Stories from the Greek Civil War

My grandfather (my Pappou) was born in the Peloponnese in 1930 and grew up around Athens. He was just a teenager when the Greek Civil War broke out around him. Over dinner one evening, I sat him down and asked him some questions about his experiences and memories of this time. The following is a transcript of our conversation.

Me: Pappou, you were in Athens for the Greek Civil War, weren't you?

Him: Yes, I was a teenager. We lived in an area of Athens that was just outside the communist control; the rebels were only two blocks away. Inside Hitler's Greece by Mark Mazower describes our area, Kolonaki, as the Mayfair of Athens.

Me: What was it like during the civil war?

Him: I remember in the beginning of 1945 my grandfather’s house on 3rd September Street was blown up by the communists to build a barricade. We took him on a stretcher to stay with us at our house where he died two months later.

Me: Were you of the opinion that the communists were the bad guys?

Him: I never understood why they wanted [communism]. All these people were willing to destroy life and societies for their beliefs. And that was for me something that I couldn't see why this should happen. Why should they blow my grandfather's house up? The areas they captured behaved rather badly. There's a book called Eleni where a mother in an area occupied by the communists whose husband was in America managed to get her kids smuggled out and she was shot because she wanted to protect her children. There is a story that her son wrote and then there was a book also written by her granddaughter who went back to the village and built the house up again.

Him: Then there was the night when a ship full of ammunition exploded in the port of Piraeus. We could see the flames from our balcony. That's the night when the caique in which my father had a share sank to the bottom of the harbour, and whose timber provided us with fuel throughout the occupation.

Him: One day, it must have been in 1941, we had a visit from the Germans who wanted to billet a company of men in our house. To avoid this, my father disappeared and then came back with an officer. One officer was much better than a group of soldiers. He lived in our house for about two years.

Him: I used to walk to Xoreftó from Zagorá and that’s when my mother decided to go to Athens with the Marines and left me with her luggage to take back to Athens. And I was on the beach by some rocks at the end of the beach on the left and a boat came with some people on it, armed. And then they disembarked. And then they found someone and they beat the daylights out of him and then they reembarked and then they left. I always have the vision of that scene — I remember that. And I just stayed hidden behind the rocks. They had whips and they had all sort of things… That was 1945 or ’46. When I used to walk around I would see how they treated other human beings.

My mum: That must’ve been terrifying.

Him: I don’t know if it was terrifying or when you’re 15 you just keep out of the way.

Me: Who were the people on the boat?

Him: I think they must have been the idealists from the communists.

Me: Who did they beat up?

Him: I don’t know, I didn’t ask. I just stayed behind the rocks and saw the scene and then came out when they left. The other thing is that on the same beach— when I was there, the next village was held by the communists. The Greek Navy was there. And so I remember they would patrol up the coast and machine-gunned the coast. Your great-grandmother, who was with me at the time— I went [for a walk] with my uncle and I came back and there was no mother. She said, “I have gone back to Piraeus with the Navy.” She’d decided to hitchhike with the Navy. “Don’t forget to bring my suitcase.” And you know how to get from Xoreftó to Athens in 1946? First you take an army truck that takes you down to Volos. Then you take a kaïki from Volos to Xalkitha. Then you take a train from Xalkitha to Athens. And then you walk.

I remember going around Pelion with my mother's brother — my uncle — and we would arrive at a village and the whole village would come to look at us. And the three most important people of the village would approach us: the priest, the policeman and the mayor, who wanted to know who we were. And my uncle said to me, "Never say you are from Athens. If they ask where you come from you mention the previous village because if you're from Athens you're asking for trouble,” because people were being killed all over the place — you couldn’t trust anyone. And they looked at us as something in a zoo. And all we did was just go around Pelion on foot. And you arrive at the main square — you know there’s a Church and… — and you sit and slowly people come up to look at you. So life was very different then.

Me: Where were you during the Dekemvriana?

Him: In the Dekemvriana I remember I was walking up some stairs and a bullet whizzed through the wall about a foot behind my head. The British soldiers were shooting from our windows.

Me: Were you affected by the starvation?

Him: I remember my father and Leon [his brother] went to my father's office and brought back half a sack of wheat and a hand mill with which to grind the grain to eat which we put in the kitchen. That was the worst part. That was the first time I stank of dead people.

Him: Throughout the occupation, my father, who was not a drinker, had kept a bottle of gin and a bottle of whiskey — Black and White — and of he went with them. He came back an hour later, minus the whiskey but with seven tins of corned beef. He had gone to where the English soldiers were to exchange the whiskey for food.

Me: Do you think Greece got so close to communism as a response to the Axis occupation or do you think it was something they really wanted for themselves?

Him: Well, first of all, if you can remember, in the 1930s it was very posh to be a communist. And the biggest posh area was something called Cambridge University where you had four Cambridge graduates who betrayed England and the West by being spies for Russia. It was very much the okay thing to do to be a communist before and during the Second World War. So for all sorts of reasons — I'm not disputing that. And then there were many people who were not prepared to accept that not all is rosy behind the iron curtain or living as a communist. Because people theoretically didn't realise that millions died. But it was a need of the people in those days, as it is now — people now vote for Trump for similar reasons... But it didn't last. The point is it didn't last. The only place it has lasted is China — and Cuba. And you can ask yourself why. But it was alright back then. It was the thing to do. It was a phase. Communism was a phase.

Him: And also, the main thing was that in May 1948, elections were due in Italy. There was the possibility that the communists would take over. And if Italy turned communist there was no way Greece would stand.

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I hope you've enjoyed reading a few of my Pappou's stories from the Greek Civil War as much as I love to hear him talk about it. If you're interested in the civil war you may be interested in reading my separate post on it — here.

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Thank you for reading!