Innocents' Day - By Time magazine.

Peace had come to battered, impoverished Greece; the Communist guerrillas had been driven out, perhaps for good. But last week, on Innocents' Day (the Church calendar's anniversary of Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents in Judea), Greece had a day of mourning—for 28,000 children abducted by the bandits and now living on foreign, Communist soil.

A two-gun salute from Mount Lycabettus woke Athenians at dawn. Church bells tolled and flags drooped at half-mast. Newspapers appeared with black-framed front pages. Places of amusement were closed all day, and for half an hour all traffic stopped, streets emptied, doors were closed and blinds drawn.

Queens Do Not Beg. Earnest young Queen Frederika, mother of three, broadcast a poignant message from the royal palace. She begged for the return of the 28,000 children living in exile "as a mother—because queens are not supposed to beg." Added Frederika: "The civilized world has remained silent too long."

The civilized world had made some well-meaning but ineffective protests. UNSCOB (the U.N.'s Special Committee on the Balkans) had verified the mass deportation of Greek children. The U.N. General Assembly had called on Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania for the return of the children. These governments had finally agreed to return any children called for by petition of their parents. Up to last week the Greek Red Cross had forwarded 8,000 petitions, but not one child had been sent back.

Not Even Goodbye. In the palace with Frederika was a group of black-clad peasant women huddled at her side. Kaliroe Gouloumi, from Gorgopotamos, in Epirus, remembered how the Communists took her children: "They were in our village for a year. First they took our animals, then our food, then our children. I had three." Kaliroe wiped her eyes with her black shawl. "They did not even let me say goodbye. They said they were no longer my children but their children."

Said Kleoniki Kiprou from Monopilo Kastoria: "First they hanged the priest, then they cut off his mother's hands, and then they ordered us to follow them. What could we do?" In Albania her eight-year-old girl and five-year-old boy were taken from her and a rifle was thrust into her hands. Tapping the weapon, the rebel capetdnias said: "This is your husband, this your child." Kleoniki was forced into the battle of Vitsi. She deserted and got back to her village—without her children. In Fourka Konitsa, the villagers learned in advance of the guerrillas' abduction plans. They hid the children in ditches. The guerrillas, frustrated, took Sofia Makri and 20 other mothers to the mountains and tortured them. Said Sofia last week: "They hung us from pine trees. They burned our feet with coals. They beat us. When we fainted they revived us with cold water from the spring. Fourteen of us died up there but we did not tell. When the Greek army entered our village they found the dead living, for out of the earth came our children."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811653-1,00.html



See FYROM's true identy

"But last week, on Innocents' Day (the Church calendar's anniversary of Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents in Judea), Greece had a day of mourning�for 28,000 children abducted by the bandits and now living on foreign, Communist soil."

"last week" being 3 Jan, 1950. Article was written 10 Jan 1950

I had a tear from reading this and now you joke about it ? How do you know one of you ain't the decedents of those children ?

Sad for someone to even joke about this, more torture and mistreatment done to the Greeks...You stated your family fought the communists now you joke about it ? I'm begining to think your families claim against the communists is also a lie ! And that you were part of the communist culprits !!!

See FYROM's true identy

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. My post was purely imformative, and by showing when this article was written, one would get a better understanding of the passions arising from this near disaster of a civil war in Greece.

If this article was written recently, the passion would be missing or lost.

In 1948, the Communist Guerrillas abducted 28,000 Greek children from Macedonia and took them to various Eastern Block countries. The United Nations archives contain documented evidence of this, and a description may be found in Nicholas Gage's book Eleni. Those children were brainwashed about "Macedonia" for years, the guerrillas intention being to liberate one day Macedonia from the Greeks. In 1988, a few thousands of them, now adults, gathered in Skopje. Many came from Canada, Australia, the United States of America and Europe. In the presence and with the support of the political leadership of Skopje', they decided to raise once again the Macedonian Question. A special international committee was set up and, since then, it has been engaged in coordinating a worldwide propaganda against Greece.

http://www.hri.org/Martis/contents/main4.html



See FYROM's true identy

Hey, I almost cried too, since I have heard about this many times. Just for the record the kids are named Greek since they all come from Greece, but not all of them were Greek, as you know. And by the way, most of those kids were sons and daughters of the DAG army and their relatives and most of them gave their kids voluntarily being afraid since they were losing the war. To be clear most of them went in Eastern block countries and not Yugoslavia, since Tito stopped the cooperation with Stalin, so they were also fed up with anti-Yugoslav propaganda. They were allowed to come to Yugoslavia, in the Socialistic Republic of Macedonia after 1970. Most of the parents after the war said that their children were taken from them by the communist bandits, since they wanted to cooperate with the new government and hoped that if they say so their children would be allowed to come back, because if they said that they gave them voluntarily, nobody would allow them to come back, and the parents could have problems themselves. There was a case when some of these children which now possessed Polish and Canadian passports were not allowed to enter Greece for their gathering, so they filed a lawsuit against the Greek Republic.

