Chapter 18
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.
Chapter 19
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.
1 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