Orthokostá

by Thanassis Valtinos

  Chapter 2

  The next day they took me in. That’s when it was. I’d come from Kastrí. I left with Paraskeví that evening. The men sent me to check the house, and so I wouldn’t be alone I stayed with your girls, Iríni. At your place. I went out to the square to go to your house, I see a lot of people. Where the Telephone Company is now. They’re saying, They burned down Ayiasofiá1 last night. There was killing and the like. I leave, I go to Chrónis’s pharmacy. He says, Yeorghía, they saw your brothers in Másklina.2 I didn’t know a thing. What are you talking about, Lámbros? I started crying. I went up to your house. Yiórgos Haloúlos was there. He was with Anthí. Pavlákos was there, down at the butcher’s. At Goúnas’s. In the doorway. And he gave me a look, like that. Nikólas did. I go find Yiórgos and Anthí. They were talking about me. I was terrified after Lámbros told me about my brothers, that they’d seen them in Másklina. Because I was the one would pay for it. Don’t worry, Yiórgos Haloúlos tells me. We were just talking about you, to see where to hide you. Well, anyway. Anthí takes me, and we go to the shack, you know, the shack, Iríni. To see if I could stay there. I tell Anthí. I was a young girl, in the prime of my youth. I tell her, Anthí, honey, that Pavlákos fellow was giving me the eye. Sly-like, you know. That son of a bitch, says Anthí. That son of a bitch. Don’t pay him any mind. Later on I understood why he was looking at me. That night Pótis Lenghéris comes by. Who doesn’t know anything yet. I was still with the girls. He says, They want you at the office. The office was at Mángas’s house. They want to question you, he says. He takes me there. Mángas’s house was just a few steps away. We go inside. I see the Koutsoyiánnis family from Douminá. Relatives of the others who’d left with our brothers. It must have been evening. The sun must have set. Stávros Koutsoyiánnis, his son Yiórgos and Vasílis Koutsoyiánnis’s wife. I started crying. I also saw some villagers from Ayiasofiá. They’d arrested them the same day. The day after they burned down their village. It was July, because we were harvesting. And there I am crying. Your father comes in, the girls had fixed me something to eat. He brought me eggs with potatoes.

  —Was Pavlákos there?

  —When I went he wasn’t there yet. The other men were there. Kléarhos, Velissaróyiannis,3 Mavromantilás. They were the leaders. At night they got us and took us to Ayiopétro.4 The girls come in, Anthí—no not Anthí, Sotiría, she brings me a blanket. She puts it right in my hand. And there I was in these sandals. They said they were taking us to Ayiopétro for questioning. They take us there, they shove us in some cellar dungeon. The next day they move us. They put us in line to send us off to the detention camp. As we’re going there, Pavlákos comes along. There were about twenty of us. Lyghítsos’s wife Eléni was there.

  —Is Eléni alive?

  —She is, she’s in Athens. Pavlákos comes over, he comes up next to me. He says, When they question you say that you’re willing to work for the Organization.5 That was his advice to me.

  —Pavlákos may have been whatever he was, but he wasn’t a die-hard Communist. He would cover for our fellow villagers. He was the one who helped Kalosynátos escape.

  —Yes, but let me continue now. And as we were about to get started, Pavlákos says, Wait, I have to announce something to you. Just this minute, he says, they went to Koubíla to burn down the Makrís family’s houses, his exact words, and to take in the rest of the family, and they didn’t find anyone. They’d left for Másklina. They went to the Germans. And Kléarhos said, Looks like they were traitors.

  —Didn’t he say anything to tip you off, all he did was make that announcement?

  —That’s why they arrested her. That’s how her brothers left. But she didn’t start it right.

  —How my brothers left is another story. I’m telling how they arrested me.

  —They arrested you, that’s why they arrested you.

  —They took us to the detention camp. We go inside. The balconies are packed full. Yiórgos Kontós from Karakovoúni. Mítsos Kapetanéas, Chrístos Petrákos, Nikólas’s brother, Dímos Kokkiniás, Thanásis Grigorákis, someone named Theodorópoulos from Dolianá, and Panayotoúros. Let me try and remember them.

  —Themistoklís?

  —Themistoklís and I went to the detention camp together. With his brother Chrístos.

  —They had Chrístos in the detention camp too?

  —They did. They beat him something awful.

  —Which Chrístos?

  —Anagnostákos. Themistoklís’s brother.

  —Did they beat him too?

  —They did. Don’t interrupt me, because I’m going to tell it all. He’s dead now. We went there, we go in. I was lost, there were so many people. We lie right down. I lay out the one blanket your sisters had given me. I lie down and pass out. They come in, Get up, Chrysanthe says to me, get up, it’s nighttime. I get up, they take us up to the cells. Going up, on the stairs I see Nikítas Braílas with his mother. I start crying. A man named Yiorgátsis comes in, worked at the detention camp. I don’t know where he was from. Girl, you should have cried those tears for your brothers. For my brothers, so they wouldn’t leave for Másklina. They take us upstairs, the cells are all full. They take us out on a balcony. Me, Lyghítsos’s wife Eléni, a couple of women from Ayiasofiá, and one from Tegéa, a young girl. I put the blanket in front of us on the railing. And we waited. Vasílis Tóyias comes by. He tells me.

  —Tóyias was there?

