasithi, the Germans werent. They had a guardhouse down here in Vatos. The church of Agios Panteleimonas is over there and they had the guard house inside Agios Panteleimonas. These Italians had a little feather, a feather in their hat. Were they the police? I dont know what they were. We got to know them very well. We became friends too and I got to know them well. In Gdohia there were no Italians. There were only in Vatos were there was the guardhouse. There were six people, but they were nice, the poor guys. They would come here and they would knead and make bread. They didnt bother anyone at all. Then E.P.O.N.46 was organised, the young, immediately in 41. I joined E.P.O.N. and I had the other Italians down there and we were friends and I picked up some Italian. They were very nice. I slowly learned Italian (I knew quite well but I have forgotten it). The rebels would come from Hameti where there headquarters were. They would come here. We had here a man named Leonida Pigiaki who was a professional sergeant in the army and had organized E.P.O.N.. In E.P.O.N. was Dimitrianos (Dimitrianakis) too, the teacher. Here we made collections. We were carrying bread, we took wheat, and we ground it and kneaded
45 46
A kind of boots, traditionally handcrafted in Crete. In Greek: ..... Stands for , i.e. Unified Pan-Hellenic Youth Organisation.
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it, we made bread in the bakery and we took the bread up. I was a carrier. I ran from one side to the other. We carried food everywhere. We took it to the rebels. The shepherds were up there with the animals and they used to slaughter them we also did a theatrical performance once here for E.P.O.N. to gather food. Dimitrianakis the teacher organized it then with Pigiakis Leonidas. They were the organizers. I was the liaison over here. There was a doctor called Geroulanos from Viannos (it seems to me he was called Papamastorakis) and someone, called Dimitris Manousakis, from Simi, a major. He had a son that was a student and when the Germans captured them over here, they let him go. I dont know, however he stayed. And there was Dimitris Manousakis and he would come here from up there and they would leave me some notes and I would take them to Anatoli to a man named Papadogiannis, who was a doctor I think. Papadogiannis I think was a doctor, but this story is sixty five years old, it is not yesterdays story for me to remember. I was going to the hideout, I learnt guerrilla warfare. I then went as a rebel with a man named Vouvakis Giorgis. We were together. The central hideout was at Hameti. We lived in caves, there were caves, there were also barracks over there, for the food from the villages over here. We lived also all together, two or three together. There were caves, we would make entrenchments there and we would get in. Let me say also that we didnt get together for we were going to the villages around us to do sabotages. We set off once to demolish the bridge in Emparo and as soon as we started they told us to come back. They said: Dont go. The events of September When the Italians left (Italy collapsed) and went away from Vatos, we went and collected the cables. They had taken the wireless from Vatos and we collected the cables and we came. When they surrendered, some of them ran away and came to the hideout holding a machine gun. Then we went to Riza because the rebels had gone there. At that time we met someone called Mproutzali and he took us with him: he gave us guns and we went up to the hideout. When we went up to the hideout there were the gendarmeries from the gendarme station that was in
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Pefko. After they killed the Germans, they were frightened and they too had left and had come to the hideout. As soon as we went with Giorgis, they told us to go to the station in Pefko and we took their clothes. I dont know now what kind of clothes we took. They took their guns and left. We left but they had informed the Germans by then that they had killed the two in Simi. When we later went up to Lapatho and got together, Manolis Mpantouvas gathered us, Mpantouvomanolis was then in charge there (Podias was there too then, they were all together, I mean they hadnt split up). He gathered us in Lapatho, outside Agious Apostolous, and he said to us: Those who have not been soldiers step forward. We did, I dont remember now how many we were and I stepped forward too. He said: You will go They gave me binoculars and a gun and they sent me over there up on a hill. I was in charge of the hill, to look from there with the binoculars in case the Germans came. The other one, Vouvakis, was taken and placed in another location. Then they went down to Simi. In Simi, there was a gorge to the right and to the left, going inwards. Simi is located inside a chaos, low down. They went right and left and they took their positions over there. From one side there was Podias, the team of Podias, from the other one there was Mpantouvas. We were on the hill and we were watching that battle. A man, called Vagionakis Apostolis from Mithos, had been killed and someone called Mastrantonakis Giorgis from Simi had been injured. We were watching the battle of course, but we were watching the place also so as not to allow the Germans to surround them. They killed, as it seems, around forty. They took thirteen captive as well. They brought them up to the hideout to Agious Apostolous. As a matter of fact, there was someone called Sohorakis Yiannis then from Mournies and he was a gendarmerie (Was he in Peuko? Was he in Viannos? He was somewhere) and he had gone fishing with a German (some others said that he was from Austria, anyway, we say German) and since this mess happened he took the German as a captive and brought him to Lapatho too. Him too, along with the others. I saw them when they brought them. But then they took them in a cave and watched them over; I didnt go where they had taken them and watched them over.
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Then the Germans came down and burnt the villages. They burnt the villages, killed the people. Mpantouvas gathered us and said: I am being called by the Italians, 3.000 Italians call me to Psiloritis (mountain) to become their commander and I will go. You, since your villages got burnt, go down if you wish to see whats happening and then I will call you. We then left the hideout along with Vouvakis. We saw that the villages were burnt, but the killed people we didnt know who had been killed. We didnt know. We left Lapatho, we came down up to Mino, we went down from Karidi, we passed through Mithos, Apoliana and we crossed to the other side. Vouvakis father-in-law at that time, a man called Diakakis, lived in Sikia (it is opposite Mithos) and because his father-in-law and his wife were there, we went there too. We were armed: we took the guns and went down. When we reached Apoliana and climbed up a hill in order to go down the river, we heard stones being thrown at us. We looked and there was Mpitsakakis Yiannis from Mithous and Voskopoulis Apostolis. We looked and with their hands they showed us the Germans going down the river in a row. They and their families were hiding in the carob trees and the bushes. We saw the Germans, Giorgi and I loaded our rifles and the Germans went by and didnt see us. They were close. We passed by that place and I hid my gun over there. In Sikia the late Diakakis had a cottage and everyone from here was gathered there: the wives whose husbands had been killed. The Germans killed the husbands of my two sisters, my grandfather and my mothers two brothers: Grigoris Spiridakis was Vaggelios husband, Michalis Drakakis was Eirinis husband. My grandfathers name was Georgios of Michail Daskalakis. My mothers brothers were called Emmanouil and Konstantinos Paterakis. Then they killed Dimitrianakis family also. Gdohia suffered great losses, great losses: apart from the fact that the village had been burnt down they had great losses also. One brother-in-law of mine was killed down in the alleys, the other one here. They killed them wherever they found them: in the alleys, in one location they killed a whole group. Over here they killed one more group. They killed many of us from here. They killed also people that were not
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from this village. They killed as many as they found here. We then left Sikia and went down to Yerapetro [Ierapetra] for a couple of nights. We then went to Kentri (I dont remember how many days we spent: five, ten days, I dont know). Then, because my father was a field guard in Oreino, at Sitia, we went to Oreino. But they had told him that there were louviarides47 over there. Thus my father took us to Stavrochori. The whole family: my mother, my siblings, we all went to Stavrochori. We were four siblings. My sisters husbands had been killed and both of them had their children (one of them had a son and the other one had a daughter). We stayed at Stavrochori. One of my sisters had got married when the Italians were still in Vatos (she had eloped with my brother-in-law and got married) and she came to Stavrochori too. Then they left. Only my mother with my two siblings were still in Stavrochori. We had a teacher, Kanavakis, and he gave us a small room where we stayed. We stayed over there in the winter and we went to the olive trees as workers and beggars. Beggary. How would we live? Since our houses got burnt. How? Those of us that were able to get a job were working at the same time. We wouldnt go about begging, the old ladies only. Anyway. We stayed there for a period of time but they had declared the place here a neutral zone. Our territory from here to the river and beyond was a neutral zone. On the 14th of September they killed and on the 3rd of November they gave us permission to bury the dead. Over here they killed my grandfather along with some others. My grandfather had been killed close to Pigiaki, the one who had been injured in the hand. His father was also killed and we put them in a grave and buried them together. Anyway, there was a bad odour too. I remember after the burning, when the neutral zone was in effect, that I went to Mirtos together with Paterakis Giorgis from Mournies, with Kartsomihelakis Manolis from Riza, five people, and they caught us. They took us to the river in Agia Zoni, in line, to kill us, to execute us, because they caught us in the zone. They had us standing in line, in a gap and we were looking at it. We were waiting to hear the guns fire
47
He means leper.
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from behind to knock us down. They caught us in the zone. We didnt know that it was the zone. We thought that the zone was from Mirtos and on to Ierapetra, whereas it was from the river of Mithos to here. They didnt execute us. We escaped on this occasion. We were in line and they sent us away: Raus! he said, Raus!. But be careful not to be caught another time because you will not be able to escape. When they let us go, I came with my father here to the village to see how we could fix one of the houses to stay in it. The house had been burnt, damaged, there was nothing. We had another house over there below and that was half-demolished. Thats where we stayed. Ah, there was a factory then, there were factories then: they ground olives with a stone. The factory was unburned and thats why a person came from Ierapetra and brought a mule and they ground the olives there. God knows how. Back to the mountain: the split up of the rebels in Heraklio There was somebodys son that I had met at the hideout and the Germans caught him and tortured him and he told them my name. I was over here, where the factory that they used to ground the olives was, and president Paterantonakis who called me filiotsiko48 (when you baptize a child you have a filiotso, godchild) came and said: Over there, where the square is today the Germans came and were asking about someone called Daskalaki Giorgi. When he told me that, I ran away, I left. I went to Sikia and dug up the rifle that I had hidden. Leonidas had told me in the meantime that we would reorganise the rebels movement. I took the gun and went up to the mountain. I found the same people again that we were previously with. In the meanwhile though, they had split up, a group had gone: they were then E.O.K., National Organization of Crete, and the rest of them were E.L.A.S., Greek Peoples Liberation Army. I went and found the friends and we stayed together. I didnt know the events; that Mpantouvas had split up with Podias. Well it was Podias with two brothers, they were called Samaritides, there was
48
filiotsiko: nickname for filiotso.
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Geroulanos the doctor too, and there was (also) major Manousakis up in the hideout. We formed a group in any case and spent together a period of many months. It was difficult but the Germans were frightened to go out too much. Mpantouvas said of course that they waited for a landing but it never happened. Then the Germans started retreating. We, our team, we followed them, up from the mountain, we went down to Viannos and they stopped. As a matter of fact, our people had also killed a professor in Viannos, because, I dont remember well, one team wanted to take the guns of the police and the other one didnt let them and there was a fuss and they killed a professor over there. They killed, additionally, an agriculturist in Ierapetra The strange things we did among us The Germans were retreating and we were descending from behind, our team. When the Germans were leaving and were moving towards Alkalohori (Arkalohori), we followed them. There was an injured man and someone had betrayed them (i.e. the rebels). Where they were, the Germans went and killed six people and he got injured. When we went to the village Afrati in Emparo, they called (for the people) and he who had betrayed them and I were present: the injured man grabbed a stick (he limped) and he hit him and took the gun out and killed him. They brought a donkey and they put him on it and they took him. I dont know now where they took him. In a few words, it seems to me that on the 14th of October of 44, we advanced to Heraklio. The Germans were still in Heraklio but they had capitulated. Later on, we stood right and left of the road and the Germans went through and went to Chania. They were with their machine guns, with their guns. They threw most of their guns and whatever they had in the port. They took guns anyway, machine guns, whatever they took and went to Chania. They went to Chania with the guns. When we entered Heraklio, our team, the two Samaritis brothers, Geroulanos we entered from Viannos side. Someone, called Pleuris, had a team too and he entered from the airport and Mpantouvas people entered from Chanioporta I think. All the rebels teams entered Heraklio and we met each other. They said that we would give ten people approximately (I dont remember how many exactly) from each team,
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to make another one: I went and they put me in the team and they wrote on some brassards Military Administration of the Prefecture of Heraklio and we wore them. Our chief was Gorgoraftis Minas from Heraklio. We went outside Alikarnassos, I think it was a settlement outside Heraklio, and we had a guardhouse there. Meanwhile, I dont know what Podias had done to Mproutzalis and Mproutzalis wounded him. Mproutzalis was there of course with Mpantouva. And a whole fuss took place; Mproutzalis went through court-martial and was executed. Mpantouvas executed him, they killed him. Something went wrong in Heraklio among the rebels, they fought one another and Minas Gorgoraftis, the team leader we had, was killed there. That passed by and when February came we gathered at Fortetsa to break up the rebels movement, to turn in the guns. After all the fuss in Heraklio, I didnt want to turn in my gun to them at Fortetsa: I took the machine gun from the Germans and I wont give it!. There was another one who said: Take him, take him to execute him over there! He is against the resistance!. What resistance? Anyway. They frightened me and I say: Give me a receipt that I delivered the machine gun. And he gave me a document that said: Our fellow fighter Daskalakis Georgios turned in a machine gun to us with six clips. I took the document, I gave them the gun and came here. I forgot to say that they had previously caught someone from Kato Simi at Kalami and he had a pistol. The people from E.A.M., the other party, took his pistol. Whenever the people from E.O.K. saw later a person from E.A.M., they would take his rifle from him. I got permission from Heraklio to come to the village and I held my rifle (another one that I had). Someone, called Papageorgiou, was with me, a doctor from Ierapetra (he was elected a left-wing member of the parliament in 58) and we were with a car and a truck that took us from Heraklio. They stopped us at Kako Oros and they wanted to take my rifle. There was a team from E.O.K.. Because of the fuss that took place in Heraklio, I said: I wont give you the rifle. I was in the car. You will give it to us. I am not giving it! I took it from the Germans and I am not giving it!. Anyway, I made a fuss. Hand it over! the late doctor said to me, Give it, give it!. I am not giving it!. I didnt give it. I brought it over here. The rifle was from Germany, but it was such a gun! They would
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place a cigarette and I would fire and cut it in the middle: a straightshooting gun, a beautiful gun. Over here there was a police officer in Mirtos and he came and was looking for the gun that I had. I said: I turned in the gun and I have a receipt. I gave him the receipt and he took it. OK. I had the rifle over here. They didnt know that I had it. I had it hidden. But I think that then I returned to Heraklio. I dont remember this detail because its sixty five years now. Anyway, we disbanded the rebels at Fortetsa. Compulsory work We came to our villages and we saw our situation, our sufferings. Our life started now in a different way. During the occupation we were suffering. I was involved in the black market as we called it then: my late brother-in-law that had been killed (he had not returned from Albania) had a donkey and I took mine too and went to Arkalohori and took tobacco, cigarettes, matches and went to Sitia and took wheat and brought them back. The trade was taking place by exchange. I was in Arkalohori every Saturday! There are fifty two Saturdays in a year and I can say that I was in Arkalohori the forty five! We went this way, from Apliki, we didnt go from the motor way (this goes up to Viannos) and we came down and went to Arkalohori and I came back. I returned once with Vouvakis Manolis from Arkalohori. It was the month of May. It was not in our benefit to use the road from Aplikia, as we used to call it, so we went through the motor way. In Kato Viannos the Germans grabbed us. They captured us. They went from there for they were taking people to the works in Kastelli. They captured us and got us off the donkeys. I had two donkeys: I had loaded raki and wine on the first one and I was riding the other one. Vouvakis had been married then whereas I was single. He said: Are you married?. He said: Yes. I said: I am single. There was one whose name was Ermis and he could speak Greek. Take the donkeys and go, he will stay here. And they kept me along with others in Viannos. They took us to Kastelli. There was a camp, a fortress and a barrier was all around; there was such a louse inside! They let me take the blanket from the donkey. There were gendarmes and they were watching everyone working inside there. All our people were taken there. I begged
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the gendarmes: I am going to the works in Ierapetra. I was going to the works and I had a paper and they said to me: We will send you away, you will leave. I said: Because I came from Alkalohori, please, I have the blanket, let me stay outside so as not to catch lice. The gendarmes agreed. I worked for one, two, three days. In the meantime, Vouvakis came over here and told them: Giorgis was caught by the Germans in Viannos and they kept him there. The poor fellows were upset: so many were taken and sent abroad, they were exiled. My poor family now asked and learnt that they were taken to Kastelli. My late father loaded one of the donkeys with onions, potatoes, cheese, and he rode the other one to bring them to the Germans to let me go. When they sent me away, I took the blanket on my shoulder and left at night. As I went up in the night I lay down a little bit. I woke up early in the morning and I left and on my way through Pefko, in a distant location, I came across my father. He was over there. We went with the Germans to the works there at Stomio. In every village, everyone was told to spend a period of fifteen days. We had at the time Arhontikaki as a secretary in the community, someone called Papadakis was the president and he knew the fellow-villages: You will go and stay fifteen days, and you and you we went for fifteen days and we returned. They brought us some cabbage, boiled greens, nothing decent. They gave us food but that was no food. We found a room; they gave us a room to stay. We went and we dug a hole over there. Then they built over it: Kainourgiakis and Paterakis Giorgis went and built a wall that fell down, as deep as we had dug. They also fell down, but they didnt get hurt. Soldier As a result of what had happened over here we lived with fear and dread. We suffered. The life that people live now is nothing. We suffered: we went and sowed our fields in Stomio! We harvested. There were lots of sufferings, troubles. We had fields over here too. They were not all of course in one place. The entire territory over here was cultivable. After the burning of the 1st of July of 84, the entire territory was burnt, our olive trees, our houses were burnt again (the house over there
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was a house and a store too, and they all got burnt, there was nothing left). My sisters who had lost their husbands went about begging. Our villages were burned. Those who had not been burnt resorted to begging. In Sitia! They covered the entire region! Meanwhile I had my gun over here (there was someone from Simi and he knew that I had the gun and he said to me to sell it and I sold it for two tins of oil he sent me one tin but I am still waiting for the other one). Anyway, when I had the gun, there was still occupation and I couldnt have the gun in common view. I had written upon the gun KKE49. I am telling you, I was with the left-wing! And I got married and we went as soldiers. There was someone called Hamilakis from Simi and he was a recruiting officer, as I found out later. He accepted me and they didnt dismiss me as a left-winger. He kept me and I became a soldier. They kept me in the army. They dismissed all the others I was with. I was married and I had a six month old daughter, six months old. And I had left my wife behind whose father had been killed by the Germans (I hadnt got married yet). My wife, an orphan, was with her mother, she didnt have any other siblings and I left her with a six month old child and they took me as a soldier. I got married in May of 45 and in August of 46 I went to the army. I went as a soldier to Heraklio. In November they took us to Thessaloniki. We founded L.O.C.50, one hundred people from Crete! I was in L.O.C.. But I got sick; I dont know what happened to me. I went to the hospital and then I didnt go to the LOC, I went to the 511 battalion: another harassment over there in the army, another trouble! We had the gang war, some others call it guerrillas war, some others civil war, anyway. Other troubles over there. The rebels had surrounded us once at Scra51 from up high, and we had a victim, Stefanopoulos Stilianos I think he was called, he was a cadet. He was killed near Scra. There is a statue over
Stands for Communist Party of Greece. Company of Mountain Commando. 51 The locations that are referring from now on are at the boundaries of Greece with ex Yugoslavia at the height of the counties of Pellas and Kilkis.
50 49
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there at Scra. Directly overlooking Scra there is Archaggelos. Below Archaggelos, far away, there was a village that was called Konstantia and it was occupied by the rebels. On the 6th of December the battle of Scra took place where Stefanopoulos was killed. Afterwards, on the 12th of December, on Saint Spiridonos day, they took us there to go down and see the size of the rebels group force that was in Konstantia. Our people stood upon the hill and they sent us down there. When we came closer they started shooting at us. One was wounded by a bullet on the knee. It was, either Sotiris his first name, or Sotiriou, his last, I dont remember. We were close together. They gave us an order to pull back. I figured I should pull back, but how could I pull back and leave the other one injured? I lay down and the commander of our team shouted at me: Daskalaki, leave him and go!. I couldnt leave him. I cannot say it [Sobs]. I lay prostrate and tied his wound. He grabbed me from the shoulders and pulled himself on top of me. He held his rifle, I held mine. I crawled, crawled, crawled and we advanced, lets say from here to the motor way52. It was early in the day. Snow. I pulled him out the poor guy. In any case, we got out from up there. What happened had happened. At some moment, an order came to go to Athens to get clothes and food for the army, I dont know what else. We couldnt go then by cars by land, we just had to go by boat, by ship. They had chosen eight, nine of us, I dont know how many, to go to Athens. I couldnt describe my happiness: I wanted to escape a little bit from the rebels, from the battles. In Thessalonica now, look whats happening: as we gathered and they were watching us leave, the master sergeant came and said: Daskalakis should leave the line and someone called Meksis will come I dont know what they called him he has a family in Athens. In order to go and see his family. And they removed me from the line. I almost went crazy with sadness. That was on the 20 of January of 47. I left and they left. And the ship sank! It was Chimara53. The ship sank and they all drowned. Some soldiers were saved. We had soldiers that were being
52 53
A distance of one kilometer approximately. The shipwreck of passenger ship Chimara in the south Evoiko bay on the 19 of Jan. 1947 is the greatest Greek naval tragedy of the 20th century with almost 400 dead.
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taken to Athens because they were communists. And they drowned. A few of them were rescued. Think of this case many, many drowned. I escaped from there. Troubles then up to the borders: there was a gendarmeries station in a village in Idomeni (this place is in Greece and from the side of Serbia there is Geugeni) and they went and killed a man from Chania. All hell broke loose over there. And we went there. Eh, we went and took the posts from where the rebels were expected to return, yet they went from Serbia and returned again. Our life in the army was difficult with the rebels. Eh, then my late father sent papers from here saying that the Germans had killed our family and they took me to Heraklio. In May of 48, I dont remember know when it was. My daughter was three and a half years old and I hadnt seen her. When I came to Heraklio they gave me permission and I came over here and I looked after her in Riza (I was staying in Riza then). I was dismissed in honours in December of 49, and afterwards, in 50, they appointed me as field guard. I was a field guard until 53. Then I didnt want to be in the unit any more. They put me in the position of secretary in Riza until 56, for three years. Then I came down here. When I came, I got involved with the community, as a counsellor, as a vice-president Then we set out to make an association among Riza, Gdohia, Mournies, to bring water from the mountains, from Lapatho. We had a Prefect who was a very well known friend and we wanted to make an association. He said to me: You will make the association, but you will be the president. There were two out of every village. I said: If they vote for me. We had elections: two, two, two. We had a second round, the same again. The third time they voted for me for president. And I spent four years. I brought the water here too. I had always been a counsellor of the community and in the end they asked me to become a president too. I became the president too. The former president had died and I was in his place and did the remaining term. In the elections later I was voted again. I had spent many years and they recognized this and I have a pension from it now. I was the president at the cooperative also for many years.
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Help, pensions and recognition After the liberation they wanted to get a financial-aid from the Germans, thirty five thousand for every family that had someone who was killed. They called me, since the police knew me very well, and they asked me: Was he armed or unarmed?. I had to be present during the interrogations, one by one, and I had to say that he was unarmed to receive it. But in the meanwhile, Papadopoulos comes and he wants to give a pension to those that were killed: in order to get it they had to be armed rebels. They called me again and I said to our police sergeant: Do tell me one thing now; they called me before to say that they were unarmed, but now (I have) to say they were armed. What will I do?. He said: Do you want them to get the pension?. I said: Of course. Sign there. And I signed that they were armed and they got the pension As a witness for all of them. We went to Ierapetra where we had a lawyer so that my mother-in-law could get the compensation of the thirty five thousand. And they gave her seventeen thousand I think and the rest was taken by the lawyer. What does she get now? Nothing. Someone came to Riza once and started saying to me: Did you get anything? Did you fill out any papers as a rebel?. I said: I didnt do anything. He said: You should come and fill out the papers. The rebels fill out the papers. And we prepared the papers and this is how I and my wife gained recognition for being in the National Resistance. I got my paper in 87 and my wife got it recently. Our papers say E.A.M.E.L.A.S.. From 41 and on. Today We went through a lot with the Germans but if we hadnt messed with them, we could have not reached that point. But anyone that would go and see all those people killed over there, what would he do? We were messing with the Germans a lot, we were messing with them. After the battle of Simi, as I heard too, we stripped the Germans, we took their guns, we took their clothes, we took their shoes. Pardon me, I heard, I dont know, that they cut their genitals off too (I wasnt there). They committed some crimes that they shouldnt have. When they caught me and I went to Kastelli, we had a German and he was supervising us. A
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bit farther away they had something like a hut they used as a toilet. A German took his pistol out from his belt, he hung it up on a pear tree and then he went to the toilet and sat over there. I now, had I not felt sorry for the rest of us that were with me, I would have taken the pistol from where he had hung it and left. But that would be a reason for them to kill even more now from our group and thus I didnt do it. Today the Germans come. As a matter of fact, the other time I was with a German, Olympia was the name of his wife. He collects olives and he gave me his business card and he went to Tympaki. He said to me: If you want, I am here for everything: to collect, to look after the trees And we took a picture and he sent me the pictures here and he asked me if I wanted him to come here for the olive trees. Eh, we are friends with the Germans now. We dont have any problems. There, the house over there at the end of the village, belongs to Italians. Here the village is full of Dutch. We have many Dutch here. They have made nice houses. All the people living in the village now are pensioners. Ah, we went through all our troubles here. Thank God, praise God. I am very thankful to God! God helped me and God helps me. My children are doing well. My grandchildren also. I could not go through whatever I have been through until now, so I had better move on. I ask myself sometimes if I would go back: I had better move on. I went through difficult years, that is, hardship, hardship.
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Evangelia Kimaki Samprovalaki I was twelve years old when my mother died. Hariklia Andreopouli was her name and we were in Pano Simi on vacation. Simi at the time when I was a child was the place we went for vacation to and all the villages gathered there: Riza, Gdohia, Mirtos, Mithi. All the villages gathered. We had our country houses in Pano Simi. We know each other since then, from our childhood; I know those that are still alive since then. We went as a group every morning to go and gather greens, to gather pears, to watch the goats, the oxen, the animals, whatever we had. Sometimes I miss this juvenile life, because we were carefree. A carefree life. Now you have obligations, one thing, the other. In the summer we went for two months maximum and we planted our beans, we planted our potatoes, our cucumbers, our pumpkins, everything, everything. All the people from the village, all. I used to get up as a child and went to Apano Simi with a group of friends. We went from the mountains to water and we came back at night. Roughly four people, five, three, two, as many as we gathered. I would help you and you would help me. And we all watered and then everyone came back. In order to have them ready in August: we went from March to have them ready in August. Tomatoes, onions, beans, whatever it was. And we went back and forth, on foot, companions of young boys and girls, five, four, eight people, that is, we got together. It was a nice time then. I liked to walk from mountain to mountain. A nice time. It was fine. And we got together from all the villages: they came from all the villages, everyone did the same thing. When we went later in August we all had everything. There were Italians here in our village. They had a bakery here on the opposite side and they gave bread and some food to my brother. There were not many Italians in the village. They lived here nearby and had a tailors shop. They had taken a sewing machine from a house, by requisition, and worked as tailors. There were also five, six people at the school, not many, they were few. I dont remember any Germans turning up. The years were difficult. The school of the children was farther down, near a carob tree, with one teacher from the next village. I didnt go of
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course because I was old. I was older than twelve, but my brother Yiannis and the rest of the children in the village went. Life in the villages was very difficult then. But individually, in my family, my father Giorgos Samprovalakis was a handyman, and he went up to the mountains, to the folds and the villages and brought everything. The events of Simi At that time, Germans made a collection in Simi to find eggs, to find potatoes, to find onions, to find oil. Willingly, Do you want to give?. They didnt force anyone. I think the rebels were jealous because they also made a collection and they thought Lets get them out of the way. They said to a girl, lets call her chambermaid, to leave the door open and they went in and slaughtered them in their sleep. They slaughtered them while they were sleeping. Then they put them, they loaded them and they went to the mountains and threw them in a ditch as the book says54. Then the Germans came and looked for them and saw that they had them killed and from that point on the whole story began: what a great idea for Mpantouvas rebels and those in command to go and slaughter the Germans! They went afterwards and entrenched themselves in the two mountains in Simi and the Germans went through and the rebels killed everyone. But the little book provides all the details. Germans at the village We were on vacation in Simi then. We were there on vacation and the Germans found us and forced us out and we came here. My father was not with me because he was in Messara with my second sister Despina. My father, with the craft he did, traveled to the villages to find something for us to eat. My brother was with me. My other sister Maria was married and my father was not that concerned about her. He thought she had her husband, her mother and father-in-law. But the two little ones were I, of course, with my brother. My brother Yiannis is younger than me. He was ten years old and I was thirteen, fourteen years old. I was born in 28, figure it out now.
54
Refers to the poem Paterantonakis and Tsitsinia, 1987 : 5.
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In the meanwhile they burned down our villages. The Germans didnt use to come here but they came after the event in Simi. They visited the villages and beat, killed and burned, to take revenge on us in a few words. On the eve of the day they would burn us, it was seven p.m. on a summer day and a German said to me: Fou; he indicated to me that they would burn the houses. And we packed a few things that the German pointed out to us and we took them up to the fields. They forced me to slaughter a hen in order for them to eat and he said to me Tomorrow, fou, fou and you remove the things. He made us understand that we should remove the things. The morning that I came to take the things, some other German was there and not the one that had eaten. He told me to leave and gave me a piece of cheese and some bread that we had kneaded saying to me: Parti!, to go, to go, to go, I remember really very well. I saw the same German that gave me the cheese and told me to go, putting the fire. I remember really very well that he did something and I heard a Pouf! and the house caught fire, with him chasing me off Parti! Parti! Parti! I couldnt understand the quick, quick that he was saying to me. Anyway, I remember really very well. I saw him the time he put it on fire. But I dont know what medicine he put that made Bouf!, a strong sound and the fire started. I left in the meanwhile, but I heard the Bam! and I saw the fire that burned what we had inside. I left and went to find my brother in a field down here. They gathered all the people from the village and had the machine guns all around to execute us. My brother was bent and I was bent upon him on his back with the fingers in the ears in order not to hear the krou, krou, krou sound! They would kill us, they were ready to kill. We had our heads in our legs and our hands in our ears in order not to hear, not to hear, because we saw what they did to the machine guns and how they fixed them. We then heard some voices that were coming from down, fifty meters approximately farther down. We heard German voices. We didnt know what he was saying; only that he was holding a piece of paper, I saw him doing like that55, and shouting, and I heard that he was saying: Sacramento. I heard that for the first time.
55
She waves her hand up in the air.
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Of course I didnt know what that word was. Is it a curse? Is it an insult? And he grabs the paper and throws it down and from that point on they pulled in their machine guns and harassed us with the bayonets: Parti! Parti! Parti! and we left. We left, we lost each other later, we were lost. I tried to go past a field and I saw a young man two meters tall who had been hurt by a bullet, here, in the chest. There were some insects, wasps and flies that we call svourous, and were sitting on him. I screamed, I fell down and started shaking, I could not bring myself around. They came there and they saw. They said: Lets leave. We left. We went afterwards and sat inside a dense bush and I was with my brother and two more ladies from here with their children, young children, five years old, three years old and we watched from there the fires and the burning of the village. We said: Whats going on now? I come in the morning, I look for my sister Maria, the married one, and I didnt find her. I ask many people and they say to me: She has left with her mother and father-in-law and has moved to Ornio; Ornio is a region. I went, I found her, but I first stopped here to see and I didnt recognize my home, we didnt recognize it. It had fallen down, ruined, burned. I had a grand-mother and I went to see my grand-mother and I found her lying on her face: she had tried to go out and with the fire, the central beams, mesodokia as we call them, had collapsed, pillars that were on fire, and had choked her. She was suffocated from the smoke and in addition to that the Germans had slaughtered her. When I saw her what should I do? I was just shaking, a twelve year old little girl, thirteen, imagine that. Her name was Maria Andreopouli. You will see her name written in the war memorial. You will find her, her name is in the bottom line. Afterwards, I got away from here and went out of the village, to the carob trees. An airplane flew: the leaves of the tree were falling, how can I describe that to you? The airplane was shooting and I went to the root of the carob tree, rizoxaroupia as we call it, where it had a cavity, and I hided myself. But I saw them and they saw me, so low was the airplane (flying), and it made a gr! sound and you saw the bullets falling like hail. How did they miss me? And it would be fine to kill me to find peace. But I want to say that the airplane was (flying) so low.
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I had lost my brother. Germans had taken him and they had recruited him along with some others, many people, and he left after resorting to cunning. He picked up a pebble, gave it a heave so that he would have to run to catch it, then he gave it another heave, turned around the corner and got away. The rest of the men that stayed were taken by the Germans and were killed where the little church in Riza is. Nineteen people were killed from here, from our village. They took them, they were old, they said: They may want to take us to show them where the rebels are. This is what they thought. But they took them where the rebels had raised the flag, it was there they took them, tenaciously, and they killed them. They killed more children too from Riza, from Sfakoura, this is what its little village is called. My father comes from there, from Sfakoura, and we have some property there. In my vineyard they killed two persons and for years I didnt go to pick grapes and to visit it. I didnt want to, I was afraid. What is there to say? A child, a young boy nineteen years old, ran to get away but there were other German farther down and they caught him and tak!... they cut his head off, because the blood was visible there, where his body was and where they cut his head off, the blood was visible where his head had stopped. Eighteen years old, a fine young man. And they had killed his father too. These things cannot be described, what can I say? We had a house full of carob beans and it was up there where they killed a young man. The other one tried to escape and as they were chasing him, like the hare as written in the book: Like the hare in the raceway and we stayed full of happiness with this little game, they blew up his brains in my field, near the medlar tree that we had. I have got dead people in my field: there are two dead people in one and in the other field two more and even more scattered up there. Five graves here, three there, four there. But together with the people from Mournies, they killed people from Riza and from Parsa too and they took them there and they killed them all. My sister Maria My first sister had gone with her mother and father-in-law to Simi. They fired one shot next to her. She had the baby in her arms too. She
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thought that the baby was killed and she was looking to find whether the baby had been hurt. She was sick with her gall bladder and in two days she had peritonitis: she was bleeding internally. She had no doctor, no hospital, where were there the cars? We had no means. She died in two days. In the meanwhile, they are going to burry her husband tomorrow. He had two children with his second wife, very nice children. She was separated from her husband. They came from Simi here and we got lost. We got lost. They called from Athens today and they are going to bring her husband this evening to burry him tomorrow. He has two gorgeous girls. They adore me and I adore them, for they are not to blame and neither am I, not anyone else, for my sisters death. The one is a public notary and the other one works at the Ministry of Commerce. They adore me. The deceased called me: Our Evangelia. Our Yiannis. That is, as if we were brothers and this is how he felt about me. God forgive him. The next day they told me that Maria was somewhere near here, beyond the river. I was looking for her, to find my sister and I found her. I found her sick, she was sick with her gall bladder, there was no doctor, there were no medicines. I was left with the baby. When I wanted to change the baby, I didnt have diapers, pania as we say, to change it, and I turned the dirty diapers inside out and reused them. I milked the cow in my hands and gave milk to the baby. I could not go to the group of breast feeders for they told me: Go, go away, from here. Go, take it and go to get it killed over there, go! go! Because with its crying it is going to betray us to the Germans. I said: I am not doing such a thing and I am not going to kill it, and whoever has the heart and wants to, he can kill it, but then again, I wont permit that. Afterwards, we left the fields and went to Anatoli, up to the village. The people were hospitable to us, but they were afraid and they were very hesitant, they were afraid. As we were leaving and were going up to Anatoli with her husband that had found us, I was holding the baby. We put her on a little donkey and took her to Anatoli, for she was sick and unable to walk. The time we were entering the village they said: The Germans. Whenever we heard Germans we ran for dear life. And her husband left leaving her and the baby with me. The villagers helped me, they put me to their home, they
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put a blanket on the floor, we did not even have a blanket, I had a shoddy like this piece over here, I had a piece of shoddy and we left later. They accommodated us in that house, may the people be well. And in there, in two days time, my sister told me: Go where we took our things, to bring the babys clothes, to bring our clothes too, because we had packed them all together. When we left Simi, the German that we had cooked the hen for and two persons had eaten, said that the village would be burned down and that we should take out whatever we could, to take it away so that it would not to be burned. And my sister tells me to come and get the things. But there was a neutral zone from the river and the way up. They killed whoever entered it, with no discrimination: young, adult, child, old, teenager. We left. We had some footpaths, parastrata as we call them, some pathways that the Germans didnt know about and we went along these pathways and we came here. I went and took some things: babys clothes, her clothes, mine, my brothers. I took some clothes and filled a little sack, as much as I could carry, and we left. I went with a companion. When I got to Karkasa, thats what the region is called, my sisters god-mother, many campers, and many other people were there. And her boy said to me: Your sister died. Like that, suddenly. A! I couldnt stand on my feet. And her god-mother told me: Dont listen to him. He is crazy, he doesnt know what he is saying. His mother scolded him, but it was true. The child was young and didnt know that he should have hid it. In fact, as I was in Anatoli looking from far away, I had seen the coffin, the cover of the coffin they had outside the door I didnt get there in time to see her alive. And she wasnt in such a bad condition when I left. We went, we buried her. The baby stayed, with its father, and the two elderly, the parents of the father. They took the baby afterwards. My father came later searching for me. He left Messara. And my father came looking for me and my brother and my sister as well. When he went through Tapes, a village, they said to him: Someone died and she is one of Samprovalakis daughters, without knowing that he was my father, Samprovalakis was his last name. My father dropped to the
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ground and stayed there. He thought There is no other Samprovalakis in the villages, my married daughter died. My sister was fourteen years old, fifteen, when my mother died and in her sixteens she got married. In her seventeens she gave birth and in her eighteens died. And the poor guy started from there to come to find us and he gathered us, whoever he found, and took us and we went to Kato Horio and we stayed there. At Kato Horio My father came, he took us, the two children, and we went to Panagia, in Messara, towards Viannos, beyond Viannos. My father was working there as a tinsmith and tinker. He had left my other sister Despina there, and came to pick us up and took us with him to go to Panagia. We stayed there for a week and then we took our belongings on our back. Whatever we had, we held it on our back. We left and took the route that was permitted, because there was a neutral zone and we could not use the road down below, so we went through Lasithi. From Messara we went high, high in Lasithi and went down to Tapes and came to Ierapetra. Great trouble, we walked for four days. We spent the nights in whatever village we reached so that we could continue again the next morning. The people that saw us, welcomed us, gave us food, drinks and a place to sleep. I have no complaint. We finally went and stayed in Kato Horio for a year. The people form Mournies had been ordered to go to Kato Horio, the people from Gdoxia to Kentri, and the people from Mirtos to Ierapetra. So we split. We became beggars, all the villagers became beggars. We, specifically my entire family, didnt go because my father worked. Then the Germans brought some tanks with oil and raki and my father fixed canisters for them. They took them and sent them to Germany. He was a tinker and tinsmith. There were a lot of different things they brought. When my father was absent, I was fixing them. But one day a German saw me and said: Arbeit, piccolo, Arbeit. All the Germans and Italians learnt that I knew how to do the job that my father did, and they came everyday and said to me: Freulain, Arbeit canestro. What could I do? I fixed them.
