Orthokostá (10 page)

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On August 15 they sent us to Haïdári. The train stopped at the grist mills in Athens. Mýloi,
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they told us. Just outside Athens, before Liósia. That's as far as they took us. The Athens grist mills. I went out to pee, I hid, my sister and I hid behind a freight car. Two or three men were escorting us, we could have gotten away and gone into any house, who would give us away? We would go to the first house we found.
They would hide us. But we thought that they might kill the others back in Trípolis. Phaídros and Stella. So we took our things, it was really hot, we put them on our heads, we had a few pieces of clothing, and we walked all the way to Haïdári. There were Germans there, and someone called Yiánnis. Yiánnis the Devil. They had taken Léla Karayiánnis
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prisoner. On the day of the Feast of the Virgin. Our relatives in Kifisiá
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found out, I don't know how, maybe from the Koutsoúmbis sisters, that we were in the Haïdári detention camp, that they were sending us to Germany. They were allowed to bring us one package with nuts, grapes, and the like. They took us inside. We bathed there. Washed ourselves in a huge chamber, fifty women. Our cousin Christina Támbaris sent us the first package. And after a few days, when they said they were sending us away, she sent us clothes. We were seen by doctors. And the doctors were from Sparta. I think they killed them later on. Spartan prisoners. They tell us, You're sisters. Say that one of you has a venereal disease. They don't take those women. And that you're taking such-and-such shots. The doctor in charge is a German. But only one of you, not both will go. You, no you—in the end I was the more insistent one. I was older. Christina and I agreed that she would be the one with venereal disease. She was examined by the doctors. The days passed. It was now September. We learned that they took Léla Karapanayótis and the others and killed them. They were holding the men farther down in a crawl space under barbed wire. Panayótis the Donkey was there. And Panayótis Gagás, and Sávvas Papavasilíou. They made them walk on all fours. One-two on their hands and knees. They had cut off their hair and Panayótis the Donkey—he would put his hands up like this, like you do for the sun, as if they were his hair, and joke with me. We got the package with the clothes from my cousin Christina. I still remember, I still talk about it. It had her only jacket inside. A black fur jacket. Christina Támbaris sent it to me when I was going to Germany. And she sent me some underwear from a relative of hers. Women's clothes. There was a field across from the detention camp, some distance away. The prisoners' relatives would come there. One would hold up a red kerchief, and wave to his relative. Another would open and close an umbrella.
Another would hold up a newspaper. Kind of like signals. Those were the visiting hours. Long-distance. In the meantime Christina and I separated. They let her out. Where will you go? To Trípolis, she said. But she ended up in Kifisiá via Corinth. At my mother's brother. Was he still alive? I can't remember. At any rate, my aunt Magdálo was there. His wife. And our cousins. Then one day visitors arrived across from the camp. It was late September, and they called out. Wednesday, everyone on Wednesday. All that shouting. The guards were Italians.
Rat-tat-tat
with their machine guns. The Italians. They were following orders. They hadn't capitulated. Wednesday, everyone on Wednesday. What did that mean? We had a woman at the Camp, a
saltadórissa
,
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she stole things off moving trucks. Stole things on the run, they arrested her, a real live wire! They arrested her for stealing tires from the Germans and selling them to the Greeks. She sold them on the black market. We had all become friends. And on Wednesday, the following Wednesday, they notify us that they're letting us free. On September 11, I think. We slept. There are many things I've never done. And from that time on I never went back to Orthokostá. I had made a vow, and I never went back there. We left Haïdári. Everyone got out. At any rate, Sávvas Papavasilíou went to Germany. They had sent them off earlier, they were shipping people out. Wednesday, everyone on Wednesday. That shouting, all that noise. And it was Wednesday, and they let us go.

They said they were bringing them from Orthokostá. I don't know. Or rather I don't know where they were taking them. Lots of them. A whole lot of prisoners. I mean, best I can reckon, maybe as many as 150, maybe 200. Maybe more. They took them through Galtená. They had my brother-in-law, Yiórghis Aryiríou. The Makrís sisters told me that they had their brother Nikólas too. Because Nikólas—they had an olive press then and they charged a fee for using it, like a tax.
