Volunteer in the Greek Army

Let me tell you some of my impressions of the Second World War. Of course, I’m 80 years old now, but back then I was 19 years old and in my second year at Medical School.

It was the morning of October 28 and we were waiting to go into our anatomy lecture when the sirens started. We figured out what was going on right away and started shouting that it was war. We were waiting for that war. The Italians’ behaviour had shown us that things were going from bad to worse.

What made an impression on all of us though, and even now, 60 years later I still don’t have an answer to this one…is that Germany and Italy were superpowers back then. There wasn’t a single European army to stand up to them. The English and the French had been swept aside in 15 days! And yet when the Italians declared war on us we rose up and took to the streets.

You’ll have seen similar scenes in documentaries and photographs, but try to find me a single person who didn’t believe that we’d beat the Italians. How come? Where did this confidence come from? Nobody believed we’d lose the war. In fact, we felt relief that we could get our own back for the bombing of the Battleship Eli.

It’s been 60 years now, and I still don’t know how we could have been so confident that we were going to win.

And I - that’s to say all of us - didn’t realise that we were embarking on an adventure. We just thought we were on our way to victory. The only question was when exactly we were going to drive the Italians into the sea.

That’s how it all started.

At the time I wasn’t old enough to be conscripted… I wasn’t even a Greek citizen, but I went and volunteered anyway. I volunteered on the very first day of the war. And since I was a mountaineer and a member of the mountaineering club, I was put into the alpine regiment.

There were no specialist alpine troops or special alpine units back then, but they gave us a bit of training and the first company of the first battalion was formed.

We went up as far as Metsovo, and from there we were at the front in a matter of days. We were, at least my unit was, in the most forward position up there.

It was such a disappointment! I’d gone to war, I hadn’t gone to suffer such a lot of discomfort. I couldn’t believe that this was what war was like. I’d imagined us grabbing our rifles and them grabbing theirs, and cannons and may the best man win. Not diving into the mud and being helped out the other side.

Anyway, when we finally got there they put us in some sort of order.

There wasn’t much fighting going on, and the temperature was minus 20. The Italians didn’t attack. We’d captured a mountain called Kamia which was near Elbasan…our bit of the mountain was called Goui Topit… and our first taste of war came with Mussolini’s "spring" attack on Greece, just before the German advance. But we turned them back without much effort and victory was ours in a matter of days.

One day, the battalion had assigned me to the lookout post as a runner. The Commanding Officer sent for me with a message for HQ - we didn’t have the luxury of telephones in those days - We slept two to a tent, and we’d pitched the tents in a ditch in a zigzag pattern so we wouldn’t be open to bombardment or attack. So I climbed out of my sleeping bag, got out of the tent, ran down to HQ and came back again.

When I got back I found someone else in my tent; he’d come over to talk to the guy I shared the tent with. I told him that we had a saying where I came from: "whoever rides someone else’s horse soon has to get off." "Come on, Kaliafas", he says, "I’m lovely and warm in here. You go to my tent." I told him "No way! I’ve even got food in that tent. Clear off!" He said he wasn’t leaving, and since I saw that I wasn’t getting anywhere, I left instead.

I took a tin of condensed milk and some biscuits and went …

And before I’d even had time to lie down, there were two planes overhead.

We didn’t have any antiaircraft cover… we’d never even imagined any planes would make it up there…and they started firing. For what it was worth, we started firing back with our automatics. Anyway, the whole thing lasted ten minutes and they’d gone within a quarter of an hour. My sleeping bag’s buried along with the guy who took my place. What I’m saying is…I survived by chance. I didn’t do anything heroic. I’m not claiming to be a hero, I’m just telling you what happened. And it really made a big impression on me. I’ve never forgotten it.

The war went on and the Germans attacked. The order was given to retreat and to take up defensive positions behind the old Greek-Albanian border.

Me and another two alpine troops were ordered to stay behind when the others left – we were told to light a fire here and there in the forest, and to fire a burst with the machinegun now and again. And when they sent up a flare we’d leave and catch the rest up.

One hour passed, then a second. The suspense really was killing us!

3 hours went by and four, and then they sent up the flare. Don’t look surprised when I tell you it took us less than an hour to catch them up, even though it had taken them 4 hours to cover the distance. We were really shaking in our boots!

That’s all part of war, too, however amusing it sounds now…

And then the drama of the retreat began.

But there was another high point.

We got down off the mountains and retreated through Koritsa. Some soldiers broke open the military stores in Koritsa and told everyone to help themselves to whatever they wanted because otherwise the Italians and the Albanians would just take it all.

I filled my knapsack with cans of food and ships biscuits, but when I tried to lift it, there was just no way. So I said to myself "I’m not going anywhere with that thing", and I emptied it. I just dumped everything on the spot and filled it with cigarettes instead. I said to myself "At least I’ll not run out of cigarettes before I die."

I ate well, we opened a couple of tin cans and some biscuits and hit the road.

I kept finding discarded cans of food along the road the next day. Those soldiers who hadn’t used their heads the previous day just couldn’t carry them any further…so for the first couple of days we dined off other people’s canned food.

Things soon got tough. But at least I had my cigarettes. When I saw someone eating who didn’t have a smoke, I did a swap. Have a cigarette, but give me a bit of bread. And I ate off my cigarettes as far as Metsovo.

We left the road from there on to avoid the Germans.

We climbed up Mount Kozakas, and then came down again via Porta and went into Trikala, where they said there was a train leaving.

We had a Hungarian mule with us. There were three of us, and we sold it there for 2 eggs and a hunk of bread. Well, what does it matter?