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The Italians had brought mules from Italy, huge animals, and they lent them to us to come here and harvest. We took permission to come and gather the olives. They gave us two mules because my father was acquainted with the garrison commander and they knew me also because we were from the burned villages. They gave us two mules very tall, I was going like that to reach the saddle56. But they werent vicious, they were like sheep, meaning that you shouldnt be afraid. The interpreter told me so: Dont be afraid he said to me Vangelio, do not be afraid for they are domestic. Here, go under his belly, to see, to stop being afraid. And he wanted us to go to a field where there was a berm, a tetada as we call it in the villages, so that I could ride the mule and come just fine. In Kato Horio I made many friends. We exchanged letters for several years. And there was an incident with a friend of mine; we played together and I was pretending to be Golfo and he was pretending to be Tasos. In connection with this boy that I played with and I was asked to play the role of Golfo, the following happened after many, many years: I and my sister had bought a piece of property in Athens and we had a contract with my husband. When the time came to pay the tax we had to give thirteen thousand drachmas then. When I went to pay, I saw a small sign like that where Manolis Stefanakis was written on top. I was wondering, to ask, not to ask? I come near and he says to me: Yes please? I say: I came to pay the tax, I have the papers with me, and he says to me: Where are you from?. I say: I am from Crete. He says: I am from Crete also. And are you by any chance from Kato Horio? I say to him. He says: My Vangelio! My Vangelio! and he grabs me and kisses me. The employees got crazy. How many years have passed since we last met? He say: Do you remember that play we used to play?. I am saying: Of course I remember it. I remember also Marika Diakaki, and Angela, and Papadaki, I remember everyone, but we got lost Manoli, we got lost. And we exchanged letters for some time with all the friends of the group, then we got lost. I was to pay thirteen thousand and they gave me back three thousand [laughing]. Well, I had some adventures sometimes that I dont remember.
56
She raises her head high.
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Sometimes I recall them when I cannot sleep at night; all the previous events come to my mind like a cinema movie. There are too many, that if you ask me now, something might come to my memory, but there were so many troubles in the villages. The villages are destined from the past to have troubles, because there are good and bad times. In Kato Horio, we rented a house and stayed there. I was fifteen, sixteen years old then, around there. The girls now, all my friends, went to high-school. One day I wanted to go to Ierapetra to do some shopping, and they said: Come Evangelia, lets take you with us. And I say: What will I do after I finish the shopping? They said: We will take you to our desk with us and when we finish we will go shopping to help you and we will leave together. There were no cars then. On foot. When the teacher saw me, he asked the girl who was sitting next to me: Who is the girl?. She said some things, that I was one of the children that had their house burned down, and the teacher asked for permission from the children saying: Children, lets spend half an hour to talk to the girl, so you will hear as well and stop complaining that you have troubles. And the teacher asked me to speak and I told the whole story of my case and he said: I undertake your coming. I will put you through University, I will put you through University so you will become whatever you want. Your father should get in touch, since you dont have a mother. I will put you through University. But I had not finished the preliminary school. My mother had died and he said to me: What can I do for you my young lady. Its a pity, its a pity! I am very sorry! Back to the village They told us later it was free and we came. There was poverty then, there was misery. A parachute fell and we made a dress, we made some garments and we dressed. That is, our life since our childhood wasnt good: very depressing, to work in the fields, to carry sheaves, dematia as we call them, to go the threshing floor. Over there, behind you, there was a round hole and I went down, put straws and we pushed them through. I couldnt get up afterwards, because of the straws that were low and I couldnt reach to go up. I was yelling Help and a butcher passed by that had some little sheep coming all around the hole to eat
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and I was saying to them: Here I am! Here, here, down below, in the barn!. They threw me a rope and I tied myself and they pulled me up. That is, my life was not good. Then my father got married, I had a step mother. I had no greater sorrow than the marriage of my father. This story made me very bitter. It was during the burning in 44 that he got married. I used to come and go to Gdoxia to gather olives. My father was married then. We had a herb that is called flax, and we had a machine that I used for pounding it and we were spinning it to make garments and various sacks. That time we had to pound a thorny herb called chnara, the one that has the big leaves, to make ropes to tie the goats. How to tie them? There was no commerce then, nothing. My childhood was a drama but I was carefree then and I miss that now. We renovated our houses little by little and we moved in. Those that had remained unburned provided hospitality to persons that had nowhere to sleep, until they built their own house. All houses were improvised, improvised. We built our improvised house and now it shakes when I step on the floor. We kept saying that we would fix it later. It didnt happen. And it remained in that condition. When I was pregnant with my Giorgos we fixed it, again temporarily. The house was not built here. I was pregnant with Giorgos when I was carrying stone and soil to build it. There was lumber distributed to those whose houses had been burned. They distributed lumber, corn, corn bread, various things, clothes, dresses, blouses and other items they had collected. To all the villages that had been burned, to whoever had a house that had been burned. Our house was burned and we fixed it and we fixed the roof hastily along with my father and all the family lets say. And my husband was helping me, we all worked together. I got married in 50. I was two years older than my husband. Manolis Kimakis was his name and he was from Gra Ligia. I gave birth to two children, and I raised them by myself; I had no one to help me. I got married in 51 and by the end of the year I gave birth to Giorgos. I had the baby and wanted to make a sheaf of wheat or barley straw to put my baby on top like a little frog, to get the baby to grab and hold of me with his little hand in order to do some work, whatever I could. These were nice years. We planted toma-
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toes, my husband was such a hard worker that didnt let me go to the field to spread sand with the shovel. We had truckloads of sand that we spread all over the field with a shovel so as to provide warmth for our tomato plants. Our tomatoes were open air. My husband learnt to drive in the army and he was telling me to send him money to have a professional driving license issued, as it finally happened and then came back. We went to the field and we had to harvest. My husband asked somebody that had a car to come from there and take him. He said to him: Manoli come, please, come, we will agree on the amount of money, I need to have a driver and I cannot find one. Those years were not like today, that even the chickens know how to drive, and so he left. I then got away from here and went and stayed in Mirtos. There, I gave birth to my second son, because my husbands job was there: the truck he was driving was there. He used to come home tired and for three to four months he used to sleep right on the manure and the ground olive stone that he loaded. And he said: Whats happening Evangelia? I will either quit or you will come to Mirtos. What should we do? To lose his job? And I left and went to Mirtos. In the meanwhile, I got sick and I was in pain with my legs: it was called psoriasis and it was from the knees all the way down. My head and my hands with sores. It is difficult to describe it to you, if I went like this57, something came off the size of a boot, a scab, kakado as we call it. Anyway, I followed a treatment. For forty five years I was wandering from doctor to doctor, to the dermatologists, to Athens, here in Heraklio, the whole Crete. Nothing. And my doctor made an appointment for me with someone that was from Germany and was with him at the university. He said to me: You will go to Heraklio and you will ask for the dermatologist and I went and found her. I went and she gave me an ointment; I still have this ointment. In fifteen days I was well. In fifteen days I realized that ointment was wonder-working. I went afterwards and found him and thanked him and I went to the dermatologist also and thanked her too. Today, the village here is full of Germans, they come. According to
57
She rubs her leg.
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my opinion they were executing orders. If you are executing orders, whether you like it or not, you will do it. What will you do? I mean that the complaint of Greece and all the people is about the big heads, those that are in command, like Hitler then, the great ones, Mussolini, I dont know what they call them. You are here now and you receive orders, you have to... And thus, I have no complaint about the people that come here. Is it possible that they wanted to leave their houses in Germany to come to Greece and kill people? They didnt want to. Other people ordered them. That is, I myself confronted them in this manner, I dont know about the others.
YIANNIS SAMPROVALAKIS
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Yiannis Samprovalakis The story of our village has been told by so many that if I tell the same too, you will end up from that with a general conclusion. I hardly knew my mother; she died before the war, in 40, and left me six years old. The Germans at the village I was here with my sister Evangelia. My father was with my other sister. I was about ten years old, I was nine to ten years old then, but I remember them. And when the German came, they surrounded the village and they came to our house too: Where daddy? My father had told us then: If I am in Ierapetra, you will say that I am in Heraklio, if I am in Heraklio, you will say that I am elsewhere. And since they asked me: Where daddy? I say: Males. Males was full of rebels; they had come down from the mountains and were heading towards Ierapetra to They were there, all the rebels had descended and I say: Males. And my sister says: Males? No! Candia, Heraklion! What should we do? Even the president of the village came to tell them that my father was at Candia, at Heraklion. I was in a difficult situation that moment, since one said one way and the other differently. I was around ten at the time and they took me to the end of the village: farther up from here, there is an almond tree that produces tiny almonds and it is called vasvoula. And they took us down to vasvoula, close to a mulberry tree. They gathered the people there, the men. They took me there with the men that they intended to execute in Sfakoura. There was a pathway going down, where the church is now and where they have the cemetery. The rebels had descended from there. When the battle in Simi took place, at that time, fifteen to twenty rebels had come down. They came down the hill and they were visible from here; both we and the Italians saw them. They came down. As soon as they hid in the trees, they did again the same route and came down again. And they kept descending and walking around the hill, to look as if they were many, even if the rebels were fifteen. Someone came here and the Italians called me too as an interpreter. At that time, we, the children, spoke Ital-
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ian fluently. They chased us away from the radio that was farther down; Kommandantur was opposite the coffeehouse. They were chasing the children away from the radio, so as not to listen to the news. To make a long story short, it was at that point where the rebels were coming down from the mountain that they wanted to go and kill the villagers. We were gathered there by the vasvoula in order to be taken up afterwards. They say to me as I was a child: Yianni, what are you doing with the grown up? I say: They caught me too. There was the German guard and two, three others around, and I was kicking the pebbles with my toes, because we had no shoes, until I went across to the yard with the other children. As soon as I was on the other side, in the yard with the other children, I placed my back on the wall and I was looking sideways in case the Germans see me and I turned around to leave. As soon as I walked ten steps farther down, I jumped into the yard that is on the left side: I grabbed a hold of the slab they used to place the basil on, this slab is sticking out, and I jumped and landed on the housetop. As soon as I landed, I moved to the other housetops and reached another yard, from the back side. I come here to the house and I tell them: Lets get out of here. We grabbed a sack and we put dried bread inside until it was half-full and we threw a piece of cheese inside too (my father was a tinsmith and he used to go to the folds and tinplate cauldron so we had cheese), I took a patiti (thats what we call the blanket, patiti) and Evangelia took one more on her back and we got away from a small road behind the house that goes farther down, to the lemon trees. We had a little cow and we took it and went down from there. But how could we manage to get the animal through the gardens? There was a big rosebush and the wall where the irrigation canal passed through. We fell on our knees to pass. Where would the cow pass from? It fell on its knees and passed too! Underneath that wall over there with the rosebush. And we left and went outside the village, to the place where the women and the children had gathered, a place we called Stefanis cistern. There was a cistern to collect the water to water the fields. All the people, women and children, had gathered there. As I was passing from there, more Germans were coming from below. Are these details not supposed to be told? But this incident has
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its value too. Because when the Germans came up, there was a donkey on the other side and made a Ga! sound. And the moment it made the Ga sound, they brought the pistol out and bam! They shot it on the head and killed it and everyone got frightened! It was then that they were all devastated. They figured: No-one should speak a word here, not even the donkey!. They killed it in front of me. Right there. Everybody saw it. We headed left to another pathway and we went away, we reached the gullies, in order to go beyond the river, for the river was the boundary of the neutral zone. We crossed the river and went away to the opposite side. What details should I mention? As to where we stayed? The fact that we made a shelter to stay, under the carob trees? Where? That we left and went to the other side to go towards Anatoli and that we had a bad time, with only dried bread and cheese to eat, and to go and find To see what? Is it possible that four villages were forced to leave and fit in one village, in Anatoli? There was no room. They will even eat their legs too. We stayed at doctor Papadakis house, the first house as we enter Anatoli from Karkasa, from the old road. EVANGELIA58: There was then the sister of Evangelia Dimitrianaki, Aliki, that her mother breast-fed her. And I used to take our baby to her and she breast-fed it for me. Thats the baby of my sister Maria that died. But the neighbours turned me away and told me to go kill the baby because it cried and we were going to betray them. And there was Aliki, Evangelias sister, that her mother breast-fed her then. And she also breast-fed the baby we had at the time, but it died after six months. Then we were scattered, his father took it; our father came and took me with my brother and we went The death of my sister Maria I will take you there also; I will take you over there also. But I speak fast. As far as I know, my older sisters child was eight and a half to nine months old, a little girl. She was in Apano Simi; the battles took place
58
In this point, the sister of Mr. Samprovalakis that was listening to his narration interrupted.
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in Apano Simi, in Kato Simi and in Apano Simi. They got away from there, went through the mountains, came down to Males (thats why the Germans arrested me, because I said that my father was at Males and they thought: He is a rebel). And they went through the mountain, came down to leave for Ierapetra, to go to Agios Nikolaos, to escape from their gunfire. My sister, that was left alone over there, came down on foot, having her child in her arms: it takes four hours to go on foot from Apano Simi. How long would she last? The little child has some bulk, this bulk exhausts the hands. Imagine a woman to come down, come to the village and go to her house, her husbands house, and to see it burned and to return to our house and see it on fire. She faints in the yard. She faints in the yard. Look now, I am giving this interview today that they are going to bring her husband from Athens to bury him tomorrow morning [Sobs]. Her husband will be buried tomorrow morning inside this house. Pardon me for being emotional She fainted in there; it must have been two o clock at noon, half past two? The babys crying woke her up at four o clock and she had it in her arms. She fell down in the yard senseless. She got up and the sun was setting. As she needed time to figure out what to do, she left the village taking the same road we had taken when we crossed the river. When she was a bit farther down from the village, she heard a whistling: Mario!. There was no sun light but the outline of the man could be seen, could somehow be identified from a distance. She turns, she sees a stream on the opposite side; the stream is about fifty, sixty meters wide? Come this way, he says to her. Some families were hiding there and there was a cousin of hers, from her husbands side, and he called her. She turned around making a circle and went over there. And she saw a blanket on the ground, lets call it patiti again, and two lines of children, covered. This was the month of September. He says: Put the baby here and they gave her to eat a bite of bread. Did she have any appetite to eat? And the baby was covered with the blanket, she was not. It was September and she was freezing to death over there. She was also suffering from her heart for she had fainted. The woman slept over there. In the morning she had forty degrees fever. What could they do? How to cure it? He says: If you
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see Anagnostalakis Giorgos, tell him that his wife is sick; he should come to the river farther down and we will get her across to the other side for him to come and take her. He says: They should take her to Christakis cottage and they took her. That is a cottage on the other side of the river that they used every time they went to reap. My brother-in-law took her from there and he says: Give me your donkey to take her to the doctor in Anatoli. They didnt give it to him. He goes to another one, he asks for an animal, no-one was found to give him his donkey to put her on its back and take her to the doctor. And he took her on his shoulders, crossed the river and took her to Anatoli. But how many hours would it take him? Would it take him three hours? Would it take him four hours? And with his wife as a load I and my sister Evangelia went there and found her, because my father was with my other sister in Panagia, at the village. He was a craftsman, a tinsmith and a tinker, and he was working over there. He was away, went there and worked to get away from the evil too. At Anatoli, after some days, I dont remember exactly, in a months time, my sister died. We buried her there and we gave away the little cow we had. Our brother-in-law sold it to a man from Lasithi for nine hundred drachmas. With the nine hundred drachmas, he ran and bought medicines, a hand-full of antemprines and aspirins. There were still antemprines and he took them (they were for malaria). What could they do to a woman with a heart disease, whose heart had suffered so many upside-downs? And she had a cold and was sad too. There should have been a modern hospital! Because if the hospital was like the old ones, she would still not be alive. Our father came, from Panagia trough Lasithi, after my sister died. He went from the mountains and reached the plains of Lasithi, walked through Katharo, came out from Katharo, went down and came to Anatoli. And he takes my sister Evangelia and me and we come back too, and we go through Lasithi and find our sister Despina at Panagia. The death of Marias mother-in-law and of her baby What did we learn after we returned? People came secretly, they didnt have what to eat, and they came secretly in the evening, at night, early in the morning, to take whatever they had in their houses to go
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and eat it. Then my brother-in-law, whose father and mother were still alive, decided to come here to the village to find something. As soon as they went close to their houses and found them burned, the old lady passed out. And she falls in the same yard that my sister had fallen and fainted. There Hurry up Giorgos and bring water! He found a piece of a broken jug and went to the running tap and they gave her some water. They even put out a cigarette on her hand but she didnt move. And they found a door that was detached, placed her on it and they took her immediately to the cemetery. They lifted a tombstone and put her inside, without a priest. Without a priest! Since there was no-one, they buried her. They lifted a tombstone, placed her in and they both returned and left the child with a neighbour over there to look after it. Since the old Anagnostalaki-lady was gone and had died here in the village, the neighbour looked after it. The women, however many they were, took turns in helping and breast-feeding the baby. Each one gave some milk. It died also. It died too from hardship. Which child would die today if it had boxes of milk and a nursing bottle to feed it? No-one dies because he doesnt drink his mothers milk. No-one dies. At that time however, that one died too. And it was buried too over there. Thats what happened to us! What else? But then again we lost our grandmother, Andreopouli Maria. We left her sleeping in the little house, the house with the oven. We thought that the Germans wouldnt see her (the gathering took place right outside), that the Germans wouldnt see her, but who would have thought that they would burn the house! And my uncle, Giorgis Andreopoulis, went later and dug at that point, took out her bones and took them to the cemetery. What shall I recall first? Details? What details? I myself have these few and I was only a child, nine to ten. And I cannot bring myself round, because I am choking with injustice, I am choking with anger, my sufferings: barefoot, I was an orphan too. But how many have there been, just like me and even worse, that didnt have a mother or a father. How many? But the German didnt see these things, he made grr!59 and didnt see them.
59
He is making the noise of the machine gun.
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Back at Mournies After we came back from Panagia, we went to Kato Horio. They caught my father in Kato Horio; Hey, Giorgi, you still have three children and they are young, go get married so that your children will have a mother, go, go! To make a long story short, there was a nice woman. He married her. I was happy, I and everyone. We then came here. Where to go? We stayed in a lodgement, in a katalima, thats what we call the abandoned houses, katalima. We repaired it and we temporarily stayed there. Then I went (we have farther down from here something like a forest but they burned it) and we cut down four pine-trees. And one had a saw and a guillotine and I went and helped my father and that person and I pulled the saw from the lower part. I didnt have the strength to pull from the upper part for we placed the beam sidelong, and one was on top of the beam, stepping on it and pulling, and the other one was from the lower part, in order to cut it into slices. Everything, these planks, the beams, the middle-beams (not in this house60, in the other one, my house on top) went through my hands. And to carry (it should have been three kilometres, let aside the zigzag, it is three kilometres as a straight line) the beams. I used to hold two beams on my shoulders and walk. The beams must have been two meters long and thick like our leg and even thicker. We didnt have bread to eat. When we came here to Mournies we found our little stock house destroyed. The lumber was burned, the soil had fallen, the had fallen. Our pithoi though, two, three, were intact and we saw that they contained barley, wheat and other stuff we used to store. We see the barley. They removed some from the upper layer and it was roasted, the lower part was yellowish. We say: We will take it out to eat it. We took out that barley to eat it and it smelled smoke. They grinded some and we made a trial-bread. It was impossible to eat it. It was as if the ashtray was passing through the end of the cigarette, thats how it smelled, thats how it smelled. What to do, what not to do, we had to eat the flour! It was bread kneaded by hands. It was around fifty kilos and even more. We must eat it. They came up with an idea and
60
His sisters Evangelia.
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thought: We should go and find carob beans, pound them, put them in the trough, pound them to take the water, knead with the water to make it sweeter. And we found carob beans, we let them stay in water for two days, we pounded them, threw them in the water for two days, the carob bean syrup was extracted and they kneaded with that carob bean syrup. For as long as the bread was warm, it was eaten pleasantly, yes. But we had to dry it up, to make it into a rusk: they put it back in the oven to make it dry. When it got dry, the syrup from the carob beans did not allow for water to penetrate and soak it and it was how can I tell you? It could not be eaten. Well, we ate it without saying a word! We ate that bread with the carob bean syrup and it smelled like the ashtray, if you leave the cigarettes for two or three days and put some water inside too, thats how it stank. We ate it because we were hungry! We were hungry! Today they dont eat the bread. Eh, father! Buy a loaf of bread for me, when my father was about to go to Ierapetra, before they burned us. As if we had any? Was our life better? Bring me a loaf of bread and bread rolls. The bread? Hasiko bread? Did we ever eat hasiko bread? Only bread made of barley, barley-bread. Hasiko is the white bread we eat now. Would we ever eat hasiko bread? Only if my father ever went to Ierapetra to buy something. And all the villages I mean, everywhere barley-bread. Thats why we have a strong bone structure we the old men. Whereas today we have whole-wheat bread and they dont like it: so they add seeds too, whole grains of corn and pumpkin seeds, they even add cattle fodder they will neigh at the end. Another detail to tell: when they had gathered us, the women and the children down there, there was a man who was dressed womanly to save himself. And he saved himself. There was a man among the women and the children and he wore a kerchief, and a skirt, we call it sakofoustana. And he was taken for a woman because he wore stivania61 (and women too wear stivania). He made it. Details. Someone else might tell you now other details that may be more significant.
61
Stivania: in Greek, , Cretan-style boots.
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The Italians Before the Italians came, we heard: They will bomb. So be ready and get away from your villages. And all the villagers got ready and left. We went to the mountain, reached Sfakoura and went to a place farther up that is called Kilistra. That is where we went. Others went to Mino (it is a settlement high in the mountains). We all left and went up there. And we came down at nights, took a few things and lived up there. But then my father came up with an idea and everybody dug a hole of rectangular shape on the floor of their houses and placed down a pot of oil, dried bread, two, three blocks of cheese, some olives, a small pot of olives and then we closed it on the top and it couldnt be seen on the floor. And we had that in case of need, to be able to eat a bite of bread so as not to die. This incident was in 41. The Italians came here and went to the school. The school was up, next to the church. They had their cooking facilities there too. Their Kommandantur was in that blue house that is across Tsagatakis coffeehouse. The bakery was in the corner house here, of Markakis. (They were) Two hundred eighty. It was on the upper side, overlooking the church, among the locust trees. They had camped with their tents, they had camped there. Two hundred eighty. That was from the beginning. From the beginning, when the Italians came. They came through Sitia on foot: neither a bouf , nor a gun shot was heard. And they came up to here. They had guardhouses at Vato, down by the beach of Agiou Panteleimona, and they had advanced even farther. The Germans were from there and on. There were two, three companies here. Their cooking facilities were up there at the school. I remember once, because all the children spoke Italian, and I had amicus, friends, I remember someone telling me once: Eh, piccolo vieni qua, meaning, Young boy come here. I go there and he says to me: We have seven ewes and they should be slaughtered. Bring us a butcher to slaughter them and you will take the heads and the legs and the bellies. I say: Fine, I will find someone for you. And I go and find a cousin of ours, Rakitzaki Yianni, the poor man died too, and I say to him: Eh, Yianni, he must have been eighteen years old, in his twenties. I say: Eh Yianni, they have seven ewes to be slaughtered. Do you
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know how? He says: Of course I know how. We will slaughter them and take the heads, you will take four and I will take three. All right? He says: All right. And I went and helped him there in the olive trees. We hung them and we took the heads, the legs and the bellies with the bowels. They kept the liver and the woolskin. He will make out of them he says carpet, the comandante, Caporale Maggiore. Caporale Maggiore is the sergeant. Collonello is the second lieutenant. They gave me a lot after we got acquainted, they called me back and I was all the time there, in the mess-hall. And since they got to know me, I took a tin plate and went to the end of the row with the Italians. And the last Italian sees me and puts me in front of him. I lean against the other one and he puts me in front of him too. And the other one in front of him and I almost reached the middle of the line. And as I was passing, the Caporale Maggiore sees me now, but he knows me for he needs me: because a few days ago he said to me: Vieni qua, comme si chiama questo uomo?. Whats the name of that person? And he was from Riza, the other village up. The Italians went there and said: Come here. They called them: You, you, will bring a bundle of wood down and they wrote their names down. And about ten people from Riza came and brought wood to the Italians to cook. And then the Caporale Maggiore, the sergeant, calls me again over there, wanting the name of each one of them. And I say to them: Whats your name? and they told me and I told the others. I did the interpreter as a child. A little child. Since we couldnt write, I knew by heart whatever I needed to know. As I was holding the plate (I am going back to the mess again), the cook turns with the ladle above the cooking pot and sees me; I look at him, he looks at me, but he also takes a glimpse at the sergeant and tells him: Give him (food). Tap and he puts me. I say: Altro uno. One more. Tak and he gives me one more: Because we are two, I say (there was I and my sister). Every day at noon I went and joined the mess as well. And the bread, the paniota but I helped them too. And other children I mean. They wanted to ask me for oil to fry onions: Eh, come on, are you going to fry onions?. Peppers, peppers, eh! It is amazing how they eat the peppers. They even fry the eggplants! Eggplants, peppers. We didnt know then. And they sat and ate the fried onions. However, now, we eat them too,
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and it is a specialty food too! It is an appetiser. We had friends too: I had Mario, I had Pipino, I had plenty. I gave them oil whenever they wanted. Once, I remember I had a big pimple here62 and I was in pain, I had disappeared, I was in bed for a week. And Marino, my Italian friend, asks: Dove piccolo Giovanni? They told him: Malato. He says: Dove casa?. He comes. I spoke in Italian, but they understand them, all Eastern Crete understands them: Where is Yiannis boy, my friend?, he says. He is sick. He says: Where is he sick?, In the house. He comes to the house and puts me on his back and takes me to the old Town Hall (for there was here once a Town Hall, we had a Town Hall, the five villages comprised the former municipality of Mournies). And the infirmary was at the Town Hall and they took me there and showed me to their doctor and he takes a scalpel. As soon as I saw the scalper I started screaming. One man grabbed my legs, the other two, one from each side, held my hands down and another one held my stomach down: Hrats! And he makes an incision with the scalpel and it didnt need much, it was all yellow. And he takes a gauze, places it on top, and makes a movement with his hand and everything was gone. And then, he takes a piece of wood, puts something like grease on it, I dont know what, and tak, places it on my knee and then ties it up. And he says to me: Piccolo, andare, go. I got up and I could immediately stand on my leg, without losing any time. They dont come to do us good I want to say to you that the Italians were not bad. The Germans were, my child, the Germans. Where did they take orders from to be so cruel? But we the Greeks too are bad ourselves for we dont want anyone over our shoulder. How do they say it? Eh, we dont want anyone bugging us! Why do you come from Germany to conquer Crete? Why? And you Italian. Did I come over there to your village to become your ruler? Did I come over there to do you this? Huns? Why do these gentlemen want to take over the oil resources and have the world under their authority? To kill old ladies? To kill children? To kill animals? To
62
He shows the inner side of his knee.
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respect nothing? Thats why we are the bad ones! And I want us to be the bad ones! I want us to be the bad ones! I see things as any sensible man sees them. I see that anyone who passes through here doesnt come to do us good. Is that enough? Am I done with that? There is no need to tell the rest. They dont come to do us good. They dont come to give us. And they will take back the subsidies they give us. They have taken them back. They take from us, they have so much to take, a great amount indeed. But to give, they cannot give. Because they take even the Greek words; they import them, like the cheese, and then they bring them back here as imported ones. They take our Greek language. No problem63, he says. Why dont you say: I dont have a problem, only you say: No problem?. We dont have the word No Problem. We say64: We dont have a problem. What do they have? Their languages are mixed up. Can the rest of the world have what the Greeks have? I will tell you one thing because I am a bit familiar with the Byzantine music (I studied it as a hobby, I took my degree, I can chant at the church, I read Byzantine music, I interpret it as well as I can, I am not a great chanter though). Tell me now, I ask you a question: which country in the world has its own music and writes it with its own letters? One, tell me one, that one. Only Greece has this kind of music. No other country in the world has written music and written it with its own letters. Lets take a meter: if we think of European music in terms of length, it might be seventy five eighty centimetres short. It cannot reach it. The Byzantine music is so rich, that they who made it knew what they were doing. And all these things they find now; that they went to the moon and came back, and to Mars too, all these and the zodiacs, they knew them then all by heart. And they didnt have the means to find what our people find today with the means they have. Thats why I am telling you why dont the nations that descend from Europe head towards Russia that is an immense country? Yet, they go every time even lower, all the time closer to poor Greece, to Italy, to Malta, even to Turkey. Why they dont go where the steppes
63 64
In English. In Greek.
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are, go to Japan that it is a vast place? Because there is no bread there! There is corn and wheat, whereas we have here bananas and tomatoes, we have our oil here and if you have a drop of oil Once (I go back again to the time after they got us burned) I was going to school and I was a child twelve years old and my father says: Yianni. Today you should be absent from school to go and sow the wheat and barley in Kolekto. It is a small hill next to Mirtos, two hours on foot. I was absent from school, in order to take our cow, take the other ones that we had agreed to spend the winter with and cultivate the field, and to go and plant the field barefoot. I also had two goats, one ewe and had to find and load the wood that the plough would dig out. And I was absent for I had to plant the field in order to eat. Now, here again, what can I remember, what shall I remember first? I have constructed this road, all the way from here to the turns that overlook Mirtos. My legs are broken because of the wheel barrows that I used at work. I have constructed it. As a child I was the only one from the region. After all, I had not gone to high school because I had no mother, we had no people, I had to provide for the house. I had to provide a bit for the house along with my father, as much as I could. But the fact that I was absent from school to go and cultivate the field by myself! Write this down. Because they should have known that, and I should not have had to be absent to go Here, the children that were in high-school, that were attending high school, left and went to Ierapetra: they used to find a small room and they cooked to eat for the next day. What can a child twelve, thirteen years old cook? What does he know to cook? Until a child got lost there too, on account of the stove. He had the burning coals in his house to warm himself and died there. May God forgive that child too. Black September65 September month, a desert everywhere Everything is silent not a breath is heard
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Unpublished poem of Mr Samprovalakis, written the 2/9/1993.
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Since the machine guns spoke first The bodies fell down September month the streets are deserted September month they burned the villages And the nightingale never sang again Mothers are crying, men and children September month the Nazis passed And these places were ruined The villages from Mirtos to Viannos Innocent people were gone September month and the anger burst Of the most horrid and unjust war And the bloodshed and slaughter took place here And with blood the soil was painted red September month they had a feast The wild beasts, the dogs and the hawks That they found humans for food In the villages, the hills and the streams The world became full of widows and orphans And they were spread to streets and mountains In other villages, in the country, in the city To save themselves from the bullets The mountains, the forests and the slopes sighed And the hearts of the young children were broken
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For they lost parents, hopes and villages For they didnt have freedom Then the hearts were broken from the embitterment too Tears, cries and sighs A lissom tree of freedom grows In the years of the slavery Now that the horrible years have passed And the nightingale started singing again Those children are grown up too And they gave birth to other children and the streets are full And every year one time in September Those who remained have a memorial service For those that no priest buried May their memory be eternal.
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Yiannis Damaskinakis I was born in 1936. I was about 7 years old in the occupation, in 1943, when the Germans showed up as conquerors in the village. They did not harm us at the beginning, we had a potentially friendly relation. But when the rebel movement started in Kato Simi and attacked, the Germans started retaliating, that is killing and setting fires. 14 of September, 1943. I remember it was the day of the Holy Cross. Two Germans came to our house and kicked us out. We took nothing with us, nothing. They threw a powder inside the house, I dont know, fired a gun shot and the house was set on fire and burned to ashes. We were forced out of our houses, all women and children were pushed back to a distance of four, five kilometres. They gathered all men above the age of sixteen and killed them; we went to Ierapetra. We passed through Gra Ligia, that is before Ierapetra, and we asked for a place to sleep for it was night already. They emptied a stable and said: I have this place over here, so we went inside and fell asleep. Women and children, one next to the other. We had nothing to eat the following day. We started begging, stealing minor things like a carrot, a cabbage, this kind of stuff. We did anything we could in order to survive, to stay alive; we had to eat to stay alive. We went afterwards to Ierapetra. We stayed, four people, inside a room in the city of Ierapetra. And we started begging again there, to one and another. Ierapetra was in a good condition; it was not burned and the Germans had not killed any. My mother went begging to be able to provide for us. Germans in the village I go back to narrate to you what happened that night, the eve before they burned down the village and when the Germans gathered the people from this village here. I remember my mother saying to my father: I heard that the Germans are coming and they kill, so go. He said: To go and leave you alone? And my mother replied: You go, go. He goes this way, downhill and meets the godfather of one of his children. He
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asked: Where are you going man66?. And my father replied: My wife now tells me to leave. He said: Come on now, stay here, my father narrated the story to me afterwards, Stay here my friend, what are we? We will show them our identity cards. We are peaceful, we hurt nobody and the Germans too will not hurt us. He stayed. My mother had a suspicion that my father might have stayed a bit further down the street, so she left and went there. My father was sitting and she told him: Didnt I tell you to leave? Tsagatakis, who had baptised my sister, said: Hey, woman, let the man stay. Why are you sending him away? It will be worse if he leaves. Why, what have we done? We will show them our identity cards. And my mother replied: You stay, and if you want to stay, then stay, stay, stay. But let him leave. She was shouting, shouting at my father, and so he left. He had walked less than fifty, sixty meters downhill and the Germans arrived. Late Tsagatakis, took out his identity card and presented it to them. They beat his hand so hard that the identity card and everything else scattered away. He was taken along with another seventeen people from the village; the Germans took them outside the village, kept them there for a while and put them down to sit. After twenty minutes approximately, they took them up to a hill in Riza, to a place called Kale, and they executed them. On their way, they could have ruined the German plan and leave, avoiding the execution, but they didnt believe they would be executed. There were all illiterate and no-one said: Hey fellows, do you know where they are taking us?. For there was a very big well on their route and the German started wandering on its edge: What is this thing?. I mean, the two Germans had been on the very edge and if only they were touched, if only they were pushed a bit, they would have fallen in and our people would have been free. They didnt believe it though, for they thought: Maybe they will not kill us, maybe they take us for compulsory work, who knows where. When they reached the execution place, around fifty meters before,
In this paragraph, where man and woman is respectively in Greek: and , that is the relation between two persons when one has baptised the others child.
66
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a child, twenty years old roughly, realized they were taken for execution and started running. And the German knelt down (for someone of them was saved), fired at him and the child was jumping as if it was a rooster. He was jumping like a rooster. He died. The others then also realised that they were taken for execution but they couldnt leave at that point for they were blocked. On their way down the Germans were looser: they had the gun here, there, they walked slowly. And our people could have even attacked them to capture them! Even to capture them. But there was no man to organise it, to say: Folks, they are taking us for execution, what shall we do? You attack the German from there, I attack the other one. Shall we give the signal and capture them?. They could have been captured. But the signal was not given. They were taken up to Kale and were killed. However, there was a man, Pigiakis67 was his name who was from Mirtos I think (but I dont know where he got captured), that fell down as soon as he was shot. And imagine that the German came to give him the coup de grce in the head and the bullet just missed him. If you are lucky, nothing can stand in your way. He played dead with his hand wounded. He thought: If I move a bit the Germans will kill me. And as the Germans left at some point, he realised that as he heard no noise, he asked: Is anybody alive?. There was a child, at his twenty. I am, he said. But the child had lost much blood and as they moved on he passed away. The child stayed there. Pirgakis survived. He went down, tore his shirt apart and tied his arm. I dont think he is alive today. He must have been from Mirtos and narrated the facts. He survived, with a broken arm of course. Who was there those days to tie his arm and those who did, did it wrong. Anyway A German had come here, down to my fathers house, two, three days before they burned us down. He was an Austrian professor and could speak Greek. And my father told him: May I offer you a glass of raki?. He didnt know what raki was. In any case, he offered him raki, he drank it, and my father also peeled a pomegranate for him that he ate. And they sat down here in the yard and he held some little glasses for raki.
67
See narrative Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki.
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My mother said: Where did you find these?. He replied68: Kato Simi, everyone kaput, fire, I took them. It will be kaput here too, everyone in fire, everything. So he asked my father to leave. My father didnt want to. Neither did he suspect that a big disaster would happen here and that he had to take, I dont know, some food. To load food onto the donkey we had, take his children and go to the other side, to Anatoli, somewhere there. There were no rebels there, the Germans were not chasing people, they didnt kill. The Austrian told him: Dont you turn me in for they will kill me, yet my father didnt believe him. He was an Austrian and Austrians were softer. Hitler had drafted them by force. They were not like the Germans that, as I have read in an encyclopaedia and have the picture too, they didnt let a child go. The child was eighteen years old, begging and crying. The German gathered the elderly and a child, very young, that was asking him with tears in his eyes: Let me leave, leave, but he didnt let him. For Hitler, from what we had heard, used to say that weakness is equal to cowardice. It is because it is a weakness: today you let him leave, tomorrow you let another and so on, in which case you end up being a coward. He also used to say to German soldiers to stay away from women. He knew that if they would get involved with women, there would be some that would extract secrets by selling their body and would give them to the enemy. He knew that already and had told them not to have relations with Greek women. You will be tough; we set out to take over the entire world. He lost seven thousand paratroopers in Crete: their mothers are still in mourning; young men were gone. What did he accomplish in the end? Nothing; he, his family and his generals committed suicide, there were trials, there were he spread disaster. The return When we returned from Ierapetra, (I narrate the facts in the sequence I remember them), we had been liberated by then and had a stable that was not burned. It was 3x3 and we were five people inside. We were forced to go to Mithous to stay where we were given a bigger room. In
68
In broken Greek.
