burned final

Stefanos A. Gerontis

The burned villagesMemories 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 villagesof Ierapetra in 1943

Translation: Yiannis Pontikes

1st edition: August 2008

ISBN: 978-960-87025-8-5

© Lasithi PrefectureI. Politehniou 1, Z.C. 72100, Ayios Nikolaos Crete, HellasTel. 003-28413-40421, Fax 003-28413-40422e-mail: [email protected]://www.holocaust-lasithi.eu

Map © Selena Editions - Giorgis N. PetrakisThalita 13, Z.C. 71202, Heraklion, CreteTel. 003-2810-242012, Fax 003-2810-282630e-mail: [email protected]

Layout – Printing:Graphic Arts TYPOKRETAHeraklion Industrial Park, CreteTel. 003-2810-382800e-mail: [email protected]://www.typokreta.gr

This publication was made under the project “Memories from the holocaust of Ierapetraswestern villages” of the «Europe for Citizens” Programme 2007-2013, Action 4: “Active Eu-ropean Remembrance” and was financed with the contribution of the European Commission.

Coordinator: Stefanos GerontisPersonnel: Konstandina Daskaloyianni

This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held re-sponsible 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: “Mem-ories of the holocaust of the western villages of Ierapetra”, has proceededto the publication of the present book aiming at preserving the mem-ory of the holocaust in the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra, focusingon the villages of the western Ierapetra. This project is part of the pro-gram “Europe for the citizens”, 2007-2013, action 4, “Active EuropeanRemembrance” and is co-funded 60% by the EU.

The goal of the project is to record the testimonies of the survivorsthat are related to the Nazi holocaust of the villages in the western Ier-apetra, in September of 1943, keeping this memory alive for the pres-ent and future generations. We consider that the promotion of thehistorical memory to the youth is important. The linguistic directnessof the speech of every narrator is without “academic verbalisms” andtherefore, understandable, comprehensible, and above all, familiar, thusguaranteeing the response of the young community. The protection ofthe memory of the struggle and of the testimonies of our people is apriority of the Lasithi Prefecture that proceeds to an act having as directrecipients the young population by using the mere voice of those thatlived the destruction: our grandfathers and grandmothers.

We warmly thank all the narrators for their kindness and response toour effort. We assure that we will continue in the same spirit and withthe same eagerness in the close future to strengthen and expand this ef-fort, giving the floor to our fellow citizens themselves, in order to com-municate their experiences and their views on important personal and,by extension, historical issues.

Agios Nikolaos, August 2008The Prefect of Lasithi

Antonis Stratakis

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all those that supported this effort and con-tributed to the creation of this edition. The head of the Planning andProgramming Department of Lasithi Prefecture, Manolis Zaharenakis,for his support throughout all the heavy bureaucratic burden and alsomy colleagues Yiorgos Marakis, Yiannis Panteladis, Yiannis Ke-faloyiannis and Vangelia Visviki for their constructive criticism in manyconversations during the project. Hristos Zafiropoulos, who eventhough was far away, helped decisively whenever asked. Magda Pontikiand the personnel of the Transcription Department of DEPANAL, whodespite their tight schedule embraced the project and responded per-fectly to their assigned work.

The participants of the 14th Panhellenic Post-graduate Seminar -Conference for Doctorands organised by the Workshop for SocialAnalysis and Applied Social Research of the Department of Sociologyof the University of Crete for their comments and help at the beginningof the project and specially Skevos Papaioannou, Yiorgos Tsiolis andManos Savakis. Also Yiannis Hristakis and Yiorgos Hristakis, un-wearying scholars of their local history who immediately embraced andsupported the project with all means at their disposal.

I sincerely thank all those who opened their home doors and ac-cepted me as one of their own, surprising me with their kindness andhospitality. They will always have a special place in my heart. I hope Ihaven’t let them down. Finally, I want to thank Vicky, always there, pa-tient, critical, caustic when required, but above all helpful and support-ive in all my efforts.

INDEX

PART IGreece under occupation ........................................................................................ 15The destruction of the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra ................................... 17The Narrations .......................................................................................................... 21

PART IINarrations

MirtosEvangelia Dimitrianaki Andreopouli ..................................................................... 33Manolis Daskalakis ................................................................................................... 57Antonis Papadakis .................................................................................................... 64

GdohiaMaria Archontikaki Dimitrianaki .......................................................................... 85Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki ........................................................................................... 93Father Yiannadakis Kostas ...................................................................................... 101Giorgos Daskalakis ................................................................................................... 111

MourniesEvangelia Kimaki Samprovalaki ............................................................................. 126Yiannis Samprovalakis ............................................................................................. 139Yiannis Damaskinakis .............................................................................................. 154

RizaGiorgos Doksanakis ................................................................................................. 170Chrisanthi Kasokeraki Alexomanolaki .................................................................. 191Manolis Kartsomichelakis and Maria Alexaki ...................................................... 204Vangelis Christakis ................................................................................................... 206

MalesGalatia Mathioudaki Terzaki ................................................................................... 231Michalis Ksiristakis .................................................................................................. 238Iordanis Tsakirakis ................................................................................................... 253

MithiYiannis Christakis .................................................................................................... 268Manolis Vagionakis .................................................................................................. 283

IerapetraAntonia Koliandri Mathioudaki ............................................................................. 288

References .................................................................................................................. 297

PART I

Greece under occupation

The resistance of Greece against the Axis has been a brake on its’ de-sires, from the moment Mussolini’s ultimatum was rejected on the 28thof October of 1940. In that winter, the initial restraint of the Italian in-truders in Pindos mountain ended up with their repulse in Albania.The subsequent involvement of Germany left no room for illusions andfrom the 6th of April of 1941, Wehrmacht commenced its passagereaching Athens on the 27th of the same month. The final blow cameat the end of May with the conquering of Crete, that gave in after re-sisting for many days. The machine could now make its way, withoutdistractions, to the Soviet Union.

What followed still echoes in everybody’s ears with terror: the occu-pation. The first example is set in Kandanos of Chania on the 2nd ofJune: three hundred inhabitants are executed and the village is eradi-cated. The German forces, now being occupational ones, write on theirleave: “There was Kandanos once here”1.

The first period of activity between the forces of the Axis in occupiedGreece concludes with the determination of occupational zones (Ma-zower, 1994: 46-48) with the Germans being in Crete (apart from thePrefecture of Lasithi that belonged to the Italians), Piraeus, Thessalonicaand 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 forcesin 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 du-ring the occupation, see National Council for the assertion of Germany’s debts to Greece,2006: 60-91.2 “e Fortress Crete” (now in Souda) was surrendered in 9th of May, 1945.

will remain as indelible memories for many generations of Greeks: fi-nancial collapse, actions of expropriating and looting which lead quicklyto economic crisis (unemployment, inflationary pressures, black mar-ket), the famine in Athens, roadblocks, individual and mass executions,holocausts, displacement and extinction of the Greek-Jews, are onlyparts of the suffering during occupation. Nonetheless, in this dark playthere is a great protagonist too: the National Resistance that succeededin juxtaposing the “legitimate” government in Athens with a free polein the mountains of Greece.

The account can only be an approximation (National Council for theassertion of Germany’s debts to Greece: op. cit.: 126): 13.327 dead dur-ing the ’40-41 war, 56.225 executed, 7.120 dead after bombings, 105.000dead in concentration camps, 20.6503 dead in battles of National Re-sistance, 1.100 dead in the Middle East, 3.500 casualties in the MerchantNavy. In addition, 600.000 estimated dead from hunger and diseases.

Regarding Europe as a whole, the losses in the war are literally im-possible to calculate (Mazower, 2001: 210· Hobsbawm, 2002: 64-65). Isthere any value after all to the statistical accuracy, if there were six, fiveor four millions of Jews exterminated, if there were five hundred or twohundred thousand of Roma that died, if among the 5.7 millions of USSRwar prisoners in Germany 3.3 millions died, or if the total numberamounts to forty million approximately? The numbers fall short com-pared with the conclusion that WWII was a total war, a war to the ex-treme, 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 rebirththat is based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured onextreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, posi-tively values violence as end as well as means and tends to nor-matize war and/or the military virtues”.

16 THE BURNED VILLAGES

2 “e Fortress Crete” (now in Souda) was surrendered in 9th of May, 1945.3 German data.

What frightens us even more is that fascism was born, matured andspread by our fellows. Attributing fascism to “the other one” as some-thing foreign to us is an irresponsible and ultimately dangerous posi-tion. The understanding of the devastating WWII can not be achievedthrough analyses that refer to the psychopath of insane dictators suchas Hitler (Mazower, op. cit.: 42) or to innate tendencies of the Germanlife: according to Payne (op. cit.: 218-219) the understanding goesthrough the perception of interaction “…of destructive ultranationalisttendencies with the unique chain of crises and traumas which afflictedthe German society in the two decades between 1914 and 1933” thatwere without precedence in the history of other European countries.

In any case, the memory and the interpretation of our past is a cru-cial point for the present and the future. We thus turn our attention tothose who lived this total war asking them to recall it to their memory.

The destruction of the regions of Viannos and Ierapetra

“CRETANSDuring the last days, armed gangs were engaged in insidious op-

erations 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, butin addition supplied them with food, shelter and in general all pos-sible 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 Ger-man authority all noticed gangs created, thus preventing themselvesand their relatives from the fortune of their compatriots that havebeen deceived by the anglo-american and communist propaganda.

13 September 1943The Commander of the Fortress of Crete”

MEMORIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN VILLAGES OF IERAPETRA 17

The above announcement (Hristakis, 2000: 205) by Bruno Bräuer inCretan newspapers follows the spirit of the euphemisms of the ThirdReich4. The phrase “has been ascertained with certainty” is followed bythe cease of existence of the villages in the area: all people and every-thing cease to exist. The machine unveils its horror upon civilians. Theleading command goes to divisional commander Müller who com-mands (Christakis, op. cit.: 206): “Destroy the region of Viannos. Exe-cute at once, with no procedures, the males older than 16 years old andeveryone arrested in the country, irrespective of sex and age”. The in-sanity of the expressions while the massacre is in progress, stops againstnothing (Mazower, op. cit.: 218): “Operation Viannos: …280 Greekswere shot by now, as they were running away”.

The region of Viannos till 1934 was subjected to the prefecture ofLasithi. Its administrational structure included the part of the regionthat belongs today to the prefecture of Heraklion as well as the villagesof the western Ierapetra that belong today to the prefecture of Lasithi5

(up to the river that flows into Mirtos). The group of the villages thatwere the target of the German troops those days, lay in the south partof mountain Diktis up to the seaside zone. In Diktis, groups of rebelswere based in their hideout at Hametis since early ’43 and were opera-tional in the broader area. The man in charge was Manolis Mpantouvas.The prefecture of Lasithi, since late May of 1941 when the troops of di-vision Siena disembarked in Sitia (Kokolakis, 1988: 24), was under Ital-ian command experiencing an occupation with mild characteristics incomparison of course with the occupation by the Germans (Kazantza-kis, et al., 1945: 335).

The signing of the truce by Italy in September of 1943 triggered theinitiation of tragic developments in the area (Kazantzakis et al., op. cit.·Hatzakis, 1961· Hristakis, op. cit.· Papadakis, 2002·, Dimitrianakis, 2003·Hristakis, 2007):


4 Mazower’s (1994: 271-227) analysis that deals with the massacre in Kommeno of Artas onthe 16 of August in 1943 is interesting. It is on the role of the vocabulary used by ird Reichwithin the framework of legitimising its criminal actions.5 By the law 5480/10-5-1932 (“ΦΕΚ/A/159/1932”) put in effect in 1934, the administrationof these villages was transferred to the region of Ierapetra.

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 rebelswith two German soldiers as victims.

11 of September• A decision is made by the rebel groups to defend Simi from prob-

able invasion by the Germans.12 of September

• German forces have gathered in Ano Viannos and march to Simiwith a small number of civilians captured for their protection. Inthe morning, they fall into an ambush set up by the rebels and areinflicted utter defeat by the afternoon (Battle of Kato Simi). TwelveGermans 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 com-

mence 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), Ke-

falovrisi (36), Krevata (21), Agios Vasilios (33), Pefko (16, from


6 e number of the people executed is provided in brackets, according to the village theywere from. e majority of the people executed coincides with the place they were executedapart 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 1941-1944 is found in Hristakis, 2000: 443-455).

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 com-mander General Carta who has joined the Allied forces and he iseventually 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 prisonersof the Battle of Kato Simi free. They set them free indeed. Theprisoners are executed eventually in another location by a groupof 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 ex-

plosives and demolishing the houses in the afore-mentioned sixvillages.

17 of October• A German airplane drops leaflets in the broader area that state,


7 Executed in Gdohia on the 16th of September.

among other things (Dimitrianakis, op. cit.: 403): “…The forbid-den zones in the regions of the gangs are lifted”. People started toreturn gradually to the villages of the western Ierapetra, Gdohia,Mournies, Riza and Mithi. A five kilometres long forbidden zoneby the seaside, that includes Mirtos, still remains.

A precise account is difficult to be made. The move of the Germantroops is characterised by dispersion whereas the executions took placeoutside of the villages too, whenever they found civilians in the widerzone. The total of the victims these days amounts to at least 400. At least129 of them are from the villages of the western Ierapetra (Mirtos, Gdo-hia, Riza, Mournies, Mithi, Males, Christos and Parsas).

According to the Ascertainment Report of the Central Committeefor the Atrocities in Crete, by Kazantzakis, Kakridis and Kalitsounakis(op. cit.: 307), the total number of houses that were destroyed comes upto 945. Out of them, 360 account for the villages of Ierapetra (110 inMirtos, 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 itsmodern history.

The narrations

Advancing from Ierapetra toward the west, a few kilometres beforeyou reach the seaside Mirtos, you come across a scenery that transformsalong your way: the relatively arid and indifferent zone is metamor-phosed into a landscape full of green with spectacular mountains in thehorizon that accommodate the so-called, “burned”8 villages.

The seaside town of Mirtos provides a contemporary picture of agrowth model based on tourism that managed to sustain its population


8 In Cretan dialect: “Kaimena” (in Greek: “Καμένα”).

by offering incomes beyond the customary ones coming from agricul-ture and stock-breeding. All other villages, as you climb the foot ofmountain Diktis, make you feel that they strive for survival. Their pop-ulational development from the war till today is declining, whereas asyou reach the villages that are higher in the mountain, the desertion be-comes all too apparent9. These villages comprise the theatrical scene forthe operations of the German intruder after its march from the villagesof Viannos. In the entrance of the village or in the main square, a warmemorial is standing, enumerating names and reminding that some-thing evil took place here: Mirtos “Murdered by the Germans”, Gdohia“Executed by the German troops”, Mournies “Executed by the Ger-mans”, Riza “Executed by the Germans”, Mithoi “Died for the Country”,Males “Mass Execution by the Germans”, Christos “In Memory of thoseExecuted by the Occupational Army”. As you wander, you run into peo-ple in the rhythm of their everyday activities. Curious as to how andwhy you found yourself there, they open at once the door of their housesand talk with you.

Our meetings had an unexpected topic for them: to record their nar-rations for the events of that September, the experience of the occupa-tion, their subsequent effort to recover. No matter how unexpected itseemed it was nonetheless familiar. In view of the intimacy of death, ofhunger, of resistance fight, of exile, of fear, of courage, of struggle forsurvival, we gave and give our full attention and respect.


9 Actual population of the villages of western Ierapetra:

Mirtos Gdohia Mournies Riza Mithi Males Hristos Parsas-Metaxohori

1940 397 277 234 138 289 1.193 683 2812001 440 92 83 77 287 499 110 55

Change +11% -67% -65% -44% -1% -58% -84% -80%

(Data for 1940: Ministry of Interior Affairs, 1962· Data for 2001: National Statistical Serviceof Greece, n.d.).

1. The narratorsIn our effort we have not included narrators from the villages of

Viannos. Factors relating to time, financial and geographical constraintsdid not allow us to head to these villages too. Narrations from the habi-tants of Viannos will be able to provide additional dimensions of thedestruction (in the broader meaning) by adding new expressions. Thiswas our priority and there have been contacts with authorities for ourfuture collaboration within the framework of a similar effort.

The narrators therefore, are or were inhabitants of the villages of west-ern Ierapetra10 and lived directly or indirectly the events of that Septem-ber. They were born between 1913 and 1937 (they were between 6 and 30years old in 1943). Eight of them are women and thirteen are men.


10 Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki who lived in Ierapetra is an exception.

Since October 2007 we have been in contact with “experts” and “keypersons” whereas in the same time we have been inside the villages pro-moting our effort and getting to know the inhabitants. The process ofcomposing the group of narrators followed the principles of the theo-retical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 201-215) that escalates thegathering of information which comes to cover – as far as possible –the topics that the narrators themselves define.

2. The interviewOut of the great variety of methods and techniques in our armoury,

the narrative interview is the chosen one within the framework of our in-terviews. This method is part of a broader framework of a biographicalapproach of the historical and social surrounding of the narrators(Thanopoulou & Petronoti, 1987· Hristakis, 1994). The starting point ofthis approach is the subject and this is what makes it different from otherapproaches. In contrast to quantitative methods (that are regarded as“tougher” therefore “right”) the qualitative method is necessary and ir-replaceable in cases where the goal is to bring to light aspects of the livesof the narrators (Alheit & Bergamini, 1998: 124-5). The person beingquestioned 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 in-teresting (Alheit, 1998: 135). The narrator recomposes scenes of his life,his activities as well as his emotions. He is not interrupted in his freecourse of narration and after concluding, additional and clarifying ques-tions concerning his narration are addressed. At the end, review or/andother questions can me made. The topics in the structure of the interviewcovered areas such as family life and history, the presence of the occu-pying forces in the village and the wider region in general, the events inthose days of September and its implications to their lives.

The biographical narrative interview (Tsiolis, 2006: 171-2) is there-


11 People were prompt as: “I would like from you to narrate me the story of your childhoodup until aer the holocaust by the Germans in September of 1943. You can mention anyevents or experiences you regard important. I will not interrupt you during your talk and ifI have anything to ask, I will do so aer your narration”.

fore a form of free interview where the narrator has the ability to shapehis narration freely and thus a narrative speech is produced that has bi-ographical characteristics.

3. The narrationsThe narrations can be interpreted in multiple ways offering each time

a different aspect of reality. But which reality? We must not forget thatwe deal with memories which are recalled within a historical and socialframe: “Memory is related to the narrative ability and the language, withthe meaning the individuals attach to their past and the importancethey attribute to their experiences” (Andriakena, 2001: 33). The proce-dure of recalling the memory to the present gives birth to the frame ofa potential interpretation of the narrations. However, reality is the tes-timonies of our narrators: as Van Bushoten (2002: 136) reports: “theydon’t stop representing one, maybe even subjective, truth”. The oralmemories we collected refer to experiences of at least sixty five years.The narrators report what happened, what probably happened, whatthey remember that happened, what they wished had happened or eventoo, what never happened. The pauses? There are many intermediatelevels between experience and memory, memory and its recall and itsrecall and the shaping of the narration.

On the other hand, as far as our position is concerned regarding thesenarrations, we should bear in mind that: “The memories and thesources of oral speech are like the bottom of the sea as we observe itthrough the crystals of a diving mask, which magnify it and change itsshape by focusing on it” (Vilanova, 2000: 64). We all wear the mask. Ac-knowledging that, we move forward making the most now of the newnarrations of the elderly of the burned villages.

Our intention is to lay the foundations for the possibility to trace (orinterpret) the representations of our narrators, since their generationwill not be with us for ever. This course is not within the framework ofthis book. The narrations offer us many dimensions of their lives and wecan find in them memories that cover many categories. We must notremain attached to the confirmation or no of the events, to the accuracyof dates or characters. We can seek to find how they perceive the de-


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 in-dividual differs from the collective memory as well as the official (eventhe established) history, why some times they don’t focus on the de-struction but on the subsequent split as more substantial and crucial.

Let us see some of the topics that are developed within the frame-work of the narrations:The occupation

Various aspects of the occupation are presented. The arrival of the oc-cupational forces (Italians) is not the evil that most of the narrators wereexpecting. They recall to their memory the financial struggle in the fam-ily for survival (in the household) that was taking place under difficultconditions in order to cover their basic needs but the needs too of an en-tire occupational army. The comparison between poverty before andafter the destruction is apparent and emphasized in all the narrations. Adifferent dimension of the occupation is provided through the compul-sory labour. Most men narrate the way they were chosen, their efforts toavoid 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 Re-sistance, depending each time on the extent of their involvement in theoperational or in the supportive branch. Thus, they appear as liaisons,carriers, armed rebels in the mountain, even as spies12. They bring backto their memory their decision to draft, the fund raising activities (forexample, the theatre in Gdohia), their life in the hideout, the battle ofKato Simi, the extraction of information from the Italians or the Ger-mans etc. In many narrations there is even criticism regarding the op-erational choices of the armed fight pointing out different approachesbased on the social or the political characteristics of the narrators.Taking them by surprise

The narrators didn’t have a clear picture of the situation that had beenshaped after the battle of Kato Simi and the arrival of the German troopsdid not mean to them devastation except only when it was already too


12 See the narration of Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki.

late. They didn’t think they would proceed to executions or to the de-struction of the village judging in retrospect that they had nothing to dowith an event that took place so far away from them. On many occa-sions they ask the question why they were the victims for actions theydid not even know that had taken place (meaning the destruction ofthe guardhouse in Viannos and the subsequent battle of Kato Simi).The executions

The narrations of the executions of their relatives (and not only) canbe characterised nothing else but shocking. On some occasions they wereeyewitness and on some others they were not. The narration of the lossis done with hair-raising details in many cases. From the time of arrivalof the troops in every village, the narrators unveil their confusion anddesperate effort to get away saving their lives and as much as they couldfrom their belongings. They recompose a picture where groups of a fewor more people move frightened in various areas trying to find a wayout, within the zone the Germans established. The quest of informationfor the survival or no of their relatives and, at the end, their burial, startsa new chapter in their lives that has been scarring them ever since.The exile

All the inhabitants of the villages Mirtos, Gdohia, Riza, Mourniesand Mithi left their homes for months. During this period we find themin neighbouring villages (Metaxohori, Males, Anatoli, etc), in cottagesin 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. Withinthis framework, they narrate their survival conditions that are now ex-tremely difficult in the light of their destructed property and of the in-ability to exploit their landfills. The reception and the way they weretreated by the inhabitants of the other villages are of crucial importanceas they themselves experience difficult conditions. At this point, manyof 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 housewhereas the inability to find resources forces our narrators themselves or


their close relatives to resort to beggary (mostly elderly women and chil-dren). This compulsory way out of the financial problems creates an in-tense 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 isbrought out as such. References on the issues of state help, compensationor pensions of the relatives of the victims are also interesting. The statehelp after the liberation is characterised as minimal, abandoning themthis way in a desperate survival effort by own means. The absence of theleader (male) in families with children leads to narrations that focus onthe struggle for survival and the consequent difficulties (marriage of thewomen, studies, etc) rather than on the time during occupation. There arecases too, where the narrators went to the army and left their family aloneto 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 apartfrom a few exceptions. The involvement of the Greeks in a war thatshaped post-war Greece is imprinted in these narrations, and in mostof the times, the narrative mood is disrupted. Many times, great em-phasis is given on its side-effects rather that on the war itself as a his-torical fact that left marks in the region.Germans and the Italians

Our narrators make a clear distinction between the Italian and theGerman occupation. The presence of the Italian forces reveals a co-ex-istence where the conqueror is presented more as a necessary burdenrather than an apparent threat to life. On the contrary, taking into con-sideration too, the devastation the German forces brought about to theirplaces, the Germans are portrayed many times as bloodthirsty con-querors that cause only fear and terror (we should not forget the ab-sence of the Germans from the region till the September of 1943).Nonetheless, on many occasions the narrators, reconsidering the be-haviour of the troops, seek and identify samples of humane deeds andat the end, they don’t result in ascribing liability to plain soldiers or theentire German nation for the evil that fell upon them. Most of the times,they rationalise the insanity of the massacre by ascribing responsibilityto the insanity of their leaders.


Life afterwardsThe success of the efforts of the narrators is personalised in their

children, their grandchildren and their great grandchildren: their rais-ing, studies, professions and families constitute the crowning of a nearlytragic life. In many incidents, joy is not entrenched in the close familycircle but it also includes the children of brothers etc that got lost at thattime. There is the wish that such things should not be repeated. Thecomparison with today’s affluence, in which we live, makes them happybut sceptical too in relation to the fact that war is so distant for theyounger generations that seem unable to comprehend its brutality.Some narrators, participating in the public affairs, focus on their effortsto establish democracy and the common good emphasizing on every-one’s obligation to participate in this effort.

4. The transcription and the readingThere 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 tran-scription is an interpretation of the recorded interview. Based on theexisting general trends (Atkinson, 1998: 54-7· Thompson, 2002: 314),the one that provides a compressed version of the interview is the oneapplied in order to facilitate the reading. The principle of preservingthe character and the meaning of the original has been the guiding lineduring the transcription process of the interviews. In many cases, newmeetings took place with the informers in order for them to clarifypoints of their narrations and to check the accuracy of the meaning oftheir opinions.

There has been a segmentation of the narrations into topics withhead titles to assist the reader during his study. The topics are presentedin a sequence that is in accordance with the place the narrator lived inSeptember of 1943 and not with the place the narration took place. Af-terwards, for each place, the narrators that lost a close relative (of firstor second degree) are presented first and the narrators with resistanceactivity 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 heardof the events, people were excited those days. My father loved his coun-try deeply. He was a great patriot and the president of the village.

I presume you would have heard from your grandparents that weused to raise goods back then. Being twelve, I remember many inci-dents very clearly. My mother and I used to spin sheep’s wool. Therewas nothing to buy. Spinning wool was my mother’s and grandmother’stask. We thus produced the yarn, which we call here in Crete as “orgo”13,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 soldierswho survived say they received only a few things. They were over-whelmed by the cold and the frostbites. From what I am aware of, every-where in Greece people were offering goods those days. The whole ofGreece was offering, everything within the power of each individual,primarily in clothes made of wool. We had a stable right here, with asheep and a goat, and my father would give wool and even more of ourgoods, for we were in a good financial condition.

My familyMy father had three siblings. Two brothers, one of them was an offi-

cer in the gendarmerie, and one sister, my aunt. My father was a restlessmind and went to America. He stayed there for thirteen years and cameback to Greece in 1927. He brought back with him two hundred thou-sand 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: όργο.

three. Alice, my younger sister, was still breast-feeding. They used tobreastfeed children those days and they grew big. And we were exiled.What can I say now… our region paid a high price for the occupationand the destruction of the villages. To begin with, my father was sacri-ficed for the village. He spoke Spanish as if it was his mother tongue. Heread Spanish newspapers and had read to me V. Hugo’s “Les Misérables”a number of times. He also spoke English very well. But of course, hespoke Spanish as his mother tongue since he had been to South Amer-ica: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. He worked in those places alljobs possibly imaginable. He joined the police force but was also headmanager of a huge ranch the size of Crete. He had a number of tasksthere and a horse as well, to range up and down. This land was enor-mous, like Crete, or like half of Crete? I don’t remember now. A vast ex-panse he would ride with his horse all over to inspect. The property ofeach landowner was fenced with barbed wire. They usually breed sheepthere. He stayed for some time on the ranch before working for the po-lice. 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 nearby. All four children in his family were left orphans at a very young ageand as soon as he finished his military service he left for America. Assoon 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 in1932. He became a judge in the Supreme Court of Appeal and reachedthe highest levels in hierarchy. Yet I had the misfortune, as if it wasn’tenough to lose my husband, to lose him too three years later. My brotherand I were born four years apart – we were the seniors – and later, in1943, Alice was born, the younger one. That became the best part, I stillhave her… I wouldn’t have survived had it not been for her. It is hard todescribe; as she grew up together with my son it is as if I have a daugh-ter. They only have an age difference of two years. They never calledeach-other aunt or nephew; they feel like brother and sister. They hada house in Ierapetra with two small rooms and stayed together in high-school, also later at University. They had two lovely rooms in Am-pelokipoi, Athens. My sister studied literature, my son studied law. The


same applies for my grandchildren; my sister is like a second mother tothem, how could I describe it?

I had been in the first year of an eight-grade school. It was an eight-grade school during the days of Metaxas. Have you heard of this edu-cational transformation? As soon as Metaxas took over in 1936, I satexams and was transferred from the fifth grade of elementary schooldirectly to the second year of the eight-grade high-school. For high-school those days was not the six-grade high-school we are accustomedto. It was only after 1936 when Metaxas came into power that he im-plemented the transformation changing the whole scenery and con-verting it to an eight-grade high-school. Children would then attendfirst grade of high-school after the fourth grade of elementary school.

I had not finished elementary school, sat exams, came first and wastransferred 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 hadgreat teachers those years before the war. Our high school principal wasZouraris; they had a ceremony for him once. Our mayor had organisedevents to honour all deceased teachers and those still alive recountedtheir works. I was invited and went along with my sister. A great cere-mony indeed! What a great honour did the mayor offer to my husband;only his son would have honoured him equally. They also presented mewith an inscribed honourable plaque:

“To the family of Giorgos Dimitrianakis, in honour of their valu-able donation of G. Dimitrianakis’ historic-folk collection to the mu-nicipality of Mirtos, Ierapetra. August 2001”.

People gathered from both Agios Nikolaos and Heraklio. It was sum-mer and the ceremony took place in the yard of Agios Antonios14

church. The bishop was there, the entire population of Heraklio! Whatmore could be said! Only his son would have honoured him in such amanner.

I got married and still needed two years to finish high-school. I had

EVANGELIA DIMITRIANAKI ANDREOPOULI 35

14 Church of Agios Antonios: Church of Saint Anthony.

a grandfather… my story is bizarre, I mean not bizarre and not ex-traordinary. 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 high-school, I needed two more years. My grandfather was protecting us.Mirtos was a neutral zone. Where shall I start from, these are endlessstories: “Neutral zone. All living beings arrested within the region of Mir-tos will be executed on site”. The Germans said that after burning usdown in 1943. In September of 1943, we and our villages were burneddown. They blew up Simi and Kalami as well; I think Kalami, not sureactually. But they blew up Simi for sure, Sikologos too, they used dyna-mite to blow up all villages.

You may have heard that two Germans were killed by some hot-blooded, thoughtless men. There was a guardhouse in Kato Simi withtwo soldiers. They were nice, poor fellows, they didn’t hurt anyone at all.And they were treacherously invited to dinner by the locals who weresupportive of Mpantouvas, having connections with him and the rebelgroups. You must have heard of Mpantouvas, the invincible. So thesehot-blooded young men thought of it as a great achievement; they gotthem drunk during dinner and had them killed. They placed them af-terwards on a donkey and threw them off a cliff. It is worth the troubleto go to Simi in the summer and have a look. It is a mountain villagewhich reminds you of Switzerland. There is Kato Simi and Pano Simi.However, only Kato Simi is inhabited. Pano Simi is just for the sum-mer-time and belongs to a different community. They are close to eachother, less than half hour distance, fifteen – twenty minutes more likeit. Kato Simi has permanent residents, but they go to a suburb nearbycalled Loutraki, for it is very cold up there in the winter time.

They killed them, threw them off the cliff and from that moment aseries of events happened. The Germans realised it and blew up… Myhusband 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.

bonds with Ierapetra: my siblings were baptized by locals and my grand-father, 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 pen-sion. But money those days was deprived of any value: someone wouldgive, let’s say, a million to buy half a kilogram of cabbage, we call thiskind of vegetable “fillades” here in Crete… nothing. Yet he never left ushungry. He only had one child, one daughter, my mother and he adoredthe only grandchildren he had, as he had no other: our baby, Alice, mybrother, ten years old and me, fifteen.

Germans execute Dimitrianakis’ family before they reach MirtoMy 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 wel-come them folks in a nice manner, let us be gentle with them”. They hadsensed their visit meant no good, so they slaughtered two sheep andcooked them right away. My aunt’s husband, the one living here acrossthe street, was a butcher. They grilled the meet, brought along wine,raki, to serve them nicely. The first squad was nice, they showed no ma-licious intentions.

Then a death squad from Gdohia arrived. They had executed forty Ithink, I don’t recall right now; my husband has written down all thefacts in his book as they really took place, without a single inaccuracy.So they arrived and met the first ones who were reasonable. They did-n’t seem malignant although they had already killed my future-to-befather in law. For my husband and I were young those days and we onlygot married two years later. The Dimitrianakis family had heard ofsomething and they were worried for they had land in a location nearby.They owned a large area of land, in Agios Panteleimonas, a beautifullocation next to the sea. Apart from my future-to-be father in law, hisson in law – the husband of his daughter – and his two fine sons, (onemarried, aged twenty six, the other one eighteen), were with him. Theyhad become suspicious that the Germans had burned down Simi andSikologo, which they had actually done. So my father-in-law proposedthey should be peaceful and look like farmers, as they really were… Andthey started building small walls, dykes, in the places where the ground


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: myhusband’s father, his two brothers, one married, twenty six years old,the other one, eighteen, a fine looking young man tall as a cypress treeand his brother-in-law, his sister’s husband. You can’t possibly imaginethe hate my husband had for the Germans!

The Dimitrianakis family was the first to be executed. They werethought to have been rebels, whatsoever, and were placed in line. Beforethe German’s arrival, when they were seen from a distance approaching,my husband said to his father: “Father, I have an appointment withLeonidas to meet him in Anatoli; I am on my way”. “Where will you gomy child?”, his father replied. “I know father, there is a way through themountains. Our appointment is before Anatoli” – a village north of Ier-apetra. “We have an appointment and I ought to keep my word”. Heasked: “Giorgos, my child, where do you think you are going? They will seeyou; you will meet them and they will execute you on site”. He replied:“Father I can’t, I have an appointment, there is no way I won’t go, he iswaiting for me outside Anatoli and I am leaving”. “Sit down! Stay!” his fa-ther became furious and almost slapped him in the face. And my hus-band said: “Regardless of anything you say father I am going, I can’t stayfor he is waiting for me and he may get hurt if I don’t show up, should Inot keep my word… I am leaving”. He was afraid that his friend wouldrun into any of the squads patrolling on the mountains nearby; theyhad the full control of our area, Ierapetra and Viannos. And so he leftby force. Later on, his family was executed. And my late mother-in-lawused 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 theywere 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 wrotea big sign on the museum – those days, the museum was in one theclassrooms of the school – saying: “Entrance is forbidden to Germans”.That raised a commotion and the Ministry sent him a letter kindly ask-


ing: “Mr. Dimitrianakis, such actions belong to the past, the man whoruled this nation was an insane”, that is the man who caused theseevents, Hitler of course. I fell on my knees before him and told him “Itisn’t right”. And then a German university professor came and he lethim in. He was a professor in the university, a great mind and person-ality; 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 goodhealth. I who am writing this year have not seen you or your villagefor years. I am in no position for long distance travel for I am in con-stant need for medical supervision. Nonetheless, Angeliki16 came toCrete as a tour guide in May. Unfortunately she did not find youhome. 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 themeaning of the word. You heard his Greek. He loves Greece deeply andwas 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 wasonly after he received a somehow kindly-suggesting letter from the Min-istry, stating that “The man ruling was an insaneMr. Dimitrianakis, theseevents should be left behind, the new generation is not to be blamed” andme and my brother talked to him, that he finally allowed them. And theprofessor wrote to me in his first letter, I can’t recall now where I haveplaced 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.

his creation and he owned it in some way. “And he let me enter and hehonoured me with his friendship, the man who used to turn on the lightsoutside the school so that I could climb the stairs and I shall never forgethim”. He has been coming every summer ever since. It now seems thathe has some kind of health problem and he has not been here for twoyears. These are very good people, he and his wife, great philhellenes,democrats down to the bone. He is exceptional in all aspects; I amtelling you a truly outstanding personality.

The Germans arrive at MirtosMy 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 putit. My father was the president of the village. What shall we do, whatshall we take, what could we do in just thirty minutes time? We haddonkeys those days for our transportation, no cars were available, noth-ing, how could we make it? He said to my mother, Kalliopi: “We have toget going in half an hour!”. What would she do first? We also had mygrandmother ill, anyway. And he said: “I will go and ask him, he seem anice 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 affordus 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 timeto take something along”.We used to make bread ourselves, but you havenot witnessed those years. Each one would prepare his home madebread, a rusk made of barley. But the German replied: “No Mr. Presi-dent, no extension is to be given”.

My poor father walked away and told my mother: “Kalliopi, get ourstuff ready, he gives no time extension. But I will go again to see him, toask him again”. So she told him: “Time is limited, we can’t make it… bythe time we put a bottle of oil, take a lot of bread...” Those days we hadrusks instead of bread; no bakeries were available so we prepared thebread in local ovens. Sixty okas of barley with wheat, for those who hadwheat, otherwise we used barley alone. “...to take along a bag with bread,how else can wemake it? How, how can we leave? I am begging you”.And


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 meanwith good intentions. He went back for the third time, to cut a longstory short, and he told him: “President leave; didn’t I say that no time ex-tension is to be given?” And so he left. At the last minute my motherstuffed a few basic goods in the sacks, and we placed them along withmy ill-prone grandmother on the donkey.

There was an aunt of mine from Mournies with her little daughter;she was the wife of my father’s brother, most dear to us. My uncle hadbeen heroic and pushed down two Germans in a basement, it is alsowritten in my husband’s book. There was this terrace, let’s say here,where the Germans were standing. He says: “Let me go down to take acouple 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 of-ficer 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 pushthrowing them down the basement. The terrace was at a great height,yet they were not killed but most probably severely injured. Nonethe-less, there was sufficient time for my uncle to run away and so he madehis way to the mountain and saved himself. So, since he had beenwanted, he had sent his wife and daughter here, to our home, just incase. My uncle too had a donkey. And we placed my grandfather on thefirst donkey, my grandmother on the second one, being at that age…they were not that old but more ill-prone. And we loaded anything wecould: bread, rusks, a five-okas bottle of oil – we called these bottles“pentares” for they could take “pente”17 okas of oil – some legumes mymother found, a bit of sugar for the baby and we started going. Alice, ababy back then, was still breastfeeding, an infant she was.

My father returned the last moment… We had a piglet with us thatmy cousin, my uncle’s daughter, a little girl herself, used to hold on aleash. And we also had my grandfather and grandmother sitting on thetwo donkeys, my mother and aunt were leading the way. But the pig


17 “Pente” means “five” in Greek.

was not fastened tight and all of a sudden, got loose and escaped. Andmy father said at once: “Oh! The pig is gone Kalliopi, I am going to bringit back, we can’t go to the mountains without it, we need it!”. Oh, my dearmother ran to him, held him tight, and said: “Where do you think youare going?Where will you go looking for the pig? Let it go!”And he repliedto her then: “Eh, poor woman, our children will be hungry up there inthe mountains; I am not going to leave them”. And as soon as he turnedthe corner, it was already too late… I can’t understand it, an educatedman, had been to America for thirteen years and was full of experi-ences, why did he do such a thing. He went back to capture the pig andgot arrested. He was executed within two hours along with eighteenmore. The president, the vice-president and eighteen people right herebehind the church of our patron saint. That’s where they placed themand executed them.

In exileWe continued our journey without knowing. We waited, waited for

him to catch up with us. We went to the mountains, to Trouli in the be-ginning. My sister was still a baby, still breastfeeding. There were somecaves there and we entered one. It was not cold yet, for these events tookplace on the 15th of September, the day we honour Agios Nikitas18, a dayafter the day of the Holy Cross. From there on, a million misfortunesfollowed, you can not possibly imagine.

We had an uncle in Trouli, who was a shepherd and had his sheepthere. 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 anumber of caves around. His name actually is Dimitrianakis for we werealso distant relatives with my future-to-be husband. Water, water, whocould find water? Where could someone find water? My uncle used totake the donkey and bring a pitcher back, filled with water but that wasfar from enough. And the baby? We had no water, we were thirsty mostof the time but then again we only spent two nights there. My otheruncle came then, my father’s brother, the one who was in the resistance.


18 Agios Nikitas: Saint Nikitas.

He took us to a farm, in a spacious stable where they used to house oxeninside. The baby was thirsty during the days we spent in Trouli, two orthree, I don’t remember. What would she do? It was raining the wholeyear then. However, the rocks on the ground were rather flat and usu-ally not tall. A number of potholes were formed filled with water – wecalled them “gouves” or “gousakia”. Nonetheless, young frogs were in-side, tadpoles: that is young, just born frogs. So, my mother used herkerchief to filter the water from the frogs and separate them in the cloth,I can’t describe it differently. She would then place the water in the flaskmy blessed uncle had given her. It was a rather big one, dressed withfelt; a gift from the Italians. She kept the water overnight in the con-tainer, outdoors, and was somehow purified and drinkable, reservedthough for the baby. We used to drink from the potholes, after separat-ing the frogs, the tadpoles. So many sufferings...

We went to a farm in Mournies and lived together with twenty twoother people from other villages. That was a stable actually owned bysome farmers that spent the winter there. They used to plough the fieldsso 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 wasbaptised by… how can I put it, the finest man in Ierapetra. He was avery wealthy wholesale dealer, Aerakis was his name (he also died veryyoung). He had been to Anatoli too. For Anatoli was not a neutral zoneand one was still allowed to be there. We also had an uncle, my grand-father’s brother, living and married in Anatoli; his name was Char-alambos Chatzakis. And so we went to Anatoli.

Other people from Viannos were also there, like the children of theold doctor Papamastoras, one of the finest families in Crete. His sonwas a doctor, the other one an officer in Albania, wounded, having losta leg and a hand, also hiding. Where could we go? In Anatoli there wereno Germans, we also had my aunt there, the one who married Char-alambos Chatzakis, my grandfather’s brother. So we stayed there with allthe rest: Papamastorakis family from Viannos, that is the two doctorsand the officer, my old aunt, called also the Papamastorakis, with hertwo daughters, Spanakis the doctor; around twelve people, I can’t recall


right now. And we would lay a shoddy on the floor; thankfully theweather was still warm for it was only September.

In Mournies we stayed for five or six days, I am not really sure, liv-ing together with people from other villages. The stable was let’s say…the farmers used to plough the land in winter time… it belonged to afarmer from… I don’t remember the owner, a rather big space, nonethe-less a stable, he housed donkeys and oxen inside. They were not therethen of course, it was empty and we all stayed together. But lice weresuch an issue, words can’t describe it, luckily I was fifteen then and I re-member. Have you ever seen ants walking on the ground? That is howlice 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 wasswollen from lice and her sensitive and tender skin was covered withsores. I defy words! And my poor mother kept on boiling clothes. For-tunately, the village was not burned down so we still had the marmiteswhich we used to warm water and wash our clothes. Eh, we were re-lieved from lice somehow!

My grandfather, from my mothers’ side, was an officer in the customsoffice. He was highly ranked in Sitia and knew the officer in the customsoffice in Ierapetra. The latter one, sent him a message (don’t know howhe managed to do so, there were no telephones those days) to come toIerapetra 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 homea number of times before the war, for we had guests regularly in ourhome then. “He should come and I have arranged a house ready for himto stay, with his grandchildren, his daughter, his whole family”.

We waited for my father. We were told different rumours: that theykept them hostage in the high school of Viannos, that my grandfathershould go and give them money… I am telling you we had a certain fi-nancial standing and didn’t resort to beggary; most other people didthough. We also had many friends of my father that would contact usand my grandfather would go to load the donkey with peas, beans, var-ious 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


didn’t 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 hisonly child, we were his only grandchildren and my father his only son-in-law after all. Nothing. Just a rumour. Then they told us they hadthem hostage in Timpaki. We sent a man to Timpaki, another one toSitia, in all possible places we heard a rumour about, being certain ofnothing and aware it was probably nothing but rumours. Just to verifyif he was being held hostage indeed.

The burial of those executed in MirtosMirtos was a neutral zone. It was forbidden: “Any living being arrested

within the region of Mirtos will be executed on site”. It was written bothin German and in oratorical Greek.

And then, one day, Germans commandeered two fishermen – maythey be blessed – to come to the region of Mirtos and fish on their be-half. Three men came with their boat, all experienced fishermen fromIerapetra, Dedeletakis was one of them. And the Germans had themfishing all day long, supervising them. But there was a day when theGermans wanted fresh water to fill up the tanks. So, they let them goashore 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 theygot off they saw a homburg drifted from the air towards the beach. AndDedelatakis, the senior in the group of fishermen, said: “Holy Mary, Iknow this hat! It belongs to Somara. I remember it because we used tomake 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 ofMirtos’ enormous sand beach, and sensed an unbearable smell. Theywere driven by the smell, only to find eighteen people, one on top ofthe other, right here, behind Agios Antonios19, church. They broke thenews as soon as they came back. They identified each individual fromthe clothes he was wearing; my father from his shoes.

They were left for twenty days out in the country… I don’t remem-


19 In Greek: “Άγιος Αντώνιος” which literally means “Saint Anthony”.

ber clearly. I would rather not be inaccurate; they stayed for many daysnonetheless. 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 iden-tified the vice-president and another man from Ierapetra who happenedto be there. I am telling you, it must have been ten to twelve people; Idon’t want to be mistaken. For they also killed four or five people out inthe fields. A total of eighteen people were executed. Should you visit thewar memorial you will see the names of all men executed in Mirtoswritten down.

And they tell him: “Papadakis…”, that’s the name of my grandfather,so and so, “…we identified the president, your son-in-law”.And he stayedthere for twenty-eight days, I don’t remember how many exactly so Iwould better not say for I will be inaccurate, in decomposition of course.

There was a heroic interpreter working for the Germans, her namewas Antonia Mathioudaki. She was in the resistance of course andtherefore working as a spy too. She offered great help to the resistanceand was later married to an Englishman, living happily ever since. Al-though I don’t know the exact year she was born, she is definitely olderthan me, she should be around eighty five for sure. And she used herconnections so that Germans gave their permission for the burial. Mymother and my grandfather came and everyone else too who had a deadman. They had them buried right there, behind the church of AgiosAntonios.

And my mother, along with another relative of ours, found a sheetfrom a tax officer we used to know, a colleague of my grandfather. Andeveryone in general who had a relative, went there carrying their ownsheet, so as to cover their beloved ones. And each family member duga pit for his person so as to know who was who. After the liberation,the Greek government gave permission and their bodies were trans-ferred. A unit of four to six ELAS police officers from Agios Nikolaoscame and presented honors to the dead. I am not sure about the exactnumber 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 in-side. Now that I buried my husband I found this little chest which had


the inscription: “Michail Andreopoulis – murdered by the Germans”. Myfamily name is Andreopoulis. I placed it in the family tomb, next to mymother and husband; all my beloved ones gathered. They are in thecemetery of Agios Vasilios, in Mirtos.

It is beyond description what followed. My mother had two sick par-ents 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 cameand buried my father, my sister was more than a year old. They used tobreastfeed children even when they were relatively grown up. And mysister could speak rather clearly; she could say words from the age ofnine months old. So she said: “Mama, “zizi!”which meant “Mama, offerme your breast”. My mother washed herself as quickly as possible inorder to feed the child. I am very accurate in the description, it is a trueevent. My sister tasted a bit, and said “Ah, it is bitter!”. She never cameclose to my mother’s breast again. I swear she said: “A… mom it is bit-ter!”. She was talking in Cretan dialect, saying “piki” instead of “pikro”20.As we Cretans says, her breast “sakase”.

Life in Gdohia moves onWe didn’t 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 didn’t starve nor did we go begging for we went toour house in Gdohia. We still have this house although it is completelyruined now. Gdohia was not a forbidden zone, unlike Mirtos, and wewere allowed to go there after the incidents in Mirtos. We had relativesthere and property; we have olive trees there nowadays. Both mymother and husband are from Gdohia. In Mirtos one can find peoplefrom Mournies and Mirto, yet the majority, I would say four fifths, arefrom Gdohia. And we go there, and an uncle of mine had planted toma-toes, okra and vegetable marrows.

He was a dear relative of ours so we had supplies in a way. They hadalso produced oil on our behalf, actually “simisiako”, meaning that theone who collects the olives keeps half the production giving the other


20 In Greek: «πικί» and «πικρό», both meaning “bitter”.

half to the owner… They produced eighty okas! Eh, and day by day timepassed. We didn’t starve, nor had my mother or grandfather to go beg-ging. 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 manalong, at any cost, for I will find the way to send her something”. And sowe 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 atax officer in Sitia. And they sent men, for there were no telephonesthose years, to tell us: “Do tell Mr. Papadakis the tax officer, to come him-self or send anyone he wishes, for we want to help”. They even sent ricefor the baby, Aliki, and some sugar as well, for we had none and usedxaroupia-syrup instead. There was a big factory those years in Ierape-tra, Minoas, that supplied us with locust-syrup. And as for the coffee, weused to roast barley and blend coffee with it and chickpea. But, thankGod, we didn’t resort to begging, as most people in need were forced to.Our friends had helped us, may God forgive their souls; they have beenof great assistance, a great help to us. They even gave us a marmite, largeenough to grind peas inside and make “fava”21. We didn’t starve. Wefaced difficulties but nothing like the others. May God forgive theirsouls, my grandfather especially, for my mother was his only child andhe was a great guardian to us.

Mymarriage with Giorgos DimitrianakisIn the meantime, since my father was reputable, two men came to

ask me from my grandfather to marry them: one from another villageand the other one from our region… And my grandfather told me: “Iwill give my consent for I need a man to protect the family; children arestill young and I can’t protect our property any longer. You will take oneof them for sure”.He was old-minded, yet I didn’t have any emotions forthem.


21 “Fava” is a food made of grinded peas.

We were distant relatives with one of the two. He was a third-degreecousin to my mother. He was finishing high school at that time and waspractising teaching. He was from the same community and was teach-ing children from Gdohia. The school was burned down so he used toteach in the church of “Agioi Deka”. The children would cut and curvetrees, find trunks or stones to sit on, and each family would offer himan oka of oil per month. There were many children then and he was leftall alone: his sister was a widow, his sister-in-law, that is the wife of hisbrother, a widow too, and his younger brother, Michalis, an eighteen-year old fine man, killed. His father was fifty two years old and hismother, 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 ateacher, supposedly educated for he had only finished high school, andwe used to attend his classes. I had not finished high school; I was six-teen and still wanted two more years. An uncle of mine had salvagedsome books from being burnt and kept them in a stable. We would thenexchange books and talk; being also relatives made things easier. I amtelling you this is an endless story.

My grandfather wanted the other man for me. I felt as if there wassomething repelling, I couldn’t even face him, whereas I felt an attrac-tion to the other one. I swear we never said “I love you” or sent eachother a letter like people in love do. We would only act sophistically andhe would give me an old book. For reading is – even up to now – mypleasure. It relaxes me, I feel rested. I have a full library and I preferreading 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 andwanted someone to share the responsibility; he may have been rightsince we were three orphan children. But I didn’t want him. I felt at-tracted to the other one, the one who later became my husband, andalso had mutual feelings for me.

I used to bring along my baby sister to church so as to see him teach-ing. And my sister would tell me, in broken Greek: “I want to leave nowVangelio, this is not the place for me, I want to go and play withKostakis…”, Kostakis was a neighbour we had there, “…to play, I don’t


want to”. There was an old chandelier hanging there that he would takethe prisms off and give her to play with, just to keep her quiet for awhile, before she would start wanting to leave again. Of course, I wouldtake her then and leave.

We used to talk about literature; he would give me any book he couldfind from his friends in Ierapetra. We never said… on what shall Iswear? On his soul, we never said “I love you”, or went on a date nor ex-changed any love letters, nothing. Nonetheless, my grandfather wantedme to marry the one I felt repelled to, I could not bear facing him. I feltattracted to the teacher, but had never thought that… I couldn’t sort outmy feelings then. But my uncle, a Dimitrianakis too, apparently under-stood, judging from the sweetness we talked to each other.

