7 On the border of Ayiasofiá and Eleohóri. Four kilometers from Ayiánnis. There was a goat trail the first half of the way. After that it disappeared. Alíki Maloúhou was walking in front of me. The poor girl was inexperienced. She had unattractive legs, her shins were abnormally thick. I tried to help her climb over some rocks. Then we heard a shot. Then another one. They told us they had executed Kostákis. Kostákis Mémos, the village alderman of Mýloi. Because he was a laggard. He was up on a mule and they executed him. They shot him twice. He didn’t fall down with the first shot, he fell with the second. Afterward we came to a sheep pen. There someone said, Go down to the ravine, go down to the ravine. Then the Germans saw us. They were heading our way, and they started firing. But they fired in the air. We threw ourselves into the ravine. The Germans were shouting something, we didn’t understand. We had a man with us named Grigóris Kostoúros. A Reserve officer from World War I. He ran the Boúrtzi fortress in Náfplion until 1940. He used it as a hotel for tourists. And he knew German. Grigóris, Yiánnis Vasílimis says to him. Vasílimis was also from Dolianá. Shout that we’re prisoners. Kostoúros shouted. And he took off a shirt, a white shirt. The Germans say, Stand up. And that all happened right there. In the area around Mávri Trýpa. It was getting dark out. Night was falling in that barren sheep pen. We all stood up. Next to me was Yiánnis Koïtsános. He says to me, We can leave them and go to the Germans. No, I tell him. Pétros Tsélios was still there, and another man, and an old woman. I didn’t know her, I never saw her again. I tell them, Come with me. I know these parts. We can make it safely to the village. To Eleohóri. But only Koïtsános came over to me. The others had moved out of the ravine. With their hands in the air. They had surrendered to the Germans. We lay low for a while, waiting for them to move farther away. The rebels who were escorting us had also run away. So we walked along the riverbed. Then we came to the Másklina olive groves. There the Germans began shooting up flares. We hit the ground until they stopped. At around midnight we arrived at Liátsis’s storage sheds. Behind Ayía Paraskeví. I knew the Liátsis family. They gave us olives and bread. We ate. And they tell us, Now you’d better go because the rebels will be coming round again. They pass through here. We left. I say, Let’s go to our vineyard. We went to the top of Mount Kafkalás. It was almost dawn. There were thickets, and the vineyard. My thickets, my vineyard. The vineyard would conceal us. It would save us. It was across from the village. Then it turned very cold. The morning frost. We were freezing. Come daybreak, we saw the activity down below. The prisoners from both detention camps had gathered at the station. Everyone had gathered at the station. The Germans and the prisoners. At about seven a train arrived from Trípolis and took them away. It was very light out now. I turned to Yiánnis Koïtsános then. What do we do now? I say to him. The Germans were gone. He was curled up from the cold, frozen. Now we can go to our villages, he says. And that’s what we did. He left for Parthéni. I stayed in Eleohóri. My sister Iphigenia was there, I couldn’t do otherwise. I thought the Communists would look favorably on what we did. Because we didn’t go with the Germans. The next day they came and put me in charge of the press and of indoctrination. Me. I didn’t want to be connected to them. I tell them, I can’t. They tell me, Yes you can. And they sent me to Ahladókampos. Where they had never managed to have any influence. The villagers from Ahladókampos were nationalists through and through. Wanted nothing to do with the Communists. So were the villagers from Karátoula. But they never joined the Security Battalions either. There was Yiórghis Baláskas. An artillery officer. A lieutenant. He kept them all close to him. That’s why they killed them. No battle, no nothing. They arrested them and they killed them. Just after the Liberation. Right in front of their houses. One by one. About seventy men. I had to go down there then. I couldn’t do otherwise. I spoke to some people. They knew me, my hair was cut very close. They knew why it was like that. They knew who I was, what I believed. I tell them, We’re like an egg between two rocks. We set up a phony organization. I went back to Eleohóri. Until March when Papadóngonas came down. My brother Kóstas came down. Liberation was coming any day now. Then the whole prefecture, there were no other options, everyone in Eleohóri and in Kastrí, we all joined the Battalions. Approximately the end of April or possibly May. At any rate, except for Kostákis Mémos, as far as I know all the other prisoners from Orthokostá survived. From the detention camp at that time, I mean.