And don't tell me Time magazine is "the neutral" side. We all now of the English napalm bombs in Northern Greece.

"The bloody Greek Civil War, from 1946-1949, was only one of the violent episodes to convulse the Greek Republic in the modern era. The first “proxy” battle of the Cold War saw the US support rightist monarchists in their mountain campaign against 30,000 leftist guerillas. Ethnic Slav-speaking Macedonians, related to kin in socialist Yugoslavia to the north, fought for autonomy and aligned with the leftist insurgents.

To deny the guerillas support, more than 700,000 people were forcibly evacuated from mountain villages and dumped into miserable camps near towns. 3000 government executions were recorded. Atrocities were committed by brother against brother on both sides, no different than those seen in Bosnia in recent years. When it was over, some 100,000 were dead, 1 million were displaced and the country was destroyed.

"""FYROMians""" were singled out for reprisals because of their support for the leftists. About 60,000 Macedonians fled, 28,000 of whom were children. They went north across the border to Yugoslavia, the """FYROM""" and the new People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Others went as far as Australia, Canada and the United States. A 1982 Greek law allowed return to Greece for war refugees, but only ethnic Greeks."

http://www.balkanalysis.com/2004/03/30/the-macedonians-return-to-greece-classic-report/>

My mother and I were speaking of the civil war in Greece extensively. She was around 17 years old at that time.

As with Nikolas Gage's mother, my mother does not support revenge. She supports common knowledge that there were atrocities committed by the Communists on Greeks, but she also states that the vast majority of atrocities were committed by Greeks toward the """FYROMians""" just after the civil war for supporting the Communists. It is why the children of these """FYROMians""" were sent to other countries, to save them.

The civil war was horrible for both """FYROMians""" and Ethnic Greeks. It is a sad part of modern history for both, and for the country of Greece.

Exactly! Very well said GreekSlav. Nothing further to add.

"""About 60,000 Macedonians fled, 28,000 of whom were children."""

Highly doubt it, your words against the U.N archives. Shame on you for distorting facts, claiming these Greek children as Slavphones now ? That's the way it seems writen. The article Time magazine referes them as Greek children...

P.s there is no ethnic Macedonians, plain and simple. The Greek Republic in the modern era. ??? Don't tell me you believe in the Black Athena s.hit ?

Guy's get it through your thick heads Greece will not give into your silly claims, her history and her name along with her legacy Alexander the Great is Hellenic legacy, SlavMacedonians is no problem BUT just plain Macedonia you have lost your marbles.

See FYROM's true identy

Archi, I know it is very important to you to use the acronymn "FYROM" and "FYROMians", as attested by your extreme censorship of the proper name. That is your perogative. But use it properly. You should not be referring to the country as FYROM or the people as FYROMians if the text refers to any time before 1991. It's a good point, don't you think?

Thanks, Viktor. After all, my mother received her scars just after the civil war (at least that is what she hints at), even though the entire family did not support the Communists. It did not matter. It was an excuse to hit the non-Greeks hard. It was a terrible nationalistic disease that struck Greece. Even with all that had happened to her and the family, there are no ideas of revenge and my mother even married a Greek.

You drew up the rules of engagement remember as did the other Fyromian Mods two years ago...And don't dictate to us on what to do. Your hypocrisy has no limits.


Demosthenes
(Login TheGreekSlav)
Re: TO THE MODERATORS!!!!
No score for this post June 13 2008, 9:04 PM

In addition, they are using an illegal term on this forum. "FYROM" is only used in correspondence within the EU, NATO and UN. This does not apply to these forums.

Any reference to Macedonia and/or Macedonians as "Slavoskopians, "Skopians", "FYROMians", "FYROM", etc, should be deleted and/or edited.

^ That I believe was also deleted "entire thread"? but I have it, thought it'll come in handy. Many pages from us Greeks have been deleted with no explanation still not having come forth to this day...What you do in the Fyromian forum is your business and this one is our business.