We were neighbours with my uncle. He used to live in a half-ruinedhouse next to our also ruined house. We used to visit his home and, ap-parently, said to my future husband: “Giorgis, I am aware that you havefeelings for Vangelia, the grand-daughter of the tax officer…”, that is howthey referred to me, “…but he will get her married; one of these days heand Vangelia’s aunt will move on”, my aunt being my father’s sister. Mygrandfather was stressed and wanted to avoid responsibility. Thus hisdesire was to marry me with the one already appointed, having a ca-reer. I took him with no possessions at all; he had just finished highschool. He went to the Academy when we were married. He studiedmerely 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 forthis man to come to ask her and her auntMaria is supportive”. My father’ssister Maria was making the arrangements. To continue: “If you don’ttake her tonight he will give her. I know that with certainty for the tax of-ficer told me so”. I was present in this discussion: “And he will come toshake 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 hus-band had no idea since I had not mentioned that my grandfather wasmaking arrangements for me to marry the other man. And where couldwe go to? It was almost kidnapping. We went to his village. His relatives


were also distant relatives of mine. We left wearing “cork”22 shoes. Youand your parents were obviously unborn so you don’t know. These areshoes 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 blackclothes…

He turned out to be nice. He was perfect, perfection in flesh. Andmy grandfather came to like him for he did all sort of things. But mymother said nothing, she was bittered. When I took him, he had notstudied or been to the army. And then we had to go to Grevena for fiveyears approximately. But he was so nice that we struggled through all theadventures of life together. He was a great genius, he had managed topass in the Higher School of Commerce during the occupation withoutsitting any exams. A great mind indeed. But an obstacle came in theway and had to stop: he couldn’t find a ship to embark. Ships those dayswere once a week and he missed it. He had to stay at my father-in-law’ssister, so we had loaded his belongings on a donkey along with two con-tainers filled with oil. But the container broke, the oil was spilt and hemissed his ship… A long story, I wouldn’t like to be tiring. In any case,one of his colleagues, I think his name was Makrakis, dead also nowa-days, told him: “Giorgis, it will take time before the next ship arrives, mypoor friend, what will you become? You don’t have time to confirm yourregistration”. Indeed, as I said, there was only one ship a week thosedays, I think its name was Kadio. To continue: “Why don’t you try for theAcademy here?”. And my husband replied: “My dear friend, how am Igoing to give examinations for the Academy in Heraklio?”. And hereplied: “You will study and you will see”.He gave him the books, for hewas in the Academy himself too, and studied for three days. He spentthree days studying and passed third. And he constructed an oil-lampfrom a tin he found thrown by the Germans. He folded it three times,so as to keep the oil, and asked somebody else’s landlady for a bit of cot-ton and he made three lamp wicks out of it. And he managed to be thethird one in score, by studying under an oil lamp for three days. I swearto God… I wish I had a newspaper from that time.


22 In Greek: «φελλούς».

So he passed third in the Academy and attended successfully the firstyear. But we were facing financial difficulties: I was young, we had ourfirst child only after a year of marriage and my mother’s support wasnot enough. My mother was receiving a pension since my father hadbeen executed. And my grandfather too had a good salary but moneywas deprived of its value then. It was only after the liberation that itsvalue was regained. So, we were poor, yet an aunt of his (his father’s sis-ter) may God rest her soul, told him: “You should come to Athens dearGiorgos…” She, her husband and her children are all saints. The Ger-mans had killed the children of her brother and she wanted to help withall her heart: “You should come to our home”, although their lives werefar from being lives of ease. They were carpenters but had a number ofprojects running. They even had a house of their own. “You shouldcome, my child, the following year”.He spent his first year with difficul-ties and registered in “Maraslio Academy” of Athens the following year.I think I have his diploma here. He received it with honours, his gradeis 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 con-sidered a patron, he spent only a year and a half in Lamia. He was ap-pointed afterwards to the municipality of Gdohia as a teacher and lateron in Grevena. Eh, we have been through all difficulties of life… hav-ing also my first child, Manolis, at the age of seventeen…

Patrick Leigh Fermor in our houseMy father had assisted two units of Englishmen flee. Being the pres-

ident of the village, he was also in the resistance. Every month theywould send him a report from the Middle East. He would receive the re-port and say: “Come Vangelio, read it for me”, and so I used to read it,every single month. Yet I don’t know how he received it, I never asked.And it used to say on the top: “Patience and patience, endurance and en-durance, and this uphill will lead to a downhill”.

He also accommodated Patrick Leigh Fermor, a great figure. He wasEnglish and participated in the abduction of Kreipe, the German Gen-eral. Have you heard of these incidents during the occupation? Kreipe,the commander of the German forces in Crete was kidnapped. Patrick


Leigh Fermor was here, with two more English, dressed in the tradi-tional Cretan outfit, i.e. wearing Cretan breeches and boots23. They pre-tended to be Cretans. I have lived these experiences, Virgin Mary! Idon’t know if I have omitted anything, for I haven’t yet felt that I am be-coming slow. Up to now, my mind is in perfect shape, the only thingstill working intact, for my legs and my other members... Patrick LeighFermor is married to a Greek woman and now lives somewhere in Pelo-ponnesus. I still remember him here wearing Cretan breeches andboots, behaving and talking like us, like Cretans.

We accommodated them. And my mother had a rooster slaughteredfor the occasion although we had many chickens; a rooster she was sav-ing and didn’t want to slaughter. And she made a delicious soup out ofit as she used to half-cook the chicken or the roaster, use the stock tomake a soup, and then boil the meat in red sauce accompanied withfried potatoes. So, Patrick Leigh Fermor and his comrades, who knewnothing of Greek and could only understand Patrick Leigh, had a royalfeast, at least in that time frame.

Later on he stayed in Crete along with the rebels in the mountainand was the key figure in Kreipe’s abduction. They had him robbed,kidnapped and sent over to Egypt.

The Italian presence in MirtosThe Italians were very nice. Nonetheless, they used to steal a bit for

they didn’t have much. It seems that their diet was also different... andthey couldn’t satisfy their hunger. But there were some things in theirdiet too. I was feeling disgust: they used to eat cats. What else is thereto say? There were quite a few, a big detachment, Company Julia. Therewere successive bombings the days before the invasion in Sitia and wewere all afraid. In Ierapetra they bombed and destroyed Kato Mera. Tryto ask an inhabitant there of my age. All this area was reconstructed af-terwards. 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. Atthat time we left our home and camped outdoors. We went to the upper


23 Cretan breeches and boots: in Greek, «βράκες και στιβάνια».

part of town, right next to the river, in a place referred by the name of“Peter’s”. We have a large estate there, a vast vineyard that demandedonce forty workers. But later on it wasn’t profitable and my husband up-rooted the vines for he was an excellent farmer – and he excelled notonly in this profession – and planted young olives trees that we Cretanscall “mourela”. Today it is very productive and those called “mourela”trees are referred to as “liofita”. That was the place we went and campedwith two tents. My grandfather, grandmother and us, the children, weresleeping in the first one, whereas my mother and father in the secondone. My other grandfather was still in Sitia, on duty.

As soon as my father found out that Italians had arrived, he said tomy mother: “Kalliopi, I am going to meet them, I am the president of thevillage”. I am not altering anything, these are the exact facts. My poormother wrapped her arms around him and said: “Where will you go…”,to continue: “…where to?Why do you offer yourself to the beasts, to haveyou 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 coursefor my younger sister was still not borne. “I am going”, he replied. Hehad a high sense of duty. I told you before that he had helped two Eng-lishmen flee in a submarine that came and collected them from a de-serted beach in Vatos. Of course I was not present but I have heard thestories. Besides, he used to read me the reports since he loved me andknew I was a well-behaved child.“Where will you go?” she told him, “Where?”. “I am going, it’s my

duty”, was his reply. He got up, took the donkey and made his way to thetown. The first ones to arrive in Mirtos was Company Julia. He foundthem and, according to his narration afterwards, introduced himself: “Iam the president of the village”. The Italian was named Donna RummaI think, I am not sure, a holy man. “I am glad to meet youMr. President”.He was a very sweet, young man, a lieutenant. And it was in this veryroom… My father replied: “Come to my home, come Mr. Temente, let’sgo”. 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 wewere staying at was not far from there so he used to take the donkey andvisit the house in order to take supplies for a day or two. He asked: “Do


you have wine Mr. President?” to respond: “I do!”. Our nearby vineyardwas producing tons of wines. “Eh then bring some! And do you also hap-pen to have a glass?”. “Of course we have glasses”. I am telling you, I amvery 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?”. Myfather replied: “Yes, some people gave me, still have some, not much, halfoka, 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. Myfather didn’t know much of Italian, it is similar though to Spanish whichhe spoke like his mother tongue… yet, with a bit of English that my fa-ther spoke rather well and the Italian could also speak, they managed tocommunicate. And he added the egg to the glass of wine, and said:“Sugar should you spare some, otherwise honey will suffice”. “I have bothhoney and sugar”. In any case, we gave him some, and then the Italianmixed the blend thoroughly and he drank it. My father later said to mymother: “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 inten-tions”. Indeed, they killed nobody, they didn’t… all right, they did a bitof stealing with the vegetables, the potatoes… and we had half our fieldplanted 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, ashe finished drinking his wine – it is as if I am listening to my fathertelling the story – he gave him a hug, kissed him and said: “Let us leaveMetaxas and Mousolini resolve their differences, we are brothers, aren’twe, Mr. President?”. And my father responded: “Brothers”.

The Italians had resided there whereas Germans would come everynow and then. The Italians were “cantare”24: they were sitting by theschool, singing “mama son tanto felice”, very nice… Having spent a fewdays here, this nice man, Donna Rumma asked: “President, could youname me which are the poor families?”. They commandeered the houseof Aliki and made it their commanding headquarters. That was one of


24 In Greek: καντάρε, from the Italian word “cantare”.

the two or three finest houses in the village those days; if you want usto take a look, it is visible from Agios Antonios. The officers used tostay there. And says: “Please inform me on the poor families, Mr.Podestà…”, that is how they called the president25, “…which are the fam-ilies in need in Mirtos?”. And my father named two or three that knewwere in great need, and he offered them “kouramana”, rice and somesugar. My father also gave him oil, wine and raki. They loved raki, it re-minded them of their own grapa, they went crazy over it. And theywould sing at the school. They didn’t hurt a man. Nonetheless, theywould enter gardens sometimes, stealing beans, potatoes, making amess... even if the vegetables were not mature yet. Ah, they had theirshare too! My father couldn’t stand them at all. Only Donna Rummawas a philhellene and a couple more.

This is the story in short. I mean all I remember. But I have not spo-ken of any inaccuracies. All I said is verified facts. It’s only that I mayhave omitted many facts for my memory is weak.


25 Podestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the laterMiddle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state but also as a local administrator.

Manolis DaskalakisThe 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 thechildren, but in any case, I can say that the life of the children wasn’tthat bad. Children always find something to play with; they find some-thing to pass their time with. The years were difficult of course in termsof nutrition for the children (in general). Most villages were poor be-cause of the tight economy: our village was a little worse off than theother ones, but in any case, there was poverty in all the villages.

Of course, I can say that the years of our generation weren’t as hardas they were for the previous generation. The previous generation suf-fered greatly: my father’s life was full of wars and dictatorships. That is,my father spent eight years in the army and two years as a prisoner inTurkey. He went first to the Balkan war and then to Asia Minor wherehe was kept captive for two years. I mean that the previous generationwas… 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 noth-ing similar to what our parents went through.

I was born in 1928. I remember the dictatorship of Metaxa, but I wasyoung and it didn’t affect me so much. The dictatorship of Metaxa wasin 1935 and I was seven years old: I went to school, I was Skapanitisthen, because you had to become Skapanitis, you couldn’t do otherwise.It was an organization of Metaxa, they organized themselves. It didn’t af-fect me as much as the occupation did. The occupation affected us alldeeply for they were… All right, we had a good time with the Italians.They were little thieves but they weren’t tough persons. I mean, the Ital-ian would not kill you for no serious reason. The Italian could comeand steal your chickens from the coop. If you were there you could hithim with a stick and he would get away without talking to you.

We helped the rebels then. They made collections here; and they saidthey made collections, various collections for food and all the food wentto the rebels. All the foodstuffs, the bread they collected, whatever theycollected, was for the rebels. The territory provided for the rebels. TheGermans knew. They were well informed; it wasn’t that they didn’tknow. Those who burned us down knew what they were doing. We were

MANOLIS DASKALAKIS 57

not burned by chance. Most people were involved in the resistance. Fewpeople didn’t know what was going on.

The events in SimiNow, later on there were the Germans: the whole story with the Ger-

mans was triggered by a guardhouse that was in Simi. It was said that thepurpose of the guardhouse was to get potatoes: they got five, ten kilosout of one hundred, at most. I believe that that was not the purpose. Ibelieve that this guardhouse was over there in order to be able to checkthe activities of the rebels. This is what I believe. Don’t take into con-sideration what many people believe. There are people that believe thatit was for the potatoes. I cannot believe that there were four Germansin Simi to get potatoes: even if they got all the potatoes of Simi theywouldn’t get more than two tons of potatoes. That is to get all the pota-toes, not to leave some behind as they did. If they built a guardhouse inthe Plateau of Lasithi it would be ok for potatoes, but in Simi? Even ifthey got all the potatoes that were produced, they could have managedwith fewer than four soldiers in the guardhouse. This is my opinion:they had the guardhouse there (armed, tidy) only, in their way, to keepa close watch on the activities of the rebels.

One day, people from Simi went to this guardhouse; it is said thatthey were drunk. People from Simi got drunk every night, how come itoccurred to them to go and kill the men in the guardhouse that specificnight? For one more time, I am of the opinion that they killed the guardsbecause they were driven by the spies, in order to create some kind ofdisorder in the war. Because it was then that Italy had collapsed, that is,Italy had withdrawn from the agreement and had capitulated. This storytook place around these days. I believe that the entire story took placeas some kind of war play: aiming at delaying the Germans here. Howcome they suddenly got drank, they suddenly got mobilised and thisentire story happened so suddenly? So they killed the Germans. Whenthe Germans found out that their guards had been killed, a battle tookplace, a proper battle, between the Germans and the rebels. Then theGerman Kommandantur ordered Bräuer and Müller that were thechief-officers then there (one was garrison commander while the other


I don’t know what the hell he was), to have all the villages in the provinceof Viannos burned down. We are not of course part of the province ofViannos, yet they relied on old documents that included us in that re-gion. From that moment on, it is said that the order was to kill all liv-ing beings. Then the church intervened; the Metropolite of Heraklion,Psalidakis, who was enlightened. Had he not intervened, things wouldhave been more difficult.

Eh, and they started from three directions: from south, from the cen-tre and from north and they killed whoever was found in their way.They killed approximately four hundred in the entire province. How-ever, if the Metropolite had not intervened, the disaster would have beengreater because they had five hundred fifty people locked up in thehigh-school of Viannos ready for execution. They also had in the churchof Agios Theodoros some citizens too, that were one hundred, ninety,I don’t know exactly how many they were. If all of them were killed, thedisaster would have been equal to the one in Kalavrita. There weremany, they would have killed many people. They destroyed all the vil-lages. They burned down all the villages except... The intervening ofMetropolite saved some villages: it saved Mithous and it was not burned,Metaxohori, Christo; these villages were also in the schedule, for theykilled 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 MirtosThe day the Germans came here, paradoxically, the village had many

people. They had come from other villages as well. There were somefrom Ierapetra that were permanent residents of the village here. So theGermans came and they camped in an olive grove, where the church isnow, but they spread afterwards to all the hills and they controlled theentire area; there was no way you could leave. The president, a youngman who spoke German, went to the German who asked him: “The vil-lage is small but it presents great activity. Why?”. The president told himthat: “There are fifty families here from Ierapetra that are spending theirsummer vacation”. It was September. They were permanent residentshere because the village was productive. And then the German said:


“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. Attwo 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 killedthose who stayed and were caught after two o’ clock. They killed twentypeople; they had them captured by two o’ clock. They made a “neutralzone”; the zone was six kilometres, I think, from the beach.

We go to AnatoliWe 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, becausethere were villages that did not bother. We lived in Anatoli for fifteenmonths. It was September when we left; we left on the 14th of Septem-ber and on the 30th of September the Germans left Crete. They all gath-ered in Chania. They left smoothly without gun shouting. They leftquite smoothly. In Anatoli we rented a house and we stayed there. Firstof all, we also had relatives in Anatoli, my mother was from Anatoli.But life was very hard. Every ten days, every eight days, they allowedone day, Thursday I think, from eight o’ clock in the morning till fouro’ clock in the afternoon, for people to go and water. Delegations of ourpeople had gone to them, saying that we owned trees, which is true, andbecause of that they gave the people one permit every eight days tocome over here to water and leave. But still, they would kill you if youwent beyond the permission. They killed one, two people and the rea-son was that they entered the zone. In Anatoli there were also our fel-low villagers and my father opened a small grocery store there, smallcoffeehouse and we got along. Our relatives also provided for us. Any-way, people were more sensitive then than they are now. Other fellowvillagers too, that went to various other villages, had a nice time. In othervillages, north of us, they returned after twenty days, one month. Wecouldn’t return because of the zone, the neutral zone as it was called.

The ItaliansThere were numerous Italians here: there was a company of soldiers


and a platoon of fascists, black berets, the ones with the black shirts.They were Mussolini’s fascists, this unit belonged to Mussolini. Theywere a little harsh but for the most part they controlled their people.The other Italians were not cruel, they didn’t believe in the war first ofall. They used to sit in the coffeehouses with the citizens and drink withthem. Eh, that doesn’t mean they weren’t the occupying army of course,but not the tough German one. The German wouldn’t give you to eateven if you were dying, whereas the Italians…

Back to the villageAfter we returned here we found all our houses burned. All the

houses were burned: they had all fallen down; you had to remove thesoil, to remove the ruins. At the beginning we housed ourselves some-how or other, with lumber, with soil, with anything we could, and lateron, when the cost of living began to rise… it was very hard. This resi-dence26 has been rebuilt four times since 1943 when we were burnt. Andwe started building the coffeehouse and the houses, all the houses, inany way we could. We used lumber and soil for the roof to be able to stayinside. And then, little by little, people started constructing the housesproperly. But when you came here, you had fifteen days, one month, tomake something to house yourself, even if it was a hut. We did it at firstwith sixty cm wooden middle beams, as we say, then we demolished itand we made it from concrete and then we re-demolished it because ithad no foundations, it had nothing. Hence, it was a great disaster: we re-turned here only with our shirt. We lost whatever things a house has, be-cause there were supplies in the houses those times (not like now thatyou have nothing in your house because you buy everything from thesuper market). Those years, you had in your house whatever you wantedto eat. We left with a shirt, we came back with a shirt. Those years werevery bad. Life got better after 1950. What got better? At least, you hadthe ability not to be hungry. The school was not burned. It was a fortunethat the school was not burned. I didn’t go to high-school. My otherbrother went, he finished it and became a lawyer. I didn’t go because


26 He means the coffeehouse the interview was taking place.

the family had a hard time then; we couldn’t support the studies of bothof us. I was also older than my brother.

The civil warHere in Crete, during the civil war, we didn’t have many things going

on among us. I don’t know, some small events took place in Heraklio,but we didn’t kill each other afterwards in Crete. Up there, they killedeach other, brothers with brothers. Here in Crete, who was fast enoughto prevent us from suffering the damage? Eh, small damages now… Imean, there were some troubles here too. There were troubles here too,lets say: if you were even slightly democratic you didn’t get hired by thearmy, you couldn’t get hired by the gendarmerie, even if you wanted to,you couldn’t get hired as a clerk, you didn’t get hired here, didn’t gethired there. Those that were leftists27, and their fellow-travellers as theyused to say, those that were not informers, were all under persecution.

In the public affairsI 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 en-joyed getting involved in what was going on in my village and here, ifyou read this, my whole story is in here28. After coming back from thearmy I joined the council, I joined the municipal council at the age oftwenty five. Ever since, I was most of the times, president of the co-op-erative or president of some kind of delegation in the village. That is, Iwas a councillor for five times at the municipal council and served forthree four-year terms as president of the community. I mean, I got in-volved in the public affairs at the age of eighteen and I have been in-volved for my entire life. Now it’s been a couple of years since I quit. Atotal of around fifty years: I am eighty years old now, two years since Iquit, I have been participating since I was twenty five years old. Some-times I served at the Prefecture’s Council representing an organization,


27 i.e. democratic28 Mr. Daskalakis held the speech he gave in an event that took place to his honor for his con-tribution to the local self-administration, when he was retired.

sometimes I was with the Municipal Council. After all these years ofexperience you are left with both good and bad ones. However, I thinkthat experience is good. I believe that a man should get involved in thepublic affairs. When I first started, people were more tight, things wereharder. First of all, to refrain from lies, local self-administration becamemeaningful after 1981. I can say that Gennimatas initiated the local self-administration. What self-administration has gained, has gained it withthe governments of PA.SO.K.29

The peopleI personally believe that the people are never to be blamed. Hitler

used to say that Crete is barbaric. Is there any German now that believesCrete is barbarous? Are Cretans barbarous? He wanted to create the im-pression to the Germans that people in Crete are primitive, the samefor the Greeks. Does any German believe today that it is like that? Ithink there is no German citizen that thinks so. As I do not believe thatthere is a Greek citizen that thinks Germans are so barbarous. Irre-spective of the atrocities they did to us here. We should be aware thatwars 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 peo-ple of Iraq responsible for what happened to them? That both of themhave troubles and kill each other? How will people manage to assertthemselves and prevent wars and troubles from happening? This iswhere the great art lies.


29 In Greek: ΠΑ.ΣΟ.Κ, i.e. «Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα», (Panellinio Sosialistiko Kín-ima) stands for “e Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement”, which is a Greek centre-le politi-cal party.

Antonis Papadakis

Of democratic, liberal principlesMy family, my grand-father, my father and all Papadakis’ family

members, were of democratic, liberal principles. Thus, since my child-hood, as a student in the preliminary school and high-school later, Ihave been against any violence and any non-liberal measures. I wasdeeply moved, I don’t remember exactly who politician had said that, Ithink it was Plastiras, by: “One night at the palace and after ninemonths, a king is born, while it will take centuries for a VenizelosEleutherios to be born”. That made a tremendous impression on me andit 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 asa non-free action. This attitude caused me problems in my life, becauseI experienced the movement of ’35. Before Metaxa, the “democratic de-fence” had taken place; after Venizelos death, they didn’t permit hisbody to pass through Athens. Leuteris Venizelos died in France and hisdead body wasn’t permitted to pass through Athens, because they saidhe was a bad politician, that he destroyed Greece. They brought him toChania and his burial took place. After Venizelos’ burial at Akrotiri,Cretan school games took place: Venizelos’ wife made a donation to themunicipality of Chania and they built the stadium in Chania. Aroundfifteen, twenty students from every high school of the entire Crete hadbeen chosen (one for javelin, one for running, one for various sportgames). They were chosen by the trainer and they went to Chania tocelebrate the opening of the stadium. Because of Venizelos’ recent deathand burial at Akrotiri, the students were asking to go and see Akrotiriand all the teachers went (the teachers and the students went). Therewas no proper road then, for it was still under construction. Well, wealso went with our trainer, who by coincidence was extremely right-wing (and our headmaster also extremely right-wing) and we asked himto let us go too, to take us all as a group. He says: “You didn’t come herefor political reasons”. A group of us, three children went there. We tookbicycles to go but it was an uphill. We had a picture taken at Venizelos’


grave. With our childhood enthusiasm we showed off this picture to therest of the children when we returned to the high school in Ierapetra.We said: “Here, the headmaster didn’t allow us, the trainer didn’t want to,but we went by ourselves, three children”.

During the break, he saw the group of students that was next to meand said: “What’s this, what’s this?”. I tell him: “We went to Venizelos’grave and we had a picture taken”. He says: “Are you going to transformthe high school into a Byzantine horse track?”. He proposed that I shouldbe expelled due to disobedience. I was forced to attend the fifth andsixth grade of high school elsewhere, in another high school. I had toleave Ierapetra that was a neighbouring place of mine, and go to KastelliPediados. There was no transportation then, from here, Mirtos, Vian-nos, to Kasteli, only by donkeys. The headmaster was threatening thathe would expel me completely (he had expelled me two or three times)from all high schools. He called the teacher’s association and proposedthat I should be expelled from all the high schools of Greece, as a dis-obedient and troublemaking element.

So I went to Kastelli Pediados and I finished high school there. It wasdifficult for me because my parents couldn’t support me. Over there, Ihad the same attitude. My teacher, a teacher, used to address the chil-dren during the lesson by their nick-names. We had a child who wasgimp, with crutches, and he says: “The gimp shall be examined”. All thechildren laughed with the supposed joke of the teacher. I didn’t laughand the teacher says: “They all laughed with my joke. Only Papadakisdidn’t laugh. He is playing the serious, but whoever beggars came to myhouse, were all from Viannos, from the villages of Viannos that Papadakiscomes from. Is he playing the aristocrat and that comes from a big fam-ily?”. I said to him: “Mr. Headmaster, Viannos has indeed given birth tobeggars, but there are also people of literature, Yiannis Kondilakis …”,who had written “Patouxa”, “When I was a teacher”, “…I don’t know whoyour place gave birth to”.

Thus, I finished high school there, at Kastelli Pediados. There, I metother children that followed my way of living (the democratic and theliberal). The student pressed charges against the Headmaster at KastelliPediados (he wasn’t a Headmaster but was acting as one, in the absence

ANTONIS PAPADAKIS 65

of the Headmaster) and he wrote in his suit that he called him gimp be-cause he referred to him as “Teacher”. And he told him: “I am a Head-master…” and he struck the student with the ruler. The student had leftthe crutches near the wall, crawled as he could, took the crutches andwent out. We, the students, defended him and expressed along with thesenior classes (fifth and sixth grade), with my prompting, our disap-proval for the teacher. Anyway, the teacher was transferred afterwards.This is how, psychologically, psychically and mentally the occupation ofGreece from the Germans found me: prepared to fight.

The occupation of Crete and the resistanceDuring the withdrawal of our army from Albania, I found myself in

Athens as a recruit, destined for the school of Reserve Officers. When weleft Chania for Athens, on that day, the Germans declared the war on us.

I didn’t expect that the Germans would occupy Crete because I hadseen and believed in the sea empire, the domination of England at sea,and therefore the occupation by the Germans found me in Athens. Theyhad spread the rumour then that the Germans would take captives fromthe Greek army and that they would send them to dig entrenchmentsat the war front with Russia. And I thought: “I am not staying alone tobe captured by myself. I will leave”. And I left by the last train the Eng-lishmen went away from Greece, through Githio of southern Pelopon-nesus. We left by the train of the Englishmen. We went in, to be on timefor the boats of the Englishmen that departed from Githio. We wereforced to spend the night at the station. The Germans occupiedCorinth’s isthmus with parachutists. We reached Nauplio though. Ifound there a group of officers, five people of the Greek army, and I toldthem: “I know about sailing. Since we didn’t catch up with the Englishmen,we will go to Githio, to find a boat to pay for”. These officers had gottheir salary and had money. I didn’t 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 An-tikithira and we reached Crete.

I thought and believed that Crete would not be occupied. I say: “Howwill Crete be occupied since the English fleet is powerful, since Eng-


lishmen are in Souda. How will it be occupied?”. No one expected theparachutists. When finally, the island and the airports were occupiedby the Germans, some Englishmen had been left here that had not man-aged to retreat (to leave for Egypt) as well as some young boys from theSchool of Euelpidon30. Before the Germans bombed Crete with theparachutists, the Euelpidon School as well as the government officialshad come to Crete. What would we do with those young boys? We hidthe Englishmen wherever each one could. I had classmates that hadbeen to Euelpidon School and they signalled me: “We are hungry.Whereare we going to hide?”. We were hiding them above Tertsa, in all thesouth parts of Crete, in Arvi, in Psari Forada, wherever we could. Butthey wanted food, they wanted clothes, they wanted various things andwe were trying to make connections to enable them to leave by sub-marines. Thus, from the first days of occupation and even before theorganised resistance groups were formed (“E.A.M.” and “E.O.K.”31) alieutenant colonel, Raftopoulos Aleksandros, had formed a committeeof revolutionary liberation. I was linked to that committee, throughsomeone called Fragkakis, a lawyer from Kato Simi. Not directly withRaftopoulos but via Fragkakis. Eventually, Raftopoulos was betrayedand he was killed. After that, the teams of Mpantouva, of Petrakogiorgiand of other ones were formed, that later on were unfortunately splitup. I was in charge of the “E.A.M.” of my territory. Thus, “E.A.M.” foundme organised in the resistance since I was in the team of Raftopoulos(through Fragkakis). With the withdrawal of the Englishmen, we keptcontact indeed with Egypt and we helped a lot of people to escape. Andmany left Ierapetra by boats hoping that they would find an Englishboat in the open sea to pick them up.

The extermination of the guardsSo, the rebels’ group of Mpantouvas had been formed at Hameti. The


30 at is the School of the Officers for the Greek Army.31 In Greek: “Ε.Α.Μ.”, (“Ethniko Apeleherotiko Metopo”). e National Liberation Frontwas the main movement of the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece dur-ing World War II. In Greek: Ε.Ο.Κ. (Ethniki Organosi Kritis), stands for National Organisa-tion of Crete.

Germans had been informed and made a guardhouse at Kato Simi withtwo soldiers, supposedly to collect potatoes; this was the nearest place toHameti. The rebels of Mpantouva went and killed those two Germans.

We, at the provincial committee of “E.A.M.”, were against the murderthat took place without our knowledge. It is said that it was an inter-vention by the English in order to mislead the Germans. There are twoversions: the German front had started staggering and we waited for alanding, yet we didn’t know whether it was going to take place in Greece,in Dodecanese, in North France or elsewhere in Europe. Mpantouvaskilled those two people in order to mislead the Germans and make thembelieve that reception activities for the allies start in Crete. During thedisorder of these events, a detachment of the English fleet occupied Do-decanese 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 Ger-mans governed Chania, Rethimno, Heraklio (three prefectures) and here,in the prefecture of Lasithi, there were the Italians. Our borders were inViannos. Well, when they killed the two Germans, the Germans sent acompany to go and make reprisal in Simi. The rebels of Mpantouva set upan ambush in the gorge and they shot and killed many Germans.

The Germans in MirtosAfter that, they burned the villages of Viannos. We didn’t expect it

here in Mirtos because the village was by the sea and we had an Italianguardhouse. We believed that it wouldn’t happen, that they wouldn’tburn our villages: Mirtos, Mournies, Gdohia, Mithous. When we learntthat the Germans were one or two kilometres away from Mirtos, at thelocation Vatos, I called the elders of the village, as the person in chargeof the region, the liaison of “E.A.M.” with Mpantouvas. I called themand told them: “We should leave”. I called the elders of the village to ameeting, the president and many others. I made the suggestion to allthe elders: “We should leave because the fire and the gun shooting are sur-rounding us and we don’t have a way to escape due to the plains and thesea. How are we going to escape if the Germans start slaughtering?”. Theelders didn’t agree on my suggestion and particularly the president of


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 would-n’t hurt us. But I said: “If they do hurt us though, we are going to pay thismistake with our lives. We will pay for the mistake. Let’s go because…” anold saying goes: “…an hour of life, can not be replaced”. That is: “Weshould leave now and save our lives and God will help us later”. I didn’tpersuade them though and I told them: “I don’t obey and I am going”.Arumour had been spread then that a rebel had joined the Germans andthat he was wearing a German uniform so as not to be recognized andI thought: “If they gather the people and frighten them, someone may befound 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 Septem-ber, and I say: “I am going to stay until they come. I will stay at the vil-lage until the Germans get in. If you see me wearing the jacket, this is asign that I am leaving”. And indeed the Germans came, the presidenttook care of them and I didn’t obey, I left.

Many people from Ierapetra had left and had been to the villages be-cause the Englishmen had bombed Ierapetra with allied airplanes. Thefishermen of Kato Meras of Ierapetras, came to Mirtos because it was bythe sea. In addition to the fishermen of Ierapetra that came to Mirtos,the most frightened people from the nearby villages came here too forsecurity, because they thought that the village was peaceful due to theItalians. They thought: “Since there are Italians there, it is more peace-ful”. 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 bornhere, because the Englishmen bombed Ierapetra and the fishermen of Ier-apetra got frightened and came here to Mirtos which is a smaller village.There are thirty families and the population is higher”. Then he asks se-cretly the interpreter: “Which building is bigger: the church or theschool?”. Since he asked which building was bigger, I thought: “Theywill put us of course there all together and they will kill us and they aregoing to put a fire”. I decided then that I was going to leave. I was pres-ent at the conversation. The conversation took place between the pres-ident of the community and the German who came here as the person


in charge of the death squad. The interpreter was a child, who knewsome German and could understand. The German asked him in pri-vate (all previous questions were in front of us) and he told him: “Whichone is bigger, the school or the church?”. I saw that the German was ask-ing the child in private and I suspected that something bad would hap-pen. The child was from a poor family with many members and hisname was Kornaros (if I am not mistaken). I had treated him to breada lot of times (our house was full of food and we never got hungry be-fore the burning because we lived from the soil and we had barley,wheat, beans, chick-peas, we had everything). He felt obliged and re-vealed 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 myneck. And I left. My mother was telling me not to go and that: “What-ever is going to happen to all the people, is going to happen to me too”.AndI said: “I don’t know what is going to happen to all the people but it wouldbe 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 shouldleave immediately and the people from Mirtos should stay until three o’clock in the afternoon so we can tell them what to do”. People startedbeing afraid and started leaving with the people from Ierapetra. How-ever, the death squad arrived at three o’ clock through Gdohia. Thenthe Germans burned the village down. They captured and killed eight-een people. Their names are written on the monument in the village.Then they declared “neutral military zone”: that is, neither a frog couldlive inside the zone. When we came back here, all the houses of the vil-lage were damaged. One or two houses had remained untouched, theywere saved from fire. The Germans killed people up to the boundariesof Mirtos river because we were administratively subjected to Viannoswhere the Germans were in charge. They wouldn’t kill you if you hadcrossed the river. They finally killed the president. They defined a placefor us, they forced us to stay in Ierapetra.

Exiled to IerapetraThey gathered us the day after the burning of the village in Ierapetra


(they had heralds to gather us at the square) and an officer came andsaid: “Mpantouvas left. We were forced to make reprisal”.We said: “Whatis our and the babies’ fault?”. And I went with someone called LeonidaPigiaki 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 chil-dren’s fault that are hungry and have no milk, have no father, have nomother, have lost everything? You should help us live because our villageis a neutral zone”.How did we dare? They answered: “You should addressyourselves to your authorities”.

In our village, the Germans had killed the president and the vice-president and a counsellor was left, Papageorgiou was his name (he wasthe father of Papageorgiou the doctor). To be able to survive by our-selves we formed a rescue committee for the fire victims and asked theRed Cross for food. The Germans were forcing us and collected 10% ofbarley and wheat from the threshing floors. We formed a rescue com-mittee for the fire victims of which I was in charge. We were self-ap-pointed in that committee. Our effort during the occupation was tokeep the morale of the people high, not to have relationships withwomen and girls, etc, because it was dangerous. Our aim was to savethem from hunger. We formed a collection committee and we set up acaldron when we came to Ierapetra. When they burnt us and forced usto stay in Ierapetra, we occupied the preliminary school (we went insidethe preliminary school). It is a miracle that we stayed! We were sleep-ing on the floor without knowing where the child was, where the fatherand the mother were, they were all spread around. We went to KatoMera in Ierapetra and made a collection; we collected enough to set thecaldron and we had a mess. They gave us some beans, some gave ussome chick-peas, fava-bean, whatever each one could offer from hishouse and we set a caldron and had a mess for the fire victims that weresaved. We called the Metropolite then, the bishop of Ierapetra, to findhelp 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 Ger-man punctuated the first one.

all together, except for those who got a room in a friend’s house. Specif-ically for the village of Mirtos, the German Kommandantur had speci-fied to reside in Ierapetra, because only Mirtos was declared a neutralmilitary zone. We continued to stay until the liberation. I am not men-tioning any details now because there are too many: we asked the na-tional 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 orfour months. Wheat for bread. I was in contact with a worker in the re-sistance and inside the car we transferred the foods for the distributionfrom Agios Nikolaos, where the storehouse of Red Cross was. We put,we hid materials for the resistance: newspapers, guns, medicine, any-thing necessary for the fight of the resistance. There was the rebels’movement.

When we came back to the village after the liberation, we had neithera fork, nor a spoon, or anything, because the Germans ate the food pre-served in tins and they lanced them with the bayonet so as not to beused by the population. They got that awful! They lanced the tin theyate the meat from with the bayonet so as not to be used and we could-n’t 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 shetook those letters with her when she left. The Germans, when they in-tended to do the killings, said: “The people that come from Ierapetrashould leave. The locals from Mirtos should stay until three o’ clock thatKommandantur will answer us”. When the people saw that those fromIerapetra were leaving, they left too. My mother took those letters andshe put them in her bust. There were some emotional letters too aboutschool loves. My mother didn’t know that it was this kind of letters butshe thought it was material of the resistance and she took them withher. She thought: “If they find them with my child’s name written on, heis in danger”. When we went to Ierapetra to a friendly family, whosehouse we were staying at, I say: “Hide that envelope for me and when weget free, if we are alive, you will hand it in to me. Otherwise burn it”.And


that woman put the letters in a chest with her clothes, without knowingexactly what it was. Her father though was a merchant and sold dyna-mite along with other materials to the fishermen. He was a grocer andsold dynamite too. One night, the Germans set up a roadblock and weresearching at Yerapetro (Ierapetra) because they were after something.They made a search inside the house too and they reached the chestwhere the letters were hidden. I was ready to jump from the window toget away. Underneath the letters, just underneath another piece of cloth-ing, the lady’s father that accommodated us in the house, had forgottena pistol. The German saw the letters tied together, neatly wrapped andhe thought it was material for the resistance and he took me to the Kom-mandantur. He pointed me out with his pistol, there were two Germanswith the pistols pointing at me, and we went to Kommandantur. I say tothem: “These letters are emotional. I love a classmate of mine, and hereare the letters. He says: “Ah, I have one too. I have an amore”. He didn’tgo to see underneath. That is, the letters saved the house, because if theyhadn’t found the letters and they had picked up the other piece of cloth-ing, they would have found the pistol and we would be in trouble. Sothey found that material and they took it. The interpreter, AntoniaMathioudaki that was a classmate and a friend of mine, confirmed (aftershe read the letters) that they were indeed of emotional context and byGod’s will it so happened that the German had an affair too with a Ger-man 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 executedSince they made the village a neutral military zone, we didn’t know

what happened to those missing; there were about eighteen, twenty peo-ple missing. We didn’t know where they were. And then one thatsneaked into the zone, saw them killed. They had killed them in an en-trenchment near the preliminary school that exists today and they hadthrown them in there. They had placed them in the entrenchment thatthey had made for defence, should the English land. They had madeentrenchments as we call them in the army. They set them up at theedge of the entrenchment and after that, they got the machine guns


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 togo and burry them. We had Antonia Mathioudaki inside the GermanKommandantur, who was in the resistance (she stayed undercover: wewere only two persons that knew that she was in the resistance). Shesays: “Don’t ask to go and burry them. You put yourself in danger”. Andshe came with the wives of the victims to burry the dead. Their bodieshad started disintegrating, because twenty days had passed, and an oilstink had been formed on the ground by the sun. It was September. AndI went to grab a dead man by the hands, a man who had been shot, andhis hands and legs broke off. And I saw a father and his child and theyhad fallen in the ditch, apart from each other, (they were separated bythree other bodies) and they had their arms extended to say goodbye:they fell down alive, that is, they weren’t dead when they fell in the ditch.To say goodbye. I still shudder when I think of that scene: their handswere 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 commu-nity went there as a witness. He went as a witness to say that the Ger-mans had killed civilians that had not hurt the Germans. They claimedthat they gave a battle. That’s why they put the killed people of Mirtosin the entrenchment: to claim later that it was a battle. They had fore-seen that thing.

Resistance activities and eventsWhen Romel was fighting and winning down to Africa, the Germans

needed supplies and used to say that a drop of gasoline or water is worthnine soldiers. Well, we had to do sabotage and the resistance team burntthe airport of Kastelli Pediados and intercepted the replenishment ofthe Germans. I wasn’t actively involved in that, I had political respon-sibility, I didn’t have military control. I knew though what was going tohappen.

Porfirogenis, a man from the central committee of the CommunistParty, had stayed in Crete and we had to accompany him to leave for


Athens. I managed to do it. In order to board the boat, the caique thatconnected Crete, you had to apply to the port authority in Souda thatwas occupied by the Germans and you were examined very thoroughlyby them in order to see who you were. I said that: “There is a way to getin”. So I found a child that was in the resistance; he kept the list of theapproved names of those who would go and he called them. There wereGerman soldiers standing right and left by the stairs of the dock. Youhad to get a permission to go to Athens. To get this permission, you hadto go through thorough control by their people. And he says to me: “Doyou have the courage when I call Antonis Papadakis to say “present” evenif your name is not written on the catalogue?”. My name wasn’t writtenin the catalogue to go, but he said: “Do you have the courage not to loseyour 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 ac-companied Porfirogenni. We were of course at a distance and we didn’thave any contact for security reasons.

The Germans had set in Ierapetra a long range wireless to commu-nicate with Africa. We had teams then to keep the morale of the popu-lation high and we had small opportunities for gathering and chatting.There was a German in a neighbourhood who was the electronics tech-nician in some way, of the wireless, and we had met him. He was againstfascism and he told us: “I will see that the radio never works”.And he dida smart sabotage pretending there was something missing. We hadmanaged I mean, to have German friends too. We had met this Ger-man that was against fascism in the neighbourhood and we understoodfrom what he said that he was against fascism and he confessed to usthat the wireless wouldn’t 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 thePrefecture of Lasithi. I had a chat one day with the sergeant at the wire-less (his mother was Greek and he spoke Greek). He said to me: “I wantyou to tell me the truth, what you firmly believe: who is going to win, theallies or us the German – Italians?”. I say: “Who is going to tell you thetruth? Since you are in the military and you have the guns, the other oneis afraid. He will tell you that he believes that you are going to win”. “But


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, becausewe have some kind of friendship between us”. I was fishing information.And I told him: “I don’t believe you”. “But I swear to you, SantaMadonna…”, this is how the Italians called Virgin Mary “…that I won’tsay 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 citizennow. You are not an Italian”. And I told him: “The allies are going towin…”, that is, the English-French “…because you cannot harm Amer-ica. You were secretly equipped, cannons, tanks, etc, but since Americagot in the war in favour of the allies you cannot bombard it and it willsurpass you. Until that point, you will be winning… You have, let’s say,fifty tanks, the allies have fifty more. Then you will start going down”.Hewas moved and he said to me: “I give you my word, that I will keep myword, I will keep my vow. I won’t betray you, but will you hide me whenthe 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 don’tfind…”

As I said, that is how we tried to boost the moral. That is, above all,to boost the moral of the people.

The cooperativeI was forced immediately after the liberation, around ’45 if I am not

mistaken, when we came back here, to found the Agricultural Cooper-ative of Mirtos. We saw that we had no choice. I founded the coopera-tive of Mirtos, to be able to obtain a few loans from the State forreconstruction and we also formed the union of the fire victims. Theunion of the fire victims was founded and we tried through the unionand the cooperative to take a loan, whatever we could for foodstuff. Wetook the loan and we didn’t have the ability of paying it back. We tookthe loan from the Agricultural Bank and we didn’t have the ability ofpaying it back because we spent it for our survival and not for the field.

I didn’t want to be the president of the cooperative. I never wantedto be a president. I was the founder and the treasurer of the cooperative,the secretary, but they didn’t let me. Because as the bank said once, I


was of free and democratic principles: “Since the signature of Papadakisand the rest of the counsellors will be on, we will not accept the loan re-quest”. We were forced to resign. What should we do? There are docu-ments I mean, there are such kind of documents.

The cooperative still exists but is in decline because conditions havechanged. In the past, people took a loan through the cooperative andthey also gave a small amount of money back if they could. The timethey took the loan, let’s say a loan for cultivation, to plant bananas, thecooperative approved of it. They went to the bank and the bank ap-proved of it as well and they took it. After a year or so, it had to be re-turned. But the time you gave them the loan, lets say 5000 drachmas toplant bananas, they either planted them, or they didn’t: many times theywere spending it to survive. Each one gave a penny to the cooperativeand it could buy the writing materials and sustain itself.

From there, little by little, through many and different efforts, wemade the storehouse; a storehouse for the cooperative, two hundredsquare meters. We took a donation from the State through my effortsand we took a loan too and we established here a centre of fertilizersand did deliveries. At that time, the fertilizers were under the control ofthe State: their commerce wasn’t free. The price was the same through-out Greece and we delivered fertilizers from Pefko of Viannos to thevillages here in Ierapetra. That is, the cooperative helped the people tosurvive, irrespective of the fact it couldn’t pay its debts. We gave a fightagain 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 offascism”

I had finished high school and my father asked me to go to univer-sity. When I finished high school I disagreed with my father. He askedme to become a teacher and I said: “I want to go to university, or else Iam not going to become a teacher. I mean, am I going to degrade my lifeand go to some poor and mountainous village with crows?”. My fathersaid to me: “What should I do first? Provide for the family? Will I rebuildmy 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


then: “I won’t go. If I go, they will exile me” because they were after thepeople that took part in the resistance. Unfortunately Greece has com-mitted a big crime by persecuting the people of the resistance.

Where they buried the dead that I mentioned previously, I drew ared arrow on a corner wall and wrote: “Tombs, the good deeds of thefascism”. The arrow was pointing to the place where the people fromMirtos had been killed by the Germans. And the gendarmerie of thetime, right-wing and non-democratic, asked: “Who has written that?”.And they learnt it was me, Antonis Papadakis, and they passed by thecoffeehouse 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 insultGreece? Did we insult the King? Did we insult the government? Did we in-sult anyone? Tombs, the good deeds of fascism. Fascism ruined us”. Hesaid: “Erase it with your tongue”. I refused and they grabbed me by thehair, pushed me and rubbed my nose, my face, against the wall to eraseit 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 andkilled the deputy commander of Hitler when he was making an in-spection. Czechoslovakia and the allies, to honour the resistance, ex-propriated a big area and erected a great altar in the centre with a flameburning day and night. They erected a sacred place and had offeringsfrom all the countries of Europe in honour of the resistance. They mademonuments for those that were in the resistance for two hours and wedemolished Gorgopotamos’ bridge, we burned things, we had guerril-las: our resistance was the greatest one in the whole Europe.

And they were after us afterwards because we had fallen into the netsof the cold war. I didn’t go to the rebels’ movement armed, I was polit-ically in charge: I had disagreed with my people too because theyshouldn’t have signed Varkiza’s treaty. It damaged us. Then, ArisVelouhiotis who didn’t agree, left. They went after him; that is, we weresplit too. We suffered losses.

I see now (is it an impression?) that whenever the right-wing cameto power in Greece, that power caused damage: why did they want to


kill Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus? Didn’t they make an attempt toassassinate him? Didn’t they make an attempt then, against VenizelosLeuteris who made Greece greater and made it the country of five seasand of two continents, as they say? They said in Asia Minor that Venize-los was bellicose and that he was going to ruin Greece and eventually hewas the one who made peace with the Turks. Venizelos shouldn’t haveheld the elections in 1921, when he was voted down. My father didseven years as a soldier: he went in the army in ’12 and he was dis-charged after the tragedy of Asia Minor. And they say to mother: “If youwant your husband to return, you should vote for the popular party. Ifyou vote for Venizelos he might never come back”. That is, some mes-sages that hurt, bad advice that can be easily implanted in the mind ofthe 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. Iserved the community for about fifteen years: I was the president of thecommunity of Mirtos for three terms before Junta dismissed me. Weagreed then, that an agricultural road was where an animal loaded withbales of hay, two meters wide, passed through. Well, we opened the roadand 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 theother one said: “Not through my property!”. Do you know how hard youhave to fight today to have this progress achieved in the isolated vil-lages? To have the road constructed, provided it does not run throughhis field! To have something done, provided he gives nothing. And thisis contrary to his interests!

I was the president before Junta: we had just found peace and Greecehad been somehow democratized and I ran for president. The roadViannos-Ierapetra didn’t exist, a motorway didn’t exist. In every election(and before the war) they put numbers on the rocks and said: “We willopen a road to go straight ahead to Ierapetra” and when the electionspassed they did nothing. The same in every election. When they finallydecided to construct the road, an engineer from Viannos undertook the


design, and I said I would run for president because if the road ran twokilometres above the village (they designed the road two kilometresaway 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 commu-nity just to make sure that the road will run low, by the sea. I am not com-ing to anyone to ask for his vote and as soon as I make it happen I will stepdown”. And I was a candidate and the people voted for me. So I startedand when I took the oath officially I went to the Ministry, to discussour 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 andsome fellow-villagers were cursing us! The one that had his field takenthen is rich now, since he has greenhouses and a house constructed onthat lot. That is, the road you come from now, was designed by us. Imean, you have to spit blood, to fight until death, in order to be thepresident of the village. And they curse you on top of that. And by thetime he sees what was done, it is too late. He will realise that he waswrong after five, ten years. But the point is how you make it to thatpoint.

Me and my grandsonAt the beginning, then, during the reconstruction, there was a com-

mittee for the lumber used for housing. They weighted it for us to makea fair distribution: that is, they gave fifty kilos of lumber to you, fifty tothe other one. They didn’t give it to you according to the meters oflength, only by weight. Greek stupidities. Moronic ones. Our familyhouse was here but they had burned it. My daughter and my grandsonlive 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 thebeach and the sea was washing sponges ashore during the storms. Thewave was uprooting them and grandmother wrapped it all around witha piece of clothing and she made a little ball. Because the sponge waspressed, the ball was bouncing and that was our toy. Or when thebutcher slaughtered a pig, we were standing and helping him (we gavehim water, we helped him slaughter the pig) in order to take the uri-


nary bladder, blow it up and make a ball. Where are those years? Nowmy grandson has dozens of toys, he throws them down, he smashesthem in a second, and if you see the house it looks like a bombardedone. His grandmother buys toys for him and he damages them. Chil-dren today have other things. Life conditions are different today, theyhave changed a lot.

The Germans todayI believe that most of the Germans have realised that Hitler eventu-

ally did harm to them. Do you know that they had eugenics institutionsand that they wanted to make the superhuman? Someone said that ifyou take a selected man, healthy and strong, and you pair him off witha girl of the same characteristics, they will produce a superhuman. Theywanted to create a new German race. That is, the Germans declare thatthe only pure race is theirs. This is their teaching. They separated Ger-many into East and West, constructed then the wall of Berlin. Therewas no freedom. Russia collapsed; the world was ruined because thecounter-balancing fear went away. Now there are the Americans: Doesthe donkey fly? Yes it does. Does the marble fly? Yes it does. The but-terfly flies: the same for the butterfly, the same for the marble. I meanto say in a few words that I have no hate for anybody. I accommodateda group of Germans (about one hundred) here, during my days as apresident. We had no place to house them then, we hadn’t recovered atall, we had no houses. They had an educational conference here in Mir-tos and they stayed for about fifteen days (they paid for this). I have nohate for them, because they told us then: “Why is it our fault? We werebrain-washed”. It is just like the janissary that the Turks took. They tooka Greek child and made it into a janissary. Is it the child’s fault that hewas after his father afterwards? I don’t see them as enemies now. I lookat the politics, the leaders. I am interested in the leaders.

MessesThe Italians had commandeered the printing-house of the newspa-

per “Anatoli” and were publishing a newspaper that was called “Stampa”.I had read in “Stampa” that a little boat from Ierapetra, which was in-


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 re-moved the bark of some trees, like the bark of rush, mostly of rush (atree with low branches) and made cigarettes. We didn’t even have paperto wrap it and they went to the churches and took the paper from theBooks of Psalms and made cigarettes. So, I had read that they had con-fiscated their cigarettes (it was considered smuggling then) and thatthey were going to be distributed to the population. As soon as I readit, I went to the Prefect as the president of the committee for the rescueof the fire victims and I said to him: “I want you to give me cigarettesfrom the ones to be distributed”. He said: “The committee didn’t have ameeting yet!”. I said: “I can’t 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 forour survival and we want…” And he said to me: “And what, are the cig-arettes going to save you?Will they satisfy your hunger?”. I said: “Yes!”. Hesaid: “Yes?”. “Yes!” I replied to him. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” hesaid to me. I told him: “I will give the cigarettes to buy bread, I will givethem to the bakery to buy bread, I will give the cigarettes to the pharmacyto take the medicine for my child”. He said: “Say it, you just drove mycrazy”. I did it though to irritate the Prefect. He said to me: “And howmany portions do you want?”. I told him: “Five hundred: with one por-tion of cigarettes I take one portion of food”.He said: “And the babies? Dothe babies smoke too?”. I said: “The babies smoke too: how am I going tobuy the medicines for the babies? I will give the portion to the mother andthe poor mother will give it, but is it enough? If she has three babies, isone 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 myrequests?” and then the Prefect said: “Speak up the way he did33 and youwill take”. That is, it takes cleverness. The mayor wanted to take a por-tion too, but by saying: “would it be possible for me to have also the pleas-


33 Pointing to Mr. Papadakis.

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 noplace in Greece was there ever a mess set up for the children in a smallvillage. I made it, through the director of the Red Cross of Agios Niko-laos, because he admired me secretly since I insisted on the distribu-tion. I had weighted the beans and we had received about one hundredfifty drams of beans per person. But because three months had passedfrom 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 clev-erness and with their kindness of course and by putting things in a log-ical order to take some more.

