Orthokostá (14 page)

The Germans came to Kastrí. They broke into our house. We were in Koubíla, Yeorghía stayed there. I left to go see what had happened. They had taken two shaggy bedcovers, they had them up at Xinós's place. They were sleeping there too. Then they decided to close up the house. And Pavlákos went and closed it up. And Réppas's old lady was screaming, Not the girls, don't touch their things. God rest her soul. I arrived in Kastrí. Haroúlis comes over, he tells me, Klaría, did you hear, they broke into your house, they took two bedcovers from you. But we had a suitcase belonging to Uncle Periklís in our house, full of things. And they took that too, the whole suitcase. There was a box from America, a metal box, with jewelry in it. My grandmother had brought it from Amaliáda, from the shrines of Saint Dionýsius and Saint Spyrídon. It disappeared. I found one of my dresses, a silk one, left on a fence. It was Diamantís Evanghelíou who took the suitcase. Because they were the ones who slept up there. Pavlákos told them, Who do you think you are, coming here to sleep? But in the meantime the things had been taken. I arrived in Kastrí. They didn't find the suitcase. Pavlákos told me all about it. About Evanghelíou. I tell this to Pítsa. What are you talking about, woman, she tells me, what are you saying? The covers, I tell her, they were ours. Anghelikí, Bisbís's wife, cuts in and tells her, They took those things from the Makríses' house, they brought them up to your place. And that's all she said. Haroúlis arrives, he says to me, Klaría, we have a shelter, get your things and take them there. I didn't know what sort of person he was yet. I went there, it was a small shelter, just a hole in
the wall. I carried whatever things we still had over there. Iríni's sister helped me and we took them there. Two trunks, a chest, just like one we still have. We filled up both trunks. The Haloúlos sisters also took some of Old Man Boúrdas's things there. And Lámbros took medicine there, and Yiórgos Yiannakákos's wife took clothes. Just about the whole neighborhood did. The shelter was small but we packed it full up with things. And we kept guard there. Later on the Battalions arrived, our brother Yiánnis arrived, the girls go to him, they tell him, Yiánnis, let's open up the shelter, take our things, and divvy them out. And Yiánnis tells them, What are you saying, you girls, that we should give the hiding place away? Then Harís gave it away later on. It was Harís himself who gave it away. Kontalónis's division arrived to burn down the village. They started setting the fires. Sotiría hid in the clay oven to save herself. And when she came out that night she was all black. They had taken the rest of the people to Ayios Panteleímonas. And Yeorghía came back from halfway along the road. I don't know what excuse she found, but she saved her father's houses. Kontalónis himself was right there in their yard, and their houses were spared. The other houses were reduced to ashes. Harís told them where the shelter was and they went and ransacked it. They broke in, they took anything they could. They took the medicines, they took the clothes. They took everything. Yeorghía went there, she tells them, Hold on, you men, we have things there too. Boúras cuts her off. He's in an old-age home now in Trípolis. He says, Kapetán, she's with the Security Battalions, she can't take things. Because her brother-in-law is in Trípolis. He was talking about Iríni's husband. But Iríni had just married Vasílis and she and her sister weren't speaking, she and Yeorghía. And that's how Yeorghía was able to take a few things and save them. They took everything else. They didn't burn any of it. They took it all. I don't want to mention any names, whoever they were, well, anyway. And that Haroúlis who had set up that shelter and told people to put their things in there, he was the one who betrayed them. And Márkos's wife went there, and they sent her round every which way to find her clothes, to this village and that village. Her daughters' dowries.