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The rebels. And they claimed that the Makrís family had hidden quite a few gallons of olive oil, and they hauled them in for that. Them and the Koutsoyiánnis family. Because they didn't obey the orders of EAM. They took everything from us. The goats and the mules too. They didn't leave us anything. Don't know where they brought those prisoners from. But they passed through Galtená, they passed through Ayiórghis. Kapetán Kléarhos was with them. He tells Nikólas Makrís, I don't want to kill the entire prison camp, but if the Germans force us to we will. Get yourself out of here and go over to Zoubás's storehouses. Zoubás's storehouses are somewhere in the area round Mesorráhi. Just down from Másklina. The area is called Mesorrahiótika. That's where Nikólas was going to. So he left and went there and yes, he was saved. But the others were saved too. Because they were bringing the whole campful of prisoners through Ayiórghis on toward Koubíla and toward Eleohóri, and lots of Germans started moving in. Swarms of them. That's when they killed Mémos. Kostákis Mémos, the village alderman of Mýloi. Had him up on a mule, he couldn't walk. What should we do with this one,
said the two men taking him away. And one of them said to the other, Whatever our superior said to do. The head of the detention camp. In other words, Kapetán Kléarhos. And
bam
, they fired one shot with a rifle. Just so he wouldn't slow them down. The woman pulling the mule turned around. She had been pressed into service. Dína, Mítsos Fotópoulos's wife. She turns round, she sees Mémos on the ground and his saddle full of blood. And if she's no longer alive, her children will know about that. Her Dimítris and her Yiánnis will know about that, she must have told them. She told me everything herself. How she turned and saw the blood and how frightened she was. They had taken her from her village to transfer the prisoner. Kostákis Mémos. And today we call that place “Mémos's Fields.” Well, anyway, they kept the others moving. They took them to a gorge. Between Ayiasofiá and Eleohóri. Today the road to Dolianá runs through there. A big gorge, and up above in many spots big rocks jut out. The prisoners from the camp were hidden there and they had orders to execute them all if they saw Germans coming. But they saw the Germans and they didn't have time, they all just ran off. And those people were saved.

Anéstis Poúlios was a neighbor of ours. A neighbor of our Aunt Anna's. Anna Mikroliá. My father's sister. She lived on the outskirts of Mesorráhi. As children we used to go there and play with our cousins. Aunt Anna was the one who built the Church of the Transfiguration. A chapel, really. She donated her entire property, and she took up a collection. Gave everything she owned. She went out panhandling too. That's how she built the church. Down there, near Poriá. About five hundred meters from her house. The Church of the Transfiguration. Anéstis lived just above us. A leftist, from the very beginning of the rebel uprising. I couldn't have ended up in worse hands. Anéstis Poúlios, Nikólas Pavlákos, and one of the Tóyias men. Vasílis Tóyias. All of them from Mesorráhi. Papadóngonas came down to Trípolis. In March I think. For the precise dates I'd have to ask my brother. Kóstas was the head of the 2nd Bureau. He could give out information. And help a lot of people regarding pensions. With those so-called certificates of “Recognition” for services rendered.
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He knows all the details. Regarding Petrákos and Haloúlos, he could provide answers. They were his subordinates. Chrístos Haloúlos was in his office. In the 2nd Bureau. The Intelligence Bureau of the 2nd Gendarmes Corps Headquarters. That was the official designation. And Petrákos was posted somewhere around there. As sergeant major back then. He was killed in 1946 or '47 during some battle at Aíyio, then promoted to second lieutenant post mortem. They say a nephew of his killed him. His sister's child. He had nephews in Aíyio. Or someone who knew him, at any rate. Someone he knew well. An execution,
in other words. Kóstas had left for Athens in the fall of 1943. Everybody had left. Chrístos Haloúlos, my brother Kóstas, the Kyreléis men. Anyone who had any kind of involvement with the Resistance. To get away from the pressure on them. The pressure to join EAM was unbearable. After the Yiannakópoulos agreement on Mount Taygetus. Chrístos Haloúlos was killed during the December Uprising in Athens.