Finally, they sued us too. Let it be. After the allies came, they made acommittee, the so-called “EMEL”, committee “EMEL” of the allies: fooddistribution for the destroyed villages. That is, the allies were generousand did some food distributions. We got, if I am not mistaken, five hun-dred one portions. That is what the population of the entire village was.The Germans were still in Chania: when Germany capitulated, the Ger-mans were still in Chania. They had entrenched themselves in Chaniaand had also a problem of survival. Nathenas, the General, had ordereda mobilisation if I am not wrong. He mobilised those capable of beingdrafted or former soldiers in order to go to Chania and encircle the Ger-mans because they were going out to the villages taking foods. And Ger-many had capitulated. The Germans spent four, five more months inChania. Well, he says to me: “All right Papadakis, we will give you. Howmany portions?”. I say: “Five hundred and one”.He replies: “Five hundredand one? Don’t you have men drafted?”. I say: “No”. He says: “It is notpossible that you have no men drafted!”. They wanted to cut off the por-tion of the soldier, of the father that was mobilised, he should not takeit, because he ate in the army and I stated that I had no soldiers. “Is itpossible not to have any soldiers?”. I say: “I have none”. Now, the right-wing ones wanted to take us out of this distribution committee: “Butwe cannot take them out” because the regulations were not that strictyet. They said: “But they are left-wing, they are communists, this com-mittee is…” He says: “But we cannot exclude them for political reasons”.


So he remembered our conversation about the drafted ones. He said:“Do you have men drafted?”. He replied: “Yes”. “Check the catalogue tosee”.He brought the papers of the distribution: “Have a look to see if youhave any soldiers”. And he found someone and said: “Yes! He’s got a sol-dier!”. He said to me: “You have soldiers too!” and they sued us for mis-managing of state property. I had thought cleverly and when I wasgiving the woman, Sofia, Maria, I said: “…the regulation, the order, saysthat your husband should be excluded. You are one, and three childrenthat you’ve got, four, and your husband, five. You took five portions. Youshouldn’t have taken this portion. I said that you had no soldier and I amgiving it to you, because the government should have helped you, the fam-ilies 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 writ-ing 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 mismanage-ment”. I kept this certificate as a holy icon. Finally he acquitted us: “Dueto overwhelming patriotic zeal”. I said to him: “Gentlemen, instead ofhim 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? Peo-ple should realise this.


Maria Archontikaki Dimitrianaki

I am a hundred years old my child. I was born in 1913, but God doesnot take me with Him and gives me nothing but sufferings. I was bornin 1913. My father was in Asia Minor. He left in 1913 and spent thirteenyears in Asia Minor. They fought the Turks. We didn’t see a Turkishface. We had Turks in Ierapetra but they were nice, they loved us. Mygrandmother went to Velisarios in the presence of my father and hegave her barley and candies and meat to give to the children of the sol-dier. It was I, my brother and my father. He had two at that time: myolder brother and me.

When my father came back from the war, we didn’t want him, wedidn’t know him, we didn’t want him. We went instead to a nearbyhouse when he came and we didn’t go home. We said that we have nofather. “Dad is gone, he is dead”, we didn’t know. Our uncle told us:“Come my child, it is your father”. No way could we be convinced. Wedidn’t want him, didn’t know him, how could we want him? He left in1913, 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 goodtime. Yet they fought in Asia Minor alone. Many people from here leftand went there.

My husband, Giorgos Archontikakis, was conscripted in 1926. Wewere fortunate, lucky at that time, condemned later on. Neither my hus-band nor my brother went to the Albanian war. They didn’t make it,didn’t make it. In the meantime, we had the occupation and so they did-n’t go. No one went; neither did my brothers, nobody. They just camelater on and killed us here.

I had a good childhood for I had my father. My father went to Italytoo for he was an inventor: of citron-tree, of sour citron-tree and ofsweet lemon tree. He brought them here and made a plantation. Theycaught him.

They kill my family in VatosWe 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

MARIA ARCHONTIKAKI DIMITRIANAKI 85

brother the teacher, the husband of Vangelias, would have been the lastone 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 ateand we left and went to an estate called “ston Tourkon ts Aspes”34. Ac-cording to the legend, in the past, there were some Christians that killedtwo 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 weresupposedly building, pretending that we worked. My father got ready togo to Vato, which is by the sea, where the church of Agios Panteleimonasis. There, we had a big donkey, please pardon me, and a smaller onewithout 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 lotof people gathered in Vatos. It is the Germans”. (My father came back). Inthe 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 wouldhave 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 reachedthe roof, very tall, a savage. The other one was good, dark coloured, likethe Greeks. And they took us from the fields and loaded the war suppliesthey were carrying and took us directly to Vatos. The poor Austrian fel-low said: “Poor people, what (evil) came upon you”. He was a good oneand consoled us all the way, as we were taken to Vatos. We reached Vatosand saw a field-guard on the side of the river. He was eating while onpatrol. 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. Therewere thousands of weapons with the barrel upwards. I was afraid overthere, looking at them. A German came, put his gun on my back andasked me to leave. I didn’t leave. My poor husband said: “Go away forthey may start beating you in front of me”. At that point I left.

In the meantime, my sister in law, my brother’s wife, came. They hadtaken him barefoot and his wife carried his shoes to give him, to takethem to him. I had moved closer to them, a few steps, not many, and she


34 In Greek: «στων Τούρκω τσ' Άσπες».35 Shows her forehea

came to my place. I said: “They sent me away. You should try in case theylet you give the shoes to your husband”. And we heard the gunshots andwe found them dead there. She said: “I saw nothing, just dust and gun-shots”. I found them dead there: my husband, thirty-five years old, myfather, fifty-two, my brothers, eighteen and twenty-five. My brother’sname was Michalis Dimitrianakis, my other brother’s name was Yian-nis Dimitrianakis, my father’s was Manolis Dimitrianakis and my hus-band’s was Giorgos Archontikakis. They had a guardhouse there, inVatos, (the Italians had the guardhouse first, the Germans went later)and they killed them there, they put pine lumber on top of them andburned them. We went later and we found them after a year. We tookthem and we brought them here to the cemetery. I had a grandmotherand she wailed for my husband and said: “And Archontikakis ...”, thatwas his name, “...that did a lot of favours...”, for my husband did a lot offavours to the people in the village, “…that was a great householder”.That is how my poor grandmother said it for me, my grandmother thatwailed for him, singing “mirologia”36 as we call them. My third brotherGiorgos, 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 mymother didn’t let him: “Go my child, go so you will come back”. So hewent from the road that is over here, and went directly with anotheryoung man, I don’t know what his name is, to Ierapetra. No Germanmet them, no German face.

The executions in GdohiaThey 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 churchof Agii Deka. They did us nothing, they just kept us indoors. We did notknow what they would do to us. The last night they took us to the set-tlement that is far apart, in the school, but we were too many. They keptall the men in the Agii Deka church, they didn’t let anyone go. Only we,the women and the children, were taken to the school and to a neigh-bouring house, because we were too many, and placed us there. As a mat-


36 In Greek: «μοιρολόγι» which is a wail, i.e. mournful song.

ter of fact, a German came for I had my young child with me, andbrought black bread and a little piece of cheese for my child to eat. Anda German brought water too. We didn’t stay in the school. From the noonthey caught us till the next morning. We spent there only one night. Weheard gunshots in the night and dogs barking and we thought they killedthe men that were in Agii Deka, but we did not know for sure. In themorning they were all killed. All the men, my child, in the field with theolive-trees, over there. They were all killed, all killed, no one was left. Noone was left. The Metropolite of Heraklion then intervened for theywanted to burn us. They wanted to burn us, that is for certain.

There was a man called Daskaloyiannakis. The poor man didn’tleave, he was crazy as I am, and they placed him on a donkey without asaddle, and took him down there, close to Mirtos. They took five, sixpeople there, killed them on site and left them there. They killed theother ones over here. They killed anyone they found, wherever he was.There was also a man that had baptised one of my siblings, the poorman, he was a butcher, he had animals and went to the top of the moun-tain there. They killed him at the place they saw him. They killed themen wherever they saw them. They didn’t hurt the women. However, asthey were coming to the village, from the sea, from Vatos, there werethree women and a baby in a field. And they shot and killed the baby asthe mother was breastfeeding it. They killed all women there, all thepoor women. They didn’t hurt any other women, they didn’t kill otherwomen, no they didn’t.

In the meantime, there was a doctor here also from Kato Simi, a rel-ative of ours, Nikos Manusakis was his name. He had studied in Ger-many and had a German identity card; he was with his mother and wehad him hidden in the house, in a barn. His poor mother went and toldhim: “My child, they will burn down the village and they will burn you tooif you stay where you are. Come, I will dress you a woman and we willleave”. “I am not getting dressed as a woman, to cause troubles to thewomen and the children. Mother, I will go and present myself ”. Hismother was over there, in Agios Georgios; that is where they hadcamped and stayed. Eleni left and he got up, shook off the straws andwent and presented himself. A German that spoke Greek told him:


“How come you are here?”. He replied: “I study in Germany. Here is myidentity card”.He showed him his identity and they did nothing to him.They just gave him a piece of paper, that big, but I don’t know what waswritten on it. Later on, he led all women and children; he went aheadand we followed. We didn’t meet any Germans. We were taken to Ier-apetra. They drew a line37 there; from there to where you are, and fromthere to where all of you are, inside a school. The Metropolite and thericher people of the village came. We got away from there at once, wewent to a home, for we had acquaintances. My poor husband had manyacquaintances in Ierapetra and we all found houses and stayed. We did-n’t stay in the school, we found houses. We had a man there we knew,he was named Karadinos, Nikos Karadinos.

Little by little we managedThat was my life. Later on, I had my child and we came over here, we

didn’t have a house, nothing. And she was hungry: “I want bread”. Isaid: “Gomy child and eat some carob beans and an orange”.What wouldwe eat? Nothing. We could find nothing. We had just oil, thankfully. Wehad 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 werefull of big worms, and groats. They also gave us rags. What a struggle.I didn’t go about begging. We were hungry. We had a grandmother, thepoor woman, and she went to Lasithi to bring potatoes. She went aboutbegging and we survived. Eh, we managed somehow. I also went toAgios Nikolaos and they gave me two kilos of pea shoots whereas theygave nothing to other people. They gave to nobody but us: we werearound ten women and we went on foot till Agios Nikolaos. We wentthere to beg the poor women. Later on, they gave us the pension. Wemanaged step by step and I built my house. Actually, the priest built itagain; I was given lumber from Ierapetra for I was a victim.

When the year passed by and they left, we were given the pensionimmediately. We took the pension. My husband was already on mili-tary 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.

life afterwards. Later on, I found my priest38; this is a fine young man. Ihad no siblings anymore, they were all dead, killed, and I wanted a fam-ily that had siblings and good parents, one that was as I wished for. Whatcould I do my child, we went through a lot, we went through a lot. ButI just wish I had not lost my daughter. Bring the picture to see mydaughter, the wife of the priest. She was born in 1932.

The ItaliansWe 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, usedmud, clay, and made Mussolini and armed him with a gun too.

And the Italians went over, saw it and asked: “Whose is it?” and tooka step forward to take my father. They took him to Mirtos and heshowed them the documents that he had been to Italy. They acceptedthem, otherwise they would have killed him. Yes, children are demonsand do evil deeds: he used mud and made a man, Mussolini, and wroteunderneath “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 chickenback and gave him a blow that made him fall down. Afterwards, hecame laughing and didn’t speak. The Italians did no harm, they did nothurt 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 po-lice sergeant named Mpirgalieris and all the police officers were there;they had their beds in Agios Panteleimonas. My husband and my fathertold me: “You are a woman and they will not hurt you, but as soon as wespeak they will take us”.And I didn’t let go of the donkey, for they wantedto 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 Pan-


38 She means father Kostas Giannadakis, the husband of her daughter.

teleimonas. And Mpirgalieris sent us later to Mirtos where the senior of-ficer was and they put us in jail for a night. In jail, I went to jail! For I did-n’t let go of the donkey. But the door was open and an Italian cook wasthere and gave us food. But we didn’t want it, we were disgusted and wedidn’t eat. And they let us go in the morning, they didn’t hurt us. Yet theyput me in jail and the cause was that I didn’t give the donkey. The Ital-ians did no harm to us, they did no harm. It is only that they were mis-erable, miserable. They were hungry, the poor fellows, they were hungrymy child. Once, they slaughtered and ate a dead donkey.

The GermansI 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 thepithoi39 and kept saying: “Oil here, oil there, you rich”. And we had a kit-ten, a small cat, and I took it and petted it. That was before they killedus, when they first came. And he filled the canister with oil and left, butI didn’t talk to him. What could I do? We were afraid of the Germans,we didn’t want them, we didn’t want them at all, we were afraid of them.Whenever we saw Germans… they were fierce my child, they were nothuman beings. Imagine, they killed that three month old baby, theone… I don’t know what his name was; and they killed him and thebaby too. The Germans came and harmed us; may God pay them backfor what they did here. What did women and children do to them thatthey had to kill them? What did the civilians, the poor ones who werehere, do to them? They were peaceful, staying at home and made theirliving working honestly. What was our fault? My child, they killed onehundred year old men. What was the fault of those old men? Did theygo to war? That is what the bloody Germans did, actions that can notbe 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 andnever fades away. It will never be erased or deleted from our memory andour brain. Can you imagine that they killed my father-in-law, my hus-


39 Pithoi (singular “pithos”) is the ancient Greek word (πίθος, πίθοι) for a large storage jar ofa characteristic shape.

band, my father and my two brothers? What can we do, this is part of life.

My family todayAfter 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 prop-erty that was of high worth back then: we produced oil. But I couldn’twork at all, I couldn’t. So, it was only the pension that they had given usthat 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 threeyears in military service, went to study and spent three years more, butthank 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 forI had no other child. However, I do have two grandchildren: one is apriest in Ierapetra and the other one was here the day before yesterdayand spent a couple of days. He is in Athens and has a good marriagetoo. He has a son and his wife is a teacher as well, a professor. Childrenare the beauty in the house. Many children are happiness, I wish I hadtwenty. I want children and I like having them. I have my grandchil-dren 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, theydo well. My grandchildren, I don’t have a child, only grandchildren andthat one over here40. I have a great-great grandchild too, that baby. Theybring 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 herein the yard and broke my legs. I was in Ierapetra in the hospital and theybrought a German lady, later on. I said: “Unless you take her out of here, Iam 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 takenout of here?”. I don’t 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 innearby room during the interview.

Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki

My familyI was born in 1928. My father’s name is Pigiakis. His first name is Yian-

nis, baptised Ioannis; my grandfather’s name is Nikolaos. My mother’sfamily name is Papadimitriou and is a native of this village, Mirtos. Myfather was from Gdohia. Marriages those days were arranged, there wasno falling in love. Instead, someone would act as a match-maker.

My father was alone. His four brothers and mother died from theflue; so he was raised without her. Later on, my father got married to mymother and they had three daughters. He was sad though: “Girls arefine, but if I only had a son…” There were circumstances where helonged for a son. We were not in the position as girls those days to offerthe assistance a man could provide. Nowadays women can succeed inlife 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 notreply. 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 couldnot get married if she was in love with someone or after being left awidow. There had to be a marriage offer. I had an uncle who was ateacher. He had published a book and I had read it. He said that, in oldertimes, the wise men of the village would call a meeting in the commu-nity before the marriage, where they would go and ask of possible dis-eases the family had been through. That was nice in a way. For they hada role and wedding was a matter of consideration. And according to thewise ones our marriages were arranged. My first sister was married inthis fashion; I was born later and have only heard of the stories. My firstsister 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 spentseven years in Turkey. He was regarded dead. We had even held a me-morial service. And when he returned, my sister already being a stu-dent, gave him flowers. He had taken part in the Minor Asia war andhad gone as far as Smyrna41. They had him yoked afterwards, pulling

FOTINI DASKALAKI PIGIAKI 93

41 Nowadays, Izmir.

some kind of carts. And he had something like calluses, right here42, onhis forehead, which I used to take care of. And he would say: “Leavethem there, my child, for these are souvenirs”. They yoked him with astrap. 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 marriedat a young age. When my father went to war and was caught as a pris-oner, we had no information as to what had become of him. He hadspent there quite a few years, seven or eight, before he returned home.We didn’t know what had happened. Apostolis Papadakis came and saidthat he had buried him. He had also held a memorial services. Eh, andthen he showed up. He sent a telegram before that they had been re-leased. His daughter welcomed him with flowers. He didn’t know thatthis girl was his own child, the one he had left as a baby. Later on, myparents had my other sister and me. There is a great age gap between meand my older sisters. All three are alive, but the oldest one is in bettershape 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 com-plaining, my daughter lets say, I scold her at once. For we used to washour clothes in the rivers; we had no running water at home, no wash-ing machines, nothing. We had to go to the mountains to find herbs. Welooked for a tomato plant to make a tomato and waited for it to growbigger before we could use it in our food. What is missing now? Wehave plenty, yet life is expensive and…

Italians in GdohiaI 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 andthresh our crops. I used to go along, since I was still a child then. Thatis how I learned about the Italian guardhouse. Although those yearswere difficult, the Italians loved me a lot. They gave me chocolates andcandies, right there in the field, as we threshed. My father too became


42 She points in front of her ears.43 She makes a move, like folding something around her forehead.

friends with an Italian he used to go hunting with. And when my fa-ther got sick with pneumonia, it was this Italian who helped him byproviding whatever he needed for the cure. Because there was no rub-bing alcohol, no sugar, nothing, during the years of occupation.

I don’t remember any Germans in Gdohia. I had been in Simi oncewhere there was a German guardhouse and had also seen them a cou-ple of times from far away.

Our region here was controlled by the Italians. They used to stealthough chickens and turkeys in order to eat them. I remember my mar-ried sister, living in a cottage in the upper part of the village, comingout in the earthen terrace, above the “doma” as we Cretans say, shout-ing: “The crows are here…”, referring to the Italians, “...let us hide ourchickens for they will take them” (our village is divided into a number ofcompartments-cottages, each one named after the owner: Daskalianafrom Daskalakis family, Papadiana from Papadakis family etc. The vil-lage was organised this way because in older times janissaries used tooperate and villagers were hiding from them). I remember all these in-cidents for I was a grown-up. But the Italians were not malicious. Allthey did was looting so as to satisfy their hunger.

The Germans arriveLater 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 Ger-mans in Viannos found out. And they were descending now, burningdown all villages on their way. We didn’t expect they would come downhere to burn us down. For here is a different prefecture from there. Butin the meantime, they had already reached Mirtos. The night they cameto 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 thatwas me, my sister and my mother. They had taken my father and grand-father and we didn’t know what would happen. On our way to Ierape-tra we took a path through the mountains since there were no properroads. 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


offered us the “Emporiki”. We stayed there, we had our meals, but weknew nothing of our beloved ones.

My father survives the executionWhen the Germans took our men to execute them, they tied their

hands in such a manner so that one man’s hand was joined to the otherman’s hand. My father was narrating me stories. There was a child fromSikologos; he was short and the shot missed him. The bullets went highwithout hitting him but he got afraid and started running. My fatherhad fallen in a bush and he could see the whole scene. He was not in-jured at that time. The Germans caught the child, hit him on the headwith the gun and pushed him down over a cliff. The cliff was right nextto the place they had taken them. At that moment, my father movedand the Germans realised he was still alive. They fired a burst of gun-fire at him and my father was wounded in his hand and head. “After-wards, I waited there for a while. Nomatter what they would do to me…”,he says, “I had my senses. And when the Germans got away, I stood upand saw a child I had working for me in the fields, writhing, but there wasnothing I could do. I left and went to a river for I was thirsty from thewounds. My children, I remembered”, he was telling us, “…the time I usedto go there and set an ambush waiting to shoot grouses”. He was a greathunter. (They used to wear breeches those days) “I went there and I tooka handkerchief from my vest that was all covered with blood. I soaked itin 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, don’t be afraid,here I am, don’t be afraid”. And he took him five hundred meters fur-ther down, where those who had escaped from the Germans hadslaughtered a free-range lamb, in the absence of any shepherds. Theyhad placed it in a metal container and were boiling it inside there inorder to drink the stock for they hadn’t eaten anything for six or sevendays they were in the mountains. And the moment he approached themand 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 peo-ple realised what had happened and they all run to hide. “I…”, he said,


“where could I go? There was a tree there and I hided myself in thebranches, waiting for my death. I was more afraid then than when theyhad me waiting for my execution. And they came, shouting in their lan-guage and threatening with their guns, took the container with the boil-ing 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 anda poor Greek field guard from Viannos. They were dragging and tortur-ing him”.When the Germans disappeared, he kept on moving and even-tually was left with only one hand. He had a mechanical hand orderedfrom America and placed on his arm.

The recoveryOne 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 gunfiring, 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 daugh-ter. And his daughter brought him to Ierapetra. What could they dothen? They had to be discreet for the Germans would kill him if theyfound out. And a nice doctor came and helped us, Papageorgiou washis name. He cleaned his wound with a hydrogen peroxide solution –worms were coming out of the wound – placed a stick and tied it aroundhis arm. After finishing, he told my father: “I will give you a piece ofpaper Mr. Yiannis so you can go to Heraklion and get cured”.

As far as we are concerned, don’t ask. I was a little girl back then andfollowed my mother and father. They placed him in a truck on a rainyday. The doctor gave him a piece of paper stating he was the one who of-fered him the first aid and that he was the one to be killed should they seekfor the man responsible. There were no hospitals those days, like now.There was only Pananio hospital. It is not operational anymore. I stayedthere. 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. Theywould go then to a small tavern near by and have a cup of coffee.

Those years were difficult but the people, the doctors, everyone, weremore compassionate. My father was in that hospital. No, I am wrong.


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 ourbelongings are burned down. I have nothing left besides this child and myhusband. 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 fa-ther spent fifteen – twenty days in Yiamalakis clinic, whereas I slept onthe floor on a blanket I had brought with me from here. And when thedoctor used to pass to see his patients every morning he would use hisleg to push aside the blanket. He never insulted or scolded me. You can’tdo the same things nowadays. I don’t 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 tookme with him. My mother stayed with my father looking after him.

I couldn’t live in the hospital. I went with my uncle, a captain of gen-darmerie, to Anogia. I spent quite a long time there, almost a year. I hada nice life there. I just saw a man from Anogia selling cheese and I wastouched. We stayed in Armi, right up there in the centre of Anogia, atthe house of Giorgos Kalomiris. My uncle had rented an apartment up-stairs for he lived there as he was the captain.

My father was still at the doctors. He was trying to recover in thehospital for he had a serious wound. He had been shot in the neck tooand they had the fragments removed. My father… used to go to the tav-ern and they were told that a woman had heard a German (apparentlyshe could speak the language) saying that they would come and havethem arrested. They wanted to send them to Germany, to the gas cham-bers. My father left on foot. The others didn’t leave and they were taken.Some of them returned; some didn’t. My father went on foot from Her-aklion to Emparos. He walked for two days through the mountains. Hehad a friend there who took care of him and cleaned him of the licewith boiled water. We all had lice then.

Back to the villageIt took them a long time before they gave their permission for peo-

ple to return to Gdohia. I don’t know when my family returned for Ihad gone to Anogia and came later. But my father returned after one


year at the most. All the houses and villages were burned down. Whatshould they eat, what should they do, what would they become? A com-mittee came and collected the dead from the fields here and there.

We lived a tough life. I grew up in my father’s place till the age oftwenty three when I got married. I used to change his bandages on hishand. He was never given a pension. He was the unhappiest man. Hewas an orphan after losing his mother and his four brothers from theflue. And then he had to go through all these sufferings. He had buriedhis father, the man who raised him. He was shot dead at the executionplace, the same place he also was. He had to go to this place again andcollect his father’s bones. They all lived a tough life. We were all suffer-ing hardships till I grew up.

The houses in Gdohia were burned down. Everywhere else too: inSimi, in Amira, in Kefalovrisi; everywhere except for Sikologos. InMournies too and in all the villages, all the way to the river of Mirtos.There was nothing left from our house or anybody else’s in the village.A teacher we had, used to say that: “The owls and the vultures from themountains live in these places and they too mourn as they see the horri-ble disaster of the villages”.

Everything had fallen apart. We went to the mountains and choppedwoods to construct a house to accommodate us. Everyone was striving;we would cut branches from the trees, take soil as well and use bedsheets for doors in order to make ourselves a small house. More thanforty had been killed in our village by the Germans. Everybody was arelative, cousins etc. In a small community, everybody is a relative; afirst or a second cousin, from your father’s or mother’s side etc.

There was beggary too. Most women were deprived of everythingand 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 is-lands. There were women with four or five children, eating stale anddry bread, and suffering from dysenteria. They ate anything they couldget. What could they eat? For a year and more, they could not seed orreap anything. How could they survive? A lot of beggars did not makeit and died.


The nationsLet 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, don’tcome down here. How can I hate a poor German or Italian, a man stay-ing here embracing us and kissing us? What’s his fault? Others were thecause for this, in Greece and other countries as well, everywhere. Warsare organised by the “great minds”. I made this hotel and this shop withmy 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 makea fortune but we would have made even more had we started our livesnow. For those days, there was no infrastructure, no roads, no electric-ity, nothing.


Father Kostas Yiannadakis

My father was a priest here, father Manolis Yiannadakis. We wereeight siblings. I was the fourth to be born. I was born in 1926. The warwas declared in 1940 and I was in Pano Simi. We used to spend the sum-mer vacation in Pano Simi, because there was no electricity, no refrig-erator, nothing. We spent our summer vacation there, after the farmingtasks. My mother and my father had a fortune, a good one. However, myfather was solely occupied with clerical tasks. But my siblings did all ofthe farming work. And I would like to say, that we didn’t suffer duringthe occupation. We only suffered from lack of sugar and coffee becausepeople here cultivated cereals, olives, everything. Eventually, the houseswere full of goods, when they burned us down in 1943. Cereals andsuch things; we only didn’t 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 ofgoing to Ierapetra (where there was no transportation). And it took ustwenty eight days exactly, till the 28th of October that war was declared,when the high-schools and everything else was shut down and we cameback.

It was occupation then etc and the National Resistance, that is therebels, was formed here in the mountain. I was a high-school studentthen and we went on the stage down here, in theatre lets say, and wesupported the rebels. And as a matter of fact, they had me as their liai-son, to bring them the news (I even have a diploma, they have me ho-noured with a diploma, which is due to this story). I want to say that Iput the paper with the news deep inside my shoe and I went from hereand 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… Thesign I carried with me was an olive tree branch. I held with me an olivetree branch, this was the sign then, the point that the others too under-stood, it was commonly understood. This is how I communicated thenews; we played in theatre and sent the news and helped the rebels inthe mountain (all the grown ups here, my father and all of us were all

FATHER KOSTAS YIANNADAKIS 101

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 theirproperties. They lived there. At that time the children were back andforth. 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 dobefore. And I and many children, some of which are still alive, went backand forth to Kato Simi. We left in the morning. I had my grandmotherwho prepared a hot drink for me in order to leave quickly. My father hadmade a pair of shoes for me. Let it be, we were barefoot at that time, butI 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, imaginethree days a week on foot, from Kato Simi to go to Viannos. How longdid it take us, was it two hours? Two and a half? On foot, all the studentsover there. So, I took the shoes off outside the village and put them onnear the high-school. And then, I want to say, that children were bare-foot until they finished high-school. Where would they find shoes? Itwas occupation; there were no shoes, there was nothing.

So, in 1943 the Germans burned us down. I passed the third class thatyear without taking exams, according to a directive issued by the Min-istry of Education, for my grade was higher than 14 in the primary les-sons. However, in order to continue here in Ierapetra, I had to graduatein 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 hardin high-school. I rented a room in Ierapetra and my father used to comethere. I went as a student, rented a room and we went to school. I had notime to cook; I cooked a couple of times a week, you know, things weredifficult. And my father came one day and he saw boxes with mould. Sohe talked after that to a restaurant owner over there and I ate on amonthly basis, like two other children. And I ate there on a monthlybasis, 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 werevery difficult, you see, there wasn’t then… only a couple of children fromhere went to high-school. Their parents could afford it; they had a for-tune or where sufficiently well off. Three children from here went to


high-school, what do you think, it was a difficult situation.

Germans come to the village: wandering in the neutral zoneIn 1943, the Germans burned us down. That was due to that inci-

dent in Kato Simi, where the rebels killed the two Germans. The Ger-mans were spread here afterwards and went to the villages. No onestayed and I left on that day. My brothers and I scattered. I was here,my brothers took different directions and they didn’t see each other, wehid. The day the Germans came here, the first ones they killed were myin-laws.

There was a Memorial Service then and I, as a student, was thechanter for my father at the church. We chanted and left after the Me-morial Service. The following day was Holy Cross day, in 1943. Well,that was the day we got away and my brothers scattered. The only timemy father left was then. Because, when the Germans attacked (after theevents that had taken place in Kato Simi), they took the priest fromAmira to Krevata. They took him; they placed the people in front andhim in front of everybody (when the battle of Kato Simi took placehere). They had taken the old-priest along with the people. But therebels 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: “Wherepriest?”. They were affected by the events there too. He was saved; it wasthe first time he went away. As soon as we saw that, we left, we hid herein the forest, there was a forest up there. They searched for my father buthe had gotten away, he had hidden. She had given him a bit of breadand some water and he was hiding in a bush behind the church of Vir-gin 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 forestmore or less, and hid. The Germans came. The first Germans that camehere had killed, I am telling you, my father-in-law; there were four orfive people gathered and they caught them. The Germans did no harmthe first day they came. The so-called death squad was behind them.


44 In broken Greek.

Those who came later didn’t 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 Germanswere coming down from Riza (where they had done what they had doneand so many executions). Here, a woman from our place, shouted forher husband, Nikos Yiouvakis, “Nikolio, eh, Nikolio!” she said. The Ger-mans were coming from above and started shooting as soon as theyheard her. We hid for a moment and later on, when we saw that theywere shooting from above, we split up; my brother Yiannis, I and mybrother Giorgos. We lost each other from that point on. Each one wenthis own way.

I took off my shoes and headed down; I found a creek over there andmoved on slowly. At one moment, the Germans fired a flare across; itwould have been a hundred meters away more or less. I had not seenthem 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 let’ssay. 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 didn’t see me.

In the meantime, I heard some footsteps in the night. I said: “Hewalks slowly, he is not German, he is one of us”. He had Italian madeboots; he was an in-law from Kato Simi. I signalled to him and he cameclose and we spent some time together. It was dawn by now. But theyhad set the entire village on fire and it was burning. We were hungrynow, so we went to eat carob beans from the carob trees. We went downfrom there to eat carob beans. The village was burning. But we werethirsty afterwards; we had to go to a water source. And we got awayfrom there and headed towards here in Metopes as we say (that is thecrossroad today that leads to Riza or Kato Simi). There was a small tapbelow; 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 Ger-mans were also there, on the opposite side. We turn back and go downhere to a forest in a mountain and at that moment we see other peoplewaving to us. They had hidden themselves inside; they were some vil-lagers from my place.


Well, in order not to make any noise I spent the night sitting as I amsitting 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 themorning they were coming down here from the old road (there was anold downhill road from Stravada as we say; this was the only road thatwent 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 wereclose by. I had just woken up. So we leave. They did not follow the sameroute the following day. We had no water to drink here, for I say to myin-law: “We will die”. The other ones didn’t move. ”In-law…”, I say tohim, “...shall we leave? Let’s go towards Maheridi”. There is another areahere with a small tap and gardens that we could go to drink water. Whatwas there to do here? “We should take the decision to leave”. And we takethe decision and go down there to Maheridi: there was water, we drankwater and we ate some citrus also that were over there. We found someother people there. Pigiakis was also there. I didn’t see him. He was bythat small tap, wounded. So we found there a group of people and theyhad slaughtered a lamb and had set up a cauldron. A child (that is deadnow) had a call of nature and went a bit farther away from the springand he saw them coming. They were in that small pathway heading to-wards us. And at that moment we split and got away from there. Wewent towards the river, each one wherever he could go. We got awayfrom 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 wefound other people we were acquainted with, other fellow villagers.They had gone there from a cottage house that had basil planted in tingas containers and they had taken one; the villagers had slaughtered alamb. The animals were all over the entire area. Those years, people hadanimals, 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 goat’s teat.My comrade says: “Come, I will give you”. “No”, I couldn’t drink. I wantto 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 asI live. That was my meal, that is, a piece of meat. They gave me that and


I was revived. But we were on guard. There was a big rock next to theriver, a tall one and we had a clear view from there. And we guarded onshifts and kept an eye on the Germans so that they would not come tous from there. I mean we were on guard.

We got away from there later on and came up here, to Kourkouva aswe say, which is another river here. We were later informed by otherpeople we met (for we saw there another group of people and they haddone the same thing in order to slaughter an animal etc) that my fatherwas hiding behind the church and that a man from Pefkos passed byand 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 Yian-nis is concerned, my brother, when I got away from the place where Ihad seen the Germans, he was hiding in a bush in that pathway (it wasthe main pathway and they were descending) and they didn’t comeacross him. Then, my mother had made a vow to offer a lamb, seeingthat he too was saved and was not caught. She took the lamb to thechurch afterwards. We found my father and he came there and therewas Giorgos, Yiannis, I and my father. Concerning my other brother,he had been captured here in Kato Gdohia and they had him locked updown in the church of Agii Deka, just as they had taken the other onestoo and killed them over there. But he got away and he was saved. Hegot away when he came out. He came out and he was saved. Well, at theplace down there that we left, we were informed that they had declaredthe river of Mirtos neutral zone. From there and beyond you were notin 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 Ger-mans were still here. They fired at us, but we were far away and theymissed us. We came down here to the river, and after we passed to theother side, we were somehow relieved, for we thought: “It is not a neu-tral zone here”.

Outside the neutral zone, we end up in TurlotiAnd from there, we went to Karkasia, below Anatoli. My family was

there, my mother and all the rest. They were over there, we met themthere in Karkasia: it is a region in Anatoli that has a spring and had set-


tlements too at that time. Later on, we got away from there, we went toIerapetra, to Kentri. Many people gathered there. Since my father wasa priest they couldn’t support us. People were very hungry, it was dur-ing the occupation, things were tough… that is, not even the people inthe parish could support us. What helped us was that my mother camehere to Gdohia later on (they had given her permission then) and shetook an animal, a cow that we had over here, and took it back (and onemore that was born over there). She took also some books from thechurch and clerical stuff that my father had. And that cow was a bighelp to us. Later, His Grace, Filotheos the First, says to my father: “Fa-ther Manoli, come, I will send you to Turloti. They don’t have a priest”.And we lived there on our own. We were on our own, and therefore thepeople helped us, all the people, since he was the priest there.

But I wanted to continue high-school, that was the problem. I say: “Iwill go to high-school”. “Where will you go?” he says to me. I had left witha pair of short trousers and a shirt with short sleeves. That was mydowry over there, no-one could take anything with him. And so we left.I mean to say, they didn’t want to send me to high-school, for it is a longdistance to travel from Turloti to Ierapetra. In any case, I managed topersuade them and after we had recovered a bit and had some food thatpeople had given us, I came here to Kentri, in Ierapetra.

They brought me there. I rented a house over there. But I went toschool only for two months, so I didn’t take exams and lost that year.That was the year of ’43-44. I went back and forth to the school therewith the children from Kentri, on foot, as they did too. And the childrenfrom Kato Horio and other neighbouring villages went on foot too. Butdue to absences, I didn’t attend for more than two months. Later on, wewanted to return to the village here. In spite of the support from thepeople there we wanted to return to the village.

Return to GdohiaAfter having spent six to eight months in Turloti, we left. We didn’t

stay there long and we came back. Here it was… nothing but the treeswere 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-


tlement of Papadiana, another one in the lower settlement. So, we founda house down here and we stayed. But how could someone live thosedays with the distributions that the church council provided and dis-tributions from others that gave us clothes? People lived from the dis-tributions. Concerning distributions now, there was a commission herethat went to Ierapetra to take the foodstuff they gave them there. Theytook the foodstuffs from there and distributed them. And they wentthere with the animals, through non-existing roads, roads paved withgravel. They loaded and brought them back. Occasionally they wentthrough Agios, from here through Males. That is, we were sustained bythe distributions, till we recovered and people started cultivating. It goeswithout saying, we were in a bad situation. It was terrible, where wouldwe 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 hun-gry, people were suffering. Life was very difficult, life was really verydifficult.

And after a while, little by little of course, there were people leavingthe place here for Mirtos. The main (population) core of Mirtos is fromhere, from Gdohia: Pigiakis family (the doctor and the rest as well), thewhole family of Daskalakis (they are our relatives) etc. Progressively,people managed to recover with the distributions. People started to sowwheat in the fields, so little by little they managed to produce bread andhouse 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 andso 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 re-turned here again, to the terrible conditions that we were in. People re-covered little by little, and I remember fifty, sixty children at school.People had returned for sentimental reasons; they wanted to return tothe place they were born.

I continued high-school here, as I said before, and finished in 1948in Ierapetra. I remember that after the liberation the rebels were up onthe mountain. I was in Ierapetra then (we were in high-school). I re-


member that the National Resistance was split. They got us to split eventhough there was “E.A.M.”, that is the liberation front, and everyone wasin “E.A.M.”. But then they spread dissention in this situation, this waswrong. Anyway. I remember now when they came down… the so-calledPodias, who was from the other group, came down and killed a gen-darme and also took from us the chocolate bars. They gave milk to thestudents at school in the morning. And so we had a small can for themilk and they poured it in there. They boiled the milk and gave us achocolate bar too some times. And the rebels took the chocolate barsfrom us then. They came by the house I used to rent in Ierapetra andtook a man that had the dealership of cigarettes. I say: “That is the endnow, they will kill him”. But thankfully he gave them cigarettes andwhatever else the rebels wanted and they left without hurting him.

Italians and GermansWe didn’t see the Germans frequently, they were in Ierapetra. The

Italians had a guardhouse; it was here in Vatos. They stayed there at thechurch. We saw only Italians; they used to come and take a chicken byforce… I remember, they wanted to take a sheep from my mother (shewas hefty) and she didn’t let them do it. We didn’t interfere. Italians weresofter people. He pulled from one side, she pulled from the other andshe didn’t let him have the sheep. We didn’t 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 wewere not in favour of the Germans. It was not their fault, they were notto blame. It was one man’s fault. There was one man that time. Theyhad conquered practically the entire world and using only this method,that is by killing and putting people in prison, that is how they domi-nated. For how long? They dominated and fell apart later. What did theydo? I mean, I want to tell you, that it is not their fault, we can not see theGerman people like that. It is not the fault of the people. It is the faultof Hitler and Mussolini, two dictators that went and caused bloodshedto 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-


pitulated with the allies. In Turloti, in Mochlos, down by the sea, I re-member a caique that was full of Italians and they fired at it anddrowned them. And we were watching it then, yes, of course. The Ital-ians were good for nothing for the Germans later on because they hadcapitulated. It was one of the big caiques. Let’s call it a big caique andthey fired at them and drowned them. They didn’t 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, howcan I describe it now? There were dowries from great-grandfathers,great-grandmothers and ever since they were burned, people started tochange: whereas they weaved in the workshop and made a dowry for thegirls, 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 afew things because they saw that everything was burned, that there wasnothing left.


Giorgos Daskalakis

When I finished primary school I was twelve years old and I didn’tgo any further. My father was a field guard in Mirtos, from the riverand on, towards Ierapetra. I was in charge of managing the house. Wewere five siblings and I was the first one. We had two oxen and I hadtaken on the ploughing the fields, seeding, all the fuss. That is when Iwore “stivania”45 boots because the stones were hurting my feet andsince 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 resistanceThen the occupation came, that is, we had the war, the occupation.

The Italians came here. The Italians were in control of the prefecture ofLasithi, the Germans weren’t. They had a guardhouse down here inVatos. The church of Agios Panteleimonas is over there and they had theguard house inside Agios Panteleimonas. These Italians had a littlefeather, a feather in their hat. Were they the police? I don’t know whatthey were. We got to know them very well. We became friends too andI got to know them well. In Gdohia there were no Italians. There wereonly in Vatos were there was the guardhouse. There were six people,but they were nice, the poor guys. They would come here and theywould knead and make bread. They didn’t 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 friendsand I picked up some Italian. They were very nice. I slowly learned Ital-ian (I knew quite well but I have forgotten it). The rebels would comefrom Hameti where there headquarters were. They would come here.We had here a man named Leonida Pigiaki who was a professional ser-geant in the army and had organized “E.P.O.N.”. In “E.P.O.N.” wasDimitrianos (Dimitrianakis) too, the teacher. Here we made collections.We were carrying bread, we took wheat, and we ground it and kneaded

GIORGOS DASKALAKIS 111

45 A kind of boots, traditionally handcraed in Crete.46 In Greek: «Ε.Π.Ο.Ν.». Stands for «Ενιαία Πανελλαδική Οργάνωση Νεολαίας», i.e. UnifiedPan-Hellenic Youth Organisation.

it, we made bread in the bakery and we took the bread up. I was a car-rier. I ran from one side to the other. We carried food everywhere. Wetook it to the rebels. The shepherds were up there with the animals andthey used to slaughter them… we also did a theatrical performance oncehere for “E.P.O.N.” to gather food. Dimitrianakis the teacher organizedit then with Pigiakis Leonidas. They were the organizers.

I was the liaison over here. There was a doctor called Geroulanosfrom Viannos (it seems to me he was called Papamastorakis) and some-one, called Dimitris Manousakis, from Simi, a major. He had a son thatwas a student and when the Germans captured them over here, they lethim go. I don’t know, however he stayed. And there was DimitrisManousakis and he would come here from up there and they wouldleave me some notes and I would take them to Anatoli to a man namedPapadogiannis, who was a doctor I think. Papadogiannis I think was adoctor, but this story is sixty five years old, it is not yesterday’s story forme to remember.

I was going to the hideout, I learnt guerrilla warfare. I then went asa rebel with a man named Vouvakis Giorgis. We were together. The cen-tral hideout was at Hameti. We lived in caves, there were caves, therewere also barracks over there, for the food from the villages over here.We lived also all together, two or three together. There were caves, wewould make entrenchments there and we would get in. Let me say alsothat we didn’t get together for we were going to the villages around usto do sabotages. We set off once to demolish the bridge in Emparo andas soon as we started they told us to come back. They said: “Don’t go”.

The events of SeptemberWhen the Italians left (Italy collapsed) and went away from Vatos,

we went and collected the cables. They had taken the wireless fromVatos 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 timewe met someone called Mproutzali and he took us with him: he gave usguns and we went up to the hideout. When we went up to the hideoutthere were the gendarmeries from the gendarme station that was in


Pefko. After they killed the Germans, they were frightened and they toohad 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. Idon’t know now what kind of clothes we took. They took their guns andleft. We left but they had informed the Germans by then that they hadkilled the two in Simi.

When we later went up to Lapatho and got together, Manolis Mpan-touvas gathered us, Mpantouvomanolis was then in charge there (Po-dias was there too then, they were all together, I mean they hadn’t splitup). He gathered us in Lapatho, outside Agious Apostolous, and he saidto us: “Those who have not been soldiers step forward”.We did, I don’t re-member 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 meover there up on a hill. I was in charge of the hill, to look from therewith the binoculars in case the Germans came. The other one, Vou-vakis, was taken and placed in another location.

Then they went down to Simi. In Simi, there was a gorge to the rightand 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. Fromone side there was Podias, the team of Podias, from the other one therewas Mpantouvas. We were on the hill and we were watching that battle.A man, called Vagionakis Apostolis from Mithos, had been killed andsomeone called Mastrantonakis Giorgis from Simi had been injured.We were watching the battle of course, but we were watching the placealso so as not to allow the Germans to surround them. They killed, asit seems, around forty. They took thirteen captive as well. They broughtthem up to the hideout to Agious Apostolous. As a matter of fact, therewas someone called Sohorakis Yiannis then from Mournies and he wasa gendarmerie (Was he in Peuko? Was he in Viannos? He was some-where) and he had gone fishing with a German (some others said thathe was from Austria, anyway, we say German) and since this mess hap-pened he took the German as a captive and brought him to Lapathotoo. Him too, along with the others. I saw them when they broughtthem. But then they took them in a cave and watched them over; I did-n’t go where they had taken them and watched them over.


Then the Germans came down and burnt the villages. They burntthe villages, killed the people. Mpantouvas gathered us and said: “I ambeing called by the Italians, 3.000 Italians call me to Psiloritis (mountain)to become their commander and I will go. You, since your villages gotburnt, go down if you wish to see what’s happening and then I will callyou”.

We then left the hideout along with Vouvakis. We saw that the vil-lages were burnt, but the killed people… we didn’t know who had beenkilled. We didn’t know. We left Lapatho, we came down up to Mino, wewent down from Karidi, we passed through Mithos, Apoliana and wecrossed to the other side. Vouvakis’ father-in-law at that time, a mancalled Diakakis, lived in Sikia (it is opposite Mithos) and because hisfather-in-law and his wife were there, we went there too.

We were armed: we took the guns and went down. When we reachedApoliana and climbed up a hill in order to go down the river, we heardstones being thrown at us. We looked and there was Mpitsakakis Yian-nis from Mithous and Voskopoulis Apostolis. We looked and with theirhands they showed us the Germans going down the river in a row. Theyand their families were hiding in the carob trees and the bushes. Wesaw the Germans, Giorgi and I loaded our rifles and the Germans wentby and didn’t see us. They were close. We passed by that place and I hidmy gun over there.

In Sikia the late Diakakis had a cottage and everyone from here wasgathered there: the wives whose husbands had been killed. The Ger-mans killed the husbands of my two sisters, my grandfather and mymother’s two brothers: Grigoris Spiridakis was Vaggelio’s husband,Michalis Drakakis was Eirini’s husband. My grandfather’s name wasGeorgios of Michail Daskalakis. My mother’s brothers were called Em-manouil and Konstantinos Paterakis. Then they killed Dimitrianakis’family also. Gdohia suffered great losses, great losses: apart from thefact that the village had been burnt down they had great losses also. Onebrother-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 loca-tion 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


from this village. They killed as many as they found here.We then left Sikia and went down to Yerapetro [Ierapetra] for a cou-

ple of nights. We then went to Kentri (I don’t remember how many dayswe spent: five, ten days, I don’t know). Then, because my father was afield guard in Oreino, at Sitia, we went to Oreino. But they had told himthat there were “louviarides”47 over there. Thus my father took us toStavrochori. The whole family: my mother, my siblings, we all went toStavrochori. We were four siblings. My sisters’ husbands had been killedand both of them had their children (one of them had a son and theother one had a daughter).

We stayed at Stavrochori. One of my sisters had got married when theItalians were still in Vatos (she had eloped with my brother-in-law andgot married) and she came to Stavrochori too. Then they left. Only mymother with my two siblings were still in Stavrochori. We had a teacher,Kanavakis, and he gave us a small room where we stayed. We stayedover there in the winter and we went to the olive trees as workers andbeggars. 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 wouldn’t go about begging, the old ladies only. Anyway. We stayedthere for a period of time but they had declared the place here a neutralzone. Our territory from here to the river and beyond was a neutralzone. On the 14th of September they killed and on the 3rd of Novemberthey gave us permission to bury the dead.

Over here they killed my grandfather along with some others. Mygrandfather had been killed close to Pigiaki, the one who had been in-jured in the hand. His father was also killed and we put them in a graveand 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 caughtus. They took us to the river in Agia Zoni, in line, to kill us, to executeus, because they caught us in the zone. They had us standing in line, ina gap and we were looking at it. We were waiting to hear the guns fire


47 He means leper.

from behind to knock us down. They caught us in the zone. We didn’tknow that it was the zone. We thought that the zone was from Mirtosand on to Ierapetra, whereas it was from the river of Mithos to here.They didn’t execute us. We escaped on this occasion. We were in lineand they sent us away: “Raus!” he said, “Raus!”. “But be careful not to becaught 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 seehow we could fix one of the houses to stay in it. The house had beenburnt, damaged, there was nothing. We had another house over therebelow and that was half-demolished. That’s where we stayed. Ah, therewas a factory then, there were factories then: they ground olives with astone. The factory was unburned and that’s why a person came fromIerapetra and brought a mule and they ground the olives there. Godknows how.

Back to the mountain: the split up of the rebels in HeraklioThere was somebody’s son that I had met at the hideout and the Ger-

mans caught him and tortured him and he told them my name. I wasover here, where the factory that they used to ground the olives was,and president Paterantonakis who called me “filiotsiko”48 (when youbaptize a child you have a “filiotso”, godchild) came and said: “Overthere…”, where the square is today “…the Germans came and were ask-ing about someone called Daskalaki Giorgi”.When he told me that, I ranaway, 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 therebels’ movement.

I took the gun and went up to the mountain. I found the same peo-ple again that we were previously with. In the meanwhile though, theyhad split up, a group had gone: they were then “E.O.K.”, National Or-ganization of Crete, and the rest of them were “E.L.A.S.”, Greek People’sLiberation Army. I went and found the friends and we stayed together.I didn’t know the events; that Mpantouvas had split up with Podias. Wellit was Podias with two brothers, they were called Samaritides, there was


48 “filiotsiko”: nickname for “filiotso”.

Geroulanos the doctor too, and there was (also) major Manousakis upin the hideout. We formed a group in any case and spent together a pe-riod of many months. It was difficult but the Germans were frightenedto go out too much. Mpantouvas said of course that they waited for alanding but it never happened. Then the Germans started retreating.We, our team, we followed them, up from the mountain, we went downto Viannos and they stopped. As a matter of fact, our people had alsokilled a professor in Viannos, because, I don’t remember well, one teamwanted to take the guns of the police and the other one didn’t let themand there was a fuss and they killed a professor over there. They killed,additionally, an agriculturist in Ierapetra… The strange things we didamong us…

The Germans were retreating and we were descending from behind,our team. When the Germans were leaving and were moving towardsAlkalohori (Arkalohori), we followed them. There was an injured manand someone had betrayed them (i.e. the rebels). Where they were, theGermans went and killed six people and he got injured. When we wentto the village Afrati in Emparo, they called (for the people) and he whohad 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. Theybrought a donkey and they put him on it and they took him. I don’tknow now where they took him.

In a few words, it seems to me that on the 14th of October of ’44, weadvanced to Heraklio. The Germans were still in Heraklio but they hadcapitulated. Later on, we stood right and left of the road and the Ger-mans went through and went to Chania. They were with their machineguns, with their guns. They threw most of their guns and whatever theyhad in the port. They took guns anyway, machine guns, whatever theytook 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 Mpantouva’s peo-ple entered from Chanioporta I think. All the rebels’ teams entered Her-aklio and we met each other. They said that we would give ten peopleapproximately (I don’t remember how many exactly) from each team,


to make another one: I went and they put me in the team and they wroteon some brassards “Military Administration of the Prefecture of Her-aklio” and we wore them. Our chief was Gorgoraftis Minas from Her-aklio. We went outside Alikarnassos, I think it was a settlement outsideHeraklio, and we had a guardhouse there. Meanwhile, I don’t know whatPodias had done to Mproutzalis and Mproutzalis wounded him.

Mproutzalis was there of course with Mpantouva. And a whole fusstook place; Mproutzalis went through court-martial and was executed.Mpantouvas executed him, they killed him. Something went wrong inHeraklio among the rebels, they fought one another and Minas Gorgo-raftis, the team leader we had, was killed there. That passed by and whenFebruary came we gathered at Fortetsa to break up the rebels’ movement,to turn in the guns. After all the fuss in Heraklio, I didn’t want to turn inmy gun to them at Fortetsa: “I took the machine gun from the Germansand I won’t give it!”. There was another one who said: “Take him, takehim to execute him over there! He is against the resistance!”. What resist-ance? Anyway. They frightened me and I say: “Giveme a receipt that I de-livered the machine gun”. And he gave me a document that said: “Ourfellow fighter Daskalakis Georgios turned in a machine gun to us with sixclips”. I took the document, I gave them the gun and came here.

I forgot to say that they had previously caught someone from KatoSimi at Kalami and he had a pistol. The people from “E.A.M.”, the otherparty, took his pistol. Whenever the people from “E.O.K.” saw later aperson from “E.A.M.”, they would take his rifle from him.

