Elia Poulos escorted them a mile over the border to the Albanian town of Leshinitsa, where they were handed over to other guerrillas. There was a distribution of food: small round pellets of bread made from the hard hulls left after wheat had been ground into flour. The rough bread cut their lips and was impossible to chew. There were some water-boiled squash, and as one woman, Athena Haramopoulos, remembers, every family was given one leek. “One leek to a family!” she exclaims. “I asked Elia Poulos, ‘Where are the boiling pots of food you promised us? What am I going to feed my babies?’ As he walked away, Poulos replied, ‘You’re lucky you’re alive, woman!’ I cursed him, ‘May a black bullet find you!’ and it did before another year was out.”
The evacuation of the Mourgana villages left the mountains solely in the hands of the guerrillas, who braced themselves for the main assault, which they expected to come from the south. They thought they could still hold on to the Mourgana heights, turning them into a “Greek Stalingrad” that would be invulnerable. They were counting on the fortifications they had dug on the southern and eastern sides, and on the steady flow of arms they would receive from Albania to the north.
The two brigades of nationalist forces made their way down from the northeast along the frontier and managed to take some outposts. But as they approached the highest peaks, they were stopped by strong fire from the guerrillas as well as from Albanian long-range artillery shooting over the border. General Tsakalotos then decided to take a bold initiative. Ignoring possible international repercussions, he ordered Greek artillery to fire on the Albanian guns. He also sent a crack infantry company inside Albania to approach the key Mourgana height from the rear. At the same time other units crept along on the Greek side of the border over slopes so steep that the guerrillas had left them thinly protected, thinking them impassible. On Thursday, September 16, the critical highest peak of the Mourgana was seized by nationalist forces. They sent a white flare arcing into the sky between the ghost towns of Lia and Babouri. It was a signal to the two government brigades on the south to press forward and connect with those on the north, cutting off all paths of retreat. It was also notice to the guerrillas that their citadel had fallen.
Guerrilla leader Kostas Koliyiannis ordered an immediate retreat, but because the escape route through Tsamanta was already closing, he pushed his men eastward toward Granitsopoula and the Kalamas River, crossing it and running for the Zagoria mountains.
At the vanguard of the retreat was the battalion of Spiro Skevis, including Rano Athanassiou, the friend and neighbor of the Gatzoyiannis girls who had been taken only three weeks before from testifying at Eleni’s trial and conscripted into Skevis’ fighters. Without learning the outcome of the trial, Rano was plunged into training; the Taurus assault on the Mourgana was her baptism of fire. Eventually she became a seasoned guerrilla, even giving propaganda speeches in occupied villages of northern Greece, but her first encounter with battle terrified her. “As we retreated, we passed through Lia just as the mountains to the north were overflowing with government soldiers,” she says. “We went down to Kostana, and as we pushed eastward, there were dead bodies everywhere—horses, men, young girls. I saw the dead body of an andartina I knew from Tsamanta, a beautiful girl named Eleni, her long blond hair all matted with blood.”
Rano and the rest of the Skevis battalion continued to push on toward Zagoria, treading gingerly through the hills above government-held Yannina, close enough to see the lights of the city below. They finally reached the mountains of Zagoria and found remnants of the guerrilla forces who had been driven from Grammos. There the exhausted, starving survivors of the DAG would spend a bitter winter before making the last stand of the war the following year.
The government soldiers entered Lia on the heels of the retreating guerrillas, reaching it on September 18, but there was no one left to be liberated. With the soldiers came some of the men who had fled Lia nearly a year before in the wake of the guerrillas. One of the first to arrive was Foto Gatzoyiannis, who had acted as a guide for nationalist troops approaching from the south. He rang the church bells of Holy Trinity to see if he could coax any villagers out of hiding, but the only answer to his summons was the slow tapping of Sophia Karapanou’s cane as she emerged from her hut. Foto seized her by the shoulders, demanding to know where the villagers had gone. “I don’t know, my boy,” the old woman croaked, turning her sightless eyes to the heavens. “For days now I haven’t heard a human voice, only the sound of the crows.” Foto looked up and saw that she was right; clouds of black birds were circling over the village.