  —He was the camp commander. Tóyias from Mesorráhi. He was killed. And Stratís Karadímas. The General, we could say. He came in, he put a fright in me, We’ll cut off your hair, you.6 Why cut off my hair, just put a bullet in me. And Tóyias says to me, No, you’re a hostage, we’re holding you because of your brothers. We’ll cut the hair off the other women. Thirty-six days I was a hostage. I wouldn’t eat. They’d give us watery soup with flies in it and a tiny piece of bread. Like a piece of antídoron.7 They’d tell us: Any of you don’t eat your bread, you take it with you. I didn’t eat. I was going out the door one day. Why don’t you take your bread with you, the General asks me. You think we give a damn that you don’t eat? I didn’t answer him. Then that Tóyias gave us a speech. They gathered us in the church. And this is what he said, I heard every word of it. Like for example, if Makrís, Yeorghía’s father, does anything for the Germans right now, of course his daughter will pay for it. He said that in his speech. Three days later they took me to be questioned. There was a hunchback there in a large cell, with firearms in it. He says to me, Come over here, are you going to tell us the truth or do you want to go to the hole. I got scared. I didn’t know about holes, didn’t know what they were and what they did. I found that out later there. But I was scared. Very scared. He was a deformed man, that interrogator, a hunchback. He says, Who were your brothers with, what was their relation with the Germans? I say, Our men were at home, they didn’t have relations with anyone. They arrested me in Kastrí, and I found out that they left. I don’t know what happened in between. He says, Did they say anything in defense of the Germans? In our house, I say, never. Never heard any talk like that. And he says, If we give you a gun now will you go and kill your brothers who went with the Germans? I say, No, I won’t go. Why, you afraid of the blood? I am, and especially of my brothers’ blood. He kept trying to get me on his side. One hour of questioning. It was crazy. Finally he says to me, If we give you a position will you work? Yes, if you give me one, I say. I mean, if we send you to a hospital. I say, If you send me there I’ll go. And then when they sent us to Prastós and Lyghítsos’s wife Eléni came down with typhus, they put me in charge of her care, I had her, and I had Themistoklís. His care was different, rubdowns and salves for Themistoklís.

  —To the village of Prastós?

  —To the village of Prastós.

  —They took Themistoklís there?

  —And then they took us up to the mountains. They made Panayótis, Iraklís’s brother, play the clarinet. And they danced. Well, anyway. It’s all a muddle.

/>   —And when the Germans came they took you.

  —When the Germans came we went and gave ourselves up. But we had got some water earlier. There was a drinking fountain. Look, girls, down there down by the wild pears, one of them said. We got water. Someone, a tall man, says, Who’s that girl, and Vasílis Tóyias said, She and her whole family are in deep with the Security Battalions.8 About me. We took the water, and on the road the man who had asked about me stopped us. He tells us, I’m Alímonos, and he turns to me, he tells me, I killed Ioannítzis from your village over there. Right there, he says to me. He showed me a hillside. A beautiful hillside. His head is planted under a pear tree. That’s what he said. Then I was really frightened. They took us farther up. It was hot. We tell Panayótis, Play a song. I told him that. To cheer us up. I will, he says. But first I’ll play a funeral dirge. We all gave a shudder. No, no, Panayótis, don’t do that. I don’t remember if he played anything. And that night, at twelve o’clock, they killed him. They kept them behind, they sent us away. The men took us there, the rebels, along the way they began to talk. What are you saying, what’s going on? Nothing, stay close to us. It was pitch dark. They took us to those shepherds. I couldn’t reap grain. I didn’t know how. They wouldn’t give me anything to eat. Chrysanthe went and reaped the grain for me. Later we saw the Germans. They were swimming in the stream. We gave ourselves up; they took us back to Orthokostá. Kalabakóyiannis comes in, he tells us, Tonight they killed Braílas’s mother, and Maraskés, and Themistoklís. And Panayótis Polítis. They were killing them all night, and that woman from Trípolis, they smashed in her head with the butt of a gun, left her dead on the spot. I got out safe. From Orthokostá they took us to Leonídio. I went to the school, the Boínis sisters were in there. Prisoners. Alexandra and the other one. They were crying. I ask, What’s wrong with them, someone tells me, They found out their brothers were killed. I felt sorry for them, I went over to them, I say, Don’t cry, girls. I said that like a good Christian, they didn’t answer me. I go outside, I run into Iraklís Polítis. Yeorghía, are the Boínis girls in there? No, I tell him, and he didn’t go in. He believed me. We went to the seafront. There were people in line waiting to get into the caïques. Lots of people. From the Orthokostá detention camp, people the rebels had taken to Xerokámpi. I found Tasía Kambýlis there and Matína Lymbéris, Chía’s sister, I found Tasía’s brother Stamátis. Iraklís comes in angry as can be, I could kill you now, Yeorghía, in front of your brother, who cares? Just because I hadn’t given away the Boínis sisters. Go away, I tell him, get away from me, leave me alone. And then I see those very women, they’re escorting them somewhere. They took them away, and they disappeared among the vegetable plots. They took them. Much later I learned they had executed one of them. From Leonídio we went to Náfplion. And from Náfplion up to Eleohóri. To Másklina. They come and tell me, They want you. They had taken someone in. My aunt tells me, You’d better go in case it’s someone innocent and they kill him for no reason. I go out into the street, Chrysanthe tells me, It’s that man. The one who told me at the detention camp I should be crying those tears for my brothers. Well, there he was again, right there in front of me. Lígdas says to me, We’re counting on you. Lígdas from the Security Battalions. As we’re talking I hear a voice coming from downstairs at the school. They were holding him in the basement. Hey, Yeorghía, it’s me. Who’s that? Yiórgos, don’t you remember me? Oh, Yiórgos, it’s you. You’re holding him prisoner, I say. In the end, they let the man go free. The next day we get on the train to go to Trípolis. Our parents stay up in Eleohóri. They stayed with our uncles. Kákos Barbitsiótis was on the train. So was the man they’d let go. He says to him, You should light a candle for this woman as long as you live. Because now you’d be hanging from a plane tree, at the hands of those Germans. We went to Trípolis. The Germans left, the Security Battalions left, they went to Spétses. Then the rebels came in. One day there’s a knock on our door. Someone says, I want Yeorghía. It was him. He says, If they harm you, if they bother you in any way, you let me know immediately. I’ll be at the jail. I’m a guard. He was grateful for my kindness to him. But nothing happened to us. No one bothered us. Except for that man who wanted to marry me.