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the meantime, I had nothing to eat: as a child I had no milk, no butter, no food, nothing. We ate once in a while, anything we found, things that had no vitamins. As a result, my whole body was covered with pimples. Pimples. They didnt dress me up, they had me sitting on a chair and had me covered with a sheet, mourning, for they said I had the scabies: The child will die for he has the scabies. A doctor came; I dont know if he was a veterinarian, I dont know what kind of doctor he was. He saw people standing outside, and said: What is the matter here folks?. They replied: A child inside has scabies. The doctor understood, came in and said: How are you doing young man?. I was too embarrassed to talk, I didnt speak. My mother said: Doctor, the child has scabies. He said: How do you know?. My mother replied: Eh, I know how to tell. And the doctor said: You are the one that has scabies in your head. I remember the words he said to my late mother. He took the sheet off: I was indeed full of sores. He said: The child is suffering from vitamin deficiency. Give him to eat. My mother said: Where will I find it?. And the doctor replied: Begging, go about begging. She took a basket and went begging. And used to say: I have a child and so on. Someone gave her a glass of oil, others some milk, someone else gave her some raisins or some food he had cooked. Anything they had. She gave me food for four, five days and I got well immediately. I started feeling better for it was not a disease. It was due to the lack of vitamins, because I had no food, I had nothing and thats why I was full of pimples. Hunger and poverty I was barefoot, just like all other children, till the age of twelve. Twelve years old and we were barefoot. I put on my first pair of shoes when I went to high-school in Ierapetra. Imagine that the construction of the road from here to Ierapetra started then. So they asked for workers. I was twelve going to thirteen and I went. He said to me: What will you do? I say: Whatever you want, I am available. My father didnt know that I was going to go and he didnt let me, but I told him: The engineer took me with him to help him measure the streets. I hold the measuring tape, I do nothing and he will give me twelve, thirteen drachmas a day. And so he let me. I carried (soil) with a wheel
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borrow for fifty, sixty meters. I had a friend that shovelled, I carried the load and we threw it away. I worked for ten days and took a hundred and twenty drachmas. We also started progressively to produce oil. We had no special nets to gather the olives and we picked them by hand from the ground; and they were really tiny ones. We picked them with our hands. All the people that gathered olives had the ends of their fingers injured from the soil and the rocks. We had no sheets or nets, as it is now, that we beat the olives off the trees and gather them. Also, we didnt have where to mill them. And I remember that they brought from Mithous the milling stones for the oil mill. Each stone weights five or six hundred kilos, maybe seven hundred. How did they bring it? As the stone was circular, they passed a piece of wood through the hole in the centre. One stick to pass to the other side. They secured the stone with ropes on each side and gathered around thirty men on each side. They said: Eh, oop! and pushed for two meters. And again and again, till they brought the stone from Mithous up here on the top. After that, when the stone had to be taken downhill, and it would start rolling down, the workers went back to hold it. Bit by bit, they established the first oil mill. People started to mill their olives, we produced, we consumed oil and we fooled our hunger. We picked greens. We had a goat, I dont know where we had found it, and we brought it in the house, during the night when we slept, for they used to steal goats: they stole them, slaughtered them, smoked them, placed them in oil and ate them. There was great hunger then and we had the goat indoors. At least, we drank some milk from the goat. And had some oil that we produced as well. I remember that when Greece was liberated at the end of 1944, we came back from Ierapetra, after having been away for a year. And we, the children, went and dug the field where they had planted potatoes and searched again to find small potatoes, the size of almonds. We collected a handful of them and went to the factory where we cooked them in the hot ash and ate them. We also, as children, collected snails, set a fire outside, placed the snails on, threw a bit of salt as well and ate them. We went to the cistern over here and caught and ate crabs. We set up the so-called
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plakes69 and caught small birds, like thrush and so on: we plucked the bird and ate it on site. There was terrible hunger then. We ate carobs. We ate carobs for their sugar content. I remember that my mother boiled carobs to extract the syrup, the carob syrup as we said, and used it as a sweetener, as sugar. Also, we didnt have coffee and she roasted chickpeas. She roasted chickpeas, grinded them using a hand mill and prepared coffee. I believe this is healthier than todays coffee, for that one did no harm and we used carob syrup instead of sugar. Eh, little by little We had no clothes, no one helped us. They gave us some boards, some tavles (planks of wood) as we say here, to make roofs for our homes; that was the Marshall Plan. They gave no food. They brought some hardtack, from a ship that had sunk. We didnt wear shoes; as I said we were barefoot till the age of twelve. It was a desperate situation. Till we started little by little to make something for we had no products to sell or salaries and such things to get money from. We sold the oil, we produced oil, we sold the oil and they bought it for free. My father went to Ierapetra in the morning, with the donkey, carrying twenty, thirty kilos of oil. That is nineteen kilometres to go and nineteen to return, thirty eight. He left four, five o clock in the morning to go sell oil and buy two kilos of white bread and the essential goods, such as a soap and similar stuff. Only the necessary ones, anything he could bring of the most essentials. We ate the food we had; bean soup, lentil soup and barley bread. Not that we had anything else; that is what we were given, that is what we ate. And after the meal, my late mother cut a slice of white bread and gave it to us to eat it, as a pound cake lets say. We survived in anyway we could: sufferings, starvation, we had no clothes to wear, we were cold, we survived. I remember my late father wore a pair of trousers and the lining was dismantled and it was full of patches of various colours: red, yellow, green, white. That is what he had and that is what he wore. We had no running water here in the village and we went to the fountain, to fill up the ewers and bring them here and have a bath, if we had any. We used that water to cook, to wash, to do everything. Great trouble.
69
A kind of trap.
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We went to our fields that were not close but far away, we worked in the day light that helped us and we came back from there in the night. Then you had to feed the animals, if you had any, my poor mother had to start a fire, to cook. I was in elementary school then and I remember that I studied using an oil lamp, being tired all day long, wretched. A primitive life, primitive. It was like those documentaries we see some times in the cinema, with children eating only bread, naked, wandering around and fishing; that is how we lived. At least in our case that we were cut off, this is how we lived. We managed to survive. Step by step. For if someone has something to eat, anything, he will not die. But if you have nothing to eat, like in Athens where you see skeletons in the street, you go to the rubbish. Here, when I came back after the occupation, we could find something to eat all the time. Some greens, a glass of milk, a few carobs, a thrush or a rabbit the elder ones killed when they went hunting. We always had something to eat, something, a bean soup perhaps for some people gave us beans. Some people in Ierapetra had beans that they brought to us; we were helped. It was very difficult of course the first year. Then we started growing our own plants: we planted cabbages, filades as we call them, and a few potatoes, for our needs. The goat gave birth to one kid that we saved so as to have two goats. We therefore had two goats to drink milk from and so we gradually made it to this day. We managed to survive, to stay alive. Then the high-school started again and we went. We left afterwards and went to Athens. I managed to finish high-school there in Athens, went and finished Anotati Emporiki70, went to the army, came back, found a job, worked, married, had two children: a boy and a girl. My daughter is married today, she has two boys. And life continues as I raise my daughters children. I love my children. Why do I love them? Kazantzakis says that we love our children for they are the continuation of ourselves. That is why we love them. We live for them, we fight for them. Anything we do is for our children and we try so that they will not go through the tragic situations we had to go through.
70
In Greek: , which means School of Supreme Commercial Studies.
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Victimized relatives and the crosses at the doors Now, what else is there to say? I havent said it all, for no matter what casuistic description you provide (dont know if I said that right), you will omit something for there have been so many events. There were Germans in Kato Simi who killed a pregnant woman with her unborn child. Yet, there was another German, when they were burning down Kato Simi that heard a woman delivering and said: What is happening here?. They told him: A woman is delivering. He understood, got inside and had a sit. He said: The midwife, and the midwife alone, will stay. He then got a German to stand outside, as a guard, till she gave birth. He helped her get up, take the child and leave and then they burned down the house. It was a good deed indeed, amid our sufferings. Other Germans killed with the bayonet, other a man escaped here, they shot him, his bowels came out, he got them together, moved on and fell down These are situations that scarred me as a child. They have scarred my soul, my heart [Sobs]. Marias father, Michalis Papakonstantinakis had a mill, a short distance outside Mithous (the area is called Apoliana), and there was a child in there also. They told him: Go away because the Germans kill. I am not going anywhere, they will do nothing to me, I have raki, I have walnuts, I have such things. I will treat them. Why would they hit me? The child told him: Go away because I have learned that they kill. I am not leaving. The child, as it was afraid, went a dozen meters away, as they say, around twenty meters, he narrates, and hided himself in a bush. The Germans came, and my uncle went with the tray. They gave a kick to the underside of the tray and it went up to the sky. The child says that he was slaughtered. Why? Because they buried him and when we came back after the occupation to dig up the body, his head was not found. And the boy says that he was probably beheaded. If it is so, I do not know. I had an aunt who had two sons, thirty, thirty-four years old, you will see them in the monument in the square. And they caught them both and killed them. As she didnt have a husband, she was left all alone and deserted. And she took soot from the fireplace and painted her face, her hands, her house, everything, that is a complete blackness. Because that woman said: What is the point in living?. So she went away from here,
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went to a cottage down to St. George. She had animals and chickens inside, with the chickens entering the house; she lived with the animals, poor Katerina. Until she died too. Those days, they had taken a black cloth, tore it to pieces and made crosses which they placed on the exterior of the houses. They nailed crosses outside the houses and as you walked from here on, you could see one cross, two crosses, one cross, one cross, in all the houses. There were eighteen people killed, not just a few. Eighteen people. Leaving the village However, 80% of the people left the village because it did not have a priest, I do not know that for sure, had no policeman, had no health centre, had no men willing to marry but we had girls. Well, when the young men were drafted, they stayed in Athens. They argued: What am I going to do in the village?. It had no tomatoes, no green houses, nothing. Shall I go to gather olives and graze sheep? He stayed in Athens to sell peanuts and bananas on the street and raise some money. They claim: No, I am not going to the village. Girls stayed here. So we say: What do we do?. Lets go to Athens. And we got up and left; almost half the village went to Athens. We found jobs, we built a house, we sold all our fields here, the best fields for free, and went to Athens to marry the children and my sisters. We have been living in Athens until now. We have two girls in my family, a boy and my mother with my father, five people. The sisters were older than me. I was the last one, the younger one. We left, went to Athens, they got married, they made their families. I went along with them, I managed to study as I said, trying by myself, it was a big fight, big fight, that is, working and studying. What should I do? Afterwards, the economic situation gradually began to improve for we began working. In the meantime, I found and took over an accounting office and I had good wages immediately. They gave me another firm later and I was working hard. I was chief financial officer there and I was making good money. I managed to educate my son at the University of Economics71 and sent him to England where he got
71
In Greek: .
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a Masters in Business Administration, I do not know what they call it, and my daughter is a philologist. My son-in-law has graduated from the School of Supreme Industrial Studies72 and works in a shipping company. He is doing all right, thank God. I got a house that belonged to my parents, the ground floor, and managed striving to build the upper floor and give it to my daughter. Also, in Evia I had a small cottage built in a property I had got from my father-in-law. And so, life goes on. The Italians The Italians were conquerors as well but we never felt oppressed, because they were people that had fun, played guitars, sang, kept company with our men, went to the cafe and drank raki together with our people and so on. They never oppressed anyone. They stole chickens and if they found a woman that was available, they went with her. The Germans never. We and the Italians are of the same kind: una faccia una razza and so we lived happily. The Italian came down here and said Good morning, How do you do, All right. My mother, I dont know what they called her, used to sit outside and we treated him to raki, he drank it, we offered him dry fruit if we had, everything we had, I dont know, because we still had food before they burned us down. He drank the raki, said Goodbye, waved, called my mother siniora and left, heading to the cafe. We went to the tents they had set up here in the village. We went to the tents they had and stayed, and I remember that I went inside their tents, sitting there, looking around and staring at them. I did not know what occupation meant and I did not know what they had cme to do here. I was a small child and did not understand what they told me: conquerors arrived etc. The Italians arrived here, who knows why they arrived. With their horses, their own ovens and we had a good time with the Italians. I even remember an incident in Mirtos, where I had an uncle who was a doctor, Papageorgiou was his name. He narrated it to me afterIn Greek: (), which literally means School of Supreme Industrial Studies.
72
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wards. What Italians were doing: they gathered people from there and took them to compulsory labour, to do tasks for them. However, a local wanted to gather his olives, I dont know what he wanted, and said: I am melatos. But sick in Italian is malato and not melato. And he kept on saying: But I am melatos, I am melatos. The Italian asked him to go to the doctor and he says: Lets go. They went to the doctor, who was one of our people, and he said: Doctor, I am in pain. He blinked one eye and said: I am sick, I am in pain, I am sick, I am in a mess, in a very bad condition. The doctor pretended that he examined him and said to the Italian: Go, and let him go for he is sick. The Italian insisted. And my uncle told me that he gave the Italian such a slap in the face, that his body was all shaken: How dare you say that to me, I am a doctor!. He slapped him. And the Italian could have killed him since he was carrying a gun but he got up and left. That is why I am saying that the Italians were not bellicose. Those Italians were for singing. Song, guitars and songs. We didnt feel the occupation and we thought that Germans would be like that too, yet things changed with the Germans. Germans are harsh people, fierce. Hitler had issued harsh commands. Black is the fate of the poor people The German people (and certainly not everyone, for there were people who were wild and nasty and behaved badly) were not to be blamed in the slightest. During the Papadopoulos dictatorship, were the citizens to blame? We, the citizens, were not to blame. It was his fault and of those surrounding him, who supported him for obvious reasons, to embezzle. They are to blame, it is really their fault. They were a minority. The Germans now, I dont really like them, but not for this fact. I just think they are cold people, I believe they dont have the feelings that other people such as Italians, Greeks, nations closer to the Mediterranean have. I think they are wild, that they dont have the feelings we have. Cold people, that is what I think, cold people. I remember I did German in Emporiki and when the German came inside to teach us, it was as if Hitler was entering. He had a wild look and we believed that we would eat us the hour of the lesson. Once the bell rung and the lesson was finished, he became soft like a fig, he
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smiled. I mean, I want to say the following: that the Germans were men of duty. That is how they restored Germany and lent money to America. And you see now the productivity of Germany, a country that was completely destroyed and flattened. The German heavy industry, the automobiles; Germany today produces everything, it is first in world production, in industrial production. Because people are disciplined and their language too is disciplined: he never tells you: I will sit to write at the table. He will tell you: I will sit at the writing table. When the German works he doesnt smoke. He will be working for eight hours. I had an incident where we had an American and a German: the German used to come half an hour before he started work, to change, to put on his working uniform etc. If the work was at eight, he started five to eight, struggling with the machinery till the time he had to leave, lets say four. Neither meal nor a cigarette, unless there was a break for that sort of tasks. The American used to come, with the cigar in the mouth; he started working with the gloves, they became greasy with grease falling here, he smoked, he did this, did that. Americans are one thing, Germans another. Now why are the Americans richer? Because they found good subsurface, good soil and people to exploit. America is now in crisis and will face hunger if the outside resources will be cut off. But America has equipped the entire world, is a superpower today, and no one can mess around with America. And because its a superpower we duck our heads and we do whatever it wants. It drains our resources and gives us crumbs, as in Brazil lets say... I dont know the other countries that have good subsoil. It places its own people on the top, like Musharraf what is his business now in Pakistan, now that they killed Bhutto. They placed Musharraf there to do whatever America wants, for the exploitation of the resources. And only there? In other countries too, in other countries too. Everywhere. And America lives richly and everyone else is struggling; for America gets all our goods and for free. And if you go against, that is us now... To be a little political, if we set out to oppose America lets say, they will get the Turks to attack us. It does not make sense. They will get the Turks to attack us from the islands and Evros, a front of ten attacks, until America will intervene and say: Eh, stop what you are doing there? I am here. And we will say again, as
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Simitis said: We thank the Americans. Small nations and generally poor people... Eleftherios Venizelos said Black is the fate of poor nations. Well, black is the fate of the poor nations, black is the fate of the poor people, black is the fate of all the financially weak people. If you are not strong, they dont take you into consideration today that we live through a materialistic age. Mao Tse-Tung said that: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. If you are militarily strong they take you into consideration, otherwise they clout you on the head. This is a standard practice. And in our jobs too. If you are in dire need of your job, and the employer knows it, he oppresses you. If he knows that Damaskinakis works, not solely because he has to, but as a hobby too and that he has alternatives, he doesnt oppress you. For he says: If we oppress him he will leave. Whereas, in the other case the employers attitude is: Hit him! Do not care, he has no place to go, hit him. The poor, the poor nation, the poor nations, the poor people, unfortunately. Germans and the resistance When the Germans came, before the evil in 1943, they stayed at school. They didnt hurt us. Then the rebels movement began beating and striking and it was then that the Germans started and caused the devastation. Up here on the roof there was a German, holding the binoculars and I asked him, as a small child that I was: What is this?, and he told me: Hamm, kom, kom, come here, and he placed the binoculars in front of my eyes and I saw the mountains that were in a distance, coming near me! Po, po!. And I narrated it afterwards and said: The German gave me... I also passed by one day from the school and an officer saw me; he was wearing a cap and I looked at him, he looked at me also and smiled. He came close and patted me at the head and I realized that he asked me to wait; he went inside and brought me a candy. E, he must have thought: It is a small child, I am not in danger. The first evening Germans arrived here, this has to be said, we were sleeping at home, when the Germans knocked at the door, at twelve oclock in the night. They came in and took everything: blankets, woollen blankets, finely woven blankets, sheets (that were not easy to find then), pillows. They took from the entire village and not only from
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us. They went to school and made their bed. We were scared to death: two Germans burst into the house, striking with the guns, the helmets and so on. We swallowed our tongue. They opened the wooden chest and took everything. They had people outside, soldiers, who loaded them up. They loaded and took everything. When the Germans showed up, the evening they arrived here, they were spread in the entire village and took blankets, bed-sheets, etc, because they wanted to cover themselves. That was the first wicked thing they did to us. Eh, we said that they took the bed covers for they had nothing to cover themselves, let us forgive them. We did not forgive them, yet we tried to excuse them: since they had no bed covers, what else could they do etc. (We thought) OK so far so good. But things got worse for they started killing afterwards for the reason that we had rebels. We had rebels that inflicted great damage to them which is why they started revenging. They became furious, furious. Prior to that, there was the Battle of Crete to occupy Crete, where we also killed there five six thousand paratroopers and generally, they saw us as mortal enemies. The only part of the world that Germans had occupied and had a General abducted, that is General Kreipe, was Crete. He was abducted. It was a great thing to abduct a German General during the occupation. Yet they abducted him with the help of an Englishman, who spoke German fluently and was dressed like a German, and with the help of two, three Cretans, who were armed that night. They thought: Lets go for it. They will either catch us and smash us, or we will take the General. And the Englishman, who was dressed as an officer, got off the German soldier from the car, and said to him: Go, I will drive, and so he did. And the other ones went quickly from behind in the car and said to the General: You are in custody, do not move. The ones behind had knives and pistols. The Englishman told him: Do not move for we will kill you, do you see at the back? See for yourself, look behind. He saw people with big moustaches, with knives and pistols. They took him outside Heraklion, to Chania, I do not know where they were, they took him out where they had prepared a... He left the jeep there and they took him to a submarine to take him down to the Middle East. And the Englishman left a signboard saying that the work had been done by him, the English-
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man, called so and so, etc, and that the Cretans were not to be avenged. I do not know what exactly, but I know this, that he left a signboard that they should not make reprisals. They feared for reprisals. And so, the rebels movement in Crete was one of the few. Because after the battle, when Germans had arrived and had occupied Crete, they did not capture the soul of the people. They captured the fields, the houses and so on. But the soul inside was in flames. The rebel movement of Crete was one of the top ones. They caused great damages to the Germans. They caused great damages. If Crete had been equipped properly, Hitler would not have occupied it. We had no weapons. We asked for weapons and could not find any. Cretans went to fight with rakes, with mattocks and they killed. Well, if they had weapons and were armed at the airport and the Germans dropped (the paratroopers), no one would have survived. They would have not occupied Crete. But they were dropping, dropping, dropping. Women and children tried, they killed here, killed there. Some left, escaped and went further away, being armed. A battle was given at the airport and they killed all those who were there with rakes and this kind of stuff. And it was after the paratroopers were dropped that they occupied Crete. But they fought a battle, a great battle, to occupy Crete. And no man had stepped his foot on the mountains of Crete at the time; they were inaccessible, with a rough terrain and the Germans couldnt advance. Certainly there were traitors too who led them to the places where the rebels were and battles took place. But in all nations there exist traitors too. From the old times, there has been Efialtis.
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Giorgos Doksanakis Since the time we were born and saw the sun, as we say, there has been poverty. Not like now of course that people live in great comfort and are financially well off. At that time, most of us were barefoot, wearing rags, with a crew cut, until the age of sixteen, seventeen. I mean, we had no money to drink a coffee, we had no money to buy bread at that time. Until 1940, that is, during my childhood, we used to come from Sfakoura to the school here in Zourva73 (those years are far back of course) and we didnt have anything to eat: we ate bread and oil and some other food that didnt have any nutritional value. In 1940, that is, after the occupation started, most people and I of course, and specially I during the occupation, lived difficult years because we were a poor family. We and our parents were forced to work as labourers to provide for us. When the occupation started, there was nothing except for carob beans and dried bread. So the occupation came, the Italians came, the Germans came later. The Germans didnt come here immediately: a company of Italians came to Mournies and to Mirtos and a group to Vatos; that was all of them. Every day during the occupation, the Italians came and asked for bread, chickens, young goats, potatoes, everything. We tried to wheedle them into bringing us sea biscuits (they had some sea biscuits they used to eat). Tough years as you see. After the events of Simi, the Greek flag is raised So, 43 arrives, when the big attack took place, when the Germans came. The Germans didnt treat us badly at the beginning. Before the battle of Kato Simi, earlier, they had caught two Germans that were in a guardhouse at Kato Simi. They had gone just to take some fruit to eat, they didnt have a bad intention. They executed the Germans at Kato Simi and we were present at Apano Simi when they carried them dead before us. They had placed them upon two horses and went somewhere
Riza is comprised of three settlements: Sfakoura, Zourva and Kaimenos. The narration takes place in Zourva.
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and threw them away. The same day, that is about the 11th of September, there was a group of people including rebels too that tried to recruit men that were from Apano Simi. I was there too, watching all those events. This team took as many as they could, whoever wanted to go with them voluntarily of course, and they set up the battle at Kato Simi and killed the Germans. On the same day (I was a big boy, I must have been seventeen years old in 43) they came down. We had heard that the rebels had come down to Riza. I went with another boy from Simi now, on foot, and we passed by from the settlement of Kaimenos where the rebels had injured an Italian. We went, along with the other kid far away, to the flag that the rebels had raised at Sfakoura. We reached Sfakoura, on that hill, and saw the flag indeed that they had raised: the Greek flag upon an almond tree. A little farther away, in a plateau, in the plain lets say, were the rebels of Mpantouva. Lets say that they were seventy, one hundred, I dont know exactly how many they were. I remember it because I saw the flag raised. Those things happened after the battle, on the 12th of the month. I went farther down and saw the rebels. After an hour or so, Mpantouvas sent another two rebels to go to Mournies, to take the guns from the Italians (a company of Italians was at Mournies). The Italians didnt hand in the guns. They said to the rebels: Follow us, we will go to Ierapetro to discuss it with the headquarters to hand them in. So, when they went to Haraka they were caught: the Germans were coming here and they caught and killed those two rebels. The other rebels that were in Sfakoura, on the hill, put the guns on their shoulder and left in the afternoon, going up, towards the mountain. The next morning, on the 13th of the month, a group came, a company of Germans from Ierapetro. They started from the settlement of Sfakoura scouting the entire slope looking for probable rebels. They went down to the settlement of Sfakoura, at the spring, they drank water, talked to no one, to no one at all, and left again. This happened on the 13th of the month. On the 14th of the month, the events at Amira took place where they killed people. No one learned anything from here, from our villages, that there was an execution by the Germans at Amira. No one realised
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it. No one informed us. We were at Sfakoura with my parents, along with all those that were there. The Germans reach Sfakoura On the 15th of the month, exactly at noon, we were as we used to be in the summer, in September: laying outside in my yard, five or six people, women and I in particular. And we see a group of Germans from the top of Kilistra going down and another group from Karidi and they joined at Sfakoura. My mother says: Go farther up. At that time, the president had my name written down and I used to go to the German works. I was working and I can tell you that I had even learnt five, six German words: greetings, above all greetings, and some things referring to death, kaput, things like that. Well, I had gone farther up, I didnt calculate it, and the Germans came, went all around the village at once, the settlement of Sfakoura: they surrounded it and placed the machine guns all around and whatever hens they found, young goats, young pigs, they caught them, lighted fires and cooked. I had left and gone around five hundred meters farther up. I had lain down, I didnt know that something bad was going to happen. That moment, a German airplane passed by, it made circles above the settlement. In about ten, twenty minutes, as I was lying down in the shade, I saw two Germans coming upwards. They took their gun out, pointed them at me and told me: Come here. I went of course, I got up. At that time, I am telling you, there was the poverty also and we were not properly dressed, and they probably considered that I was very young, I dont know On our way down to the settlement, there was a group of Germans and they had the fire burning, roasting chickens. They were telling me on the way: We want you to give us some almonds. We had a great production of almonds at that time and I had, I can tell you, two full pithoi. Lets go, I said to them. I went and sometimes I understood a few German words. As soon as I arrived down, where the other German were, I greeted them in German: Hail Hitler. When I said that word, everyone that was sitting around the fire got up, hugged me and kissed me. I follow now the two Germans that caught me. We go farther down and outside
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our house they had set up a machine gun and they had gathered about thirty people and the guard. I stopped there. These two Germans went in along with the other Germans. I stopped in order to wait for them to come and go down where I had the other house and give them the almonds. As I had stopped, the German guard comes and slaps me in the face in order to make me leave, because he thought that I was watching the Germans. I left the place there, went through the settlement, from the pathway, the road, to go to my other house. As I was going down with the Germans, we got so close to one another that we nudged, that is so And no one talked to me, no one stopped me! I was walking side by side and they were nudging me. I reached the middle of the settlement; our house was below and a factory, an olive-oil factory, was on one side. At that time, I saw from afar and they were coming: they had caught all the people from Metaxohori, my father, two more persons that were from Sfakoura and they were going to lock them up in a house. As we were at a distance, my father saw me, we were near of course: I was going down the hill, the Germans were at my side. As we were about to sit, my father says to me: Go tell your mother to come because they are going to kill us and I want to see you. They had given them a paper, whatever they call it, which is called death, I dont know what it is called, and they knew about it. I go. I turn left now to go home. Behind me, someone from Metaxohori runs in the other direction, towards the factory, and another one gets into the house. They executed the one inside the house immediately, while the other one that was going towards the factory, there was a German below, and he was immediately executed too. In our house there was no one. A German doctor was outside, but no one inside the house. He says to me, with gestures of course, that he wanted soap to wash himself. After giving him soap, I go inside the house and I see no one, not even my sisters; my father had been captured. Where should I find them now? Even though they were women, I had to find companion. So I leave and I go over the house; there was another house (there) and all the women were sitting inside. Next to it there was the German officer with an interpreter, next to the other house. I went inside the house too and they said to me: Sit here with us. I sat indeed inside the
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house. In about ten minutes he sent the Germans with the gun and he gets into the house, he gets into the room where the pithoi were, the wooden chests, some old chests, and he lifted the cover to see inside and he found no one. I was sitting by the fireplace, the tzaki as we say; I was sitting right by it. As a matter of fact, in order not to look like a grown up, and I was a grown up, the women said to me: Stand on the fireplace so as not to look like grown up. So I did. I was hidden from here and up and I could be seen from here and down74. I could be seen. But as I stood on the fireplace, inside the chimney, there was soot, the inside of the chimney was black, and the German saw me. He looked down at my feet and asked me questions and I answered him. He told me to get down. I sit aside at once. He took a good look at me as I was for sure covered with soot. He looked at me. He said nothing. He left us over there. Exactly at that time, I see near Mournies around thirty Greeks who were captive, with the Germans bringing them up. They came there, outside the house, and we saw them all of course. They take them and they go and lock them up in a tiny house, about 4x4m, a small house a little farther away, with the rest of our people from Metaxohori and Sfakoura: they got them inside and locked them up. A guard stands on the upper part of the house and another one on the lower. At that time, my sister says to me: Lets go and see what they did with the people they caught. Indeed, we went outside, but of course at a distance. At the time we got there, the German officer was there with an interpreter: he opened the door of that house and took the Greeks out, one by one, put them in line and placed a German behind each one with a gun. He was getting some of them out and he was then saying: Parti haus. Because we knew some German words, when he was saying: Parti haus, that meant: Go home. Some of those that had been captured as hostages, fifty, I dont know how many they were, left: someone went to Mournies, another one to Gdohia. He was getting them out one by one, placing them in line; to some of them he said: Go home. When he placed them in line, he also placed behind them a German with a gun having the bayonet at the ready. At the end, he got out someone
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He points at his waist.
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from Metaxohori (he was before the last one). He got out and the German officer grabbed him from the jacket, put him back in and got out the last one. He gets out the last one and closes the door. He leaves the rest of them inside. He was from Metaxohori. The other one outside, fell on the knees of the German, on his legs, and said to him: Dont kill me. Ive got young children. Dont kill me. He grabs him, gives him a push and places him in front. He places a German behind him and they leave. Well, at that time, as the German was looking far away, he saw my sister and me standing a bit farther, and he grabbed something and threw it at us and we went away. I dont remember what he threw at us but we got away. He got the rest of them in line; they left. We went to the house and sat inside. They hadnt closed the door yet. We were all inside, the women and I (I was the only man inside). Well, at that time, hell broke loose from the machine guns. I forgot to tell you that at the time we were inside the house, we saw smoke coming from Mirtos, from Gdohia and from Mournies; they were on fire. We then realised how big the disaster was. We hadnt seen of course the other ones that had been killed, except for the one that was by the tap and ran away and the other one that went into the house and they killed him in there. The earth was shaking from the machine guns. Of course, they didnt let us get out at all, not at all. After about ten minutes, when the gunshots were over, they brought the then president from Mournies, and he stood outside the house we were in. The German went with the interpreter and they interrogated him. As a matter of fact, he was telling them that: There were no rebels here. You should not kill the people. They werent rebels. They were from Kato Simi and Vianno. That is what he was saying. And the officer said: Now kaput. Now we have killed them. At that time, they lock the house, shut us in and take the other man with them. That was on the 15th of the month, at night, 15th of September. The executions at Zourva and Kaimeno They didnt hear here in Zourva of the evil that took place in Sfakoura. They didnt hear of it here. They come to Zourva at dawn and they leave us locked inside. They captured as many as they found here, ten, twelve,
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fifteen people, I dont know how many they were exactly, and they took them all together down to the school where they killed them all: from here all the way down to the school. In the morning, at the same time, they went to the other settlement, in Kaimeno, and they captured them. They didnt hear at Kaimeno of the execution that took place here. It took place in Sfakoura and nobody either in Zourva or in Kaimeno here noticed anything. They trapped them as they were and executed them. I leave for the mountain where I get wounded by Germans My brother penned the goats, as they usually did, and he was a bit farther up from here, in a place towards Karidi. In the morning, at day break, my mother tells me: Leave and go with your brother up there for they might do harm here too. We didnt know that my father had been killed, we didnt know it. We hadnt seen them yet. From the settlement of Sfakoura to Kefali up the hill, the distance is five hundred metres needless to say. They heard about the evil that had taken place but they thought that they might have fired into the air. And she says to me: Go. We saw at once from the side of the village that other Germans were coming: they were the Germans that set the fires, the fires in the houses. So they came and I left, I left immediately. I took a cape and I got away and went to the place where my brother was. On my way towards Karidi, I didnt see any Germans. In the morning, they went through the house but they didnt burn Sfakoura, nor the other village Zourva. They burned the last one, Kaimeno. There was no man in Sfakoura, in the village. They had left; I was the only one inside the house and I left too afterwards, in the morning. So, I went up there, to the place where my brother was. I stayed there eight days exactly and no one bothered us. It was in a deserted area where he was penning the goats. After eight days, we see some other Germans. The Germans had gone up, to the hideout, and had taken the spoils of the rebels. The rebels were scattered then and were not in one group. They went up to the hideout, found the spoils and took them. On their way down, they discovered a street that leads to Mithos, a little farther up, and ran into five, six women that were sitting by the road waiting: my sister, my niece, my in-law, my aunt and my sister-in-law.
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Some other old men and I were farther down, exactly where we had the things (they were aside, we practically went by a cliff in order not to be seen). At that time, they say: The Germans are coming. They say: The Germans are descending from above. My brothers wife that was sitting by the roadside saw the Germans and ran away, coming towards where we were. Instead of staying where she was, she came down. Two Germans now, when they saw that she went downwards, they thought: Some others are hidden farther down. Afterwards, I went away with the two old men. One of them was my grandfather and the other one was my uncle. We left and went down, where there was a cave. We had our belongings there too. In the cave, there was an attic, lets call it that, tall, around one metre. From the attic and inwards, it might have been one hundred metres deep (the cave was extending inwards as they had told me). I sat up in the attic, the two old men sat underneath. In five seconds, two Germans came outside. They found us of course. As soon as they came close to a distance of three meters, less than five meters, they armed and fired. The bullet hit the rock, changed direction and fragments went off. Because of the shape of the cave, the sound was very loud and the smoke too much and I immediately closed my ears. I went deaf and I opened my eyes in the cloud of smoke. He reloads and fires another shot. He reloads and fires the third shot. I barely felt the second shot. After the third one, I see blood covering my face, all the way down. I was wearing short sleeves, short trousers, all my body that was not covered by clothes it is like firing sometimes at the birds and the lead shot spread and everything becomes covered with blood. The bullet had hit me here75, a wound through-and-through, and had cut this one here Well then, I stood up, I had to raise my hands and surrendered. Had I done this at the beginning, it is probable that they would have not fired the shot and I would have not been wounded so much. I get down from the attic. The two elderly men were not injured. They take me from there; it is more or less five hundred meters to the place where the other women were. I couldnt walk well all the way up. I had been swollen of course, bloods, crying, harm, pain, eh
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He points below his lip.
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My nursing I reach the place where the women were by the road: a road goes down and heads towards Mithous. They had sat by the roadside. As soon as I went over there, the women saw me; there were my sisters, my people. When they saw me they said: He is finished too. They had already seen my father, my uncle, my grandfather, all the others and they knew that I was about to die now too. I wouldnt get up. I sat down, I was crying A German sat down, took out a military bag, like a pouch, that he had on his shoulder, placed it down and took out some bandages. He started from down low, putting the bandage over the biggest wounds, where most of the blood was coming out76. Then he placed me on the back of one of the two old men, the strongest one, and said: Go down. And we go away from there now, all together: the German company and the rest of us that had been captured as prisoners. It must be four or five kilometres from there to go down to Mithous. On the way now you should know that the injured always wants water, he is thirsty. Now, half way down the road there is a spring. I stop farther down, I shout: I am thirsty, I am thirsty!. They place me down and he leaves me a bit farther away from the spring. A German goes, puts some cotton under the water and comes and gives me some in my mouth, on my lips. Then they put me again on his back and they got me off to Mithous. In the village, they busted the door of the first house, opened the house, dismantled the door, laid me down, undressed me and the German (who as it seemed was a stretcher-bearer) washed me first. Then they dressed me. He started again with the bandages and this time he covered wherever there was blood, wherever there was a wound. You couldnt see anything but my eyes and my mouth. Nothing else. After ten minutes (all the others are inside now: the two old men and all the women, six, seven women) they laid me down. I was in great pain of course. A German goes and slaughters a chicken that he finds over there, boils it, brings me the broth and gives it to me. The other one goes and milks a cow and comes back and brings me that milk too. I was
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He points his chin and his leg.
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in great pain. A German that was sitting by my pillow says to me: Tomorrow morning Ierapetra big doctor. He is speaking in German now; I could understand a few words: he meant that in the morning he would take me to Ierapetra. Thats what I understood. In the morning, around five o clock, they got up, fired a flare and they all went away together and left me over there, at the house. And they convert the area from the river towards here into a neutral zone. Crossing the zone was forbidden to anything that breathed, animal or a human. What happened to me over there now: as I was all alone, they come and take me from that house to the other one. A woman lifted me up, there was no man. All men were gone. A woman came to take me from one house to the other one farther up. She was from there, from the village. She is dead of course; her name was Kritsotalaki. My sister was behind. In the morning they had left the others go. Only my sister stayed over there because of me and because she wanted to look after me. So, she transferred me to another house and I stayed there for eight days. The Germans came every morning: a German with a gun used to come, looked at me, saw that I was wounded but he didnt know whether I was with the rebels and they injured me. He didnt know that the Germans themselves had injured me. He was asking sometimes and my sister was telling him: The Germans injured him. But he didnt know where I was injured: was I injured along with the rebels or by the Germans? After staying there for eight days, my brother took me and we went farther up from the river (it was allowed from the river and on) to an area called Giana. My brother took me there and I was motionless for forty days. Forty days without a doctor, without medicine, without anything. I had an uncle that washed me with hydrogen peroxide every morning and every night and he treated me with this ointment, it is a hand-made ointment of course. Everyone now, the people from Mithous, all the people, there was no one (left), not even in Riza, nowhere! Everybody had gone to Anatoli, Kalamauka, Kentri. And I stayed there for forty days and after forty days I got up and walked a little bit. I came around. But I say sometimes that I probably had more years to live, because they executed a six month old child in Gdohia and I was seventeen years old, a grown up man lets say,
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and I escaped from within the firing-squad! Because the Germans had caught me with my father, with the other ones, and had come inside the house and talked to me! To be captured and be saved, was a miracle. That was a big miracle. I had years to live as it seems. And then the war is declared, the guerrilla war of 48. They drafted me again there: I was not considered the head of the family because my brother served as the head and I couldnt be the head too, and I spent three years in the guerrilla war: more troubles again there. To wait for the rebels every minute, to fall into ambushes, to set up ambushes and without knowing from where you will be attacked and who it is going to be. Greeks against Greeks. Three years my friend. Compensations and victims They gave certain pensions to the people. They gave compensation to the people. I did thirty five years as a secretary in the community. I didnt manage by myself, I who had problems didnt think about getting a compensation for myself. I truly deserved to get compensation, because the wounds are still inside, there are wounds inside here77. There they are. Two. I guess they are inside, little pieces from the rock. I dont care of course. The other wound through my mouth healed afterwards. As a secretary, I filled out the papers for all the people and they were granted compensation at the time when the Germans granted compensations, yet, I didnt manage to fill out my own papers. I am not entitled to a higher pension because I was a messenger in the guerrilla war and I was given a National Resistance pension for the one year and a half that I served in the guerrilla war. It is only natural of course and easy to comprehend that you are a rebel since you were an informer or a messenger: that proves, I mean, that you are a rebel. And I wasnt entitled to a pension, in order to take more than what I got from the State as a secretary. So, we have been through all possible sufferings. But there is a mystery that I have explained to a lot of people: that I am the oldest and the only one that has lived at the same time all the events from Simi and all the way here to Riza. And I say sometimes, when foreigners come here:
77
He touches his cheek.
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Come and see exactly how it happened. It is worth seeing where the flag was raised (unfortunately they cut that almond tree off, that tree was worth staying there). To see where the Germans took them and held an extraordinary court-martial, a court to approve of who they would kill and of who they would set free: You go home and You go to the execution line. Think about the horror of those people that were about fifty, I dont know how many they were. As soon as three persons left the Sfakoura settlement, they were taken just a bit below and were executed. Three more persons were taken to the right, a bit inwards, and were executed. They dragged the rest of them upwards from the pathway and they watched how the others were being killed. They were watching them and they reached the peak, where the church is now, and they set the machine guns there and executed them. The last one to be killed was my father, Stelios Doksanakis, that is, he was exactly at the beginning at the top of the hill. My father-in-law was called Emmanouil Nikolaou Tsikaloudakis and he was killed, down here in Zourva. My grandfather, called Spiridon Paterakis and his son, Emmanouil Paterakis, a first uncle of mine, were both killed too. They are my blood, the same family. The other ones were not close relatives, lets say, they were more distant. A godchild of my father, a young boy too, eighteen to twenty years old. It is worth seeing the location where the execution took place and the time when the execution took place, because it is a great deal to see that they executed in Sfakoura and the people in Zourva didnt learn of it and they caught them inside their houses. In the settlement of Kaimeno, they executed five. Someone took a bottle of raki and almonds, walnuts, whatever, to go and welcome them. And they captured him as he was holding the tray, went farther away and executed him together with another one. As a matter of fact, one of them, as I heard later, I didnt see him of course, resisted and they cut his head off with the knife. That is, they didnt execute him, but they cut his head off. The compulsory work The father of Antonia Mathioudaki was in Sfakoura along with my brother-in-law. Her father left. Some kind of signal was given and her
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father left on the same day and hour and as he was not there, he was saved. He left. The Germans of course didnt capture him. We had some kind of relationship with Mathioudaki. She played a role for the Germans regarding those who were going to the works. I was the only seventeen years old one that the president had then put in the works (I was the youngest one). I went and spent there eight days, we lived there, at Ierapetro. A German took me every morning and told me to go towards Kentri, lets say, where they did works, the next day to go towards Peristera, where they did works. I mean that they spread us around. They came and gathered us in the square and a German took us: I take this one over here and I take you where they dig, another one where they cut iron and made pillboxes at that time. From there, I learned a few of their words and managed somehow to communicate. Not much of course. At Peristera they had set up a wireless and we went there and dug a big hole, like a well, and put machine guns there. We dug also in another location, farther inside from Agia Paraskeuvi. Towards Kentri, we cut iron for a couple of days. I held the iron pieces and they cut them. That was before September. Because before the evil took place, all the people that the Germans captured and executed here, had said: I went and did my share. Everyone by himself of course. The president said: I designate Mr. Stefano to go to the Germans for ten days labour. I dont know where they would take him but you had to go anyway. Since all the people whose name was written here went (and every village had ten persons names written lets say and they all went) I could figure out when I went: the day before yesterday I was working, I have been at work, I wasnt absent to say it in a different manner. And the people stopped without since we didnt do anything bad. The evil took place at Simi: whatever they suffered in the village and in general, the evil took place there, the battle took place there, there they killed, there they burned, there it should have happened What was their business now in Mirtos, in Riza lets say, that never The resistance They were rebels and that is the truth. From here, from our village there were rebels: my father-in-law was a rebel up in the hideout and he
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had a gun too. My brother went up. All of them went, they served. One carried food with his animal, the other one was a messenger, another one went and carried guns and ammunition. I mean that everyone offered something: one offered bread, I dont know, everything, for there were many up to the hideout. I remember that there were a lot of people with Mpantouva and Podia, before they split up. Of course, I never went over there, to the hideout, but as I was told, there were many rebels there, a great many. The fact that they were not well armed is true. There were those that were on the governments side, lets say. There were two groups at that time: E.A.M. and E.O.K. E.O.K., the National Organisation of Crete, and the other one, I dont remember the initials now, you wouldnt remember of course because its an old story. At the village then, there was a teacher serving here, from Mithous, and he was saying (especially to us that he knew we were not in favour of the leftwing): Should you hear anything or Shall I give you a note to deliver it I told him: Where will I take it?. He told me: You will take it lets say to Kilistra thats how we name a cottage that is up here Paterakis the shepherd is there. Hand it in to Paterakis. He didnt tell me to give it to Mpantouvas, but they were the mediators now. He told me: Take this note, I dont know what was written inside, Take this, to deliver it to Paterakis, to Kilistra. I took it up there without knowing what was inside. I understood of course that it was for a secret reason and that I was not supposed to open it. Or he told me sometimes: Take this bag to deliver it to Karidi and give it to your teacher. That is what I did. Or: If you hear anything, or if you see any activity anywhere or a man armed at Karidi and you happen to see him or hear anything and hear talk about any activity, you should come and tell me and I He was qualified and communicated with the suitable person. I didnt carry a gun. I was eighteen years old and I could carry a gun but I didnt have a gun with me. They had us only to communicate certain things, we were listening, we were taking, we were delivering some things, Vaggelis Cristakis and I, this generation now, because those at my age that were shepherds were up. The shepherds were up and they were watching the rebels at close range and sometimes they carried also a gun. A seventeen years old boy can carry a gun. We didnt carry a gun. It was
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difficult of course too. If you were caught by a German you were in trouble. As you can tell, great stories, big troubles, many misfortunes. After the occupation After they killed my father I had to be the provider for three women, three persons: my sisters and my mother. My brother had been married and had another family. My sisters were older than me. I was the youngest of all. They gave my mother a war pension after a couple of years. She was also taking a military allowance that was mine. Pittance, it was so little. But she could get by a little bit and she also got afterwards the other small pension because she was a war victim. These women were called war victims then. We were living at the settlement of Sfakoura. We couldnt find any money. This situation was of course from 43 until 45-46. We were forced to go wherever there was a vineyard that needed digging in order to get a days wages. One days wages was nothing then, it was pittance, nothing, merely for the coffee. We were forced to. We ploughed the field, with a pair of animals; almost bare foot, to sow. To yield a thousand okas of barley, of wheat. To pick the olives, a lot of olives. I started telling you before that I spent three years in the army: from 48 (that I was drafted) till I was discharged in 51 whereas I was married in 57. When I was discharged, there were no jobs and I had to start working in a factory in Sfakoura, in an olive-oil factory. They didnt give us money there but we took oil. That is, I took one oka of oil per day (we use okas78). We were selling it. In order to pay me at the end of the month, of the season, the factory owner would tell me: You worked for three months and you ought to get one hundred okas of oil. I took it and I sold it afterwards and I bought whatever I wanted with the money. I was forced then and went with my brother to dig wherever there was a vineyard, to go wherever there was another job, to go to the factory at the same time. In 55 I joined the community council as a secretary. The secretary left and I had such a great desire to learn how to chant. I went to the community as a secretary; I had such a great eagerness to learn,
78
Oka: unit of measuring weight, equal to 1283 grams.
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although I had just finished the preliminary school. To learn how to dance, to learn how to sing, these are my hobbies. When I hear a musical instrument, I cant help it At this age now! That is, every morning I was a secretary. Of course, they all supported me here, all the fellowvillagers were good people. In 55 I became a secretary in Sfakoura; I had the closet of the office there, the archive of the community. Afterwards, I got married in 57 and I lived here in Zourva, with my wife in the house here. When I came here all the people helped me. My wife gives birth to the first child. Poverty: I got 50 drachmas as a salary, my wife was also forced and had to go to the school as a cook and she got from there something, little thing. I was in the factory, here in this factory, I worked as an operator of the press for the olives, we called it presadoros at that time. But we couldnt get by. We started from scratch: she didnt have many things and neither did I. We had no oil to cook. I am asking her: What will we do? We need to find a job by all means. She had finished high school and I was supposedly the secretary of the community. I was forced and worked as a labourer in an olive grove of 1.500 young trees. 1.500 olive trees altogether, but they extent from here until Simi, Mirtos, Mithous, everywhere. The two of us, I and my wife. 1.500 olive trees plus our own: and we managed to produce this period, oliveoil equivalent to two more salaries and we were a bit relieved. I said: I cant make it here, unless I plant supported tomatoes and cultivate them in open-air. I didnt have a field near by where the tomato could grow and I had to go all the way to Mirtos: I had to leave at six o clock in the morning with my wife, to return at six in the evening with a young child. Winter or summer, but mostly winter. From there I got a field, I who didnt have a thousand drachmas in my pocket. Impossible. It couldnt happen. I was trying. At the community, all we received was two thousands drachmas. Where should we start? The expenses for the administration? The president? I? And we made an agreement with the president: You will go and get paid now and I will go next month. There was no money. And we established a contribution for the people, just a small amount, to make it work. It was not like now, where all the municipalities have money. I was forced to leave then: I went to a field, another persons field, they gave it to me for free, and I went from
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here down there and I was paid 30.000 then. My wife says then: Why should I stay here in Riza, while we have fields at Kserokampo, at Nea Anatoli, good fields with value; why dont we go over there? People went away from Metaksohori, from everywhere and went down there, whereas we I had the community, I had the community of Gdohia too, but I didnt have a car then. She says: We have to go to Kserokampo with the donkey, to our field. We cleaned it from the gravel (we hadnt made a greenhouse), we planted again supported tomatoes and we stayed in a hut (we didnt have a house for the first year). There were the communities and I had to come back! I left with the animal to come here at night, to stay here, and the wife was left alone there. I had a young child here that stayed with my mother-in-law because it had to go to the school. And I had to come here and serve the community at night, whatever there was, and to go back again in the morning. In 71 we went to Ksirokampo. In 73 I bought a car, the first car. I went afterwards to Gdohia and Riza. I worked with good presidents in both Gdohia and Riza. I worked day and night: during the day in the green house and at work, at night in the office. All the people were satisfied the years I spent there. I retired in 88 in Kserokampo. Then people used to come to Kserokampo, both from Gdohia and from here: Fill out these papers for O.G.A.79 to get the pension. Hey you guys, I am a citizen, I remember nothing!. No, you should fill them out, because all the papers you have filled out for us are perfect I want to tell you that we have been through great troubles, but never mind. Brothers against brothers Werent the left-wing exiled? One got dressed as a gendarmerie and spent a month and was fired afterwards because his father was a leftwing. That is, there were political problems with the parties then. Such hate! Here, the period after the Germans left, after 43, two groups were founded at the villages, E.A.M. and E.O.K.. That is what they were called. Here in our village, all the young people were with E.A.M..
In Greek: ..., (Organismos Georgikon Asfaliseon), Organisation of Agriculture Insurances.
79
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There were three or four persons, that motivated, taught and guided me and another person from the settlement of the same age, and we didnt join that group. The rest of them came every day saying to us: Why dont you join too? We held a number of dancing parties They appointed an agronomist from the village here, a gendarmerie from here, a field guard from here, a president from here, whereas essentially, they should have been appointed by the State. They also had courts. They went there, below the school, and held a court too. That is how they split up. The hate stemmed from there. A man placed every night a big piece of wood at the door to support it, in order not to have the door broken by the people of E.A.M. who would get inside and kill him. There was hate among us: among fellowvillagers, siblings, cousins. There was a right-wing father that had a leftwing son. The son took out the pistol to kill his father inside the house. He served and went to the army later on, in 1947, and as soon as he went, he stated: I join the Government and they let him leave and he went away. He left immediately and joined the rebels. From there he disappeared: no one knows whether he got killed. His mother and father were here and they were pining for him not knowing whether he was alive, or whether he was at the Iron Curtain, or whether he was dead, killed. Let it be, those times let us not talk about it, let us not talk about it. The Germans today The Germans that did the executions are not alive of course. Is it the childs fault if his parent went astray or if he was ordered by a superior? The soldier that was sitting next to me, by my pillow... I was injured and groaning from pain, and he was sitting by my pillow: my sister on one side and he was on the other one. As a matter of fact he was saying: Bad German, bad German was the one that shot you. Evil. Ive got piccolo, that is, I have got young children, and I am thinking that English80 are bombing my children from above. Evil he says, the war is bad. That is, they too, some of them, sympathised with us. Probably some of
80
This word was in English.
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them made room for other people in order to leave: that is, he saw you and was so nice that he said: Go. In order not to give any rights, he said: Go, he made room for him. At Mournies in particular, as the Germans were going around searching the houses, one of them went to a house (I heard the story later) and said to the Greek: Farther in, farther in, while the other ones were taking the people out of the houses. That is, he told him: Go farther in to hide better. And another German made a move to go inside and he told him: I went inside and there is no one. I want to say that there were And now, if you see the son of a German, lets say of the man who executed my father, if you see him, are you going to tell him: You made a family orphan? What did he do to you?. What did he do wrong? Did he serve? Did he kill? Peoples aims are different from those of the war. Why the innocent people? Was it the peoples fault here, to have their houses burnt, to be left at the mercy of God, to have no bread to eat, just because there were two men in Viannos that caught these German boys? They were coming to Pano Simi and were saying: I want some potatoes, I want some beans. They didnt come to say: Give me by force. They were polite. And that of course was a foreign propaganda, because an opportunity was given to the English-French, Americans and Russians, to delay the best handpicked German troops here, due to this rebels movement. That was a great issue too, which is propaganda: they thought that if these handpicked units had not stayed in Crete (because Crete had caused them great damage, Crete killed the Germans), they would take these troops down to Africa, they would fight and the war would have a bad end. They placed the handpicked units here and they killed so many people. The Germans! Over there in Maleme, you should take a look there! They were even criminals of war, but its not their fault either: it is mostly Mller and those who gave the order that are to blame. Why did they have to cause this evil then to Kato Simi? They gave a fight. They killed forty five Germans. Should he burn the village in Kato Simi? The evil took place there, they killed there. Was it the fault of the rest of the people? That is the bad thing, the irrational I mean.
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From Simi to Sfakoura On the 12th of the month, when they were drinking all night, the locals were hanging around with the two Germans and they trusted one other. Friends as we say. These Germans used to come to Apano Simi but I can say that I dont remember their faces. We spent our summer vacations in Apano Simi. Here we didnt have water to drink! Here in Riza, Gdohia, Mournies, Mirtos and Mithoi we didnt have water to drink! Do you understand? We took the water jug from here and went to Sikologos to get water, do you believe it? We went a bit farther down, to a ruined settlement, and there was a small cistern, a kolimpithra as we say, and we took from there; whoever was in time to take water, he would drink! We formed a line. There was no water and all villagers went to Pano Simi right after Easter time! Until the end of September. It has been characterised as the metropolis of the area, a metropolis in the old times. If you go there someday, there are ancient things, there are many. People used to go. We spent our summer vacations in Pano Simi. My father used to take us, the children, before the 1st of May, and we planted potatoes, beans, everything in the gardens. There was a lot of water, a great amount of water at that time! And we went and there were six, seven, eight coffeehouses, two churches, three priests, four slaughterhouses (roughly constructed slaughterhouses I mean). People had a feast every night outside the church. Every Sunday people went to church. You saw girls, young men, a paradise. It is beyond description, a paradise! Well, when they were in that group that we refer to now, they got the Germans drunk. They gave them too much to drink. They got drunk, they drunk too much, fell down, lay down and they killed them. In the morning my sister was outside. I didnt manage to see them all, only at the end: they had two mules and they had them loaded and covered with bed sheets, but their legs could be seen. Two metres! Actually, they said that they could not kill one of the two and that they cut his head off completely. They said he didnt die. And the head could be seen from one side and the legs from the other. And I called my sister: Come, come and see two men that they have loaded up on the mules. They went upwards; they took them somewhere of course. We stayed. After about
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half an hour, the group of the rebels descended from above and went and set up an ambush to the Germans that were coming towards Kato Simi. They were calling the Germans at Kato Simi, at the guardhouse, and they didnt answer and a company of Germans went from Viannos to Simi. The rebels had heard about it, went down and set an ambush to them. When the battle took place, we were there at Apano Simi! We heard the gun shooting, the mess. The same night as a matter of fact, we say: Something evil took place in Kato Simi. A battle took place in Kato Simi. What shall we do?. That all happened of course on the 12th of the month. What would we do? And the entire village went away, all the inhabitants of Apano Simi. We covered a distance of five kilometres to go farther away to some slopes, to some trees and we stayed there the whole night. So, in the morning, when the 13th day broke, at dawn on the 13th of the month, we got up and my father came and took my sisters and came to the village here. I, along with the other kid, went away from there. They went from the road below, with the animal (there was a road below). We went high above, where there was a path, to go and see, as people were saying, the flag that was raised in Kale. We went down together and passed through Kaimeno. In Kaimeno, inside a house, the rebels had a wounded Italian and the other boy says: Lets go. We were both seventeen years old (he is still alive, he is from Simi). We went away from there and he says: We should go to Sfakoura. We go indeed, and we see the flag. We went to the place where the flag was. We went down afterwards. On the 14th of the month, all the family was in Sfakoura. Actually, as we were fasting, my father said: We will slaughter a cock today to eat it. People used to fast then. But today is the day of the Holy Cross. Leave it to eat it tomorrow, the day of Saint Nikita, that is the next day, 15th of the month. And on the 15th of the month, the executions took place.
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Chrisanthi Kasokeraki Alexomanolaki We were five siblings. I was the oldest. I was born in 1922. I was nine when my mother gave birth to my second sister. My youngest sister was born when I got married, at the age of sixteen. I was twenty years old in 1943; my son was two months old and my older daughter two years old. The Germans and the Italians came and spent two or three years, I am not really sure. The Italians did no harm. They used to take a goat or a chicken, but they did not hurt us. The events in Simi When the Germans came to Simi there was a movement of rebels as a response and they killed the three Germans that were in the guardhouse in Kato Simi. There were some villagers there that wanted to exterminate the Germans for they were taking their goats, and And they went there one night and their men from the village killed the three Germans in the guardhouse. There were three guards in Simi. But the other German troops in Viannos were looking for them. And when they didnt get any response they started thinking they were dead. In the meantime, our people from the hideout of Mpantouvas came down (they were taking the money and we were the victims). They must have thought that the Germans would come to search for the guards. There are two mountains and the road passes in between. So, the rebels of Mpantouva came and took position on each side of these two mountains and they were waiting for the detachment from Viannos to arrive. After a while, the Germans passed by insouciantly. It must have been a detachment, but I dont know exactly how many people there were. Our men saw them and started firing. They killed a few and later on they came down and took their weapons. They had them all killed, there must have been about sixty men. I can not be certain for I was not there. I have only heard those saying so. In the meantime, they contacted their commander and he came and said that: all living beings would be killed; no woman or man would survive. We were here, carefree as we knew nothing. We had done no harm. Who could come now and inform us? Were there any telephones then? Nothing. And we were sitting,
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untroubled. When the Italians came they did not hurt us. They came to our houses, to eat lamb, and they said: Good Greco and: Fat Manola, Good Manolis who was sitting on a swing. For my son Manolis was fat. And he said to me: What shall I do with the child, Every day is Lent, It is crying and whining all the time, We are at war, never mind The Italians, the Italians. The Germans were a gloomy nation that did not talk. A death squad would advance and you would only hear the sound of their boots, making a sound like that: douk, douk! They may have been sixty men passing and not one would look to his side. Have you seen them during their drills? They all look straight ahead. Italians are just like us. In any case, I didnt finish the story about Simi. Later on, other Germans arrived and said: All living beings, no woman, or man, or child. But those from Simi knew they had committed a crime and had all gone. They had left and abandoned their homes. They left just like that. When the death squad went to Simi, they opened all the houses and took out the clothes that girls had been keeping as their dowry. They covered the dead bodies with those clothes and they took them with them. I presume there is a grave somewhere close to Viannos where they have placed the bodies. I am not really sure and I cant say for we are in the prefecture of Lasithi and they are in the prefecture of Heraklion. In the meantime, the Mpantouvas brothers went again to their hideout. Then they came and raised a flag, right where the Holy Cross is, in Riza, to symbolise their victory against the detachment of the Germans. If you go to the same place today you will see at the monument how many have died. Because it was due to this flag of Mpantouvas that the Germans executed later on anyone they could find. That is why the execution of these men took place.
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Germans arrive at Gdohia after the battle And the Germans passed through Gdohia and they found an old lady and a mother with her baby, I am not really sure but it should have been around six months old. And they killed them all on site, next to a locust tree. We had a man in Kalami that could speak German, and he said that the children and the women were not to blame. Because, I forgot to mention that they gathered all women and children in the school in Gdohia. They also collected wood and placed thimous (that is a certain type of wood we used to make a fire) by the windows, ready to set a fire and burn them all inside. And it was then, that this man from Kalami, Papadias was his name (he is obviously dead now), said: The children and women are not to be blamed for they committed no crime. You can not wipe out the entire Greek nation. Besides, those who did the crime belong to the prefecture of Heraklion and we are in Lasithi; it is not our fault. There were many inhabitants those years, nothing like the deserted place you see today. They took the men and executed them a few metres away. They had the women and the children inside. And one child wanted to eat, the other one wanted to drink water, another one wanted to use the bathroom all day till the night. They didnt burn the school eventually and opened the doors at night. And the Germans said to them: Parti Haus, meaning they should go beyond Mirtos, away to Ierapetra. Should they cross that river, they would not be killed. From the other side and towards Viannos it was all forbidden area. The women left to go to Ierapetra. As they were walking they could see their relatives, lying on both sides of the streets, dead: their husbands and their children. There was a man on a mountain with his sheep. He was in a gully and shot dead by the Germans; his body was drifted for ten meters by the river. They approach Riza At that time, we were here in Riza, in Kaimenos. My husband was then still alive and he said to me: They are burning down the villages He was in Gdohia and had his sheep up there so he could see from the mountain. They are burning the villages all around us. Prepare our children for departure for I see from here the death squad arriving. My chil-
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dren were two months and two years old. I was together with Ms. Maria, our neighbour. There is a field over there and we had laid down a blanket where I placed both the baby and my other child down and I said to them: Our child I came out, brought with me the wooden chest, the table as well as other stuff so as they would not burn them. They are burning down the villages!, my husband told me. I threw them out and then he said to me: Come aside, take one child and I will take the other one. He took my older child, I took the baby, and we started climbing up the gully. It was full of pine trees then, there were many pine trees on the top. And we were up there, among the pine trees, and as we climbed a bit higher we saw a man, placing his machine gun on a terrace, looking around him. And my husband said: Lie face down on the ground, so that you will not get injured by any bullets. He had been in the war and he knew. And so we stopped there. Then a woman from another village came, whose villagers had all been killed. We knew nothing about them being killed. We heard the gun shots. Were they cheering? What were they doing? How could we know that they were killing? And he said to me: Did you see a woman coming here?. A woman wanted to see if the Germans had taken her husband as a hostage. As soon as I saw her, she came back again. She didnt take the lower road, but she went along the gully, above the village. And then she returned for she had seen dead people but she didnt tell us to protect ourselves. The Germans had brought men from Christo, Males, Mournies and they killed them all over there, where you see the names, in the monument. My father gets killed My fathers name was Alexomanolakis Giorgos (Giorgos Alexomanolakis was my fathers name). He was thirty nine years old, a vicepresident in our community council and had five children. The name of the president those days was Michalis Tsikaloudakis. His wife had seen that they killed the people in the nearby village. Her husband, being the president, felt the need to present himself. She told him then: Hide yourself for they are killing everybody, and took him to the basement. She saved her husband, the president survived. In the meantime, my father was eager to return and take action. And
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he took our oxen and hid them, for they were taking and slaughtering them in order to eat them. And my husband told him: Father I dont want you standing here. I dont want to face the Germans. Leave! And he responded: But you, my child, are excused for you are a shepherd. What will my justification be?. He thought that they would come and have him interrogated. And as he approached the lower neighbourhood, as we call it, the Germans arrived and took six people and killed them on site. When they took my father there, he saw the other men dead; he was the last one they shot as he was the last one captured. My father was the last one they killed. He was thirty nine years old; imagine what a fine man he was. They killed him inside the gully. There was a woman there, on top of a house, and she narrated to me: I can not describe to you Chrisanthi what happened. I was on the other side. They killed six people down here, one after the other. Your father was the last one. We went directly inside our houses! A German passed by and said to me: Pou kirios? Pou kirios?81 I said: Albania, kaput82. I had my children in the house asleep. It was morning of course and he was waving the machine gun like that83: Pou kirios?. I replied Albania, kaput And then, this woman that was watching from above told me that my father had told them: Folks, I have not done anything wrong, why do you want to kill me? They were standing. And because he asked them: Why do you want to kill me, they stroke his hand84. All his fingers were hanging like that. And after that they used a bayonet and tore him apart, from the neck all the way down. I dont know, maybe they didnt have, I dont know. But there is no way I can digest such a cruel death. Had it been a bullet, you would have looked elsewhere, you wouldnt have seen it. But to kill you with a bayonet The bowels were visible, the bowels He was such a nice and modest person, if only you could see He had been to Athens for two and a half years, working. He was a mesIn Greek: means where is the patron/mister. In Greek: , , translates to Died in Albania. 83 She stretches her hand. 84 She makes a gesture with her hand moving downwards, mimicking the way they hit (with the gun) her fathers hand.
82 81
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senger, a post-man as we say, not really sure though. Two and a half years he spent there. That is why my mother didnt have children right away and had them only later, when he returned, one after the other. I wanted to say that he was good-looking, nice in all aspects and modest. I can not talk more about these horrific actions. I can not describe them. A fine man, thirty nine years old and a father of five children. And my mother wanted to bring him home and have him cleaned from the blood. My sister was then one and a half years old. She was close to my daughters age; my mother was young and we gave birth to our last children at the same time. And I said to her: My dear mother, you can not bring him. She replied to me: I will bring him to wash off the blood. The last thing she had in mind now was that they had come to burn us down. I left for the house because I had the children there. And my mother, with some womans assistance, carried him and placed him in the house, so as to wash him. In the meantime, the death squad that would burn the houses arrived and they told her: Parti haus, which means leave this house. I remember occasionally the exact words. Anyway, my brother said: Mom, they are going to kill us all. Lets go mom, lets go!. He was shouting. He was seven years old and my sister eight. And the other one was a year and a half. They were screaming. And so my mother left. As soon as she left, they threw a powder inside the house and burned it down. They burned my father too who was inside. My mother pulled her hair out, took her skirt off, she threw everything away and was barefoot, without her veil. She was carrying her baby in her arms, being only a year and a half, whereas the other three were walking behind her (I was already married then, I married young). And so we went right above here, in the pine trees. Wandering from one place to another after the destruction We spent ten days there. There was a woman there also, ready to deliver her baby. But how could she do that in the middle of the night? The airplanes were dropping bombs then. During the war and occupation, they bombed anywhere they saw a fire. And I remember now, that there was a cave up there and two great boulders, and they placed a blanket on
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top and the other woman was holding a candle so that she gave birth to her child. And they had to quickly cut the umbilical cord, take the baby and leave. For there was a neutral zone there (from Mirtos up) and they would kill anyone they found on site. And I remember now that there were two women that cut the umbilical cord of that baby, for some of the women here knew. And they had to leave there, while it was still morning, so as not to be killed for they used to come and search [Sobs]. Pardon me I remember that woman (she is dead now) walking along the street and wearing a pair of pumps. She had to go that way down, and her legs were full of blood, for she had just delivered, without any doctors or other facilities. Her legs were full of blood but she went down the street where they placed her on a donkey, to take her where? To a mountain, called Maravga that is above Mirtos. And I took, together with my husband, my children and we went there where we spent twenty, thirty days. There was a field there, with some houses and barns. And so we went there to escape from the pine clad area and the neutral zone. For it was not a neutral zone there. That is why we left the place here, we had to leave from the neutral zone for we could not hide here. They burned down those pine trees in 1984 and they never grew again since. It was a forest in a lovely green colour but now they have burned it. In the meantime, it started raining, what would become of us? Where would we go? And we went to a village named Christos. I remember that there was a barn there where I laid a blanket and had my children sit there. The barn had straw, the food you feed oxen; I settled down there and I think we spent around twenty days. We later on went to Ierapetra for a few days and then we came here. We spent September, October and November there. In December, it was winter already, and we went to a house my father-in-law had down there that had not been burned. There were no houses. We could only see the smoke from up there after they had burned everything down. What could we eat now? What would become of us? We had the children but we had neither a home nor faith. The return to Kaimenos In Ierapetra we were offered food for a few days and afterwards
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That was of course, on the 16th of September. Later on, since the troops withdrew and the war ended, we came here. And were could we go? In the lower part of the village there was a house that was not burned (it belonged to my mother-in-law). We went there with my children and my husband used to come for the meals and to sleep. In the meantime, he brought clay so we repaired the house and made something like two hencoops where we set our foot in it. We came here in the winter time. You need a house during the winter, where can you go? Back then, it was summer and no matter what, we got out and went somewhere. And we all gathered and each one of us went to a relative of his or to a room that was available, till we finished building our own. My husband had then some pine-tree trunks that he had brought from far away. And we also brought from the mountain Lapathos, bulrushes, those that grow in the wetlands. And I remember, we placed the bulrushes on top of the wooden trunks and we poured afterwards the mud, on top of that, so as to prevent it from falling down. When the Germans came and set fire to our homes they immediately burned, for there were no concrete slabs. And everything collapsed. They fell down right away. And we had to start all over again. That was our entire life, a struggle of a lifetime. We raised the children during the years of occupation, they had no bread to eat, no clothes to wear. But I remember now that I held some things I wanted to bring outside and that I was barefoot. For those years we wore shoes made of cork. They were made of wood: the craftsman had curved the wood into shape and had also placed a leather strap. During the years of occupation there were no shoes. And I couldnt wear those shoes for they were slippery and I was therefore barefoot. With no shoes, walking all the way uphill, to go and place some clothes and other stuff On the cliffs barefoot and now I can not walk at all. Oh! And then we came back to the great adventure. After the departure of the soldiers from Crete and Greece, that is when the Germans had retreated and had gone back to their country, we started step by step to do everything that was within our power. They provided us with food supplies, such as wheat, coffee and tinned food. I dont know where they came from, probably from foreign states. They came and
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helped us just as we help now a foreign state in times of need. And they used to go to Ierapetra and take, depending on the size of his family, five or ten kilograms of wheat. I can not be really certain about that. And they used to bring it here. They also brought bobota85. We were given bobota or grinded corn and we used to make a fried pie for the children that scattered in the frying pan. Instead of bread. For we had no bread to eat since everything had been burned down. The president of our community was the administrator for the food supplies in the village. And the brother of my husband, Kasokerakis Giorgos was his name, was also with him. He was a scholar and they distributed the food supplies in the village. My father had been dead by now, his house was burned down, the children And my mother had to go begging, wandering for five years. She used to go and beg around here in Crete: in Makrilia I dont know where she went. Somewhere here in Crete, in the vicinity but further away too. She had a donkey and another woman with her. She used to go crying to other people saying that her husband had been killed, speaking of her children and that she also had a son that she was dragging with her. My poor brother must have been around six years old. She used to leave him with the donkey in a field, in a gully. He stayed there and watched the donkey till my mother returned with anything she could bring along. They would place that on the donkey and leave. Beggary. How could she provide for her children? How would she provide for them? Her parents were also alive and they used to live in a lodge, now demolished. And when my mother returned with the donkey from begging, we would all go to her, my grandmother, grandfather, all the children and I, and you would see everybody look for something to eat in time. My family That was our life and that is how the years of occupation were. We struggled. In the meantime, just as I finished the house to accommodate my children, my husband got sick and was diagnosed with cancer. He
85
Bobota: bread made of corn flour.
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was fifteen years older than me. He had been in the Albanian front. When the Germans came, conscription for military service was ordered. They were recruiting not only new soldiers but also those that had already done their military service: my husband was taken too and had to go to Albania. He was diagnosed with cancer. I searched all over the world, no medicine did I find to cure him. In the beginning they told me that it was his stomach; he was in pain and needed medicine. I took him three times to Athens. Finally, I had to accept contributions to raise money for I had no money left with three children two actually then: Anna, my last child, was not yet born; I had her afterwards at the age of twenty five. My daughter was born in 1940, my son in 1943 and Anna in 1949. They give money now if you have three children but they wont give me any, for my children are grown up. My husband passed away in 1959. I was married in 1939. Difficult, difficult. I had my two children during the occupation and my last one when I was twenty five. My husband got sick. I took him to Athens and they told me the last time: He has cancer, there is metastasis to his large intestine (colon) and there is no cure no matter where you go. If you love him, if you sympathise with him, let him pass away for he is in terrible pains. I was giving him the pain-killing injections by myself. There were no means then like now. The entire burden fell upon my shoulders. Children, occupation, worries: I had to go by myself to water the field, to go and plough, to plant potatoes. All by myself. How could the children help me? My mother had four. I was her fifth child but married. And it was I that had to fight for my own children. I had an oil-lamp I used to light to prepare dinner and my son used to come to study under the light. He was a good son and he still is. May he live for many years to come; all other children too. When I wanted to sit down and cook in the fireplace, in the parastia as we villagers say, I used to tell him: Go now because I want to prepare our meal. He wanted to study, yet he brought his legs towards his body to make room for me. Oh! Lighting was poor and he couldnt read. There was no electricity and only later had we a lamp that illuminated the room. Despite all these adventures, my child managed to study and pass the
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exams for O.T.E.86 in the 60th place. Later on, he wanted to take exams for the institute of Anotati Viomihaniki87; he liked it. And since he wanted to follow this profession I told him: You should go to your uncle, he will support you. His uncle was the brother of my husband. And his uncle told him: I have a family too, I can not give you more that a meal. My child was shy from the beginning. And he made his way back. Are you people serious? You must give fifty thousand for the registration fee to Anotati Emporiki. They used to buy the diplomas then. Only after a year was there free education. My child didnt lose his specialty, went to O.T.E. and then went on to Piraeus where he passed the entrance exams for the Anotati Emporiki. He liked it. And he took his diploma from there and he was appointed afterwards in Rhodes. I used to travel from here and from Athens to Rhodes. By myself, alone, illiterate, a dunce. An adventure. In the meantime I raised my children. I tried as hard as I could and they are fine children: they are neither thieves nor vulgar individuals. And my joy is that my children arent bad and that all my efforts were not in vain. For it is all worse if you have fought for something and lost. I dont mind the fact that I am alone. I wanted my children to settle down, to find a job, to have a family. I dont care about being alone. Since this is my destiny, I do not demand that my children stay and look after me. I try to do my best, not to be a burden to them. I have greatgrand-children too. I hope you wont have to go through the misfortunes and the worries I have been through, for I have suffered. I have suffered for I did not have one good day. I raised my children, they are fine, but I have been through a lot of anguish. Do you know what it feels like to be alone from the age of twenty five? Wandering to wake up and stare at the walls, thinking: What am I supposed to do now? How am I going to make it? I had no father, my mother had her own children and resorted to beggary. I had no one. What can a woman, inexperienced in life do, being
In Greek: O.T.E. stands for Hellenic Telecommunications Organization. In Greek: (), which literally means School of Supreme Industrial Studies.
87 86
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young and knowing nothing. My husband was fifteen years older than me and had something lets say; I was poorer and didnt know about the struggle of life. But it was not our fault either I wish there was a way I wont have to see Germans today. They were murderers. It was not their fault also. They were ordered. Nonetheless, our wound can not be healed. They left no house, nothing. They burned down everything. And it was not our fault either. Those to be blamed, have nowadays all their people settled down working and doing research. Their children and grandchildren too, all of them are taken care of. We had to go through all these sufferings, only to be now in isolation in no mans land. The descendants of the commanding rebels, their children and grandchildren too, are all provided for. They raised the flag. But what are we? Victims, victims! Each one will do something for his own people, but no one cares about the masses. I hear on television that their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are all provided for, and So, even if the older ones have died, they have provided for their children and grandchildren. And where did they work? They set up the hideout up there. My husband was a shepherd and they used to visit him in the sheepfold and take cheese from him, mizithra and everything he had. The rebels in the hideout ate it all. We had no water to drink and now the world has satisfied its thirst. When you listen to people that were in the occupation years do feel sorry for them. For their bad fortune. How does it feel when you have no bread to feed your children? And no water to drink. After the liberation, there was a tiny tap up there, the size of my little finger, and the water flow was so slow that I had to spend the whole night there to fill up one jug so that we could drink water. To wash our clothes? Where? I had a sick man, brought here to die, and I wanted to wash the clothes. Where could I go and wash them? There was no water. And later on, it has been a long time since then, they bored into my land with an earth auger and I signed the papers. They caused me great damage before they found water, and instead of satisfying me, they gave me as much as