Soon he heard someone else approaching. It was another village woman, Mihova Christou. Mihova had hidden in a cornfield on the night of the evacuation. She told Foto that she was among the women returning from a work detail on the day of the executions and had seen the condemned being led to the killing ground. Mihova agreed to show him the area where he would find the bodies of his wife, Alexo, and his sister-in-law Eleni.
Foto slept in his empty house that night and the next day was joined by several more village men who had approached slowly behind the soldiers, taking a roundabout route, stepping carefully from stone to stone to avoid the land mines, which were everywhere. The newcomers included Kitso Haidis and young Dimitri Stratis, a son-in-law of Foto and Alexo. Within hours they were joined by Costas Gatzoyiannis, Foto’s seventeen-year-old son, who had also come from Filiates, searching for news of his mother. Foto, his son Costas, Kitso Haidis and Dimitri Stratis decided to set off at once, with Mihova Christou as a guide, to find the mass grave.
As they climbed the path through the Perivoli, they walked through a landscape that seemed to have been stripped of its inhabitants with the suddenness of a thunderclap. Every small cave and ravine was full of pots, blankets, rotting food and piles of clothing. The bloated bodies of dead mules, goats and sheep lay in their path, and packs of stray dogs watched them with yellow eyes.
When they reached the Vrisi, surrounded by caves, they found an open mess hall left by the guerrillas: dozens of pots of coagulated food hanging over burned-out fire pits, carcasses of slaughtered lambs and goats suspended from plane trees and covered with shiny, quivering black coats of flies. Several tables for officers were set with fine china dishes that must have been taken from homes in wealthier towns. Infuriated at the sight, Costas Gatzoyiannis began smashing the fragile plates in a frenzy of anger and grief until his father pulled him away.
Mihova Christou led them up Laspoura and through the Agora. When they reached a spot overlooking the fields below St. Nicholas, they found a pair of leather sandals placed side by side on a rock. Foto Gatzoyiannis identified them as ones he had made for Alexo. There was a choked sound from Costas as the men silently wondered whether Alexo herself had kicked them off and left them there, a sign to those who would come looking for her, or whether someone, guerrilla or passer-by, had placed them there to mark the grave site.
Mihova Christou pointed to the field below and said, “I’m not going any farther. You’ll find them somewhere there at the bottom of the ravine.”
They didn’t have to search. There had been no rain since the execution and trails of dried blood led the way to the grave. They found shell casings at the execution spot and when they came closer to the pile of rocks, the stench brought them to a halt. The boy Costas turned away. Foto began pulling up the boulders. The first came loose, releasing a cloud of flies which rose like furies from hell. They looked upon the body of the gray-haired cooper, Vasili Nikou, lying face down in his familiar tan jacket. A wire was bound around each wrist. Foto Gatzoyiannis had seen many bodies in his life; he hadn’t even balked at cutting two fingers off a dead Italian soldier to get his gold rings. Now, holding a handkerchief to his nose, he reached down to feel in the pocket of the cooper. He found a pouch still containing some tobacco and an official order for Nikou’s execution, signed by Kostas Koliyiannis.
As Costas Gatzoyiannis watched from a distance, Foto and Kitso pulled away more b
oulders. Next to Nikou lay Spiro Michopoulos, then his nephew Andreas; finally they found Eleni and Alexo Gatzoyiannis. The bodies were all face down, bound together with wire. The men recognized Eleni by her light-chestnut hair, which still shone with glints of red and gold in the sunlight. Foto identified Alexo by the black homespun skirt and a small patch she had sewn to cover a hole in the back of her black sweater. Foto’s cheeks were wet with tears, but he had lost another wife in his youth and had learned to keep tragedy at arm’s length. His son Costas lacked his objectivity. At the sight of his mother’s body the boy began to scream that he would put on a uniform and pay for her death with the blood of every Communist guerrilla. His lust for vengeance ultimately cost him his life. Costas enlisted in the army as soon as he left the village and fought with suicidal recklessness. Five months after his mother’s death, as he stood in an exposed spot shouting curses at the guerrillas, he was killed by a bullet fired by a young andartina.