I got permission from Heraklio to come to the village and I held myrifle (another one that I had). Someone, called Papageorgiou, was withme, a doctor from Ierapetra (he was elected a left-wing member of theparliament in ’58) and we were with a car and a truck that took us fromHeraklio. They stopped us at Kako Oros and they wanted to take myrifle. There was a team from “E.O.K.”. Because of the fuss that took placein Heraklio, I said: “I won’t give you the rifle”. I was in the car. “You willgive it to us”. “I am not giving it! I took it from the Germans and I am notgiving it!”. Anyway, I made a fuss. “Hand it over!” the late doctor said tome, “Give it, give it!”. “I am not giving it!”. I didn’t give it. I brought it overhere. The rifle was from Germany, but it was such a gun! They would


place a cigarette and I would fire and cut it in the middle: a straight-shooting gun, a beautiful gun.

Over here there was a police officer in Mirtos and he came and waslooking for the gun that I had. I said: “I turned in the gun and I have areceipt”. I gave him the receipt and he took it. OK. I had the rifle overhere. They didn’t know that I had it. I had it hidden. But I think thatthen I returned to Heraklio. I don’t remember this detail because it’ssixty five years now. Anyway, we disbanded the rebels at Fortetsa.

Compulsory workWe came to our villages and we saw our situation, our sufferings. Our

life started now in a different way. During the occupation we were suf-fering. I was involved in the black market as we called it then: my latebrother-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 to-bacco, cigarettes, matches and went to Sitia and took wheat and broughtthem back. The trade was taking place by exchange. I was in Arkalohorievery Saturday! There are fifty two Saturdays in a year and I can say thatI was in Arkalohori the forty five! We went this way, from Apliki, we did-n’t go from the motor way (this goes up to Viannos) and we came downand went to Arkalohori and I came back. I returned once with VouvakisManolis from Arkalohori. It was the month of May. It was not in ourbenefit to use the road from Aplikia, as we used to call it, so we wentthrough the motor way. In Kato Viannos the Germans grabbed us. Theycaptured us. They went from there for they were taking people to theworks in Kastelli. They captured us and got us off the donkeys. I had twodonkeys: I had loaded raki and wine on the first one and I was ridingthe other one. Vouvakis had been married then whereas I was single. Hesaid: “Are you married?”. He said: “Yes”. I said: “I am single”. There wasone whose name was Ermis and he could speak Greek. “Take the donkeysand go, he will stay here”. And they kept me along with others in Vian-nos. They took us to Kastelli. There was a camp, a fortress and a barrierwas all around; there was such a louse inside! They let me take the blan-ket from the donkey. There were gendarmes and they were watchingeveryone working inside there. All our people were taken there. I begged


the gendarmes: “I am going to the works in Ierapetra”. I was going to theworks and I had a paper and they said to me: “Wewill send you away, youwill leave”. I said: “Because I came fromAlkalohori, please, I have the blan-ket, let me stay outside so as not to catch lice”. The gendarmes agreed. Iworked for one, two, three days.

In the meantime, Vouvakis came over here and told them: “Giorgiswas caught by the Germans in Viannos and they kept him there”. Thepoor fellows were upset: so many were taken and sent abroad, they wereexiled. My poor family now asked and learnt that they were taken toKastelli. My late father loaded one of the donkeys with onions, pota-toes, cheese, and he rode the other one to bring them to the Germansto let me go. When they sent me away, I took the blanket on my shoul-der and left at night. As I went up in the night I lay down a little bit. Iwoke 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 everyvillage, everyone was told to spend a period of fifteen days. We had atthe time Arhontikaki as a secretary in the community, someone calledPapadakis was the president and he knew the fellow-villages: “You willgo and stay fifteen days”, and you and you… we went for fifteen daysand we returned. They brought us some cabbage, boiled greens, noth-ing 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. Thenthey built over it: Kainourgiakis and Paterakis Giorgis went and built awall that fell down, as deep as we had dug. They also fell down, but theydidn’t get hurt.

SoldierAs 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 suf-fered: we went and sowed our fields in Stomio! We harvested. Therewere lots of sufferings, troubles. We had fields over here too. They werenot all of course in one place. The entire territory over here was cul-tivable. After the burning of the 1st of July of ’84, the entire territory wasburnt, our olive trees, our houses were burnt again (the house over there


was a house and a store too, and they all got burnt, there was nothingleft). My sisters who had lost their husbands went about begging. Ourvillages were burned. Those who had not been burnt resorted to beg-ging. In Sitia! They covered the entire region!

Meanwhile I had my gun over here (there was someone from Simiand he knew that I had the gun and he said to me to sell it and I sold itfor two tins of oil – he sent me one tin but I am still waiting for the otherone). Anyway, when I had the gun, there was still occupation and Icouldn’t have the gun in common view. I had written upon the gun“KKE”49. I am telling you, I was with the left-wing! And I got marriedand we went as soldiers. There was someone called Hamilakis from Simiand he was a recruiting officer, as I found out later. He accepted me andthey didn’t dismiss me as a left-winger. He kept me and I became a sol-dier. 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. AndI had left my wife behind whose father had been killed by the Germans(I hadn’t got married yet). My wife, an orphan, was with her mother,she didn’t have any other siblings and I left her with a six month oldchild and they took me as a soldier. I got married in May of ’45 and inAugust of ’46 I went to the army.

I went as a soldier to Heraklio. In November they took us to Thessa-loniki. We founded “L.O.C.”50, one hundred people from Crete! I was in“L.O.C.”. But I got sick; I don’t know what happened to me. I went to thehospital and then I didn’t go to the LOC, I went to the 511 battalion:another harassment over there in the army, another trouble! We hadthe gang war, some others call it guerrilla’s 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 hewas called, he was a cadet. He was killed near Scra. There is a statue over


49 Stands for Communist Party of Greece.50 Company of Mountain Commando.51 e locations that are referring from now on are at the boundaries of Greece with ex Yu-goslavia at the height of the counties of Pellas and Kilkis.

there at Scra. Directly overlooking Scra there is Archaggelos. Below Ar-chaggelos, far away, there was a village that was called Konstantia and itwas occupied by the rebels. On the 6th of December the battle of Scratook place where Stefanopoulos was killed. Afterwards, on the 12th ofDecember, on Saint Spiridonos day, they took us there to go down andsee the size of the rebel’s group force that was in Konstantia. Our peoplestood upon the hill and they sent us down there. When we came closerthey started shooting at us. One was wounded by a bullet on the knee. Itwas, either Sotiris his first name, or Sotiriou, his last, I don’t remember.We were close together. They gave us an order to pull back. I figured Ishould pull back, but how could I pull back and leave the other one in-jured? I lay down and the commander of our team shouted at me:“Daskalaki, leave him and go!”. I couldn’t leave him. I cannot say it [Sobs].I lay prostrate and tied his wound. He grabbed me from the shouldersand pulled himself on top of me. He held his rifle, I held mine. I crawled,crawled, crawled and we advanced, let’s 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 andfood for the army, I don’t know what else. We couldn’t go then by carsby land, we just had to go by boat, by ship. They had chosen eight, nineof us, I don’t know how many, to go to Athens. I couldn’t describe myhappiness: I wanted to escape a little bit from the rebels, from the bat-tles. In Thessalonica now, look what’s happening: as we gathered andthey were watching us leave, the master sergeant came and said:“Daskalakis should leave the line and someone calledMeksis will come…”I don’t know what they called him “…he has a family in Athens”. In orderto go and see his family. And they removed me from the line. I almostwent crazy with sadness. That was on the ’20 of January of ’47. I left andthey left. And the ship sank! It was “Chimara”53. The ship sank and theyall drowned. Some soldiers were saved. We had soldiers that were being


52 A distance of one kilometer approximately.53 e shipwreck of passenger ship “Chimara” in the south Evoiko bay on the 19 of Jan. 1947is the greatest Greek naval tragedy of the 20th century with almost 400 dead.

taken to Athens because they were communists. And they drowned. Afew of them were rescued. Think of this case… many, many drowned.I escaped from there.

Troubles then up to the borders: there was a gendarmerie’s station ina village in Idomeni (this place is in Greece and from the side of Serbiathere is Geugeni) and they went and killed a man from Chania. All hellbroke loose over there. And we went there. Eh, we went and took theposts from where the rebels were expected to return, yet they went fromSerbia and returned again. Our life in the army was difficult with therebels.

Eh, then my late father sent papers from here saying that the Ger-mans had killed our family and they took me to Heraklio. In May of’48, I don’t remember know when it was. My daughter was three and ahalf years old and I hadn’t seen her. When I came to Heraklio they gaveme permission and I came over here and I looked after her in Riza (Iwas 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. ThenI didn’t want to be in the unit any more. They put me in the position ofsecretary 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 avice-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 tomake an association. He said to me: “You will make the association, butyou will be the president”. There were two out of every village. I said: “Ifthey vote for me”. We had elections: two, two, two. We had a secondround, 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 beena counsellor of the community and in the end they asked me to becomea president too. I became the president too. The former president haddied and I was in his place and did the remaining term. In the electionslater I was voted again. I had spent many years and they recognized thisand I have a pension from it now. I was the president at the cooperativealso for many years.


Help, pensions and recognitionAfter the liberation they wanted to get a financial-aid from the Ger-

mans, thirty five thousand for every family that had someone who waskilled. They called me, since the police knew me very well, and theyasked me: “Was he armed or unarmed?”. I had to be present during theinterrogations, one by one, and I had to say that he was unarmed to re-ceive it. But in the meanwhile, Papadopoulos comes and he wants togive a pension to those that were killed: in order to get it they had to bearmed 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 un-armed, but now (I have) to say they were armed. What will I do?”. Hesaid: “Do you want them to get the pension?”. I said: “Of course”. “Signthere”. 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 lawyerso that my mother-in-law could get the compensation of the thirty fivethousand. And they gave her seventeen thousand I think and the restwas taken by the lawyer. What does she get now? Nothing.

Someone came to Riza once and started saying to me: “Did you getanything? Did you fill out any papers as a rebel?”. I said: “I didn’t do any-thing”. He said: “You should come and fill out the papers. The rebels fillout the papers”. And we prepared the papers and this is how I and mywife gained recognition for being in the National Resistance. I got mypaper in ’87 and my wife got it recently. Our papers say “E.A.M.-E.L.A.S.”. From ’41 and on.

TodayWe went through a lot with the Germans but if we hadn’t messed

with them, we could have not reached that point. But anyone that wouldgo and see all those people killed over there, what would he do? Wewere messing with the Germans a lot, we were messing with them. Afterthe battle of Simi, as I heard too, we stripped the Germans, we took theirguns, we took their clothes, we took their shoes. Pardon me, I heard, Idon’t know, that they cut their genitals off too (I wasn’t there). Theycommitted some crimes that they shouldn’t have. When they caught meand I went to Kastelli, we had a German and he was supervising us. A


bit farther away they had something like a hut they used as a toilet. AGerman took his pistol out from his belt, he hung it up on a pear treeand then he went to the toilet and sat over there. I now, had I not feltsorry for the rest of us that were with me, I would have taken the pistolfrom where he had hung it and left. But that would be a reason for themto kill even more now from our group and thus I didn’t do it.

Today the Germans come. As a matter of fact, the other time I waswith a German, Olympia was the name of his wife. He collects olivesand he gave me his business card and he went to Tympaki. He said tome: “If you want, I am here for everything: to collect, to look after thetrees…” And we took a picture and he sent me the pictures here and heasked me if I wanted him to come here for the olive trees. Eh, we arefriends with the Germans now. We don’t have any problems. There, thehouse over there at the end of the village, belongs to Italians. Here thevillage is full of Dutch. We have many Dutch here. They have made nicehouses. 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 chil-dren are doing well. My grandchildren also. I could not go throughwhatever I have been through until now, so I had better move on. I askmyself sometimes if I would go back: I had better move on. I wentthrough difficult years, that is, hardship, hardship.


Evangelia Kimaki Samprovalaki

I was twelve years old when my mother died. Hariklia Andreopouliwas her name and we were in Pano Simi on vacation. Simi at the timewhen I was a child was the place we went for vacation to and all the vil-lages gathered there: Riza, Gdohia, Mirtos, Mithi. All the villages gath-ered. We had our country houses in Pano Simi. We know each othersince then, from our childhood; I know those that are still alive sincethen. We went as a group every morning to go and gather greens, togather pears, to watch the goats, the oxen, the animals, whatever we had.Sometimes I miss this juvenile life, because we were carefree. A carefreelife. Now you have obligations, one thing, the other. In the summer wewent for two months maximum and we planted our beans, we plantedour potatoes, our cucumbers, our pumpkins, everything, everything.All the people from the village, all. I used to get up as a child and wentto Apano Simi with a group of friends. We went from the mountains towater 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. Andwe all watered and then everyone came back. In order to have themready 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 frommountain to mountain. A nice time. It was fine. And we got togetherfrom all the villages: they came from all the villages, everyone did thesame thing. When we went later in August we all had everything.

There were Italians here in our village. They had a bakery here onthe opposite side and they gave bread and some food to my brother.There were not many Italians in the village. They lived here nearby andhad a tailor’s shop. They had taken a sewing machine from a house, byrequisition, and worked as tailors. There were also five, six people at theschool, not many, they were few. I don’t remember any Germans turn-ing 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 didn’t go of


course because I was old. I was older than twelve, but my brother Yian-nis and the rest of the children in the village went. Life in the villageswas very difficult then. But individually, in my family, my father Gior-gos Samprovalakis was a handyman, and he went up to the mountains,to the folds and the villages and brought everything.

The events of SimiAt 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 didn’t force anyone. I think the rebels were jealous because theyalso made a collection and they thought “Let’s get them out of the way”.They said to a girl, let’s call her chambermaid, to leave the door openand they went in and slaughtered them in their sleep. They slaughteredthem while they were sleeping. Then they put them, they loaded themand they went to the mountains and threw them in a ditch as the booksays54. Then the Germans came and looked for them and saw that theyhad them killed and from that point on the whole story began: what agreat idea for Mpantouva’s rebels and those in command to go andslaughter the Germans! They went afterwards and entrenched them-selves in the two mountains in Simi and the Germans went through andthe rebels killed everyone. But the little book provides all the details.

Germans at the villageWe 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 wasnot 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 some-thing for us to eat. My brother was with me. My other sister Maria wasmarried and my father was not that concerned about her. He thoughtshe had her husband, her mother and father-in-law. But the two littleones were I, of course, with my brother. My brother Yiannis is youngerthan me. He was ten years old and I was thirteen, fourteen years old. Iwas born in ‘28, figure it out now.

EVANGELIA KIMAKI SAMPROVALAKI 127

54 Refers to the poem Paterantonakis and Tsitsinia, 1987 : 5.

In the meanwhile they burned down our villages. The Germans did-n’t use to come here but they came after the event in Simi. They visited thevillages 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 asummer day and a German said to me: “Fou”; he indicated to me thatthey would burn the houses. And we packed a few things that the Ger-man pointed out to us and we took them up to the fields. They forcedme to slaughter a hen in order for them to eat and he said to me “To-morrow, fou, fou and you remove the things”. He made us understandthat we should remove the things. The morning that I came to take thethings, 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 thatwe had kneaded saying to me: “Parti!”, to go, to go, to go, I rememberreally very well. I saw the same German that gave me the cheese andtold me to go, putting the fire. I remember really very well that he didsomething and I heard a “Pouf!” and the house caught fire, with himchasing me off “Parti! Parti! Parti!” I couldn’t 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 don’t know what medicine heput that made “Bouf!”, a strong sound and the fire started. I left in themeanwhile, but I heard the “Bam!” and I saw the fire that burned whatwe 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 machineguns all around to execute us. My brother was bent and I was bent uponhim 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 tohear, not to hear, because we saw what they did to the machine gunsand how they fixed them. We then heard some voices that were comingfrom down, fifty meters approximately farther down. We heard Ger-man voices. We didn’t know what he was saying; only that he was hold-ing a piece of paper, I saw him doing like that55, and shouting, and Iheard that he was saying: “Sacramento”. I heard that for the first time.


55 She waves her hand up in the air.

Of course I didn’t 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 theypulled 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 hadbeen hurt by a bullet, here, in the chest. There were some insects, waspsand flies that we call “svourous”, and were sitting on him. I screamed, Ifell down and started shaking, I could not bring myself around. Theycame there and they saw. They said: “Let’s leave”. We left. We went af-terwards and sat inside a dense bush and I was with my brother andtwo more ladies from here with their children, young children, five yearsold, three years old and we watched from there the fires and the burn-ing of the village. We said: “What’s going on now?” I come in the morn-ing, I look for my sister Maria, the married one, and I didn’t find her. Iask many people and they say to me: “She has left with her mother andfather-in-law and has moved to Ornio”; Ornio is a region. I went, I foundher, but I first stopped here to see and I didn’t recognize my home, wedidn’t recognize it. It had fallen down, ruined, burned.

I had a grand-mother and I went to see my grand-mother and Ifound her lying on her face: she had tried to go out and with the fire, thecentral beams, “mesodokia” as we call them, had collapsed, pillars thatwere on fire, and had choked her. She was suffocated from the smokeand in addition to that the Germans had slaughtered her. When I sawher what should I do? I was just shaking, a twelve year old little girl,thirteen, imagine that. Her name was Maria Andreopouli. You will seeher name written in the war memorial. You will find her, her name is inthe bottom line.

Afterwards, I got away from here and went out of the village, to thecarob trees. An airplane flew: the leaves of the tree were falling, howcan I describe that to you? The airplane was shooting and I went to theroot 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 air-plane (flying), and it made a “gr!” sound and you saw the bullets fallinglike hail. How did they miss me? And it would be fine to kill me to findpeace. But I want to say that the airplane was (flying) so low.


I had lost my brother. Germans had taken him and they had re-cruited him along with some others, many people, and he left after re-sorting to cunning. He picked up a pebble, gave it a heave so that hewould have to run to catch it, then he gave it another heave, turnedaround the corner and got away. The rest of the men that stayed weretaken by the Germans and were killed where the little church in Riza is.Nineteen people were killed from here, from our village. They tookthem, they were old, they said: “They may want to take us to show themwhere the rebels are”. This is what they thought. But they took themwhere the rebels had raised the flag, it was there they took them, tena-ciously, and they killed them. They killed more children too from Riza,from Sfakoura, this is what its little village is called. My father comesfrom there, from Sfakoura, and we have some property there. In myvineyard they killed two persons and for years I didn’t go to pick grapesand to visit it. I didn’t 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 otherGerman farther down and they caught him and tak!... they cut his headoff, because the blood was visible there, where his body was and wherethey 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 fathertoo. These things cannot be described, what can I say?

We had a house full of carob beans and it was up there where theykilled a young man. The other one tried to escape and as they were chas-ing him, like the hare as written in the book: “Like the hare in the race-way and we stayed full of happiness with this little game”, they blew uphis brains in my field, near the medlar tree that we had. I have got deadpeople in my field: there are two dead people in one and in the otherfield two more and even more scattered up there. Five graves here, threethere, four there. But together with the people from Mournies, theykilled people from Riza and from Parsa too and they took them thereand they killed them all.

My sister MariaMy 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


thought that the baby was killed and she was looking to find whetherthe baby had been hurt. She was sick with her gall bladder and in twodays she had peritonitis: she was bleeding internally. She had no doctor,no hospital, where were there the cars? We had no means. She died intwo days.

In the meanwhile, they are going to burry her husband tomorrow. Hehad two children with his second wife, very nice children. She was sep-arated from her husband. They came from Simi here and we got lost. Wegot lost. They called from Athens today and they are going to bring herhusband 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 neitheram I, not anyone else, for my sisters’ death. The one is a public notaryand the other one works at the Ministry of Commerce. They adore me.The deceased called me: “Our Evangelia”. Our Yiannis. That is, as if wewere brothers and this is how he felt about me. God forgive him.

The next day they told me that Maria was somewhere near here, be-yond 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 doc-tor, there were no medicines. I was left with the baby. When I wantedto change the baby, I didn’t have diapers, “pania” as we say, to change it,and I turned the dirty diapers inside out and reused them. I milked thecow in my hands and gave milk to the baby. I could not go to the groupof breast feeders for they told me: “Go, go away, from here. Go, take it andgo to get it killed over there, go! go! Because with its crying it is going tobetray us to the Germans”. I said: “I am not doing such a thing and I amnot going to kill it, and whoever has the heart and wants to, he can kill it,but then again, I won’t permit that”. Afterwards, we left the fields andwent to Anatoli, up to the village. The people were hospitable to us, butthey were afraid and they were very hesitant, they were afraid. As wewere leaving and were going up to Anatoli with her husband that hadfound us, I was holding the baby. We put her on a little donkey and tookher to Anatoli, for she was sick and unable to walk. The time we wereentering the village they said: “The Germans”.Whenever we heard “Ger-mans” we ran for dear life. And her husband left leaving her and thebaby with me. The villagers helped me, they put me to their home, they


put a blanket on the floor, we did not even have a blanket, I had ashoddy like this piece over here, I had a piece of shoddy and we leftlater. 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 ourthings, to bring the baby’s clothes, to bring our clothes too”, because wehad packed them all together.

When we left Simi, the German that we had cooked the hen for andtwo persons had eaten, said that the village would be burned down andthat we should take out whatever we could, to take it away so that itwould not to be burned. And my sister tells me to come and get thethings. But there was a neutral zone from the river and the way up. Theykilled whoever entered it, with no discrimination: young, adult, child,old, teenager. We left. We had some footpaths, “parastrata” as we callthem, some pathways that the Germans didn’t know about and we wentalong these pathways and we came here. I went and took some things:baby’s clothes, her clothes, mine, my brother’s. I took some clothes andfilled a little sack, as much as I could carry, and we left. I went with acompanion.

When I got to Karkasa, that’s what the region is called, my sister’sgod-mother, many campers, and many other people were there. Andher boy said to me: “Your sister died”. Like that, suddenly. “A!” I could-n’t stand on my feet. And her god-mother told me: “Don’t listen to him.He is crazy, he doesn’t know what he is saying”.His mother scolded him,but it was true. The child was young and didn’t know that he shouldhave hid it. In fact, as I was in Anatoli looking from far away, I had seenthe coffin, the cover of the coffin they had outside the door… I didn’tget there in time to see her alive. And she wasn’t in such a bad condi-tion when I left. We went, we buried her. The baby stayed, with its fa-ther, and the two elderly, the parents of the father. They took the babyafterwards.

My father came later searching for me. He left Messara. And my fa-ther came looking for me and my brother and my sister as well. Whenhe went through Tapes, a village, they said to him: “Someone died andshe is one of Samprovalaki’s daughters”, without knowing that he was myfather, Samprovalakis was his last name. My father dropped to the


ground and stayed there. He thought “There is no other Samprovalakisin the villages, my married daughter died”.

My sister was fourteen years old, fifteen, when my mother died andin her sixteen’s she got married. In her seventeen’s she gave birth and inher eighteen’s died. And the poor guy started from there to come to findus and he gathered us, whoever he found, and took us and we went toKato Horio and we stayed there.

At Kato HorioMy father came, he took us, the two children, and we went to Pana-

gia, in Messara, towards Viannos, beyond Viannos. My father was work-ing there as a tinsmith and tinker. He had left my other sister Despinathere, and came to pick us up and took us with him to go to Panagia. Westayed 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 routethat was permitted, because there was a neutral zone and we could notuse the road down below, so we went through Lasithi. From Messara wewent high, high in Lasithi and went down to Tapes and came to Ier-apetra. Great trouble, we walked for four days. We spent the nights inwhatever village we reached so that we could continue again the nextmorning. The people that saw us, welcomed us, gave us food, drinksand a place to sleep. I have no complaint. We finally went and stayed inKato Horio for a year.

The people form Mournies had been ordered to go to Kato Horio, thepeople 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, didn’t go because my father worked. Thenthe Germans brought some tanks with oil and raki and my father fixedcanisters for them. They took them and sent them to Germany. He wasa 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 Germansaw me and said: “Arbeit, piccolo, Arbeit”. All the Germans and Italianslearnt that I knew how to do the job that my father did, and they cameeveryday and said to me: “Freulain, Arbeit canestro”. What could I do?I fixed them.


The Italians had brought mules from Italy, huge animals, and theylent them to us to come here and harvest. We took permission to comeand gather the olives. They gave us two mules because my father was ac-quainted with the garrison commander and they knew me also becausewe were from the burned villages. They gave us two mules very tall, Iwas going like that to reach the saddle56. But they weren’t vicious, theywere like sheep, meaning that you shouldn’t be afraid. The interpretertold me so: “Don’t be afraid…” he said to me “…Vangelio, do not be afraidfor 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” aswe 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 severalyears. And there was an incident with a friend of mine; we played to-gether and I was pretending to be Golfo and he was pretending to beTasos. In connection with this boy that I played with and I was asked toplay 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 acontract with my husband. When the time came to pay the tax we hadto give thirteen thousand drachmas then. When I went to pay, I saw asmall sign like that where “Manolis Stefanakis” was written on top. Iwas wondering, to ask, not to ask? I come near and he says to me: “Yesplease?” I say: “I came to pay the tax, I have the papers with me”, and hesays to me: “Where are you from?”. I say: “I am from Crete”. He says: “Iam from Crete also”. “And are you by any chance from Kato Horio?” Isay to him. He says: “My Vangelio! My Vangelio!” and he grabs me andkisses me. The employees got crazy. “Howmany years have passed sincewe last met?” He say: “Do you remember that play we used to play?”. I amsaying: “Of course I remember it. I remember also Marika Diakaki, andAngela, and Papadaki, I remember everyone, but we got lost Manoli, wegot lost”.And we exchanged letters for some time with all the friends ofthe group, then we got lost. I was to pay thirteen thousand and theygave me back three thousand [laughing]. Well, I had some adventuressometimes that I don’t remember.


56 She raises her head high.

Sometimes I recall them when I cannot sleep at night; all the previ-ous 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 therewere so many troubles in the villages. The villages are destined fromthe past to have troubles, because there are good and bad times.

In Kato Horio, we rented a house and stayed there. I was fifteen, six-teen years old then, around there. The girls now, all my friends, went tohigh-school. One day I wanted to go to Ierapetra to do some shopping,and they said: “Come Evangelia, let’s take you with us”.And I say: “Whatwill I do after I finish the shopping?” They said: “We will take you to ourdesk with us and when we finish we will go shopping to help you and wewill leave together”. There were no cars then. On foot. When the teachersaw 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 houseburned down, and the teacher asked for permission from the childrensaying: “Children, let’s spend half an hour to talk to the girl, so you willhear as well and stop complaining that you have troubles”. And theteacher asked me to speak and I told the whole story of my case and hesaid: “I undertake your coming. I will put you through University, I willput you through University so you will become whatever you want. Yourfather should get in touch, since you don’t have a mother. I will put youthrough University”. But I had not finished the preliminary school. Mymother had died and he said to me: “What can I do for you my younglady. It’s a pity, it’s a pity! I am very sorry!”

Back to the villageThey 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 somegarments and we dressed. That is, our life since our childhood wasn’tgood: very depressing, to work in the fields, to carry sheaves, “dematia”as we call them, to go the threshing floor. Over there, behind you, therewas a round hole and I went down, put straws and we pushed themthrough. I couldn’t get up afterwards, because of the straws that werelow and I couldn’t reach to go up. I was yelling “Help” and a butcherpassed by that had some little sheep coming all around the hole to eat


and I was saying to them: “Here I am! Here, here, down below, in thebarn!”. 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 greatersorrow 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 andgo to Gdoxia to gather olives. My father was married then. We had aherb that is called flax, and we had a machine that I used for poundingit and we were spinning it to make garments and various sacks. Thattime we had to pound a thorny herb called “chnara”, the one that has thebig leaves, to make ropes to tie the goats. How to tie them? There wasno commerce then, nothing. My childhood was a drama but I was care-free then and I miss that now.

We renovated our houses little by little and we moved in. Those thathad remained unburned provided hospitality to persons that hadnowhere to sleep, until they built their own house. All houses were im-provised, improvised. We built our improvised house and now it shakeswhen I step on the floor. We kept saying that we would fix it later. Itdidn’t happen. And it remained in that condition. When I was pregnantwith my Giorgos we fixed it, again temporarily. The house was not builthere. I was pregnant with Giorgos when I was carrying stone and soil tobuild it. There was lumber distributed to those whose houses had beenburned. They distributed lumber, corn, corn bread, various things,clothes, dresses, blouses and other items they had collected. To all thevillages that had been burned, to whoever had a house that had beenburned. Our house was burned and we fixed it and we fixed the roofhastily along with my father and all the family let’s say. And my hus-band was helping me, we all worked together. I got married in ’50. I wastwo years older than my husband. Manolis Kimakis was his name andhe was from Gra Ligia. I gave birth to two children, and I raised themby myself; I had no one to help me. I got married in ’51 and by the endof the year I gave birth to Giorgos. I had the baby and wanted to makea 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 dosome work, whatever I could. These were nice years. We planted toma-


toes, my husband was such a hard worker that didn’t let me go to thefield to spread sand with the shovel. We had truckloads of sand that wespread all over the field with a shovel so as to provide warmth for ourtomato plants. Our tomatoes were open – air.

My husband learnt to drive in the army and he was telling me to sendhim money to have a professional driving license issued, as it finallyhappened and then came back. We went to the field and we had to har-vest. My husband asked somebody that had a car to come from thereand take him. He said to him: “Manoli come, please, come, we will agreeon 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 todrive, and so he left. I then got away from here and went and stayed inMirtos. There, I gave birth to my second son, because my husband’s jobwas there: the truck he was driving was there. He used to come hometired and for three to four months he used to sleep right on the manureand the ground olive stone that he loaded. And he said: “What’s hap-pening Evangelia? I will either quit or you will come to Mirtos”. Whatshould 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 wascalled psoriasis and it was from the knees all the way down. My headand my hands with sores. It is difficult to describe it to you, if I went likethis57, something came off the size of a boot, a scab, “kakado” as we callit. Anyway, I followed a treatment. For forty – five years I was wander-ing from doctor to doctor, to the dermatologists, to Athens, here in Her-aklio, the whole Crete. Nothing. And my doctor made an appointmentfor me with someone that was from Germany and was with him at theuniversity. He said to me: “You will go to Heraklio and you will ask forthe dermatologist” and I went and found her. I went and she gave me anointment; I still have this ointment. In fifteen days I was well. In fifteendays I realized that ointment was wonder-working. I went afterwardsand found him and thanked him and I went to the dermatologist alsoand thanked her too.

Today, the village here is full of Germans, they come. According to


57 She rubs her leg.

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 thatthe complaint of Greece and all the people is about the big heads, thosethat are in command, like Hitler then, the great ones, Mussolini, I don’tknow 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 comehere. Is it possible that they wanted to leave their houses in Germany tocome to Greece and kill people? They didn’t want to. Other people or-dered them. That is, I myself confronted them in this manner, I don’tknow about the others.


Yiannis Samprovalakis

The story of our village has been told by so many that if I tell thesame too, you will end up from that with a general conclusion.

I hardly knew my mother; she died before the war, in ’40, and leftme six years old.

The Germans at the villageI was here with my sister Evangelia. My father was with my other sis-

ter. I was about ten years old, I was nine to ten years old then, but I re-member them. And when the German came, they surrounded thevillage and they came to our house too: “Where daddy?”My father hadtold us then: “If I am in Ierapetra, you will say that I am in Heraklio, if Iam in Heraklio, you will say that I am elsewhere”. And since they askedme: “Where daddy?” I say: “Males”. Males was full of rebels; they hadcome down from the mountains and were heading towards Ierapetrato… They were there, all the rebels had descended and I say: “Males”.And my sister says: “Males? No!… Candia, Heraklion!”What should wedo? Even the president of the village came to tell them that my fatherwas 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 vil-lage: farther up from here, there is an almond tree that produces tiny al-monds and it is called “vasvoula”. And they took us down to “vasvoula”,close to a mulberry tree. They gathered the people there, the men. Theytook me there with the men that they intended to execute in Sfakoura.

There was a pathway going down, where the church is now and wherethey have the cemetery. The rebels had descended from there. When thebattle in Simi took place, at that time, fifteen to twenty rebels had comedown. They came down the hill and they were visible from here; both weand the Italians saw them. They came down. As soon as they hid in thetrees, they did again the same route and came down again. And theykept descending and walking around the hill, to look as if they weremany, even if the rebels were fifteen. Someone came here and the Italianscalled me too as an interpreter. At that time, we, the children, spoke Ital-

YIANNIS SAMPROVALAKIS 139

ian fluently. They chased us away from the radio that was farther down;Kommandantur was opposite the coffeehouse. They were chasing thechildren away from the radio, so as not to listen to the news. To make along story short, it was at that point where the rebels were coming downfrom the mountain that they wanted to go and kill the villagers.

We were gathered there by the “vasvoula” in order to be taken up af-terwards. They say to me as I was a child: “Yianni, what are you doing withthe grown up?” I say: “They caught me too”. There was the German guardand 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 otherchildren. As soon as I was on the other side, in the yard with the otherchildren, I placed my back on the wall and I was looking sideways in casethe Germans see me and I turned around to leave. As soon as I walked tensteps farther down, I jumped into the yard that is on the left side: I grabbeda 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 movedto the other housetops and reached another yard, from the back side. Icome here to the house and I tell them: “Let’s get out of here”.

We grabbed a sack and we put dried bread inside until it was half-fulland we threw a piece of cheese inside too (my father was a tinsmith andhe used to go to the folds and tinplate cauldron so we had cheese), Itook a “patiti” (that’s what we call the blanket, patiti) and Evangelia tookone more on her back and we got away from a small road behind thehouse that goes farther down, to the lemon trees. We had a little cow andwe took it and went down from there. But how could we manage to getthe animal through the gardens? There was a big rosebush and the wallwhere 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 andwent outside the village, to the place where the women and the childrenhad gathered, a place we called Stefani’s cistern. There was a cistern tocollect the water to water the fields. All the people, women and chil-dren, had gathered there.

As I was passing from there, more Germans were coming frombelow. Are these details not supposed to be told? But this incident has


its value too. Because when the Germans came up, there was a donkeyon 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 thehead and killed it and everyone got frightened! It was then that theywere all devastated. They figured: “No-one should speak a word here,not even the donkey!”. They killed it in front of me. Right there. Every-body saw it.

We headed left to another pathway and we went away, we reachedthe gullies, in order to go beyond the river, for the river was the bound-ary of the neutral zone. We crossed the river and went away to the op-posite side. What details should I mention? As to where we stayed? Thefact that we made a shelter to stay, under the carob trees? Where? Thatwe left and went to the other side to go towards Anatoli and that we hada 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 fitin one village, in Anatoli? There was no room. They will even eat theirlegs too. We stayed at doctor Papadakis’ house, the first house as weenter 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 toher and she breast-fed it for me. That’s the baby of my sister Maria thatdied. But the neighbours turned me away and told me to go kill the babybecause it cried and we were going to betray them. And there was Aliki,Evangelia’s sister, that her mother breast-fed her then. And she alsobreast-fed the baby we had at the time, but it died after six months. Thenwe were scattered, his father took it; our father came and took me withmy brother and we went…

The death of my sister MariaI will take you there also; I will take you over there also. But I speak

fast. As far as I know, my older sister’s child was eight and a half to ninemonths 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.

in Apano Simi, in Kato Simi and in Apano Simi. They got away fromthere, went through the mountains, came down to Males (that’s why theGermans arrested me, because I said that my father was at Males andthey thought: “He is a rebel”). And they went through the mountain,came down to leave for Ierapetra, to go to Agios Nikolaos, to escapefrom their gunfire.

My sister, that was left alone over there, came down on foot, havingher 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 ex-hausts the hands. Imagine a woman to come down, come to the villageand go to her house, her husband’s house, and to see it burned and toreturn to our house and see it on fire. She faints in the yard. She faintsin the yard. Look now, I am giving this interview today that they aregoing to bring her husband from Athens to bury him tomorrow morn-ing [Sobs]. Her husband will be buried tomorrow morning inside thishouse. Pardon me for being emotional…

She fainted in there; it must have been two o’ clock at noon, half pasttwo? The baby’s crying woke her up at four o’ clock and she had it in herarms. She fell down in the yard senseless. She got up and the sun was set-ting. As she needed time to figure out what to do, she left the village tak-ing the same road we had taken when we crossed the river. When shewas 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, couldsomehow be identified from a distance. She turns, she sees a stream onthe opposite side; the stream is about fifty, sixty meters wide? “Come thisway”, he says to her. Some families were hiding there and there was acousin of hers, from her husband’s side, and he called her. She turnedaround making a circle and went over there. And she saw a blanket on theground, let’s call it “patiti” again, and two lines of children, covered. Thiswas the month of September. He says: “Put the baby here” and they gaveher to eat a bite of bread. Did she have any appetite to eat? And the babywas covered with the blanket, she was not. It was September and she wasfreezing to death over there. She was also suffering from her heart forshe had fainted. The woman slept over there. In the morning she hadforty degrees fever. What could they do? How to cure it? He says: “If you


see Anagnostalakis Giorgos, tell him that his wife is sick; he should come tothe river farther down and we will get her across to the other side for himto come and take her”. He says: “They should take her to Christakis’ cot-tage” and they took her. That is a cottage on the other side of the river thatthey used every time they went to reap. My brother-in-law took her fromthere and he says: “Give me your donkey to take her to the doctor in Ana-toli”.They didn’t give it to him. He goes to another one, he asks for an an-imal, no-one was found to give him his donkey to put her on its back andtake her to the doctor. And he took her on his shoulders, crossed the riverand took her to Anatoli. But how many hours would it take him? Wouldit take him three hours? Would it take him four hours? And with his wifeas a load… I and my sister Evangelia went there and found her, becausemy father was with my other sister in Panagia, at the village. He was acraftsman, a tinsmith and a tinker, and he was working over there. Hewas away, went there and worked to get away from the evil too.

At Anatoli, after some days, I don’t remember exactly, in a month’stime, my sister died. We buried her there and we gave away the littlecow we had. Our brother-in-law sold it to a man from Lasithi for ninehundred drachmas. With the nine hundred drachmas, he ran andbought medicines, a hand-full of “antemprines” and aspirins. Therewere still “antemprines” and he took them (they were for malaria). Whatcould they do to a woman with a heart disease, whose heart had sufferedso many upside-downs? And she had a cold and was sad too. Thereshould have been a modern hospital! Because if the hospital was likethe 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, walkedthrough Katharo, came out from Katharo, went down and came to Ana-toli. 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 Maria’s mother-in-law and of her babyWhat did we learn after we returned? People came secretly, they did-

n’t 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


and eat it. Then my brother-in-law, whose father and mother were stillalive, decided to come here to the village to find something. As soon asthey went close to their houses and found them burned, the old ladypassed out. And she falls in the same yard that my sister had fallen andfainted. There… “Hurry up Giorgos and bring water!”He found a pieceof a broken jug and went to the running tap and they gave her somewater. They even put out a cigarette on her hand but she didn’t move.And they found a door that was detached, placed her on it and theytook her immediately to the cemetery. They lifted a tombstone and puther 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 re-turned 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 vil-lage, the neighbour looked after it. The women, however many theywere, took turns in helping and breast-feeding the baby. Each one gavesome milk. It died also. It died too from hardship. Which child woulddie today if it had boxes of milk and a nursing bottle to feed it? No-onedies because he doesn’t drink his mother’s milk. No-one dies. At thattime however, that one died too. And it was buried too over there. That’swhat happened to us! What else?

But then again we lost our grandmother, Andreopouli Maria. We lefther sleeping in the little house, the house with the oven. We thoughtthat the Germans wouldn’t see her (the gathering took place right out-side), that the Germans wouldn’t see her, but who would have thoughtthat they would burn the house! And my uncle, Giorgis Andreopoulis,went later and dug at that point, took out her bones and took them tothe cemetery. What shall I recall first? Details? What details? I myselfhave these few and I was only a child, nine to ten. And I cannot bringmyself round, because I am choking with injustice, I am choking withanger, my sufferings: barefoot, I was an orphan too. But how many havethere been, just like me and even worse, that didn’t have a mother or afather. How many? But the German didn’t see these things, he madegrr!59 and didn’t see them.


59 He is making the noise of the machine gun.

Back at MourniesAfter we came back from Panagia, we went to Kato Horio. They

caught my father in Kato Horio; “Hey, Giorgi, you still have three childrenand they are young, go get married so that your children will have amother, 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. Whereto go? We stayed in a lodgement, in a “katalima”, that’s what we call theabandoned houses, “katalima”. We repaired it and we temporarily stayedthere. Then I went (we have farther down from here something like aforest but they burned it) and we cut down four pine-trees. And onehad a saw and a guillotine and I went and helped my father and thatperson and I pulled the saw from the lower part. I didn’t have thestrength 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 theother one was from the lower part, in order to cut it into slices. Every-thing, these planks, the beams, the middle-beams (not in this house60,in the other one, my house on top) went through my hands. And tocarry (it should have been three kilometres, let aside the zigzag, it isthree kilometres as a straight line) the beams. I used to hold two beamson my shoulders and walk. The beams must have been two meters longand thick like our leg and even thicker.

We didn’t have bread to eat. When we came here to Mournies wefound our little stock house destroyed. The lumber was burned, the soilhad fallen, the… had fallen. Our pithoi though, two, three, were intactand we saw that they contained barley, wheat and other stuff we used tostore. We see the barley. They removed some from the upper layer andit was roasted, the lower part was yellowish. We say: “We will take it outto eat it”. We took out that barley to eat it and it smelled smoke. Theygrinded some and we made a trial-bread. It was impossible to eat it. Itwas as if the ashtray was passing through the end of the cigarette, that’show it smelled, that’s how it smelled. What to do, what not to do, wehad to eat the flour! It was bread kneaded by hands. It was around fiftykilos and even more. “We must eat it”. They came up with an idea and


60 His sister’s Evangelia.

thought: “We should go and find carob beans, pound them, put them inthe trough, pound them to take the water, knead with the water to makeit sweeter”.And we found carob beans, we let them stay in water for twodays, we pounded them, threw them in the water for two days, the carobbean 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 wehad to dry it up, to make it into a rusk: they put it back in the oven tomake it dry. When it got dry, the syrup from the carob beans did notallow 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 thatbread with the carob bean syrup and it smelled like the ashtray, if youleave the cigarettes for two or three days and put some water inside too,that’s how it stank. We ate it because we were hungry! We were hungry!Today they don’t 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. Asif we had any? Was our life better? “Bring me a loaf of bread and breadrolls”. The bread? “Hasiko” bread? Did we ever eat “hasiko” bread? Onlybread made of barley, barley-bread. “Hasiko” is the white bread we eatnow. Would we ever eat “hasiko” bread? Only if my father ever went toIerapetra to buy something. And all the villages I mean, everywherebarley-bread. That’s why we have a strong bone structure we the oldmen. Whereas today we have whole-wheat bread and they don’t like it:so they add seeds too, whole grains of corn and pumpkin seeds, theyeven add cattle fodder… they will neigh at the end.

Another detail to tell: when they had gathered us, the women andthe children down there, there was a man who was dressed womanly tosave himself. And he saved himself. There was a man among the womenand the children and he wore a kerchief, and a skirt, we call it “sako-foustana”. And he was taken for a woman because he wore “stivania”61

(and women too wear “stivania”). He made it. Details. Someone elsemight tell you now other details that may be more significant.


61 Stivania: in Greek, «στιβάνια», Cretan-style boots.

The ItaliansBefore 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. Wewent to the mountain, reached Sfakoura and went to a place farther upthat is called Kilistra. That is where we went. Others went to Mino (it isa settlement high in the mountains). We all left and went up there. Andwe came down at nights, took a few things and lived up there. But thenmy father came up with an idea and everybody dug a hole of rectangu-lar shape on the floor of their houses and placed down a pot of oil, driedbread, two, three blocks of cheese, some olives, a small pot of olives andthen we closed it on the top and it couldn’t be seen on the floor. And wehad 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. TheirKommandantur was in that blue house that is across Tsagataki’s coffee-house. The bakery was in the corner house here, of Markakis. (Theywere) Two hundred eighty. It was on the upper side, overlooking thechurch, among the locust trees. They had camped with their tents, theyhad camped there. Two hundred eighty. That was from the beginning.From the beginning, when the Italians came. They came through Sitiaon foot: neither a “bouf ”, nor a gun shot was heard. And they came upto here. They had guardhouses at Vato, down by the beach of AgiouPanteleimona, and they had advanced even farther. The Germans werefrom there and on. There were two, three companies here. Their cook-ing 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, piccolovieni qua”, meaning, “Young boy come here”. I go there and he says tome: “We have seven ewes and they should be slaughtered. Bring us abutcher to slaughter them and you will take the heads and the legs and thebellies”. I say: “Fine, I will find someone for you”. And I go and find acousin of ours, Rakitzaki Yianni, the poor man died too, and I say tohim: “Eh, Yianni…”, he must have been eighteen years old, in his twen-ties. I say: “Eh Yianni, they have seven ewes to be slaughtered. Do you


know how?” He says: “Of course I know how”. “We will slaughter themand take the heads, you will take four and I will take three. All right?”Hesays: “All right”. And I went and helped him there in the olive trees. Wehung them and we took the heads, the legs and the bellies with the bow-els. They kept the liver and the woolskin. “He will make out of them…”he says “…carpet, the comandante, Caporale Maggiore”. Caporale Mag-giore is the sergeant. Collonello is the second lieutenant.

They gave me a lot after we got acquainted, they called me back andI 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. Andthe last Italian sees me and puts me in front of him. I lean against theother one and he puts me in front of him too. And the other one in frontof him and I almost reached the middle of the line. And as I was pass-ing, the Caporale Maggiore sees me now, but he knows me for he needsme: because a few days ago he said to me: “Vieni qua, comme si chiamaquesto uomo?”. What’s the name of that person? And he was from Riza,the other village up. The Italians went there and said: “Come here”. Theycalled them: “You, you, will bring a bundle of wood down” and they wrotetheir names down. And about ten people from Riza came and broughtwood to the Italians to cook. And then the Caporale Maggiore, the ser-geant, calls me again over there, wanting the name of each one of them.And I say to them: “What’s your name?” and they told me and I told theothers. I did the interpreter as a child. A little child. Since we couldn’twrite, I knew by heart whatever I needed to know. As I was holding theplate (I am going back to the mess again), the cook turns with the ladleabove the cooking pot and sees me; I look at him, he looks at me, buthe 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 givesme 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. Theywanted to ask me for oil to fry onions: “Eh, come on, are you going to fryonions?”. Peppers, peppers, eh! It is amazing how they eat the peppers.They even fry the eggplants! Eggplants, peppers. We didn’t know then.And they sat and ate the fried onions. However, now, we eat them too,


and it is a specialty food too! It is an appetiser. We had friends too: Ihad Mario, I had Pipino, I had plenty. I gave them oil whenever theywanted. 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 Italianfriend, 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”. Hecomes to the house and puts me on his back and takes me to the oldTown Hall (for there was here once a Town Hall, we had a Town Hall,the five villages comprised the former municipality of Mournies). Andthe infirmary was at the Town Hall and they took me there and showedme to their doctor and he takes a scalpel. As soon as I saw the scalper Istarted screaming. One man grabbed my legs, the other two, one fromeach side, held my hands down and another one held my stomachdown: Hrats! And he makes an incision with the scalpel and it didn’tneed much, it was all yellow. And he takes a gauze, places it on top, andmakes a movement with his hand and everything was gone. And then,he takes a piece of wood, puts something like grease on it, I don’t knowwhat, and “tak”, places it on my knee and then ties it up. And he says tome: “Piccolo, andare”, go. I got up and I could immediately stand on myleg, without losing any time.

“They don’t 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 socruel? But we the Greeks too are bad ourselves for we don’t want any-one over our shoulder. How do they say it? Eh, we don’t want anyonebugging us! Why do you come from Germany to conquer Crete? Why?And you Italian. Did I come over there to your village to become yourruler? Did I come over there to do you this? Huns? Why do these gen-tlemen want to take over the oil resources and have the world undertheir authority? To kill old ladies? To kill children? To kill animals? To


62 He shows the inner side of his knee.

respect nothing? That’s why we are the bad ones! And I want us to be thebad ones! I want us to be the bad ones!

I see things as any sensible man sees them. I see that anyone whopasses through here doesn’t come to do us good. Is that enough? Am Idone with that? There is no need to tell the rest. They don’t come to dous good. They don’t come to give us. And they will take back the subsi-dies they give us. They have taken them back. They take from us, theyhave so much to take, a great amount indeed. But to give, they cannotgive. Because they take even the Greek words; they import them, like thecheese, and then they bring them back here as imported ones.

They take our Greek language. “No problem”63, he says. Why don’tyou say: “I don’t have a problem”, only you say: “No problem?”. We don’thave the word “No Problem”. We say64: “We don’t have a problem”.Whatdo they have? Their languages are mixed up. Can the rest of the worldhave what the Greeks have? I will tell you one thing because I am a bitfamiliar with the Byzantine music (I studied it as a hobby, I took my de-gree, I can chant at the church, I read Byzantine music, I interpret it aswell as I can, I am not a great chanter though). Tell me now, I ask you aquestion: which country in the world has its own music and writes itwith its own letters? One, tell me one, that one. Only Greece has thiskind of music. No other country in the world has written music andwritten it with its own letters. Let’s take a meter: if we think of Euro-pean music in terms of length, it might be seventy five – eighty cen-timetres short. It cannot reach it. The Byzantine music is so rich, thatthey who made it knew what they were doing. And all these things theyfind 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 theydidn’t have the means to find what our people find today with the meansthey have. That’s why I am telling you… why don’t the nations that de-scend 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 don’t go where the steppes


63 In English.64 In Greek.

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 wasgoing 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 wheatand barley in Kolekto”. It is a small hill next to Mirtos, two hours onfoot. I was absent from school, in order to take our cow, take the otherone’s 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 andhad to find and load the wood that the plough would dig out. And Iwas 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 thatoverlook Mirtos. My legs are broken because of the wheel barrows thatI used at work. I have constructed it. As a child I was the only one fromthe region. After all, I had not gone to high school because I had nomother, we had no people, I had to provide for the house. I had to pro-vide 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 fieldby myself! Write this down. Because they should have known that, andI should not have had to be absent to go… Here, the children that werein high-school, that were attending high school, left and went to Ier-apetra: they used to find a small room and they cooked to eat for thenext day. What can a child twelve, thirteen years old cook? What doeshe know to cook? Until a child got lost there too, on account of thestove. He had the burning coals in his house to warm himself and diedthere. May God forgive that child too.

Black September65September month, a desert everywhereEverything is silent not a breath is heard


65 Unpublished poem of Mr Samprovalakis, written the 2/9/1993.

Since the machine guns spoke firstThe bodies fell down

September month the streets are desertedSeptember month they burned the villages

And the nightingale never sang againMothers are crying, men and children

September month the Nazis passedAnd these places were ruined

The villages from Mirtos to ViannosInnocent people were gone

September month and the anger burstOf the most horrid and unjust war

And the bloodshed and slaughter took place hereAnd with blood the soil was painted red

September month they had a feastThe wild beasts, the dogs and the hawks

That they found humans for foodIn the villages, the hills and the streams

The world became full of widows and orphansAnd they were spread to streets and mountains

In other villages, in the country, in the cityTo save themselves from the bullets

The mountains, the forests and the slopes sighedAnd the hearts of the young children were broken


For they lost parents, hopes and villagesFor they didn’t have freedom

Then the hearts were broken from the embitterment tooTears, cries and sighs

A lissom tree of freedom growsIn the years of the slavery

Now that the horrible years have passedAnd the nightingale started singing again

Those children are grown up tooAnd they gave birth to other children and the streets are full

And every year one time in SeptemberThose who remained have a memorial service

For those that no priest buriedMay their memory be eternal.


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 didnot harm us at the beginning, we had a potentially friendly relation. Butwhen the rebel movement started in Kato Simi and attacked, the Ger-mans 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 nothingwith us, nothing. They threw a powder inside the house, I don’t know,fired a gun shot and the house was set on fire and burned to ashes. Wewere forced out of our houses, all women and children were pushedback to a distance of four, five kilometres. They gathered all men abovethe age of sixteen and killed them; we went to Ierapetra.