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they gave you. But the people are saved, I say. Its all right! The people have water they water the trees. Those days, there was no water for us, to drink, let alone the trees. But now that everyone waters their plants and they have satisfied their thirst, they dont even want to give me fifty I told them I want nothing, except for the amount of water coming out of one water hose, to irrigate my land without having to pay for it. I have nine water meters, give me one for free. The water coming out from my land is like Danube. We will, will, will Had I not been illiterate, I would have written to a newspaper: why have you been unjust to me? I made a donation too. I made my donation too. I gave them twenty meters so as to drill and they took a hundred. They should make a donation to me, too: the amount of water coming out of one water hose. I am not asking for thousands: for one water hose. The entire world has water, they have satisfied their thirst and people are producing tons of oil. Am I asking for something insane? I am not asking for anything crazy. They tell me, we will, will, will And now I havent paid for two years and they tell me that they will give me sixty I dont want to lie, they will give me six hundred cubic meters of water for free. Six hundred cubic meters without my having to pay for them. But I will have to pay for the remaining ones that are recorded in my water meter. So give me the six hundred you promised me and I will pay for the rest. I dont want you to give me for free all the water my meter indicates, just my share of six hundred. Eh, we will see. I spent two years without paying and they charged me afterwards a fine of fifty for not paying immediately. What can you do... It is all right How many wrongdoings do the sun witness during the day, the moon at dawn and the stars during the evening.
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Manolis Kartsomichelakis and Maria Alexaki MANOLIS: My name is Kartsomichelakis Emmanuil, of Ioannis. MARIA: His last name is as long as a multi-car train. MANOLIS: My father was killed in the Minor Asia war. MARIA: He left him when he was only forty days old. From bad to worse. MANOLIS: From bad to worse, he left me when I was forty days. He didnt make it to have other children. He was drafted and he never came back; he didnt find the time for another one. He just had me. My mother was left widow and got married (afterwards). My father saw me only when I was born. MARIA: I am telling you, he left him when he was only forty days old, forty days MANOLIS: I was forty days old when he left me. MARIA: He barely saw him; he left and did not see him ever since. My fathers last name is Alexakis. I got married at the age of sixteen and my husband was killed in 1940 in Albania. Later on, in 1942, I got married when I was sixteen to Manolis. I was a widow at the age of twenty. My first husbands name was Tsitsirakis Apostolis. We were married for three years. I got married sixteen, had a child and was left widow at twenty. Think how many years it has been. I was married for less than three years. My first husband had a brother and he was with him in Albania, both of them. And how could we find it out when there were no telephones; we used to send letters. He sent me letters, I sent letters too. Later on he stopped sending and I thought immediately that something bad had happened for it was war time. Eh, slowly, slowly MANOLIS: He got shot by a mortar shell. MARIA: We were told by his brother who sent a letter, after seeing him dead. The Italians MANOLIS: The Italians came here first. MARIA: I dont remember the exact year they came.
MANOLIS KARTSOMICHELAKIS AND MARIA ALEXAKI
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MANOLIS: The Italians came but had their commanding headquarters, comando as they used to say it, in Mournies. And all the Italians were there. The rebels went and killed the Germans in Simi. MARIA: Afterwards, afterwards. The Italians did not kill. MANOLIS: The Italians did not kill. MARIA: The Italians did not kill. MANOLIS: The Germans did. MARIA: I dont remember them causing any harm. They just used to pass by and look for something to eat. MANOLIS: They were after potatoes. MARIA: Food stuff. MANOLIS: Food stuff. MARIA: We didnt have any problems with the Italians. They came here but these people didnt kill; they asked for something to eat and we gave them. We didnt have so many problems. Only when the Germans arrived. The Italians were still here when Germans came. Then they were gone. I dont know how they left. You can also find someone else to tell you more and be more precise. Germans come in the village The German soldiers went to Simi and when they were killed, they (i.e. the Germans) fought back, killing and burning. And we left our village over there, carrying our babies, and came to this very house we still live. I had one child being three month old and another one four years old. I didnt let my husband stay in for I was afraid they would take him hostage. We didnt know they really meant to kill and I sent him to stay in the mountains along with other people. To hide, right where the boulders are, where nothing can be seen there. That is where they were hiding88. They didnt kill my father. If it is not meant to happen They went with Manolis up there to hide and he told him, halfway their journey: Did the Germans put you to compulsory labour? They were doing work on projects in Ierapetra. And
88
Points towards the slope of the mountain, behind the village.
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the Germans used to take them to work there but he didnt go. And each one spent fifteen days there but he didnt go. And my father told him: Manolio, did you participate in the German projects? (I dont know how they were named) and he responded: I didnt go. MANOLIS: He asked me: Have you informed? MARIA: He said: You will be taken hostage, so have MANOLIS: He had a bag on his back. MARIA: He had a bag on his back for he was a shepherd. He told him: Take this bag and climb up there in the boulders, that is where they used to graze their animals, above the village, My brother-in-law is there and you should stay (there), for if you go home they will take you hostage. And Manolis made his way and went up there and my father came to stay in the village, for he was told that the Germans would burn down all empty houses. And he said: I had better have them kill me than have my house burned down. And he came here, to his house. But he had his identity card inside the bag (he gave it to Manolis) and said: If they ask for my identity card, I dont have it here. MANOLIS: He had given me the bag. MARIA: And he sent my sister to go and bring it from up there but she heard that people were shot in the head. MANOLIS: They were shot in the head. MARIA: They were shot in the head and she heard the sound of the bullets. The Germans passed by, she got scared, turned back and said: I am not going for I hear the gun shots and I am afraid. And my father got up and went up there by himself. When he reached the place, his son didnt let him return. MANOLIS: They were all gathered there. MARIA: Since all the villagers were gathered there, he said: Everybody is here and you want to go back home? If you leave I will let the goats loose to wander all around and I will leave too. And having heard that, he stayed put and he was saved as he was not killed. The Germans came here and searched the houses. I sat next to the door, holding my baby and I placed my older child sitting by my side. They came, talked, but naturally I didnt understand German. They
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were holding the pistol like that89 while I was sitting, holding my child in my lap. I didnt talk; nothing. And they went through the other door and fired a gun inside the house and afterwards they left. They probably set a fire. I got up, to avoid getting burned with my children over here, but I saw no fire. They left, they were gone. They came later on to the lower part of the village and gathered everyone they could find. They took them all down there and killed them: in the lower part of the village, in the field below the houses. They aligned them and killed them all, that is everyone they had found. They killed everyone they had captured. The Germans didnt go searching. They would have survived had they gone right here, in the gardens, to hide. They were not searching. But anyone they found in the streets MANOLIS: In the house too. MARIA: ...in the house too, they captured them all and killed them. They burned down the village. MANOLIS: This one, Kaimenos, they burned it down completely. MARIA: Completely. It was burned down once more in the past that is why they call it Kaimenos90. Burned down again. These small villages are called Riza. Only this one is called Kaimenos, the other one is called Zurva and the other one further there is called Sfakura. MANOLIS: Panakiana. MARIA: Panakiana. Each one has its own name. MANOLIS: Each village. MARIA: Now what will become of us the women here? We were left here and (someone) said: They will come and burn us. The husband of my neighbour Chrisanthi along with the man he was with, made their way down to come and take us with the children, so as not to be killed here. They could hear the gun shots since the Germans were killing in the next village. And they came and we took nothing but the children. Just the children. What else could we take from our house? Nothing. We took the children and hided. We hided in a creek
89 90
She extends her arm. In Greek: means burned.
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behind a tree: Chrisanthi with her two children and I with another two. Our husbands, were gone, further up. I dont know where they went. And as we sat in there, we saw them coming here, setting the houses on fire. And we saw the houses burn to ashes with everything we had inside, with all our belongings. And we were left homeless, chased away from the village for months. So we stayed up there, among the pine-trees, for a month. Among the pine-trees, with threemonth-old babies. We constructed a swing, we call it tsiganokounia91. We used a rope between the pine-trees and a piece of cloth in the middle. And we placed one baby under the swing, the other one on the swing and we swung them. And lice! I wonder where all these lice came from! There were so many, they were walking on the pebbles. We couldnt find food up there in the pine-trees for a month. We found, eh If only you could comprehend the extent of our hunger and the hunger of our children in the winter time. If you only knew how hungry we were. MANOLIS: Alexakis, her father, had his animals up there and he used to milk them and give us a cup. MARIA: A cup of milk. MANOLIS: Milk given in a cup, every day. That was all. The lice, eh No matter where you looked you saw. MARIA: Eh we were dirty of course there. What do you expect? MANOLIS: Let it be, dont even mention it. MARIA: How are we still alive today? MANOLIS: How am I still alive, how are we? MARIA: How have we managed to endure? MANOLIS: Can you tell me how it is possible for us to be still alive? With all these sufferings we have been through, how are we alive? MARIA: So, we spent a month there and then we left and went to a place called Maravga. This is on the other side of the river. It was a neutral zone here so we had to leave. And we went to the other side of the river and stayed in a grove full of pine-trees; there were carob-trees and we ate the beans! And we spent there another fifteen to twenty
91
In Greek: meaning literally swing of the gipsies/roma.
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days and then we went to a village called Parsas (this village is now called Metaxohori) where we spent three months there. We stayed there for three months. The villagers there were helpful, they used to give us a piece of bread and we ate it. We did everything we could; later they threw the leaflets on the day MANOLIS: On the 21st of November. MARIA: ...November 21. An airplane passed and threw fliers that each one should go to his village for the neutral zone was not in effect any more. And we came back, to find what? MANOLIS: Everything burned down. MARIA: The land was burned, our homes, where could we stand, where could we find a shelter with our children? And what would we eat? But further away, not the Kaimenos village, the village was not burned, neither was burned the village called Sfakoura that has around ten houses. We went over there and stayed till we made a house here. MANOLIS: We spent another three years there. MARIA: And we stayed there for another three years till we built our house here to come to. We have been through so many torments. Through so many great agonies. We received no compensation, nothing. When we came here, the foreign countries used to send us MANOLIS: Distributions. MARIA: ...blankets, sugar, such things. They sent clothes too and we were helped; a bit there, a bit here, we recovered. I got pregnant too afterwards. I had four children during the occupation, amid the sufferings. Work and a life of privation. It is not like today where everything is so abundant. There is no hardship, people have all the goods and then again they have stress. They have such a good life, with all the comforts, their pensions, their jobs, all of these things. What can we say, that we still have that we still stand on our feet, how are we standing? We went through great difficulties. Great, great. Eh, that is what we went through during the occupation. MANOLIS: So, the Germans came and dropped parachutists. They dropped in Maleme and in Agia what is it called?
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MARIA: I dont know. MANOLIS: Maleme is in Hania... MARIA: It is in Hania of course. MANOLIS: ...it is in Hania. So92: In the morning of the first day, the heavy Stuka Bombed continuously day and night. In the morning of the third day planes appeared, In Maleme and in Agia they dropped the Germans The Battle of Crete lasted for twelve days And was later on surrendered with torments and grief Brothers, should you go to the villages in Viannos, dont step on the graves, for they will be set on fire. Those graves that are so grievous, our brothers are gone for freedom. A day in September that the sky was shiny and dark for the villages of Viannos. They killed from Peukos, they slaughtered from Simi, they left no people alive in Riza, Mournies and Gdohia.93 There were also rebels up in the mountain and he says: Look mother look, the snow in the hideout And pray to God for summer to come. Plant flowers and clove mother And have them watered mother, every morning and afternoon And if you see the roses growing blooming Your son is alive and fights in a foreign land And if you see the roses withering Your son has been killed and is buried in a foreign land
92 93
Singing Variant of a poem from Playiotakis,1943.
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MARIA: That is a book a man from Gdohia published. He was a great poet. MANOLIS: It was published for MARIA: It was published for the people they killed; to record how many were killed here and there. The monument MANOLIS: They killed most of them at a church over there, that of Holy Cross. They killed forty people. Over there where the Holy Cross is, where the cemetery is. MARIA: Before you enter the village, there is a road. A sign says Holy Cross and if you pass with your car (the road is accessible to cars and you can turn around too), you open the iron door, enter inside and see their names. You will see the monument; everybody is written down there. MANOLIS: You will see everything there. MARIA: They built that church there afterwards. It was a field. They built the church afterwards and now we also have the cemetery there. The monument for all those who died is also there. Everybody is written down. And each year, the day we celebrate the Holy Cross, they make speeches, you hear gun shots, happenings. Many Mayors, Prefects and members of the Parliament and a lot of people come here. But now they hold the ceremony before the Holy Cross day, I dont know why. MANOLIS: They come here, the Sunday before the Sunday we celebrate the Holy Cross. In compulsory labour MANOLIS: I spent fifteen days there, in the works in Ierapetra. It is right outside Ierapetra; we had a mattock, a pickaxe and a shovel and we were placed in a field digging till twelve, one, two o clock, when he came and gave us a few raisins. A handful. MARIA: In their palms, like that. MANOLIS: In my palm, a handful. We all stayed in a warehouse. We didnt pay there. It was ours, it belonged to a fellow-man from here
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and nobody paid. Not that we had any money. We had no money. We had nothing, not even food. She cooked only dry cabbage; she felt sorry for us and gave us dry cabbage. She boiled it and we ate it. MARIA: The one who owned the warehouse made something like a restaurant. He had like a restaurant and boiled for them anything he could. MANOLIS: We had no money. Without money. He had a bench in the upper part, a loft and MARIA: I think it was called compulsory work. MANOLIS: It was compulsory work. MARIA: Compulsory work. MANOLIS: Some used to pay. There was a woman there, Antonia, that Germans and Italians had. She spoke German and she could rid you of the compulsory work if you wanted to go and give fifteen kilos of oil or paid something. Then and now MANOLIS: We went to school. MARIA: We went to school, but MANOLIS: But we didnt finish... MARIA: ...it doesnt operate now that there are no children. Our school was in the church that you pass over. You leave the distant village down below, on the lower side MANOLIS: The school is still over there. MARIA: ...our school is there, there. We used to go to that school and our children too. Now all young people are gone. There are no children, no schools, no MANOLIS: Lets not discuss it, we were around forty over here and not even five now. MARIA: Neither communities, nor anything. Everyones children are gone. MANOLIS: They went to Athens, went there, here, I left too. MARIA: We were left here, incompetent and old. MANOLIS: I cant move now, I cant. And they dont believe that I am helpless and incompetent.
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MARIA: Eh, and what would they do to you? MANOLIS: And what would they do to me? MARIA: I remember that we certainly breast-fed the baby then. And what could we produce without food and with worries? We used to breast feed our children then even up to the age of two. It is not like now that mothers give birth to a child and throw it at once. MANOLIS: Let it go, let it go, dont even talk about it. MARIA: They have beds now, not to mention the milk and the rest. MANOLIS: Dont mention it; I hope no man will have to go through the things we faced. No man should go through them. MARIA: Not even in their dreams, not even in dreams. MANOLIS: Not even in your dreams should you see them. MARIA: Not even in their dreams should they see them. I tell my children not to go through our sufferings, even in their dreams. MANOLIS: They should not go through them even in their dreams. Ah, ah! Thats life my child, what can we do? MARIA: People have a different kind of stress. They make things but they are not satisfied, they build houses, go to Athens and establish themselves and they have stress and can not find peace. MANOLIS: Now they dont find jobs. They make a salary and this is not enough. MARIA: The way they live their lives now of course it is not enough. MANOLIS: The way you live now, it is not enough, whereas we had a surplus. MARIA: We made a dime. Those years, there was no allowance for having many children or being a farmer, no pensions, nothing. If we were lucky we produced some oil and paid with the money we got, in order to buy whatever we wanted. MANOLIS: The car used to come here and we bought a kilo of codfish, a kilo of rice. Money? Where? We had no money, no clothes, nothing. Let it be, dont talk about it, dont say a thing. Dont say a thing about those issues for we get frightened now; dont remind us of them all over from the beginning The Germans now come here. MARIA: But dont our people go to Germany and work? They go. MANOLIS: They come from all countries, from all. We think of the
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things that happened then and the people of today MARIA: Eh! MANOLIS: Yes, but they are young and you are supposed not to tell them. They came and found the relics of those two men our people had killed in Kria Vrisi and took them MARIA: They came and found the relics and went to the mountain and buried them. MANOLIS: And they took them. We were told that they didnt want either. They had Hitler. MARIA: The entire world is not tranquil. Like the fingers in your hand, are they all the same? And this is your own hand. The world is like that everywhere. And you think that all Germans were alike? They were ordered too. They burned the villages, they killed. When the superior officer ordered them to stop, they stopped. They neither killed nor burnt the two villages but whoever was killed, was killed. MANOLIS: In Sikologos the locals were saved by one man. They were saved by a man that spoke German. They captured everybody, from Kalami and Sikologos, a hundred, a hundred fifty people and went to Viannos and kept them all inside the high school where they had them wait to be killed. But the priests there intervened and an order came and they were released without anyone being killed. Yet, they killed everybody in our region. MANOLIS: We had three children: Haralambis, Evangelia and Irini. Three children during the occupation and amid the Let it be, let it be. MARIA: When the evil occurred, we had one child and another child I had from my first husband. I had my first child, that was four years old, with another man, from my first marriage. And then we had with Manolis another three. I lost this first one while he was working; I lost him when he was a grown-up, at the age of forty-three. I put on the black clothes then and never took them off since. He was a manager in O.T.E.94, lived in Athens and came here, this time of the year, to collect olives and
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MANOLIS: He had a heart attack. MARIA: ...he had a heart attack and died. Too many sufferings, worries. MANOLIS: He was married and had two children. We have many torments, I want to split them, to go through half of them now and the rest when I grow old but MARIA: We went through those, both when we were young and now that we are old. MANOLIS: ...we have been through everything, everything.
94
In Greek: O.T.E. stands for Hellenic Telecommunications Organization.
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Vangelis Christakis We had joined to the national resistance that took place. We had a school here. We were forty-five children at school then. It is closed down now for there is not even one child. When I finished the elementary school in 1939, since I was born in 1926, I had to go to high-school. But the Italians came in 1940 and everybody left Ierapetra. They took the professors and the teachers and there was no high-school operating. Only in the villages that had lady teachers, the schools were operational, like the one in Kato Simi (that had a lady teacher), Mournies (that had a lady teacher); those villages had a school. As far as we are concerned now, the school was closed from 1939, 1940, when the teacher left, up to 1944. I wanted to go to high-school for my father had no other child. I was the only one, and our purpose was to leave, to go to Athens, to study in Athens. But my grand-father called us on the phone, he was a priest and was in Athens, and said: Dont leave, because if war is declared you will be blockaded and die of hunger here, just like many others that had no olive oil to eat. But we had olive oil at least here, and could find greens to eat. If you use enough oil, even if you have no bread, you are not hungry. But if you have no olive oil you swell and die on the spot. Olive oil is more important than bread. A fellow villager form here happened to live in a cottage up there and he had no bread so he drunk a glass of oil and was able to come here, otherwise the poor man wouldnt have made it. He was strengthened by the olive oil. For if you have no oil, no matter what food you eat without oil, you can not eat it. The Italians We are now in the period when occupation began. It is for sure that the Italians were nice, nice people. That is, they never mistreated us. They sold boots, clothes, shirts, even blankets, for they too wanted a little money. And they paid for the things they got. That is, he came to get a chicken and he gave you ten drachmas, let us say, (they had their own money) but they gave something. The Germans were bad news, they were dogs. They gave you nothing even if that meant their death, but
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they had nothing. The Italians had. I mean, they were given bread every day and they also had a mess. The Germans ate sawdust, from wood, the type that we get the fine dust out of; they had no bread. They mixed it with maize flour as it seems, made bread and ate it. The Germans had no bread. Germany was a poor country. With all the industries and because they were many too. Well, we got along well for as long as the Italians were here. But later on, in 1943 when Italy capitulated with England, all the Italians that were here were killed. Those that were fast enough to hide, some of whom went even to the mountain, were saved. The rest were put on a boat by the Germans were taken farther away and told: Let us take you to and they bombarded them afterwards from Anatoli and drowned them. Everybody drowned. The Italians used to come here once a week; they didnt stay here. They stayed in Vato, down in Vato was a church of Agios Panteleimonas. They had their guardhouses there in Agios Panteleimonas. And two persons used to pass by, two others the next day, they wanted eggs, the day after wanted milk, I dont know what, what ever you gave them, potatoes But they didnt bother us, they meant well. My father told them I have no potatoes but he had them under the bed and the Italian saw them and he pointed the potatoes out to him. You dont have eh? Look, he said. He had them under the bed and thought that they had not seen them but they saw them. He said: Take some and leave. The rebels movement and my participation in it The Mpantouvas family was denounced in Heraklion for they took part in the battle of Crete and killed many parachutists. They were betrayed for they had done a lot of shameful deeds over here in the army, and they were all denounced. They got ready and left and they were allowed to come over here, up in the mountain, where the five brothers camped: Yiannis, Manolis, Christos and Kostis. They came and camped in the hideout, up there in Hametis, below Anatoliko. At the beginning they were five people and the shepherds could have told them: Go away, for they had been elsewhere and they were chased away. But they thought it over and said afterwards: Let them stay, they are five people
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and they gave them supplies. But later on, one after another that left the place here, went there. And one of them, Christos, comes down one night and he finds us and says: We want to gather people to see how we will make a the Germans, and those of you that want, should enrol. And we thought at that point, that some of us should enrol to support them, for the sake of the country. And gradually, we made a group. Christos says: If you can collect potatoes, onions (I brought my wife along afterwards, after the Germans left and Mpantouvas came back, and she was enrolled later on in EPON). At the beginning we started going out to gather potatoes, onions, oil and we took it to them. Well, one day we load an animal, a donkey, to take it over there. On the way, ten Italians approach me and I say: My father is a shepherd and I am taking these to him in the fold, for they thought, Where is he taking them?. When I reached the place where the fold was, right on the left side of the street, I turned around and headed to the fold. The shepherds were not there of course, and I opened up, took out the branches and unloaded (the donkey). When they saw that I unloaded and I placed the goods inside, they left and went to Simi. The rebels looked at them from above with the binoculars, since the hideout was near, but they thought: Let it be, we dont mess with them. And I saw that they left; I was looking at them as well. When I saw them leaving and heading to Simi, I loaded back the goods. In the meantime, the shepherds had come too, and I say: I unloaded for the Italians were here. The shepherds had seen the Italians, they had hidden and had let them pass by, they didnt talk to them. And they called their animals and brought them. I say: Come and help me to load for I have to leave. And they helped me load and I took the goods to the rebels. They asked me: Did the Italians catch you?. I say: They caught me, but I told them that they were my fathers and that I am taking them to the fold, and they didnt hurt me. They said: Stay and eat with us and leave later. Eh, from that moment on, we went there all the time. I didnt stay up there: I went there and came back, for I was like a messenger, an informer; the identity card says informer and supplier. That is how we started and went to the mountain.
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In Simi: Villy weighs the potatoes In the summer of 1943, Christos Mpantouvas was wounded in the leg by a bullet. A doctor from Viannos used to come to Simi and hide there, and he changed the bandages once every two days. The day he changed the bandages, we had to be on guard in case the Germans came, for the doctor took off his boots (and changed the bandages in his leg). And he sent me and another child from Mournies, near to Kato Simi where there was a rock, and we stayed there to watch over for as long as he changed the bandages. And there was a case that we saw the Germans down below, coming up, as we were climbing up. And we went back and told him: The Germans are coming. He said: How many?. I said: Two. He puts on his boots in a hurry and he told us to leave. And we left and we went over the gully. There was an elevated spot in the ground there and he told me: Go and cut a branch to make room and see through it what they do. If they gather people we should not go down. For they arrested people and took them to Kastelli airport where they were forced to work and then they took them to Germany. I came out and saw them go downhill. They opened a coffeehouse, took a man from there, went up in a house and filled up a sack with potatoes. And they made him carry the sack, took it to the coffeehouse and the German reached a stick in order to weigh them. He said: We will weigh them to pay for and the German told him Lasti! and the bloody man made his arm like that95 and hung from there the balance, the kantari, that is what we weigh with. And he made his arm like that, and it was for example thirty okas, and he hung it from there and weighed them damn, what a man. He is the one they killed, his name was Villy. They killed this one with another one, called Yianni. The other one, the third, was gone and he was saved. I told them: They take potatoes. Christos said: They dont make arrests. I said: We should go back. Christos said: I am not going back I stay right here by the river and wait, and if you see that they are gone, tell me to come. I was of course younger, a child of seventeen years old,
95
He stretches his arm horizontally.
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and I went down and saw how they weighed the potatoes. They went to a house to take the potatoes and they came here afterwards to weigh them. Damn it, what a fine man. I had seen him many times. He had come once that we were in Simi; my mother gave him eggs and he took out a handful of yellow antebrines that were for the fever and gave them to her. He brought her a piece of paper and put in a handful of these that were for the fever: they were just right when we were ill. Malaria was very frequent in Mirtos and if you took the amount that could fill up a paper funnel you got well. I mean they were antebrines, I dont know what they called them. And he gave them to her. I mean, I dont know, he was probably conscientious, but he was really big. The battle of Simi and the disband of the rebels movement After the Italians were broken up, there were three people in the guardhouse in Kato Simi. And they came to Apano Simi every day to take potatoes. Their purpose was to collect potatoes, for they sent them down to the Middle East where they had the war in the desert. They fried them in Viannos, put them on a plane and dropped them to them afterwards. And they had canisters too that filled up with water and dropped them too, for there is no water in the desert. And they planned to collect a couple of tons of potatoes and leave. And one night, two, three, four people got drunk and said: Why dont we kill them and get rid of them, instead of having them taking our potatoes all the time?. And one of the Germans left in the afternoon to bring the mules, to take the potatoes, and he was saved. A woman went and knocked their door in the morning, before dawn. And the Germans opened the door and they came in with the guns and killed them. That triggered the following events. It was Thursday, 9 of September, when they killed them. On Sunday, Mpantouvas informed us: A company of Germans comes from far beyond, they gather the people and they will take them for execution. If they find slaughtered men in the guardhouse they will kill you. So we have to go rescue them. And we gathered up there around a hundred men. I was then of course seventeen years old, I was seventeen in
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1943. But he told me: You are young and you can not take a rifle so you will take the cartridges. You will carry cartridges. And I carried a bag of a thousand cartridges. Heavy! Thirty cartridges weigh one oka. But what could you do now, you had no option but to carry them. And some of us, of course, went from one side, some from the other one and we left the road open in the middle. I was with Christos Mpantouvas detachment. Manolis was the commander (his other brother was the warehouseman, Manolis naturally had his brothers to keep the keys). They let them advance and come close to Simi. There is a river like that and a gully, and the road travels though the gully. And so we let them and they came in and moved on (we have made a statue there now); there was a detachment ahead. And as soon as they went there and all of them had come in from the back side and we had them encircled, they started firing. Around forty five men were killed, we captured fifteen prisoners and some escaped. They fell off in the gully, went down and ran away to Viannos. Of course we found (supplies) there and we took boots. Some took the boots, others took a rifle, we took there Some took jackets, each one of us that was there took something. But two fellows from Kato Simi that were a bit perverted stayed there and did disgraceful things. They took out their male organ, cut it off and put it in their mouth. I didnt see it myself, others said so later on. You know, this is very wicked and the Germans came later and found them and from that point on all the events happened. They killed the two boys of course. As they say, they were a bit dumb and they didnt leave and stayed there and the Germans found them and killed them afterwards. A battalion started then from Heraklion, beyond Viannos. And in order to secure their rear, they started from low, from down the sea, and went uphill. And they secured their rear so as to not have rebels behind them. They figured: They may be behind us to trick us into getting inside. And it was then that they started killing women too. There were Germans too that saw their brother killed and left on that spot. No matter what you do he is finished. From that point on the evil started. Eh, Mpantouvas said (the battle had finished then, they had gone up to the mountain): What happens
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now?. The Germans were up and spread in the villages doing things and burning, and he said: We must leave. And they got away from there and went to Males. We had the wireless there, and we took it to a village to the Plateau of Lasithi, in a fold that a shepherd had, and he hid the wireless there. They also had with them an Englishman major that sent messages with the wireless to Cairo. We named him Alexis, but his last name We had him baptised Alexis and we issued him an identity card (and he was named Alexis). He thought: If a German asks me I will play dumb. He thought: If the Germans catch me I will pretend that I dont know, that I dont speak, that I am dumb, for they may recognise him because he was an Englishman. But Englishmen are blond and he was not. He was a major and he knew of course. He was up there when the airplane came and dropped us some rifles. They communicated and he said that an airplane will come at night to drop you guns and ammunition with parachutes. And it came and dropped them to us of course. There is a plateau up there, and we call it Omalo (but not the one in Chania, this one overlooks Simi) and there are around fifty thousand square meters planted. And the airplane came at night and made two rounds: we had set a fire in three places. It dropped us the rifles and the bullets with the parachute and left afterwards. They brought us those before the battle, five, six months ahead, to keep them. They distributed them later, here and there, but they were few of course and didnt suffice. However, we were later equipped for there were also sixty Germans; forty five dead and fifteen captured, sixty. And we took from them. But when Mpantouvas came forward he said: Hand in your weapons and leave, we all handed in our weapons and left. Not that I had. I had taken only one from there, from a dead one, from Kato Simi. Of course, we handed in the weapons and we left. And they went farther away and later on took the wireless from Simi. A submarine came here to Arvi and they left at night, embarked and went to Cairo. There were two boys and they followed. They were sleeping (one of them was awake, listening) and the others said: We will leave. What are we going to do with the kids?. He said: We should take them to Cairo, and the boy told him: I am not going to Cairo. And he got up,
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pretended that he goes to defecate and left. He left so that he wouldnt go to Cairo. And he went afterwards to Epanosifi (that is the monastery) and the Germans captured him. He went to the monastery, thinking: They may not find me. But the Germans heard that there were men there and sealed the monastery. He heard it and tried to escape and they killed him. The other one went. He was sleeping and they woke him up and told him: Eh, come on, for we are leaving. And they took him. He didnt know where they would go. He went to the submarine and then to Cairo. There was a school there that he went to and he got trained and graduated as second lieutenant. As it seems, he must have been in highschool for a couple of years. His name was Manusakis and was from Simi. When the war ended, he came back (he was a second lieutenant). But they sent him to Grammos. The rebels killed late Manolis at Grammos. He used to carry food as I did. But he thought: They will burn down Simi and we must leave. They left, but I am telling you they killed him. The poor man came back and he was still single, but he had met a girl down there and it was said that she owned a gold-mine, I mean, she had oil wells. He would have become rich, a powerful man, had he not died in Grammos. But the rebels killed him and it was over. Italians after the capitulation Italians came to the hideout with Mpantouvas. One of them got up in the night, left and got killed. The other one stayed. He was taken to the Middle East and he returned later. One remained in Gra Ligia and he was hidden. He was a sergeant and his mother had no other (child). He met a girl there that was the aunt of my sons Michalis wife, now that he got married in Gra Ligia. The Italian told her: Hide me so that they wont kill me, for my mother has no other, and I will take you with me when I leave. And they hid Yiannis. They had him hidden for a year and he came forward only after the Germans left. And then he took her and they left for Italy. My daughter in law visits them occasionally and spends around ten days, a month there. He was a sergeant and was later promoted to second lieutenant. He was a grown up for he was a career officer. And he has a good life. He also has children that come now and
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then here for summer vacation. The Italians could not be saved. This one over here was saved; one came to the mountain and another one left, was later captured and killed, but only after he had left. He thought he would go and find a way to leave, but how could he do that? The other one was rescued. Germans in the village We saw the Germans when they came to the village but we were far away of course. Only the women that were on site actually witnessed what happened. We didnt see anything till the time they set a fire and we left. They were planning to burn down our house. They came and gathered all the stuff, blankets, quilt, all the mattresses and they piled them up. They put chairs and the table (as a matter of fact, the table was burned from one side). They broke a large canister, we call it pithos, that was filled with oil. We had two but they broke just the one and we brought out the other one later and we took it. They broke it and the oil filled up the house; there was lots of oil, it was a hundred, a hundred fifty kilos. The space was divided by a stone wall and there was a hole that my mother left open when she wanted to drain the water. But they made a mistake and the oil didnt drain and the women went later on and collected it. The poor people didnt have to eat: if your field is burned down, you dont die for you have the house. But if your house is burned down, you dont have bread, you dont have oil, you dont have a piece of cloth to sleep on. That is where the serious problem is, many of us suffered from that. Later on that we took part in the battle of Simi we had our names written down on paper and my father used to say: They will execute us should they find this piece of paper. So I just said to my father: Lets leave and hide ourselves. And the ones who did not hide themselves His brother was over here and he didnt come, he said: What will they do to me? Do I know? Did I go?. But the Germans did not interrogate, the army does not interrogate, for anyone they caught the practise was: Execute him. And they killed my fathers brother and his two first cousins. His brothers name was Christakis Yiannis and my fathers name was Michalis. They were the children of the priest, but my grand-
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father was gone and was in Athens. They gave him a parish in Oropos where his parishioners were Vlachs96 and he was living like a king. His other brother went too during the occupation, for they had another brother as well, and he was saved, otherwise he would have died of hunger. But the Vlachs brought wheat to the old man to prepare offerings to God and my uncle and his children had also some of those. They gave them also wheat to make groats and they ate and were saved, otherwise they would have died. Exiled to Metaxohori and the return to Riza In Metaxohori, the people that had houses gave to each one of us a small stable where we stayed. But some of us had taken a few supplies out of the house for we knew that they might burn the houses. We had taken around sixty kilos of barley (my mother had taken it little by little and had hidden it) and we took that and we went. Of course there were mills then, so we had it milled, took it and made bread. We ate it in small portions, bit by bit, so as to make it last. People gave us a lot of things. I mean, strangers gave us chickpeas, broad beans, another one gave fava97 and cooked food. Eh, we also had a few (supplies) ourselves and we managed to get by. We came later on down here and there was lots of oil because it had rained. We produced oil and we started little by little to buy (goods). People started then, one after the other, to repair their houses with clay, with soil, for obviously you could not find cement or anything else. They made the roof only with clay and soil placed on cypress trees beams they had cut. But the house of my mothers brother was burned and so we were together. He came and stayed with us, what would become of him? And they were five people and we were three, eight. And we all lay down on the floor, all eight people, in this very house. One of them was my mothers older brother and he had a son, a first cousin of mine, and the poor guy died of cancer (he was twenty years old, twenty one more or less, for he was five years older than me and I was around seventeen). We made a bed
96 97
One of the population groups of Greece. Pure of yellow split peas.
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for him and he lay right there in the kitchen whereas the rest were all inside here. So my uncle slept on this side, my aunt and their daughter there, the other one there, I was on this side, my mother on this side and my father there, and we all slept. In Metaxohori too, this is how we slept all together in one house. They didnt have houses to give to all of us and families were in couples. And hunger. Later on, when we came here, we caught birds, rabbits, and so on, for there were many then. The Italians didnt allow us of course to go hunting for it was forbidden to have a riffle. They taught us to set up telia98 to catch rabbits. The Italians that had their guardhouse down to Vato, set up telia and caught rabbits, they set up wires: you place a wire and you make a loop and you put that inside a cage. And you arrange to put that in a place you think it is a passage. The rabbit passes by, gets caught, the loop tightens up and the rabbit dies. People from Gdohia had been there, had seen them, learned it from there and told us later. They said: This is how the Italians do it. And we started too and we caught later on rabbits for having a rifle was forbidden; you couldnt hear a thing with telia. Lifting of the neutral zone After they burned the village and declared it a neutral zone we came here. The neutral zone was from the river where Mirtos is, and all the way up till Viannos. We left. Half of us, those who were in the prefecture of Heraklion, went and stayed in the lower villages. We went over here; some went towards Ierapetra whereas we went to Metaxohori, that is where we went. But there were many people those days there, unlike nowadays. And we stayed there for almost three months. Then Mpantouvas sent a message: I am in Cairo, what kind of neutral zone do you have?. And he said that the neutral zone is to be lifted. From the 21st of November and on, we were given the zone back, it was lifted, and we came back to our houses. But where could you stay? I remember the date because I came here and we found mushrooms and on the way back we saw the airplane dropping leaflets and I thought of taking some since we had no paper to roll a cigarette. There were no cigarettes then,
98
A form of trap.
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they took tobacco and chopped it but they had no paper. The leaflets were both in German and in Greek and we took and read it. I still have one but I dont know where I put it. I kept it but Mpantouvas took it from me. Imagine that he told me: If you have a leaflet bring it to me to make a photocopy and I will send it back to you afterwards and he didnt send me the original yet he sent me the photocopy. In any case, it says: 17th of November, the zone is no longer forbidden from the 21st. They dropped them on the 17th and it said from the 21st. It was the day of the Virgin Mary, 21st of November is the day of the Virgin Mary, for there is a Virgin Mary church there in Karidi. And we celebrated and left the following day and came. But where would we stay? Hopefully we had our house, it was not burned Compulsory labour We were conscripted later on and went to Ierapetra where we worked in the projects they were constructing. That is after we returned from Metaxohori and came here. They notified the president that: Every week you will send us six people to work. My father went. I didnt go for I was seventeen years old then and we went and found the they had a secretary and she was one of us (she was from here, from Riza) but she was very educated and spoke German and they had her as a secretary to translate German. Her name was Antonia Mathioudaki. She was from Sfakoura, from the village further away. So, my father went and asked her to exclude him. Antonia said: When you come again, bring a rooster, a piece of cheese and some oil to give them to the officer and have you excluded. And she said to the officer: This old man was afflicted by pleurisy in the army, is old and a veteran of the war of 1918-1921. And a German doctor looked at him, after what she told him, and gave permesso telling him: They should not put you back to work. And then my father told her: But there is also my son and they will conscript my son, who is only seventeen years old. She said: We should exempt him. Bring over again something and I will take a child from here to bring it here to present it to him and he will say: But he wears short trousers!. We will present the child to him for he doesnt know. And the old man left, and of course he brought along some kind of gifts, oil, I dont know,
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and she went and brought a child and said: Look at this man and they put him in the works. And he (the doctor) gave a paper and told her: He is exempted. And my father brought it here and told him: President, I have an exemption paper not to put me or my child again to work. And we got away with it, but the others went, six people every week. The Germans discovered later that she betrayed them: she used to take a report that Tomorrow they will load to and she sabotaged the project. They found out about her at the end. When they discovered it and looked for her, she was gone, she was gone with the submarine too. She would have been executed otherwise. She issued for us a paper and brought it to the mountain and the people here knew when the dispatch would depart for Cairo and they sabotaged the project. I heard she married an Englishman I think and that she is not in Greece. She was married to an Englishman. She probably met an Englishman officer when she went down to the Middle East and married there. But she was very educated. She had come to Simi, once to Pano Simi, and I met her then there. My father told me: She is the one who saved you. I said: We should give her a piece of cheese. She was very educated. She could speak of course the language and they had her as interpreter and their secretary and she wrote for them anything they wanted. A soldier and the family in welfare I was a soldier in Soufli too. That was in 1950. I went to the civil war in 1948. The war ended in 1950 but from May of 1948 we had finished the last operations. I was discharged afterwards. I spent thirty three months as a soldier: three more months and I would have been a soldier for three years. I was married. I was nineteen when I married and my wife eighteen, if only were we wiser. For I tell her now: Had we got the wisdom we have now, we should not have married I believed that I would take my wife and I would be like a king. My parents didnt have another child and they thought: He might get killed in the war, that is why they got me married. They said: You should get married for you may go to the war, there was the civil war then, you may get killed. Dont you