They burned the village to ashes. They ransacked the shelter. And the year before last I went into Old Man Yiánnis's store—and we talked very specifically. Spýros Galaxýdis came in. There we were, me, Old Man Yiánnis, Nikólas Diamantís, and Kalamarás from Mesorráhi. Spýros comes over to me, he says, Who set the fire, do you know? No, I tell him, I don't know. And he says, Yesterday I met with Spyrópoulos, who was the section chief here. And he told me, Tell them in Kastrí it wasn't me who burned down your village. My village, Bertsová, was spared, I saved it. It was Yiánnis Velissáris and Haroúlis Lenghéris, they burned down your village. So don't let people from Kastrí go blaming anyone else. That's what he said. Yiánnis Velissáris and Haroúlis Lenghéris. Velissáris was killed. He was court-martialed, they told him to sign a renunciation of his Communist allegiance, he refused. He told all this to Léandros, Tsátsis's daughter's husband. He was the chief guard at the courthouse. Before he came here as a policeman, before he married Anthí. Léandros told him, Yiánnis, you've been betrayed. Impossible, he said. Yiánnis, you've been betrayed, because the others have all signed renunciations. Delivoriás who was the ringleader, and the rest of them. He told him this out of earshot, through the window. They were holding them prisoner in the basement of the courthouse. It's not possible they betrayed me, Velissáris said. To Léandros. Impossible. But even if they did, I'm not signing anything. I'm not having my hair cut off so I can get out. So they killed him. And what about Haroúlis, when
he
was held on that island, he never signed anything and they let him go free. And where do you think he was hiding when he gave the orders? During the big fire. But I heard this from someone else. And he didn't tell me this by chance. Well, Haroúlis was holed up in the sanctuary of the church in Karátoula. All of this back then. And many years later Yiórgos Kambýlis talked about it. I said I wouldn't mention any names. But how can I not give names? The year before last Tasía says to me, It was Haroúlis who burned down your house. Haroúlis and Kambýlis had quarreled, and Kambýlis got sore so he started telling on him. And he told his sister, It was him, he was hiding downstairs in Ayiánnis,
and he and Babánis were liaisons, and he was sending messages with the names of people whose houses would be burned down. He was hiding in Ayiánnis in Karátoula. Right there in the church of Ayiánnis. In the sanctuary so he wouldn't be seen, and he was sending out those written messages. Haroúlis.

In Sítaina they threw people into a pit. They beat them and they threw them in. And you could hear them moaning for days.

—What about Kókotas, Iríni?

—Kókotas, well, it's like this. Kókotas had married a woman from here. From Kastrí, Selímos's daughter. Dionýsius Selímos's daughter. They captured him when the rebel forces were on their last legs. Him, a man named Iliádis, and a lawyer named Tsangáris. Iliádis was a refugee. He had a carpet factory. And they threw them alive into that pit. In 1960 they went down to retrieve their bones, Kókotas's bones were at the top of the heap. He had climbed up, he tried to get out. And everyone said, Oh, come now, didn't they realize what was going to happen? A big, strong man like Kókotas, it wouldn't have taken much for him to get away. In ten days they'd all have been saved.

They captured me in the beginning of 1944. Between the ninth and the thirteenth of January. Back then the only executions that had taken place were of the county prefect and two or three others. Random executions. In Háradros. Háradros is just below Hantákia. At the bottom of the Háradros River. But I don't know exactly where. When we passed through there they told us, This is where that traitor the county prefect was executed. All this in the month of January. They arrested me in Eleohóri. I had left Kastrí. It was still the olive-gathering season. Másklina. That's probably a Slavic place name. Then Másklina became Eleohóri. The detention camp was there before that. The detention camp where seven of the villagers were sent, the first ones. People who had nothing to do with political movements, simple folk, just poor unfortunate people. And they had no quarrel with anyone either. Most likely they took them to intimidate others. We have them here, we're holding those people. Almost like hostages. Because they'd never been involved in the Resistance or in anti-Communist activities or with the Germans. The Germans were there guarding the railroad lines. They were guarding the bridges, and they would come to the village once in a while when they were off duty to have a drink. And they didn't do anything at all. It was a small group, there weren't many of them. Well that's where they arrested me. At my house. I had a friend, he worked at a bank, a distant cousin, and Iphigenia was grilling some pork chops over charcoal. He was an employee of the National Bank of Trípolis. It was almost night. I didn't expect them to arrest me. I wasn't even afraid. My brother was in Athens, but he