See FYROM's true identy

Well done Greek moderators!

GS and Viktor,

can you post legitimate sources as to those children being of non-Greek ethnicity? If you can't you must accept that those children were in majority Greek. Why was there a petition of more than 8,000 mothers asking for their children back if the case you claim is correct? Wouldn't they pay 'retributions' as you claim?

The facts are as the U.N has stated. Why would Greece ask for all the children back after the war but then not allow them to return in the 1980's if they were in fact non-Greek? So we have the Greek government and mothers asking for all the children back.

It was to my understanding that the people with Canadian or Australian passports not allowed to return were those who were actually the Slav-Fighters who wanted the partition of Greece. They also had the cities of their birth listed in their Slavic variants which was not recognized by Greece at the time. I have heard of many instances where some children of the paidomazoma after coming of age or later in years actually being repatriated.

Like I already said
the kids are named Greek since they all come from Greece
And by the way, most of those kids were sons and daughters of the DAG army and their relatives and most of them gave their kids voluntarily being afraid since they were losing the war. To be clear most of them went in Eastern block countries and not Yugoslavia, since Tito stopped the cooperation with Stalin, so they were also fed up with anti-Yugoslav propaganda.
They were allowed to come to Yugoslavia, in the Socialistic Republic of Macedonia after 1970.
Most of the parents after the war said that their children were taken from them by the communist bandits, since they wanted to cooperate with the new government and hoped that if they say so their children would be allowed to come back, because if they said that they gave them voluntarily, nobody would allow them to come back, and the parents could have problems themselves.
There was a case when some of these children which now possessed Polish and Canadian passports were not allowed to enter Greece for their gathering, so they filed a lawsuit against the Greek Republic.- We shall wait for the outcome

As I asked before, can you provide a single legitimate source that states what you are claiming?

If Greece has no problems with non-Greeks living in Greece and they give them equal human rights, as they claim, then why apply certain conditions to those Slav Macedonians who want to come back to Greece? Why apply the condition that they proclaim that they are Greek? Surely you do not believe that they would create an uprising in Northern Greece? Yet the Greek authorities claim a security risk.

All the adult Communists involved in tearing up Greece back in the 40's should all have died by now. But to apply such evil sanctions on those that were small children and/or babies at the time is a bit overkill.

"All the adult Communists involved in tearing up Greece back in the 40's should all have died by now.."

Are they???? Thought they were alive and thriving in todays Fyromian government...at least there spirit and ideas are!

Yes, some of their ideas, like the idea for civil and minority rights, which is a very decadent, fascistic and communistic idea.

I am not a fan of Communists and Communism. Once, in Thessaloniki, I saw a squad of little Greek communists marching in Kalamaria, with their thick poles with little red flags on them. I deliberately bumped into one of the last guys in the march, knocking him down, and apologizing, with a smile.

It was a good thing to beat the Communists during the Greek civil war, but I will always disapprove of the way the Greek authorities have treated the children and babies of the families involved in Communism, GREEK and Slav Macedonians alike. These children and babies had no clue what was happening, why it was happening, and did not understand the mechanics of it all. They were innocent.

Here are some more links for those interested in the greek civil war which led to communists on the slav side who tried to take macedonia from us and abducted greek children,

http://www.topix.com/forum/world/macedonia/TDUSH7RU3PI673GEB
References:
1)Child Gathering Vol I, The Biggest Crime, Georgios Manoukas, 1961
2)Child Gathering Vol II, Education and Teaching of the kidnapped Greek children, Georgios Manoukas, 1967

Georgios Manoukas was the General Inspector of "Child Gathering" and a former member of KKE (Greek communist Party). He returned in Greece in 1961, under a general amnesty.

The author, Manoukas, examines Comitern intentions behind its policy with respect to the abduction of Greek children and concludes that from the beginning of the Yugoslav government (Tito) falsified the numbers of these children, integrated them into the population of the Federative Republic of Macedonia, and into the new “Macedonian” culture.

I will focus on the parts of his book that mention the connection between Eastern Block Communists and the Slavophone element that fled from Greek Macedonia.