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think you should leave an heir behind? And we had a daughter and she was one year old when I left and four, five when I came back. My wife Calliope raised her by herself, the poor woman. But she took a hundred and fifty drachmas a month for I was in the war. They gave her also and some kind of food coupons and she managed to get along. That is, they gave her fifty drachmas worth in coupons and she went to the grocers, gave the coupons and took the foodstuffs. And if it cost more, for example if it cost the value of the coupons was fifty drachmas. They had letters on, and whoever used them would go later with the coupons to the welfare and take the money. And they were told: You will go from this grocers shop that is cheap, for welfare was looking to see where they could find the lowest prices. And my wife went every month. I sent her an official statement that I was in the battalion and she went to welfare and took the hundred and fifty drachmas and the coupons. My father used to take her. How else could she go there by herself? He placed her on the animal, for there was no car then, and she went on the donkeys back for she needed companion. I think there were a couple more villagers that used to go. For we were all conscribed as soldiers together. And they followed too and two or three people went together, took the food and loaded the animal. Eh, she gave my father some as well, for she thought: Am I going to eat them all? For example, she took five kilos of pasta and she gave him three and kept two for herself. Or milk, for she didnt want since the elderly had goats and gave her milk for the baby. She just took for example, coffee, sugar, rice, pasta, whatever she wanted. And she paid the difference; for example if it was sixty drachmas she gave the coupons and ten more and she was all set to leave. And my wife and my child survived, because of course, they received something. They stopped it when I was discharged. Today Germans come in the summer time, but they tell you: There was war then. We tell them that: We dont want you because you burned us down. They reply: There was a war. What could we do?. Indeed, it is not their fault: our people are to blame for they killed the men in the guardhouse, we gave them the cause for burning us down. Had they not
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burned us, they would have left afterwards. As soon as they collected the potatoes and the other man came with the mules to take them, they would have left; we would have not realised that there was war. For we didnt have Germans in the prefecture of Lasithi. Germans came later when the Italians capitulated and left (they were slaughtered and wiped out). But if they had left them alone, the men in the guardhouse would have gone. And even if they came afterwards, they would not have committed these crimes to us. Eh, I remember no more. All I said has been said before I used to remember more in the past, now lately, I remember nothing. It doesnt function, when you are young the tape is recording and you remember it; after twenty five, thirty years and more, the tape is full and can take no more. It can not hold any more and you can not remember the rest. I remember my childhood. I even remember a few of our classes in the school. Now, I remember nothing.
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Galatia Mathioudaki Terzaki I was born in 1932. My name is Galatia Mathioudaki. My god-father was a police officer and he came for he was a friend of my father, who had served as a field guard for many years. So the officer said: Let me baptise your child. And my father responded: That all right, you will baptise her. Yet, they wanted to name me Panorea and a first cousin of mine came and said: No, no, dont name her that; you name her Galatia instead. Now, how on earth she came up with this idea I dont know, for there was no-one else named Galatia then. They baptised me Galatia and I have now myself two granddaughters with that name too. My fathers name was Haridimos Terzakis. He was a hard worker. He and my mother had a fortune. Yet, my mother was spoiled probably due to the fact there was no other girl in her family. They didnt even let her fill a glass with water by herself to drink. Therefore she knew nothing. She cooked for us, was a fine mother, looked after us and was renowned everywhere for being a fine woman, a very nice one. People loved us. But after that September she was unable to leave the house, she knew nothing. And we were only children then. I am telling you, my sister was ten, I was seven and my brother three. Still children, but we had started planting cabbages and anything else we wished for. We had of course our property, our own water supply and we could manage. However, we didnt have the knowledge nor had we the power and due to that relatives handled my sisters marriage. And my mother didnt say a word; she didnt know what to say. She needed someone to look after her and so she had no hesitations. I, being younger, I had an argument with a relative of mine and I told him: No, no. Not that I knew, but I didnt want to part from my sister. For that cause alone, otherwise I knew nothing. The Italians I dont know many things for the Italians. I just remember the last six people that came and stayed in the post office. Those ones I remember. They wandered around the village every night. There was a curfew and we could leave the house but only at a certain time of the
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day, not too early and not too late. I dont remember of course the exact time we had to be in the house, but at that time nobody was on the street. And I also remember that we happened to be once in our cottage and it was said that the Italians were leaving for their homeland. And an Italian went to buy honey from a fellow villager and our men caught him and killed him only a few meters away. They didnt let him leave. The Italians killed nobody. Yet, they did a number of other things: they collected and ate anything they could find. Their only concern was eating. But they didnt kill or hurt the people. They didnt beat, they didnt But the Germans did it all. The Germans arrive Eh, we suffered a lot. When it was heard that the Germans would come this way, my father took us with him. We got ready and he took us to the mountains, in a field we had there with a house, where we stayed. We spent the winter there. But during the German occupation my father used to go to the mountains to water the potatoes we had planted. They were captured on Agios Nikitas99 day. On the 14th, 15th of September. On that day. And my father walked half way and returned home. He said: Damned potatoes, I didnt find time to plant them, water them, and be with my children. He had a soft spot for us. He went down and as soon as we saw the German airplane flying over dropping fliers all over the place, my father took my mother and my sister whereas I stayed in the cottage with my brother. And since the Germans came in two detachments my parents managed to find the time to act: they took my mothers entire dowry and all the clothes and food we had; they loaded them onto the donkey and brought them to the cottage. But there were more things they wanted to take and my father and mother came back. And my father said to her: Stop here, that is just outside the village, I will go down and see how things are and I will call you later so that you come and bring it to load it. My father went to the village and opened the house.
99
Saint Nikitas.
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The executions The Germans arrived in the afternoon; it must have been around two o clock, just like now. The time the Germans were approaching, my fathers cousin, I think his name was Papoutsakis, was there. They captured them both at once. And those men that had raki and gifts to treat the Germans, to welcome them, took another cousin of mine that was in an alley further down. They killed those men after forcing them with their guns on their back to form a line on the street so that they could take them. They left everything behind. A bit outside the village, there was a fine young man, thirty years old. He was the finest man in our village those days along with his father. They took them too and another man as well, Petros Tsagarakis was his name I think. He was bringing grapes on a donkeys back: they unloaded the grapes on the street, tied the donkey to a wooden stake and took him too with them. To make a long story short, they took from here that time fourteen people and left, without of course In other places they were more troublesome but the people here in Males did nothing, except for those that had been with the rebels fighting. And they captured fourteen people and took them along. They also tried to set the village on fire, but they didnt make it. They left from here and did not touch the village. But they set on fire Mirtos and Gdohia, which is a village near by. The burial My mother came back to us. In the morning, one of my mothers nieces came and told us: Did the uncle come here?, No (was the reply). You should come and see how we are going to collect them for we had heard but didnt know what it was: they had shot fourteen people in a field, just further down the village. And they had used a machine gun to wipe them out and they had gone afterwards and shot each individual in his head. They were that frenzy. In any case, my sister, an uncle of mine and this niece from my mothers side went. Four people went. But how could they transport them to bury them, in an uphill road with only a few persons to assist? They placed my father in a blanket. I didnt see him. They placed him
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there and took him to the cemetery. But as they tried to dig the graves and place the bodies in (each one was looking for his relative to bury) the church bells rang and the announcement was heard: The Germans, the Germans. Some were left unburied in the cemetery, others were buried. My uncle lifted the headstone and placed my father in. Some relatives of another man grabbed their man and placed him also in the same grave. There were two men therefore together. They placed the headstone on top. Most people were left there unburied. It was a lie: the Germans had not come that day. Later on that night, those that had their relatives unburied went over and finished up the task so as to bring this issue to an end. They didnt harm the village. Rebels Afterwards, Tsakirakis and Papadakis came to our place. They were both rebels and relatives from my mothers side. There were two rooms and they opened a door in the internal room and cut the wall to make a window. And they used a bush there, an astivada as we say, so that the part they had demolished could not be visible. And they both came to our home to sleep. Of course we wanted them for they were relatives and we wanted their company too, yet we didnt know anything beyond that. We didnt know for I tell you we were children. There was some trouble later on, when a German was killed in our mountain and they threw him in a hole. The blood and the entire mess were all visible. Women and men went afterwards to the site, dug and cleaned up. They went down the hole and dragged the German down and hid him so that he could not be seen. But they killed Italians and many others too as we were told. Our families We faced great sufferings as we grew up. My sister got married and we put her to work supposedly at the age of fifteen but she was actually only twelve more or less. And she was a fine girl. But she got unlucky for her husband, Kostis Kalogridakis, died in the guerrilla war, after being a soldier for six months. Again, another misfortune.
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In any case, we fought this situation. My mothers brother, but from a different father, took my brother with him to Thessalonica; my brother grew up and married there and has his family there too. And I had to struggle here with my sister all these years. They made all kind of efforts to get me married. I told them: I am not getting married. I dont want a marriage. I have learnt from my sisters marriage. I dont want a marriage. To make the story short, I reached the age of eighteen but then my relatives did not allow this to go any further. They wanted me to get married. And so I did marry. But I had a good life afterwards with my husband. My sister had no children; she had nothing and was a widow at the age of twenty two. She married again afterwards and gave birth to a girl too, she got very lucky. Nonetheless, she is a widow now too. Her husband who was an old man, eighty nine years old, died. And rightly so. Nonetheless, we went through a great deal of suffering as we grew up in order to get where we are. Had my sister not been in so many troubles... She had a good time in her marriage. I have three children. All these are my grandchildren100. I have two grandchildren and in addition two great-grandchildren now. And later on, as we were grown up, we took care of my mother. We had her with us and my dear husband loved her very much; we had a good time. She was seventy eight when she died. It has been exactly thirty nine years today, going on to forty, since she died. Germans in the village We always had Germans over our heads. This was not my house those days. I stayed at my fathers house which is further down the school. The Germans and all the Italians came there as they were going to the school. There was a time, they spent around fifteen days and had spread all over the fields; they were a lethal threat. They took the galines101, as we called them then; they caught and slaughtered pigs. Because it is different nowadays compared to those years: pigs, chick100 101
She shows a number of framed photographs laying on the living rooms table. In Greek: which means turkeys.
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ens and everything else were free in the streets (so they took them and had them slaughtered). But we had problems too. Once, the Germans came and broke in to our house (we were inside of course) and took our clothes. Those times things were differently and we used to sleep on a wooden frame called contada that my mother used to put the clothes on. But a neighbour came and said to the Germans: You should be ashamed, wanting to take the clothes from this woman; she has three children, how will she cover them at night in their sleep? And you also killed her husband!. My mother didnt say a word. And we managed to keep most of our clothes. However, they still took from us two blankets for their sleep. They left them later in the school. Should we take them and reuse them? Of course not. The place was full of blankets, pillows, anything they had been able to find. But where could we take them? There were no litter bins; no such things were available to throw them away. We used to throw them in the rivers. Would we sleep again on them? No. The rebels movement again When the rebels movement started again, I might have been then fifteen, sixteen years old, everyone came to the school. And they knew who supported what group. And they used to shout at us and so we had to leave: Go to your houses, to your houses. But the rebels gave some trouble to other people. They also had a wounded man in the clinic (there was a clinic there); Hourdakis Nikolaos was the name of the doctor there. The doctor was a peaceful man that served everybody and accepted anything you had to offer him. Even if you said: I have nothing to give you, he would accept it. Yet he did what he was trained to do and provided the proper medical treatment. I dont know who turned him in for being a leftist and the man was in a bit of trouble. He also had a grown up son studying then and the military arrested him and took him to Makronisos I think (I dont know really well) where they had him tortured. But they were very nice people, just to everybody. No one came to them without being helped. And they were not even from our village. The mother of the doctor was from Neapolis and the relatives of his wife from Ierapetra. Thus, they had nothing to do with our village,
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yet they were very nice persons. The wheel has turned We had a lady over here, it has been a little while since she passed away, and her father was killed too by the Germans. She could not stand them at all, she could not hear them talking. And the wheel turned and her son got married to a German girl. But the German girl is very nice. And the lady loved her later on, for the girl treated her mother-in-law nicely.
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Michalis Ksiristakis I was born in 30. I went to preliminary school, and we were at school, in the fifth grade if I am not mistaken, the morning that war was declared. At that time, there werent any mass media, there were just a few. We were inside the school in the morning and we were waiting for the time to come to have the lesson started. The teachers were very strict those years and the parents too. We were very noisy in the classroom because the teacher was absent, he hadnt come yet. Actually, he had been very late; it was nine o clock already whereas he should have come at eight o clock. We were children of course, we didnt know what was going on: maybe he got sick, we were saying, and we started playing, laughing, these things. And at one moment, the teacher came in (he was named Vlahakis) and we were left speechless, because we were afraid that we would be punished since we had punishments, fasts. We saw him worried, sad, and he said: Children, dont be afraid, I guess tears filled his eyes, I will tell you that today Italy declares the war on us and I dont remember what else he told us. We were left speechless. We had heard about the war, OK, it would be something sad of course. He told us a few things, I dont remember what exactly, then he dismissed us and we left. From that point on I remember nothing. They went, they left, they were taken as soldiers, the teacher, my father, all of that age group were young. I finished the preliminary school of course with another teacher: another one came that was younger, older, I dont know, and I finished it in the normal time frame, without losing time. I finished the preliminary school in 42. I was the first child to be born and then my father, Emmanouil Ksiristakis, had another one. It lived for two years, died from pneumonia. He then had another one, to cut a long story short, he had three more boys who died at the age of two, four and five. Two of them died from pneumonia and the other one from malaria. For good or for bad, I survived. After 40, he had the last child, the fifth one, a boy too, who survived. He had the opportunity; the occupation ended in lets say 50, and he graduated from the Commercial School. I liked school too, but unfortunately in 43 that I finished the preliminary school my father
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was killed and my mother was left at the age of thirty with a three year old child and me, thirteen years old. Hardships of course then: we went to high school from here with the donkey, there was no street, we used wood, charcoals and an oil range to cook our food. Well, that was as far as we could go. So in 40, after a period of time since we were told that Italy declared the war on Greece, it was made public here that they would bombard the village, the bridge down at Mirtos. We left and went to the countryside where we had a house; the location is called Platia Mirthia. There were myrtles there, that is why probably the place was named like that102. My grandfather had built a little house there and there was a cave beside a trench. When we saw the airplane from here, we went to the cave. They were flying very low, bombarding. We were children of course. We saw an airplane for the first time and we were curious but afraid also. That period ends and my father returns from Albania. He went to Albania and suffered greatly in the snow. He returned here unharmed, fortunately he returned unharmed. I dont remember now exactly how he managed and they went away, they embarked, because it was a problem to leave from Peloponnese; they left secretly by boats. I dont remember the story exactly. What a trouble he went through in order to come to Crete! Then there were the Italians, I dont remember when exactly. I remember the Italians when they came here, since there was a medlar tree here, close by (it was May and the medlars were mellowed) and about ten of them ran to the tree and ate medlars. We were looking at them; they made jokes, they patted us. So we thought: These are good people. As children we stopped being afraid of them. Then I lived with them a little bit here, where they had a guardhouse with about seven people with a command sergeant in charge, and we had a nice time. They didnt do any harm: they chatted with the grown ups and they loved us too, the children. We didnt have any problem, no problem at all.
102
Mirthia ( or in Greek) is the myrtle tree.
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The Germans come That period came to an end and the Germans came. We hadnt seen them yet. I remember that they started burning the villages and then the entire village here was aroused and they took most of the things, especially the foods, whatever they had and we went to cottages, to caves. Just as it happened in other villages too of course, but here in our village they were all gone, because we could see the smoke from here. We said: Ah, any minute now and they will burn our village too. We didnt know that our village would survive; I dont know why it survived. Everyone in my family went to a cottage over there, it was called Mesomales, where the house of an uncle of mine called Marakis Emmanouil was. He had two sisters, my mother and another one. He had one child, his other sister had two (she had one, up to that time) and my mother had me and my younger brother who was three years old. We stayed there for one night. In the meanwhile, my father came there the following day, to plant green cabbage, filladia as we used to call them then, in that field there. It was September and filladia were planted at that time. We stayed there. That day the Germans came from Metaxohori, it was called Parsas then; they went through Christo (we heard it of course afterwards because we were in the field). In the night we heard gun shooting. The Germans were very close and the gun shooting could be heard, after this hour, after ten in the morning. My mother of course was anxious because my father had come here and she said: The Germans will kill him. The whole day went by in anxiety, my mother was crying, all my aunts there. He came in the evening, around nine o clock, it was dark. I can tell you that my mother was ready to start a fight with him, but she saw him covered with blood, his clothes were full of blood, and she thought that he was injured, but he wasnt. They had killed some locals; the Germans had captured some fellow villagers, fifteen or sixteen people, I dont remember. Whoever made it, left some woman came from Christo, her name was Eirini she was named Papadaki after she got married (her husbands name). She saved a great many of them, may she be well, if she is not dead. She shouted from the oil factory: Go away, go away, the Germans kill as many men as they find!. Many went
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away. Some others didnt leave and were captured and taken a bit farther down from the village, around a kilometre, to a parental field and were executed. No one got away. They were very young of course: the older one was fifty years old and the others twenty five and over. They executed them in the location Hiromantres, it was a passable road. As soon as they were a kilometer outside the village, they took them off the street, and two persons stopped them with the machine guns and executed them. My father had a friend, Tsagkarakis Petros, and a grandfather, Damianakis, whose wife was from here and they were killed. He was bold and picked them up and they brought them to burry them. Thats why the clothes were full of blood. After the executions, we leave for another cottage And he tells now the whole story and the men had a council there: We are not safe in this place because the passable road passes through, the one connecting Males with Kalamauka and Ierapetra. It was very close, one hundred metres, and the Germans used it when they came from Ierapetra or went from here to Ierapetra. And they decided: We will go to the upper cottage in Platia Mirtia, that was very far away and was not on the main road. We left, again during the night, with the animals, with the blankets (they were called patites then) some food, whatever we had, we were few, very few, and we started to go there. Before we reached our destination, a relative of my father that had a cottage farther back and was my fathers friend said to him: You will stay here. We have a house to stay here, to keep us company. We also wanted to be with many people, we felt more secure when we were many. We stayed there. It would have been I dont remember the date, but when they killed my father it was 19 of September, day Sunday. On the 15th of September they killed here. Well, four days passed by, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; it was Sunday. Since then, we, the family (the women, the young children) stayed at the cottage where that man accommodated us. Liratzakis Emmanouil was his name (he is dead). Next to his cottage, there was another one and Hourdakis family was there: he was a rural doctor here, there was his wife, teacher Crisi, who
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was helping me with my studies and she had a daughter too whose name was Froso (she is still alive in Athens, a microbiologist). We played together as children; we knew each other from the preliminary school. Her father had also baptised an aunt of mine and we had a close friendly relationship with her mother and that girl too; she was a little girl that time, twelve years old. We spent three very nice days. On Saturday night, a woman had born in the cottage up there, in Platia Mirtia. She was my fathers sister-in-law (the wife of his brother Georgios). They had a cottage too and they stayed there and she gave birth to a girl. My father learned about it and he wanted to go and see her and he took me along too. She was a sister-in-law of course and the newborn was a niece. We went there and my father saw her (I didnt see her). He went inside the house and saw the lying-in woman and the baby too, while I sat outside on a threshing floor with the other ones. The Germans shoot at us At night, as it was getting dark, we left and went to a monastery called Agios Georgios at Rihtes. We saw there a great many of women, children and men. It might have been fifty or one hundred people there. There was water there, there was the monastery, there were one or two cottages. I dont know why there were so many people assembled there. We stayed there for the night, outside. I wore a coat, nothing else. It was September of course, summer, but it was chilly in the night, and I dont remember having felt cold. In the morning, when it dawned, a group of people got together, my father and his friends. Let me refer to them by their names. It was I, thats one, my father, two, Haralampakis Konstantinos with his son Giorgos, four, Mathioudakis Ioannis, five, Nikos Kalaitzakis, six, Karofillakis Emannouil, twenty four years old, seven, Milakis Giagkos, eight, Prousakis Emmanouil, nine, and Diakakis Emmanouil (they called him Mastromanoli and he was from an island, I dont know from where). The older ones where Prousakis, Diakakis and Mathioudakis, they were around fifty years old. The rest of them were around twenty five, twenty eight years old. My father was thirty three. So, we go farther away, about a kilometre, where Mathioudakis Ioannis had a vineyard. He asked us to go there where there was also water,
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to eat grapes, to stay there too. The school was on the opposite side and had a great number of Germans. Was it a company, I dont know what it was. We reached the vineyard, whereas three stayed behind us. They were older than us and didnt follow. We reached the vineyard, each one of us cut a grape off, we ate it, everyone inside the vineyard. The day was breaking then of course, we could see the school and the shadows of the Germans were visible. Then, as we were eating grapes, we heard a burst of machine gunfire which echoed of course. There was a hill and the echo of these gun shots seemed to be very close to us. So, we crawled across the vineyard. There was a forest on the east side, not a big forest, bushes, spalathi as we used to say, and Mathioudakis the owner had constructed a ditch to prevent the rain water from going inside the vineyard and to avoid damages. That ditch of course, also called vaga, was very old and myrtles and grass had grown up in there, but nonetheless, you could see that it was deep. We all got in there and lay face down: we were seven people there. I remember very well that there was a small passage from the forest that led to the vineyard. You had to push aside the branches with your hands to get to the vineyard. The first one was Karofillakis Emmanouil, face down, behind him was Kalaitzakis (they were very close friends), I was the third, my father was fourth, fifth was Haralampakis Georgios (he was my age, thirteen years old), his father followed and the last one was Mathioudakis Ioannis who was the owner. At the end, there was a cliff about ten, fifteen meters high. There was no space for other ones, should there be any: the head of each one touched the boots of the other one. We didnt talk. It was a bit windy. In about ten minutes, the voices of the Germans were heard, about ten minutes. We stayed still of course: we didnt speak, we didnt move. We were inside the myrtles and we couldnt be seen. The one who was first was Karofillakis. The first German passed to come in the vineyard for grapes too. There was a tall rock outside the vineyard on the east side and there was a German (I saw him afterwards) and of course he must have been in charge, because he held a big wireless. He was on the rock and could be seen from where we were underneath. He didnt see us. But as the German was passing, the first one that got to the vineyard, he saw Karofillakis. He touched him with the
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gun in the waist (I saw him, I was the third one) and he shot him once and Karofillakis said: Oh!. Nothing else. That was it. The German passed by, nothing: he didnt see us, he didnt see anyone else. Manolis Karofillakis was from Krousta, his mother was married here. He was a shoemaker here and a friend of my fathers and as my father could not afford my going to school, he asked him and took me there to learn the craft of the shoemaker. We had known one another for two, three months and he loved me very much. I loved that man also. When I saw that they killed him I was very sad, but I was a child, I didnt take anything into account nor was I afraid I felt so awkward that I wasnt afraid of anything, I mean, as if I was dead. As soon as they killed him, Kalaitzakis that was immediately after him, got up and ran away, heading towards the cliff. The one that was on the rock, the German in charge, saw him and shot a burst of gunfire towards him but he was not the one that was hit: as my father was lying face down, he got a bullet in his back that went through. High in the back. When my father got that bullet, he stood up. He wore a hat and he was waving it to surrender. The German saw him from above. They immediately stopped and ceased firing. They called the man in charge I guess, more people, and they assembled there. I stood up with my father, he was still walking. We went across the vineyard and we came down. As we got to the end of the vineyard, there was an empty space in the field, in which the owner had thrown the dry branches when he was trimming. There was a pile there, a big pile and my father didnt have the stamina and sat over there. I was holding a small bag then and I had bread and cheese. The Germans where talking to us. Of course, they would have asked me about the rebels, but they didnt know Greek, we didnt know German. There was no interpreter. They emptied the bag with the food down, and I, as a child, figured that they were probably looking for a pistol or something like that. They didnt find anything. Since we didnt understand each other they stopped asking us. Two young Germans take me; they were very young, maybe they were from eighteen to nineteen years old. I remember their faces very well. They put me in the middle and loaded me with three bullet belts for the machine gun, which were heavy; they were heavy. They put them
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here around the neck, three bullet belts. There was a stone bench like this, long and narrow. My father was sitting on the vines. He was bleeding. When we were about to finish, to leave, to go down to the forest, I heard a gunshot. Although I was a child and didnt have the knowledge that young children have today, I understood that they had finished my father off, as they actually did. They gave him the coup de grace with the pistol in the head. Due to his bad luck though, he was not shot in the head, he was shot in the neck and the bullet went through and he didnt die. The Germans take me from the place of the execution The Germans took me and got me farther down: it is called the water of Panagia Ksakoustis. They had camped there; they must have been a company. They didnt intend to kill that day. It is an omission of course, I should have said that from the beginning: they didnt intend to kill. They were coming from Kalamauka and had people from Kalamauka also with animals, some things, whatever it was that they had loaded. In the camping site that the two Germans took me to later on, they had the wireless and I saw the people from Kalamauka there. They had captured two people from our village and they saw me. I had blood on me of course, because where I didnt get up when my father got the first bullet and the blood was dripping upon me. I had very much blood on me too. They asked me if I was wounded. There was Georgios Lamprakis there (he is dead now) and Nikolaos Mpantouvakis that was captured also out there. I said: I am not wounded, but they killed my father and the rest, all seven of them. I thought that with all that gun shooting there, the grenades, no one would have survived. I figured that they were killed. We were chatting and the Germans saw us and split us. They put us separately so as not to talk to each other. They had captured Mpantouvaki in a location that was called Vokano. He was there with his family also, with young children. It didnt happen, they didnt hurt him. They captured him and they took him. They saw the baby (he had a baby there two years old) and they saw that he was not a rebel, but they took him anyway. I want to say that they didnt have an intention that day, but from that point, after they arrested Mpantouvakis, the Ger-
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mans saw with the binoculars (it was heard, I didnt see them) two hunters, armed with rifles. Then, a platoon, I dont know how many they were, was ordered to go after them. They chased them but they didnt catch them. They hid and the Germans didnt catch them. Another man, Stefanakis, paid the price. He was running to get away, to save himself, and they shot him and he was killed on the spot. Farther away, a field guard, Spatharakis, was running and they shot him and killed him. By the time they came to us they had killed these two. That is, before dawn, because they had seen those men armed. Maybe it is a lie, I dont know, but this is what was said. Well, they had me there all day as a hostage. At about three o clock I saw that they fired green flares. I understood it was for the detachment that had gone to chase those people, in order to be gathered After an hour, they all gathered; they loaded the ammunitions, the bullets, whatever they had, on the donkeys. At noon, the two young Germans that took me from where they had killed my father, say to me: Grapes. That is, I understood two words, that they wanted grapes, to take them to a vineyard that has grapes. I knew now two vineyards. One was down here, in Panagia Ksakousti, but I figured that there wouldnt be any grapes because it was 19 of September and they would have cut them off. Up there though, in a spot called Vocano where an aunt of mine had a vineyard, I knew that there were grapes but it was about one kilometre and a half away. I say: There are grapes, but it is far away. They made me a sign to go. These two Germans take me again and I lead them to the grapes. We cut. I was wearing an overcoat, a coat that I took off later. Think about it, I didnt feel warm, nothing. And they put it down and we fill it with grapes. Then I grab one side and the other German the sleeves and then they saw that I couldnt and those two grabbed it. I was thinking that they were going to kill me. I figured that since I showed them the grapes now, they will kill me afterwards. They didnt hurt me. We go down; they were gathered, they loaded, they left. They loaded this man, Mpantouvakis Nikolis with a wireless on his back. They all left. A German stayed with me, with a machine gun. I didnt know that it was machine gun; I learned it after I went to the army. Piccolo, he
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says to me in Italian. I say: Males. He says: Parti. He beckoned at me with his arm like this, to leave. I leave. The road was passable, there was no motorway then. I wasnt planning to go to the village but to the cottage, where my mother was, to tell her the events. That German followed me to Panagia Ksakousti. I see now the German following me about one hundred meters away and I think that he is waiting to kill me. In Panagia, he climbs up to a rooftop and I was in the direction towards Males. As I walked about a kilometre, I looked at him: I figured he is waiting to kill me. I didnt know that he was far away, but I was a child. As soon as I didnt see him anymore, I breathed normally. I say: He cant see me, I escaped. Free, I return to my mother I go up to the cottage, I knew of course. It was not dark yet, that is, the road could be seen. On my way to the cottage, to the house where my mother was, I happened to pass outside a small cave, where there were women and children inside, known to me, and an aunt of mine that was also at the cottages. There were around fifteen women and children hidden somewhere inside the cave. They had built a wall in the front part of the cave with stones and they were looking through the fissures. This pathway happened to pass outside the cave. As I was passing by insouciantly, carefree, I heard some voices, the stonewall was breaking down and the stones were falling on my feet. Such fright to feel in this moment: to hear suddenly, in this peace, these voices and to have stones falling. An aunt of mine, called Kalampakaki, saw me. She was my second aunt but very beloved one. She had helped my mother in her labour, she was like a midwife, and she had practically done everything but for breastfeeding me. And she sees me and kisses me and hugs me and says: Are you injured?. No I say, they killed my father, they killed those seven people that I was with. The Germans are gone I am telling them, there is no fear, step out. And two of my aunts accompanied me and they took me to the cottage where I found my mother at about nine o clock. They immediately dressed me with dresses, because they didnt kill women. They were afraid now. I stayed there and my mother left, I dont
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remember, with one or two women (there were no men) to go very far away, during the night, to go where they had killed my father. A long distance, during the night, through small pathways. So they went, I dont know which women, it was the aunt Kalampakaki, I dont know who else went. They reached the point where they had my father and Karofillakis executed. When they reached the place, they were still there. Two of them had been left hidden. Haralampakis with his thirteen year old son were there all day long. They were listening to my father, since he was making that snoring sound, but they were afraid of getting up and tying his wounds. They didnt know whether the Germans were there. But they told me later that they were listening to him for all the time that he was snoring. They got up too and helped and he was taken to the monastery of Agios Georgios, that is opposite (the church of) Panagia. The whole night there, alive. And he was whispering. Alive of course. That is what I am talking about: the misfortune that he was not shot in his head. The next day at noon, they lifted him up from there to bring him to the village. They made a stretcher for him, using some small beams of wood and wool blankets. When they passed nearby the cottage to come to the village, he thought I was killed, that they had killed me, and he didnt believe what my mother was telling him: The child is at home. He was saying: I want to see it. They waited about five hundred meters farther up from the cottage, and they came and took me. I went and he sees me and squeezes my hand. Actually, he couldnt squeeze it. Are you alive my child? he says to me. I am alive, I tell him. I went along to bring him to the village. The women lifted him up. As we were approaching the bridge here that is called Flegas (there was no road of course, we went from a passable path), a woman came from the village and says: The Germans are at the village. Ah, there were men also. Only the men should leave. Well, the one or two men that were with us left again and the women handled the stretcher. And I went back to the cottage too, because my mother didnt let me follow. He lived until one o clock at night; he died on Monday night, i.e. Tuesday morning hours. He lived for forty-eight hours after he got wounded. So this is it. He was very energetic. He managed and had a house built here, we were staying at the village and he had a house farther away here. He was
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active, he was hard working, very hard working. He was working as a waterman, he was a labourer, I mean, he didnt stop at all and he was very strong, very strong, a daring man. He went to Albania and survived, he came here to his house, unfortunately We made it The Germans came here afterwards. They captured people; they surrounded the village one morning to capture some people that were suspected of providing supplies to the rebels, a teacher named Papaleksantraki. They surrounded the village, they set up the machine guns, I remember some scenes. We had Germans frequently. They were not permanently here but they were here frequently. My mother, a young boy and I, stayed. I continued and went to an uncle of mine and I learnt the craft of the shoemaker and I finished here as a practical shoemaker. Then I went to Agios Nikolaos for one year to complete my training. Then I went to Ierapetro (Ierapetra) to learn to border and hem, kordeliastres, as it was called then, for the fthonia. It was called fthonia: that is, to stitch, to cut the leather before you place it in the shoe tree. We were using designs from magazines, from prospectus. I was talented for all, but for womens shoes particularly. I finished the training; I opened up a shoemakes shop afterwards. I got married twenty three years old. We went to the army late. I shouldnt have gone to the army: I didnt know I was a war victim to fill out the papers and I went as a soldier, I was married of course. I got married twenty two years old, I had been married for one year before I went to the army. Then, a brother-in-law of mine was a priest here (that is, I got married to Katina, the sister of priest Arhaniotaki) and he took care of it and filled out the papers. But I had done ten months. When the papers came to me, I was dismissed immediately. But then we used to go to the army when we were grown ups, we went to the army at the age of twenty two, I dont know why. We made it, with great hardships, great hardships. Later on, they granted a German pension for my mother, a compensation. But unfortunately they gave only 50%: the State embezzled the rest, I dont know who. And she received a small pension and my brother managed to go to high school. I learned the craft, we got
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through. We suffered. My mother I guess suffered very much: she was a widow at the age of thirty two, my father was thirty three when they killed him. What can you do, this is what occupation was like. Then, I have been in hardship too, I have changed many jobs: at the cooperative, a warehouseman of fertilizers, administrator, president, mayor, I have been through everything. In any case, life was very hard for all the inhabitants, for all the men, the children; wretched, miserable and hungry and hungry. We survived of course because we had the oil, we had the greens, we planted some vegetables. We were deprived of things of course but people elsewhere were in a worse situation. But humans always survive in the village from the agricultural cultivations. The Germans In my opinion, the simple German soldiers are not to blame. These two children, I omitted to mention, that took me from the first moment and took me for grapes, I happened to see them again after fifteen days. I was going with Maraki, an uncle of mine who survived, to a field he had up there. It was named Platanos, a vineyard, and we were riding the animals. The Germans were coming again from Kalamauka towards Males. We werent afraid then, the executions had stopped. We stopped at the edge of the road and the phalange of the Germans passed. As I was on the animal, riding, a German looks at me and greets me: How are you. he says piccolo?. And he squeezes my hand smiling and I remembered that he was one of those boys. That is, their behaviour to me was very good and he recognised me and said103: There, do you remember?. Like this, in broken Greek. I understood that it was this boy. I mean that there were good people also. Maybe thats why he felt compassion for me too: he was young also, maybe he was eighteen, nineteen years old. That is, we had a difference of five, six years, and he was probably thinking: There, he is a child too. I am saying that the Germans were not to blame, whereas their leader was. Hitler was so cruel, that the Germans themselves were afraid to express their complaint or their
103
Eki, thimasai?, i.e. There, do you remember?
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pain, because they didnt know if someone was listening and if they would be executed. Eh, now after all these years, the situation has changed. That is the good thing: that up to now we have lived a great period of peace, the only peaceful period that Greece has been through since then, excluding the civil war of course. That was awful too. We have lived those experiences of course and they dont go away from our memory: awful pictures have been left. The young will read about them, if he ever reads about them. I believe he will end up with a conclusion, but these stories should remain and we should wish that they never happen again. We should wish that they never happen again. The Italians When I was trained as a shoemaker in Agios Nikolaos (the shoemakers shop was beside a monastery) the guardhouse of the Italians was in todays post office and they were very close to us. They came to the shop with this craftsman Karofillakis that was killed, and they were making jokes and arguing, like people from the village. They were cooking little cats, they were eating them, and once the Italians gave a cat to the craftsman: We have nice rabbit. After he ate it, they told him that it was a kitten [laughs] and he got mad, that is, they made serious jokes. But they were very nice. Then, one was making fun, Argisto was his name: there was an old lady near there and she went with a water jar to the tap, the tap was next to the monastery, and she filled it up. But she held it on her knees and she was fat and she was moving left and right and Argistos was making fun of her, he was imitating her. They were like us. Eh, as far as the Germans were concerned we were afraid of them. The sound of a boot was enough to make us tremble, to make everyone tremble. Today Anyway, we had a nice time afterwards. I am happy of course because I lived the events, I felt them, I remember them and needless to say, I lived a good life too, I cant complain. I have a daughter, she is married and lives in Heraklio, I have two grown up grandchildren, one is thirty and the other one is twenty seven. We are fine, thank God; the one child that I have has settled down now, she is fine. I loved my vil-
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lage, all the people loved me, may they all be well: I am happy with my fellow villagers. Without my wanting to pursue the presidency or becoming a mayor, the people from my village proposed me by themselves, they forced me. I managed somehow the first time, I said I am not doing it again. Another person was elected again and they sought me and forced me again and I was elected with the support of three parties the second time. I dont know if I have to say this, but because I love my people from the village and they loved me, I would like to thank all the villagers because they showed their love: they were chasing me with three parties and I was elected with 56%. I won easily with 56% from the first round, and the first time as a president with a great 65%. I believe that I did whatever I could. I hope they are pleased, but I am very pleased too with my fellow villagers. If they later read this, I thank them very much, and you and everyone.