wasn't in the Battalions yet. The Battalions were formed later on. As a reaction to everything that had happened. To the arrests and the executions. Various men who had escaped to Athens, like Haloúlos, Nikólas Petrákos, and the rest, banded together under Papadóngonas and organized themselves. In Athens. They didn't come down to Trípolis until the month of April, early April, or maybe the end of March. I don't remember. Three men came to arrest me. They were from Mesorráhi. Tóyias and some others. They turned into butchers later on. I could have taken them out, but I didn't think they would do anything to me. In a hole in the wall under my bed I kept a pistol. I also had a bayonet, a sharp one, behind my coat. They were hanging on the door. I figured I could handle them, they were just a couple of thugs. But I thought of my sister. I was afraid for her. So I went with them. Since I couldn't take my bayonet, I didn't take my coat either. And I left in that cold winter weather. In January, without that coat. Without even my army jacket. They took me to Ayiórghis. We spent the night there. They turned me over to Vanghélis Farazís. Whose house I had stayed at in 1939 for two months. To help combat the olive tree fruit flies. I was working in the area and I stayed at his house. I knew his family, I liked them, and thought highly of them. Look here, Yiánnis, Vanghélis says to me. They had put him in charge of me. I know you can get away. I know you know your way around these parts. He didn't say anything else to me. But of course that was enough for me not to want to get him in trouble. In the morning we headed out on the road to Dolianá. Lower Dolianá. To Loukoú Monastery.
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That was their transfer section. In a manner of speaking. They had taken over the monastery. There I first encountered the so-called merry evenings. There was a group of men and women from Dolianá. There was a priest's daughter there, and a schoolteacher's daughter. Who had once been a classmate of mine in Trípolis. Merry evenings, you can say that again. In the monastery we ate lentils. We were twenty-one prisoners in all. They put us in a cell. Not all of us were from Eleohóri. I lived in Kastrí too, in two places. Mítsos Karazános from Ayiasofiá. The secretary of the township. The father of Yiórghis Karazános. There were people from Dolianá too. They would put out
one of those big pans for us, filled with lentils. There were twenty-one of us and they had some of us sit and some of us stand around that pan. And they gave us one spoon for all of us to eat with. All twenty-one of us with one spoon. Because that way no one could eat more than the rest. A very fair portioning out. The next day they sent us off to Orthokostá. The Orthokostá Monastery. Located on the other side of Mount Malevós. On the road from Ayios Andréas to Prastós. We passed through Astros, through the outskirts of Astros. On our way, in Karakovoúni, we met another column. With an armed escort. They were coming from Koúvli. From Rízes, from Dolianítika Chánia. With Yiánnis Vasílimis among the prisoners. An exceptional man, a progressive farmer, among the best in the area. And that splendid young man was taken to the detention camp by his own brothers. Who executed him later on. But I only know this through hearsay. We arrived in Orthokostá in the afternoon. The guards opened the gate. There was a sudden sense of alarm. Because there were guards there, and prisoners. They pushed us inside like cattle. They lined us up in the inner courtyard. Then, without letting anyone see he was approaching, Yiánnis Koïtsános comes over to me. He was from Parthéni, Trípolis. I knew him from high school, we were friends in high school. But at that moment, because I was so upset and tense, I didn't recognize him. I didn't remember him. I couldn't put a name to his face. On top of it all he had close-cropped hair and looked scrawny. They had cut everyone's hair, in fact. He came and stood next to me and he says to me under his breath, You don't know me and I don't know you. Don't talk in here, don't say anything, don't trust anyone. In other words, he gave me some advice that truly saved me. I found other people I knew in Orthokostá. Old classmates of mine. Níkos Kolokotrónis, but he was a rebel. A quiet man, didn't talk much. How or why he became a rebel is hard to know. There was a waiter there too, Yiórghis Katsarós. He served us coffee in Trípolis, at Antonákos's restaurant. Or up in Athanasiádis's workshop. Waxworks and Distilleries. He would come over with his round tray
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hanging over his arm. He wasn't a Communist either. How he became one I don't know, why he did I can venture a guess. So they split us up, they put nine of
us in one cell. Eight of us from Eleohóri and Mítsos Karazános. I don't remember if they gave us anything to eat. They must surely have given us something. In the morning they got us up to collect firewood. Some of our men were reluctant to go. I was more than willing. I wanted to have as little attention as possible paid to me. To get through whatever was in store for me easily. I had heard, and it turned out to be true, that during interrogations they performed what was called the Torture.