Fact1
Names of the Slavs involved in the Children abductions:

One of the 5 member council during the Children abduction era was the Slavomacedonian Sikavitsas. This person was responsible for the Slavophone children. In the so-called Mountain Government (KKE) were two Slavophone “ministers”. Their names were Metrovsky and Stavro Kocev.
These Slavophones paid many visits to the places where the children were with their objective being the elimination of the Greek language used by the children and their Greek concsiousness. Their lectures were comprised of terms such as "Macedonian autonomy", Greece being a creation of the Big Powers, Slavic Macedonians being the only descendants of the ancients, freedom for "occupied Aegean Macedonia" etc, much like the propaganda the FYROMIANS spread even today.

Fact 2
FYROM propaganda claims all the children were Slavphones. Of course this is a lie. Chapter VII, page 26 mentions the exact numbers and the places that the Greek children were taken to: 18.500 went to Bulgaria (17 camps), Romania (11 camps), Hungary (11 camps), Czechoslovakia (18 camps), Poland (3 camps), East Germany and Albania ( 5 camps), 9.500 went in Yugoslavia (FSR of Macedonia)(15 camps). The numbers and the names of the children are recorded by the Red Cross.

Fact 3
United Nations Resolutions

On November 17, 1948(193), and in November 1949 (288) the UN General assembly passed two resolutions condemning the abduction of the Greek children, demanding their return. These and all subsequent UN resolutions were never honoured. From 1950 to 1952 only 684 children were permitted to return to Greece and only through the pressure of the Red Cross.

By 1963, around 4000 children were repatriated. Of those who did not return many died of illness, some escaped to Germany and others have since returned or have yet to return.

Conclusion
The FYROM government refuses to even discuss the issue, being quite aware of the implications (legal and humanitarian) and in an effort to cover up for the perpetrators of this crime, well known FYROMIAN propagandists and ideaologues.

I recommend that anyone interested in finding out more about this dark period of modern Greek history and the crime perpetrated against the Greek people by the Slavophone Communists - Slav Macedonists reads the book, all 600 pages.

In any further negotiations with FYROM on bilateral relations, the Greek Government will demand justice for the criminals involved and a just compensation for the victims and their families.


heres another link on the civil war...
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=103467

a lot of the DSE by the way were slavs from skojpe sent by Tito and designed to help pave the way for a communist victory so they could take macedonia by force. These days the same skops say they are all "refugees" and claim macedonia form us calling it occupied aegean macedonia. They ignore the fact macedonia and egean are greek words and regions asince time immemorial!

http://illyria.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=hellasgreece&action=display&thread=9245&page=2



See FYROM's true identy

You know what you make it seem as if the Greek government or people beat anyone they found to be communist. That is in fact a lie! My grandparents both were supporters of the Communist movement but do you know why they were left alone? They did not take up arms against the Greek government! Plain and simple.Now of course there were some people who did get beat but it was not a policy of the government but the actions of a few individuals. If your family took part in support of the Communist fighters then they were simply traitors(Technically).

As for the children of those fighters how are they victims? Are they victims due to the Greek government or are they victims due to their parents involvement with the Communist forces? The vast majority of them were too small to even remember the land where they were born and only know it through the stories their parents told them. If their parents fled due to being communist fighters then their parents forfeited their rights to inherit the land!

They should not blame the Greek government for looking after their own best interest, but blame their parents for taking up arms against their Nation.

Come on, it was a Civil war. There are no traitors in Civil war. Always when the Civil war ends, the people that took part in it are amnestied, except for the leaders maybe. And your grandparents were left alone, because they are Greek and you know that.

My family, both Greek and Slav Macedonian, have a long history (since 1917) of fighting Communists and Communism. We are all proud of that. It is too bad that Greece had to endure this civil war. But many other countries were taken by the Communists. Greece is blessed not to have endured generations upon generations of Communist rule.

A Greek women cannot in any way give birth to two ethnicities. It's imposible....

There can be traitors in a Civil War, those who want to break the country into two separate ones. If they were just fighting over which political philosophy or ideology was going to rule the country that is one thing, but when a group joins the fighting to destroy a country then yes they are traitors.

How is one born with ethnicity? Part of one's ethnic being is consciousness. A baby does not feel Greek or Slav Macedonian. Only environment will mold the baby as it grows.

Agreed with GreekSlav.

"If they were just fighting over which political philosophy or ideology was going to rule the country that is one thing, but when a group joins the fighting to destroy a country then yes they are traitors."

Well, the Civil war was over ideology, and the people that you call traitors chose the communist ideology since it promised them bigger minority rights, they did not want to destroy the country.

Those 28,000 children were Greeks and not SlavoMacedonians...