  —Was he in the detention camp?

  —He passed through once. A kapetánios.9 Kapetán Farmákis. And he saw me, and he came to Trípolis looking for me. He found out where I was, got directions, and he came looking for me. To marry me. And he was so insistent. He’d come in one door and I’d be out the other. I’d go to Aryíris’s place. To Yiórgos’s, and hide. I can’t, I’d tell them, I just can’t. And there he’d be again. Asking for my hand. He finally gave up.

  Chapter 3

  They burned down Ayiasofiá around harvest time. We were still in Koubíla. We didn’t go up there, how could we go there, but all night long we heard the crackling of the fire. And the smell of the smoke kept coming down to us, making us choke. We found out later that Anghelís Lambíris’s mother had stayed behind. The man with the blacksmith shop. The others had gotten out and gone across from there. The kapetanaíoi1 show up. Where is your son, where’s your son? She says, What do you want with him, dear man, an invalid with six children. He was missing an eye. Lost it in Albania.2 He knows how to hide, they say. They pressed her to say where he was but she wouldn’t tell. With the villagers watching from the distance. And as she stood there leaning up against the wall they shot her, and that’s how they found her. Standing, just as she’d been. She didn’t fall down. She was propped up on her cane, she was thin, she didn’t fall down. And they found her there dead.