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I mean beating you on the feet. They beat the soles of your feet with clubs or knotted rope. Just about crippled you. Well, I took the sharpest saw. They didn't give us axes, only saws. We might have found other uses for the axes. We climbed high up, we started cutting the wood. Mostly fir trees. We would cut them down, then cut the wood into pieces, some others would carry it away. Up until noon. Then they'd take us farther down to a clearing. And they trained us ideologically there. They also told us that we would remain there to await trial by the rebel tribunal. In the detention camp there were about seventy prisoners, as far as I can figure. From all over Arcadia, but mainly from the prefecture of Kynouría. Astros and around there. Dolianá. I don't remember anyone else from Kastrí. But there must have been others. And of course there were the ones from Eleohóri I mentioned, those seven. And from Ayiasofiá. From the whole prefecture. We heard there was another detention camp to the north of there. I wasn't able to learn exactly where. Whether it was in Elóna or at the Karyés Monastery.
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At any rate it's certain that it existed. Because that whole camp followed ours at the beginning of February. When the Communists learned that the Germans were coming. That they were conducting operations on Mount Parnon, expressly to locate and liberate those two detention camps. Then an order came to move us to the Zíreia area. That happened during the third week of our detention. Up until we went on trial we did nothing. Almost nothing. Just the odd chore. We had nothing, we had no life. We were waiting for the arrival of the rebel judges. Anxiously awaiting them. To condemn us and put us to death in order to thin out the detention camp. Their purpose was not punishment but thinning us out to make room for new lodgers. Around that time I also found out what charges
had been made against me. In addition to guilt by association with my brother. They told me that on my name day
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I shouted Long live the Germans. On my name day I was having some wine with Yiánnis Daskoliás, who was also celebrating his name day. Daskoliás was in charge of EAM. We were at his house. As patriots and fellow villagers from Eleohóri. Of course he knew, he suspected that I wasn't a Communist. He knew that my brother was in Athens, for self-protection. And we were talking and discussing things. In fact he had entrusted his heavy pistol to me for a day. He had a heavy Browning pistol, and I had it for almost a whole day. So there we were talking things over. I had no reason not to talk, and he was testing me or something, I don't know what he was doing. Sounding me out. So this German walked in, drunk, and he started shouting,
Partisano, partisano
.