We passed through Gra Ligia, that is before Ierapetra, and we askedfor a place to sleep for it was night already. They emptied a stable andsaid: “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, steal-ing minor things like a carrot, a cabbage, this kind of stuff. We did any-thing we could in order to survive, to stay alive; we had to eat to stayalive. We went afterwards to Ierapetra. We stayed, four people, inside aroom in the city of Ierapetra. And we started begging again there, toone and another. Ierapetra was in a good condition; it was not burnedand the Germans had not killed any. My mother went begging to beable to provide for us.

Germans in the villageI go back to narrate to you what happened that night, the eve before

they burned down the village and when the Germans gathered the peo-ple 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: “Togo and leave you alone?” And my mother replied: “You go, go”. He goesthis way, downhill and meets the godfather of one of his children. He


asked: “Where are you going man66?”. And my father replied: “My wifenow tells me to leave”. He said: “Come on now, stay here…”, my fathernarrated the story to me afterwards, “Stay here my friend, what are we?We will show them our identity cards. We are peaceful, we hurt nobodyand the Germans too will not hurt us”. He stayed.

My mother had a suspicion that my father might have stayed a bitfurther down the street, so she left and went there. My father was sittingand she told him: “Didn’t I tell you to leave?” Tsagatakis, who had bap-tised my sister, said: “Hey, woman, let the man stay. Why are you send-ing him away? It will be worse if he leaves. Why, what have we done? Wewill 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 wasshouting, shouting at my father, and so he left. He had walked less thanfifty, sixty meters downhill and the Germans arrived. Late Tsagatakis,took out his identity card and presented it to them. They beat his handso hard that the identity card and everything else scattered away. Hewas taken along with another seventeen people from the village; theGermans took them outside the village, kept them there for a while andput them down to sit. After twenty minutes approximately, they tookthem 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 didn’t believe they would be executed.There were all illiterate and no-one said: “Hey fellows, do you knowwhere they are taking us?”. For there was a very big well on their routeand the German started wandering on its edge: “What is this thing?”. Imean, the two Germans had been on the very edge and if only they weretouched, if only they were pushed a bit, they would have fallen in andour people would have been free. They didn’t believe it though, for theythought: “Maybe they will not kill us, maybe they take us for compulsorywork, who knows where”.

When they reached the execution place, around fifty meters before,

YIANNIS DAMASKINAKIS 155

66 In this paragraph, where “man” and “woman” is respectively in Greek: «σύντεκνος» and«συντέκνισσα», that is the relation between two persons when one has baptised the other’schild.

a child, twenty years old roughly, realized they were taken for execu-tion and started running. And the German knelt down (for someone ofthem was saved), fired at him and the child was jumping as if it was arooster. He was jumping like a rooster. He died. The others then also re-alised that they were taken for execution but they couldn’t leave at thatpoint for they were blocked. On their way down the Germans werelooser: they had the gun here, there, they walked slowly. And our peo-ple could have even attacked them to capture them! Even to capturethem. But there was no man to organise it, to say: “Folks, they are tak-ing 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?”. Theycould have been captured. But the signal was not given. They were takenup to Kale and were killed.

However, there was a man, Pigiakis67 was his name who was fromMirtos I think (but I don’t know where he got captured), that fell downas soon as he was shot. And imagine that the German came to give himthe coup de grâce in the head and the bullet just missed him. If you arelucky, nothing can stand in your way. He played dead with his handwounded. He thought: “If I move a bit the Germans will kill me”. Andas 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”, hesaid. But the child had lost much blood and as they moved on he passedaway. The child stayed there. Pirgakis survived. He went down, tore hisshirt apart and tied his arm. I don’t think he is alive today. He must havebeen from Mirtos and narrated the facts. He survived, with a brokenarm of course. Who was there those days to tie his arm… and thosewho did, did it wrong. Anyway…

A German had come here, down to my father’s house, two, three daysbefore they burned us down. He was an Austrian professor and couldspeak Greek. And my father told him: “May I offer you a glass of raki?”.He didn’t know what raki was. In any case, he offered him raki, he drankit, and my father also peeled a pomegranate for him that he ate. Andthey sat down here in the yard and he held some little glasses for raki.


67 See narrative Fotini Daskalaki Pigiaki.

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 didn’t want to.Neither did he suspect that a big disaster would happen here and thathe had to take, I don’t know, some food. To load food onto the donkeywe had, take his children and go to the other side, to Anatoli, some-where there. There were no rebels there, the Germans were not chasingpeople, they didn’t kill. The Austrian told him: “Don’t you turn me in forthey will kill me”, yet my father didn’t believe him. He was an Austrianand Austrians were softer. Hitler had drafted them by force. They werenot like the Germans that, as I have read in an encyclopaedia and havethe picture too, they didn’t let a child go. The child was eighteen yearsold, 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 didn’t let him. For Hitler, from what we had heard, usedto 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 whichcase you end up being a coward. He also used to say to German soldiersto stay away from women. He knew that if they would get involved withwomen, there would be some that would extract secrets by selling theirbody and would give them to the enemy. He knew that already and hadtold 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 para-troopers in Crete: their mothers are still in mourning; young men weregone. What did he accomplish in the end? Nothing; he, his family andhis generals committed suicide, there were trials, there were… he spreaddisaster.

The returnWhen we returned from Ierapetra, (I narrate the facts in the sequence

I remember them), we had been liberated by then and had a stable thatwas not burned. It was 3x3 and we were five people inside. We wereforced to go to Mithous to stay where we were given a bigger room. In


68 In broken Greek.

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, thingsthat had no vitamins. As a result, my whole body was covered with pim-ples. Pimples. They didn’t dress me up, they had me sitting on a chairand had me covered with a sheet, mourning, for they said I had the sca-bies: “The child will die for he has the scabies”. A doctor came; I don’tknow if he was a veterinarian, I don’t know what kind of doctor he was.He saw people standing outside, and said: “What is the matter herefolks?”. They replied: “A child inside has scabies”. The doctor understood,came in and said: “How are you doing young man?”. I was too embar-rassed to talk, I didn’t speak. My mother said: “Doctor, the child has sca-bies”. He said: “How do you know?”. My mother replied: “Eh, I know howto tell”. And the doctor said: “You are the one that has scabies in yourhead”. I remember the words he said to my late mother. He took the sheetoff: I was indeed full of sores. He said: “The child is suffering from vita-min deficiency. Give him to eat”.My mother said: “Where will I find it?”.And the doctor replied: “Begging, go about begging”. She took a basketand went begging. And used to say: “I have a child…” and so on. Some-one gave her a glass of oil, others some milk, someone else gave her someraisins or some food he had cooked. Anything they had. She gave mefood for four, five days and I got well immediately. I started feeling bet-ter for it was not a disease. It was due to the lack of vitamins, because Ihad no food, I had nothing and that’s why I was full of pimples.

Hunger and povertyI 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 shoeswhen I went to high-school in Ierapetra. Imagine that the construc-tion of the road from here to Ierapetra started then. So they asked forworkers. 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 fa-ther didn’t know that I was going to go and he didn’t let me, but I toldhim: “The engineer took me with him to help him measure the streets. Ihold the measuring tape, I do nothing and he will give me twelve, thir-teen drachmas a day”. And so he let me. I carried (soil) with a wheel


borrow for fifty, sixty meters. I had a friend that shovelled, I carriedthe load and we threw it away. I worked for ten days and took a hun-dred and twenty drachmas.

We also started progressively to produce oil. We had no special netsto gather the olives and we picked them by hand from the ground; andthey were really tiny ones. We picked them with our hands. All the peo-ple that gathered olives had the ends of their fingers injured from thesoil and the rocks. We had no sheets or nets, as it is now, that we beatthe olives off the trees and gather them. Also, we didn’t have where tomill them. And I remember that they brought from Mithous the millingstones for the oil mill. Each stone weights five or six hundred kilos,maybe seven hundred. How did they bring it? As the stone was circu-lar, they passed a piece of wood through the hole in the centre. Onestick to pass to the other side. They secured the stone with ropes oneach side and gathered around thirty men on each side. They said: “Eh,oop!” and pushed for two meters. And again and again, till they broughtthe stone from Mithous up here on the top. After that, when the stonehad to be taken downhill, and it would start rolling down, the workerswent back to hold it. Bit by bit, they established the first oil mill. Peoplestarted to mill their olives, we produced, we consumed oil and we fooledour hunger.

We picked greens. We had a goat, I don’t know where we had foundit, and we brought it in the house, during the night when we slept, forthey used to steal goats: they stole them, slaughtered them, smokedthem, placed them in oil and ate them. There was great hunger thenand we had the goat indoors. At least, we drank some milk from thegoat. And had some oil that we produced as well.

I remember that when Greece was liberated at the end of 1944, wecame back from Ierapetra, after having been away for a year. And we, thechildren, went and dug the field where they had planted potatoes andsearched again to find small potatoes, the size of almonds. We collecteda handful of them and went to the factory where we cooked them in thehot ash and ate them. We also, as children, collected snails, set a fire out-side, placed the snails on, threw a bit of salt as well and ate them. We wentto the cistern over here and caught and ate crabs. We set up the so-called


“plakes”69 and caught small birds, like thrush and so on: we plucked thebird and ate it on site. There was terrible hunger then. We ate carobs. Weate carobs for their sugar content. I remember that my mother boiledcarobs to extract the syrup, the carob syrup as we said, and used it as asweetener, as sugar. Also, we didn’t have coffee and she roasted chick-peas. She roasted chickpeas, grinded them using a hand mill and pre-pared coffee. I believe this is healthier than today’s coffee, for that onedid 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 hard-tack, from a ship that had sunk. We didn’t wear shoes; as I said we werebarefoot till the age of twelve. It was a desperate situation. Till we startedlittle by little to make something… for we had no products to sell orsalaries and such things to get money from. We sold the oil, we producedoil, we sold the oil and they bought it for free.

My father went to Ierapetra in the morning, with the donkey, carry-ing twenty, thirty kilos of oil. That is nineteen kilometres to go and nine-teen to return, thirty eight. He left four, five o’ clock in the morning togo sell oil and buy two kilos of white bread and the essential goods, suchas a soap and similar stuff. Only the necessary ones, anything he couldbring of the most essentials. We ate the food we had; bean soup, lentilsoup and barley bread. Not that we had anything else; that is what wewere given, that is what we ate. And after the meal, my late mother cuta 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 noclothes to wear, we were cold, we survived. I remember my late fatherwore a pair of trousers and the lining was dismantled and it was full ofpatches of various colours: red, yellow, green, white. That is what he hadand that is what he wore. We had no running water here in the villageand we went to the fountain, to fill up the ewers and bring them hereand have a bath, if we had any. We used that water to cook, to wash, todo everything. Great trouble.


69 A kind of trap.

We went to our fields that were not close but far away, we worked inthe 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 hadto start a fire, to cook. I was in elementary school then and I rememberthat I studied using an oil lamp, being tired all day long, wretched. Aprimitive life, primitive. It was like those documentaries we see sometimes in the cinema, with children eating only bread, naked, wanderingaround and fishing; that is how we lived. At least in our case that wewere 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 youhave 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, wecould find something to eat all the time. Some greens, a glass of milk, afew carobs, a thrush or a rabbit the elder ones killed when they wenthunting. We always had something to eat, something, a bean soup per-haps for some people gave us beans. Some people in Ierapetra had beansthat they brought to us; we were helped.

It was very difficult of course the first year. Then we started growingour own plants: we planted cabbages, “filades” as we call them, and afew potatoes, for our needs. The goat gave birth to one kid that we savedso as to have two goats. We therefore had two goats to drink milk fromand so we gradually made it to this day.

We managed to survive, to stay alive. Then the high-school startedagain and we went. We left afterwards and went to Athens. I managedto finish high-school there in Athens, went and finished “Anotati Em-poriki”70, 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 hastwo boys. And life continues as I raise my daughter’s children. I love mychildren. Why do I love them? Kazantzakis says that we love our chil-dren for they are the continuation of ourselves. That is why we lovethem. We live for them, we fight for them. Anything we do is for ourchildren and we try so that they will not go through the tragic situa-tions we had to go through.


70 In Greek: «Ανωτάτη Εμπορική», which means “School of Supreme Commercial Studies”.

Victimized relatives and the crosses at the doorsNow, what else is there to say? I haven’t said it all, for no matter what

casuistic description you provide (don’t know if I said that right), youwill omit something for there have been so many events. There wereGermans in Kato Simi who killed a pregnant woman with her unbornchild. Yet, there was another German, when they were burning downKato Simi that heard a woman delivering and said: “What is happeninghere?”. They told him: “A woman is delivering”. He understood, got in-side and had a sit. He said: “The midwife, and the midwife alone, willstay”. He then got a German to stand outside, as a guard, till she gavebirth. He helped her get up, take the child and leave and then theyburned 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 onand fell down… These are situations that scarred me as a child. Theyhave scarred my soul, my heart [Sobs].

Maria’s father, Michalis Papakonstantinakis had a mill, a short dis-tance outside Mithous (the area is called Apoliana), and there was a childin there also. They told him: “Go away because the Germans kill”. “I amnot going anywhere, they will do nothing tome, I have raki, I have walnuts,I have such things. I will treat them. Why would they hit me?” The childtold him: “Go away because I have learned that they kill”. “I am not leav-ing”. 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. TheGermans came, and my uncle went with the tray. They gave a kick to theunderside of the tray and it went up to the sky. The child says that hewas slaughtered. Why? Because they buried him and when we came backafter the occupation to dig up the body, his head was not found. And theboy 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 willsee them in the monument in the square. And they caught them bothand killed them. As she didn’t have a husband, she was left all alone anddeserted. And she took soot from the fireplace and painted her face, herhands, her house, everything, that is a complete blackness. Because thatwoman said: “What is the point in living?”. So she went away from here,


went to a cottage down to St. George. She had animals and chickens in-side, 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 madecrosses which they placed on the exterior of the houses. They nailedcrosses outside the houses and as you walked from here on, you couldsee one cross, two crosses, one cross, one cross, in all the houses. Therewere eighteen people killed, not just a few. Eighteen people.

Leaving the villageHowever, 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 healthcentre, had no men willing to marry… but we had girls. Well, when theyoung men were drafted, they stayed in Athens. They argued: “Whatam 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 inAthens 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 wesay: “What do we do?”. Let’s go to Athens”. And we got up and left; almosthalf the village went to Athens. We found jobs, we built a house, we soldall our fields here, the best fields for free, and went to Athens to marrythe 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, theyounger one. We left, went to Athens, they got married, they made theirfamilies. I went along with them, I managed to study as I said, trying bymyself, it was a big fight, big fight, that is, working and studying. Whatshould I do? Afterwards, the economic situation gradually began to im-prove for we began working. In the meantime, I found and took over anaccounting office and I had good wages immediately. They gave me an-other firm later and I was working hard. I was chief financial officerthere and I was making good money. I managed to educate my son atthe “University of Economics”71 and sent him to England where he got


71 In Greek: Οικονομικό Πανεπιστήμιο.

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 fromthe “School of Supreme Industrial Studies”72 and works in a shippingcompany. He is doing all right, thank God. I got a house that belongedto my parents, the ground floor, and managed striving to build theupper floor and give it to my daughter. Also, in Evia I had a small cot-tage built in a property I had got from my father-in-law. And so, lifegoes on.

The ItaliansThe Italians were conquerors as well but we never felt oppressed, be-

cause they were people that had fun, played guitars, sang, kept com-pany with our men, went to the cafe and drank raki together with ourpeople and so on. They never oppressed anyone. They stole chickensand if they found a woman that was available, they went with her. TheGermans never. We and the Italians are of the same kind: “una facciauna razza” and so we lived happily. The Italian came down here andsaid “Good morning”, “How do you do”, “All right”. My mother, I don’tknow what they called her, used to sit outside and we treated him toraki, he drank it, we offered him dry fruit if we had, everything we had,I don’t know, because we still had food before they burned us down. Hedrank the raki, said “Goodbye”, waved, called my mother “siniora” andleft, heading to the cafe. We went to the tents they had set up here in thevillage. We went to the tents they had and stayed, and I remember thatI went inside their tents, sitting there, looking around and staring atthem. I did not know what occupation meant and I did not know whatthey had cοme to do here. I was a small child and did not understandwhat they told me: conquerors arrived etc. The Italians arrived here,who knows why they arrived. With their horses, their own ovens and wehad a good time with the Italians.

I even remember an incident in Mirtos, where I had an uncle whowas a doctor, Papageorgiou was his name. He narrated it to me after-


72 In Greek: «Ανωτάτη Βιομηχανική (Σχολή)», which literally means “School of Supreme In-dustrial Studies”.

wards. What Italians were doing: they gathered people from there andtook them to compulsory labour, to do tasks for them. However, a localwanted to gather his olives, I don’t know what he wanted, and said: “I am“melatos”. But “sick” in Italian is “malato” and not “melato”. And he kepton saying: “But I ammelatos, I ammelatos”. The Italian asked him to goto the doctor and he says: “Let’s go”. They went to the doctor, who wasone of our people, and he said: “Doctor, I am in pain”. He blinked oneeye and said: “I am sick, I am in pain, I am sick, I am in a mess, in a verybad condition”. The doctor pretended that he examined him and said tothe Italian: “Go, and let him go for he is sick”. The Italian insisted. Andmy uncle told me that he gave the Italian such a slap in the face, that hisbody was all shaken: “How dare you say that to me, I am a doctor!”. Heslapped him. And the Italian could have killed him since he was carry-ing a gun but he got up and left. That is why I am saying that the Ital-ians were not bellicose. Those Italians were for singing. Song, guitarsand songs. We didn’t feel the occupation and we thought that Germanswould be like that too, yet things changed with the Germans. Germansare 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 peo-

ple who were wild and nasty and behaved badly) were not to be blamedin the slightest. During the Papadopoulos’ dictatorship, were the citizensto blame? We, the citizens, were not to blame. It was his fault and ofthose surrounding him, who supported him for obvious reasons, to em-bezzle. They are to blame, it is really their fault. They were a minority.The Germans now, I don’t really like them, but not for this fact. I justthink they are cold people, I believe they don’t have the feelings thatother people such as Italians, Greeks, nations closer to the Mediter-ranean have. I think they are wild, that they don’t have the feelings wehave. Cold people, that is what I think, cold people.

I remember I did German in “Emporiki” and when the Germancame inside to teach us, it was as if Hitler was entering. He had a wildlook and we believed that we would eat us the hour of the lesson. Oncethe bell rung and the lesson was finished, he became soft like a fig, he


smiled. I mean, I want to say the following: that the Germans were menof duty. That is how they restored Germany and lent money to Amer-ica. And you see now the productivity of Germany, a country that wascompletely destroyed and flattened. The German heavy industry, theautomobiles; Germany today produces everything, it is first in worldproduction, in industrial production. Because people are disciplinedand their language too is disciplined: he never tells you: “I will sit towrite at the table”. He will tell you: “I will sit at the writing table”. Whenthe German works he doesn’t smoke. He will be working for eight hours.I had an incident where we had an American and a German: the Ger-man used to come half an hour before he started work, to change, toput on his working uniform etc. If the work was at eight, he started fiveto eight, struggling with the machinery till the time he had to leave, let’ssay four. Neither meal nor a cigarette, unless there was a break for thatsort of tasks. The American used to come, with the cigar in the mouth;he started working with the gloves, they became greasy with greasefalling here, he smoked, he did this, did that. Americans are one thing,Germans another. Now why are the Americans richer? Because theyfound good subsurface, good soil and people to exploit. America is nowin crisis and will face hunger if the outside resources will be cut off. ButAmerica has equipped the entire world, is a superpower today, and noone can mess around with America. And because it’s a superpower weduck our heads and we do whatever it wants. It drains our resourcesand gives us crumbs, as in Brazil lets say... I don’t know the other coun-tries that have good subsoil. It places its own people on the top, likeMusharraf… what is his business now in Pakistan, now that they killedBhutto. They placed Musharraf there to do whatever America wants,for the exploitation of the resources. And only there? In other countriestoo, in other countries too. Everywhere. And America lives richly andeveryone 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 outto oppose America let’s say, they will get the Turks to attack us. It doesnot make sense. They will get the Turks to attack us from the islandsand 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


Simitis said: “We thank the Americans”. Small nations and generallypoor people... Eleftherios Venizelos said “Black is the fate of poor na-tions”. Well, black is the fate of the poor nations, black is the fate of thepoor people, black is the fate of all the financially weak people. If you arenot strong, they don’t take you into consideration today that we livethrough a materialistic age. Mao Tse-Tung said that: “Political powergrows out of the barrel of a gun”. If you are militarily strong they take youinto consideration, otherwise they clout you on the head. This is a stan-dard 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 Damask-inakis works, not solely because he has to, but as a hobby too and thathe has alternatives, he doesn’t oppress you. For he says: “If we oppresshim he will leave”. Whereas, in the other case the employer’s attitude is:“Hit him! Do not care, he has no place to go, hit him”. The poor, the poornation, the poor nations, the poor people, unfortunately.

Germans and the resistanceWhen the Germans came, before the evil in 1943, they stayed at

school. They didn’t hurt us. Then the rebels’ movement began beatingand striking and it was then that the Germans started and caused thedevastation. Up here on the roof there was a German, holding the binoc-ulars and I asked him, as a small child that I was: “What is this?”, and hetold me: “Hamm, kom, kom”, come here, and he placed the binocularsin 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: “TheGerman gave me...” I also passed by one day from the school and an of-ficer saw me; he was wearing a cap and I looked at him, he looked at mealso and smiled. He came close and patted me at the head and I realizedthat he asked me to wait; he went inside and brought me a candy. E, hemust have thought: “It is a small child, I am not in danger”.

The first evening Germans arrived here, this has to be said, we weresleeping at home, when the Germans knocked at the door, at twelveo’clock in the night. They came in and took everything: blankets,woollen blankets, finely woven blankets, sheets (that were not easy tofind then), pillows. They took from the entire village and not only from


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 helmetsand so on. We swallowed our tongue. They opened the wooden chestand took everything. They had people outside, soldiers, who loadedthem up. They loaded and took everything. When the Germans showedup, the evening they arrived here, they were spread in the entire villageand took blankets, bed-sheets, etc, because they wanted to cover them-selves. That was the first wicked thing they did to us. Eh, we said thatthey took the bed covers for they had nothing to cover themselves, letus 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 after-wards for the reason that we had rebels. We had rebels that inflictedgreat damage to them which is why they started revenging. They be-came furious, furious. Prior to that, there was the Battle of Crete to oc-cupy Crete, where we also killed there five six thousand paratroopersand generally, they saw us as mortal enemies.

The only part of the world that Germans had occupied and had aGeneral 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 Ger-man fluently and was dressed like a German, and with the help of two,three Cretans, who were armed that night. They thought: “Let’s go for it.They will either catch us and smash us, or we will take the General”.Andthe Englishman, who was dressed as an officer, got off the German sol-dier from the car, and said to him: “Go, I will drive”, and so he did.Andthe other ones went quickly from behind in the car and said to the Gen-eral: “You are in custody, do not move”. The ones behind had knives andpistols. The Englishman told him: “Do not move for we will kill you, doyou see at the back? See for yourself, look behind”.He saw people with bigmoustaches, with knives and pistols. They took him outside Heraklion,to Chania, I do not know where they were, they took him out wherethey had prepared a... He left the jeep there and they took him to a sub-marine to take him down to the Middle East. And the Englishman lefta signboard saying that the work had been done by him, the English-


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 thatthey should not make reprisals. They feared for reprisals.

And so, the rebels’ movement in Crete was one of the few. Becauseafter 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 move-ment of Crete was one of the top ones. They caused great damages to theGermans. They caused great damages.

If Crete had been equipped properly, Hitler would not have occu-pied it. We had no weapons. We asked for weapons and could not findany. Cretans went to fight with rakes, with mattocks and they killed.Well, if they had weapons and were armed at the airport and the Ger-mans dropped (the paratroopers), no one would have survived. Theywould 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 wasgiven at the airport and they killed all those who were there with rakesand this kind of stuff. And it was after the paratroopers were droppedthat they occupied Crete. But they fought a battle, a great battle, to oc-cupy Crete. And no man had stepped his foot on the mountains of Creteat the time; they were inaccessible, with a rough terrain and the Ger-mans couldn’t advance. Certainly there were traitors too who led themto the places where the rebels were and battles took place. But in all na-tions there exist traitors too. From the old times, there has been Efialtis.


Giorgos Doksanakis

Since the time we were born and saw the sun, as we say, there hasbeen poverty. Not like now of course that people live in great comfortand are financially well off. At that time, most of us were barefoot, wear-ing rags, with a crew cut, until the age of sixteen, seventeen. I mean, wehad no money to drink a coffee, we had no money to buy bread at thattime. Until 1940, that is, during my childhood, we used to come fromSfakoura to the school here in Zourva73 (those years are far back ofcourse) and we didn’t have anything to eat: we ate bread and oil andsome other food that didn’t have any nutritional value.

In 1940, that is, after the occupation started, most people and I ofcourse, and specially I during the occupation, lived difficult years be-cause we were a poor family. We and our parents were forced to workas labourers to provide for us. When the occupation started, there wasnothing except for carob beans and dried bread. So the occupationcame, the Italians came, the Germans came later. The Germans didn’tcome here immediately: a company of Italians came to Mournies and toMirtos and a group to Vatos; that was all of them. Every day during theoccupation, the Italians came and asked for bread, chickens, younggoats, potatoes, everything. We tried to wheedle them into bringing ussea biscuits (they had some sea biscuits they used to eat). Tough yearsas you see.

After the events of Simi, the Greek flag is raisedSo, ’43 arrives, when the big attack took place, when the Germans

came. The Germans didn’t treat us badly at the beginning. Before thebattle of Kato Simi, earlier, they had caught two Germans that were ina guardhouse at Kato Simi. They had gone just to take some fruit to eat,they didn’t have a bad intention. They executed the Germans at KatoSimi and we were present at Apano Simi when they carried them deadbefore us. They had placed them upon two horses and went somewhere


73 Riza is comprised of three settlements: Sfakoura, Zourva and Kaimenos. e narrationtakes place in Zourva.

and threw them away. The same day, that is about the 11th of Septem-ber, there was a group of people including rebels too that tried to re-cruit men that were from Apano Simi. I was there too, watching all thoseevents. This team took as many as they could, whoever wanted to gowith them voluntarily of course, and they set up the battle at Kato Simiand killed the Germans. On the same day (I was a big boy, I must havebeen seventeen years old in ’43) they came down. We had heard thatthe rebels had come down to Riza. I went with another boy from Siminow, on foot, and we passed by from the settlement of Kaimenos wherethe rebels had injured an Italian.

We went, along with the other kid far away, to the flag that the rebelshad raised at Sfakoura. We reached Sfakoura, on that hill, and saw theflag indeed that they had raised: the Greek flag upon an almond tree. Alittle farther away, in a plateau, in the plain let’s say, were the rebels ofMpantouva. Let’s say that they were seventy, one hundred, I don’t knowexactly 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 wentfarther down and saw the rebels. After an hour or so, Mpantouvas sentanother two rebels to go to Mournies, to take the guns from the Ital-ians (a company of Italians was at Mournies). The Italians didn’t handin the guns. They said to the rebels: “Follow us, we will go to Ierapetro todiscuss it with the headquarters to hand them in”. So, when they went toHaraka they were caught: the Germans were coming here and theycaught and killed those two rebels. The other rebels that were in Sfak-oura, on the hill, put the guns on their shoulder and left in the after-noon, going up, towards the mountain.

The next morning, on the 13th of the month, a group came, a com-pany of Germans from Ierapetro. They started from the settlement ofSfakoura scouting the entire slope looking for probable rebels. Theywent down to the settlement of Sfakoura, at the spring, they drankwater, talked to no one, to no one at all, and left again. This happenedon the 13th of the month.

On the 14th of the month, the events at Amira took place where theykilled people. No one learned anything from here, from our villages,that there was an execution by the Germans at Amira. No one realised

GIORGOS DOKSANAKIS 171

it. No one informed us. We were at Sfakoura with my parents, alongwith all those that were there.

The Germans reach SfakouraOn 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 peo-ple, women and I in particular. And we see a group of Germans fromthe top of Kilistra going down and another group from Karidi and theyjoined at Sfakoura. My mother says: “Go farther up”. At that time, thepresident had my name written down and I used to go to the Germanworks. I was working and I can tell you that I had even learnt five, sixGerman words: greetings, above all greetings, and some things refer-ring to death, “kaput”, things like that. Well, I had gone farther up, I did-n’t calculate it, and the Germans came, went all around the village atonce, the settlement of Sfakoura: they surrounded it and placed the ma-chine guns all around and whatever hens they found, young goats,young pigs, they caught them, lighted fires and cooked. I had left andgone around five hundred meters farther up. I had lain down, I didn’tknow that something bad was going to happen. That moment, a Ger-man airplane passed by, it made circles above the settlement. In aboutten, twenty minutes, as I was lying down in the shade, I saw two Ger-mans coming upwards. They took their gun out, pointed them at meand told me: “Come here”. I went of course, I got up. At that time, I amtelling you, there was the poverty also and we were not properly dressed,and they probably considered that I was very young, I don’t know… Onour way down to the settlement, there was a group of Germans and theyhad the fire burning, roasting chickens. They were telling me on theway: “We want you to give us some almonds”.We had a great productionof almonds at that time and I had, I can tell you, two full pithoi. “Let’sgo”, I said to them. I went and sometimes I understood a few Germanwords.

As soon as I arrived down, where the other German were, I greetedthem in German: “Hail Hitler”. When I said that word, everyone thatwas sitting around the fire got up, hugged me and kissed me. I follownow the two Germans that caught me. We go farther down and outside


our house they had set up a machine gun and they had gathered aboutthirty people and the guard. I stopped there. These two Germans wentin along with the other Germans. I stopped in order to wait for them tocome and go down where I had the other house and give them the al-monds. As I had stopped, the German guard comes and slaps me in theface in order to make me leave, because he thought that I was watchingthe Germans. I left the place there, went through the settlement, fromthe pathway, the road, to go to my other house. As I was going downwith the Germans, we got so close to one another that we nudged, thatis so… And no one talked to me, no one stopped me! I was walking sideby side and they were nudging me. I reached the middle of the settle-ment; our house was below and a factory, an olive-oil factory, was onone side. At that time, I saw from afar and they were coming: they hadcaught all the people from Metaxohori, my father, two more personsthat were from Sfakoura and they were going to lock them up in ahouse. As we were at a distance, my father saw me, we were near ofcourse: I was going down the hill, the Germans were at my side. As wewere about to sit, my father says to me: “Go tell your mother to come be-cause they are going to kill us and I want to see you”. They had giventhem a paper, whatever they call it, which is called death, I don’t knowwhat it is called, and they knew about it.

I go. I turn left now to go home. Behind me, someone from Metax-ohori runs in the other direction, towards the factory, and another onegets into the house. They executed the one inside the house immedi-ately, while the other one that was going towards the factory, there wasa German below, and he was immediately executed too. In our housethere was no one. A German doctor was outside, but no one inside thehouse. He says to me, with gestures of course, that he wanted soap towash himself. After giving him soap, I go inside the house and I see noone, not even my sisters; my father had been captured. Where should Ifind them now? Even though they were women, I had to find compan-ion. 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 Germanofficer with an interpreter, next to the other house. I went inside thehouse too and they said to me: “Sit here with us”. I sat indeed inside the


house. In about ten minutes he sent the Germans with the gun and hegets into the house, he gets into the room where the pithoi were, thewooden chests, some old chests, and he lifted the cover to see insideand 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 agrown up, and I was a grown up, the women said to me: “Stand on thefireplace so as not to look like grown up”. So I did. I was hidden fromhere 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, theinside of the chimney was black, and the German saw me. He lookeddown at my feet and asked me questions and I answered him. He toldme to get down. I sit aside at once. He took a good look at me as I wasfor sure covered with soot. He looked at me. He said nothing. He left usover there. Exactly at that time, I see near Mournies around thirtyGreeks who were captive, with the Germans bringing them up. Theycame there, outside the house, and we saw them all of course. They takethem and they go and lock them up in a tiny house, about 4x4m, a smallhouse a little farther away, with the rest of our people from Metaxohoriand Sfakoura: they got them inside and locked them up. A guard standson the upper part of the house and another one on the lower. At thattime, my sister says to me: “Let’s go and see what they did with the peo-ple 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 in-terpreter: 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 witha gun. He was getting some of them out and he was then saying: “Partihaus”. Because we knew some German words, when he was saying:“Parti haus”, that meant: “Go home”. Some of those that had been cap-tured as hostages, fifty, I don’t know how many they were, left: someonewent to Mournies, another one to Gdohia. He was getting them out oneby one, placing them in line; to some of them he said: “Go home”.Whenhe placed them in line, he also placed behind them a German with agun having the bayonet at the ready. At the end, he got out someone


74 He points at his waist.

from Metaxohori (he was before the last one). He got out and the Ger-man officer grabbed him from the jacket, put him back in and got outthe last one. He gets out the last one and closes the door. He leaves therest of them inside. He was from Metaxohori. The other one outside, fellon the knees of the German, on his legs, and said to him: “Don’t kill me.I‘ve got young children. Don’t kill me”. He grabs him, gives him a pushand 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 sis-ter and me standing a bit farther, and he grabbed something and threwit at us and we went away. I don’t remember what he threw at us but wegot away. He got the rest of them in line; they left. We went to the houseand sat inside. They hadn’t closed the door yet. We were all inside, thewomen and I (I was the only man inside). Well, at that time, hell brokeloose from the machine guns. I forgot to tell you that at the time wewere inside the house, we saw smoke coming from Mirtos, from Gdo-hia and from Mournies; they were on fire. We then realised how big thedisaster was. We hadn’t seen of course the other ones that had beenkilled, except for the one that was by the tap and ran away and the otherone that went into the house and they killed him in there. The earthwas shaking from the machine guns. Of course, they didn’t let us getout at all, not at all.

After about ten minutes, when the gunshots were over, they broughtthe then president from Mournies, and he stood outside the house wewere in. The German went with the interpreter and they interrogatedhim. As a matter of fact, he was telling them that: “There were no rebelshere. You should not kill the people. They weren’t rebels. They were fromKato 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 thehouse, shut us in and take the other man with them. That was on the15th of the month, at night, 15th of September.

The executions at Zourva and KaimenoThey didn’t hear here in Zourva of the evil that took place in Sfakoura.

They didn’t hear of it here. They come to Zourva at dawn and they leaveus locked inside. They captured as many as they found here, ten, twelve,


fifteen people, I don’t know how many they were exactly, and they tookthem all together down to the school where they killed them all: fromhere 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 didn’t hear at Kaimeno of the execution that took place here. It tookplace in Sfakoura and nobody either in Zourva or in Kaimeno here no-ticed anything. They trapped them as they were and executed them.

I leave for the mountain where I get wounded by GermansMy brother penned the goats, as they usually did, and he was a bit far-

ther up from here, in a place towards Karidi. In the morning, at daybreak, my mother tells me: “Leave and go with your brother up there forthey might do harm here too”. We didn’t know that my father had beenkilled, we didn’t know it. We hadn’t seen them yet. From the settlementof Sfakoura to Kefali up the hill, the distance is five hundred metresneedless to say. They heard about the evil that had taken place but theythought 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 werecoming: 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 awayand went to the place where my brother was. On my way towardsKaridi, I didn’t see any Germans. In the morning, they went throughthe house but they didn’t burn Sfakoura, nor the other village Zourva.They burned the last one, Kaimeno. There was no man in Sfakoura, inthe village. They had left; I was the only one inside the house and I lefttoo afterwards, in the morning.

So, I went up there, to the place where my brother was. I stayed thereeight days exactly and no one bothered us. It was in a deserted areawhere he was penning the goats. After eight days, we see some otherGermans. The Germans had gone up, to the hideout, and had taken thespoils of the rebels. The rebels were scattered then and were not in onegroup. They went up to the hideout, found the spoils and took them. Ontheir way down, they discovered a street that leads to Mithos, a littlefarther up, and ran into five, six women that were sitting by the roadwaiting: my sister, my niece, my in-law, my aunt and my sister-in-law.


Some other old men and I were farther down, exactly where we had thethings (they were aside, we practically went by a cliff in order not to beseen). At that time, they say: “The Germans are coming”. They say: “TheGermans are descending from above”.My brother’s wife that was sittingby the roadside saw the Germans and ran away, coming towards wherewe were. Instead of staying where she was, she came down. Two Ger-mans 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 mygrandfather 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, let’s call it that, tall, around one metre. From the atticand inwards, it might have been one hundred metres deep (the cave wasextending inwards as they had told me). I sat up in the attic, the two oldmen sat underneath. In five seconds, two Germans came outside. Theyfound us of course. As soon as they came close to a distance of three me-ters, less than five meters, they armed and fired. The bullet hit the rock,changed direction and fragments went off. Because of the shape of thecave, the sound was very loud and the smoke too much and I immedi-ately closed my ears. I went deaf and I opened my eyes in the cloud ofsmoke. He reloads and fires another shot. He reloads and fires the thirdshot. I barely felt the second shot. After the third one, I see blood cover-ing 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 sometimesat the birds and the lead shot spread and everything becomes coveredwith 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 handsand surrendered. Had I done this at the beginning, it is probable thatthey would have not fired the shot and I would have not been woundedso much. I get down from the attic. The two elderly men were not in-jured. They take me from there; it is more or less five hundred meters tothe place where the other women were. I couldn’t walk well all the wayup. I had been swollen of course, bloods, crying, harm, pain, eh…


75 He points below his lip.

My nursingI reach the place where the women were by the road: a road goes

down and heads towards Mithous. They had sat by the roadside. Assoon as I went over there, the women saw me; there were my sisters, mypeople. When they saw me they said: “He is finished too”. They had al-ready seen my father, my uncle, my grandfather, all the others and theyknew that I was about to die now too. I wouldn’t get up. I sat down, I wascrying… A German sat down, took out a military bag, like a pouch, thathe had on his shoulder, placed it down and took out some bandages.He started from down low, putting the bandage over the biggestwounds, where most of the blood was coming out76. Then he placed meon the back of one of the two old men, the strongest one, and said: “Godown”.And we go away from there now, all together: the German com-pany 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 wantswater, he is thirsty. Now, half way down the road there is a spring. I stopfarther down, I shout: “I am thirsty, I am thirsty!”. They place me downand 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 mymouth, on my lips. Then they put me again on his back and they got meoff to Mithous.

In the village, they busted the door of the first house, opened thehouse, dismantled the door, laid me down, undressed me and the Ger-man (who as it seemed was a stretcher-bearer) washed me first. Thenthey dressed me. He started again with the bandages and this time hecovered wherever there was blood, wherever there was a wound. Youcouldn’t see anything but my eyes and my mouth. Nothing else. Afterten minutes (all the others are inside now: the two old men and all thewomen, six, seven women) they laid me down. I was in great pain ofcourse. A German goes and slaughters a chicken that he finds overthere, boils it, brings me the broth and gives it to me. The other onegoes and milks a cow and comes back and brings me that milk too. I was


76 He points his chin and his leg.

in great pain. A German that was sitting by my pillow says to me: “To-morrow morning Ierapetra big doctor”. He is speaking in German now;I could understand a few words: he meant that in the morning he wouldtake me to Ierapetra. That’s what I understood.

In the morning, around five o’ clock, they got up, fired a flare and theyall went away together and left me over there, at the house. And theyconvert the area from the river towards here into a neutral zone. Cross-ing the zone was forbidden to anything that breathed, animal or ahuman. What happened to me over there now: as I was all alone, theycome and take me from that house to the other one. A woman lifted meup, there was no man. All men were gone. A woman came to take mefrom one house to the other one farther up. She was from there, from thevillage. She is dead of course; her name was Kritsotalaki. My sister wasbehind. In the morning they had left the others go. Only my sister stayedover there because of me and because she wanted to look after me.

So, she transferred me to another house and I stayed there for eightdays. The Germans came every morning: a German with a gun used tocome, looked at me, saw that I was wounded but he didn’t knowwhether I was with the rebels and they injured me. He didn’t know thatthe Germans themselves had injured me. He was asking sometimes andmy sister was telling him: “The Germans injured him”. But he didn’tknow where I was injured: was I injured along with the rebels or by theGermans? After staying there for eight days, my brother took me and wewent farther up from the river (it was allowed from the river and on) toan area called Giana. My brother took me there and I was motionless forforty days. Forty days without a doctor, without medicine, without any-thing. I had an uncle that washed me with hydrogen peroxide everymorning and every night and he treated me with this ointment, it is ahand-made ointment of course.

Everyone now, the people from Mithous, all the people, there was noone (left), not even in Riza, nowhere! Everybody had gone to Anatoli,Kalamauka, Kentri. And I stayed there for forty days and after forty daysI got up and walked a little bit. I came around. But I say sometimes thatI probably had more years to live, because they executed a six month oldchild in Gdohia and I was seventeen years old, a grown up man let’s say,


and I escaped from within the firing-squad! Because the Germans hadcaught me with my father, with the other ones, and had come inside thehouse 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 draftedme again there: I was not considered the head of the family because mybrother served as the head and I couldn’t be the head too, and I spentthree years in the guerrilla war: more troubles again there. To wait forthe rebels every minute, to fall into ambushes, to set up ambushes andwithout knowing from where you will be attacked and who it is goingto be. Greeks against Greeks. Three years my friend.

Compensations and victimsThey gave certain pensions to the people. They gave compensation

to the people. I did thirty five years as a secretary in the community. Ididn’t manage by myself, I who had problems didn’t think about gettinga compensation for myself. I truly deserved to get compensation, be-cause the wounds are still inside, there are wounds inside here77. Therethey are. Two. I guess they are inside, little pieces from the rock. I don’tcare of course. The other wound through my mouth healed afterwards.As a secretary, I filled out the papers for all the people and they weregranted compensation at the time when the Germans granted compen-sations, yet, I didn’t manage to fill out my own papers. I am not entitledto a higher pension because I was a messenger in the guerrilla war andI was given a National Resistance pension for the one year and a half thatI served in the guerrilla war. It is only natural of course and easy to com-prehend that you are a rebel since you were an informer or a messenger:that proves, I mean, that you are a rebel. And I wasn’t entitled to a pen-sion, 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 mys-tery that I have explained to a lot of people: that I am the oldest and theonly one that has lived at the same time all the events from Simi and allthe way here to Riza. And I say sometimes, when foreigners come here:


77 He touches his cheek.

“Come and see exactly how it happened”. It is worth seeing where theflag was raised (unfortunately they cut that almond tree off, that treewas worth staying there). To see where the Germans took them andheld an extraordinary court-martial, a court to approve of who theywould kill and of who they would set free: “You go home” and “You goto the execution line”. Think about the horror of those people that wereabout fifty, I don’t know how many they were. As soon as three personsleft the Sfakoura settlement, they were taken just a bit below and wereexecuted. Three more persons were taken to the right, a bit inwards,and were executed. They dragged the rest of them upwards from thepathway and they watched how the others were being killed. They werewatching them and they reached the peak, where the church is now,and they set the machine guns there and executed them. The last one tobe killed was my father, Stelios Doksanakis, that is, he was exactly at thebeginning at the top of the hill.

My father-in-law was called Emmanouil Nikolaou Tsikaloudakis andhe was killed, down here in Zourva. My grandfather, called SpiridonPaterakis and his son, Emmanouil Paterakis, a first uncle of mine, wereboth killed too. They are my blood, the same family. The other oneswere not close relatives, let’s say, they were more distant. A godchild ofmy father, a young boy too, eighteen to twenty years old. It is worth see-ing the location where the execution took place and the time when theexecution took place, because it is a great deal to see that they executedin Sfakoura and the people in Zourva didn’t learn of it and they caughtthem inside their houses. In the settlement of Kaimeno, they executedfive. Someone took a bottle of raki and almonds, walnuts, whatever, togo and welcome them. And they captured him as he was holding thetray, went farther away and executed him together with another one.As a matter of fact, one of them, as I heard later, I didn’t see him ofcourse, resisted and they cut his head off with the knife. That is, theydidn’t execute him, but they cut his head off.

The compulsory workThe father of Antonia Mathioudaki was in Sfakoura along with my

brother-in-law. Her father left. Some kind of signal was given and her


father left on the same day and hour and as he was not there, he wassaved. He left. The Germans of course didn’t capture him. We had somekind of relationship with Mathioudaki. She played a role for the Ger-mans regarding those who were going to the works. I was the only sev-enteen years old one that the president had then put in the works (I wasthe youngest one). I went and spent there eight days, we lived there, atIerapetro. A German took me every morning and told me to go towardsKentri, let’s say, where they did works, the next day to go towards Peri-stera, where they did works. I mean that they spread us around. Theycame and gathered us in the square and a German took us: I take thisone over here and I take you where they dig, another one where they cutiron and made pillboxes at that time. From there, I learned a few of theirwords and managed somehow to communicate. Not much of course.At Peristera they had set up a wireless and we went there and dug a bighole, like a well, and put machine guns there. We dug also in another lo-cation, farther inside from Agia Paraskeuvi. Towards Kentri, we cut ironfor a couple of days. I held the iron pieces and they cut them. That wasbefore September. Because before the evil took place, all the people thatthe Germans captured and executed here, had said: “I went and did myshare”. Everyone by himself of course. The president said: “I designateMr. Stefano to go to the Germans for ten days labour”. I don’t know wherethey would take him but you had to go anyway. Since all the peoplewhose name was written here went (and every village had ten persons’names written let’s 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 wasn’tabsent to say it in a different manner. And the people stopped with-out… since we didn’t do anything bad. The evil took place at Simi: what-ever 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 itshould have happened… What was their business now in Mirtos, inRiza let’s say, that never…

The resistanceThey 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


had a gun too. My brother went up. All of them went, they served. Onecarried food with his animal, the other one was a messenger, anotherone went and carried guns and ammunition. I mean that everyone of-fered something: one offered bread, I don’t know, everything, for therewere many up to the hideout. I remember that there were a lot of peo-ple with Mpantouva and Podia, before they split up. Of course, I neverwent over there, to the hideout, but as I was told, there were many rebelsthere, a great many. The fact that they were not well armed is true.

There were those that were on the government’s side, let’s say. Therewere two groups at that time: E.A.M. and E.O.K. “E.O.K.”, the NationalOrganisation of Crete, and the other one, I don’t remember the initialsnow, you wouldn’t remember of course because it’s an old story. At thevillage then, there was a teacher serving here, from Mithous, and he wassaying (especially to us that he knew we were not in favour of the left-wing): “Should you hear anything…” or “Shall I give you a note to deliverit…” I told him: “Where will I take it?”. He told me: “You will take it…”let’s say “…to Kilistra…” that’s how we name a cottage that is up here“…Paterakis the shepherd is there. Hand it in to Paterakis”. He didn’t tellme to give it to Mpantouvas, but they were the mediators now. He toldme: “Take this note”, I don’t know what was written inside, “Take this, todeliver it to Paterakis, to Kilistra”. I took it up there without knowingwhat was inside. I understood of course that it was for a secret reasonand that I was not supposed to open it. Or he told me sometimes: “Takethis bag to deliver it to Karidi and give it to… your teacher”. That is whatI did. Or: “If you hear anything, or if you see any activity anywhere or aman armed at Karidi and you happen to see him or hear anything andhear talk about any activity, you should come and tell me and I…” Hewas qualified and communicated with the suitable person. I didn’t carrya gun. I was eighteen years old and I could carry a gun but I didn’t havea gun with me. They had us only to communicate certain things, wewere listening, we were taking, we were delivering some things, Vagge-lis Cristakis and I, this generation now, because those at my age thatwere shepherds were up. The shepherds were up and they were watch-ing the rebels at close range and sometimes they carried also a gun. Aseventeen years old boy can carry a gun. We didn’t carry a gun. It was


difficult of course too. If you were caught by a German you were in trou-ble. As you can tell, great stories, big troubles, many misfortunes.

After the occupationAfter they killed my father I had to be the provider for three women,

three persons: my sisters and my mother. My brother had been mar-ried and had another family. My sisters were older than me. I was theyoungest of all. They gave my mother a war pension after a couple ofyears. 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 after-wards the other small pension because she was a war victim. Thesewomen were called war victims then.

We were living at the settlement of Sfakoura. We couldn’t find anymoney. This situation was of course from ’43 until ’45-’46. We wereforced to go wherever there was a vineyard that needed digging in orderto get a day’s wages. One day’s 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 thousandokas 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 mar-ried in ’57. When I was discharged, there were no jobs and I had to startworking in a factory in Sfakoura, in an olive-oil factory. They didn’t giveus money there but we took oil. That is, I took one oka of oil per day (weuse okas78). We were selling it. In order to pay me at the end of themonth, of the season, the factory owner would tell me: “You worked forthree months and you ought to get one hundred okas of oil”. I took it andI sold it afterwards and I bought whatever I wanted with the money. Iwas forced then and went with my brother to dig wherever there was avineyard, to go wherever there was another job, to go to the factory atthe same time. In ’55 I joined the community council as a secretary. Thesecretary left and I had such a great desire to learn how to chant. I wentto the community as a secretary; I had such a great eagerness to learn,


78 Oka: unit of measuring weight, equal to 1283 grams.

although I had just finished the preliminary school. To learn how todance, to learn how to sing, these are my hobbies. When I hear a musi-cal instrument, I can’t help it… At this age now! That is, every morningI was a secretary. Of course, they all supported me here, all the fellow-villagers were good people. In ’55 I became a secretary in Sfakoura; Ihad the closet of the office there, the archive of the community. After-wards, I got married in ’57 and I lived here in Zourva, with my wife inthe house here. When I came here all the people helped me. My wifegives birth to the first child. Poverty: I got 50 drachmas as a salary, mywife was also forced and had to go to the school as a cook and she gotfrom there something, little thing. I was in the factory, here in this fac-tory, I worked as an operator of the press for the olives, we called it “pre-sadoros” at that time. But we couldn’t get by. We started from scratch:she didn’t have many things and neither did I. We had no oil to cook. Iam asking her: “What will we do?We need to find a job by all means”. Shehad finished high school and I was supposedly the secretary of the com-munity. I was forced and worked as a labourer in an olive grove of 1.500young trees. 1.500 olive trees altogether, but they extent from here untilSimi, Mirtos, Mithous, everywhere. The two of us, I and my wife. 1.500olive trees plus our own: and we managed to produce this period, olive-oil equivalent to two more salaries and we were a bit relieved. I said: “Ican’t make it here, unless I plant supported tomatoes and cultivate themin open-air”. I didn’t have a field near by where the tomato could growand I had to go all the way to Mirtos: I had to leave at six o’ clock in themorning 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 whodidn’t have a thousand drachmas in my pocket. Impossible. It couldn’thappen. I was trying. At the community, all we received was two thou-sands drachmas. Where should we start? The expenses for the admin-istration? The president? I? And we made an agreement with thepresident: “You will go and get paid now and I will go next month”.There was no money. And we established a contribution for the peo-ple, just a small amount, to make it work. It was not like now, where allthe municipalities have money. I was forced to leave then: I went to afield, another person’s field, they gave it to me for free, and I went from


here down there and I was paid 30.000 then. My wife says then: “Whyshould I stay here in Riza, while we have fields at Kserokampo, at NeaAnatoli, good fields with value; why don’t we go over there? People wentaway fromMetaksohori, from everywhere and went down there, whereaswe…” I had the community, I had the community of Gdohia too, but Ididn’t have a car then. She says: “We have to go to Kserokampo with thedonkey, to our field”. We cleaned it from the gravel (we hadn’t made agreenhouse), we planted again supported tomatoes and we stayed in ahut (we didn’t have a house for the first year). There were the commu-nities and I had to come back! I left with the animal to come here atnight, to stay here, and the wife was left alone there. I had a young childhere that stayed with my mother-in-law because it had to go to theschool. 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 wentto Ksirokampo. In ’73 I bought a car, the first car. I went afterwards toGdohia and Riza. I worked with good presidents in both Gdohia andRiza. I worked day and night: during the day in the green house and atwork, at night in the office. All the people were satisfied the years I spentthere. I retired in ’88 in Kserokampo. Then people used to come toKserokampo, both from Gdohia and from here: “Fill out these papersfor “O.G.A.”79 to get the pension”. “Hey you guys, I am a citizen, I re-member nothing!”. “No, you should fill them out, because all the papersyou have filled out for us are perfect…” I want to tell you that we havebeen through great troubles, but never mind.

Brothers against brothersWeren’t the left-wing exiled? One got dressed as a gendarmerie and

spent a month and was fired afterwards because his father was a left-wing. That is, there were political problems with the parties then. Suchhate! Here, the period after the Germans left, after ’43, two groups werefounded at the villages, “E.A.M.” and “E.O.K.”. That is what they werecalled. Here in our village, all the young people were with “E.A.M.”.