  Chapter 4

  His brother Kyriákos was killed that day. They had gone down to Stólos to look around. The Stólos villages. Most likely his own fault. He had an Italian rifle. He tried to do something, and the rifle went off and killed him. Well, Mihális took that loss very personally. On that same day they had brought Tsígris to Trípolis. He was a commissioned major, from the Reserves I think. He belonged to ELAS.1 The ELAS Reserves. They arrested him, brought him in, and he was in Lýras’s custody. I worked in Lýras’s office. The 2nd Bureau. Lýras was a captain and a graduate of the Army Cadets Academy; at the time he was chief of Intelligence for the 2nd Gendarmes Corps Headquarters. Under Papadóngonas,2 that is. The 2nd Gendarmes Corps Headquarters. That was its official title. Lýras was from Ayios Andréas, or rather from Karakovoúni. A fellow villager, and among the first to come down. Why I had come there is a different story. At any rate, it was all uncharted waters for me. The Battalions weren’t formed in Trípolis only. They were in all the towns of the Peloponnese. Those were times of national emergency. No Greek ever liked the Germans. Or wanted to collaborate with them. That’s when the Peloponnese Battalions were created. In the spring of 1944. When it was becoming clear that the Germans were losing the war. And it was also becoming clear how dangerous it would be for anyone who might find himself at the mercy of ELAS after the German collapse. After they cleared out. And that’s precisely where things led for them. Inevitably. The push had started, however, very early on. At a time when no one suspected anything. After the Albanian front had crumbled. The first seeds of doubt were sown. They kept saying that only the reservists had fought. That the commissioned officers were only interested in their stripes. This is all lies, of course. I should know. I served in the critical center of the theater of operations. The 13th Regiment of the 11th Division. I was at the most forward point of the front. Toward Beráti. And that’s where we came under the German onslaught. Immediately the 11th Division—ours, that is—and the 13th Regiment where I was serving were issued an urgent order to leave. I was in the 2nd Machine Gun Battery of the 2nd Battalion. Platoon officer. We had to leave urgently and get to Katára to establish a line of defense. To cover the rear of the Epirus Corps. The corps that was already operating in Albania, so as not to be outflanked by the Germans. We arrived at Katára, where we had to set up our line of defense. Just above Metsovo, exactly at Prophítis
Ilías.3 But everyone could already see that it was hopeless. Thousands of soldiers and officers were marching in from western Macedonia toward Yiánnina. An army in disarray. We were right on that line when the armistice was signed. We stayed in Prophítis Ilías until Easter. Luftwaffe planes were flying overhead. They bombed Yiánnina. The armistice was signed there, at Bodonási. Archbishop Spyrídon arrived, accompanied by Generals Bákos and Tsolákoglou.4 They signed the armistice with the Germans. And I was one of the last to arrive at Kastrí. And that’s how it all ended. And then of course they started saying, The reservists did all the fighting, the COs just looked after their stripes. From that far back. There was Yiánnis Velissáris, who was no leftist and no anarchist either. He was just an objector. To everything. If our group had only trusted him, Kyreléis and the rest, they would have had him join up. He wouldn’t have ended up where he did. Like so many others whose isolation pushed them over to the opposite side. Yiánnis was a good man. We were close friends, and I thought it was a terrible misfortune that he was executed. I was now back in the army. A lieutenant at that time and on a manhunt for Aris.5 I was in Tríkala, with the 1st Tríkala Battalion of the National Guard. Velouhiótis was already in disfavor with the KKE.6 He’d had a falling-out with the Central Committee and they expelled him. He had disagreed about the Várkiza Treaty and all that.7 Well, he was trying to get papers so he could leave for Yugoslavia. He was just hanging around waiting for them. We had a platoon stationed in Kalambáka, up in Kourtsoúfiani. The platoon leader let us know that Aris, with about forty men, had gone up to Mount Kóziakas. Kóziakas is right next to Tríkala. At Pýli we had another platoon. Pýli, at the foot of Kóziakas. The Portaïkós River runs right by there. It’s about fifteen kilometers away from Tríkala. We had a platoon over there with a second lieutenant. They had got hold of some firearms, the kind that were easy to get back then. They had formed teams to defend themselves, and also to get back at ELAS. To get even with them. Well, the Pýli second lieutenant sent us a message. Second Lieutenant Nikoláou of the Reserves. He had heard that Aris was spotted at Týrna, a village on the slopes of Kóziakas. This was his message to the Battalion: Am setting out with my platoon in pursuit of Velouhiótis. Send backup and food. He’s going after Aris. Let him go. Half the National Guardsmen we had then were leftists. They were half-and-half. They were 10 percent, at the very least. They joined up on purpose so they could get arms. At any rate, the base commander sends Nikoláou a message to turn back. But he was already advancing through the Ágrafa Mountains. A region where no government had ever set foot. An unwritten law. Since the time of Katsantónis.8 He had to get back to base because they were all afraid Aris would cut them to pieces. He even sent an officer to Pýli, but he didn’t get there in time, and he was reluctant to go on. The base commander sent a second envoy, same story. So at around midnight they come and wake me up. Get up, the commander wants you. I go over to their headquarters. Lieutenant, I’m sending you on a mission. What’s going on? Here’s the story. It’s Nikoláou. He needs to turn back right away. But, Sir. No buts; I’m assigning a sergeant to your detail who knows the terrain. All right, I say. But in my opinion the outcome of this operation is very uncertain. They gave me a Jeep and I made it to Pýli. The sergeant and I each had a tommy gun. We went to Pýli. Pýli was fortified to the teeth. They had learned that Aris was prowling about in the area. They had posted double patrols all around. Made up of locals. Armed civilians. We went inside, and I say, I’m looking for Dervénagas. Dervénagas was in charge of those teams. He later became an MP. He was from Pýli himself. He’s asleep, they tell me, We shouldn’t wake him. Pýli had been burned down by the Germans. Everyone there was living in rundown shacks. They wake Dervénagas, What’s going on, Second Lieutenant? I tell him, I need to find Nikoláou. He knew that Nikoláou had left in the morning. He asks me, How will you get through the lines? My men let you through and you got in all right. But the men from Mouzáki are out there. That’s Mouzáki, by Kardítsa. They’ll try to stop