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He had an automatic Steyr rifle, and he pretended to be shooting, killing rebels. That was the offense, and instead of charging the man whose house this happened at, they charged me with it. And claimed I'd said to the German: Over there, a partisano. A big fuss over nothing. Well, that was the charge. During our stay at Orthokostá we dug various trenches. Some said they were trenches for defense against the Germans, something that was unlikely, foolish, and impossible, others said they would simply be used as graves. We also brought water into the monastery garden. The spring was outside the yard, some ways off, about three hundred meters. And because we all wanted it, wanted that convenience, especially me, we said, Let's do it. We knocked down some old cells, we built ourselves a duct with roof tiles, and we brought water there. And that saved me. I had a habit from before of taking a cold shower every morning. So I would get under the spigot and wash myself. It wasn't exactly a shower, but I did at least bathe my head and my chest. To maintain my body's tolerance to cold. And that saved me, with all that snow, all that dampness. Our cell was damp. It was a dome and it had snow on top, and the cold would get in. And we slept with our bedding on the floor. In the detention camp there were four or five young women. A certain Alíki Maloúhou from Trípolis, she was my age, twenty-six. Alíki Maloúhou. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't particularly appealing, and she wasn't involved in any anti-Communist
activities. I never understood why they took her. Why they sent her to the detention camp. Of course she was from a good family. They arrested her in Trípolis and they took her away from there. The Communists were organized, they had connections, they could do anything. And they did, including executing one or two women, if I remember correctly. I can't quite recall, but I do know one, they executed her for selling herself to the Occupation army. There were women then, and everyone knew this, who would do anything for a scrap of bread. So they could survive. And they executed one of them, right there on Taxiarhón Street. In broad daylight. A woman, she was just a girl. It was about that time that they captured Alíki. Alíki Maloúhou. And also Yiánnis Koïtsános from Parthéni. He was a ground air force major, he survived, he had a permanent commission, and he rose to the top, all the way to squadron leader. He was being held at the detention camp as a reactionary, and one of his sisters was with the rebels. The Koïtsános family has quite a history. Thanásis Koïtsános is a story in himself. He went so far as to wear a German uniform. He wasn't in the Battalions, he had nothing to do with the Battalions. He had enlisted in the German armed forces. The third brother, I can't think of his name, a tall fellow, was working for the Ministry of Health. And there were two more sisters, both schoolteachers. They were all right-wing in their convictions, in other words anti-Communists. Except for the youngest sister, the rebel. She had spoken out, obviously under pressure, who knows. She had spoken out against her family. Death to my brothers. Death to my father. Death to this, and death to that. We had those women with us in the detention camp. They always slept in a special cell. As for food, of course there was some, usually beans, usually spoiled. Full of insects. Give us better food, some of us would say. Give us meat. They made bread in the monastery. Yiánnis Xinós, a prisoner, was put in charge of baking. A second cousin of mine, a cousin by marriage. One day they brought me a shoulder sack. It had a bottle of oil, a carton of one hundred loose cigarettes, even though I didn't smoke, and a loaf of bread. And olives. Sent from Astros. From a friend. An anonymous one, for obvious reasons. Although I searched repeatedly later on, I
was never able to find out who sent those things. Maybe because he didn't survive the turmoil. I could say that we had it quite good in there. If it weren't for the agony over the rebel tribunal. The waiting. At night we used oil lamps for light. Small lamps, they didn't hold much oil. They would last until midnight. Yiórghis Katsarós would take care of them. The waiter. He served people in the detention camp too. One of his duties was to keep the lamps supplied with oil. Every night. And we would ask him—we all knew Yiórghis Katsarós. Everyone from Eleohóri knew him. And especially me. And we would ask him to please put extra oil in our lamp. So we'd have light after midnight. In the cell we all slept on the floor, and the light was a comfort to us. Light from oil. The cell was a dome, as I said before, and there was snow on top of the cell. It wasn't very cold, but it never stopped snowing. And it was very damp in there. The damp and the snow. One evening there was a knock on our door. It was late, it must have been almost midnight. At any rate the oil lamp was still burning. When we heard that knock everyone jumped up. Because it was always midnight when they took people, if they were supposed to take someone. Dránias, I heard Kolokotrónis say from outside. Trying hard to make his voice sound hard and tough. Poor fellow, he wasn't tough or hard. He was just a short, mild-mannered man. In high school he was one of the good students—and a good friend. I jumped up. Come here, come outside. Should I get dressed? No need. Should I take anything? No need. Of course we didn't wear pajamas. We didn't take off anything, not even our shoes. We slept like that, in our clothes. But can I just throw something over me? Come out here. I went outside. There was another cell on the right, and farther along to the right was a door where there were stairs that led to the courtyard. Four stone steps. Walk in front, he tells me. And I did. I walked. And I walked. When we passed the stairs I stopped. I thought, we're not going outside. We're not going to an execution. I'd had a bad fright, so had the others. Midnight. Keep going. I kept going. We came to a corner in the hallway. And we arrived at the guest quarters. The refectory, in other words. The fireplace was also there. I saw the fire. A big fire. I thought, we'll have an interrogation now. Get ready for the Torture.