79 In Greek: Ο.Γ.Α., (Organismos Georgikon Asfaliseon), Organisation of Agriculture Insur-ances.

There were three or four persons, that motivated, taught and guided meand another person from the settlement of the same age, and we didn’tjoin that group. The rest of them came every day saying to us: “Whydon’t you join too? We held a number of dancing parties…” They ap-pointed an agronomist from the village here, a gendarmerie from here,a field guard from here, a president from here, whereas essentially, theyshould have been appointed by the State. They also had courts. Theywent there, below the school, and held a court too. That is how theysplit up. The hate stemmed from there.

A man placed every night a big piece of wood at the door to supportit, in order not to have the door broken by the people of “E.A.M.” whowould get inside and kill him. There was hate among us: among fellow-villagers, siblings, cousins. There was a right-wing father that had a left-wing 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 hewent, he stated: “I join the Government” and they let him leave and hewent away. He left immediately and joined the rebels. From there hedisappeared: no one knows whether he got killed. His mother and fatherwere here and they were pining for him not knowing whether he wasalive, 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 talkabout it.

The Germans todayThe Germans that did the executions are not alive of course. Is it the

child’s 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 andgroaning from pain, and he was sitting by my pillow: my sister on oneside and he was on the other one. As a matter of fact he was saying: “BadGerman, bad German was the one that shot you. Evil. I’ve got “piccolo”…”,that is, I have got young children, “…and I am thinking that “English”80are 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 is word was in English.

them made room for other people in order to leave: that is, he saw youand was so nice that he said: “Go”. In order not to give any rights, hesaid: “Go”, he made room for him. At Mournies in particular, as theGermans were going around searching the houses, one of them went toa house (I heard the story later) and said to the Greek: “Farther in, far-ther 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 Germanmade a move to go inside and he told him: “I went inside and there is noone”. I want to say that there were…

And now, if you see the son of a German, let’s say of the man who ex-ecuted my father, if you see him, are you going to tell him: “You madea family orphan? What did he do to you?”. What did he do wrong? Didhe serve? Did he kill? People’s aims are different from those of the war.Why the innocent people? Was it the people’s fault here, to have theirhouses 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 Germanboys? They were coming to Pano Simi and were saying: “I want some po-tatoes, I want some beans”. They didn’t come to say: “Give me” by force.They were polite.

And that of course was a foreign propaganda, because an opportunitywas given to the English-French, Americans and Russians, to delay thebest handpicked German troops here, due to this rebels’ movement.That was a great issue too, which is propaganda: they thought that ifthese handpicked units had not stayed in Crete (because Crete hadcaused them great damage, Crete killed the Germans), they would takethese troops down to Africa, they would fight and the war would havea bad end. They placed the handpicked units here and they killed somany people. The Germans! Over there in Maleme, you should take alook there! They were even criminals of war, but it’s not their fault ei-ther: it is mostly Müller and those who gave the order that are to blame.Why did they have to cause this evil then to Kato Simi? They gave afight. They killed forty five Germans. Should he burn the village in KatoSimi? The evil took place there, they killed there. Was it the fault of therest of the people? That is the bad thing, the irrational I mean.


From Simi to SfakouraOn the 12th of the month, when they were drinking all night, the lo-

cals were hanging around with the two Germans and they trusted oneother. Friends as we say. These Germans used to come to Apano Simibut I can say that I don’t remember their faces. We spent our summervacations in Apano Simi. Here we didn’t have water to drink! Here inRiza, Gdohia, Mournies, Mirtos and Mithoi we didn’t have water todrink! Do you understand? We took the water jug from here and wentto 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” aswe say, and we took from there; whoever was in time to take water, hewould drink! We formed a line. There was no water and all villagerswent to Pano Simi right after Easter time! Until the end of September.It has been characterised as the metropolis of the area, a metropolis inthe old times. If you go there someday, there are ancient things, there aremany. 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 weplanted potatoes, beans, everything in the gardens. There was a lot ofwater, a great amount of water at that time! And we went and there weresix, seven, eight coffeehouses, two churches, three priests, four slaugh-terhouses (roughly constructed slaughterhouses I mean). People had afeast every night outside the church. Every Sunday people went tochurch. 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 theGermans drunk. They gave them too much to drink. They got drunk,they drunk too much, fell down, lay down and they killed them. In themorning my sister was outside. I didn’t manage to see them all, only atthe end: they had two mules and they had them loaded and coveredwith bed sheets, but their legs could be seen. Two metres! Actually, theysaid that they could not kill one of the two and that they cut his head offcompletely. They said he didn’t die. And the head could be seen fromone side and the legs from the other. And I called my sister: “Come,come and see twomen that they have loaded up on the mules”. They wentupwards; they took them somewhere of course. We stayed. After about


half an hour, the group of the rebels descended from above and wentand set up an ambush to the Germans that were coming towards KatoSimi. They were calling the Germans at Kato Simi, at the guardhouse,and they didn’t answer and a company of Germans went from Viannosto Simi. The rebels had heard about it, went down and set an ambushto them.

When the battle took place, we were there at Apano Simi! We heardthe 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 themonth. What would we do? And the entire village went away, all the in-habitants of Apano Simi. We covered a distance of five kilometres to gofarther away to some slopes, to some trees and we stayed there the wholenight. 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 andcame to the village here. I, along with the other kid, went away fromthere. They went from the road below, with the animal (there was a roadbelow). We went high above, where there was a path, to go and see, aspeople were saying, the flag that was raised in Kale. We went down to-gether and passed through Kaimeno. In Kaimeno, inside a house, therebels had a wounded Italian and the other boy says: “Let’s go”.We wereboth seventeen years old (he is still alive, he is from Simi). We wentaway 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 wentdown afterwards. On the 14th of the month, all the family was in Sfak-oura. Actually, as we were fasting, my father said: “We will slaughter acock today to eat it”. People used to fast then. “But today is the day of theHoly Cross. Leave it to eat it tomorrow, the day of Saint Nikita”, that is thenext day, 15th of the month. And on the 15th of the month, the executionstook place.


Chrisanthi Kasokeraki Alexomanolaki

We were five siblings. I was the oldest. I was born in 1922. I was ninewhen my mother gave birth to my second sister. My youngest sister wasborn when I got married, at the age of sixteen. I was twenty years old in1943; 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 amnot really sure. The Italians did no harm. They used to take a goat or achicken, but they did not hurt us.

The events in SimiWhen the Germans came to Simi there was a movement of rebels as

a response and they killed the three Germans that were in the guard-house in Kato Simi. There were some villagers there that wanted to ex-terminate the Germans for they were taking their goats, and… And theywent there one night and their men from the village killed the threeGermans in the guardhouse. There were three guards in Simi. But theother German troops in Viannos were looking for them. And when theydidn’t get any response they started thinking they were dead. In themeantime, our people from the hideout of Mpantouvas came down(they were taking the money and we were the victims). They must havethought that the Germans would come to search for the guards. Thereare two mountains and the road passes in between. So, the rebels ofMpantouva came and took position on each side of these two moun-tains and they were waiting for the detachment from Viannos to arrive.

After a while, the Germans passed by insouciantly. It must have beena detachment, but I don’t know exactly how many people there were.Our men saw them and started firing. They killed a few and later onthey came down and took their weapons. They had them all killed, theremust 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 theircommander and he came and said that: “all living beings” would bekilled; no woman or man would survive. We were here, carefree as weknew nothing. We had done no harm. Who could come now and in-form us? Were there any telephones then? Nothing. And we were sitting,

CHRISANTHI KASOKERAKI ALEXOMANOLAKI 191

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”,“GoodManolis”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, mak-ing a sound like that: douk, douk! They may have been sixty men pass-ing and not one would look to his side. Have you seen them during theirdrills? They all look straight ahead. Italians are just like us. In any case,I didn’t finish the story about Simi. Later on, other Germans arrivedand said: “All living beings, no woman, or man, or child”. But those fromSimi knew they had committed a crime and had all gone. They had leftand abandoned their homes. They left just like that. When the deathsquad went to Simi, they opened all the houses and took out the clothesthat girls had been keeping as their dowry. They covered the dead bod-ies with those clothes and they took them with them. I presume thereis a grave somewhere close to Viannos where they have placed the bod-ies. I am not really sure and I can’t say for we are in the prefecture of La-sithi and they are in the prefecture of Heraklion.

In the meantime, the Mpantouvas brothers went again to their hide-out. Then they came and raised a flag, right where the Holy Cross is, inRiza, to symbolise their victory against the detachment of the Germans.If you go to the same place today you will see at the monument howmany have died. Because it was due to this flag of Mpantouvas that theGermans executed later on anyone they could find. That is why the ex-ecution of these men took place.


Germans arrive at Gdohia after the battleAnd 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 beenaround six months old. And they killed them all on site, next to a locusttree. We had a man in Kalami that could speak German, and he said thatthe children and the women were not to blame. Because, I forgot to men-tion that they gathered all women and children in the school in Gdohia.They also collected wood and placed “thimous” (that is a certain type ofwood we used to make a fire) by the windows, ready to set a fire andburn them all inside. And it was then, that this man from Kalami, Pa-padias was his name (he is obviously dead now), said: “The children andwomen are not to be blamed for they committed no crime. You can notwipe out the entire Greek nation. Besides, those who did the crime belongto the prefecture of Heraklion and we are in Lasithi; it is not our fault”.There were many inhabitants those years, nothing like the deserted placeyou 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 toeat, the other one wanted to drink water, another one wanted to use thebathroom… all day till the night. They didn’t burn the school eventuallyand opened the doors at night. And the Germans said to them: “PartiHaus”, meaning they should go beyond Mirtos, away to Ierapetra. Shouldthey cross that river, they would not be killed. From the other side andtowards Viannos it was all forbidden area.

The women left to go to Ierapetra. As they were walking they couldsee their relatives, lying on both sides of the streets, dead: their hus-bands and their children. There was a man on a mountain with hissheep. He was in a gully and shot dead by the Germans; his body wasdrifted for ten meters by the river.

They approach RizaAt 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 themountain. “They are burning the villages all around us. Prepare our chil-dren for departure for I see from here the death squad arriving”.My chil-


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 blan-ket where I placed both the baby and my other child down and I said tothem: “Our child…” I came out, brought with me the wooden chest, thetable as well as other stuff so as they would not burn them. “They areburning down the villages!”,my husband told me. I threw them out andthen he said to me: “Come aside, take one child and I will take the otherone”. He took my older child, I took the baby, and we started climbingup the gully. It was full of pine trees then, there were many pine trees onthe top. And we were up there, among the pine trees, and as we climbeda bit higher we saw a man, placing his machine gun on a terrace, look-ing around him. And my husband said: “Lie face down on the ground, sothat you will not get injured by any bullets”.He had been in the war andhe knew. And so we stopped there. Then a woman from another villagecame, whose villagers had all been killed. We knew nothing about thembeing killed. We heard the gun shots. Were they cheering? What werethey doing? How could we know that they were killing? And he said tome: “Did you see a woman coming here?”. A woman wanted to see if theGermans had taken her husband as a hostage. As soon as I saw her, shecame back again. She didn’t take the lower road, but she went along thegully, above the village. And then she returned for she had seen deadpeople but she didn’t tell us to protect ourselves. The Germans hadbrought men from Christo, Males, Mournies and they killed them allover there, where you see the names, in the monument.

My father gets killedMy father’s name was Alexomanolakis Giorgos (Giorgos Alexo-

manolakis was my father’s name). He was thirty nine years old, a vice-president in our community council and had five children. The nameof the president those days was Michalis Tsikaloudakis. His wife hadseen 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 base-ment. She saved her husband, the president survived.

In the meantime, my father was eager to return and take action. And


he took our oxen and hid them, for they were taking and slaughteringthem in order to eat them. And my husband told him: “Father I don’twant you standing here. I don’t want to face the Germans. Leave!”And heresponded: “But you, my child, are excused for you are a shepherd. Whatwill my justification be?”. He thought that they would come and havehim interrogated. And as he approached the “lower” neighbourhood, aswe call it, the Germans arrived and took six people and killed them onsite. When they took my father there, he saw the other men dead; hewas 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. Therewas a woman there, on top of a house, and she narrated to me: “I can notdescribe to you Chrisanthi what happened. I was on the other side. Theykilled six people down here, one after the other. Your father was the lastone”.We went directly inside our houses! A German passed by and saidto me: “Pou kirios? Pou kirios?”81 I said: “Albania, kaput”82. I had my chil-dren in the house asleep. It was morning of course and he was wavingthe machine gun like that83: “Pou kirios?”. I replied “Albania, kaput”…And then, this woman that was watching from above told me that myfather had told them: “Folks, I have not done anything wrong, why doyou 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 werehanging like that. And after that they used a bayonet and tore him apart,from the neck all the way down. I don’t know, maybe they didn’t have,I don’t know. But there is no way I can digest such a cruel death. Had itbeen a bullet, you would have looked elsewhere, you wouldn’t have seenit. But to kill you with a bayonet… The bowels were visible, the bow-els… He was such a nice and modest person, if only you could see… Hehad been to Athens for two and a half years, working. He was a mes-


81 In Greek: «που κύριος» means “where is the patron/mister”.82 In Greek: «Αλβανία, καπούτ», 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 (withthe gun) her father’s hand.

senger, a post-man as we say, not really sure though. Two and a halfyears he spent there. That is why my mother didn’t have children rightaway and had them only later, when he returned, one after the other. Iwanted 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 cleanedfrom the blood. My sister was then one and a half years old. She wasclose to my daughter’s age; my mother was young and we gave birth toour 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 offthe blood”. The last thing she had in mind now was that they had cometo burn us down. I left for the house because I had the children there.And my mother, with some woman’s assistance, carried him and placedhim in the house, so as to wash him. In the meantime, the death squadthat would burn the houses arrived and they told her: “Parti haus”,which means “leave this house”. I remember occasionally the exactwords. Anyway, my brother said: “Mom, they are going to kill us all. Let’sgo mom, let’s go!”. He was shouting. He was seven years old and my sis-ter eight. And the other one was a year and a half. They were scream-ing. And so my mother left.

As soon as she left, they threw a powder inside the house and burnedit down. They burned my father too who was inside. My mother pulledher hair out, took her skirt off, she threw everything away and was bare-foot, without her veil. She was carrying her baby in her arms, being onlya year and a half, whereas the other three were walking behind her (Iwas already married then, I married young). And so we went rightabove here, in the pine trees.

Wandering from one place to another after the destructionWe spent ten days there. There was a woman there also, ready to de-

liver her baby. But how could she do that in the middle of the night? Theairplanes were dropping bombs then. During the war and occupation,they bombed anywhere they saw a fire. And I remember now, that therewas a cave up there and two great boulders, and they placed a blanket on


top and the other woman was holding a candle so that she gave birth toher child. And they had to quickly cut the umbilical cord, take the babyand leave. For there was a neutral zone there (from Mirtos up) and theywould kill anyone they found on site. And I remember now that therewere two women that cut the umbilical cord of that baby, for some of thewomen here knew. And they had to leave there, while it was still morn-ing, so as not to be killed for they used to come and search [Sobs]. Par-don me… I remember that woman (she is dead now) walking along thestreet and wearing a pair of pumps. She had to go that way down, and herlegs were full of blood, for she had just delivered, without any doctors orother facilities. Her legs were full of blood but she went down the streetwhere 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 hus-band, 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 wentthere to escape from the pine clad area and the neutral zone. For it wasnot a neutral zone there. That is why we left the place here, we had toleave from the neutral zone for we could not hide here. They burneddown those pine trees in 1984 and they never grew again since. It was aforest in a lovely green colour but now they have burned it.

In the meantime, it started raining, what would become of us? Wherewould we go? And we went to a village named Christos. I rememberthat there was a barn there where I laid a blanket and had my childrensit there. The barn had straw, the food you feed oxen; I settled downthere and I think we spent around twenty days. We later on went to Ier-apetra for a few days and then we came here. We spent September, Oc-tober and November there. In December, it was winter already, and wewent to a house my father-in-law had down there that had not beenburned. There were no houses. We could only see the smoke from upthere after they had burned everything down. What could we eat now?What would become of us? We had the children but we had neither ahome nor faith.

The return to KaimenosIn Ierapetra we were offered food for a few days and afterwards…


That was of course, on the 16th of September. Later on, since the troopswithdrew and the war ended, we came here. And were could we go? Inthe lower part of the village there was a house that was not burned (itbelonged to my mother-in-law). We went there with my children andmy 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 twohencoops 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, itwas summer and no matter what, we got out and went somewhere. Andwe all gathered and each one of us went to a relative of his or to a roomthat was available, till we finished building our own. My husband hadthen some pine-tree trunks that he had brought from far away. And wealso brought from the mountain Lapathos, bulrushes, those that growin the wetlands. And I remember, we placed the bulrushes on top of thewooden trunks and we poured afterwards the mud, on top of that, so asto prevent it from falling down. When the Germans came and set fireto our homes they immediately burned, for there were no concrete slabs.And everything collapsed. They fell down right away. And we had tostart all over again. That was our entire life, a struggle of a lifetime. Weraised the children during the years of occupation, they had no bread toeat, no clothes to wear.

But I remember now that I held some things I wanted to bring out-side and that I was barefoot. For those years we wore shoes made of“cork”. They were made of wood: the craftsman had curved the woodinto shape and had also placed a leather strap. During the years of oc-cupation there were no shoes. And I couldn’t wear those shoes for theywere slippery and I was therefore barefoot. With no shoes, walking allthe way uphill, to go and place some clothes and other stuff… On thecliffs… barefoot… and now I can not walk at all.

Oh! And then we came back to the great adventure. After the de-parture of the soldiers from Crete and Greece, that is when the Ger-mans had retreated and had gone back to their country, we started stepby step to do everything that was within our power. They provided uswith food supplies, such as wheat, coffee and tinned food. I don’t knowwhere they came from, probably from foreign states. They came and


helped us just as we help now a foreign state in times of need. And theyused 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 “bobota”85. We weregiven “bobota” or grinded corn and we used to make a fried pie for thechildren that scattered in the frying pan. Instead of bread. For we hadno bread to eat since everything had been burned down. The presidentof our community was the administrator for the food supplies in thevillage. And the brother of my husband, Kasokerakis Giorgos was hisname, was also with him. He was a scholar and they distributed the foodsupplies in the village. My father had been dead by now, his house wasburned down, the children… And my mother had to go begging, wan-dering for five years. She used to go and beg around here in Crete: inMakrilia… I don’t know where she went. Somewhere here in Crete, inthe vicinity but further away too. She had a donkey and another womanwith her. She used to go crying to other people saying that her husbandhad been killed, speaking of her children and that she also had a sonthat she was dragging with her. My poor brother must have been aroundsix 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 withanything she could bring along. They would place that on the donkeyand leave. Beggary. How could she provide for her children? How wouldshe provide for them? Her parents were also alive and they used to livein a lodge, now demolished. And when my mother returned with thedonkey from begging, we would all go to her, my grandmother, grand-father, all the children and I, and you would see everybody look forsomething to eat in time.

My familyThat was our life and that is how the years of occupation were. We

struggled. In the meantime, just as I finished the house to accommodatemy children, my husband got sick and was diagnosed with cancer. He


85 “Bobota”: bread made of corn flour.

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 al-ready done their military service: my husband was taken too and had togo to Albania. He was diagnosed with cancer. I searched all over theworld, no medicine did I find to cure him. In the beginning they told methat it was his stomach; he was in pain and needed medicine. I took himthree times to Athens. Finally, I had to accept contributions to raisemoney 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 oftwenty five. My daughter was born in 1940, my son in 1943 and Annain 1949. They give money now if you have three children but they won’tgive me any, for my children are grown up. My husband passed away in1959. I was married in 1939.

Difficult, difficult. I had my two children during the occupation andmy last one when I was twenty five. My husband got sick. I took him toAthens and they told me the last time: “He has cancer, there is metasta-sis to his large intestine (colon) and there is no cure no matter where yougo. If you love him, if you sympathise with him, let him pass away for heis in terrible pains”. I was giving him the pain-killing injections by my-self. There were no means then like now. The entire burden fell upon myshoulders. Children, occupation, worries: I had to go by myself to waterthe field, to go and plough, to plant potatoes. All by myself. How couldthe children help me? My mother had four. I was her fifth child butmarried. 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 usedto come to study under the light. He was a good son and he still is. Mayhe live for many years to come; all other children too. When I wantedto 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”. Hewanted to study, yet he brought his legs towards his body to make roomfor me. Oh! Lighting was poor and he couldn’t read. There was no elec-tricity and only later had we a lamp that illuminated the room.

Despite all these adventures, my child managed to study and pass the


exams for O.T.E.86 in the 60th place. Later on, he wanted to take examsfor the institute of “Anotati Viomihaniki”87; he liked it. And since hewanted 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 morethat a meal”. My child was shy from the beginning. And he made hisway back. “Are you people serious? You must give fifty thousand for theregistration fee to “Anotati Emporiki”. They used to buy the diplomasthen. Only after a year was there free education. My child didn’t losehis specialty, went to O.T.E. and then went on to Piraeus where hepassed the entrance exams for the “Anotati Emporiki”.

He liked it. And he took his diploma from there and he was ap-pointed afterwards in Rhodes. I used to travel from here and fromAthens to Rhodes. By myself, alone, illiterate, a dunce. An adventure.

In the meantime I raised my children. I tried as hard as I could andthey are fine children: they are neither thieves nor vulgar individuals.And my joy is that my children aren’t bad and that all my efforts werenot in vain. For it is all worse if you have fought for something and lost.I don’t mind the fact that I am alone. I wanted my children to settledown, to find a job, to have a family. I don’t care about being alone.Since this is my destiny, I do not demand that my children stay and lookafter me. I try to do my best, not to be a burden to them. I have great-grand-children too.

I hope you won’t have to go through the misfortunes and the worriesI have been through, for I have suffered. I have suffered for I did nothave one good day. I raised my children, they are fine, but I have beenthrough a lot of anguish. Do you know what it feels like to be alone fromthe 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 beg-gary. I had no one. What can a woman, inexperienced in life do, being


86 In Greek: O.T.E. stands for Hellenic Telecommunications Organization.87 In Greek: «Ανωτάτη Βιομηχανική (Σχολή)», which literally means “School of Supreme In-dustrial Studies”.

young and knowing nothing. My husband was fifteen years older thanme and had something let’s say; I was poorer and didn’t know about thestruggle of life.

But it was not our fault eitherI wish there was a way I won’t 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 burneddown everything. And it was not our fault either. Those to be blamed,have nowadays all their people settled down working and doing re-search. Their children and grandchildren too, all of them are taken careof. We had to go through all these sufferings, only to be now in isolationin no man’s land. The descendants of the commanding rebels, their chil-dren and grandchildren too, are all provided for. They raised the flag.But what are we? Victims, victims! Each one will do something for hisown people, but no one cares about the masses. I hear on television thattheir children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are all pro-vided for, and… So, even if the older ones have died, they have pro-vided for their children and grandchildren. And where did they work?They set up the hideout up there. My husband was a shepherd and theyused 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 haveno bread to feed your children? And no water to drink. After the liber-ation, there was a tiny tap up there, the size of my little finger, and thewater flow was so slow that I had to spend the whole night there to fillup 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, ithas been a long time since then, they bored into my land with an earthauger and I signed the papers. They caused me great damage beforethey found water, and instead of satisfying me, they gave me as much as


they gave you. But the people are saved, I say. It’s all right! The peoplehave 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 plantsand they have satisfied their thirst, they don’t even want to give mefifty… I told them I want nothing, except for the amount of water com-ing out of one water hose, to irrigate my land without having to pay forit. I have nine water meters, give me one for free. The water coming outfrom my land is like Danube. We will, will, will… Had I not been illit-erate, I would have written to a newspaper: why have you been unjustto me? I made a donation too. I made my donation too. I gave themtwenty meters so as to drill and they took a hundred. They should makea donation to me, too: the amount of water coming out of one waterhose. I am not asking for thousands: for one water hose. The entireworld has water, they have satisfied their thirst and people are produc-ing tons of oil. Am I asking for something insane? I am not asking foranything crazy. They tell me, we will, will, will… And now I haven’t paidfor two years and they tell me that they will give me sixty… I don’t wantto lie, they will give me six hundred cubic meters of water for free. Sixhundred cubic meters without my having to pay for them. But I willhave 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 don’t 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 withoutpaying and they charged me afterwards a fine of fifty for not paying im-mediately. What can you do... It is all right… How many wrongdoingsdo the sun witness during the day, the moon at dawn and the stars dur-ing the evening.


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

didn’t make it to have other children. He was drafted and he nevercame back; he didn’t find the time for another one. He just had me.My mother was left widow and got married (afterwards). My fathersaw 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

father’s last name is Alexakis. I got married at the age of sixteen andmy husband was killed in 1940 in Albania. Later on, in 1942, I gotmarried when I was sixteen to Manolis. I was a widow at the age oftwenty. My first husband’s name was Tsitsirakis Apostolis. We weremarried for three years. I got married sixteen, had a child and was leftwidow at twenty. Think how many years it has been. I was marriedfor less than three years. My first husband had a brother and he waswith him in Albania, both of them. And how could we find it outwhen there were no telephones; we used to send letters. He sent meletters, I sent letters too. Later on he stopped sending and I thoughtimmediately 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 ItaliansMANOLIS: The Italians came here first.MARIA: I don’t remember the exact year they came.


MANOLIS: The Italians came but had their commanding headquar-ters, “comando” as they used to say it, in Mournies. And all the Ital-ians 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 don’t 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 didn’t have any problems with the Italians. They came here

but these people didn’t kill; they asked for something to eat and wegave them. We didn’t have so many problems. Only when the Ger-mans arrived. The Italians were still here when Germans came. Thenthey were gone. I don’t know how they left. You can also find some-one else to tell you more and be more precise.

Germans come in the villageThe German soldiers went to Simi and when they were killed, they(i.e. the Germans) fought back, killing and burning. And we left ourvillage over there, carrying our babies, and came to this very housewe still live. I had one child being three month old and another onefour years old. I didn’t let my husband stay in for I was afraid theywould take him hostage. We didn’t know they really meant to killand I sent him to stay in the mountains along with other people. Tohide, right where the boulders are, where nothing can be seen there.That is where they were hiding88. They didn’t kill my father. If it is notmeant to happen… They went with Manolis up there to hide and hetold him, halfway their journey: “Did the Germans put you to com-pulsory labour?” They were doing work on projects in Ierapetra. And

MANOLIS KARTSOMICHELAKIS AND MARIA ALEXAKI 205

88 Points towards the slope of the mountain, behind the village.

the Germans used to take them to work there but he didn’t go. Andeach one spent fifteen days there but he didn’t go. And my father toldhim: “Manolio, did you participate in the German projects?” (I don’tknow how they were named) and he responded: “I didn’t 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 theyused to graze their animals, above the village, “…My brother-in-lawis there and you should stay (there), for if you go home they will takeyou hostage”. And Manolis made his way and went up there and myfather came to stay in the village, for he was told that the Germanswould burn down all empty houses. And he said: “I had better havethem 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 toManolis) and said: “If they ask for my identity card, I don’t have ithere”.

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 fa-ther got up and went up there by himself. When he reached the place,his son didn’t let him return.

MANOLIS: They were all gathered there.MARIA: Since all the villagers were gathered there, he said: “Everybodyis here and you want to go back home? If you leave I will let the goatsloose to wander all around and I will leave too”. And having heardthat, he stayed put and he was saved as he was not killed.The Germans came here and searched the houses. I sat next to thedoor, holding my baby and I placed my older child sitting by my side.They came, talked, but naturally I didn’t understand German. They


were holding the pistol like that89 while I was sitting, holding my childin my lap. I didn’t talk; nothing. And they went through the otherdoor and fired a gun inside the house and afterwards they left. Theyprobably set a fire. I got up, to avoid getting burned with my chil-dren over here, but I saw no fire. They left, they were gone. Theycame later on to the lower part of the village and gathered everyonethey could find. They took them all down there and killed them: inthe lower part of the village, in the field below the houses. Theyaligned them and killed them all, that is everyone they had found.They killed everyone they had captured. The Germans didn’t gosearching. They would have survived had they gone right here, inthe gardens, to hide. They were not searching. But anyone they foundin 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 villagesare called Riza. Only this one is called Kaimenos, the other one iscalled 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 husbandof my neighbour Chrisanthi along with the man he was with, madetheir way down to come and take us with the children, so as not tobe killed here. They could hear the gun shots since the Germans werekilling in the next village. And they came and we took nothing butthe children. Just the children. What else could we take from ourhouse? Nothing. We took the children and hided. We hided in a creek


89 She extends her arm.90 In Greek: «Καημένο» means “burned”.

behind a tree: Chrisanthi with her two children and I with anothertwo. Our husbands, were gone, further up. I don’t know where theywent. And as we sat in there, we saw them coming here, setting thehouses on fire. And we saw the houses burn to ashes with everythingwe 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 three-month-old babies. We constructed a swing, we call it “tsiganokou-nia”91. We used a rope between the pine-trees and a piece of cloth inthe middle. And we placed one baby under the swing, the other oneon the swing and we swung them. And lice! I wonder where all theselice came from! There were so many, they were walking on the peb-bles. We couldn’t find food up there in the pine-trees for a month. Wefound, eh… If only you could comprehend the extent of our hungerand the hunger of our children in the winter time. If you only knewhow hungry we were.

MANOLIS: Alexakis, her father, had his animals up there and he usedto 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, don’t 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 neutralzone here so we had to leave. And we went to the other side of theriver and stayed in a grove full of pine-trees; there were carob-treesand we ate the beans! And we spent there another fifteen to twenty


91 In Greek: «τσιγγανόκουνια» meaning literally “swing of the gipsies/roma”.

days and then we went to a village called Parsas (this village is nowcalled Metaxohori) where we spent three months there. We stayedthere for three months. The villagers there were helpful, they usedto 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 anymore. 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 notburned, neither was burned the village called Sfakoura that hasaround ten houses. We went over there and stayed till we made ahouse 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 sendus…

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 tooafterwards. I had four children during the occupation, amid the suf-ferings. Work and a life of privation. It is not like today where every-thing is so abundant. There is no hardship, people have all the goodsand then again they have stress. They have such a good life, with allthe comforts, their pensions, their jobs, all of these things. What canwe say, that we still have… that we still stand on our feet, how are westanding? We went through great difficulties. Great, great. Eh, that iswhat we went through during the occupation.

MANOLIS: So, the Germans came and dropped parachutists. Theydropped in Maleme and in Agia… what is it called?


MARIA: I don’t 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 StukaBombed 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 daysAnd was later on surrendered with torments and grief ”

“Brothers, should you go to the villages in Viannos,don’t 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 shinyand 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 hideoutAnd pray to God for summer to come.

Plant flowers and clove motherAnd have them watered mother, every morning and afternoon

And if you see the roses growing bloomingYour son is alive and fights in a foreign land

And if you see the roses witheringYour son has been killed and is buried in a foreign land”


92 Singing93 Variant of a poem from Playiotakis,1943.

MARIA: That is a book a man from Gdohia published. He was a greatpoet.

MANOLIS: It was published for…MARIA: It was published for the people they killed; to record how many

were killed here and there.

The monumentMANOLIS: They killed most of them at a church over there, that of

Holy Cross. They killed forty people. Over there where the HolyCross is, where the cemetery is.

MARIA: Before you enter the village, there is a road. A sign says HolyCross and if you pass with your car (the road is accessible to cars andyou can turn around too), you open the iron door, enter inside andsee their names. You will see the monument; everybody is writtendown 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 iswritten 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 comehere. But now they hold the ceremony before the Holy Cross day, Idon’t know why.

MANOLIS: They come here, the Sunday before the Sunday we celebratethe Holy Cross.

In compulsory labourMANOLIS: I spent fifteen days there, in the works in Ierapetra. It is

right outside Ierapetra; we had a mattock, a pickaxe and a shovel andwe were placed in a field digging till twelve, one, two o’ clock, whenhe 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

didn’t pay there. It was ours, it belonged to a fellow-man from here


and nobody paid. Not that we had any money. We had no money.We had nothing, not even food. She cooked only dry cabbage; shefelt 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 arestaurant. He had like a restaurant and boiled for them anything hecould.

MANOLIS: We had no money. Without money. He had a bench in theupper 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 youof the compulsory work if you wanted to go and give fifteen kilos ofoil or paid something.

Then and nowMANOLIS: We went to school.MARIA: We went to school, but…MANOLIS: But we didn’t finish...MARIA: ...it doesn’t operate now that there are no children. Our school

was in the church that you pass over. You leave the distant villagedown 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 chil-dren, no schools, no…

MANOLIS: Let’s not discuss it, we were around forty over here and noteven five now.

MARIA: Neither communities, nor anything. Everyone’s children aregone.

MANOLIS: They went to Athens, went there, here, I left too.MARIA: We were left here, incompetent and old.MANOLIS: I can’t move now, I can’t. And they don’t believe that I am

helpless and incompetent.


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 tobreast feed our children then even up to the age of two. It is not likenow that mothers give birth to a child and throw it at once.

MANOLIS: Let it go, let it go, don’t even talk about it.MARIA: They have beds now, not to mention the milk and the rest.MANOLIS: Don’t 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 chil-

dren not to go through our sufferings, even in their dreams.MANOLIS: They should not go through them even in their dreams.

Ah, ah! That’s 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 establishthemselves and they have stress and can not find peace.

MANOLIS: Now they don’t find jobs. They make a salary and this isnot 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 hav-

ing many children or being a farmer, no pensions, nothing. If wewere 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, noth-ing. Let it be, don’t talk about it, don’t say a thing. Don’t say a thingabout those issues for we get frightened now; don’t remind us of themall over from the beginning… The Germans now come here.

MARIA: But don’t our people go to Germany and work? They go.MANOLIS: They come from all countries, from all. We think of the


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 peoplehad killed in Kria Vrisi and took them…

MARIA: They came and found the relics and went to the mountain andburied them.

MANOLIS: And they took them. We were told that they didn’t want ei-ther. 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 likethat everywhere. And you think that all Germans were alike? Theywere ordered too. They burned the villages, they killed. When thesuperior officer ordered them to stop, they stopped. They neitherkilled nor burnt the two villages but whoever was killed, was killed.

MANOLIS: In Sikologos the locals were saved by one man. They weresaved by a man that spoke German. They captured everybody, fromKalami and Sikologos, a hundred, a hundred fifty people and went toViannos and kept them all inside the high school where they hadthem wait to be killed. But the priests there intervened and an ordercame and they were released without anyone being killed. Yet, theykilled 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 itbe.

MARIA: When the evil occurred, we had one child and another child Ihad from my first husband. I had my first child, that was four yearsold, with another man, from my first marriage. And then we hadwith Manolis another three. I lost this first one while he was work-ing; I lost him when he was a grown-up, at the age of forty-three. I puton the black clothes then and never took them off since. He was amanager in O.T.E.94, lived in Athens and came here, this time of theyear, to collect olives and…


MANOLIS: He had a heart attack.MARIA: ...he had a heart attack and died. Too many sufferings, wor-

ries.MANOLIS: He was married and had two children. We have many tor-

ments, I want to split them, to go through half of them now and therest when I grow old but…

MARIA: We went through those, both when we were young and nowthat we are old.

MANOLIS: ...we have been through everything, everything.


94 In Greek: O.T.E. stands for “Hellenic Telecommunications Organization”.

Vangelis Christakis

We had joined to the national resistance that took place. We had aschool here. We were forty-five children at school then. It is closed downnow for there is not even one child. When I finished the elementaryschool in 1939, since I was born in 1926, I had to go to high-school. Butthe Italians came in 1940 and everybody left Ierapetra. They took theprofessors 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 hada lady teacher); those villages had a school. As far as we are concernednow, the school was closed from 1939, 1940, when the teacher left, upto 1944.

I wanted to go to high-school for my father had no other child. I wasthe only one, and our purpose was to leave, to go to Athens, to study inAthens. But my grand-father called us on the phone, he was a priest andwas in Athens, and said: “Don’t leave, because if war is declared you willbe blockaded and die of hunger here”, just like many others that had noolive oil to eat. But we had olive oil at least here, and could find greensto eat. If you use enough oil, even if you have no bread, you are not hun-gry. But if you have no olive oil you swell and die on the spot. Olive oilis more important than bread. A fellow villager form here happened tolive in a cottage up there and he had no bread so he drunk a glass of oiland was able to come here, otherwise the poor man wouldn’t have madeit. He was strengthened by the olive oil. For if you have no oil, no mat-ter what food you eat without oil, you can not eat it.

The ItaliansWe 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 lit-tle money. And they paid for the things they got. That is, he came to geta chicken and he gave you ten drachmas, let us say, (they had their ownmoney) but they gave something. The Germans were bad news, theywere dogs. They gave you nothing even if that meant their death, but


they had nothing. The Italians had. I mean, they were given bread everyday and they also had a mess. The Germans ate sawdust, from wood, thetype that we get the fine dust out of; they had no bread. They mixed itwith maize flour as it seems, made bread and ate it. The Germans hadno bread. Germany was a poor country. With all the industries… andbecause they were many too. Well, we got along well for as long as theItalians were here.

But later on, in 1943 when Italy capitulated with England, all the Ital-ians that were here were killed. Those that were fast enough to hide,some of whom went even to the mountain, were saved. The rest wereput on a boat by the Germans were taken farther away and told: “Let ustake you to…” and they bombarded them afterwards from Anatoli anddrowned them. Everybody drowned. The Italians used to come hereonce a week; they didn’t stay here. They stayed in Vato, down in Vatowas a church of Agios Panteleimonas. They had their guardhouses therein Agios Panteleimonas. And two persons used to pass by, two othersthe next day, they wanted eggs, the day after wanted milk, I don’t knowwhat, what ever you gave them, potatoes… But they didn’t bother us,they meant well. My father told them “I have no potatoes” but he hadthem under the bed and the Italian saw them and he pointed the pota-toes out to him. “You don’t have eh? Look”, he said. He had them underthe bed and thought that they had not seen them but they saw them. Hesaid: “Take some and leave”.

The rebels’ movement and my participation in itThe Mpantouvas family was denounced in Heraklion for they took

part in the battle of Crete and killed many parachutists. They were be-trayed 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 al-lowed to come over here, up in the mountain, where the five brotherscamped: Yiannis, Manolis, Christos and Kostis. They came and campedin the hideout, up there in Hametis, below Anatoliko. At the beginningthey were five people and the shepherds could have told them: “Goaway”, for they had been elsewhere and they were chased away. But theythought it over and said afterwards: “Let them stay, they are five people”

VANGELIS CHRISTAKIS I217

and they gave them supplies. But later on, one after another that left theplace here, went there.

And one of them, Christos, comes down one night and he finds usand says: “We want to gather people to see how we will make a… the Ger-mans, and those of you that want, should enrol”.And we thought at thatpoint, that some of us should enrol to support them, for the sake of thecountry. And gradually, we made a group. Christos says: “If you can col-lect potatoes, onions” (I brought my wife along afterwards, after the Ger-mans 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. Onthe way, ten Italians approach me and I say: “My father is a shepherdand I am taking these to him in the fold”, for they thought, “Where is hetaking them?”. When I reached the place where the fold was, right on theleft side of the street, I turned around and headed to the fold. The shep-herds were not there of course, and I opened up, took out the branchesand unloaded (the donkey). When they saw that I unloaded and Iplaced the goods inside, they left and went to Simi. The rebels lookedat them from above with the binoculars, since the hideout was near, butthey thought: “Let it be, we don’t mess with them”. And I saw that theyleft; I was looking at them as well. When I saw them leaving and head-ing to Simi, I loaded back the goods. In the meantime, the shepherdshad come too, and I say: “I unloaded for the Italians were here”. Theshepherds had seen the Italians, they had hidden and had let them passby, they didn’t talk to them. And they called their animals and broughtthem. I say: “Come and help me to load for I have to leave”. And theyhelped me load and I took the goods to the rebels. They asked me: “Didthe Italians catch you?”. I say: “They caught me, but I told them that theywere my father’s and that I am taking them to the fold, and they didn’thurt me”. They said: “Stay and eat with us and leave later”. Eh, from thatmoment on, we went there all the time. I didn’t stay up there: I wentthere and came back, for I was like a messenger, an informer; the iden-tity card says informer and supplier. That is how we started and went tothe mountain.


In Simi: Villy weighs the potatoesIn 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 changedthe bandages, we had to be on guard in case the Germans came, for thedoctor took off his boots (and changed the bandages in his leg). And hesent me and another child from Mournies, near to Kato Simi wherethere was a rock, and we stayed there to watch over for as long as hechanged the bandages.

And there was a case that we saw the Germans down below, comingup, as we were climbing up. And we went back and told him: “The Ger-mans are coming”. He said: “How many?”. I said: “Two”. He puts on hisboots in a hurry and he told us to leave. And we left and we went overthe 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. Ifthey gather people we should not go down”. For they arrested people andtook them to Kastelli airport where they were forced to work and thenthey 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 po-tatoes. And they made him carry the sack, took it to the coffeehouseand the German reached a stick in order to weigh them. He said: “Wewill weigh them to pay for” and the German told him “Lasti!” and thebloody 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 andweighed them… damn, what a man. He is the one they killed, his namewas Villy. They killed this one with another one, called Yianni. Theother one, the third, was gone and he was saved.

I told them: “They take potatoes”. Christos said: “They don’t make ar-rests”. 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,

VANGELIS CHRISTAKIS 219

95 He stretches his arm horizontally.

and I went down and saw how they weighed the potatoes. They went toa house to take the potatoes and they came here afterwards to weighthem. 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 “ante-brines” that were for the fever and gave them to her. He brought her apiece of paper and put in a handful of these that were for the fever: theywere just right when we were ill. Malaria was very frequent in Mirtosand if you took the amount that could fill up a paper funnel you gotwell. I mean they were “antebrines”, I don’t know what they called them.And he gave them to her. I mean, I don’t know, he was probably con-scientious, but he was really big.

The battle of Simi and the disband of the rebels’ movementAfter the Italians were broken up, there were three people in the

guardhouse in Kato Simi. And they came to Apano Simi every day totake potatoes. Their purpose was to collect potatoes, for they sent themdown to the Middle East where they had the war in the desert. Theyfried them in Viannos, put them on a plane and dropped them to themafterwards. And they had canisters too that filled up with water anddropped them too, for there is no water in the desert. And they plannedto collect a couple of tons of potatoes and leave.

And one night, two, three, four people got drunk and said: “Whydon’t we kill them and get rid of them, instead of having them taking ourpotatoes all the time?”. And one of the Germans left in the afternoon tobring the mules, to take the potatoes, and he was saved. A woman wentand knocked their door in the morning, before dawn. And the Germansopened the door and they came in with the guns and killed them. Thattriggered the following events. It was Thursday, 9 of September, whenthey killed them.

On Sunday, Mpantouvas informed us: “A company of Germans comesfrom far beyond, they gather the people and they will take them for exe-cution. 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 hun-dred men. I was then of course seventeen years old, I was seventeen in


1943. But he told me: “You are young and you can not take a rifle so youwill take the cartridges. You will carry cartridges”.And I carried a bag ofa thousand cartridges. Heavy! Thirty cartridges weigh one oka. Butwhat 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 otherone and we left the road open in the middle. I was with Christos Mpan-touvas’ detachment. Manolis was the commander (his other brotherwas the warehouseman, Manolis naturally had his brothers to keep thekeys). They let them advance and come close to Simi. There is a riverlike that and a gully, and the road travels though the gully. And so welet them and they came in and moved on (we have made a statue therenow); there was a detachment ahead. And as soon as they went thereand all of them had come in from the back side and we had them en-circled, they started firing. Around forty five men were killed, we cap-tured fifteen prisoners and some escaped. They fell off in the gully, wentdown and ran away to Viannos. Of course we found (supplies) thereand we took boots. Some took the boots, others took a rifle, we tookthere… Some took jackets, each one of us that was there took some-thing. But two fellows from Kato Simi that were a bit perverted stayedthere and did disgraceful things. They took out their male organ, cut itoff and put it in their mouth. I didn’t see it myself, others said so lateron. You know, this is very wicked and the Germans came later andfound them and from that point on all the events happened. They killedthe two boys of course. As they say, they were a bit dumb and they did-n’t leave and stayed there and the Germans found them and killed themafterwards.

A battalion started then from Heraklion, beyond Viannos. And inorder 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 rebelsbehind them. They figured: “They may be behind us to trick us into get-ting inside”. And it was then that they started killing women too. Therewere 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 battlehad finished then, they had gone up to the mountain): “What happens


now?”. The Germans were up and spread in the villages doing thingsand burning, and he said: “We must leave”. And they got away fromthere and went to Males. We had the wireless there, and we took it to avillage to the Plateau of Lasithi, in a fold that a shepherd had, and he hidthe wireless there.

They also had with them an Englishman major that sent messageswith 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 hewas 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 don’t know,that I don’t speak, that I am dumb”, for they may recognise him becausehe was an Englishman. But Englishmen are blond and he was not. Hewas a major and he knew of course. He was up there when the airplanecame and dropped us some rifles. They communicated and he said thatan airplane will come at night to drop you guns and ammunition withparachutes. And it came and dropped them to us of course. There is aplateau up there, and we call it Omalo (but not the one in Chania, thisone overlooks Simi) and there are around fifty thousand square metersplanted. And the airplane came at night and made two rounds: we hadset a fire in three places. It dropped us the rifles and the bullets with theparachute and left afterwards. They brought us those before the battle,five, six months ahead, to keep them. They distributed them later, hereand there, but they were few of course and didn’t suffice. However, wewere later equipped for there were also sixty Germans; forty five deadand fifteen captured, sixty. And we took from them. But when Mpan-touvas came forward he said: “Hand in your weapons and leave”, we allhanded in our weapons and left. Not that I had. I had taken only onefrom there, from a dead one, from Kato Simi. Of course, we handed inthe weapons and we left. And they went farther away and later on tookthe wireless from Simi. A submarine came here to Arvi and they left atnight, embarked and went to Cairo.

There were two boys and they followed. They were sleeping (one ofthem was awake, listening) and the others said: “We will leave. Whatare we going to do with the kids?”. He said: “We should take them toCairo”, and the boy told him: “I am not going to Cairo”. And he got up,


pretended that he goes to defecate and left. He left so that he wouldn’tgo 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 menthere and sealed the monastery. He heard it and tried to escape and theykilled him.

The other one went. He was sleeping and they woke him up and toldhim: “Eh, come on, for we are leaving”. And they took him. He didn’tknow where they would go. He went to the submarine and then toCairo. There was a school there that he went to and he got trained andgraduated as second lieutenant. As it seems, he must have been in high-school for a couple of years. His name was Manusakis and was fromSimi. When the war ended, he came back (he was a second lieutenant).But they sent him to Grammos. The rebels killed late Manolis at Gram-mos. He used to carry food as I did. But he thought: “They will burndown Simi and we must leave”. They left, but I am telling you they killedhim. The poor man came back and he was still single, but he had met agirl down there and it was said that she owned a gold-mine, I mean, shehad oil wells. He would have become rich, a powerful man, had he notdied in Grammos. But the rebels killed him and it was over.

Italians after the capitulationItalians 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 tothe Middle East and he returned later. One remained in Gra Ligia andhe was hidden. He was a sergeant and his mother had no other (child).He met a girl there that was the aunt of my son’s Michalis wife, now thathe got married in Gra Ligia. The Italian told her: “Hide me so that theywon’t kill me, for my mother has no other, and I will take you with mewhen I leave”. And they hid Yiannis. They had him hidden for a yearand he came forward only after the Germans left. And then he took herand they left for Italy. My daughter in law visits them occasionally andspends around ten days, a month there. He was a sergeant and was laterpromoted to second lieutenant. He was a grown up for he was a careerofficer. And he has a good life. He also has children that come now and


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 andkilled, but only after he had left. He thought he would go and find a wayto leave, but how could he do that? The other one was rescued.

Germans in the villageWe saw the Germans when they came to the village but we were far

away of course. Only the women that were on site actually witnessedwhat happened. We didn’t see anything till the time they set a fire andwe left. They were planning to burn down our house. They came andgathered all the stuff, blankets, quilt, all the mattresses and they piledthem up. They put chairs and the table (as a matter of fact, the table wasburned 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 webrought out the other one later and we took it. They broke it and the oilfilled up the house; there was lots of oil, it was a hundred, a hundred fiftykilos. The space was divided by a stone wall and there was a hole thatmy mother left open when she wanted to drain the water. But they madea mistake and the oil didn’t drain and the women went later on and col-lected it. The poor people didn’t have to eat: if your field is burneddown, you don’t die for you have the house. But if your house is burneddown, you don’t have bread, you don’t have oil, you don’t have a pieceof cloth to sleep on. That is where the serious problem is, many of ussuffered from that.

Later on that we took part in the battle of Simi we had our nameswritten down on paper and my father used to say: “They will execute usshould they find this piece of paper”. So I just said to my father: “Let’sleave and hide ourselves”. And the ones who did not hide themselves…His brother was over here and he didn’t come, he said: “What will theydo 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 father’s brother and his two firstcousins. His brother’s name was Christakis Yiannis and my father’sname was Michalis. They were the children of the priest, but my grand-


father was gone and was in Athens. They gave him a parish in Oroposwhere his parishioners were “Vlachs”96 and he was living like a king.His other brother went too during the occupation, for they had anotherbrother as well, and he was saved, otherwise he would have died ofhunger. But the Vlachs brought wheat to the old man to prepare offer-ings to God and my uncle and his children had also some of those. Theygave them also wheat to make groats and they ate and were saved, oth-erwise they would have died.

Exiled to Metaxohori and the return to RizaIn 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 suppliesout of the house for we knew that they might burn the houses. We hadtaken around sixty kilos of barley (my mother had taken it little by lit-tle and had hidden it) and we took that and we went. Of course therewere mills then, so we had it milled, took it and made bread. We ate itin 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 hada few (supplies) ourselves and we managed to get by. We came later ondown here and there was lots of oil because it had rained. We producedoil and we started little by little to buy (goods). People started then, oneafter the other, to repair their houses with clay, with soil, for obviouslyyou could not find cement or anything else. They made the roof onlywith clay and soil placed on cypress trees beams they had cut. But thehouse of my mother’s brother was burned and so we were together. Hecame and stayed with us, what would become of him? And they werefive 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 mother’s olderbrother and he had a son, a first cousin of mine, and the poor guy diedof cancer (he was twenty years old, twenty one more or less, for he wasfive years older than me and I was around seventeen). We made a bed


96 One of the population groups of Greece.97 Purée of yellow split peas.

for him and he lay right there in the kitchen whereas the rest were all in-side here. So my uncle slept on this side, my aunt and their daughterthere, the other one there, I was on this side, my mother on this sideand my father there, and we all slept. In Metaxohori too, this is how weslept all together in one house. They didn’t have houses to give to all ofus and families were in couples. And hunger. Later on, when we camehere, we caught birds, rabbits, and so on, for there were many then. TheItalians didn’t allow us of course to go hunting for it was forbidden tohave a riffle. They taught us to set up “telia”98 to catch rabbits. The Ital-ians that had their guardhouse down to Vato, set up “telia” and caughtrabbits, they set up wires: you place a wire and you make a loop andyou put that inside a cage. And you arrange to put that in a place youthink it is a passage. The rabbit passes by, gets caught, the loop tightensup and the rabbit dies. People from Gdohia had been there, had seenthem, learned it from there and told us later. They said: “This is how theItalians do it”. And we started too and we caught later on rabbits forhaving a rifle was forbidden; you couldn’t hear a thing with “telia”.