Kitso Haidis was shaken by racking sobs as he stood over the corpse of his daughter. The sight of the broken body beneath the mass of burnished hair released all the tears he had never shed for his other four daughters, dead in their doll-sized coffins. He grieved for them and for this favorite child, whom he had abandoned in anger without ever saying goodbye.
There was no way the dead could be moved. The men built a small retaining wall of stones and mud below the grave site so that the stream would not wash away the ground; then they removed the boulders and covered the bodies with dirt.
The sun warmed the newly turned earth, and insects and birds filled the ravine with sound as the men shouldered their tools and set out back toward the village. Kitso dreaded the ordeal ahead of him—telling his grandchildren what had happened to their mother.
Two days after the liberation of Lia, a refugee arrived in Igoumenitsa with a message for the Gatzoyiannis children that their grandfather would be returning that afternoon from the village. Olga and Kanta anxiously put chairs out on the small cement balcony so that they could see him the moment he stepped off the army truck.
Nikola paced nervously. To distract him, his uncle Andreas took the boy out to the wooded spot, his “thinking place,” and drew a chalk checkerboard on a flat tree stump there. Using black and white pebbles, Andreas set about teaching him to play checkers. But Nikola could not concentrate on the game, and as the shadows lengthened, he made excuses and left. He went to sit in the dust beside the road on the edge of town waiting for the first glimpse of his grandfather. His chest hurt and there was a tightness, like unswallowed food in his throat.
It was late afternoon when one of the canvas-topped army trucks roared past me, stirring up clouds of dust, and I glimpsed my grandfather’s shock of white hair in the back. I shouted and began to run after the lumbering vehicle, nearly catching up, when I saw my grandfather turn his face away from me, a week’s growth of beard making him look old and ill. “Papou!” I called as the truck picked up speed, entering the long shady avenue roofed with plane trees. The dust and exhaust stung my lungs as I hurtled into the tunnel of shade, tears of frustration dimming my sight. As I emerged into the sunlight where passengers were climbing out of the parked truck, I spied my grandfather walking away from me. Staggering, trying to catch my breath, I reached him and seized his arm. “What is it, Papou?” I asked. “Where’s Mana?”
He looked away, new furrows of pain inscribed on his forehead. He gazed up at the unfinished house on the hillside, then reached into his pocket and pulled out two 100 drachma notes. “Take this, go down to the harbor and buy sweets,” he said in a choked voice. “Buy reveni, enough for many people.” Then he walked off, leaving me standing in the dust, clutching the money, staring after him.
The sun impaled me to the spot as a hollow ballooned inside me. He had told me in the only way he could. I had never seen my grandfather part with money for a frivolous reason. Those two wilted 100 drachma notes were to buy sweets to serve the mourners who would come to our door with condolences. I tried to believe that I was mistaken; perhaps the sweets were for a celebration. But his face had told me otherwise.
I ran at top speed to the pastry shop and my hands trembled as I waited for the huge white cardboard box to be filled and elaborately tied with a golden ribbon. I grasped it by the knot and sprinted toward our house. As I came near, a wave of sound rushed out, draining the last strength from my legs. It was a cry of despair, a sinuous, rising and falling chorus of pain, the funeral laments of my sisters. The box became too heavy and fell from my hand into the dirt. I couldn’t deceive myself any longer. The sound of their grief knotted my stomach and I ran, not knowing where I was going, until I hurled myself on the cool grass near the tree stump with the checkerboard. I pressed my face into the musk-smelling earth and clapped my hands over my ears, trying to shut out the awful screams that were the death knell of my mother.
Olga and Kanta were standing on the balcony watching the stooped figure of their grandfather climb the hill. They both realized at the same moment that he had grown a stubble of beard, the sign of mourning for a death in the family. They reached for each other’s hands and Olga said in a tight voice, “Perhaps he didn’t have a razor in the village.” When he entered the door, they both ran toward him shouting, “What happened to Mana?”