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Iordanis Tsakirakis I am single. I had my mother here in Males but she died in 1955. My father died before the war, in 1938. I had one sister but she is dead also. Of course she was married and I have two nieces now from her family. I went only to elementary school. I barely finished it in 1938. As it is known, life was full of suffering in our villages during the occupation. The conquerors had everything under their control and possession, seizing and taking it all: animals, crops, bread, chickens etc. Regarding clothes and shoes, half of us were walking bare foot and the other half were almost naked, dressed in rags. Later, when the Italians came, they used to sell us or give us certain things almost for free. For the most part, old tents that we transformed into clothes, pairs of trousers, jackets and so on. But the situation was tragic. Later on, in July of 1943 when Italia collapsed and Mussolini was overthrown, the Germans took over the whole area and we were forced to flee to the mountains. Not all of us left; five or six people from our village and an equal number from the neighbouring villages. We went to an area called Hameti. It is where the sun sets and where Mpantouvas had his hideout. I spent there around a year and a half. I went in March of 1942 and left in 1943. After the battle of Simi we were forced to separate. The Germans had started retaliation actions: executing and burning down the villages. They arrested some of our people too, an adjutant from Lasithi, and they had him wandering with them, dressed in the German uniform. They held gatherings in the squares of the villages, dragging this man with them. He was forced to become an informer. He knew who had been in the hideout and those he pointed out were to be arrested and executed at once by the Germans. Eh, and after the 12th of September when the battle in Kato Simi took place, a number of tragic events happened to all villages. They burned down around eleven villages, six in the eastern part of Viannos and five here in the region of Ierapetra. There were almost six hundred to six hundred and fifty dead. Our own village, Males, was also included in the list of the villages to be burned down. But it was saved thanks to the
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heroine Mathioudaki Antonia and the bishop of Chania, Mazokopakis, serving at that time in the episcopate of Ierapetra. Antonia Mathioudaki was an interpreter of the Germans but an agent as well of the English, the allies. We left together for the Middle East. Along with Antonia Mathioudaki there was a man from our village, Drigianakis Manolis was his name. He now lives in Volos with some relatives of his; he is sick and they came and took him with them. Leaving Crete for the Middle East, we enlisted as volunteers. I served there, in the Ministry of Information in Cairo, around six months. We were located in the Zamalek area, on the bank of river Niles. We were later on taken to Palestine. There, the late commander of the Sacred Band104, Christodoulos Tsigantes, came and picked around ten men from our unit, operating in Ismailia. We were chosen on a voluntarily basis and taken to the Sacred Band in Palestine. And then we departed for Athens. On October 24th of 1944, the Germans had left Athens. We went there originally and then moved on to Siros. At that time the so-called Dekemvriana took place. On our leaving Siros we went to the Aegean islands and liberated them from the Germans. Then we got involved in a sabotage in Rhodes, in an area called Monolithos. We killed around forty five Germans and arrested eleven as prisoners. We also blew up five strongholds with cannons and gained control of the west side of Rhodes. After that, the passage of the British ships was free. Following that, we returned to our home base which was situated in Simi, in Dodekanisa. The sabotage in Rhodes took place on the 5th of May and the German General who came to Simi signed the surrendering treaty on the 8th. The next day, on the 9th, torpedo boat destroyers shipped free to Rhodes and we disarmed all Germans. There were around five thousand along with the Italians. We took all the weapons and then went to Leros, Kos, Mikonos and the rest of the islands in the Dodekanisa complex where we disarmed them and captured them as prisoners. We placed them in boats and sent them to camps in Africa. And on the 9th of the same month, the final peace treaty was signed in Berlin, in the
104
In Greek: .
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presence of Field Marshal Montgomery, Eisenhower and the Russian General Zhukov. And so the war was over. But then again, we had another mission. And that was to fight the Japanese for Greece had not declared the war against Japan although our allies, Britain and the USA, were already in war with Japan. And it had to be us, since the senior classes of 1938 and 1939 had to stay in Greece to organise its post-war standing army that was naturally in great need. So, we took the ocean liner from Chios, I think the name of the ship was Enterprise, to Alexandria. Our final destination was Burma (the Union of Myanmar), in Southeast Asia. We camped next to the pyramids of Cairo, where we spent around a month of special training. In the meantime, the Americans dropped the nuclear bomb and eventually we didnt have to go. Japan capitulated, I think on the 3rd of September of 1945. That is five, six months after Germanys surrender. We came back afterwards, in October of 1945. I was discharged from the army and came here to the village. In the mountains The reason I went to the mountain was out of hate against the conquerors. That is the Mussolinis black-shirted fascists, for the Prefecture of Lasithi was under Italian occupation and only after 1943 that Mussolinis regime collapsed, did the Germans come and took over. They had repeatedly made public announcements that the villagers should hand all their weapons, i.e. both guns and hunting rifles; there would be no exception, even barrels alone without shoulder stock would had to be handed. And they found two barrels in the house of Garefalakis the coppersmith and Spatharakis, in their search in the village Christos. They executed both of them, in an area we call Halavra that is on the borders of our village. And then, they came and surrounded our village during the night. I had bought a pair of army boots, how much do you think? Forty five okas of oil in the black market! Black market was widespread in the entire Crete and Greece. So, my late mother took my boots, hid them in the barn and covered them with hay. There was a chance they wouldnt find them. The barn
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was inside the house, for we had donkeys, oxen, and other animals we used to feed. In their search they found my boots in the hay and came and slapped me twice. I was young, should be around seventeen, eighteen years old. And they tell me: Where did you find the boots? One of their captains could speak Greek fluently. I replied: I bought them from a German. I lied for I knew that Italians were afraid of the Germans despite being allies. And he says: No, no, scarpe, where scarpe means Italian shoes. No, he continues, furbo, meaning that I am sly. So, in any case, they took my boots, they confiscated them and I had nothing to wear, not even a slipper; I was walking barefoot. The next morning, I took a box of gunpowder I had, I opened it and poured its content over the animal dung. I forgot to mention that I had not handed my fathers hunting rifle, but had it hidden out in the fields. I regarded myself as a hunter too! And also didnt say that the animals were kept separately in the stable although we were using the same door. I threw the empty box in doma105; they never found it. And even if they had found it, it would have been empty nonetheless. The Italians formed three groups. They had forced the priest, the mayor and the chief policeman to come along during their search. The population of the village that time was about one thousand and five hundred inhabitants. The priest came to my house with the unit of the Italians. They took my boots, I cried, nothing, and on top of that, they slapped me twice. The following morning the priest sent the field guard to notify me to go to the school, which was the headquarters of the Italians. They did not actually use the school as their residence, but more likely as a muster station, just like the church. I got scared and fled barefoot to the mountain where I encountered another man from our village they were also chasing. Five six days afterwards, my mother sent me a message to return for the Italians had given me back the boots. The priest was a cousin of mine and he must have said something, or even bribed them, I dont know. I cant describe my joy that moment, thank God! I was in a cot105
In Greek: , that is a small room usually located at a higher level inside the house.
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tage then, far away, in Rouso Ksilo, up in the mountain. Of course, he was my godfather and I had enough to eat and drink, may they be blessed. After that, I returned and put my boots on. And then, Mpantouvas showed up in the night. (We had a doctor, Hourdakis was his name.) He wanted volunteers to strenghten the power of his group. There were around thirty to thirty five rebels he had on his side and he wanted more. The following day, the president of the village, a relative and also from my village, came and asked me: Do you want to go?. And I said: I am going. On the other hand, food was an issue. We had nothing to eat. Do you understand me now? The British dropped boots, clothes, jackets etc using parachutes. I went to the hideout together with another man from my village. We spent there around a year and a half. We first went there in March of 1942 and left in September of 1943. At that time, the hideout was destroyed for the Germans came there and burned down everything. They also burned down the villages and we were forced to leave. We went to our own cottages. I had a house, on the way from Anatoli. We stayed there, two or three people. Of course my mother was still alive. She lived here in the village and provided us supplies with the donkey every two or three days. We hid in the caves, inside the rocks, to protect ourselves. Others were arrested and executed in the middle of the street, by the Germans. This is my journey and the reason I fled to the mountain; out of hate against the conquerors. Besides, I was at an age where someone defies fear. I would be afraid if I had to go now. Back then, we were not aware of the consequences. We were young and had no experience, nor did we know how the events would evolve. Can you imagine what is it like to burn down eleven villages? Do you know how they did it? They had a substance, called dry gasoline. They would break the door or the window, throw the material inside the house and then use a flare to set the house on fire. It was a powder, just like flour. Nothing was left. In Viannos, they even placed dynamites in the foundations of the burned houses, to demolish them completely. It was an unprecedented disaster.
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The battle of Kato Simi I took part in the battle of Kato Simi106 1. Georgios Math. Aggelakis, Kato Simi. 2. Apostolos Emm. Vagionakis, Mithi (killed) 3. Ioannis Georg. Vourgakis, Kato Simi. 4. Emmanuil Mina Liapakis, Kato Simi. 5. Emmanuil Ioan. Manousakis, Kato Simi. 6. Michail Ioannou Manolakis or Mparitis, Kato Simi. 7. Georgios Emm. Mastrantonakis, Kato Simi (heavily injured in his leg). 8. Emmanuil N. Metaxakis or Mpouhlis, Kato Simi. 9. Nikolaos Mich. Metaxakis, Kato Simi. 10. Georgios Metaxakis, Parsas. 11. Georgios Mich. Milonakis, Kato Simi. 12. Emmanuil Nikol. Mpekrakis, Kato Simi (lightly injured). 13. Ioannis Emm. Mpekrakis, Kato Simi. 14. Emmanuil Mplazantonakis, Parsas. 15. Georgios Emm. Pitropakis or Ahergionas, Sikologos. 16. Georgios Az. Rinakis, Kato Simi. 17. Georgios Mich. Rinakis, Kato Simi. 18. Harilaos Emm. Solidadakis, Mithi. 19. Haralambos Emm. Siggelakis, Kato Simi. 20. Apostolos Hamilakis, Kato Simi. 21. Iordanis Tsakirakis, Males. 22. Konstantinos Spathatakis, Males I lifted Mastrantonakis Giorgos up and we left together for Africa a year later. The battle took place in 1943 and we left in April of 1944. And they brought him to the beach where he was kissing me for it had been me and another man from my village that had lifted him up. We
106
In this part, Mr. Tsakirakis starts reading names of rebels from Kato Simi and other near by villages who took part in the battle of Kato Simi (including his own name), as they are reported in Dimitrianakis, 2003: 374.
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took him to our hideout and doctors came and treated his wounds. He would have died from bleeding otherwise. Many stories have been written concerning the battle of Simi, but most of them are lies fabricated by the commanders. Commander Mpantouvas was not present in the battle. Besides, we did not plan to give a battle. They conceal it now for we are embarrassed and afraid. The Germans had arrested, twenty, thirty days before the battle, two of our men on their way to the water-mill to charge the batteries for the radio. They used to leave them there for a couple of days and the miller would charge them, but I dont know how he did it. Are you aware of this? I had no idea myself that batteries were rechargeable. There were no means these days like today. We needed either a windmill or a watermill for the radio batteries. We also had a wireless telegraph in the hideout, but that was used by the British agents. In any case, the Germans had arrested two of our people in this watermill the moment they were getting the batteries. They were betrayed and were transferred to the jail in Viannos. No-one knows about this, apart from four, five people. One of them is Spatharakis. His name is written in the paper too, right after mine. He lives in my village, close by, but he has lost his memory and doesnt speak at all. It was my intention to take you there but he doesnt speak a word. He has been lying bedridden; has not moved for two, three years. So, our comrades were kept in the jail of Viannos, yet we were informed that they were about to be transported to Heraklio. No author knows about this piece of information. So, listen carefully and I will tell you how things really happened. Mpantouvas calls us around eleven oclock in the night, and says: Tomorrow, voluntarily, who ever wants, around fifteen men, should go and give a battle halfway the route, to set our men free. And fifteen of us said: OK, this fellow-villager I mentioned earlier included. I only mention those who accepted to go, for there was another fellow-villager that stepped forward and said to Mpantouva: Commander, I have children. And he replied: Eh, you dont go. You get the point, right? It was on a voluntary basis. The following morning was Sunday, 12 of September. As we approached Simi, there were some apple trees and vineyards. We stopped
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and started eating grapes. Our aim was to reach Viannos on foot. That would be about half an hour more. But a couple of days ago, our rebels had killed two Germans in Kato Simi and a detachment of their troops was coming to investigate how and what had happened, before retaliating. And the moment we were eating, this woman, Mathioudaki Maria is her name, came shouting: Germans, Germans!. In fact, she was even carrying a tray with walnuts, almonds and a flask of raki, for treating us. This is what happened, without having any commands from Mpantouvas. Mpantouvas is now ashamed and he didnt say then, nor now, how it happened. The British did the same. Our mission was to go beyond Viannos, but as we approached this vineyard, a messenger from Viannos came and told us that our comrades had escaped during the night and we were to return. Do you understand me now? I am telling you, may I go blind should I lie. And I challenge them all, should anyone still be alive of those we were together in the hideout, rebel or commander, to come forward and contradict me. And so we opened fire. We could not see them for we were lying on the ground, absorbed in cutting and eating grapes. But we saw them when we stood up. As soon as we did so, we went behind some dikes that functioned as breastworks. And the older ones started shooting. I was only twenty then, but I started too. One was next to the other. Metaxakis was from this side, a distance from here to the middle of the table, and Spatharakis from the other side. We were that close to each other. Metaxakis, Giorgos Metaxakis is his full name, was also head of the Prefecture in Agios Nikolaos. He is dead of course; it has been more than fifteen years since he passed away in England from his heart. When the battle begun the Germans fought back. But on their side there were spiky bushes and ditches and they fell on the ditches. Half the prisoners we captured were totally wet. For the ditches were full of water. That is, the sewers. We sent a messenger to go and inform the hideout. We needed help for they were too many: around a hundred fifty Germans. Maybe more. When the other group arrived, we had them surrounded: one group was from the east side, the other one from the west side. The latter being
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our team. Yet, it took some time before the reinforcements arrived. In the meantime, I and Podias, Mitsos Podias is his full name, were already engaged in the battle, shooting at the Germans. Podias was from Agios Sillas but had settled with his family in Heraklio, years before. The battle lasted for six hours. It started ten in the morning and finished five in the afternoon. There was even a German airplane patrolling over our heads but it didnt bombard us. Apostolos Vagionakis was killed in the battle. He was a fine and strong man. I had no idea he was shot dead. I had not seen him dead. I had seen only the Germans. Later on, our group ceased firing and only the other ones continued, till the moment we went down and disarmed those Germans who were still alive. The dead men were all lying on the ground, but we didnt count the bodies. We just placed them on the side of the street, according to the will of the president. Commander Mpantouvas had declared there were two hundred and fifteen dead, whereas his brother, Zaharias Mpantouvas, spoke of one hundred and ten. We say there were forty two dead and thirteen men captured, including Agoglossaki, the poor interpreter from Archanes that Germans were dragging with them. This translates to twelve Germans and one Greek, the interpreter, captured. Nonetheless, they were all killed afterwards in the hideout. A delegation was sent by the bishop in Heraklio and Psalidakis too came to intervene in order for us to spare them, yet with no luck. Mpantouvas and the other comrades too refused. Only two Germans survived that went to Heraklion afterwards and spoke of the whole area and everything they had witnessed. Having forty two dead and thirteen captured, that sums up to fifty five, right? They let those captured leave, but they fell on an ambush of another rebel group that had their hideout destroyed. They executed them along with the interpreter from Archanes, Dimitrios Agoglossakis. His mother had nobody else but for him and without any wrongdoing he was chosen from the Germans to be their interpreter. That is a full account of the conditions we encountered those years; at least the part we lived through, since we were in the proper age. I left on the 4th of April, 1944 to go to Africa. We left from Tsoutsoura and I spent a few days in an area called Housoukas Haradi, i.e.
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a gorge. I was together with three Germans and one Italian prisoner, captured from Petrakogiorgis rebels group. There were two or three groups of rebels operational in Crete. Petrakogiorgis group was in the mountain Psiloritis, whereas Mpantouvas group, ourselves, were over here, in the area called Hameti. We must have stayed in the gorge for about ten days till the submarine arrived. We left at one o clock in the morning and arrived at Mars Mar the following day, at sunset. Have you heard of Tobruk? Mars Mar is quite near. It is a lovely town, exactly like Ierapetra, a mirror image. Nonetheless, it was completely destroyed those years as a result of the fierce battles that took place between the Germans and the British. Kraipe was landed in the same place, when he was abducted from Tsoutsouras at night, just like us. From the area also called Havriana, Kastelliana. Later on we went to Cairo. We spent around fifteen days in a prefecture called Zamalek. We had a proper cleanup: washed ourselves, had a shower over and over and in addition a haircut and a shave. We were exhausted, dressed in rags, without shoes, in horrible condition and full of lice. We were later on divided in different groups, in army units. They knew me before hand, as I was in the Ministry of Information for five months. I left afterwards for Palestine and joined the Sacred Band. This is my entire adventure, as well as of the rebel movement and the Greek nation too, unfortunately. When we returned to Greece, again the same situation. I had taken a number of things from the places I had been to. I had bought them since the British merchant marine gave us a salary as soon as we enlisted in the army units. There was a government then. Tsouderos, Papandreou, I mean the senior one, Kanelopoulos, Voulgaris, Sofoulis from Samo; there were five or six, alternating. When we returned, the conditions were awful and years had to pass before the state economy started developing again. Honours, wars and the nations And in 1988, the government of Andreas Papandreou recognised us as the national resistance, after the strong demand expressed by the Communist Party. And then afterwards they sent these. These first
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ones107 came in honourable mention. We were awarded the other ones immediately: the golden cross of Apostle Marcus, that is Saint Marcus, and the one with the parachute, awarded to us from Egypt. There was Montgomery and General Alexander for the British whereas Germans had Field Marshal Rommel, known by the nickname The Desert Fox. This bloody man was such a clever General but all German Generals too were skilful. Yet they all made the same foolish thing... Hitler was a criminal figure. Had he not attacked Russia, there was a great possibility they would have won the Americans and the British. But Russia is a vast country, had a large army, and was also helped by the Americans and the British. That is were Hitlers plan failed. There are now other people saying that if Germany had won the war, we would be better off. Many people say so, here and elsewhere, even educated ones. I feel sorry for them, they should be ashamed. We would have been exiled to India, the entire Greek nation. He was relying only in the Aryan race, his own race; this bloody criminal was a lunatic. If only one woman is found to give birth to such a monster, the entire human race will become extinct. All wars are initiated by one person alone, two at the most. Isnt it better to have good relations with all other nations? Your mother strives for years to bring you up. And then you are taken and you get killed in the mountains. For faith and for your country. And that applies to both sides, Greeks and Turks alike, everybody. We all are responsible. Unfortunately, humans are still barbarians. Wars should be abolished in the entire planet. How can a mother give birth to a child and then have the state come and take it from her, so it can be sent to the mountains to get killed? Is it like that or no? Do you want to go and die for someone? Of course, it is all different if they come to occupy our country. For we didnt start the war against the Germans and the Italians, they came as conquerors. Why did they come? To enslave us and nothing more. And I am very sorry, for those of my fellow citizens bragging and saying that if Germany had won the war we would have been better off. Thats how
At this point, he presents relative documents from the Patriarch of Alexandria and Africa (1945) and from the Sacred Band (1945) respectively.
107
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they put it. They should be ashamed, not proud of themselves, for saying such foolishness. Thats how I feel. Italians and drudgeries There were four, five Italians in the village, I think five actually. I even remember their names, give me a moment: Mastro-Ilias was the man in charge, he was a Sergeant Major, there was Ergistro, and two more, Rafael, and Badestini. They had their headquarters in the post-office, thats also where they lived. It was in a really bad state those days; now it is repaired. There was only one telephone in the village then. They stayed for three, three and a half years. Do you know when they came to Males? It was 27 of June, 1941 and left in 1943. They belonged to Siena Division and came from the Dodecanese islands. When they came to our village we were still young and used to follow them on their way to the school. They passed right outside these gardens. They had broken branches from medlar trees, carrying them on their shoulders and eating the fruit. Later on they asked for an interpreter for they couldnt communicate. There was a man, his name was Roukounakis, who had been to America and could speak some Spanish. We presented him before them; they were discussing and we were listening to them talking. We were still very young and followed them, yet I had finished the elementary school. In any case, they resided in the school where they spent five or six days. And one day, they made a public announcement that those having guns should take them to the church of Afentis Christos. They opened the church for five, six days, day and night. Many people indeed handed in their hunting rifles. Besides, there were only a few fighting rifles. But other villagers would go later and steal the weapons from the church to hide them outside. I mean, one man would hand in his rifle and then another one would go and steal it. It was not literally a theft, someone would take it, instead of the Italians, do you get my point now? And we would hide them outside. Thats how we spent our time. Do you have any idea what it feels like to eat locust-beans and cabbage without bread? Thankfully, we produced our own oil and we didnt starve to death. Without bread of
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course. You could see the entire family at a set table, with pea puree or faba beans or even cabbage, but without any bread. It was a tragic situation, unprecedented. Hunger! Especially after 1942. We got along somehow the first year. And then the confiscations began. Italians would take it all, calves and sheep. They came every Saturday. That is, the captain along with five six Italian soldiers, from Ierapetra and Agios Nikolaos. There were no cars those days and they therefore forced those who had mules and donkeys to load the goods and transfer them to Kalo Horio. So, they confiscated and consumed them all. But of course, there was an entire regiment in Neapoli. There was an Italian General, Angelo Carta was his name, that British had persuaded to flee to Africa. And the Italians and the Germans threw flyers from the airplanes offering a reward of one hundred millions to the one who knew where he was. A box of match cost five hundred thousand then, inflation was that high. They issued banknotes that had no buying value. Our people had managed to take the gold to Africa. (Imagine) Five hundred thousand for a box of matches. I had even done compulsory work. They would send a document to the president stating they needed fifteen to twenty people from each community, depending on the population, on a specified date. The president would come then and write our names down. He had no choice. It was against his will but he had no alternative. Since we had signed an unconditional peace-treaty the foreigners could do anything they felt like. Fifteen. The age would range from eighteen to sixty five. I was eighteen years old then. I spent two fifteen-day periods at Krousta and left afterwards for the mountains and never came back. Both the president of our community and the head-officer of the police department were men of honour, good for them, for they did not become collaborationists. Nonetheless, such men existed elsewhere, and the responsibility fell upon the president of the community and the head of the police. We belonged to communities then, unlike municipalities we have nowadays. Every village had its community: Christos and Metaxohori (also called Parsas), Mithi, Gdohia, Mirtos, all.
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We used to rent houses when we went to Krousta. There were some old houses there with voutsas floors instead of a cement-made floor. Voutsas is made of donkey-dung and urine. Our women mixed voutsas with soil, laid the mixture on the ground and used whitewash for the walls to make our house look nice. We even had a fire-place and wood to keep us warm. And one could see the cockroaches walking on the ground. Trust me, I saw lice walking on the ground. We all had lice. There were no medicines, no soap either, nothing we had only carbon-ash. Our mothers would boil water, throw some ash inside and all lice would die. You could see our neck was all red from the flea-bites, you know fleas right? The ones dogs sometimes have. But nowadays all kinds of means are available and they can be exterminated. You should have seen my mother: her neck, her clothes and her underwear were all covered with blood coming from the fleas. Because fleas drink your blood and then urine within the sore. It was a dreadful situation. There were times that the Italians gave gifts, like bread, sugar and so on, to children like that girl over there108. They were not as cruel as the bloody Germans. They had to know who you were of course in order to treat you. They stayed here for three and a half years. The guard was only replaced a couple of times, and for the most part, they were very nice. Our villagers were also close to them. They prepared dinners and brought them in their houses, so as to have them handy in times of need. The rebels even disarmed the Italians once, but of course I did not participate. That happened the day Mussolini capitulated. Marshal Badoglio was in charge then, the very same man that had organised Italys attack against Greece in the Albanian front, with King Victor Emmanuel III being in power. We paid a rent for the houses in Krousta, ten okas of oil a month. We paid ourselves. The Italians cooked for us at noon. They prepared mostly peas and boiled cabbage, yet they did not use oil at all. We had our own oil that we added to our portion, in our plate. We called this boiled cabbage mpourgouri. This resembles some type of cabbage called fria, one can find nowadays in the grocers store; those kinds of
108
Points towards a five-year old girl playing in the vicinity.
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greens we boiled and ate. But no matter what it was, we liked it. They even gave us a proper slice of bread for lunch, but we provided the oil for the peas. And Italians would say: Domani matinnaprendere pisello, which translates to: Tomorrow morning we will have peas. German victims I killed two Germans in the battle of Simi; I saw them with my own eyes. I had also killed a traitor a month earlier. We set up a court martial comprised of rebels in the hideout. He had betrayed one or two submarines and Germans had bombarded them resulting in their sinking. We killed him in the hideout, along with another one, after giving him a trial and according to the jurisdiction. I also killed five men in Rhodes. I killed them in the battle, on the street, when we sabotaged the guardhouse and blew up the German strongholds with the cannons. I mentioned already that around forty two Germans were killed and only one survived, the one who climbed up a pine-tree. That happened in an area called Monolithos. I also killed one in Leros. I took from this man his Polish-made pistol and photo-camera, a Zeiss. I sold both of them to one of our captains, inside a ship, and used the money to have a suit made in Hios. The captain approached me and said: You should give me this pistol. I gave him the pistol and the camera for a total of eighteen twenty sovereigns I think. So that he shows them now to his family saying that he took them from us.
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Yiannis Christakis In 1943 when the great evil took place in the villages of Ierapetra and Viannos, I was merely 10 years old. I was born in August 1933. I was attending school, and I do have to mention that, due to the German occupation, we were not allowed to be taught history. We were not taught history; Greek history was not taught those days at schools. At that time therefore, with me being a student, the great evil happened, in September of 1943. What was the cause? From late 1942 early 1943, rebels were operational and organised in the mountains of Lasithi. For the national resistance in our territory was already there since June of 1941. That is, exactly right after the occupation, in the region of our villages as well in Viannos, the organization had already commenced. I have to mention that the ten villages of Viannos, east of Viannos, as well as the eight villages of the western mountainous Ierapetras area, in the old days used to comprise a geographical unity and I would also say a social integration. Historians name all these villages Simiana, because the centre of all activities, even before the ages of Turkish occupation, and of the activities of resistance for the region, was Kato Simi, like in 1943. We had therefore, from early 1943 the rebel movement, organised eventually, with Manolis Mpantouvas who settled in Hameti, on the top of the mountain. Of course, he came to the Lasithiotika Mountains, because of arguments with others in the mountains of Heraklio and Rethimnon, in Psiloritis, where other rebel groups were officially organised like that of Petrakogiorgi and many others. Before his arrival, he had sent trained men to investigate the area and see if habitants there would welcome and support the rebel movement. And naturally, his scout spoke of the warmest words, that people there are free, democrats, people who despise slavery. And so he settled down there. From that moment on the area started becoming dangerous. Of course I should not forget to mention that, maybe you are not aware of it, the region of Viannos was subjected to the Perfecture of Lasithi up until 1933. And since it seems that Germans had in mind the administration as it was written in the old documents, when the order was given
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for our region to be destroyed, by Mller and Andrae, the villages of Ierapetra were also considered as Region of Viannos. Simiana therefore spontaneously participated in the rebel movement but the Prefecture of Lasithi and the Region of Viannos was not ruled by Germans yet by Italians. It was occupied by Italians who had arrived from Rhodes in Sitia. Indeed, there is even a full description from an Italian historian, on how they departed from the port of Sitia and went on to Ierapetra. Someone will laugh if he read it, because the Italian historian characterises them as a flock of sheep. Naturally, there were difficulties with the Italians. To begin with, they had set up along the coastline of Viannos Ierapetra, mainly up to Mirto, various outposts and three, four up to Tsoutsoura etc. But when it was clear that Italy was on the verge to collapse early 1943 the Germans took control of the Prefecture from Italians, established patrols and new outposts, took over Italian outposts and from that moment the great drama for our area begins. Me being ten those days, when it was just too obvious that the Axis was falling apart, at least its one leg, the Italian one, the rebels, Mpantouvas and others I have to mention it thought they should do something of great impact. Of course, this does not stem from the sources, these are simply my opinion. The battle of Kato Simi They thought they should do something to show themselves and organised the extermination of the outpost of Kato Simi, which was comprised of three Germans. It seemed they were there to collect potatoes and send them over to their army in Viannos, and that is why they were known as potato-men109. Of these three Germans only one got away for he happened to be absent that night. So they killed the two Germans. There is some evidence saying it was premeditated to have them killed, because Mpantouvas said he had never given the order for execution but merely for kidnapping. However, there is a horrible testimony, based on someone elses sources, that
109
In Greek:
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the previous night a man from Kato Simi, as he was having raki with the Germans, was asked by one of them, Villy, to recite a folk Cretan couplet110. I dont recall the couplet, yet I will tell you what it was about. It said, tomorrow Germans will be laying in the gorge. Indeed, the night the execution took place, they placed the bodies in sacks and threw them over the cliff. From that moment on the evil commenced. As soon as the Germans found out, or I guess, the Kommandatur of Viannos became suspicious when they hadnt spoken to them on the telephone, a manually operated one, for days. So they formed a company, 100, 120 men, who knows, to advance and find out what had happened. After this incident, rebels could not abandon Kato Simi and let it destroy, for they would infuriate and kill all habitants. They were forced to wait for them at the entrance of the village, where a small valley exists, and fight a battle. Rebels were about forty more or less. Prior to the battle a small meeting had taken place in Lapathos (Lapathos is a small plateau close to Simi), where Mpantouvas along with his chieftains, Podia, Nirgiano and Dimitri Papa, had decided to fight the battle so as to prevent the Germans from destroying Kato Simi. So they addressed a call for those wanted to fight and a body of forty men, soldiers was created. They were divided in four groups, if I recall correctly: one took over the east side of the valley, in the mountains, the other one, went on to the west side, the third took over the upper part of the village, while the last one was placed to the rear, to prevent any Germans coming from the mountains and surrounding the rebels. The battle started around 10 o clock. The Germans had been to Pefkos and captured hostages and had them placed in front so as to protect themselves. They lasted till 4 or 5 clock in the night. That means it was a full day battle and I fancy naming it renowned. A renowned battle therefore. The German company was wiped out and twelve men were captured, along with Agoglossaki, the translator, whom his behaviour was treacherous. Apostolos Emmanouil Vagionakis, a native of Mithos and a member of Yiannis Podias group which was placed on the west
110
In Greek:
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side of the villages valley, was the only one to be killed. And I would say in vain, for he was fighting standing, standing! He had just arrived from the Albanian Epos, where he was fighting, had been captured as prisoner, managed to escape, came to Crete and the moment he heard about the resistance went on and enlisted himself in the group of Mpantouvas, also called Mpantouvomanolis. And Yiannis Podias shouted at him: Sit down man, hide yourself! and he replied: I fought in Albania and was not killed, how can I die here? and so he got killed. And the worst of all is that his comrades left him there. is relic was mangled by the dogs and the vultures and after a few days his mother in law went there, opened a pit and placed him in it. This dead man is shouting. His blood is shouting. He should not be left without being honoured. And the only honour he deserves is to have a bust put up somewhere, I would say in a central spot, or probably even better in the place he was killed, but then again who will be there to see it. I would suggest that his bust should be put up in Ierapetra, close to the town-hall, next to the other statues, for it is a disgrace to have this man who spilled his blood for us not honoured. Let us here remember the words of Pericles: men who have been proven worthy of their countries, virtuous, should be honoured also with actions. This man therefore should not be left without being honoured. It will be a disgrace to all of us if it stays as is, without him being honoured. The march of the Germans On the next day of the battle, the 13th, they killed some people from Pefko and other villages. However, the great disaster began on the 14th. Around a thousand soldiers, from the so-called SS unit, came from Archanes to Ano Viannos and destruction began. A thousand men, apart from those permanently staying in Viannos. In three days, the 14th, 15th and 16th the area was decimated. On the first day, the 14th of September, they destroyed, killed and executed in the ten villages east of Viannos. The total number is yet unconfirmed, approximately two hundred and seventy. On the 15th, they were split up from Sikologos (a village in Viannos) into two groups. One headed south, reached the coastal zone, passed
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Vato and reached Mirto. In Mirto, habitants thought they should give them a warm welcome in the vain hope of surviving. Indeed, the president and vice-president of the village came forward to meet them with raki, walnuts etc. They showed some kind of compassion and told them: Within two hours time the village should be evacuated. What they didnt say was that they would start executing. In two hours time the village should be evacuated. And it was. But not completely. The president and vice-president themselves were arrested and executed. On the 14th and 15th of September, they went to Gdohia, where a real massacre took place. I would rather not refer to numbers, besides they can be found in all textbooks. In Gdohia, a real slaughter took place, just like in Mirtos. They also performed a number of atrocities here: they killed a woman and her baby, they also killed a paralysed man lying on his bed. From Mirtos they moved to Riza and to Mournies and conducted some executions on site. However, many were arrested and brought to Riza, to be executed in the area called Kales, Koules. There they also brought others from the northern villages: Parsa, Christo and Males. For I have forgotten to mention that another group of soldiers went up to Apano Simi, advanced to Lapatho, passed through all the mountains, and came down from Mino. Mino is Mithos village settlement for the summer time and is nowadays deserted, just like Karidi. From this point, they moved on to the other summer time settlement, Agia Marina, which is right next to Mino, and from there headed to Parsa, Christo and Males. They executed a number of individuals but also captured prisoners whom they led to Riza. From Males, this group of soldiers was split again in two bodies: one returned back to Christo, Agia Marina, Karidi, Riza and another one made its way down to Mithos. I would like to have this particularly emphasized because all historians are mistaken in this part. They state that Germans descended from Mournies to Mithos. No, they did not come from Mournies. They came from Males. The Germans approach Mithos At the watermill, the flourmill, which is located in Apoliana or Po-
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liana (I think it is Poliana rather than Apoliana, for this mill should have been built by craftsmen coming from Poli111, explaining why Poliana seems reasonable), three men were found. Inside the mill, they found the owner, Michalis Papakostandinakis from Mournies, and two of his customers both from Mithos: Charilaos Daskalakis and Georgios Plousakis. They killed them all at once, with no hesitation, without even approaching the mill. They must have heard them trudging along as they were coming down and when they went to the door they saw them. Why am I saying this? Because they were found dead, half in and half out of the door, so they must have been killed from a distance as soon as they were seen. Luckily, a woman was found, whose name I shall report, for Mithos was saved thanks to that woman. She was Dimitris Solindadakiss wife, Despina Solindadaki. She was grazing her sheep in the vicinity, heard the gunfire, maybe she also heard their voices, understood, and run to the village shouting: Villagers run for Germans come and they are killing!. And the village was evacuated and they found no one but for my grand-father, Nicholaos Ioannis Christakis, who was at the age of ninety, ninety-five, yet they killed him from a distance. I mentioned earlier that is likely that the three men in Poliana cried out, because my dear departed grandfather shouted: Ohhh! And his voice echoed across Lepra hill, on the west side of our village. We, along with our father, our family, had just descended from the village when we heard the gunfire and understood he was shot dead. My blessed father and one of his brothers, the priest of the village, returned and buried him. As soon as we heard Germans were coming to kill, my late father gave me a container and sent me over to my grandfather to ask him to fill it up with olive oil, for we had none, and to prepare himself so as to take him with us. My grandfather responded: I am an old man my child, I have caused no harm, what shall they do to me? It didnt occur to this mans brain that it was possible for him to be killed without his doing anything. These were the honourable men of those years: I did not harm, I am not the one to blame, why should they kill me? Yet they did.
111
Poli (i.e. Greek: ) is colloquially called Konstantinoupolis, now Istanbul.
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Germans of course didnt pass through the whole village. Our village, Mithos, is comprised of the Dragasana, Giannadiana, Michaliana, Tsigkounia and Tavliana settlements. They reached till Giannadiana. When they found nobody, they didnt go on to the other settlements and left for Mournies. This is the correct route and not the one written by some historians. After the destruction After this happened we left the place for the neutral zone was extending from the seaside of Viannos till Mirtos, all the way up to the river. They had even placed signs which I remember: a scull was depicted along with two crossed bones, saying Ferbotten. Forbidden. I dont remember the rest of the words. Ferbotten. So it was forbidden to enter this zone. The neutral zone stretched from the sea till the river and high up the mountains. Parsas, Christos and Males were not included. They were not part of the neutral zone. We had a harsh winter. It was September of 1943-44 and that winter was heavy. We left our homes. People from Mirtos and other villages went to Ierapetra. Of course, many locals were found offering assistance in their homes but these people were in need of food. I think the Episcopacy of Iera and Sitia was active somehow, but I am not aware if that was sufficient to cover all needs. People were forced to start begging. To mock the villagers who had been begging, people called them kaoumenous112 whereas begging itself was referred as antilavou113. For the whole year of 1944, or at least the first months till the summer, begging was widespread. Later, this ceased because people returned to their homes and started farming whatever was left. Nonetheless, even after this period, begging had not completely disappeared, although it was very limited indeed. We, my family, happened to have a farm. Actually, my grandfather happened to own such a place, a big farm with a house between Mithos and Anatoli, at Marauga. I wouldnt call it a country house: a sheepfold?
112 113
In Greek: , meaning burned. In Greek: .
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It must have been used as a sheepfold for it had a big enclosed field. In any case, there was a small room and a big one, a really big one, which must have been used most likely as a stable. In that place therefore we camped. But not just us; many other of my fellow-villagers were with us as well. Suffice to say, I remember everyone sleeping at night, one next to another, in that large room which had been accordingly modified. This whole place was packed with people. And I should mention a humorous incident. That time, a woman from my village gave birth: we, the children, had never heard of such a thing before and wanted to see etc, yet we were sent away. In any case, the poor woman was delivering inside that big room and was shouting: Virgin Mary! but her strength was not enough to say the whole sentence and said instead: Vi, Vi, Vi, Virgin Mary! and all of us standing outside burst out laughing. She gave birth to a boy, who is a scientist now. Another small experience of mine is the following: it has been a long time since then, it must have been spring. This situation of course which had kept us away from our homes lasted till the end of spring. We had a big problem there in the mountains till the Axis collapsed. Of course we should not forget that Italy collapsed a few days before the battle in Kato Simi, 7-8 of September. I cant recall; it is around there. Germany though, collapsed later and the final surrender, should you recall, took place in October of 1944. Yes, autumn of 1944. That year, in late spring, cant bring to mind the exact date, we were allowed to return to our homes. For a period of eight months, from September till March, seven eight months, we were out in the country suffering a very harsh, terrible winter. So, next to the house I mentioned earlier where we were staying, a neighbourhood was created. We used to stay in that small house whereas other relatives and villagers were in the bigger one. In the meantime, houses were built around, the rooms of our places became more spacious and a small settlement evolved. However, these houses were built merely with stones, without using any mortar. Today, apart from those two houses that were properly constructed none of the other ones remain; they have been demolished and a pile of ruins lay there instead. We were organised: we used to graze our animals and children