Lifting of the neutral zoneAfter 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 theway up till Viannos. We left. Half of us, those who were in the prefec-ture of Heraklion, went and stayed in the lower villages. We went overhere; some went towards Ierapetra whereas we went to Metaxohori, thatis where we went. But there were many people those days there, unlikenowadays. And we stayed there for almost three months. Then Mpan-touvas sent a message: “I am in Cairo, what kind of “neutral zone” doyou have?”. And he said that the neutral zone is to be lifted. From the21st of November and on, we were given the zone back, it was lifted, andwe came back to our houses. But where could you stay? I remember thedate because I came here and we found mushrooms and on the wayback we saw the airplane dropping leaflets and I thought of taking somesince we had no paper to roll a cigarette. There were no cigarettes then,


98 A form of trap.

they took tobacco and chopped it but they had no paper. The leafletswere both in German and in Greek and we took and read it. I still haveone but I don’t know where I put it. I kept it but Mpantouvas took itfrom me. Imagine that he told me: “If you have a leaflet bring it to me tomake a photocopy and I will send it back to you afterwards” and he did-n’t send me the original yet he sent me the photocopy. In any case, itsays: “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 dayof the Virgin Mary, 21st of November is the day of the Virgin Mary, forthere is a Virgin Mary church there in Karidi. And we celebrated and leftthe following day and came. But where would we stay? Hopefully wehad our house, it was not burned…

Compulsory labourWe were conscripted later on and went to Ierapetra where we worked

in the projects they were constructing. That is after we returned fromMetaxohori and came here. They notified the president that: “Everyweek you will send us six people to work”.My father went. I didn’t go forI was seventeen years old then and we went and found the… they hada secretary and she was one of us (she was from here, from Riza) but shewas very educated and spoke German and they had her as a secretaryto translate German. Her name was Antonia Mathioudaki. She wasfrom Sfakoura, from the village further away. So, my father went andasked her to exclude him. Antonia said: “When you come again, bring arooster, a piece of cheese and some oil to give them to the officer and haveyou excluded”. And she said to the officer: “This old man was afflictedby 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”. Andthen my father told her: “But there is also my son and they will conscriptmy son, who is only seventeen years old”. She said: “We should exempthim. Bring over again something and I will take a child from here to bringit here to present it to him and he will say: “But he wears short trousers!”.We will present the child to him for he doesn’t know”. And the old manleft, and of course he brought along some kind of gifts, oil, I don’t know,


and she went and brought a child and said: “Look at this man and theyput 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: “Presi-dent, 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 totake a report that “Tomorrow they will load to…” and she sabotaged theproject. They found out about her at the end. When they discovered itand 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 andbrought it to the mountain and the people here knew when the dispatchwould depart for Cairo and they sabotaged the project. I heard she mar-ried an Englishman I think and that she is not in Greece. She was mar-ried to an Englishman. She probably met an Englishman officer whenshe went down to the Middle East and married there. But she was veryeducated.

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 shouldgive her a piece of cheese”. She was very educated. She could speak ofcourse the language and they had her as interpreter and their secretaryand she wrote for them anything they wanted.

A soldier and the family in welfareI 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 finishedthe last operations. I was discharged afterwards. I spent thirty threemonths as a soldier: three more months and I would have been a soldierfor 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 wehave now, we should not have married” I believed that I would take mywife and I would be like a king. My parents didn’t have another childand they thought: “He might get killed in the war”, that is why they gotme married. They said: “You should get married for you may go to thewar…”, there was the civil war then, “…you may get killed. Don’t you


think you should leave an heir behind?” And we had a daughter and shewas one year old when I left and four, five when I came back. My wifeCalliope raised her by herself, the poor woman. But she took a hundredand fifty drachmas a month for I was in the war. They gave her also andsome kind of food coupons and she managed to get along. That is, theygave her fifty drachmas worth in coupons and she went to the grocer’s,gave the coupons and took the foodstuffs. And if it cost more, for ex-ample if it cost… the value of the coupons was fifty drachmas. Theyhad letters on, and whoever used them would go later with the couponsto the welfare and take the money. And they were told: “You will go fromthis grocer’s shop that is cheap”, for welfare was looking to see where theycould find the lowest prices. And my wife went every month. I sent heran official statement that I was in the battalion and she went to welfareand took the hundred and fifty drachmas and the coupons. My fatherused to take her. How else could she go there by herself? He placed heron the animal, for there was no car then, and she went on the donkey’sback for she needed companion. I think there were a couple more vil-lagers that used to go. For we were all conscribed as soldiers together.And they followed too and two or three people went together, took thefood and loaded the animal. Eh, she gave my father some as well, for shethought: “Am I going to eat them all?” For example, she took five kilosof pasta and she gave him three and kept two for herself. Or milk, forshe didn’t want since the elderly had goats and gave her milk for thebaby. She just took for example, coffee, sugar, rice, pasta, whatever shewanted. And she paid the difference; for example if it was sixty drach-mas she gave the coupons and ten more and she was all set to leave. Andmy wife and my child survived, because of course, they received some-thing. They stopped it when I was discharged.

TodayGermans come in the summer time, but they tell you: “There was

war then”.We tell them that: “We don’t want you because you burned usdown”. They reply: “There was a war. What could we do?”. Indeed, it isnot their fault: our people are to blame for they killed the men in theguardhouse, we gave them the cause for burning us down. Had they not


burned us, they would have left afterwards. As soon as they collected thepotatoes and the other man came with the mules to take them, theywould have left; we would have not realised that there was war. For wedidn’t have Germans in the prefecture of Lasithi. Germans came laterwhen the Italians capitulated and left (they were slaughtered and wipedout). But if they had left them alone, the men in the guardhouse wouldhave gone. And even if they came afterwards, they would not have com-mitted these crimes to us.

Eh, I remember no more. All I said has been said before… I used toremember more in the past, now lately, I remember nothing. It doesn’tfunction, when you are young the tape is recording and you rememberit; after twenty five, thirty years and more, the tape is full and can takeno 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 theschool. Now, I remember nothing.


Galatia Mathioudaki Terzaki

I was born in 1932. My name is Galatia Mathioudaki. My god-fatherwas a police officer and he came for he was a friend of my father, whohad served as a field guard for many years. So the officer said: “Let mebaptise your child”. And my father responded: “That’ all right, you willbaptise her”. Yet, they wanted to name me Panorea and a first cousin ofmine came and said: “No, no, don’t name her that; you name her Gala-tia instead”.Now, how on earth she came up with this idea I don’t know,for there was no-one else named Galatia then. They baptised me Gala-tia and I have now myself two granddaughters with that name too.

My father’s name was Haridimos Terzakis. He was a hard worker. Heand my mother had a fortune. Yet, my mother was spoiled probably dueto the fact there was no other girl in her family. They didn’t even let herfill 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 renownedeverywhere for being a fine woman, a very nice one. People loved us.But after that September she was unable to leave the house, she knewnothing.

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 plant-ing cabbages and anything else we wished for. We had of course ourproperty, our own water supply and we could manage. However, we did-n’t have the knowledge nor had we the power and due to that relativeshandled my sisters’ marriage. And my mother didn’t say a word; she did-n’t know what to say. She needed someone to look after her and so shehad no hesitations. I, being younger, I had an argument with a relative ofmine and I told him: “No, no”.Not that I knew, but I didn’t want to partfrom my sister. For that cause alone, otherwise I knew nothing.

The ItaliansI don’t know many things for the Italians. I just remember the last

six people that came and stayed in the post office. Those ones I re-member. They wandered around the village every night. There was acurfew and we could leave the house but only at a certain time of the

GALATIA MATHIOUDAKI TERZAKI 231

day, not too early and not too late. I don’t remember of course the exacttime we had to be in the house, but at that time nobody was on thestreet. And I also remember that we happened to be once in our cottageand it was said that the Italians were leaving for their homeland. And anItalian went to buy honey from a fellow villager and our men caughthim and killed him only a few meters away. They didn’t 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 waseating. But they didn’t kill or hurt the people. They didn’t beat, they did-n’t… But the Germans did it all.

The Germans arriveEh, 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 tookus to the mountains, in a field we had there with a house, where westayed. We spent the winter there. But during the German occupationmy father used to go to the mountains to water the potatoes we hadplanted.

They were captured on Agios Nikitas99 day. On the 14th, 15th of Sep-tember. On that day. And my father walked half way and returnedhome. He said: “Damned potatoes, I didn’t find time to plant them, waterthem, and be with my children”.He had a soft spot for us. He went downand as soon as we saw the German airplane flying over dropping fliersall over the place, my father took my mother and my sister whereas Istayed in the cottage with my brother. And since the Germans came intwo detachments my parents managed to find the time to act: they tookmy mother’s entire dowry and all the clothes and food we had; theyloaded them onto the donkey and brought them to the cottage. Butthere were more things they wanted to take and my father and mothercame back. And my father said to her: “Stop here…”, that is just outsidethe village, “…I will go down and see how things are and I will call youlater so that you come and bring it to load it”. My father went to the vil-lage and opened the house.


99 Saint Nikitas.

The executionsThe Germans arrived in the afternoon; it must have been around two

o’ clock, just like now. The time the Germans were approaching, my fa-ther’s cousin, I think his name was Papoutsakis, was there. They cap-tured them both at once. And those men that had raki and gifts to treatthe Germans, to welcome them, took another cousin of mine that wasin an alley further down. They killed those men after forcing them withtheir guns on their back to form a line on the street so that they couldtake 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 hisname I think. He was bringing grapes on a donkey’s back: they unloadedthe grapes on the street, tied the donkey to a wooden stake and tookhim too with them.

To make a long story short, they took from here that time fourteenpeople and left, without of course… In other places they were moretroublesome but the people here in Males did nothing, except for thosethat had been with the rebels fighting. And they captured fourteen peo-ple and took them along. They also tried to set the village on fire, butthey didn’t 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 burialMy mother came back to us. In the morning, one of my mother’s

nieces came and told us: “Did the uncle come here?”, “No” (was thereply). “You should come and see how we are going to collect them” for wehad heard but didn’t know what it was: they had shot fourteen peoplein a field, just further down the village. And they had used a machinegun to wipe them out and they had gone afterwards and shot each in-dividual in his head. They were that frenzy.

In any case, my sister, an uncle of mine and this niece from mymother’s side went. Four people went. But how could they transportthem to bury them, in an uphill road with only a few persons to assist?They placed my father in a blanket. I didn’t see him. They placed him


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 an-nouncement was heard: “The Germans, the Germans”. Some were leftunburied in the cemetery, others were buried. My uncle lifted the head-stone and placed my father in. Some relatives of another man grabbedtheir man and placed him also in the same grave. There were two mentherefore together. They placed the headstone on top. Most people wereleft there unburied. It was a lie: the Germans had not come that day.Later on that night, those that had their relatives unburied went overand finished up the task so as to bring this issue to an end. They didn’tharm the village.

RebelsAfterwards, Tsakirakis and Papadakis came to our place. They were

both rebels and relatives from my mother’s side. There were two roomsand they opened a door in the internal room and cut the wall to makea window. And they used a bush there, an “astivada” as we say, so thatthe part they had demolished could not be visible. And they both cameto our home to sleep. Of course we wanted them for they were relativesand we wanted their company too, yet we didn’t know anything beyondthat. We didn’t know for I tell you we were children.

There was some trouble later on, when a German was killed in ourmountain and they threw him in a hole. The blood and the entire messwere all visible. Women and men went afterwards to the site, dug andcleaned up. They went down the hole and dragged the German downand hid him so that he could not be seen. But they killed Italians andmany others too as we were told.

Our familiesWe 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 actuallyonly twelve more or less. And she was a fine girl. But she got unlucky forher husband, Kostis Kalogridakis, died in the guerrilla war, after beinga soldier for six months. Again, another misfortune.


In any case, we fought this situation. My mother’s brother, but froma different father, took my brother with him to Thessalonica; my brothergrew up and married there and has his family there too. And I had tostruggle here with my sister all these years. They made all kind of effortsto get me married. I told them: “I am not getting married. I don’t wanta marriage. I have learnt from my sister’s marriage. I don’t want a mar-riage”. To make the story short, I reached the age of eighteen but thenmy relatives did not allow this to go any further. They wanted me to getmarried. And so I did marry. But I had a good life afterwards with myhusband.

My sister had no children; she had nothing and was a widow at theage of twenty two. She married again afterwards and gave birth to a girltoo, she got very lucky. Nonetheless, she is a widow now too. Her hus-band who was an old man, eighty nine years old, died. And rightly so.

Nonetheless, we went through a great deal of suffering as we grewup in order to get where we are. Had my sister not been in so manytroubles... She had a good time in her marriage. I have three children.All these are my grandchildren100. I have two grandchildren and in ad-dition two great-grandchildren now.

And later on, as we were grown up, we took care of my mother. Wehad her with us and my dear husband loved her very much; we had agood time. She was seventy eight when she died. It has been exactlythirty nine years today, going on to forty, since she died.

Germans in the villageWe always had Germans over our heads. This was not my house

those days. I stayed at my father’s house which is further down theschool. The Germans and all the Italians came there as they were goingto the school. There was a time, they spent around fifteen days and hadspread all over the fields; they were a lethal threat. They took the“galines”101, as we called them then; they caught and slaughtered pigs.Because it is different nowadays compared to those years: pigs, chick-


100 She shows a number of framed photographs laying on the living room’s table.101 In Greek: «γαλήνες» which means turkeys.

ens and everything else were free in the streets (so they took them andhad them slaughtered). But we had problems too. Once, the Germanscame and broke in to our house (we were inside of course) and tookour clothes. Those times things were differently and we used to sleep ona wooden frame called “contada” that my mother used to put the clotheson. But a neighbour came and said to the Germans: “You should beashamed, wanting to take the clothes from this woman; she has three chil-dren, how will she cover them at night in their sleep? And you also killedher husband!”. My mother didn’t say a word. And we managed to keepmost of our clothes. However, they still took from us two blankets fortheir sleep. They left them later in the school. Should we take them andreuse them? Of course not. The place was full of blankets, pillows, any-thing they had been able to find. But where could we take them? Therewere 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 againWhen the rebels’ movement started again, I might have been then

fifteen, sixteen years old, everyone came to the school. And they knewwho supported what group. And they used to shout at us and so we hadto leave: “Go to your houses, to your houses”. But the rebels gave sometrouble to other people. They also had a wounded man in the clinic(there was a clinic there); Hourdakis Nikolaos was the name of the doc-tor there. The doctor was a peaceful man that served everybody andaccepted anything you had to offer him. Even if you said: “I have noth-ing to give you”, hewould accept it. Yet he did what he was trained to doand provided the proper medical treatment. I don’t know who turnedhim in for being a leftist and the man was in a bit of trouble. He also hada grown up son studying then and the military arrested him and tookhim to Makronisos I think (I don’t know really well) where they hadhim tortured. But they were very nice people, just to everybody. No onecame to them without being helped. And they were not even from ourvillage. The mother of the doctor was from Neapolis and the relatives ofhis wife from Ierapetra. Thus, they had nothing to do with our village,


yet they were very nice persons.

The wheel has turnedWe 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 standthem at all, she could not hear them talking. And the wheel turned andher 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-lawnicely.


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 de-clared. At that time, there weren’t any mass media, there were just a few.We were inside the school in the morning and we were waiting for thetime to come to have the lesson started. The teachers were very strictthose years and the parents too. We were very noisy in the classroom be-cause the teacher was absent, he hadn’t come yet. Actually, he had beenvery late; it was nine o’ clock already whereas he should have come ateight o’ clock. We were children of course, we didn’t know what wasgoing on: maybe he got sick, we were saying, and we started playing,laughing, these things. And at one moment, the teacher came in (he wasnamed Vlahakis) and we were left speechless, because we were afraidthat we would be punished since we had punishments, fasts. We sawhim worried, sad, and he said: “Children, don’t be afraid…”, I guess tearsfilled his eyes, “…I will tell you that today Italy declares the war on us”and I don’t remember what else he told us. We were left speechless. Wehad heard about the war, OK, it would be something sad of course. Hetold us a few things, I don’t remember what exactly, then he dismissedus and we left. From that point on I remember nothing. They went, theyleft, they were taken as soldiers, the teacher, my father, all of that agegroup were young. I finished the preliminary school of course with an-other teacher: another one came that was younger, older, I don’t know,and I finished it in the normal time frame, without losing time. I fin-ished the preliminary school in ’42.

I was the first child to be born and then my father, EmmanouilKsiristakis, had another one. It lived for two years, died from pneumo-nia. He then had another one, to cut a long story short, he had threemore boys who died at the age of two, four and five. Two of them diedfrom 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, whosurvived. He had the opportunity; the occupation ended in let’s say ’50,and he graduated from the Commercial School. I liked school too, butunfortunately in ’43 that I finished the preliminary school my father


was killed and my mother was left at the age of thirty with a three yearold child and me, thirteen years old. Hardships of course then: we wentto high school from here with the donkey, there was no street, we usedwood, charcoals and an oil range to cook our food. Well, that was as faras we could go.

So in ’40, after a period of time since we were told that Italy declaredthe war on Greece, it was made public here that they would bombardthe village, the bridge down at Mirtos. We left and went to the coun-tryside where we had a house; the location is called Platia Mirthia.There were myrtles there, that is why probably the place was named likethat102. My grandfather had built a little house there and there was acave beside a trench. When we saw the airplane from here, we went tothe cave. They were flying very low, bombarding. We were children ofcourse. We saw an airplane for the first time and we were curious butafraid also.

That period ends and my father returns from Albania. He went toAlbania and suffered greatly in the snow. He returned here unharmed,fortunately he returned unharmed. I don’t remember now exactly howhe managed and they went away, they embarked, because it was a prob-lem to leave from Peloponnese; they left secretly by boats. I don’t re-member the story exactly. What a trouble he went through in order tocome to Crete!

Then there were the Italians, I don’t remember when exactly. I re-member the Italians when they came here, since there was a medlar treehere, close by (it was May and the medlars were mellowed) and aboutten 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 peo-ple”. As children we stopped being afraid of them. Then I lived withthem a little bit here, where they had a guardhouse with about sevenpeople with a command sergeant in charge, and we had a nice time.They didn’t do any harm: they chatted with the grown ups and theyloved us too, the children. We didn’t have any problem, no problem atall.

MICHALIS KSIRISTAKIS 239

102 Mirthia («μυρθιά» or «μυρτιά» in Greek) is the myrtle tree.

The Germans comeThat period came to an end and the Germans came. We hadn’t seen

them yet. I remember that they started burning the villages and thenthe entire village here was aroused and they took most of the things, es-pecially 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 vil-lage they were all gone, because we could see the smoke from here. Wesaid: “Ah, any minute now and they will burn our village too”. We did-n’t know that our village would survive; I don’t know why it survived.

Everyone in my family went to a cottage over there, it was called Me-somales, where the house of an uncle of mine called Marakis Em-manouil was. He had two sisters, my mother and another one. He hadone child, his other sister had two (she had one, up to that time) and mymother had me and my younger brother who was three years old. Westayed there for one night. In the meanwhile, my father came there thefollowing day, to plant green cabbage, “filladia” as we used to call themthen, in that field there. It was September and “filladia” were planted atthat time. We stayed there. That day the Germans came from Metaxo-hori, it was called Parsas then; they went through Christo (we heard itof course afterwards because we were in the field). In the night we heardgun shooting. The Germans were very close and the gun shooting couldbe heard, after this hour, after ten in the morning. My mother of coursewas anxious because my father had come here and she said: “The Ger-mans will kill him”.

The whole day went by in anxiety, my mother was crying, all myaunts 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 shesaw him covered with blood, his clothes were full of blood, and shethought that he was injured, but he wasn’t. They had killed some locals;the Germans had captured some fellow villagers, fifteen or sixteen peo-ple, I don’t remember. Whoever made it, left… some woman came fromChristo, her name was Eirini… she was named Papadaki after she gotmarried (her husband’s name). She saved a great many of them, mayshe be well, if she is not dead. She shouted from the oil factory: “Goaway, go away, the Germans kill as many men as they find!”. Many went


away. Some others didn’t leave and were captured and taken a bit fartherdown from the village, around a kilometre, to a parental field and wereexecuted. No one got away. They were very young of course: the olderone was fifty years old and the others twenty five and over. They exe-cuted them in the location Hiromantres, it was a passable road. As soonas they were a kilometer outside the village, they took them off thestreet, and two persons stopped them with the machine guns and exe-cuted them. My father had a friend, Tsagkarakis Petros, and a grandfa-ther, Damianakis, whose wife was from here and they were killed. Hewas bold and picked them up and they brought them to burry them.That’s why the clothes were full of blood.

After the executions, we leave for another cottageAnd 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 veryclose, one hundred metres, and the Germans used it when they camefrom Ierapetra or went from here to Ierapetra. And they decided: “Wewill go to the upper cottage in Platia Mirtia”, that was very far away andwas 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 werefew, very few, and we started to go there. Before we reached our desti-nation, a relative of my father that had a cottage farther back and was myfather’s friend said to him: “You will stay here. We have a house to stayhere, to keep us company”. We also wanted to be with many people, wefelt more secure when we were many. We stayed there. It would havebeen… I don’t remember the date, but when they killed my father it was19 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 atthe cottage where that man accommodated us. Liratzakis Emmanouilwas his name (he is dead).

Next to his cottage, there was another one and Hourdakis’ family wasthere: he was a rural doctor here, there was his wife, teacher Crisi, who


was helping me with my studies and she had a daughter too whose namewas Froso (she is still alive in Athens, a microbiologist). We played to-gether as children; we knew each other from the preliminary school.Her father had also baptised an aunt of mine and we had a close friendlyrelationship with her mother and that girl too; she was a little girl thattime, 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 myfather’s sister-in-law (the wife of his brother Georgios). They had a cot-tage too and they stayed there and she gave birth to a girl. My fatherlearned about it and he wanted to go and see her and he took me alongtoo. She was a sister-in-law of course and the newborn was a niece. Wewent there and my father saw her (I didn’t see her). He went inside thehouse and saw the lying-in woman and the baby too, while I sat out-side on a threshing floor with the other ones.

The Germans shoot at usAt 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, chil-dren and men. It might have been fifty or one hundred people there.There was water there, there was the monastery, there were one or twocottages. I don’t know why there were so many people assembled there.We stayed there for the night, outside. I wore a coat, nothing else. It wasSeptember of course, summer, but it was chilly in the night, and I don’tremember having felt cold. In the morning, when it dawned, a group ofpeople got together, my father and his friends. Let me refer to them bytheir names. It was I, that’s one, my father, two, Haralampakis Kon-stantinos with his son Giorgos, four, Mathioudakis Ioannis, five, NikosKalaitzakis, six, Karofillakis Emannouil, twenty four years old, seven,Milakis Giagkos, eight, Prousakis Emmanouil, nine, and Diakakis Em-manouil (they called him Mastromanoli and he was from an island, Idon’t know from where). The older ones where Prousakis, Diakakis andMathioudakis, they were around fifty years old. The rest of them werearound twenty five, twenty eight years old. My father was thirty three.

So, we go farther away, about a kilometre, where Mathioudakis Ioan-nis had a vineyard. He asked us to go there where there was also water,


to eat grapes, to stay there too. The school was on the opposite side andhad a great number of Germans. Was it a company, I don’t know whatit was. We reached the vineyard, whereas three stayed behind us. Theywere older than us and didn’t follow. We reached the vineyard, each oneof us cut a grape off, we ate it, everyone inside the vineyard. The day wasbreaking then of course, we could see the school and the shadows ofthe Germans were visible. Then, as we were eating grapes, we heard aburst of machine gunfire which echoed of course. There was a hill andthe echo of these gun shots seemed to be very close to us. So, we crawledacross 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 hadconstructed a ditch to prevent the rain water from going inside the vine-yard and to avoid damages. That ditch of course, also called “vaga”, wasvery 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: wewere seven people there. I remember very well that there was a smallpassage from the forest that led to the vineyard. You had to push asidethe branches with your hands to get to the vineyard.

The first one was Karofillakis Emmanouil, face down, behind himwas Kalaitzakis (they were very close friends), I was the third, my fatherwas fourth, fifth was Haralampakis Georgios (he was my age, thirteenyears old), his father followed and the last one was Mathioudakis Ioan-nis who was the owner. At the end, there was a cliff about ten, fifteenmeters high. There was no space for other ones, should there be any: thehead of each one touched the boots of the other one. We didn’t talk. Itwas a bit windy. In about ten minutes, the voices of the Germans wereheard, about ten minutes. We stayed still of course: we didn’t speak, wedidn’t move. We were inside the myrtles and we couldn’t be seen.

The one who was first was Karofillakis. The first German passed tocome in the vineyard for grapes too. There was a tall rock outside thevineyard on the east side and there was a German (I saw him after-wards) and of course he must have been in charge, because he held a bigwireless. He was on the rock and could be seen from where we were un-derneath. He didn’t see us. But as the German was passing, the first onethat got to the vineyard, he saw Karofillakis. He touched him with the


gun in the waist (I saw him, I was the third one) and he shot him onceand Karofillakis said: “Oh!”. Nothing else. That was it. The Germanpassed by, nothing: he didn’t see us, he didn’t see anyone else.

Manolis Karofillakis was from Krousta, his mother was married here.He was a shoemaker here and a friend of my father’s and as my fathercould not afford my going to school, he asked him and took me thereto 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. WhenI saw that they killed him I was very sad, but I was a child, I didn’t takeanything into account… nor was I afraid… I felt so awkward that… Iwasn’t afraid of anything, I mean, as if I was dead.

As soon as they killed him, Kalaitzakis that was immediately afterhim, got up and ran away, heading towards the cliff. The one that wason the rock, the German in charge, saw him and shot a burst of gunfiretowards him but he was not the one that was hit: as my father was lyingface down, he got a bullet in his back that went through. High in theback. When my father got that bullet, he stood up. He wore a hat and hewas waving it to surrender. The German saw him from above. They im-mediately stopped and ceased firing. They called the man in charge Iguess, 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 thefield, in which the owner had thrown the dry branches when he wastrimming. There was a pile there, a big pile and my father didn’t have thestamina and sat over there. I was holding a small bag then and I hadbread and cheese. The Germans where talking to us. Of course, theywould have asked me about the rebels, but they didn’t know Greek, wedidn’t know German. There was no interpreter. They emptied the bagwith the food down, and I, as a child, figured that they were probablylooking for a pistol or something like that. They didn’t find anything.Since we didn’t understand each other they stopped asking us.

Two young Germans take me; they were very young, maybe theywere from eighteen to nineteen years old. I remember their faces verywell. They put me in the middle and loaded me with three bullet beltsfor the machine gun, which were heavy; they were heavy. They put them


here around the neck, three bullet belts. There was a stone bench likethis, long and narrow. My father was sitting on the vines. He was bleed-ing. When we were about to finish, to leave, to go down to the forest, Iheard a gunshot. Although I was a child and didn’t have the knowledgethat young children have today, I understood that they had finished myfather off, as they actually did. They gave him the coup de grace with thepistol in the head. Due to his bad luck though, he was not shot in thehead, he was shot in the neck and the bullet went through and he did-n’t die.

The Germans take me from the place of the executionThe Germans took me and got me farther down: it is called the water

of Panagia Ksakoustis. They had camped there; they must have been acompany. They didn’t intend to kill that day. It is an omission of course,I should have said that from the beginning: they didn’t intend to kill.They were coming from Kalamauka and had people from Kalamaukaalso with animals, some things, whatever it was that they had loaded. Inthe camping site that the two Germans took me to later on, they hadthe wireless and I saw the people from Kalamauka there. They had cap-tured two people from our village and they saw me. I had blood on meof course, because where… I didn’t get up when my father got the firstbullet and the blood was dripping upon me. I had very much blood onme too. They asked me if I was wounded. There was Georgios Lam-prakis there (he is dead now) and Nikolaos Mpantouvakis that was cap-tured also out there. I said: “I am not wounded, but they killed my fatherand the rest, all seven of them”. I thought that with all that gun shootingthere, the grenades, no one would have survived. I figured that theywere killed. We were chatting and the Germans saw us and split us. Theyput us separately so as not to talk to each other. They had capturedMpantouvaki in a location that was called Vokano. He was there withhis family also, with young children. It didn’t happen, they didn’t hurthim. They captured him and they took him. They saw the baby (he hada baby there two years old) and they saw that he was not a rebel, butthey took him anyway. I want to say that they didn’t have an intentionthat day, but from that point, after they arrested Mpantouvakis, the Ger-


mans saw with the binoculars (it was heard, I didn’t see them) twohunters, armed with rifles. Then, a platoon, I don’t know how manythey were, was ordered to go after them. They chased them but theydidn’t catch them. They hid and the Germans didn’t catch them. An-other man, Stefanakis, paid the price. He was running to get away, tosave himself, and they shot him and he was killed on the spot. Fartheraway, a field guard, Spatharakis, was running and they shot him andkilled him. By the time they came to us they had killed these two. Thatis, before dawn, because they had seen those men armed. Maybe it is alie, I don’t know, but this is what was said.

Well, they had me there all day as a hostage. At about three o’ clockI saw that they fired green flares. I understood it was for the detach-ment that had gone to chase those people, in order to be gathered…After an hour, they all gathered; they loaded the ammunitions, the bul-lets, whatever they had, on the donkeys. At noon, the two young Ger-mans that took me from where they had killed my father, say to me:“Grapes”. That is, I understood two words, that they wanted grapes, totake them to a vineyard that has grapes. I knew now two vineyards. Onewas down here, in Panagia Ksakousti, but I figured that there wouldn’tbe any grapes because it was 19 of September and they would have cutthem off. Up there though, in a spot called Vocano where an aunt ofmine had a vineyard, I knew that there were grapes but it was about onekilometre 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. Wecut. I was wearing an overcoat, a coat that I took off later. Think aboutit, I didn’t feel warm, nothing. And they put it down and we fill it withgrapes. Then I grab one side and the other German the sleeves and thenthey saw that I couldn’t and those two grabbed it. I was thinking thatthey were going to kill me. I figured that since I showed them the grapesnow, they will kill me afterwards. They didn’t hurt me.

We go down; they were gathered, they loaded, they left. They loadedthis man, Mpantouvakis Nikolis with a wireless on his back. They allleft. A German stayed with me, with a machine gun. I didn’t know thatit was machine gun; I learned it after I went to the army. “Piccolo”, he


says to me in Italian. I say: “Males”.He says: “Parti”.He beckoned at mewith his arm like this, to leave. I leave. The road was passable, there wasno motorway then. I wasn’t planning to go to the village but to the cot-tage, where my mother was, to tell her the events. That German fol-lowed me to Panagia Ksakousti. I see now the German following meabout one hundred meters away and I think that he is waiting to killme. In Panagia, he climbs up to a rooftop and I was in the direction to-wards Males. As I walked about a kilometre, I looked at him: I figuredhe is waiting to kill me. I didn’t know that he was far away, but I was achild. As soon as I didn’t see him anymore, I breathed normally. I say:“He can’t see me, I escaped”.

Free, I return to my motherI 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 wheremy mother was, I happened to pass outside a small cave, where therewere women and children inside, known to me, and an aunt of minethat was also at the cottages. There were around fifteen women and chil-dren hidden somewhere inside the cave. They had built a wall in thefront part of the cave with stones and they were looking through thefissures. This pathway happened to pass outside the cave. As I was pass-ing by insouciantly, carefree, I heard some voices, the stonewall wasbreaking down and the stones were falling on my feet. Such fright tofeel in this moment: to hear suddenly, in this peace, these voices and tohave stones falling. An aunt of mine, called Kalampakaki, saw me. Shewas my second aunt but very beloved one. She had helped my motherin her labour, she was like a midwife, and she had practically doneeverything but for breastfeeding me. And she sees me and kisses meand hugs me and says: “Are you injured?”. “No…” I say, “…they killed myfather, they killed those seven people that I was with. The Germans aregone…” I am telling them, “… there is no fear, step out”. And two of myaunts accompanied me and they took me to the cottage where I foundmy mother at about nine o’ clock.

They immediately dressed me with dresses, because they didn’t killwomen. They were afraid now. I stayed there and my mother left, I don’t


remember, with one or two women (there were no men) to go very faraway, during the night, to go where they had killed my father. A longdistance, during the night, through small pathways. So they went, I don’tknow which women, it was the aunt Kalampakaki, I don’t know whoelse went. They reached the point where they had my father and Karo-fillakis executed. When they reached the place, they were still there. Twoof them had been left hidden. Haralampakis with his thirteen year oldson were there all day long. They were listening to my father, since hewas making that snoring sound, but they were afraid of getting up andtying his wounds. They didn’t know whether the Germans were there.But they told me later that they were listening to him for all the timethat he was snoring. They got up too and helped and he was taken to themonastery 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 inhis head. The next day at noon, they lifted him up from there to bringhim to the village. They made a stretcher for him, using some smallbeams of wood and wool blankets. When they passed nearby the cottageto come to the village, he thought I was killed, that they had killed me,and he didn’t believe what my mother was telling him: “The child is athome”.He was saying: “I want to see it”. They waited about five hundredmeters farther up from the cottage, and they came and took me. I wentand he sees me and squeezes my hand. Actually, he couldn’t 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. Aswe were approaching the bridge here that is called Flegas (there was noroad of course, we went from a passable path), a woman came from thevillage and says: “The Germans are at the village”. Ah, there were menalso. “Only the men should leave”. Well, the one or two men that werewith us left again and the women handled the stretcher. And I wentback to the cottage too, because my mother didn’t let me follow. He liveduntil one o’ clock at night; he died on Monday night, i.e. Tuesday morn-ing hours. He lived for forty-eight hours after he got wounded. So thisis it. He was very energetic. He managed and had a house built here, wewere staying at the village and he had a house farther away here. He was


active, he was hard working, very hard working. He was working as awaterman, he was a labourer, I mean, he didn’t stop at all and he wasvery strong, very strong, a daring man. He went to Albania and sur-vived, he came here to his house, unfortunately…

Wemade itThe Germans came here afterwards. They captured people; they sur-

rounded the village one morning to capture some people that were sus-pected of providing supplies to the rebels, a teacher namedPapaleksantraki. They surrounded the village, they set up the machineguns, I remember some scenes. We had Germans frequently. They werenot permanently here but they were here frequently.

My mother, a young boy and I, stayed. I continued and went to anuncle of mine and I learnt the craft of the shoemaker and I finished hereas a practical shoemaker. Then I went to Agios Nikolaos for one year tocomplete my training. Then I went to Ierapetro (Ierapetra) to learn toborder 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 placeit in the shoe tree. We were using designs from magazines, from prospec-tus. I was talented for all, but for women’s shoes particularly. I finishedthe training; I opened up a shoemake’s shop afterwards. I got marriedtwenty three years old. We went to the army late. I shouldn’t have goneto the army: I didn’t know I was a war victim to fill out the papers and Iwent as a soldier, I was married of course. I got married twenty two yearsold, I had been married for one year before I went to the army. Then, abrother-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 thepapers. But I had done ten months. When the papers came to me, I wasdismissed immediately. But then we used to go to the army when wewere grown ups, we went to the army at the age of twenty two, I don’tknow why. We made it, with great hardships, great hardships.

Later on, they granted a German pension for my mother, a compen-sation. But unfortunately they gave only 50%: the State embezzled therest, I don’t know who. And she received a small pension and mybrother managed to go to high school. I learned the craft, we got


through. We suffered. My mother I guess suffered very much: she wasa widow at the age of thirty two, my father was thirty three when theykilled him. What can you do, this is what occupation was like. Then, Ihave been in hardship too, I have changed many jobs: at the cooperative,a warehouseman of fertilizers, administrator, president, mayor, I havebeen 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 sur-vived of course because we had the oil, we had the greens, we plantedsome vegetables. We were deprived of things of course but people else-where were in a worse situation. But humans always survive in the vil-lage from the agricultural cultivations.

The GermansIn my opinion, the simple German soldiers are not to blame. These

two children, I omitted to mention, that took me from the first momentand 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 hehad up there. It was named Platanos, a vineyard, and we were ridingthe animals. The Germans were coming again from Kalamauka towardsMales. We weren’t afraid then, the executions had stopped. We stoppedat the edge of the road and the phalange of the Germans passed. As Iwas on the animal, riding, a German looks at me and greets me: “Howare you….” he says “… piccolo?”. And he squeezes my hand smiling andI remembered that he was one of those boys. That is, their behaviour tome was very good and he recognised me and said103: “There, do you re-member?”. Like this, in broken Greek. I understood that it was this boy.I mean that there were good people also. Maybe that’s why he felt com-passion for me too: he was young also, maybe he was eighteen, nineteenyears old. That is, we had a difference of five, six years, and he was prob-ably thinking: “There, he is a child too”. I am saying that the Germanswere not to blame, whereas their leader was. Hitler was so cruel, that theGermans themselves were afraid to express their complaint or their


103 “Eki, thimasai?”, i.e. “ere, do you remember?”

pain, because they didn’t know if someone was listening and if theywould be executed. Eh, now after all these years, the situation haschanged. That is the good thing: that up to now we have lived a great pe-riod of peace, the only peaceful period that Greece has been throughsince then, excluding the civil war of course. That was awful too.

We have lived those experiences of course and they don’t go awayfrom our memory: awful pictures have been left. The young will readabout them, if he ever reads about them. I believe he will end up with aconclusion, but these stories should remain and we should wish thatthey never happen again. We should wish that they never happen again.

The ItaliansWhen I was trained as a shoemaker in Agios Nikolaos (the shoe-

maker’s shop was beside a monastery) the guardhouse of the Italians wasin today’s post office and they were very close to us. They came to theshop with this craftsman Karofillakis that was killed, and they were mak-ing jokes and arguing, like people from the village. They were cookinglittle cats, they were eating them, and once the Italians gave a cat to thecraftsman: “We have nice rabbit”. After he ate it, they told him that itwas a kitten [laughs] and he got mad, that is, they made serious jokes. Butthey 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 onher knees and she was fat and she was moving left and right and Argis-tos 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 soundof a boot was enough to make us tremble, to make everyone tremble.

TodayAnyway, we had a nice time afterwards. I am happy of course be-

cause I lived the events, I felt them, I remember them and needless tosay, I lived a good life too, I can’t complain. I have a daughter, she ismarried and lives in Heraklio, I have two grown up grandchildren, oneis thirty and the other one is twenty seven. We are fine, thank God; theone child that I have has settled down now, she is fine. I loved my vil-


lage, all the people loved me, may they all be well: I am happy with myfellow villagers. Without my wanting to pursue the presidency or be-coming a mayor, the people from my village proposed me by them-selves, they forced me. I managed somehow the first time, I said I amnot doing it again. Another person was elected again and they soughtme and forced me again and I was elected with the support of three par-ties the second time. I don’t know if I have to say this, but because I lovemy people from the village and they loved me, I would like to thank allthe villagers because they showed their love: they were chasing me withthree parties and I was elected with 56%. I won easily with 56% from thefirst round, and the first time as a president with a great 65%. I believethat I did whatever I could. I hope they are pleased, but I am verypleased too with my fellow villagers. If they later read this, I thank themvery much, and you and everyone.


Iordanis Tsakirakis

I am single. I had my mother here in Males but she died in 1955. Myfather 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 oc-cupation. The conquerors had everything under their control and pos-session, seizing and taking it all: animals, crops, bread, chickens etc.Regarding clothes and shoes, half of us were walking bare foot and theother half were almost naked, dressed in rags. Later, when the Italianscame, they used to sell us or give us certain things almost for free. Forthe most part, old tents that we transformed into clothes, pairs oftrousers, jackets and so on. But the situation was tragic.

Later on, in July of 1943 when Italia collapsed and Mussolini wasoverthrown, the Germans took over the whole area and we were forcedto flee to the mountains. Not all of us left; five or six people from our vil-lage and an equal number from the neighbouring villages. We went toan area called Hameti. It is where the sun sets and where Mpantouvashad his hideout.

I spent there around a year and a half. I went in March of 1942 andleft in 1943. After the battle of Simi we were forced to separate. TheGermans had started retaliation actions: executing and burning downthe villages. They arrested some of our people too, an adjutant from La-sithi, and they had him wandering with them, dressed in the Germanuniform. They held gatherings in the squares of the villages, draggingthis man with them. He was forced to become an informer. He knewwho had been in the hideout and those he pointed out were to be ar-rested and executed at once by the Germans.

Eh, and after the 12th of September when the battle in Kato Simi tookplace, a number of tragic events happened to all villages. They burneddown around eleven villages, six in the eastern part of Viannos and fivehere in the region of Ierapetra. There were almost six hundred to sixhundred and fifty dead. Our own village, Males, was also included in thelist of the villages to be burned down. But it was saved thanks to the

IORDANIS TSAKIRAKIS 253

heroine Mathioudaki Antonia and the bishop of Chania, Mazokopakis,serving at that time in the episcopate of Ierapetra. Antonia Mathioudakiwas an interpreter of the Germans but an agent as well of the English,the allies. We left together for the Middle East. Along with AntoniaMathioudaki there was a man from our village, Drigianakis Manoliswas his name. He now lives in Volos with some relatives of his; he issick and they came and took him with them.

Leaving Crete for the Middle East, we enlisted as volunteers. I servedthere, in the Ministry of Information in Cairo, around six months. Wewere located in the Zamalek area, on the bank of river Niles. We werelater on taken to Palestine. There, the late commander of the “SacredBand”104, Christodoulos Tsigantes, came and picked around ten menfrom our unit, operating in Ismailia. We were chosen on a voluntarilybasis and taken to the “Sacred Band” in Palestine. And then we departedfor Athens.

On October 24th of 1944, the Germans had left Athens. We wentthere originally and then moved on to Siros. At that time the so-called“Dekemvriana” took place. On our leaving Siros we went to the Aegeanislands and liberated them from the Germans. Then we got involved ina sabotage in Rhodes, in an area called Monolithos. We killed aroundforty five Germans and arrested eleven as prisoners. We also blew upfive strongholds with cannons and gained control of the west side ofRhodes. After that, the passage of the British ships was free. Followingthat, we returned to our home base which was situated in Simi, in Do-dekanisa. The sabotage in Rhodes took place on the 5th of May and theGerman General who came to Simi signed the surrendering treaty onthe 8th. The next day, on the 9th, torpedo boat destroyers shipped free toRhodes and we disarmed all Germans. There were around five thou-sand along with the Italians. We took all the weapons and then went toLeros, Kos, Mikonos and the rest of the islands in the Dodekanisa com-plex where we disarmed them and captured them as prisoners. Weplaced 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: Ιερός Λόχος.

presence of Field Marshal Montgomery, Eisenhower and the RussianGeneral Zhukov. And so the war was over.

But then again, we had another mission. And that was to fight theJapanese for Greece had not declared the war against Japan althoughour allies, Britain and the USA, were already in war with Japan. And ithad to be us, since the senior classes of 1938 and 1939 had to stay inGreece to organise its post-war standing army that was naturally in greatneed. So, we took the ocean liner from Chios, I think the name of theship was Enterprise, to Alexandria. Our final destination was Burma(the Union of Myanmar), in Southeast Asia. We camped next to thepyramids of Cairo, where we spent around a month of special training.In the meantime, the Americans dropped the nuclear bomb and even-tually we didn’t have to go. Japan capitulated, I think on the 3rd of Sep-tember of 1945. That is five, six months after Germany’s surrender. Wecame back afterwards, in October of 1945. I was discharged from thearmy and came here to the village.

In the mountainsThe reason I went to the mountain was out of hate against the con-

querors. That is the Mussolini’s black-shirted fascists, for the Prefectureof Lasithi was under Italian occupation and only after 1943 that Mus-solini’s regime collapsed, did the Germans come and took over. Theyhad repeatedly made public announcements that the villagers shouldhand all their weapons, i.e. both guns and hunting rifles; there would beno exception, even barrels alone without shoulder stock would had tobe handed. And they found two barrels in the house of Garefalakis thecoppersmith and Spatharakis, in their search in the village Christos.They executed both of them, in an area we call Halavra that is on theborders of our village. And then, they came and surrounded our villageduring the night. I had bought a pair of army boots, how much do youthink? Forty five okas of oil in the black market! Black market was wide-spread in the entire Crete and Greece.

So, my late mother took my boots, hid them in the barn and coveredthem with hay. There was a chance they wouldn’t find them. The barn


was inside the house, for we had donkeys, oxen, and other animals weused to feed. In their search they found my boots in the hay and cameand slapped me twice. I was young, should be around seventeen, eight-een years old. And they tell me: “Where did you find the boots?”One oftheir captains could speak Greek fluently. I replied: “I bought them froma German”. I lied for I knew that Italians were afraid of the Germansdespite being allies. And he says: “No, no, scarpe”, where scarpe meansItalian shoes. “No…”, he continues, “…furbo”, meaning that I am sly. So,in any case, they took my boots, they confiscated them and I had noth-ing to wear, not even a slipper; I was walking barefoot.

The next morning, I took a box of gunpowder I had, I opened it andpoured its content over the animal dung. I forgot to mention that I hadnot handed my father’s hunting rifle, but had it hidden out in the fields.I regarded myself as a hunter too! And also didn’t say that the animalswere kept separately in the stable although we were using the same door.I threw the empty box in “doma”105; they never found it. And even ifthey had found it, it would have been empty nonetheless.

The Italians formed three groups. They had forced the priest, themayor and the chief policeman to come along during their search. Thepopulation of the village that time was about one thousand and fivehundred inhabitants. The priest came to my house with the unit of theItalians. They took my boots, I cried, nothing, and on top of that, theyslapped me twice. The following morning the priest sent the field guardto notify me to go to the school, which was the headquarters of the Ital-ians. They did not actually use the school as their residence, but morelikely as a muster station, just like the church. I got scared and fled bare-foot to the mountain where I encountered another man from our villagethey were also chasing.

Five six days afterwards, my mother sent me a message to return forthe Italians had given me back the boots. The priest was a cousin ofmine and he must have said something, or even bribed them, I don’tknow. I can’t describe my joy that moment, thank God! I was in a cot-


105 In Greek: δώμα, that is a small room usually located at a higher level inside the house.

tage then, far away, in “Rouso Ksilo”, up in the mountain. Of course, hewas my godfather and I had enough to eat and drink, may they beblessed. 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 thepower of his group. There were around thirty to thirty five rebels hehad on his side and he wanted more. The following day, the presidentof 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 youunderstand me now? The British dropped boots, clothes, jackets etcusing parachutes. I went to the hideout together with another man frommy village. We spent there around a year and a half. We first went therein March of 1942 and left in September of 1943. At that time, the hide-out was destroyed for the Germans came there and burned down every-thing. 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 andprovided us supplies with the donkey every two or three days. We hidin the caves, inside the rocks, to protect ourselves. Others were arrestedand executed in the middle of the street, by the Germans.

This is my journey and the reason I fled to the mountain; out of hateagainst the conquerors. Besides, I was at an age where someone defiesfear. I would be afraid if I had to go now. Back then, we were not awareof the consequences. We were young and had no experience, nor didwe know how the events would evolve.

Can you imagine what is it like to burn down eleven villages? Do youknow how they did it? They had a substance, called “dry gasoline”. Theywould break the door or the window, throw the material inside thehouse and then use a flare to set the house on fire. It was a powder, justlike flour. Nothing was left. In Viannos, they even placed dynamites inthe foundations of the burned houses, to demolish them completely. Itwas an unprecedented disaster.


The battle of Kato SimiI 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 ayear 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 hadbeen 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 nearby villages who took part in the battle of Kato Simi (including his own name), as they are re-ported in Dimitrianakis, 2003: 374.

took him to our hideout and doctors came and treated his wounds. Hewould have died from bleeding otherwise. Many stories have been writ-ten concerning the battle of Simi, but most of them are lies fabricatedby the commanders. Commander Mpantouvas was not present in thebattle. Besides, we did not plan to give a battle. They conceal it now forwe are embarrassed and afraid.

The Germans had arrested, twenty, thirty days before the battle, twoof our men on their way to the water-mill to charge the batteries for theradio. They used to leave them there for a couple of days and the millerwould charge them, but I don’t know how he did it. Are you aware ofthis? I had no idea myself that batteries were rechargeable. There wereno means these days like today. We needed either a windmill or a wa-termill for the radio batteries. We also had a wireless telegraph in thehideout, but that was used by the British agents.

In any case, the Germans had arrested two of our people in this wa-termill the moment they were getting the batteries. They were betrayedand were transferred to the jail in Viannos. No-one knows about this,apart from four, five people. One of them is Spatharakis. His name iswritten in the paper too, right after mine. He lives in my village, closeby, but he has lost his memory and doesn’t speak at all. It was my in-tention to take you there but he doesn’t speak a word. He has been lyingbedridden; has not moved for two, three years.

So, our comrades were kept in the jail of Viannos, yet we were in-formed that they were about to be transported to Heraklio. No authorknows about this piece of information. So, listen carefully and I will tellyou how things really happened. Mpantouvas calls us around eleveno’clock in the night, and says: “Tomorrow, voluntarily, who ever wants,around fifteen men, should go and give a battle halfway the route, to setour men free”. And fifteen of us said: “OK”, this fellow-villager I men-tioned earlier included. I only mention those who accepted to go, forthere was another fellow-villager that stepped forward and said toMpantouva: “Commander, I have children”. And he replied: “Eh, youdon’t go”. You get the point, right? It was on a voluntary basis.

The following morning was Sunday, 12 of September. As we ap-proached Simi, there were some apple trees and vineyards. We stopped


and started eating grapes. Our aim was to reach Viannos on foot. Thatwould be about half an hour more. But a couple of days ago, our rebelshad killed two Germans in Kato Simi and a detachment of their troopswas coming to investigate how and what had happened, before retali-ating. And the moment we were eating, this woman, MathioudakiMaria is her name, came shouting: “Germans, Germans!”. In fact, shewas even carrying a tray with walnuts, almonds and a flask of raki, fortreating us. This is what happened, without having any commandsfrom Mpantouvas.

Mpantouvas is now ashamed and he didn’t say then, nor now, how ithappened. The British did the same. Our mission was to go beyondViannos, but as we approached this vineyard, a messenger from Vian-nos came and told us that our comrades had escaped during the nightand 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 anyonestill be alive of those we were together in the hideout, rebel or com-mander, to come forward and contradict me.

And so we opened fire. We could not see them for we were lying onthe ground, absorbed in cutting and eating grapes. But we saw themwhen we stood up. As soon as we did so, we went behind some dikesthat functioned as breastworks. And the older ones started shooting. Iwas 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 thetable, and Spatharakis from the other side. We were that close to eachother. Metaxakis, Giorgos Metaxakis is his full name, was also head ofthe Prefecture in Agios Nikolaos. He is dead of course; it has been morethan fifteen years since he passed away in England from his heart. Whenthe battle begun the Germans fought back. But on their side there werespiky bushes and ditches and they fell on the ditches. Half the prison-ers we captured were totally wet. For the ditches were full of water. Thatis, the sewers.

We sent a messenger to go and inform the hideout. We needed helpfor they were too many: around a hundred fifty Germans. Maybe more.When the other group arrived, we had them surrounded: one groupwas from the east side, the other one from the west side. The latter being


our team. Yet, it took some time before the reinforcements arrived. Inthe meantime, I and Podias, Mitsos Podias is his full name, were alreadyengaged in the battle, shooting at the Germans. Podias was from AgiosSillas but had settled with his family in Heraklio, years before. The bat-tle lasted for six hours. It started ten in the morning and finished five inthe afternoon. There was even a German airplane patrolling over ourheads but it didn’t bombard us. Apostolos Vagionakis was killed in thebattle. He was a fine and strong man. I had no idea he was shot dead. Ihad not seen him dead. I had seen only the Germans. Later on, ourgroup ceased firing and only the other ones continued, till the momentwe went down and disarmed those Germans who were still alive. Thedead men were all lying on the ground, but we didn’t count the bodies.We just placed them on the side of the street, according to the will of thepresident.

Commander Mpantouvas had declared there were two hundred andfifteen dead, whereas his brother, Zaharias Mpantouvas, spoke of onehundred and ten. We say there were forty two dead and thirteen mencaptured, including Agoglossaki, the poor interpreter from Archanesthat Germans were dragging with them. This translates to twelve Ger-mans and one Greek, the interpreter, captured. Nonetheless, they wereall killed afterwards in the hideout. A delegation was sent by the bishopin Heraklio and Psalidakis too came to intervene in order for us to sparethem, yet with no luck. Mpantouvas and the other comrades too re-fused. Only two Germans survived that went to Heraklion afterwardsand spoke of the whole area and everything they had witnessed.

Having forty two dead and thirteen captured, that sums up to fiftyfive, right? They let those captured leave, but they fell on an ambush ofanother rebel group that had their hideout destroyed. They executedthem along with the interpreter from Archanes, Dimitrios Agoglossakis.His mother had nobody else but for him and without any wrongdoinghe was chosen from the Germans to be their interpreter. That is a fullaccount of the conditions we encountered those years; at least the partwe lived through, since we were in the proper age.