Kitso looked at them wearily. “They’ve taken Glykeria into Albania,” he said in a toneless voice. “But she’s all right.”
“Never mind Glykeria!” snapped Kanta. “What about Mana?”
The old man looked out toward the sea, which shone like a sheet of hammered gold under the setting sun. He couldn’t say the words. “Glykeria’s alive. They didn’t hurt her.” he said. Then they understood.
Olga rushed out on the shaky spiral staircase and vomited over the railing. Kanta seized an icon of the Virgin framed in glass from the mantelpiece and smashed it on the floor, stamping on it with her feet and screaming, “You could have saved her but you didn’t!”
At the sound of the uproar, two refugee women who lived on the other side of the house hurried in. They understood at once what had happened. One saw Fotini, pale and wide-eyed, backed in a corner. She picked up the girl, crooning, “My poor child!” But Fotini turned into a fury, kicked and bit the woman, who dropped her, startled. Then Fotini ran out of the room, down the staircase and into the shadows, taking refuge in the foul-smelling ditch that served as a latrine. After a while, when the stench became unbearable, she crept back into the house, now crowded with what seemed to be the whole population of Igoumenitsa. Many of the refugee women, long prepared for this moment, had already baked cakes and sweets as condolence gifts. One of them offered a piece of baklava to the little girl. She dried her tears on her sleeve and with the first bite, the awful pain of her mother’s death began to lift.
Nitsa’s voice still hadn’t returned to normal, but she added her hoarse wails to the general confusion. Andreas didn’t say a word through it all, but as the twilight faded, he looked around the room and asked, “Where’s the boy?” No one replied.
I had been lying in the grass for a long time when I realized that someone else was there. I looked up and saw my uncle seated on the edge of the large stump with the checkerboard. He beckoned and said softly, “We never finished our game.” I nodded and came to sit opposite him, but the checkerboard swam in front of me. Wordlessly I shook my head. Then he gathered me in his wiry arms and carried me as if I were a baby back up to the house. The room was suffocatingly close with crowded bodies, sympathetic murmuring, wails and sobs and the odor of cooked food. As Andreas carried me into the room, everyone fell silent, looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a neighbor woman at the fireplace leaning over a bubbling vat of black dye and carefully dropping in my sisters’ bright-colored clothes.
Christos Gatzoyiannis received the news of his wife’s death in a letter sent to the room he rented on Front Street in Worcester for $8 a week. When he saw the name “Gatzoyiannis” on the back he thought for a moment that, aft
er two years of silence, Eleni had somehow managed to get a letter out to him. A closer look showed that the envelope had been mailed from Athens by Yianni Gatzoyiannis, the eldest son of Alexo. When Christos opened it, a tiny newspaper clipping fell out. It was from the Greek paper Kathimerini, dated September 5, 1948:
CHILDREN AGES 5–14 YEARS
From the Area of the Mourgana Transported
by the Guerrillas into Albania
YANNINA, 4 SEPT.—A guerrilla who surrendered in the Mourgana area described the abduction of children ages 5–14 whom their mothers, beaten and at gun point, escorted to Koshovitsa inside Albanian territory where they were forced to abandon them and brought back under guard to their occupied villages. The dramatic march of mothers and children into Albania took two days amid lamentation and mourning.
The same guerrilla disclosed that an improvised guerrilla court in the Mourgana villages sentenced to be executed the sixtyish Alexandra Katsoyiannis and Vasilis Nikou, Spiro and Andreas Michopoulos, and Eleni Katsoyiannis, wife of an American citizen.
The bit of newsprint fell to the floor as Christos unfolded the letter from his nephew. It stated in a few words that the condemned had been executed. “I was all alone and when I read that I got crazy,” Christos recalled twenty-six years later. “‘Killed my wife?’ I cried. ‘For what? Why?’
“The people from the restaurant came around to see me and I said I wasn’t going to work for a week. I stayed home, mourning my wife, writing letters everywhere, trying to find out the details, but there were no answers. I had no one.”
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