you. I tell him, If I managed to get in, I’ll find a way out. Okay, he says, If you want to go, go. He didn’t tell me anything about the situation. That Aris was somewhere around there. I didn’t know that then. So I took my sergeant and we got going. Just the two of us. No car this time. We exited Pýli. We came to a ravine. In the area near Kóziakas. Wooded terrain. The river and the road down below. A mule path. We kept moving forward. We found our way by the light of the moon. I kept hoping that that idiot Nikoláou would notice that no reinforcements were sent and turn back. But we kept on. Just before dawn a grenade exploded in the distance. There was a bridge there, I was told later on. We came to the road and waited. It got quiet. We kept going, we had no choice. Day was breaking, the wind brought us the sounds of shuffling feet. We took cover. I thought to myself, Maybe it’s Nikoláou coming back. It was him, all right. I saw him. He was walking ahead of the others. He was startled by our being there. There we were with our tommy guns in hand. I tell him, I ought to bash you one, you clown, you. By morning we were at Pýli. The cold was unbearable. They’d put out large pots, the patrols came down and gathered there to get something warm to drink and so on. Dervénagas shows up. He tells me, You’re back. I am. Are you ever lucky, if you only knew, poor man, where you’ve just been. Aris was right there near you all along. Across from Týrna. A soldier threw that grenade as a warning. The National Guard was full of leftists. I already said that. In the meantime our Battalion was replaced. There was a general of the High Command, Avramídis, and Pangoútsos had complained to him. Pangoútsos of the Agrarian Party. He collaborated with the left. He set up an organization, brought in some farmers, farmers that Soúrlas’s9 groups wouldn’t give free rein to. So he complained. He cabled the Communist newspaper Rizospástis, which wrote it up on the editorial page, and Avramídis was furious. He was an officer of democratic persuasions. Plastíras was prime minister at the time. And he ordered the replacement of our battalion. We had to go down to Lárissa. Then various other units closed in on Aris. Did his own men execute him or did he kill himself, no one knows. The whole story is still murky. The fact remains that he expected the Office of the Prefecture to okay his leaving for Yugoslavia. So we went south to Lárissa. We spent all the time until the fall of 1946 in Lárissa and in Vólos. Then came the plebiscite.10 And later on, when the rebellion started and the first skirmishes had occurred at Litóchoro and Pontokerasiá,11 our battalion had already been disbanded. The National Guard was disbanded, units of regulars were now being formed, and conscripts were being drafted. Hard times were beginning and all that came with them. The courts-martial and all that. Yiánnis was tried and convicted in Trípolis. I didn’t hear about his execution until later. His uncle Mítsos Kapetanéas, his mother’s brother, had tried to get him to reconsider. There was still the chance to renounce his former allegiance at the time. But Yiánnis was hardheaded. He was the kind of man who would never compromise. And his sacrifice was a waste. A lively character, and kind too. He could even have proved useful. Though he did us great harm, me and my brother. Aside from burning down our home, he had denounced us and cursed us as traitors and criminals. When, in fact, he could have become one of us. But the spirit of dissention had prevailed. I could see that there was a deliberate priming of the ground from that time on. Just after I got back from the Albanian front. At any rate, I stayed in Kastrí until 1943. The summer of ’43, when we had gotten our core group together. When Márkos Ioannítzis arrived. Then things started going wrong. Márkos was extremely naive when it came to conspiracies. Although he knew full well that the opposite side wanted to monopolize everything. One evening we got together at Réppas’s house, and he was going on and on. Talking openly. I remember Harís Lenghéris getting all tearful. Or pretending to. He took me aside. Please, teach me to become a fighter. As the oldest of a twelve-member family he’d never been to boot camp. Haroúlis12 Lenghéris, the notorious Communist. I’m trying to say that Márkos didn’t cover his back. He had come equipped with milita
ry maps, he had become a member of the Peloponnese Resistance network. He had men in many different places. On his last night, before leaving for the hills of Mount Parnon, we met just below the square. At Ayía Paraskeví. At the chapel. At night. We were all there, me, my first cousin Márkos Mávros, Chrístos Haloúlos, Kóstas Kyreléis, the whole group. About ten of us. And he gave us our final instructions. He assigned the Laconía sector to me. I was to meet a certain justice of the peace in Gýthio. That was the first leg, the other would be the Sykiá airfield, in Moláous. There was someone at the airfield whose name I don’t remember. Mántis, I think. But a disabled vet, at any rate. From these two I would gather information, among other things. He tells me, You’ll get started as soon as I come back from Mount Parnon. That’s when you’ll contact them. He never came back. He had gone to Mount Parnon to meet the British. To convince them to reinforce him too. And he ran into Látsis and someone else. Communists he knew. And they’re the ones who killed him. In the meantime he had connected our local cell with RO, the Radical Organization of Athens. Twice I had carried information memos to Athens. The memos were assembled by officers in Trípolis. I dropped these off at a side street off Agámon Square. Chrístos Frángos, from Kastrí, had a pastry shop there. I think he was a waiter. RO was trying to get the British to make supply drops in the area around Mount Parnon. And to create a cell operating a wireless radio. So that we could make use of Stámos Triantafýllis’s forces. And Kontalónis’s too. Kontalónis I knew from my school days in Trípolis. He was a second lieutenant, a Cadet Academy graduate. He had formed a group but fell into the clutches of the Communists. Of Leventákis and the others. He had started out as a royalist. We were hoping he would work with us. But of course there was nothing he could do then. He was already in the stranglehold of the Leventákis-Prekezés group. Later on he changed sides. They persuaded him to attack a small German unit. They were driving to Aráhova to get potatoes. To Aráhova in Laconía. And he attacked them. They were an easy target. There were either three or four Germans, they’d left their weapons in the truck. But that was his mission, to attack. The Germans burned down the village. That’s what drove the villagers of Aráhova up to the mountains. Our group, through the RO liaison, was expecting to be supplied by sea. I went to reconnoiter a submarine approach. Márkos had given me a map of the region. I set out from Kastrí. But we were under close