I left on the 4th of April, 1944 to go to Africa. We left from Tsout-soura and I spent a few days in an area called “Housouka’s Haradi”, i.e.


a gorge. I was together with three Germans and one Italian prisoner,captured from Petrakogiorgis’ rebels group. There were two or threegroups of rebels operational in Crete. Petrakogiorgis’ group was in themountain Psiloritis, whereas Mpantouvas’ group, ourselves, were overhere, in the area called “Hameti”. We must have stayed in the gorge forabout ten days till the submarine arrived. We left at one o’ clock in themorning and arrived at Marsá Maţrū� the following day, at sunset. Haveyou heard of Tobruk? Marsá Maţrū� is quite near. It is a lovely town,exactly like Ierapetra, a mirror image. Nonetheless, it was completelydestroyed those years as a result of the fierce battles that took place be-tween the Germans and the British. Kraipe was landed in the sameplace, 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 prefec-ture called Zamalek. We had a proper cleanup: washed ourselves, had ashower over and over and in addition a haircut and a shave. We were ex-hausted, dressed in rags, without shoes, in horrible condition and fullof lice. We were later on divided in different groups, in army units. Theyknew me before hand, as I was in the Ministry of Information for fivemonths. I left afterwards for Palestine and joined the “Sacred Band”.This is my entire adventure, as well as of the rebel movement and theGreek nation too, unfortunately.

When we returned to Greece, again the same situation. I had takena number of things from the places I had been to. I had bought themsince the British merchant marine gave us a salary as soon as we en-listed in the army units. There was a government then. Tsouderos, Pa-pandreou, I mean the senior one, Kanelopoulos, Voulgaris, Sofoulisfrom Samo; there were five or six, alternating. When we returned, theconditions were awful and years had to pass before the state economystarted developing again.

Honours, wars and the nationsAnd in 1988, the government of Andreas Papandreou recognised us

as the national resistance, after the strong demand expressed by theCommunist Party. And then afterwards they sent these. These first


ones107 came in honourable mention. We were awarded the other onesimmediately: 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 Britishwhereas Germans had Field Marshal Rommel, known by the nickname“The Desert Fox”. This bloody man was such a clever General… but allGerman Generals too were skilful. Yet they all made the same foolishthing... Hitler was a criminal figure. Had he not attacked Russia, therewas a great possibility they would have won the Americans and theBritish. But Russia is a vast country, had a large army, and was alsohelped by the Americans and the British. That is were Hitler’s planfailed. There are now other people saying that if Germany had won thewar, we would be better off. Many people say so, here and elsewhere,even educated ones. I feel sorry for them, they should be ashamed. Wewould have been exiled to India, the entire Greek nation. He was rely-ing only in the Aryan race, his own race; this bloody criminal was a lu-natic. If only one woman is found to give birth to such a monster, theentire human race will become extinct. All wars are initiated by oneperson alone, two at the most. Isn’t it better to have good relations withall other nations? Your mother strives for years to bring you up. Andthen you are taken and you get killed in the mountains. For faith and foryour country. And that applies to both sides, Greeks and Turks alike,everybody. We all are responsible. Unfortunately, humans are still bar-barians. Wars should be abolished in the entire planet. How can amother give birth to a child and then have the state come and take itfrom 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? Ofcourse, it is all different if they come to occupy our country. For we did-n’t start the war against the Germans and the Italians, they came as con-querors. Why did they come? To enslave us and nothing more. And I amvery sorry, for those of my fellow citizens bragging and saying that ifGermany had won the war we would have been better off. That’s how


107 At this point, he presents relative documents from the Patriarch of Alexandria and Africa(1945) and from the Sacred Band (1945) respectively.

they put it. They should be ashamed, not proud of themselves, for say-ing such foolishness. That’s how I feel.

Italians and drudgeriesThere 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 incharge, he was a Sergeant Major, there was Ergistro, and two more,Rafael, and Badestini. They had their headquarters in the post-office,that’s also where they lived. It was in a really bad state those days; nowit is repaired. There was only one telephone in the village then. Theystayed for three, three and a half years. Do you know when they cameto Males? It was 27 of June, 1941 and left in 1943. They belonged toSiena Division and came from the Dodecanese islands.

When they came to our village we were still young and used to fol-low them on their way to the school. They passed right outside thesegardens. They had broken branches from medlar trees, carrying themon their shoulders and eating the fruit.

Later on they asked for an interpreter for they couldn’t communi-cate. There was a man, his name was Roukounakis, who had been toAmerica and could speak some Spanish. We presented him before them;they were discussing and we were listening to them talking. We werestill very young and followed them, yet I had finished the elementaryschool. In any case, they resided in the school where they spent five orsix days. And one day, they made a public announcement that thosehaving guns should take them to the church of “Afentis Christos”. Theyopened the church for five, six days, day and night. Many people in-deed handed in their hunting rifles. Besides, there were only a few fight-ing rifles. But other villagers would go later and steal the weapons fromthe church to hide them outside. I mean, one man would hand in hisrifle and then another one would go and steal it. It was not literally atheft, someone would take it, instead of the Italians, do you get my pointnow? And we would hide them outside.

That’s how we spent our time. Do you have any idea what it feels liketo eat locust-beans and cabbage without bread? Thankfully, we pro-duced our own oil and we didn’t starve to death. Without bread of


course. You could see the entire family at a set table, with pea puree orfaba beans or even cabbage, but without any bread. It was a tragic situ-ation, unprecedented. Hunger! Especially after 1942. We got alongsomehow the first year.

And then the confiscations began. Italians would take it all, calvesand sheep. They came every Saturday. That is, the captain along withfive six Italian soldiers, from Ierapetra and Agios Nikolaos. There wereno cars those days and they therefore forced those who had mules anddonkeys to load the goods and transfer them to Kalo Horio. So, theyconfiscated and consumed them all. But of course, there was an entireregiment in Neapoli.

There was an Italian General, Angelo Carta was his name, that Britishhad persuaded to flee to Africa. And the Italians and the Germans threwflyers from the airplanes offering a reward of one hundred millions tothe one who knew where he was. A box of match cost five hundredthousand then, inflation was that high. They issued banknotes that hadno 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 tothe president stating they needed fifteen to twenty people from eachcommunity, depending on the population, on a specified date. The pres-ident 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 anunconditional peace-treaty the foreigners could do anything they feltlike. Fifteen. The age would range from eighteen to sixty five. I waseighteen years old then.

I spent two fifteen-day periods at Krousta and left afterwards for themountains and never came back. Both the president of our communityand 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 presi-dent of the community and the head of the police. We belonged to com-munities then, unlike municipalities we have nowadays. Every villagehad its community: Christos and Metaxohori (also called Parsas), Mithi,Gdohia, Mirtos, all.


We used to rent houses when we went to Krousta. There were someold houses there with “voutsas” floors instead of a cement-made floor.“Voutsas” is made of donkey-dung and urine. Our women mixed “vout-sas” with soil, laid the mixture on the ground and used whitewash forthe walls to make our house look nice. We even had a fire-place andwood to keep us warm. And one could see the cockroaches walking onthe 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 car-bon-ash. Our mothers would boil water, throw some ash inside and alllice 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 allkinds of means are available and they can be exterminated. You shouldhave seen my mother: her neck, her clothes and her underwear were allcovered with blood coming from the fleas. Because fleas drink yourblood and then urine within the sore. It was a dreadful situation.

There were times that the Italians gave gifts, like bread, sugar and soon, to children like that girl over there108. They were not as cruel as thebloody Germans. They had to know who you were of course in order totreat you. They stayed here for three and a half years. The guard wasonly replaced a couple of times, and for the most part, they were verynice. Our villagers were also close to them. They prepared dinners andbrought them in their houses, so as to have them handy in times ofneed. The rebels even disarmed the Italians once, but of course I didnot participate. That happened the day Mussolini capitulated. MarshalBadoglio was in charge then, the very same man that had organisedItaly’s attack against Greece in the Albanian front, with King Victor Em-manuel III being in power.

We paid a rent for the houses in Krousta, ten okas of oil a month. Wepaid ourselves. The Italians cooked for us at noon. They preparedmostly peas and boiled cabbage, yet they did not use oil at all. We hadour own oil that we added to our portion, in our plate. We called thisboiled cabbage “mpourgouri”. This resembles some type of cabbagecalled “fria”, one can find nowadays in the grocer’s store; those kinds of


108 Points towards a five-year old girl playing in the vicinity.

greens we boiled and ate. But no matter what it was, we liked it. Theyeven gave us a proper slice of bread for lunch, but we provided the oilfor the peas. And Italians would say: “Domani matinna…prenderepisello”, which translates to: “Tomorrow morning we will have peas”.

German victimsI 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 mar-tial comprised of rebels in the hideout. He had betrayed one or two sub-marines and Germans had bombarded them resulting in their sinking.We killed him in the hideout, along with another one, after giving hima 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 guard-house and blew up the German strongholds with the cannons. I men-tioned already that around forty two Germans were killed and only onesurvived, the one who climbed up a pine-tree. That happened in an areacalled Monolithos. I also killed one in Leros. I took from this man hisPolish-made pistol and photo-camera, a Zeiss. I sold both of them toone of our captains, inside a ship, and used the money to have a suitmade in Hios. The captain approached me and said: “You should give methis 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 familysaying that he took them from us.


Yiannis Christakis

In 1943 when the great evil took place in the villages of Ierapetra andViannos, I was merely 10 years old. I was born in August 1933. I was at-tending school, and I do have to mention that, due to the German oc-cupation, we were not allowed to be taught history. We were not taughthistory; Greek history was not taught those days at schools.

At that time therefore, with me being a student, the great evil hap-pened, in September of 1943. What was the cause? From late 1942 –early 1943, rebels were operational and organised in the mountains ofLasithi. For the national resistance in our territory was already theresince June of 1941. That is, exactly right after the occupation, in the re-gion of our villages as well in Viannos, the organization had alreadycommenced. I have to mention that the ten villages of Viannos, east ofViannos, as well as the eight villages of the western mountainous Ier-apetras area, in the old days used to comprise a geographical unity andI would also say a social integration. Historians name all these villagesSimiana, because the centre of all activities, even before the ages of Turk-ish occupation, and of the activities of resistance for the region, wasKato Simi, like in 1943.

We had therefore, from early 1943 the rebel movement, organisedeventually, with Manolis Mpantouvas who settled in Hameti, on the topof the mountain. Of course, he came to the Lasithiotika Mountains, be-cause of arguments with others in the mountains of Heraklio andRethimnon, in Psiloritis, where other rebel groups were officially or-ganised like that of Petrakogiorgi and many others. Before his arrival,he had sent trained men to investigate the area and see if habitants therewould welcome and support the rebel movement. And naturally, hisscout 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. Ofcourse I should not forget to mention that, maybe you are not aware ofit, the region of Viannos was subjected to the Perfecture of Lasithi upuntil 1933. And since it seems that Germans had in mind the adminis-tration as it was written in the old documents, when the order was given


for our region to be destroyed, by Müller and Andrae, the villages ofIerapetra were also considered as Region of Viannos.

Simiana therefore spontaneously participated in the rebel movementbut the Prefecture of Lasithi and the Region of Viannos was not ruledby Germans yet by Italians. It was occupied by Italians who had arrivedfrom Rhodes in Sitia. Indeed, there is even a full description from anItalian historian, on how they departed from the port of Sitia and wenton to Ierapetra. Someone will laugh if he read it, because the Italian his-torian characterises them as a flock of sheep.

Naturally, there were difficulties with the Italians. To begin with, theyhad set up along the coastline of Viannos – Ierapetra, mainly up toMirto, various outposts and three, four up to Tsoutsoura etc. But whenit was clear that Italy was on the verge to collapse – early 1943 – theGermans took control of the Prefecture from Italians, established pa-trols and new outposts, took over Italian outposts and from that mo-ment the great drama for our area begins.

Me being ten those days, when it was just too obvious that the Axiswas falling apart, at least its one leg, the Italian one, the rebels, Mpan-touvas and others – I have to mention it – thought they should do some-thing of great impact. Of course, this does not stem from the sources,these are simply my opinion.

The battle of Kato SimiThey thought they should do something to show themselves and or-

ganised the extermination of the outpost of Kato Simi, which was com-prised of three Germans. It seemed they were there to collect potatoesand send them over to their army in Viannos, and that is why they wereknown as “potato-men”109. Of these three Germans only one got awayfor he happened to be absent that night.

So they killed the two Germans. There is some evidence saying it waspremeditated to have them killed, because Mpantouvas said he hadnever given the order for execution but merely for kidnapping. How-ever, there is a horrible testimony, based on someone else’s sources, that

YIANNIS CHRISTAKIS 269

109 In Greek: «πατατάδες»

the previous night a man from Kato Simi, as he was having raki with theGermans, was asked by one of them, Villy, to recite a folk Cretan cou-plet110. I don’t recall the couplet, yet I will tell you what it was about. Itsaid, “…tomorrow Germans will be laying in the gorge”. Indeed, the nightthe execution took place, they placed the bodies in sacks and threwthem 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 hadn’t spoken to them on thetelephone, a manually operated one, for days. So they formed a com-pany, 100, 120 men, who knows, to advance and find out what had hap-pened. After this incident, rebels could not abandon Kato Simi and letit destroy, for they would infuriate and kill all habitants. They wereforced to wait for them at the entrance of the village, where a small val-ley exists, and fight a battle.

Rebels were about forty more or less. Prior to the battle a small meet-ing had taken place in Lapathos (Lapathos is a small plateau close toSimi), where Mpantouvas along with his chieftains, Podia, Nirgiano andDimitri Papa, had decided to fight the battle so as to prevent the Ger-mans from destroying Kato Simi.

So they addressed a call for those wanted to fight and a body of fortymen, soldiers was created. They were divided in four groups, if I recallcorrectly: 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 upperpart of the village, while the last one was placed to the rear, to preventany Germans coming from the mountains and surrounding the rebels.

The battle started around 10 o’ clock. The Germans had been to Pe-fkos and captured hostages and had them placed in front so as to pro-tect themselves. They lasted till 4 or 5 clock in the night. That means itwas a full day battle and I fancy naming it renowned. A renowned bat-tle therefore. The German company was wiped out and twelve men werecaptured, along with Agoglossaki, the translator, whom his behaviourwas treacherous. Apostolos Emmanouil Vagionakis, a native of Mithosand a member of Yiannis Podias’ group which was placed on the west


110 In Greek: «μαντινάδα»

side of the village’s valley, was the only one to be killed. And I wouldsay in vain, for he was fighting standing, standing! He had just arrivedfrom the Albanian Epos, where he was fighting, had been captured asprisoner, managed to escape, came to Crete and the moment he heardabout the resistance went on and enlisted himself in the group of Mpan-touvas, also called Mpantouvomanolis.

And Yiannis Podias shouted at him: “Sit downman, hide yourself!” andhe replied: “I fought in Albania andwas not killed, how can I die here?” andso he got killed. And the worst of all is that his comrades left him there.Ηis relic was mangled by the dogs and the vultures and after a few dayshis 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 beleft without being honoured. And the only honour he deserves is tohave a bust put up somewhere, I would say in a central spot, or proba-bly even better in the place he was killed, but then again who will bethere to see it. I would suggest that his bust should be put up in Ierape-tra, close to the town-hall, next to the other statues, for it is a disgraceto have this man who spilled his blood for us not honoured. Let us hereremember the words of Pericles: men who have been proven worthy oftheir countries, virtuous, should be honoured also with actions. Thisman therefore should not be left without being honoured. It will be adisgrace to all of us if it stays as is, without him being honoured.

The march of the GermansOn 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 fromArchanes 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 thefirst day, the 14th of September, they destroyed, killed and executed inthe 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


Vato and reached Mirto. In Mirto, habitants thought they should givethem a warm welcome in the vain hope of surviving. Indeed, the pres-ident and vice-president of the village came forward to meet them withraki, walnuts etc. They showed some kind of compassion and told them:“Within two hours time the village should be evacuated”.What they did-n’t say was that they would start executing. “In two hours time the villageshould be evacuated”.And it was. But not completely. The president andvice-president themselves were arrested and executed.

On the 14th and 15th of September, they went to Gdohia, where a realmassacre took place. I would rather not refer to numbers, besides theycan 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 lyingon his bed.

From Mirtos they moved to Riza and to Mournies and conductedsome executions on site. However, many were arrested and brought toRiza, to be executed in the area called Kales, Koules. There they alsobrought others from the northern villages: Parsa, Christo and Males.

For I have forgotten to mention that another group of soldiers wentup to Apano Simi, advanced to Lapatho, passed through all the moun-tains, and came down from Mino. Mino is Mitho’s village settlementfor the summer time and is nowadays deserted, just like Karidi. Fromthis point, they moved on to the other summer time settlement, AgiaMarina, which is right next to Mino, and from there headed to Parsa,Christo and Males. They executed a number of individuals but also cap-tured prisoners whom they led to Riza. From Males, this group of sol-diers was split again in two bodies: one returned back to Christo, AgiaMarina, Karidi, Riza and another one made its way down to Mithos. Iwould like to have this particularly emphasized because all historiansare mistaken in this part. They state that Germans descended fromMournies to Mithos. No, they did not come from Mournies. They camefrom Males.

The Germans approach MithosAt the watermill, the flourmill, which is located in Apoliana or Po-


liana (I think it is Poliana rather than Apoliana, for this mill should havebeen built by craftsmen coming from Poli111, explaining why Polianaseems reasonable), three men were found. Inside the mill, they foundthe owner, Michalis Papakostandinakis from Mournies, and two of hiscustomers both from Mithos: Charilaos Daskalakis and GeorgiosPlousakis. They killed them all at once, with no hesitation, without evenapproaching the mill. They must have heard them trudging along asthey 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 halfout of the door, so they must have been killed from a distance as soonas they were seen.

Luckily, a woman was found, whose name I shall report, for Mithoswas saved thanks to that woman. She was Dimitris Solindadakis’s wife,Despina Solindadaki. She was grazing her sheep in the vicinity, heardthe gunfire, maybe she also heard their voices, understood, and run tothe village shouting: “Villagers run for Germans come and they arekilling!”. And the village was evacuated and they found no one but formy grand-father, Nicholaos Ioannis Christakis, who was at the age ofninety, ninety-five, yet they killed him from a distance. I mentionedearlier that is likely that the three men in Poliana cried out, because mydear departed grandfather shouted: “Ohhh!” And his voice echoedacross Lepra hill, on the west side of our village. We, along with our fa-ther, our family, had just descended from the village when we heard thegunfire and understood he was shot dead. My blessed father and one ofhis brothers, the priest of the village, returned and buried him.

As soon as we heard Germans were coming to kill, my late fathergave me a container and sent me over to my grandfather to ask him tofill it up with olive oil, for we had none, and to prepare himself so as totake him with us. My grandfather responded: “I am an old manmy child,I have caused no harm, what shall they do to me?” It didn’t occur to thisman’s brain that it was possible for him to be killed without his doinganything. These were the honourable men of those years: “I did notharm, I am not the one to blame, why should they kill me?” Yet they did.


111 Poli (i.e. Greek: Πόλη) is colloquially called Konstantinoupolis, now Istanbul.

Germans of course didn’t pass through the whole village. Our vil-lage, Mithos, is comprised of the Dragasana, Giannadiana, Michaliana,Tsigkounia and Tavliana settlements. They reached till Giannadiana.When they found nobody, they didn’t go on to the other settlementsand left for Mournies. This is the correct route and not the one writtenby some historians.

After the destructionAfter this happened we left the place for the neutral zone was ex-

tending from the seaside of Viannos till Mirtos, all the way up to theriver. They had even placed signs which I remember: a scull was de-picted along with two crossed bones, saying “Ferbotten”. “Forbidden”. Idon’t remember the rest of the words. “Ferbotten”. So it was forbiddento enter this zone. The neutral zone stretched from the sea till the riverand high up the mountains. Parsas, Christos and Males were not in-cluded. They were not part of the neutral zone.

We had a harsh winter. It was September of 1943-44 and that winterwas heavy. We left our homes. People from Mirtos and other villageswent to Ierapetra. Of course, many locals were found offering assistancein their homes but these people were in need of food. I think the Epis-copacy of Iera and Sitia was active somehow, but I am not aware if thatwas sufficient to cover all needs. People were forced to start begging.To mock the villagers who had been begging, people called them“kaoumenous”112 whereas begging itself was referred as “antilavou”113.For the whole year of 1944, or at least the first months till the summer,begging was widespread. Later, this ceased because people returned totheir homes and started farming whatever was left. Nonetheless, evenafter this period, begging had not completely disappeared, although itwas very limited indeed.

We, my family, happened to have a farm. Actually, my grandfatherhappened to own such a place, a big farm with a house between Mithosand Anatoli, at Marauga. I wouldn’t call it a country house: a sheepfold?


112 In Greek: «καούμενους», meaning burned.113 In Greek: «αντιλαβού».

It must have been used as a sheepfold for it had a big enclosed field. Inany case, there was a small room and a big one, a really big one, whichmust have been used most likely as a stable.

In that place therefore we camped. But not just us; many other of myfellow-villagers were with us as well. Suffice to say, I remember every-one sleeping at night, one next to another, in that large room which hadbeen accordingly modified. This whole place was packed with people.And I should mention a humorous incident. That time, a woman frommy village gave birth: we, the children, had never heard of such a thingbefore and wanted to see etc, yet we were sent away. In any case, thepoor woman was delivering inside that big room and was shouting:“Virgin Mary!” but her strength was not enough to say the whole sen-tence and said instead: “Vi, Vi, Vi, Virgin Mary!” and all of us standingoutside burst out laughing. She gave birth to a boy, who is a scientistnow.

Another small experience of mine is the following: it has been a longtime since then, it must have been spring. This situation of course whichhad kept us away from our homes lasted till the end of spring. We hada big problem there in the mountains till the Axis collapsed. Of coursewe should not forget that Italy collapsed a few days before the battle inKato Simi, 7-8 of September. I can’t recall; it is around there. Germanythough, collapsed later and the final surrender, should you recall, tookplace in October of 1944. Yes, autumn of 1944. That year, in late spring,can’t bring to mind the exact date, we were allowed to return to ourhomes. For a period of eight months, from September till March, seveneight months, we were out in the country suffering a very harsh, terri-ble winter. So, next to the house I mentioned earlier where we were stay-ing, a neighbourhood was created. We used to stay in that small housewhereas other relatives and villagers were in the bigger one. In themeantime, houses were built around, the rooms of our places becamemore spacious and a small settlement evolved. However, these houseswere built merely with stones, without using any mortar. Today, apartfrom those two houses that were properly constructed none of the otherones remain; they have been demolished and a pile of ruins lay thereinstead. We were organised: we used to graze our animals and children


were in various companies. And we were playing around with somewires and cables; don’t know where they came from. At one momentwe were told that Germans were on their way, heading for Anatoli. Wewere afraid and ran. We threw them all away in case they thought wewere plotting sabotage and consequently kill us. It is a small experienceI felt the need to testify.

The ItaliansThere was an outpost of Italians in Mirto, just like in Males. Of

course, there was a whole company in Males. Italians had establishedoutposts in certain other places, like Arvi, Keratokampos, etc. Thesemen were not experienced in war. And I can’t say there were as cruel asthe Germans.

Let me say something and I will return. I told you that Viannos wassubjected to the Italians. Once a week, a group would start from Vian-nos 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 re-turn. The only Italian presence in Viannos’ ten villages and Ierapetras’villages was their appearance every Saturday, if I am not mistaken, orevery Friday, when they would leave Viannos to go the commandingheadquarters and then return. And their only assignment was to loot,to snatch chickens, take animals in order to eat them. The same thingwas happening in our region too, from Mirtos’ sentinels.

I remember therefore the following incident, simple yet characteris-tic. Two Italians had arrived in our village, seeking chickens to snatchand eat, to take with them. They went to a bakery. The baker was put-ting her bread in the oven using a “triftis”114, a piece of wood used toclean the bottom of the oven from mud, etc. And bakers, just likemillers, breed animals for miller has leftovers from the cereals, whereasbaker has pieces of bread discarded. So she kept the hennery right nextto the baker. And the Italians went to open the hennery and snatchchickens. But the chickens started making noise. And the baker wasalarmed, grabbed her “triftis” and went after them trying to strike them


114 In Greek: τρίφτης.

but they run away before she could. She was an old lady and Italianswere young, nonetheless they started running and disappeared. This isjust to see in what state of degradation the Italians had reached: thesebrave men were afraid of a woman.

Despite all these, they also caused great harm to our villages that pe-riod. Let me refer to a characteristic one. They would not arrest some-one in order to have him executed. They would seek for someoneisolated from everyone else so as to kill him. Such an incident took placein Kavousi, in Pahia Ammos. Afterwards, they used to cover them withstones in an effort to make them not visible. They did the same in Sitiawhen they killed teacher Aspradakis, a colleague of mine from Ar-menoi, who was an active member in the resistance in Sitia. They killedhim and then covered him with stones; the man had disappeared. Theysaid nothing and his body was discovered by hunters with dogs. Hunt-ing those days was not allowed of course, but in any case, it was prac-tised. Dogs were driven by the smell and brought him to light.

The atrocities of the GermansI would like to mention a few characteristic incidents that reveal the

atrocity of the Germans115. Varvakis brothers were killed with bayonetsby the Germans in Agios Vassilis. The Vervelakis children were torturedand executed. They gored to death pregnant Aikaterini Papadim-itropoulou, in Ligia village, Viannos. They killed Siggelaki with heryoung child in her arms in Loutraki. They killed the Papadakis broth-ers 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 Gdo-hia. They killed a lady from Kato Simi and her child, as she was breastfeeding it. These are barbaric actions that a man’s mind can’t think ofeasily.

I forgot to mention about my grandfather specifically, that he wasdisabled not only due to his ninety-something years of life but also dueto the fact he was hump-backed. He had broken his spinal cord in his


115 In this point, Mr. Christakis referred to his notes.

youth and had been operated on. Unfortunately, those days’ means werenot that sophisticated and he was left hump-backed, practically touch-ing the ground. We may suggest they didn’t 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 ear-lier, the following: as soon as they started executing and burning downhouses – they blew them up a month later – …and how did they burnthem down? I am not sure if you are aware: they had a special flamma-ble powder they dispersed inside the houses, fired with their guns onceand it would ignite. Of course, they would break the door if the housewas locked. It was said those days, for I have not seen it myself, that theycould break them with a great ease: by means of a sledge-hammer, theywould break down the door.

As soon as these dreadful events begun, a number of powerful menwere mobilised here in Heraklio, and they stopped a few days later, afterthe 16th they managed to convince the commander of Heraklio to orderthe ending of executions. So, hadn’t it been for Archimandrite, later tobe 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 ap-proached 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? ThatMirto was accidentally burned instead of Mithos. Since villages wereburned down as an act of revenge for participating in resistance, it isodd to burn down a village on the seaside and spare a village, located atthe foot of the mountain, which is expected to be actively involved. So,some people argue that the Germans made a mistake burning downMirto instead of Mithos. But this is not valid for Germans knew prettywell the administrative division and had everything marked on the map.And they knew what they were doing. They didn’t burn down my vil-lage for an order had been given by the German commander to stop.

Yet they should have, they should have included Mithos in the so-called “Martyred Villages”. You know, my village was not included in


the list of “Martyred Villages”. There is a pan-hellenic organisationcalled “Martyred Villages”116. My village is not included as if it didn’tsuffer. Yet my fellow-villagers were also killed and we were exiled fromour homes for eight months. I don’t understand this. Is this character-isation of “Martyred Village” related to quality or does it ask for quan-tity as well? Didn’t we suffer? Did all villagers of Mithos have to die soas to have it included? This is wrong. Wrong. And of course, the officialauthorities are responsible for this. And I speak loud and clear. Theywho gave their consent to leave it out from the list are to blame. And Iknow who they are, I would rather not comment any further. I mean, Iknow the authorities, not the persons themselves. They should insiston having Mithos too in the “Martyred Villages”. For it suffered. Peoplewere executed. We vanished for eight months. We went through every-thing. What was that for? Please, do underline my words here.

TodayIn 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 firsttime, I couldn’t bear to hear German, I couldn’t bear to look at Ger-mans. But this feeling softened day by day and now no one can accuseme of being hostile to Germans. They are a democratic country now; welive in the same house, the European Union. It is not their fault theirancestors 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, headof a large school in Munich called Berkman Schule – I happened tomeet Germans who just the sound of the name “Hitler” would givethem the creeps. In my school, which had four hundred students (andwas not the only one: four such schools were there in Munich so justthink how many Greeks there must have been) I was working togetherwith eight German professors teaching German. I had the finest friendlyrelationships with them, visited each other, and didn’t want to hear any-thing about Hitler.

And there is something more I would like to add. In my last year


116 In Greek: Μαρτυρικά Χωριά

there, that is 1979-80, a great sabotage had taken place in the main radioand 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-fas-cists. Young people found out about the Nazis atrocities and did the sab-otage in revenge. I don’t know if they arrested anyone, newspapersreported that they did it when they found out the shameful actions oftheir ancestors in Greece and other German-occupied territories. Thereis compassion, no one can argue that. Look: dictators always manageto nourish nations with hate.

Perhaps, only in the years of our dictatorship this spirit did not pre-vail, am I wrong? I was a school teacher for all these years, in LohriaAmariou, in Rethimno, a mountain village at the south side of Psilori-tis. Trust me, I grew old those years. Black years, black indeed. I portraythem in a work of mine: “True little stories from the school”117. You willsee 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 inGreece. There had been of course many in favour of the dictatorship,many informers as well, but in general, Greek people resisted. Theyfought 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 apostgraduate course those days and remember all the events since I havepersonal experience.

The victimsThe number of the victims is still unconfirmed. There were about

two hundred and seventy from Viannos and one hundred and thirtyone from the villages of Ierapetra; a total of four hundred and one. How-ever, the total loss in people killed during the years of occupation isgreater than four hundred and sixty. Our region, the eighteen villages ofViannos and Ierapetra that suffered from Hitler’s Huns that September,had a heavy death toll. The casualties must generally exceed four hun-dred and sixty humans. Some speak for four hundred sixty and one, butI reckon there are more. Only few days ago I retrieved a person not


117 Hristakis, 2005.

listed. A man named Zervakis, who had been killed two to three daysbefore the events in our village. He was a clerk of the Agricultural Bankand was heading to our village. He run into a patrol in the area ofHarakas and was killed. The list is endless and I think not everyone isrecorded. Anyway… According to Mr. Giorgos Christakis, an excep-tional friend of mine118:

Dozens of families have mourned ten, fifteen and twenty dead;husbands, parents, siblings and cousins. The dead in the villages ofViannos and Ierapetra amounted to four hundred one for the threecursed days of 1943, to reach four hundred and sixty for the entireperiod of occupation.The youngest of all was 8 month old, unborn, in his mother

womb, 96 was the eldest (Emm. Daskalakis from Amira), 20 werewomen.127 of them were over 60 years old. Out of which:60 were between 60 and 69 years old47 were between 70 and 79 years old16 were between 80 and 89 years old3 were 90, 93 and 96 years old1196 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 wereclergymen, 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 eightyhouses in ten villages were destroyed.

In other words, the entire former Region of Viannos which includedall eight villages of Ierapetra, was a pile of ruins. There was a nasty smelleverywhere coming from the dead, for we were not allowed to go andhave them buried. We mentioned it was a neutral zone; they were killedand left unburied since no one could enter the zone. I would like to reada poem, where Papadimitropoulos, the teacher of Mirtos those days,


118 In this point Mr. Y. Christakis reads extracts from the book Hristakis, 2000: 260.119 Mr. Christakis remarked in this point: “…he has not added here my grandfather”.

describes the situation. He uses the darkest of the colours to describe theconditions120:

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 placesand 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,don’t break softly like before,

the flowers and the lilies in the plaindon’t 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 beyondwe now give a silent oath,to build our country back,from ashes, fire and smoke.

Did I say his name right? Papadimitropoulos, yes, Apostolos Pa-padimitropoulos.

We live with these black memories. I must tell you that on many oc-casions, I personally see nightmares in my sleep of these events.


120 Hristakis, op. cit.: 258. e poem is named “e 15th of September 1943” and was firstlypublished in the newspaper “Anatoli” (No. issue 9838/14-10-1983).

Manolis Vagionakis

My father, Apostolos Vagionakis, was left orphan when he was fivemonth old. I was left orphan at the age of six. My father went throughall imaginable sufferings from his step-mother and his father. They evenpoisoned him at the age of eighteen to take his fortune from him.

I was left orphan when I was six: hunger, beating, misery and every-thing that follows. My father was caught prisoner in the Albanian warbut managed to escape, to break away from captivity. He was con-scripted in 1939, fought in the Albanian war, came in 1942, or was itlate 1942? He went straight to the national resistance, took part in thebattle of Kato Simi where they fought armed against the Germans. Itwas a fierce battle with forty, forty-five Germans dead. The only mandead from the prefecture of Lasithi in this battle was my father. My fa-ther died during the battle of Kato Simi. When my grandmother wentthere to bury him, he had already been eaten by the dogs. The dogs hadeaten his corpse and only half of his body was found. And they buriedhim. (Dogs had eaten him). Eyewitnesses that were there, narrated laterin the summer of 2007, it was actually an old man from Viannos talk-ing on the television, that my late father was shouting: “Don’t be afraidguys, we have them beaten! Aera, aera, aera, aera!”. And at that time asniper coming from Viannos shot him the coup de grace in the head, ashe was standing and fighting, scattering his scull.

Ever since my life has been a torture, for my mother was young andwidow and she took it out on me: I was severely beaten. I left, went toAthens 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 tosustain myself. And I had to sell bananas, French rolls, cigarettes,matches. And being in that business I refrained from smoking. And thepolice used to arrest and beat me to death for I was not allowed to selland had to be in the reformatory instead. I was telling them: “Am I steal-ing? My father got killed in the war, how am I supposed to live if I don’tdo these kinds of jobs?”. To be a street vendor, to sell in order to make myliving.

MANOLIS VAGIONAKIS 283

At the same time in those years, my mother spent one year in jail foradultery. I had an illegitimate brother, who was five years old and wehad to live. Those years in Athens you needed a ration booklet to takefood: a person was allowed a hundred drams of bread per twenty fourhours and twenty drams of any kind of legumes. Meat was out of thequestion for there was no money. And the result was that I had to cooklentil soup for three days and the remaining ones rice or bean soup orfaba beans or… That was our feeding. And at the same time I was beingbeaten too.

This was unfortunately the life of my father and me. The result is thatnow the Greek state does not recognise me as a war victim. They tell meafter 64 years, that my father alone was the victim and not me. Regret-tably, this is the treatment a war victim, that has been through every-thing in life to survive, receives. What more shall I say?

After my father’s deathAt that time, I was six years old and I used to follow my late grand-

mother, my mother’s mother, to the plateau of Lasithi and the villagesthere to beg in order to make our living. My mother then was some-what confused; she was not in a good mental state. She was here but shewas out of her mind. She was young of course. Unfortunately. And I fol-lowed my grandmother begging in order to survive.

Nothing, I got beaten everywhere I went. I was beaten in every placeI had been to; nobody to protect me. Only my grandmother. Unfortu-nately. Everywhere, beating. We used to go to the plateau in the summertime. I had to walk all night carrying a bag on my shoulder before I ar-rived in the morning. In the potatoes fields, I sorted out potatoes andthey filled my bag, a “drouvadi” as we used to say, with potatoes in thenight… They used to call it “drouvadi” and they filled it with potatoesand I took it and went home, having eaten nothing all day long. I wassix years old any my weight was six okas. Imagine what I looked like. Atthe age of thirteen, I was thirteen okas. I was like those children fromEthiopia, a skeleton. And to my regret, the Greek state, now, after somany years of deducting tax from my income, stopped it for I was nota victim of war. I feel ashamed, ashamed and sorrow. For they make


speeches about the Greek flag and the national anthem and my fatherthat glorified them has, unfortunately, his child not recognised.

In Athens, at the age of 13My 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 andwent to jail in Neapolis. I and my stepbrother stayed in Athens. Me beingthirteen, fourteen years old and my brother being five. Unfortunatelywithin… How could I make money for the rent and for food? I becamea 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 wasfrom Mirtos, Daskalakis Ioannis was his name. He had issued for mefour ration booklets. And I used to buy an oka of bread, sell the threehundred drams and keep a hundred for my brother and me to eat. I alsobought an oka of lentils and an oka of beans. These were the daily por-tions for four persons, an oka of lentils and an oka of bread. We werealone for a year. That year I had to study but I failed in high school dueto 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 dailywages 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, takeanother tram from Omonia to EVGA, in Iera Odos, and continue fromthere on foot. And one evening that I had a fever, instead of getting thetram to Omonia, I took the tram going to Acharnon Patision. I don’tknow where I went, I wandered the whole night, in the rain, with 40 de-grees (°C) fever, and the next morning I found myself home in Egaleo.

Or the bitterness I once experienced, in Easter, when a policemanfrom Athens’ agronomy had a spit roasted lamb, my brother was cryingand I had prepared lentils with rice for our meal. That I will never for-get: having my brother crying and me not being able to offer him a pieceof meat. He was born in 1946, he is nine years younger than me. He hasa 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 yearsold 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-


lage and went back to Athens and found a job as a refuse collector in themunicipality of Athens. I worked for thirty five years in the municipal-ity, till I had a stroke while on duty. I visited one of the vice-mayors ofthe administration at that time and he kicked me out for I didn’t belongto their political party: “You are not one of our people”.And they put meback to work, but I could not work so I left. I am retired now. I havethree children and five grandchildren. It was my dream to leave Athensand come back to Mithos for I had difficult years, starvation, beating,miseries. I worked three to four jobs to provide for my children so thatthey would not have the life I lived.

HonoursThe Germans were conquerors. The issue here is what the Greek state

does for us. That’s the point. The injustice. To acknowledge nothing toa hero’s child. Unfortunately. I had to do ten jobs so that my childrenwouldn’t have to live the life I lived… unfortunately. That was my life,my father’s life. He became an orphan, was poisoned so they would takehis property, got killed, left me orphan at the age of six and after hisdeath, I had to suffer through the Passion of Jesus Christ. What more isthere to say? That’s my father’s entire life. He didn’t enjoy his life. Hewas killed at the peak of his youth. He didn’t even have time to spendmoments of joy with his own child. I don’t mind for what I have to gothrough, but I do mind that the state, the government, has never shownany concern. There is no statue of my father. Regrettably, nothing. Theysimply mention his name in every ceremony for the Battle of Crete.That’s it, nothing else. His name is written only here, in the monumentin the village, and in Vamos, where the Battle of Crete started. Theyhave his name everywhere along with the civilians. Instead of havinghis name first in the monument of the heroes in Amira, they haveplaced all civilians killed at the top and my father at the bottom. In thismonument of heroes in Amira, where public servants come and theyhave the Te Deum service, they have the civilians at the top and my fa-ther is at a place that even… For years now I have been quarrelling withthe authorities here, the Mayors and the people in Ierapetra, for notmentioning his name on the 12th of September and on the 14th, the day


of the Holy Cross when they hold the Battle of Simi Te Deum service inRiza. And I tell them: “A hero was killed in this battle. Why don’t youmention this man’s name?”. And they respond that, unfortunately, thisis the history of the Greek nation, and that they don’t mention names.And I ask: “Why don’t youmention any names?”, and they reply: “We sayno names”. That’s the misery of the Greek state. When a hero is not ho-noured what do you expect me to tell them? You are scared too in caseyou misbehave and put you in jail. Don’t you say any names? Don’t youever say. They simply mention the Battle of Simi. That someone waskilled but not who that man was. How could they build a statue whenhe is not mentioned?


Antonia Koliandri Mathioudaki

In Albanian frontI lived and grew up in Ierapetra. My father worked in the country

court. We lived in a cottage, about half an hour outside Ierapetra, inLouvianohori, at Agios Dimitrios. I finished high-school in Ierapetra.Later on, I wanted to take exams to become a teacher in Heraklio, butunfortunately they didn’t take any girls that specific year, they took onlyboys. So, I went up to Athens, to the school of Red Cross, to the hospi-tal of Red Cross, to the school of Nurses. When the war broke out I wasat school. When war was declared, I was in some groups of nurses (sis-ters) that left for the front. I was with a group in Ioannina. Other nurseswent to the operating rooms that were in the mountains. That is whereI first encountered the atrocity of war, for we were continuously bom-barded 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 andwatched them waking up asking for their legs and crying as babies. Idon’t remember exactly how many months I stayed. I left when war wasdeclared and returned when the war front collapsed. We had then anAthenian woman of upper social class (she was the wife of Doxiadis,the civil engineer) that had come as a volunteer. When we started com-ing back, a Greek General named Voultsos took her along and we wenttogether, since we departed in groups. He took me along and I camedown to the school in Athens.

Joining the Resistance in IerapetraWhen 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 ofbecoming an interpreter or more precisely, of helping and joining theResistance, was originally my brother’s Michalis. I accepted with pleas-ure since I could somehow speak German too. I had taken classes inAthens: before the war I was the nurse of the German ambassador. He


had a car accident and I happened to be his nurse, to become let’s say hisprivate nurse. He wanted to send me for post-training in Germany. Iwas lucky enough and didn’t go. He had hired a professor for me whogave me lessons and this is how I spoke some German.

For a moment I thought of the closed society of Ierapetra and hesi-tated and went and consulted my principal in the high-school, Zouraris,who was a gentleman, a respectable person. I told him my thought andhe said to me: “My child, go without hesitation and one day people willfind out the truth about you”. And so I made sure to apply and to be-come an interpreter. I pursued it. I went to the Germans, pretending Iwanted something, they offered it to me for I could speak the languagesomehow and of course, I accepted.

I and my brother joined the National Resistance of Crete, with Mpan-touvas (Manolis Mpantouvas), at the same time. Much later, we joinedForce 133, that was a secret military group of Englishmen that had beensent to Crete from the Middle East to assist (Leigh Fermor was in thatgroup). Captain Mpantouvas’ organisation gave me Chaniotakis as liai-son. I had to communicate to him, everything I saw, everything I heardsuspicious, and he would communicate it to the organisation after-wards. And that is exactly what happened.

I was reluctant at the beginning of course, but I gained their likingand trust little by little. They even told me I looked like a German andso I started to have some freedom of movement, little by little, inside theadministration. There, according to the commands, I watched, listened,whatever I could notice, I watched those who came in case they be-trayed. Of course, many people betrayed but I had suspicions. However,I couldn’t track anyone down; it seemed that they went the days I wasnot there. Little by little, as I said, I gained their likeness and so I couldgo around inside all offices. I communicated anything I thought suspi-cious to Chaniotakis and he communicated it to the organisation.

I don’t remember details. The only thing I remember is that I savedmany people. They recorded the ones who were in some kind of dis-favour in a book and I managed to see which book it was. I informedthem via Chaniotakis to go away or protect themselves in some way. Imust have saved plenty and I don’t remember their names at all. They

ANTONIA KOLIANDRI MATHIOUDAKI 289

were from Ierapetra. I remember only a few names. There was the di-visional commander, a man named Koudoumakis if I am not mistaken,who had been in great disfavour and I was afraid that he would be ex-ecuted. I informed him and he left for Athens I think (he asked for atransfer and went to Athens). And all the years he sent me his thanks forsaving his life. Ah, Mamounakis family. I knew them for we were neigh-bours. Actually, I heard once that those whose names were written in thebook had to be executed. Now, what can I do? How could I… I didn’tknow what to do. I struggled the whole day. When the commander wentout in the afternoon (he went somewhere, I don’t know where), I foundthe strength, ran, opened the book and memorised the names. Andthen, pretending that I was not feeling well, I left and went and foundChaniotakis and I told him: “Inform them. Their life is in danger”.He in-formed them.

All these people thanked me afterwards, every time I met them inAthens after years. Two or three years ago, I was talking on the tele-phone with a classmate of mine, Ioanna Fragkomanolaki, and she tellsme: “My husband is grateful to you for saving his life” and I didn’t evenremember his name, after all these years.

Once, the Germans got the civilians and farmers together and putthem to compulsory labour: they broke large stones into gravel in thestreets. They said they wanted to pave the roads with these. They hadto see the German doctor and he characterised some of them as capa-ble 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 didn’t understand it. I told you I had earned theirtrust somehow. In retrospect, I wonder too how they didn’t get suspi-cious of me. It was really very dangerous and I didn’t consider dangerat all then. Now I wonder and I say that if it would happen today I wouldnot be so decisive. But I was not at all afraid of the danger then: I wasinvolved in everything.

As I said, our house was a cottage on a hill and a German captain ofthe artillery came, I don’t remember his name, it was Tapst, somethinglike that, and took it by requisition. He placed the machine guns a bitfarther up from the house (it was a hill). He used to come regularly to


the house. He was a peaceful man, which was odd for a German thattime. 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 twosons in the front, I don’t remember exactly. He showed great affinity formy whole family. He came regularly to the house. To me in particularhe showed great likeness. Of course, this helped me communicate (theinformation) along with my brother (for my brother too helped me andin many occasions he communicated what I wanted to communicateto Chaniotakis). And I discovered once where he kept the book withthe airplane signals: it was written red light for forward, blue for back-up, some signals like that, I don’t remember exactly what and how.There, he received many calls from his soldiers and he had to leave. Heleft us at home; of course his servant was there but my brother distractedhim and I opened the book and memorised. I had no time to write themdown. 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 wouldland. 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 fatherI was in the administration during the holocaust of the villages. The

Germans justified it to me based on the fact that the rebels had comedown and killed Germans. And I think that is what they told me thosewho survived: that was the cause of the holocaust. I didn’t experience itat close hand and I cannot say many things. Of course my parents wereblockaded there and I had to save them. My father was from Mithousand my mother was from Sfakoura of Riza. So I decided and took myfather’s horse and a niece of mine for companion and I moved on to goto Mithous. In Males, I encountered a group of SS. The evil had beendone. They followed me for they went the same direction, towards Mit-hous, and they got away afterwards from there. As a matter of fact, theygot us off the horse. Of course, the Germans had supplied me with acertificate that I was an interpreter and with the password I would haveto use, in case they shouted “Alt” at me. For I would have to enter theforbidden zone. I showed those to the Germans in Males. Nonetheless,


they got us off the horse and placed a wounded soldier on its back. Sowe moved on towards Mithous together with the Germans. We wentoutside a mill. Outside the mill, the miller had been slaughtered. I don’tknow how many were inside for we continued our way. The events hadjust begun and the villages were on fire; I had to save my father if I couldmake it on time.

So we came down to Mithous with the Germans. They moved onfrom there, they left. I stayed. But which woman that had seen me ar-riving with the Germans would let me in her home? We spent the nightat the church. The following day I went and tried to learn from thewomen in the village where the hideout of the men was, for they wereall gone. They were hiding and my father was with them. They didn’t tellme, they were afraid. They didn’t 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 pathwayand I found my father up there. My mother was in Riza, she was notwith him in Mithous, I don’t know why. I brought him down. I could-n’t… there were two cousins of mine too, but I couldn’t take anyone elsewith me for only my parents’ names were written on the paper I hadand thus I couldn’t take anyone else. So we came down to Mithous andfrom there we went to Riza and this is how I passed by and saw the holo-caust of the villages. I passed by and came down. Luckily, I didn’t comeacross the SS. I wanted to tell you, that the administration gave me thecertificate and the password with reservation. They had no faith thatthe 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 himin the mountain he was hiding. He got sick and ever since he was vul-nerable. And so, I can not say many things for the holocaust. I watchedthe villages burning. I came back to Ierapetra. I can not say many things.People who lived the events could narrate them.

Transfer to Agios NikolaosI was transferred to Agios Nikolaos much later, to Kreis-Komman-


dantur, the General Administration of Lasithi. Things were more diffi-cult there. In addition, I didn’t know the people. Moreover, I didn’t havethe liking of the Germans I had in Ierapetra. It was more difficult. There,in Agios Nikolaos, they gave me Chalkiadakis the engineer as a liaisonwho was somewhat afraid every time I went. I heard the Germans oncetalking about Siggelakis, the Prefect. I mean, I realised that he had beenin great disfavour, so I managed to inform him. This is one of the times Iwas in imminent danger as the Prefect went to the General Administra-tion of Crete we had at the time and, as I learnt later, said to him: “Saveme, my life is in danger”. Passalakis was the name of the Governor; I don’tremember his exact name. The Governor was German-friendly, very Ger-man-friendly. Now, whether he asked him who had told him, whether hetold him, whether he himself didn’t want to turn me in… There, in anycase, I realised that I had been in danger. Of course, the Governor trans-ferred him somewhere and the Prefect managed to get what he wanted.

There was another time again when I was in danger too. Englishdropped food supplies up in the mountains of Agios Nikolaos. Therebels immediately picked them up. But the Germans became aware ofit and went up and arrested some of them who pretended to be shep-herds. In reality, they were fellow-fighters and they brought them downfor interrogation. I don’t know where they interrogated them (they did-n’t bring them to the administration) but I was ordered to see whatthings were found on them. I saw that a captain in the administrationbrought something and threw it in his drawer and left. I entered thisoffice although I had never been there before. I entered to see what hehad found: it was just a letter. The moment I had the drawer open, hereturned. He returned! And I heard his steps as he was coming up. Iwas confused at that point. I had no idea what I would say, I don’t evenremember what I thought of saying, but in any case they wouldn’t be-lieve me for I had the drawer open. By good fortune, he didn’t enter hisoffice; he went to the commander’s office so I closed the drawer asquickly as possible and left.

I spent less than a year in Agios Nikolaos. I had rented a house withanother colleague of mine who knew nothing about me. She never sawthrough me, nor did I dare confide in her.


The betrayal and my fleeing to the Middle EastFinally, 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 alsoused to come there on a regular basis and every time these two came,the door of the commander’s office closed. I turned these two ones in.I don’t remember their names now but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell themnow. Go figure out now how I am supposed to prove it. In any case, Iturned them in to the organisation. So, I was betrayed. Many fellow-fighters used to come, supposedly to do some kind of work, to ask forsomething and they were watching those who came and betrayed; oneof them heard about the betrayal and informed me. Therefore I stoppedall contacts, all activities. He even told me that they would help me es-cape to the Middle East.

Thus, little by little, I realised after a while that I was being followedbut I was at home and didn’t leave. At the end, I said that I would goback to Athens to finish the school of the Red Cross and so I stoppedand resigned and came down to Ierapetra. They had supplied me evenwith the password and who to follow and one day eventually Chanio-takis came, telling me that they were ready to help me get away to theMiddle East, which they did. I got away with the sister of Chaniotakis’wife. We left and went together with Chaniotakis to Heraklion, fromthere we went up to a village and spent the night there, and the follow-ing day we were placed on a donkey for we had to go through the moun-tains and descend to Tsoutsouras. A ship was waiting for us there; thosesmall ships were called ML. Even an airplane escorted us to the MiddleEast. And this is how I went to the Middle East.

Mpantouvas Manolis was down then in Egypt and I went and workedfor the Greek government in Cairo. It was at the time of VenizelosSophoclis and I started working there for the Greek administration.When we returned, when we came back to Greece, I continued work-ing for the government. I came back to Athens. I was engaged in theMiddle East. I was accommodated in a house where the fighters thatcame from Crete were accommodated and there was a soldier there thatwas in RAF, in the British army; he was Cypriot of English citizenship,


his name was Kostas Koliandris. I was officially engaged and when thewar ended we came back to our country. I came back to Crete, and fromthere of course I went to Athens, since I was engaged, and went to myin-laws’. My husband was left behind for we came back from Egypt ingroups. Ever since, I lived in Athens.

Italians and GermansI wish I could remember some things too, for I communicated every-

thing I saw or heard. I don’t remember them though. I worked from ’41till ’44 when I left. Three years. Most of the time in Ierapetra. For sometime I was the interpreter of the Italians too. I could speak some Italian.My father had finished an Italian school in Heraklio. My father wasfrom Mithous, a poor child, and some pharmacist from Heraklio tookhim for work and sent him, along with the Greek school to the Italianas well. I don’t know why. And my father had graduated from an Italianschool and he had taught me some. So, I helped the Italians too. Italianswere different people: more peaceful, not fond of war. They gave usfood. My father worked those years as an interpreter in the Italian ad-ministration in Ierapetra, together with me.

I think Germans now are a different kind of people than they used tobe then. At that time, there were the Nazis, the Nazism; they were dogs,fierce dogs. My brother dared say something against Hitler once to thecaptain in the house, since he was friendly to us (he showed greater like-ness to me). Although the captain disliked war, missed his children andbegged for the war to end, he became furious. Despite that, they wereall imbued with Nazism. Imbued.

DebtEach 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 dif-ficulties. I always think and wonder, how I managed, how I defied thedanger that was threatening me. You can not regret something you offerto your country. As a matter of fact, you are pleased that you offeredsomething. I forgot to tell you that the organisation had offered memoney, but neither I nor my brother ever accepted. When we started


working and I started communicating information we didn’t acceptmoney, we said that: “What ever we do, we do it for the country, not inorder to get paid”. I have never spoken before, what has been written121

is probably by Chaniotakis, maybe the organisation, maybe the fellow-fighters.


121 See Ioanidis, 1960: 166-168.

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