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were in various companies. And we were playing around with some wires and cables; dont know where they came from. At one moment we were told that Germans were on their way, heading for Anatoli. We were afraid and ran. We threw them all away in case they thought we were plotting sabotage and consequently kill us. It is a small experience I felt the need to testify. The Italians There was an outpost of Italians in Mirto, just like in Males. Of course, there was a whole company in Males. Italians had established outposts in certain other places, like Arvi, Keratokampos, etc. These men were not experienced in war. And I cant say there were as cruel as the Germans. Let me say something and I will return. I told you that Viannos was subjected to the Italians. Once a week, a group would start from Viannos and go to Kato Chorio where the commanding headquarters were. It was not in Ierapetra, it was in Kato Chorio. So, they would go and return. The only Italian presence in Viannos ten villages and Ierapetras villages was their appearance every Saturday, if I am not mistaken, or every Friday, when they would leave Viannos to go the commanding headquarters and then return. And their only assignment was to loot, to snatch chickens, take animals in order to eat them. The same thing was happening in our region too, from Mirtos sentinels. I remember therefore the following incident, simple yet characteristic. Two Italians had arrived in our village, seeking chickens to snatch and eat, to take with them. They went to a bakery. The baker was putting her bread in the oven using a triftis114, a piece of wood used to clean the bottom of the oven from mud, etc. And bakers, just like millers, breed animals for miller has leftovers from the cereals, whereas baker has pieces of bread discarded. So she kept the hennery right next to the baker. And the Italians went to open the hennery and snatch chickens. But the chickens started making noise. And the baker was alarmed, grabbed her triftis and went after them trying to strike them
114
In Greek: .
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but they run away before she could. She was an old lady and Italians were young, nonetheless they started running and disappeared. This is just to see in what state of degradation the Italians had reached: these brave men were afraid of a woman. Despite all these, they also caused great harm to our villages that period. Let me refer to a characteristic one. They would not arrest someone in order to have him executed. They would seek for someone isolated from everyone else so as to kill him. Such an incident took place in Kavousi, in Pahia Ammos. Afterwards, they used to cover them with stones in an effort to make them not visible. They did the same in Sitia when they killed teacher Aspradakis, a colleague of mine from Armenoi, who was an active member in the resistance in Sitia. They killed him and then covered him with stones; the man had disappeared. They said nothing and his body was discovered by hunters with dogs. Hunting those days was not allowed of course, but in any case, it was practised. Dogs were driven by the smell and brought him to light. The atrocities of the Germans I would like to mention a few characteristic incidents that reveal the atrocity of the Germans115. Varvakis brothers were killed with bayonets by the Germans in Agios Vassilis. The Vervelakis children were tortured and executed. They gored to death pregnant Aikaterini Papadimitropoulou, in Ligia village, Viannos. They killed Siggelaki with her young child in her arms in Loutraki. They killed the Papadakis brothers in Pano Simi while holding their handicapped mother in their arms. They killed disabled Georgios Kontakis with a bayonet in Kefalovrisi. They killed, as I said earlier, a paralyzed man lying on his bed in Gdohia. They killed a lady from Kato Simi and her child, as she was breast feeding it. These are barbaric actions that a mans mind cant think of easily. I forgot to mention about my grandfather specifically, that he was disabled not only due to his ninety-something years of life but also due to the fact he was hump-backed. He had broken his spinal cord in his
115
In this point, Mr. Christakis referred to his notes.
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youth and had been operated on. Unfortunately, those days means were not that sophisticated and he was left hump-backed, practically touching the ground. We may suggest they didnt see he was hump-backed, for they killed him from a distance, but still he was very old. Our village was not burned down, because I forgot to mention earlier, the following: as soon as they started executing and burning down houses they blew them up a month later and how did they burn them down? I am not sure if you are aware: they had a special flammable powder they dispersed inside the houses, fired with their guns once and it would ignite. Of course, they would break the door if the house was locked. It was said those days, for I have not seen it myself, that they could break them with a great ease: by means of a sledge-hammer, they would break down the door. As soon as these dreadful events begun, a number of powerful men were mobilised here in Heraklio, and they stopped a few days later, after the 16th they managed to convince the commander of Heraklio to order the ending of executions. So, hadnt it been for Archimandrite, later to be Metropolite, Eugenios, a great suffering would have taken place. Thankfully they stopped on time and our village was not burned down. For our village is the last one, to the east, and by the time they approached it they were commissioned to cease fire and executions. Mithos was the only village saved from destruction, all the other ones, Riza, Gdohia, Mournies and Mirtos were burned down. There is a mistaken belief. You know what some people say? That Mirto was accidentally burned instead of Mithos. Since villages were burned down as an act of revenge for participating in resistance, it is odd to burn down a village on the seaside and spare a village, located at the foot of the mountain, which is expected to be actively involved. So, some people argue that the Germans made a mistake burning down Mirto instead of Mithos. But this is not valid for Germans knew pretty well the administrative division and had everything marked on the map. And they knew what they were doing. They didnt burn down my village for an order had been given by the German commander to stop. Yet they should have, they should have included Mithos in the socalled Martyred Villages. You know, my village was not included in
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the list of Martyred Villages. There is a pan-hellenic organisation called Martyred Villages116. My village is not included as if it didnt suffer. Yet my fellow-villagers were also killed and we were exiled from our homes for eight months. I dont understand this. Is this characterisation of Martyred Village related to quality or does it ask for quantity as well? Didnt we suffer? Did all villagers of Mithos have to die so as to have it included? This is wrong. Wrong. And of course, the official authorities are responsible for this. And I speak loud and clear. They who gave their consent to leave it out from the list are to blame. And I know who they are, I would rather not comment any further. I mean, I know the authorities, not the persons themselves. They should insist on having Mithos too in the Martyred Villages. For it suffered. People were executed. We vanished for eight months. We went through everything. What was that for? Please, do underline my words here. Today In 1975 I went to West Germany with my wife and worked as a Greek teacher in the Greek schools. To be honest, I was in anguish the first time, I couldnt bear to hear German, I couldnt bear to look at Germans. But this feeling softened day by day and now no one can accuse me of being hostile to Germans. They are a democratic country now; we live in the same house, the European Union. It is not their fault their ancestors caused all this harm. They are not to blame, are they? I think. Those days I was in Germany as a school teacher more precisely, head of a large school in Munich called Berkman Schule I happened to meet Germans who just the sound of the name Hitler would give them the creeps. In my school, which had four hundred students (and was not the only one: four such schools were there in Munich so just think how many Greeks there must have been) I was working together with eight German professors teaching German. I had the finest friendly relationships with them, visited each other, and didnt want to hear anything about Hitler. And there is something more I would like to add. In my last year
116
In Greek:
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there, that is 1979-80, a great sabotage had taken place in the main radio and television stations in Cologne. I am not sure if you are aware of it, if you have it in mind. They caused great damages. They were anti-fascists. Young people found out about the Nazis atrocities and did the sabotage in revenge. I dont know if they arrested anyone, newspapers reported that they did it when they found out the shameful actions of their ancestors in Greece and other German-occupied territories. There is compassion, no one can argue that. Look: dictators always manage to nourish nations with hate. Perhaps, only in the years of our dictatorship this spirit did not prevail, am I wrong? I was a school teacher for all these years, in Lohria Amariou, in Rethimno, a mountain village at the south side of Psiloritis. Trust me, I grew old those years. Black years, black indeed. I portray them in a work of mine: True little stories from the school117. You will see it will draw your attention to read about the things that happened. I mean, to bring this issue to an end, that this spirit was not popular in Greece. There had been of course many in favour of the dictatorship, many informers as well, but in general, Greek people resisted. They fought back strongly. This is to the Greeks honour. Besides, in our case, we had all these events at the University, in the Law School. I was on a postgraduate course those days and remember all the events since I have personal experience. The victims The number of the victims is still unconfirmed. There were about two hundred and seventy from Viannos and one hundred and thirty one from the villages of Ierapetra; a total of four hundred and one. However, the total loss in people killed during the years of occupation is greater than four hundred and sixty. Our region, the eighteen villages of Viannos and Ierapetra that suffered from Hitlers Huns that September, had a heavy death toll. The casualties must generally exceed four hundred and sixty humans. Some speak for four hundred sixty and one, but I reckon there are more. Only few days ago I retrieved a person not
117
Hristakis, 2005.
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listed. A man named Zervakis, who had been killed two to three days before the events in our village. He was a clerk of the Agricultural Bank and was heading to our village. He run into a patrol in the area of Harakas and was killed. The list is endless and I think not everyone is recorded. Anyway According to Mr. Giorgos Christakis, an exceptional friend of mine118: Dozens of families have mourned ten, fifteen and twenty dead; husbands, parents, siblings and cousins. The dead in the villages of Viannos and Ierapetra amounted to four hundred one for the three cursed days of 1943, to reach four hundred and sixty for the entire period of occupation. The youngest of all was 8 month old, unborn, in his mother womb, 96 was the eldest (Emm. Daskalakis from Amira), 20 were women. 127 of them were over 60 years old. Out of which: 60 were between 60 and 69 years old 47 were between 70 and 79 years old 16 were between 80 and 89 years old 3 were 90, 93 and 96 years old119 6 were younger than 10 years old. Most of them were farmers, the rest being stock breeders, reserve officers and professionals of different kinds. Amongst them, 2 were clergymen, 5 were teachers, 1 professor, 1 lawyer and 1 clerk in T.T.T. Other people have also lost their lives and nine hundred and eighty houses in ten villages were destroyed. In other words, the entire former Region of Viannos which included all eight villages of Ierapetra, was a pile of ruins. There was a nasty smell everywhere coming from the dead, for we were not allowed to go and have them buried. We mentioned it was a neutral zone; they were killed and left unburied since no one could enter the zone. I would like to read a poem, where Papadimitropoulos, the teacher of Mirtos those days,
118 119
In this point Mr. Y. Christakis reads extracts from the book Hristakis, 2000: 260. Mr. Christakis remarked in this point: he has not added here my grandfather.
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describes the situation. He uses the darkest of the colours to describe the conditions120: A black veal covers it all, Mirtos, Gdohia, Riza, Mournies. Machine guns, knives, pistols, flames, arms explosions, screams. Owls and vultures from the mountains came down to these places and mourned, as they also saw the horrible suffering which fell upon the villages. Valleys were steeped in blood, streams were joined tightly, with hearts beating in terror, in case they see horror again. The waves moving fast at the seaside, dont break softly like before, the flowers and the lilies in the plain dont smell cheerfully as they used to. Germans, Germans, Germans, thirsty for blood, criminals, revolting tribe of the Huns, Greeks glory will stay eternally pure in the world. Children in schools and beyond we now give a silent oath, to build our country back, from ashes, fire and smoke. Did I say his name right? Papadimitropoulos, yes, Apostolos Papadimitropoulos. We live with these black memories. I must tell you that on many occasions, I personally see nightmares in my sleep of these events.
120
Hristakis, op. cit.: 258. The poem is named The 15th of September 1943 and was firstly published in the newspaper Anatoli (No. issue 9838/14-10-1983).
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Manolis Vagionakis My father, Apostolos Vagionakis, was left orphan when he was five month old. I was left orphan at the age of six. My father went through all imaginable sufferings from his step-mother and his father. They even poisoned him at the age of eighteen to take his fortune from him. I was left orphan when I was six: hunger, beating, misery and everything that follows. My father was caught prisoner in the Albanian war but managed to escape, to break away from captivity. He was conscripted in 1939, fought in the Albanian war, came in 1942, or was it late 1942? He went straight to the national resistance, took part in the battle of Kato Simi where they fought armed against the Germans. It was a fierce battle with forty, forty-five Germans dead. The only man dead from the prefecture of Lasithi in this battle was my father. My father died during the battle of Kato Simi. When my grandmother went there to bury him, he had already been eaten by the dogs. The dogs had eaten his corpse and only half of his body was found. And they buried him. (Dogs had eaten him). Eyewitnesses that were there, narrated later in the summer of 2007, it was actually an old man from Viannos talking on the television, that my late father was shouting: Dont be afraid guys, we have them beaten! Aera, aera, aera, aera!. And at that time a sniper coming from Viannos shot him the coup de grace in the head, as he was standing and fighting, scattering his scull. Ever since my life has been a torture, for my mother was young and widow and she took it out on me: I was severely beaten. I left, went to Athens at the age of thirteen, where I finished the elementary school. With no patrons, nobody, I was forced to work also as a street vendor. I was top in my lessons, went to high school but had to stop for I had to sustain myself. And I had to sell bananas, French rolls, cigarettes, matches. And being in that business I refrained from smoking. And the police used to arrest and beat me to death for I was not allowed to sell and had to be in the reformatory instead. I was telling them: Am I stealing? My father got killed in the war, how am I supposed to live if I dont do these kinds of jobs?. To be a street vendor, to sell in order to make my living.
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At the same time in those years, my mother spent one year in jail for adultery. I had an illegitimate brother, who was five years old and we had to live. Those years in Athens you needed a ration booklet to take food: a person was allowed a hundred drams of bread per twenty four hours and twenty drams of any kind of legumes. Meat was out of the question for there was no money. And the result was that I had to cook lentil soup for three days and the remaining ones rice or bean soup or faba beans or That was our feeding. And at the same time I was being beaten too. This was unfortunately the life of my father and me. The result is that now the Greek state does not recognise me as a war victim. They tell me after 64 years, that my father alone was the victim and not me. Regrettably, this is the treatment a war victim, that has been through everything in life to survive, receives. What more shall I say? After my fathers death At that time, I was six years old and I used to follow my late grandmother, my mothers mother, to the plateau of Lasithi and the villages there to beg in order to make our living. My mother then was somewhat confused; she was not in a good mental state. She was here but she was out of her mind. She was young of course. Unfortunately. And I followed my grandmother begging in order to survive. Nothing, I got beaten everywhere I went. I was beaten in every place I had been to; nobody to protect me. Only my grandmother. Unfortunately. Everywhere, beating. We used to go to the plateau in the summer time. I had to walk all night carrying a bag on my shoulder before I arrived in the morning. In the potatoes fields, I sorted out potatoes and they filled my bag, a drouvadi as we used to say, with potatoes in the night They used to call it drouvadi and they filled it with potatoes and I took it and went home, having eaten nothing all day long. I was six years old any my weight was six okas. Imagine what I looked like. At the age of thirteen, I was thirteen okas. I was like those children from Ethiopia, a skeleton. And to my regret, the Greek state, now, after so many years of deducting tax from my income, stopped it for I was not a victim of war. I feel ashamed, ashamed and sorrow. For they make
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speeches about the Greek flag and the national anthem and my father that glorified them has, unfortunately, his child not recognised. In Athens, at the age of 13 My mother those years got married to a man already married and we went to Athens. On our way to Athens she was sued for adultery and went to jail in Neapolis. I and my stepbrother stayed in Athens. Me being thirteen, fourteen years old and my brother being five. Unfortunately within How could I make money for the rent and for food? I became a street vendor. There was an uncle of mine, may God forgive his soul, who was a warrant officer in the police department in Egaleo. He was from Mirtos, Daskalakis Ioannis was his name. He had issued for me four ration booklets. And I used to buy an oka of bread, sell the three hundred drams and keep a hundred for my brother and me to eat. I also bought an oka of lentils and an oka of beans. These were the daily portions for four persons, an oka of lentils and an oka of bread. We were alone for a year. That year I had to study but I failed in high school due to a lot of absences. As a result, in 1952 I had to work in a wood factory, in Agios Panteleimonas Acharnon, Alkiviadou. And whereas the daily wages were ten drachmas, he gave me three. What would I buy first? Food or? I had to ride in the back of the tram and go to Omonia, take another tram from Omonia to EVGA, in Iera Odos, and continue from there on foot. And one evening that I had a fever, instead of getting the tram to Omonia, I took the tram going to Acharnon Patision. I dont know where I went, I wandered the whole night, in the rain, with 40 degrees (C) fever, and the next morning I found myself home in Egaleo. Or the bitterness I once experienced, in Easter, when a policeman from Athens agronomy had a spit roasted lamb, my brother was crying and I had prepared lentils with rice for our meal. That I will never forget: having my brother crying and me not being able to offer him a piece of meat. He was born in 1946, he is nine years younger than me. He has a daughter. Unfortunately, I lived the same kind of life my father had. Sadly, this is how life is. I got married young, for I was seventeen years old and I had never eaten meat. Survival was very difficult. I married, spent four years in the village. Regrettably, I had a bad time in the vil-
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lage and went back to Athens and found a job as a refuse collector in the municipality of Athens. I worked for thirty five years in the municipality, till I had a stroke while on duty. I visited one of the vice-mayors of the administration at that time and he kicked me out for I didnt belong to their political party: You are not one of our people. And they put me back to work, but I could not work so I left. I am retired now. I have three children and five grandchildren. It was my dream to leave Athens and come back to Mithos for I had difficult years, starvation, beating, miseries. I worked three to four jobs to provide for my children so that they would not have the life I lived. Honours The Germans were conquerors. The issue here is what the Greek state does for us. Thats the point. The injustice. To acknowledge nothing to a heros child. Unfortunately. I had to do ten jobs so that my children wouldnt have to live the life I lived unfortunately. That was my life, my fathers life. He became an orphan, was poisoned so they would take his property, got killed, left me orphan at the age of six and after his death, I had to suffer through the Passion of Jesus Christ. What more is there to say? Thats my fathers entire life. He didnt enjoy his life. He was killed at the peak of his youth. He didnt even have time to spend moments of joy with his own child. I dont mind for what I have to go through, but I do mind that the state, the government, has never shown any concern. There is no statue of my father. Regrettably, nothing. They simply mention his name in every ceremony for the Battle of Crete. Thats it, nothing else. His name is written only here, in the monument in the village, and in Vamos, where the Battle of Crete started. They have his name everywhere along with the civilians. Instead of having his name first in the monument of the heroes in Amira, they have placed all civilians killed at the top and my father at the bottom. In this monument of heroes in Amira, where public servants come and they have the Te Deum service, they have the civilians at the top and my father is at a place that even For years now I have been quarrelling with the authorities here, the Mayors and the people in Ierapetra, for not mentioning his name on the 12th of September and on the 14th, the day
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of the Holy Cross when they hold the Battle of Simi Te Deum service in Riza. And I tell them: A hero was killed in this battle. Why dont you mention this mans name?. And they respond that, unfortunately, this is the history of the Greek nation, and that they dont mention names. And I ask: Why dont you mention any names?, and they reply: We say no names. Thats the misery of the Greek state. When a hero is not honoured what do you expect me to tell them? You are scared too in case you misbehave and put you in jail. Dont you say any names? Dont you ever say. They simply mention the Battle of Simi. That someone was killed but not who that man was. How could they build a statue when he is not mentioned?
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Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki In Albanian front I lived and grew up in Ierapetra. My father worked in the country court. We lived in a cottage, about half an hour outside Ierapetra, in Louvianohori, at Agios Dimitrios. I finished high-school in Ierapetra. Later on, I wanted to take exams to become a teacher in Heraklio, but unfortunately they didnt take any girls that specific year, they took only boys. So, I went up to Athens, to the school of Red Cross, to the hospital of Red Cross, to the school of Nurses. When the war broke out I was at school. When war was declared, I was in some groups of nurses (sisters) that left for the front. I was with a group in Ioannina. Other nurses went to the operating rooms that were in the mountains. That is where I first encountered the atrocity of war, for we were continuously bombarded and they finally managed to strike the hospital, the Academy, despite the fact that there was an enormous red cross on the terrace. They struck it and many nurses and wounded people as well died there. Of course, this is where I lived the atrocity of the war, tragic moments: where I watched soldiers being amputated because of frostbites and watched them waking up asking for their legs and crying as babies. I dont remember exactly how many months I stayed. I left when war was declared and returned when the war front collapsed. We had then an Athenian woman of upper social class (she was the wife of Doxiadis, the civil engineer) that had come as a volunteer. When we started coming back, a Greek General named Voultsos took her along and we went together, since we departed in groups. He took me along and I came down to the school in Athens. Joining the Resistance in Ierapetra When the war front collapsed, I came back to the school of Red Cross and from there, later on, much later, came down to Crete. The idea of becoming an interpreter or more precisely, of helping and joining the Resistance, was originally my brothers Michalis. I accepted with pleasure since I could somehow speak German too. I had taken classes in Athens: before the war I was the nurse of the German ambassador. He
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had a car accident and I happened to be his nurse, to become lets say his private nurse. He wanted to send me for post-training in Germany. I was lucky enough and didnt go. He had hired a professor for me who gave me lessons and this is how I spoke some German. For a moment I thought of the closed society of Ierapetra and hesitated and went and consulted my principal in the high-school, Zouraris, who was a gentleman, a respectable person. I told him my thought and he said to me: My child, go without hesitation and one day people will find out the truth about you. And so I made sure to apply and to become an interpreter. I pursued it. I went to the Germans, pretending I wanted something, they offered it to me for I could speak the language somehow and of course, I accepted. I and my brother joined the National Resistance of Crete, with Mpantouvas (Manolis Mpantouvas), at the same time. Much later, we joined Force 133, that was a secret military group of Englishmen that had been sent to Crete from the Middle East to assist (Leigh Fermor was in that group). Captain Mpantouvas organisation gave me Chaniotakis as liaison. I had to communicate to him, everything I saw, everything I heard suspicious, and he would communicate it to the organisation afterwards. And that is exactly what happened. I was reluctant at the beginning of course, but I gained their liking and trust little by little. They even told me I looked like a German and so I started to have some freedom of movement, little by little, inside the administration. There, according to the commands, I watched, listened, whatever I could notice, I watched those who came in case they betrayed. Of course, many people betrayed but I had suspicions. However, I couldnt track anyone down; it seemed that they went the days I was not there. Little by little, as I said, I gained their likeness and so I could go around inside all offices. I communicated anything I thought suspicious to Chaniotakis and he communicated it to the organisation. I dont remember details. The only thing I remember is that I saved many people. They recorded the ones who were in some kind of disfavour in a book and I managed to see which book it was. I informed them via Chaniotakis to go away or protect themselves in some way. I must have saved plenty and I dont remember their names at all. They
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were from Ierapetra. I remember only a few names. There was the divisional commander, a man named Koudoumakis if I am not mistaken, who had been in great disfavour and I was afraid that he would be executed. I informed him and he left for Athens I think (he asked for a transfer and went to Athens). And all the years he sent me his thanks for saving his life. Ah, Mamounakis family. I knew them for we were neighbours. Actually, I heard once that those whose names were written in the book had to be executed. Now, what can I do? How could I I didnt know what to do. I struggled the whole day. When the commander went out in the afternoon (he went somewhere, I dont know where), I found the strength, ran, opened the book and memorised the names. And then, pretending that I was not feeling well, I left and went and found Chaniotakis and I told him: Inform them. Their life is in danger. He informed them. All these people thanked me afterwards, every time I met them in Athens after years. Two or three years ago, I was talking on the telephone with a classmate of mine, Ioanna Fragkomanolaki, and she tells me: My husband is grateful to you for saving his life and I didnt even remember his name, after all these years. Once, the Germans got the civilians and farmers together and put them to compulsory labour: they broke large stones into gravel in the streets. They said they wanted to pave the roads with these. They had to see the German doctor and he characterised some of them as capable and the others as incapable. I characterised too, as many as I could, as incapable. For those that I had the ability to characterise as incapable, I did. Fortunately, they didnt understand it. I told you I had earned their trust somehow. In retrospect, I wonder too how they didnt get suspicious of me. It was really very dangerous and I didnt consider danger at all then. Now I wonder and I say that if it would happen today I would not be so decisive. But I was not at all afraid of the danger then: I was involved in everything. As I said, our house was a cottage on a hill and a German captain of the artillery came, I dont remember his name, it was Tapst, something like that, and took it by requisition. He placed the machine guns a bit farther up from the house (it was a hill). He used to come regularly to
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the house. He was a peaceful man, which was odd for a German that time. And as it turned up afterwards, he was not at all in favour of wars. As a matter of fact, he was begging for the war to end, for he had two sons in the front, I dont remember exactly. He showed great affinity for my whole family. He came regularly to the house. To me in particular he showed great likeness. Of course, this helped me communicate (the information) along with my brother (for my brother too helped me and in many occasions he communicated what I wanted to communicate to Chaniotakis). And I discovered once where he kept the book with the airplane signals: it was written red light for forward, blue for backup, some signals like that, I dont remember exactly what and how. There, he received many calls from his soldiers and he had to leave. He left us at home; of course his servant was there but my brother distracted him and I opened the book and memorised. I had no time to write them down. I think, only in one or two occasions I had the time to copy them, I made it on time. This captain was afraid that the Englishmen would land. We had him reassured that in such an event we would help him, we would protect him and that brought us even more closely. The events of September and my father I was in the administration during the holocaust of the villages. The Germans justified it to me based on the fact that the rebels had come down and killed Germans. And I think that is what they told me those who survived: that was the cause of the holocaust. I didnt experience it at close hand and I cannot say many things. Of course my parents were blockaded there and I had to save them. My father was from Mithous and my mother was from Sfakoura of Riza. So I decided and took my fathers horse and a niece of mine for companion and I moved on to go to Mithous. In Males, I encountered a group of SS. The evil had been done. They followed me for they went the same direction, towards Mithous, and they got away afterwards from there. As a matter of fact, they got us off the horse. Of course, the Germans had supplied me with a certificate that I was an interpreter and with the password I would have to use, in case they shouted Alt at me. For I would have to enter the forbidden zone. I showed those to the Germans in Males. Nonetheless,
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they got us off the horse and placed a wounded soldier on its back. So we moved on towards Mithous together with the Germans. We went outside a mill. Outside the mill, the miller had been slaughtered. I dont know how many were inside for we continued our way. The events had just begun and the villages were on fire; I had to save my father if I could make it on time. So we came down to Mithous with the Germans. They moved on from there, they left. I stayed. But which woman that had seen me arriving with the Germans would let me in her home? We spent the night at the church. The following day I went and tried to learn from the women in the village where the hideout of the men was, for they were all gone. They were hiding and my father was with them. They didnt tell me, they were afraid. They didnt trust me. I had to cry a lot, really a lot, to make them tell me eventually where. And to have one come with me. But the men had gone away from there and were high in the mountain. So from there, we started climbing the mountain through the pathway and I found my father up there. My mother was in Riza, she was not with him in Mithous, I dont know why. I brought him down. I couldnt there were two cousins of mine too, but I couldnt take anyone else with me for only my parents names were written on the paper I had and thus I couldnt take anyone else. So we came down to Mithous and from there we went to Riza and this is how I passed by and saw the holocaust of the villages. I passed by and came down. Luckily, I didnt come across the SS. I wanted to tell you, that the administration gave me the certificate and the password with reservation. They had no faith that the SS would honour them, for they struck with no mercy. Fortunately, nothing happened to me and I brought my parents back with success. My father died in 44; he was sick with pneumonia when I found him in the mountain he was hiding. He got sick and ever since he was vulnerable. And so, I can not say many things for the holocaust. I watched the villages burning. I came back to Ierapetra. I can not say many things. People who lived the events could narrate them. Transfer to Agios Nikolaos I was transferred to Agios Nikolaos much later, to Kreis-Komman-
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dantur, the General Administration of Lasithi. Things were more difficult there. In addition, I didnt know the people. Moreover, I didnt have the liking of the Germans I had in Ierapetra. It was more difficult. There, in Agios Nikolaos, they gave me Chalkiadakis the engineer as a liaison who was somewhat afraid every time I went. I heard the Germans once talking about Siggelakis, the Prefect. I mean, I realised that he had been in great disfavour, so I managed to inform him. This is one of the times I was in imminent danger as the Prefect went to the General Administration of Crete we had at the time and, as I learnt later, said to him: Save me, my life is in danger. Passalakis was the name of the Governor; I dont remember his exact name. The Governor was German-friendly, very German-friendly. Now, whether he asked him who had told him, whether he told him, whether he himself didnt want to turn me in There, in any case, I realised that I had been in danger. Of course, the Governor transferred him somewhere and the Prefect managed to get what he wanted. There was another time again when I was in danger too. English dropped food supplies up in the mountains of Agios Nikolaos. The rebels immediately picked them up. But the Germans became aware of it and went up and arrested some of them who pretended to be shepherds. In reality, they were fellow-fighters and they brought them down for interrogation. I dont know where they interrogated them (they didnt bring them to the administration) but I was ordered to see what things were found on them. I saw that a captain in the administration brought something and threw it in his drawer and left. I entered this office although I had never been there before. I entered to see what he had found: it was just a letter. The moment I had the drawer open, he returned. He returned! And I heard his steps as he was coming up. I was confused at that point. I had no idea what I would say, I dont even remember what I thought of saying, but in any case they wouldnt believe me for I had the drawer open. By good fortune, he didnt enter his office; he went to the commanders office so I closed the drawer as quickly as possible and left. I spent less than a year in Agios Nikolaos. I had rented a house with another colleague of mine who knew nothing about me. She never saw through me, nor did I dare confide in her.
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The betrayal and my fleeing to the Middle East Finally, a fellow-fighter informed me that I was betrayed. He was in the administration and heard someone turning me in and he told me: Protect yourself, for this and that is happening. Two informers also used to come there on a regular basis and every time these two came, the door of the commanders office closed. I turned these two ones in. I dont remember their names now but even if I did, I wouldnt tell them now. Go figure out now how I am supposed to prove it. In any case, I turned them in to the organisation. So, I was betrayed. Many fellowfighters used to come, supposedly to do some kind of work, to ask for something and they were watching those who came and betrayed; one of them heard about the betrayal and informed me. Therefore I stopped all contacts, all activities. He even told me that they would help me escape to the Middle East. Thus, little by little, I realised after a while that I was being followed but I was at home and didnt leave. At the end, I said that I would go back to Athens to finish the school of the Red Cross and so I stopped and resigned and came down to Ierapetra. They had supplied me even with the password and who to follow and one day eventually Chaniotakis came, telling me that they were ready to help me get away to the Middle East, which they did. I got away with the sister of Chaniotakis wife. We left and went together with Chaniotakis to Heraklion, from there we went up to a village and spent the night there, and the following day we were placed on a donkey for we had to go through the mountains and descend to Tsoutsouras. A ship was waiting for us there; those small ships were called ML. Even an airplane escorted us to the Middle East. And this is how I went to the Middle East. Mpantouvas Manolis was down then in Egypt and I went and worked for the Greek government in Cairo. It was at the time of Venizelos Sophoclis and I started working there for the Greek administration. When we returned, when we came back to Greece, I continued working for the government. I came back to Athens. I was engaged in the Middle East. I was accommodated in a house where the fighters that came from Crete were accommodated and there was a soldier there that was in RAF, in the British army; he was Cypriot of English citizenship,
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his name was Kostas Koliandris. I was officially engaged and when the war ended we came back to our country. I came back to Crete, and from there of course I went to Athens, since I was engaged, and went to my in-laws. My husband was left behind for we came back from Egypt in groups. Ever since, I lived in Athens. Italians and Germans I wish I could remember some things too, for I communicated everything I saw or heard. I dont remember them though. I worked from 41 till 44 when I left. Three years. Most of the time in Ierapetra. For some time I was the interpreter of the Italians too. I could speak some Italian. My father had finished an Italian school in Heraklio. My father was from Mithous, a poor child, and some pharmacist from Heraklio took him for work and sent him, along with the Greek school to the Italian as well. I dont know why. And my father had graduated from an Italian school and he had taught me some. So, I helped the Italians too. Italians were different people: more peaceful, not fond of war. They gave us food. My father worked those years as an interpreter in the Italian administration in Ierapetra, together with me. I think Germans now are a different kind of people than they used to be then. At that time, there were the Nazis, the Nazism; they were dogs, fierce dogs. My brother dared say something against Hitler once to the captain in the house, since he was friendly to us (he showed greater likeness to me). Although the captain disliked war, missed his children and begged for the war to end, he became furious. Despite that, they were all imbued with Nazism. Imbued. Debt Each one has the obligation to serve his country and this is what I did too. I served it both in the front as a sister and in Crete despite the difficulties. I always think and wonder, how I managed, how I defied the danger that was threatening me. You can not regret something you offer to your country. As a matter of fact, you are pleased that you offered something. I forgot to tell you that the organisation had offered me money, but neither I nor my brother ever accepted. When we started
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working and I started communicating information we didnt accept money, we said that: What ever we do, we do it for the country, not in order to get paid. I have never spoken before, what has been written121 is probably by Chaniotakis, maybe the organisation, maybe the fellowfighters.
121
See Ioanidis, 1960: 166-168.
REFERENCES
Alheit, P. (1998). I afigimatiki sinendefxi. Mia isagogi (=The narrative interview. An introduction). In Papaioanou, S. et. al. (Eds.). Kinonikos metashimatismos, ekpedefsi ke topiki kinonia (=Social transformation, education and local society). Rethimno/Anogia: Panepistimio Kritis, 135-145. Alheit, P. & Bergamini, S. (1998). Viografiki erevna ke erevna istorion zois. Mia nea piotiki prosegisi stis kinonikes epistimes. Mia isagogi (=Biographical research and research of life stories. A new qualitative approach in social sciences. An introduction). In Papaioanou, S. et. al. (Eds.). Kinonikos metashimatismos, ekpedefsi ke topiki kinonia (=Social transformation, education and local society). Rethimno/Anogia: Panepistimio Kritis, 121134. Andriakena, . (2001). Apo ti mnimi stis mnimes: I glosiki strofi ke i prosegisi tou parelthondos stis kinonikes epistimes (=From memory to memories: the lingual turn and the approach of the past in social sciences). Dokimes, 9-10, 31-46. Atkinson, R. (1998). The life Story Interview. (Sage University Paper Series on Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 44). California: Sage. Dimitrianakis, Y. (2003). O Mirtos ke ta giro horia. Istoria, Laografia, Paradosi (=Mirtos and the surrounding villages. History, Folklore, Tradition). Ierapetra: Pnevmatiko Kendro Ierapetras. Hatzakis, Y. (1961). Apo to perasma ton ounon. I Viannos stis floges. Tragodia emetri se praxis 4 (= From the Huns pass. Viannos in flames. A tragedy in 4 acts). Pireas: Author. Hobsbawm, E. (2002). I epohi ton akron. O sindomos ikostos eonas. 1914-1991 (=Age of extremes. The short twentieth century. 1914-1991) (2nd ed.). Athens: Themelio. Hristakis, . (1994). Mousikes taftotites. Afigisis zois mousikon ke sigrotimaton tis elinikis aneksartitis skinis rok (=Musical identities. Life narratives of musicians and bands from the Greek independent rock scene). Athens: Delfini. Hristakis, Y.D. collab. Stefanakis K.Y. (2000). Eparhia Vianou 1940-1945
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(To olokaftoma tou 1943) (=Vianos District 1940-1945 (The holocaust in 1943). Heraklio: Silogos Vianiton Irakliou O Patouhas Special edit. Vianitikon Neon, no. 8. Hristakis, Y. (2005). Mikres alithines sholikes istories (=Small true school stories). Heraklio: Kriti .. (Newspaper Tolmi). Hristakis, Y. (2007, 17 September). O Mavros September tou 1943 sta horia tis ditikis Ierapetras (=1943s Black September at Ierpetras western villages). Diexodos, 30-31. Ioanidis, Y. (1960). Elines ke xeni kataskopi stin Elada (=Greek and foreign spies in Greece) (2nd ed.). Athens: Pezos logos. Kazantzakis, ., Kakridis, ., Kalitsounakis, . (1945). Ekthesis tis Kendrikis Epitropis diapistoseos omotiton en Kriti (=Ascertainment report of the Central Committee for the atrocities in Crete). In Karelis, . (2005). Istorika simiomata yia tin Kriti: apo tin epanastasi tou 1866 os tin katohi (me anatiposi ton omotiton ton Kazantzaki, Kakridi, Kalitsounaki) (=Historical notes for Crete: from the 1866 revolution until the occupation (with a reprint of the atrocities by Kazantzaki, Kakridi, Kalitsounaki). Iraklio: Panepistimiakes Ekdosis Kritis, 254-369. Kokolakis, . (1988). Anatoliki Kriti. Katohi. Andistasi. Emfilios (=Eastern Crete. Occupation. Resistence. Civil war). Athens: Gnosis. Mazower, M. (1994). Stin Elatha tou Hitler. I Ebiria tis katohis (=Inside Hitlers Greece. The Occupation Experience). Athens: Alexandria. Mazower, M. (2001). Skotini Ipiros. O Evropaikos ikostos eonas (=Dark Continent. Europes Twentieth Century). Athens: Alexandria. Ministry of Interior (Ed.) (1962). Stihia sistaseos ke ekselikseos ton dimon ke kinotiton (=Municipal and Community establishment and development data). Athens: Kendriki enosi dimon ke kinotiton tis Elados (=Central union of municipalities and communities of Greece). National Council for the assertion of Germanys debts to Greece (2006). I mavri vivlos tis katohis (=The occupations black bible) (2nd ed.). Athens: National Council for the assertion of Germanys debts to Greece. National Statistical Service of Greece (n.d). Population. Prefects, municipalities, communities, municipal and community districts and settlements. Retrieved on 12/2/2008 from http:// www.statistics.gr/ gr_tables/ S1101_SAP_1_tb_dc_01_ 03_.pdf Papadakis, Y. (2002). Vianos. Diahroniki poria apo ta vathi ton eonon mehri simera (=Vianos. A course from the old ages to this day). Athens: Smirniotakis.
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Paterandonakis, Y.. & Tsitsinia (1987). I katastrofi tis eparhias Vianou ke I sfagi ton katikon aftis ipo ton germanon. Apo tis 13 Septemvriou mehri tis 16 tou ithiou minos tou etous 1943 (=The destruction of Viannos district and the slaughter of the population by the Germans. From the 13th of September until the 16th of the same month of the year 1943). Athens: Author. Payne, S. (2002). I Istoria tou Fasismou. 1914-1945 (=A History of Fascism. 1914-1945). Athens: Filistor. Playiotakis, .. (1943). Afieroma sti Viano (=Dedication to Vianos). Poem in Vianitika Nea (2005), Vianos. Omorfies ke Thisia (=Vianos. Beauties and Sacrifice.) (2nd ed.). Heraklio: Vianitika Nea, 32. Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research. Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (2nd ed.). California: Sage. Thanopoulou, . & Petronoti, . (1987). Viografiki prosegisi: Mia ali protasi gia tin kinoniologiki theorisi tis anthropinis embirias (=Biographical approach: A different proposition for the sociological view of human experience). Epitheorisi Kinonikon Erevnon (=The Greek Review of Social Research), 64, 20-42. Thompson, P. (2002). Fones apo to Parelthon. Proforiki istoria (=The Voices of the Past. Oral history). Athens: Plethron. Tsiolis, Y. (2006). Istories zois ke viografikes afigisis. I viografiki afigisi stin kinoniologiki piotiki erevna (=Life stories and biographical narratives. The biographical approach in sociological qualitative research). Athens: Katarti. Van Boeschoten, R. (2002). Dekaetia tou 40: Diastasis tis mnimis se afigisis zois tis periodou (=The 40s: Dimensions of memory in life narratives during the period). Epitheorisi Kinonikon Erevnon (=The Greek Review of Social Research), 107, 135-155. Vilanova, M. (2000). I aorates pliopsifies. Ergatiki ekmetalefsi, epanastasi ke katastoli (=The invisible majorities. Labor exploitation, revolution and repression). Athens: Katarti.

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Stefanos A.

The burned villages

LASITHI PREFECTURE 2008

Ierapetra Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki ............................................................................. 288 References .................................................................................................................. 297

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MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

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MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

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Executed in Gdohia on the 16th of September.

MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

In Cretan dialect: Kaimena (in Greek: ).

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Actual population of the villages of western Ierapetra:

Gdohia Mournies Riza

Parsas -Metaxohori 281 55 -80%

1940 2001 Change

397 277 440 92 +11% -67%

289 287 -1%

1.193 499 -58%

683 110 -84%

MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki who lived in Ierapetra is an exception.

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MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

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See the narration of Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki.

MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

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MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

Church of Agios Antonios: Church of Saint Anthony.

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She refers to the book Dimitrianakis, 2003.

EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

Pente means five in Greek.

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Agios Nikitas: Saint Nikitas.

EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

In Greek: which literally means Saint Anthony.

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

In Greek: and , both meaning bitter.

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Fava is a food made of grinded peas.

EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

Cretan breeches and boots: in Greek, .

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EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI

In Greek: , from the Italian word cantare.

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