surveillance. By Magoúlis and some others. I took Ilías Darláras as my muleteer. His house was below ours. He was Galioúris’s brother-in-law. He took me at night as far as Meligoú and left me there. I went down to Astros. I met Yiórgos Stratigópoulos there, a law student. He was from Ayios Andréas. His mother was from Kastrí. He was a leftist, but he worked with us. Exceptional fellow. I found him at Astros. We went to Ayios Andréas together. I did my reconnaissance. Coordinates and all. I noted everything on the map, so we could ask to be supplied from the Middle East Command. We went back to Astros. I delegated Níkos Farmakoulídas to set up the submarine reception. And since my being there seemed strange, I let it be known, confidentially, that Níkos was in the process of arranging a marriage for me. That was soon to take place. I went back to Kastrí on a truck, a gasogene truck. Yiórghis Réppas was driving it. There were no other means of transportation then. I found it by chance. It was summer. It must have been June. Late June. Because we had picked apricots as we drove through the fields. And they weren’t ripe yet. We arrived at Kastrí, I sent my report to Athens. With the point where the submarine could approach and its coordinates. But all of this, the drops and everything, was controlled from Cairo. Paradrops were made to groups favored by the British. And they wouldn’t reinforce leaderless or isolated groups. They made drops to Zérvas,13 and also to ELAS. The reason given for canceling the shipment to us of supplies, mainly munitions, was that the sub’s point of approach was not clearly designated. The response soon came. The coordinates were not precise enough, they had to be accompanied by a particular landmark, a special feature of the location. Then it occurred to me that there was a windmill there. I instantly put together a second memo. Just beyond the rocky shore there is a sandy beach, its coordinates being such and such, and at a distance of two hundred meters a very visible windmill stands alone. No doubt about it, a submarine could reach that spot, if it wanted to. But of course all this was just an excuse. In the meantime, Kóstas Kyreléis had left Kastrí and gone up to Mount Taygetus. And I’m now alone as a local overseer. Yiannakópoulos14 was there at Mount Taygetus. Katsaréas was there. Vrettákos was there. And also Stámos Triantafýllis. ELAS wouldn’t let him operate on Mount Parnon. All this in 1943, in the summer. And that was when the Yiannakópoulos pact with the Communists was signed. The Brits had intervened. Tavernarákis was up there too, as liaison with the SMA.15 I don’t know exactly why or how, but they decided to have a joint command. To merge, that is. Yiannakópoulos was a colonel. There were officers from Sparta and from Messinía. There were units there, regular divisions. There were rebels there. Vanghélis Mílis from Karátoula. He had joined Kóstas Kyreléis’s group. And someone named Diamantoúros from Voúrvoura. Lots of men. Spirited young men. And when the pact was made public, we were shocked. It was just like the Communists, whenever they couldn’t dominate an organization, they absorbed it. They would oust the leaders and then absorb the organization. The officers up there reacted; they knew this was the end. That they were at the mercy of ELAS. And they considered Yiannakópoulos’s action treasonous. But Yiannakópoulos had no choice. He was pressured by the British. That was their policy. Had he refused the merger, ELAS would have attacked and wiped him out. Then they began celebrating, as if there were no more problems. As if unity had been achieved. And of course for them there was no problem. At about that time Italy collapsed. At Kastrí we heard about Badoglio’s capitulation on the radio. We had no weapons in Kastrí. Just a few pistols. I owned a Lebel myself. We used Yiánnis Moúntros’s house by the cemetery as storage space. We stocked about twenty pairs of boots that had been sent to us from Athens. We kept them there, and we would give them out to the men going to Mount Taygetus. That’s also where I kept the Lebel. We had no weapons, even though everybody thought we did. Oh, those men from Kastrí, they’re so well armed, and so on. When I heard about the capitulation I thought it would be a golden opportunity for us to get weapons from the Italians. The bridges along the railroad line were guarded by Italians. At Eleohóri. From Andrítsa, all the way to Parthéni, the bridges were guarded by Italians. So I got the group together, Yiórgos Kyreléis, Chrístos Haloúlos, Thanásis Kosmás. About ten men. Chrístos and Kokkiniás also. Ready and willing. Vasílis Biniáris. Brave men. We went down to Eleohóri with only our pistols. We had nothing else. But with our pistols displayed prominently on our belts. We were counting now on the low morale of the Italians. And I made contact with them. We could have disarmed some of those guards, but we didn’t want to give grounds for reprisals against the village. What we wanted was to quietly win over the Italians to our side. To get them to come over to our side with their arms. I promised we would secure food for them. And also a way to escape. We could send them anywhere they wanted. In exchange for their arms. The Italians in Eleohóri told me that the decision could only be made by the commander in charge of all the guards, an Italian Army captain. Who was in Andrítsa. I don’t remember if he was stationed there or if he was there by chance. I called him on the phone. He spoke passable Greek. I explained the situation to him. I tell him, The Germans are coming any minute now. What will you do? We’ll defend ourselves, he tells me. You can’t be serious. The Germans will storm you with everything they’ve got, and you intend to defend yourselves? What’s the point? Defend what? I tell him, I’m asking you to surrender your arms and follow us. We’ll guarantee your safety to the best of our ability. If you stay put, your fate is certain. He insisted, We’ll defend ourselves. And in any case, if we do what you suggest, we’ll only surrender to an armed unit. And to officers in full uniform. In other words he wanted to ensure that al