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We left Trípolis for Spétses with Papadóngonas. We were disarmed at Mýloi
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and we went to Spétses. About eight hundred of us had started out, but only about three hundred arrived there. Most had slipped away. We stayed in Spétses for three or four weeks. Life was quiet. The Koryalénios College buildings were our barracks. Kaloyerópoulos was mayor, a son-in-law of the Hasapoyiánnis family. He came from Astros. He helped us. The local people likewise. They were all right-wing nationalists. The defections continued daily. That's when Chrístos left. Some sort of romantic involvement drew him to Athens. We never saw him again after that. He went to live with his sisters in Athens and was killed during the first days of the December Uprising. Before he had time to find his bearings. To join a group for his own protection. There were several organizations. The royalist X,
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for instance, and others. It seems he didn't pursue that option, maybe he didn't care to. Love sometimes leads to inertia. I knew the woman in question. We ran into each other some years ago at the Lárissa train station. She recognized me. A little hesitantly. Yiánnis, she called out. She introduced her four sons to me. Four sons, tall as could be. I named one of them after Chrístos, she told me. She was the person who'd drawn him to Athens. And I think he just didn't have the time, or didn't want to join up. They went and arrested him. They took him away, and after that he disappeared. His body was never even found. His sisters claim they recognized his comb on a cadaver. A decomposing cadaver. That was all. Nothing else was found. And it was the same story with Yiánnis Pavlákos. No relation to Nikólas Pavlákos. Maybe a distant relative. Yiánnis was a plant pathologist, one of the best in Greece. He did research for the Kanellópoulos Fertilizer Company. He was from Eleohóri. He was also a trade unionist. All the workers loved him. A great fellow. He
was unmarried, his mother was his only relative. Not married. Another one who went to waste. They went and got him from his house in his pajamas. That was in Athens. His mother went looking for him; she found nothing. Back when they took those men hostage and were dragging them toward the town of Króra. He was in that convoy of hostages. We'd go and search in the town dumpsites. I went with his mother, that is, twice. The stench of decomposing bodies still haunts me. At any rate, Papadóngonas had gone down to Trípolis. Kóstas had enlisted. No other men from Kastrí had joined yet. Kóstas was in the 2nd Bureau. And there were some men from the surrounding area, but not many. There was a Yiórgos Yeroyiánnis from Parthéni, an artillery officer. Lýras was in charge of the 2nd Bureau. I think he was from Astros. An army captain. From the Lýras family. Kanákis from Vlahokerasiá. A man called Karatzás, who was later executed, chained up with others, and bound. But I don't remember any other men from Kastrí. Nikólas Petrákos, of course. A noncommissioned officer. Chrístos Haloúlos, also an NCO. And the notorious Kotrótsos, Kotrótsos the animal. He was a sergeant during the Albanian campaign, Reserve Officers Academy. Picked himself up a uniform, pinned a star on it, who would ever check him? He presented himself in Trípolis as a noncommissioned officer. And he roared around on his motorcycle. He was Kóstas Kotrótsos, the big shot, the one and only. Who never left anyone alone. Then something happened that stunned us. The Germans were about to execute some people. They had them in jail. There was a schoolgirl among them. During those months two or three schoolgirls had been executed. People were saying, Papanoútsos is responsible for what was happening to the girls. Papanoútsos, the director of the Teachers Academy. They took those people from the jail and stood them up against the wall. The young girl, in patent-leather shoes and white socks, as if she were going to take communion. The Germans had pressed a Greek platoon into escorting the condemned, as an execution squad. Under reservist Varoutsís, the son of Major Varoutsís from Trípolis. This horrified us. It was one thing for the Germans to do the killing. But not us Greeks. Then something happened that disappointed us beyond words. We
would listen to the BBC every day. To get the news. About the expected Allied landing on the coast of the Peloponnese. So one evening we heard that the government in the Middle East had outlawed the Security Battalions. Another great blow to us. One day at about that time Papadóngonas, whether out of obligation or as a political maneuver, congratulated Hitler on having survived the plot against him. He congratulated him, he sent him a cable. We discussed all this. There was a place, like a club. We all met there. I was sometimes in uniform, sometimes not. I had a uniform; I wore it when I went out. The Germans in the neighborhood knew me. They would salute me, and I'd salute back. I had a woman I used to visit, there were restrictions and a curfew. Somehow I had to obtain the password. The password and counter-password. I would get them from Chrístos Haloúlos. Chrístos was in charge of codes; he had the files. Chrístos. A short while later we advanced on Kastrí. But at this point things become blurry. I don't remember exactly why this happened. They had burned down the village. People from Kastrí had made their way down, and we heard about it. The arson took place on the twenty-third or the twenty-fourth of July. After the Feast of Saint Ilías.
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Right about then. Our houses had been burned down earlier. Probably in May. The first seven of them. But I'm talking about the big fire now. On the following day the Braílas men went there, a small group. They walked into the village, the walls were standing, still smoldering. They were furious. There was no doubt that atrocities had been committed. At any rate, we finally went up to Kastrí. And we went to Astros. In trucks. And three or four cars. There weren't many of us. We spent one day in Astros. We went to Manolákos's store. A large storehouse. The Manolákos brothers, Yiórghis and Grigóris. They were Dr. Konstantínos's brothers-in-law. They had a problem with one of the brothers' children. He had gotten mixed up with the rebel movement. They brought us wine, hard goat cheese, and bread. And we drank. We ate and we drank. Then we left Astros. We didn't stay in Astros, it was a dangerous place. Wide open on all sides. We went up to Xerokámpi, to somewhere near Tarmíri. We posted sentries and spent the night there. There were no Germans with us. There was a detail of theirs in