Arxileas to be accurate were Greeks(19000) and Slavmacedonians (9000).
Here some "children" at the 60s

First of all, Greek names are not argument that they are Greek, since the Greek government changed the names of all the non-Greeks long before the war. Some of them later got their old names back. And even if it is true that 19000 of them were Greek, what does that prove? So why the Greek government doesn't allow those non-Greek children to visit Greece. They have a summit from 18-23 July this year and they are hoping that the Greek government will let them visit their homes.

From the photos of these people born in Greece, they were doing very well.

And most look Slavic.

Demos and Viktor hold on your slavmacedonian horses !!!
Pictures came from the book of Georgios Manoukas (Vol II) that was the General Inspector of "Greek children Gathering" and a former member of Greek communist Party.
He knows better than you and me....!!!

But the most intresting is that both of you ignore the UN Resolutions. Why ?

I do not ignore UN reports. But why the Greek government does not allow them to visit their birthplaces?

Thank you for correcting me Akritas !!!

So Manoukas was a member of the communist party and after the war he wanted to re-integrate in the Greek society to what as a Greek he had right, so he writes in that manner.

"Well, the Civil war was over ideology, and the people that you call traitors chose the communist ideology since it promised them bigger minority rights, they did not want to destroy the country."

The Civil War had nothing to do with 'minority rights' it had to do with ideologies for the Greeks and some Slavophones, but separatist ambitions by the rest!

Can you show me where during the time of the Greek Civil War that anything was mentioned about any minority issues?

@ Arxileas
Slavmacedonian Rakovski was the supervisor of the Slavmacedonian children. He travelled in all countries that host the abducted children in order to supervise theirs communist education.

@Viktor
Because they have accepted the Slavmacedonism as ideology.
Here theirs president with the map of the "greater macedonia"



How can we accept people that tried to separate Macedonia from the Greece and still believe in this unredeemed ideas?

Nikilianos are you trying to tell me that the Civil war was based on National differences rather than ideological?

"""My family, both Greek and Slav Macedonian, have a long history (since 1917) of fighting Communists and Communism."""


Doubt this statement to be true G"S....If your family was fighting the communists then who were we fighting ???? Yeah we had many Greek communists, I should know being from this region of Greek Macedonia.

You mean your SlavoMakedona Mother and your Greek communist Dad fled ????

Nothing being ashamed of being a SlavoMadona, many around. That word existed and still does to describe people of slavic origin and from what region, where as the term "Macedonian" was purely for Geographical reasons, never existed as a ethnos.

The fact is that not all Slav Macedonians were communists in Greece during the civil war. My father and his family fought againest them. My mother and her family fought againest them. I do not wish for you to believe it, and I know it is very difficult for you to do so. It's just a fact in my family and I shared it with you all.

Greece has put all Slav Macedonians together as Communists during the civil war, and your comment is indicative of this. But Archi, I understand your ignorance in many matters, so I am not surprised.

After the WWII and the civil war, Greece was pretty much in a bad way. Many Greeks and Slav Macedonians immigrated to other countries for work. So this is what my mother and father did, both to France, where they met!

That was the point of my question to Nikilianos, it was an ideological war in which Greeks were communists too and vice versa.

Do not worry, Archi. I understand that many Greeks and many Slav Macedonians were taught certain things as they were growing up. A majority of the teachings were, of course, legitimate and true teachings. But some, especially nationalistic themes, were taught, and those that are grown up now believe it. It is a sad part of living in a very nationalistic region, like the Balkans.

It is not your fault, or anybody else's fault, that they do not believe or are ignorant of some truths. Everyone is quilty. That is why it is not surprising.

Why should I be worried ? I'm not the one with complexity issues remember. All you do is slander, lie, defame the Greek state and it's people and it's obvious someone was with the communists G'S.

Someone was with these communists. We could not all fight with them at once, and it wasn't the Greek state "Greek state was fighting them", don't worry I have worked you out a long time ago. Just never thought that communists can mess a mind up so much, but you showed me how bad communists really are...


Lord heal this being !

"Nikilianos are you trying to tell me that the Civil war was based on National differences rather than ideological?"

NO! Primarily the war was over political ideology but there was a significant portion of the Slavophones who fought for National separatism.

There is ever rarely black and white.

Not true, not for separatism bigger rights were promised to them, and communists ever used nationalistic ideology as their own, they had their own communist propaganda it was about "each according to his needs, rather than his capabilities", promises about equality and freedom, and many prisons and no freedom of speech in reality, but no nationalism.