l conventions were observed. That their honor was preserved. I tell him, That’s ridiculous. We men here are a group. Two officers from the Reserves, and ten citizen soldiers. And we are requesting your arms to mount our resistance against the Germans. Well, he refused. He tells me, It can’t be done. So we went to Saint Mámas hill. From there I sent out an echelon to Andrítsa under Chrístos Haloúlos. To try and change his mind. And even to threaten him. We stayed at Saint Mámas until dawn. They went there, they came back empty-handed. So we went back to Eleohóri at daybreak, to the village square. Then the EAM deputy arrives. He hands me a note. They had gotten in touch with Kastrí. They were afraid that as soon as we went down there we’d get our hands on some arms. This would be dangerous for them. Afraid we’d form a force they couldn’t control. They were trying like mad to prevent this. They sent me that note asking me to desist from any attempt at disarming the Italians. Because now that the various Taygetus organizations had merged, the whole case was under the jurisdiction of the Central Committee. And so on and so forth. Saying I have no right to act independently. The note came from Kastrí, from Kléarhos Aryiríou. They had gotten in touch with Kastrí from Eleohóri, and Kastrí sent me the note immediately. I laughed. The situation was ridiculous. Ridiculous and sad. Because it had been resolved by itself. We went back. And we were now on standby. After Italy’s capitulation there was a general expectation that an Allied landing in Greece would follow. We thought the Germans would be leaving in a month. This conviction was widespread. That in one month the Germans would leave Greece. That the Allies would land in the Balkans. And of course these hopes were all tied up with the problem of our survival. We could all see it clearly now. EAM and ELAS were the imminent danger. They would wipe us all out. Any of us who didn’t want to or wouldn’t consent to join them. That’s how we saw it—and that’s how it was. At any rate, we stayed in Kastrí. In a state of uncertainty. Under the watchful eye of Magoúlis and the rest. And then I receive a message from Trípolis. My cousin Mihális Tepeghiózis arrived from there during the night. He came there as a liaison. I was being called to Artemísion. One unit from Taygetus had escaped and gone to Artemísion to await air drops. Also a group of officers from Náfplion had gone there. Under Major Christópoulos. They were expecting air drops at Krýa Vrísi. In the Artemísion region. On Mount Hteniás just above Ahladókampos. I left Kastrí at noon. Taking every possible precaution. So I could go down to Ahladókampos via Ayiasofiá. In the message I was also asked to supply information about the possibility of manning groups. And the possibility of arming combat teams. I left exactly at noon and there, just below Mihális Vozíkis’s house, I saw Níkos Petrákos. It was just about then that Níkos had returned from Taygetus. He was the first to leave following the Yiannakópoulos agreement. But he and I had been unable to meet and talk comfortably. We were constantly under surveillance. So when I saw him, to avoid arousing suspicion, I whispered to him while looking straight ahead. Níkos, I’m taking off for Artemísion. It’s our only hope. He answered, God speed. I went down to Ayiasofiá and met with Yiórghis Antonákos. A distant uncle of mine. We went to see Mihális Lymbéris. Mihális supported our organization. He knew. He was one of ours. He and Vasílis Panayotákis from Stólos. Panayotákis was Yiórghis Antonákos’s brother-in-law. I filled Mihális in about the situation and started off for Ahladókampos by night. Antonákos, myself, and a man named Vanghélis Kanglís. He came along so he could become a guerrilla up there. We left at night. We reached Ahladókampos at midnight. We went and found Yiórghis Baláskas, an artillery noncommissioned petty officer. Now retired, a colonel. At the Military Geographical Service. He gave us a liaison, he gave us passwords and countersigns. He was in touch with the Artemísion sector. We left the same night, we went to the slopes of Mount Hteniás. Our guide told us to wait there. At daybreak a liaison will come to get you. He left. It was getting light out. We kept looking up toward the mountain ridge, we couldn’t see anything moving. Eventually someone appeared off in the distance. Approaching very cautiously. He made his way hesitantly over to us, until at last we recognized each other. He was an officer from Néa Kíos in Argolís. He says, Don’t go on. The ridge has been occupied. ELAS attacked us last night. The battle at Krýa Vrísi had already taken place. They knew supply drops were expected, and they attacked. Lots of dead and wounded. They decimated the unit. They wiped us out, the officer says. Therefore all operations are off. I had a few packs of cigarettes with me. I gave him two and we went our separate ways. We turned around to go back. We had to cross the motorway connecting Ahladókampos with Trípolis, and go down to Andrítsa. But the road was undergoing repairs. The road crews were watched over by German guards. This was another sign that the Germans were about to leave. The road contractors were under orders to deliver all roads within one month. There was a widespread conviction that in one month the Allies would land in the Peloponnese. We reached Andrítsa. I told the others, From this point on may the Lord help us. And I went by train to Trípolis. There I met up with Kóstas Kyreléis. He had just arrived from Taygetus. They’d been decimated. He had gone to Kalamáta and from Kalamáta to Trípolis. So I say to him, Kóstas, what’s going on? He tells me, We have to save ourselves by any means possible. In Taygetus our groups had been wiped out. ELAS had prevailed. Vrettákos escaped with his company but was hunted down, and in the end they killed him. Cavalry Captain Vrettákos, no less. So what should we do? I say to him. We’ll leave for Athens, he answers. But I had to go up to Kastrí. My brother and sister were there. I had to go there to pick them up. And take whatever we could with us and get out. Me, Yiánnis, and Iphigenia. It was September already, or maybe October. Late October. So I go up to Kastrí. The Communists were all gathered in the square. Magoúlis, Yiórghis Velissáris, Yiánnis Velissáris, all of them. They had noticed my absence. They had learned I’d been gone a few days. It was Magoúlis who greeted me. Sort of smiling, he says to me, From now on we’ll all be fighting together. We’ll all help to become one organization. I tell him, I have no objection. I never refused to be of service to the common cause. He says to me, You, being an officer, will be in charge of Security. The Security Section meant you were now in their noose. You’d arrest someone here, beat someone there, or do an execution the next day. So they could rope you in, bind you in blood. That was the Organization. Security was the most dangerous section. The most prone to willfulness and brutality. I say, I have no objection. I’ll work in whatever capacity you decide. My position, however, is down there. I’d been assigned to Néa Hóra. At Roúvali. That’s where I was posted. I say, For me to do a better job I need to be transferred to Kastrí. I need to be here, to have a position at the school. He says, Of course, we’ll take care of it. I say, I’ll visit the school inspector tomorrow. I’ll ask him to have me transferred to Kastrí. He says, We’ll help. I say, No. It’s better that you don’t get involved. So he won’t think we’re pressuring him. Let me ask him. If he presents difficulties, if he raises objections, then the Organization can intervene. So I’ll go down to Trípolis tomorrow. I’d come here to Kastrí to collect whatever I could, to see my brother and sister and then take off. For Athens. Yiánnis Velissáris says, I’ll go to Trípolis too. We’ll go together. I say, Let’s go. I knew immediately what this meant. We went to Trípolis. At noon we met at Antonákos’s restaurant. As we’d arranged. He says, Did you get anything done? Unfortunately not. The inspector is away touring the district. I’ll have to stay until tomorrow. He looked at me without saying anything. Like he was daydreaming. Then he says, I’ll stay too. I haven’t finished up here. I realized that things were getting harder. And I went back to the German Kommandantur. Chrístos Haloúlos and I had spent an entire morning there getting permits. You couldn’t travel anywhere without them. And it was very hard to have one issued the same day you applied for it. So I went back to their headquarters. It was in a side street, next to the Malliarópoulos school building. I was standing to one side, not on line. And I saw Yiánnis walking by on the