Kastrí. Arrived there before we did. Because I remember that on our way through I went to their doctor. My knee was swollen, I'd hurt it somewhere. He didn't do anything to me, and of course I couldn't understand what he was saying. He put some iodine on it, dabbed it with iodine. And then we moved on. We knew that there were rebels in Meligoú. Militia units but commanders too. Velissáris, Kléarhos. So the leadership decided to surround Meligoú. We stopped about one kilometer outside the village and sent two teams to encircle it. To block the village exits. And before they even got there, only five minutes after they started, Mihális Galaxýdis climbs into his truck with about ten other men, and going full speed, machine guns in hand and horns at full blast, he rides into Meligoú. He went in and he captured it. Of course no one stayed there to wait for us. They had all taken off. We only found a young girl. She was lighting the oil candles
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in the church, or pretending to. She wore a kerchief on her head, and a black skirt, but I recognized her. She saw that I'd seen her. She didn't say anything. I didn't either. The girl was innocent. Kléarhos's sister. She was arrested later on. They brought her down here. Antonía, she's Fánis Grigorákis's wife at present. But that's what was happening then. All sorts of trigger-happy characters would do whatever came into their heads. Mihális Galaxýdis was one of them. That's how he killed Tsígris. Tsígris was a regular army colonel. Whom the Communists had taken to better staff their forces. Or perhaps as a front. A Greek Army colonel. He was arrested, or rather the poor man surrendered. To us. He found a face-saving solution, he surrendered. It's well known that this is done. You get yourself arrested so you don't appear to have surrendered. Tsígris. Plytás, and all the officers from Náfplion. The Náfplion garrison. Instead of ending up in their hands, the arms ended up with the Communists. Due to airdrops by the British on Mount Taygetus, and especially the Zíreia Mountains. Airdrops of arms and gold sovereigns. And of course they dropped boots too. Everything was in their hands. So what could Yiannakópoulos and the rest do? They had nothing. And above all no moral support. What could they do? There were lots of officers. Tsígris, Lyritzís. Yes. And my brother Kóstas interrogated Tsígris. On
Papadóngonas's orders. So he could verify certain things. That was Kóstas's job, interrogations. On that same day a Battalions unit set out for Eleohóri-Ayiórghis. It was a routine sortie. Nothing but saber rattling. Now who could they possibly be chasing down there? Possibly, also, to bring back food. There was a shortage of food. Kyriákos Galaxýdis was in that unit too. A former gendarme. A patrol sergeant I think. And he was about to beat this woman, but he didn't beat her, he pushed her with his rifle, an Italian carbine. Vanghélis Farazís's mother. A little old woman. In her house, there was a small staircase leading downstairs. These were quiet people, peaceful as sheep. And Kyriákos kept pushing that old woman. Where have you hidden the oil, where have you hidden the oil? The poor woman was going down the stairs, probably to show him where. How can you hide oil? Kyriákos was all worked up, he wanted that oil. And as he was pushing her with his rifle butt, the rifle went off and killed him. They immediately sent a dispatch to Trípolis. To his brother in Trípolis. He had stayed in Trípolis. He was another violent character, like Kotrótsos. He went around with a revolver, acting like some hotshot. As soon as he hears about this he rushes over to the Intelligence Bureau to kill Tsígris. To take revenge. And he emptied his pistol at him just as Kóstas was interrogating him. One shot, out of all those he fired, hit him. One. That's how Tsígris was executed. By now the Germans knew they'd be leaving, and they begin to hand over their heavy weaponry to us. Artillery and mortars. So we could fortify Trípolis. The Germans. When they saw they were leaving they gave all that to us, plus ammunition. Trípolis was eventually fortified and mined on all sides. All the way out. In other words its defensive fortification was complete. Mines, mortars, and all thirty-six cannons. We had placed them at the important sites, and we waited. There were just about enough of us to make up one regiment. A lot of people. And many locals had enrolled too. Reservists as well as ordinary citizens. The ELAS troops gradually began surrounding us and threatening us over their megaphones. But each time they stormed us they achieved nothing. We were well secured. One sector was taken by Chrístos Haloúlos with Níkos Méngos. Níkos Méngos, a second lieutenant in the Reserves.
He joined the Battalions in its final days. Like so many others. For protection. For self-protection. He was from Eleohóri, an Ionian Bank employee. An okay fellow. He died in Athens, never married. A very good man. Well, those men had secured their sectors well. Barbed wire, mines, heavy weapons. Why, a rabbit couldn't get through there, let alone a man. But of course the rebels had their own methods. The method of drafting civilians. Unarmed civilians. At any rate, we kept on waiting. We'd listen to the radio, I'd got hold of a radio. A cousin of mine had bought it somewhere for me. A large one, dry battery cell. At night we'd tune in to the BBC. We were staying at Vanghélis Psalídas's house. A true “Kolokotrónis” style house. It dated back to the siege of Trípolis.
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It had a stone fence and a wide entrance so oxcarts could go through. Psalídas was in Athens, now a member of EAM. We stayed at his house and filled it with firewood. When we left, we left behind enough firewood to last two years. We went out and hauled firewood. We said we'd spend the winter there. No. We said nothing, we knew nothing. We just hauled firewood. At the time we were waiting for government communiqués from overseas. That's how we learned that Kanellópoulos