opposite sidewalk. By now it was obvious that he was following me. Again he didn’t say anything. But he didn’t pretend not to see me. On the contrary he stared straight at me. Just like before. What do we do, I ask Chrístos Haloúlos. He says to me, Let’s clear out. And we did. He went and found a truck, and we climbed in. We made it, we crossed the Corinth Isthmus. Without permits. We arrived in Athens. That’s where the chase really began. Because I’d fooled them and left Kastrí. In Athens I was appointed by the Ministry of Education to a school in Ambelókipi. And I lived down in the Metaxourgheío district16 at a cousin’s, Iosíf Skítzis. Of course, they never left me alone. Dr. Mávros lived in the same neighborhood. He had left too. But much earlier. Menélaos Mávros, twice an MP with the Populist Party, and once with Tourkovasílis. Every noon we met at Yiánnis Moúndros’s taverna on Constantinoupóleos Street, at the corner of Ayías Théklas. Me, Mávros, and Daskoliás. A colonel in the Military Judicial. He was from Eleohóri. Both of them single, by necessity. Of course we were being closely shadowed. As for me, I was looking for contacts so I could leave for the Middle East. On one of my visits to the Ministry regarding my assignment I ran into a colleague working for Panteleímon. Panteleímon, the bishop of Karystía. He used to plan missions that were launched from Kými. He had created this channel. He later became archbishop of the armed forces. Panteleímon Fostínis. He had seen action in Ukraine when the Greek Military Expeditionary sailed there in 1918. To help quash the Bolshevik revolution. So I found this colleague. We met by chance. We had both attended the Trípolis Academy. He tells me, I’ll smuggle you out. His sister was at the Red Cross hospital. A patient there. As soon as she’s out of the hospital we’ll all go to Kými. You will get out. In the meantime they stopped a small boat with officers and civilians on board. Among them was Koryzís’s daughter. Or so they said. They were all executed. Most likely because someone ratted on them, naturally. So all operations were temporarily suspended. That’s when I learned that Stámos Triantafýllis was in Athens. We thought he’d been killed on Taygetus. When my escape via Kými and Çesme became impossible, I found Stámos. But Stámos had money. His family had sold olive oil, and I don’t know what else, in Ayios Andréas. The asking price then was seven gold sovereigns, I think. Seven or nine gold sovereigns for someone to escape. They were starting to sell passages to the Middle East. On small sailboats. There were caïques on that route. Stámos paid for his passage and he got out. I didn’t have those seven or nine sovereigns. I stayed behind. And in the ten days that followed there were two successive attempts on my life. The first time they shot at me through the window, I was in my room. I escaped by pure chance. From the OPLA.17 The following day, they came looking for me at Mávros’s house. They went to Mávros’s address and asked for Dránias. They’d got it all wrong, of course. Or they figured that, because I was scared after having nearly been murdered, I would go and hide there. At any rate, I realized I had run out of options. Next day I packed up my stuff and took off. I went to the Patísia district. Kóstas Kyreléis was in Athens then. With the National Guard. The Unknown Soldier’s Guard. The Battalions, in other words. The Battalions in Athens. When he left Trípolis he went there and enlisted. They had split them up. In the Peloponnese were the so-called Royalist Battalions. Under Papadóngonas. So I went to stay with Kóstas Kyreléis and his brothers. At their house. Yiórgos and Pános. I joined the Battalions later. Chrístos Haloúlos inducted me. It was quite an ordeal, of course. So the Battalions were formed, and we went to Trípolis. The 2nd Gendarmes Corps Headquarters was set up there. Noncommissioned officers as well as reservists. Lýras plus some others. Of course there were a lot of problems. We went to Trípolis on March 31. To the 2nd Gendarmes Corps Headquarters. Operations was housed in Áreos Square. In the County Courthouse. I served in the 2nd Bureau under Captain Lýras. Lýras from Karakovoúni, Kynouría. A priest’s son. A good man. Later, as a veteran, he worked with Nikólaos Psaroudákis. They published the bi-weekly newspaper Christian Democracy. He wrote articles for them until the end of his life. He had found religion. His father was a priest. The men from Kastrí came down to Trípolis later on. After the big blockade. Kóstas Kotrótsos came into my office. One of those characters who’s easily carried away. An unprincipled drifter. He was either a sergeant or a corporal. But he presented himself as second lieutenant. He pulled the same thing later in the Militia. But he was found out and demoted. He walked into my office and said, Come take a look. I went to the balcony. Áreos Square below was full of men arriving from Kastrí. Reporting for duty. They were issued arms. This was after the big blockade, about the end of June that is. Kastrí was burned down in July. About a month later. Our houses had been burned before that. Maybe in May. When exactly they brought Tsígris in I don’t remember. It was some time in summer. Lýras interrogated him. He was just a poor soul, nobody special. A regular army officer. An aging colonel. He was in the ELAS Reserves. Perhaps he’d been coerced, or perhaps he was a leftist. So they brought him in. I can’t remember the circumstances under which he was arrested either. Lýras interrogated him. It was strongly suggested later that this was a face-saving way for him to surrender. At any rate. Lýras interrogated him. A routine interrogation more or less. Mihális Galaxýdis walked in at some point. He opened the door, cocked his pistol, and bam, bam, bam, he shot him three times. One shot grazed me. It hit the wall, ricocheted, and covered me in bits of plaster. Tsígris fell down. We lifted him up. We carried him across the street to the Hotel Maínalon, which was being used as a hospital. He died right there in front of me.