As the days went by, we found ourselves travelling more and more alongside the Germans. The German trucks drove past but we took no notice of each other. They didn’t take us prisoner.

When we got to the outskirts of Trikala, we found a train with 6 or 7 cars, most of them goods wagons, which the soldiers had already seized. We found three places and squeezed in. There was gunpowder all round the train from empty shells. It had spilled out of the shells. But the rest of the soldiers who were arriving in their thousands couldn’t accept that we were going to leave by train while they were going to have to continue on foot, so they set fire to the gunpowder. It didn’t explode, it just burned, but we were scared and we got off the train, and of course, the others took our places. Then we did exactly the same thing. We lit the gunpowder and they left.

Finally, we found out that the train wasn’t going anywhere.

So we started walking again, and we got to Karditsa, and there…I’ve got a good story to tell…

By then, we were in a pitiful state, unshaven and filthy - the only clean bits on our whole bodies was where the sweat had formed little gutters in the grime. Little grooves of sweat. It didn’t matter. Our trousers were in shreds. And we were covered with fleas. There was no DDT back then, and fleas really were fleas. You couldn’t just talk, you had to be constantly crushing them between your fingers while you sat in the tent.

We arrived at Keramitsa where there was a hotel, on the left just as you went into Karditsa; Karditsa I meant. And he wouldn’t give us a room; because of the fleas, he said.

As we continued on our way, we saw a little shop with 18 individual cream custards and rice puddings in the window. We went in…we had some money… "How much?… Here you are.…Close the door"… and we sat down and ate them all.

We really stuffed ourselves, but we weren’t finished yet.

We found a room in a four-story house, a funny, narrow little building, and since it was still early and our stomachs were full, we went down to check out the town.

There were Germans there. ..but we were cheeky.

There was an outdoor cinema, semi-outdoor really, and we decided to go and see a movie. And all the soldiers ended up going to the cinema. It was three and a half Drachmas a ticket or something like that.

As soon as we got in, before the film started, we started up singing something everyone was singing at the time…"Mussolini, you old fart, We’re gonna tear you all apart. Your Italians are so tough, but it’s obviously just a bluff." We heard machinegun fire. The Germans wanted to break us up. They didn’t fire at us, just into the air to scare us. The shots did no harm, but the crush and the panic to get out …that was no fun.

Anyway, we survived that one, too.

We continued on our way, and we had a lot of adventures on the road. It was then that hunger really set in. Hunger that glazed your eyes over.

It had been three days… it was round Easter, or was it actually Easter Sunday?…I don’t remember, and I hadn’t had a bite to eat. I was a tall 19 year old and we’d been walking day and night up fromKamia to Pogradets.

We entered a village and there was a woman there I remember. She must have been somewhere between 50 and 60 years old. Back then, we’d have considered her to be an old woman. And she was carrying a bag – one of those they put bread in the villages, and I asked her "Could you spare us a little bread?"

There were thousands of soldiers on the road then. She said "I haven’t got any, my child", and she shook out the sack and a piece this big fell to the ground. About half of it fell into some horse piss. With no exaggeration at all, I picked it up, squeezed it dry and ate it. It did me no harm. In fact I enjoyed it.

We continued on our way, passed through various villages but not a bite to eat.

It was in one of them, I remember, that I started to lose my grip. We got there and it was a feast day, maybe it was Easter, the second day of Easter, and everyone was looking at us and asking us which unit we were from , where we were from, if we knew so-and-so. And if we saw that some villager was really worried about someone we’d say "Of course we know him. He’s on his way home" so that they’d give us a little bread. Don’t be surprised – people will do anything when they need to.

Anyway, there was a young guy about the same age as me, a bit thin-looking, and I call him over - he comes with a smile on his face. I asked him "Did you eat this morning?" – it was early afternoon – and he said he had at noon. So I told him "Do me a favour, go home and bring me what you’re going to eat this evening. Because I haven’t had a bite to eat in three days." And quite naturally he laughed in my face.

And his laughter seemed to be coming at me from far away, you know how they do it sometimes in the movies…I don’t know how to describe it exactly, it just seemed to bounce off me again and again, and I went for him. I grabbed him, and I don’t remember what happened, I just remember that I came round and that they ran and separated us. Then I heard a second lieutenant telling them "Go home and stay home! The army’s starving". And they were shouting "He bit his ear…he bit his ear" and I some blood here. I don’t know what happened, I just don’t remember.

The second lieutenant gave me a slice of bread… which was good. And that was the end of that. From then on we had one adventure after another. But let’s move onto something more…

It was October 28, 1941. The Italians and the Germans were now in control, and they’d ordered the universities to open, which they had. I was staying with an uncle of mine because my family were all in Egypt, and my father had been sending us money from there, which of course had stopped arriving.

That day there was a demonstration like those that became an everyday event later on. And we gathered in Dexameni in Kolonaki and started cursing Mussolini, shouting "Italians out! Fascists out!", and the Italians charged into us, surrounded us all there and arrested quite a few of us, including myself.

I was afraid …you see, I was a special case – I was an Albanian citizen and Albania had declared war on Greece and I hadn’t gone back to enlist in the Albanian army; in fact, I’d volunteered to fight for the other side. Luckily I had a false ID which didn’t mention any of this.

They took us to a building opposite the Ionian School on Akadimias Street. At that time the building housed Metaxas’ Young Fascists.

They kept us locked up in the basement for a couple of hours – there were about 20 of us – and then they escorted us with soldiers to the left and soldiers to the right, motorcycles ahead of us and motorcycles bringing up the rear, and as we walked along Akadimias Street the crowd applauded us as we came into sight. We didn’t like this applause at all because it made the guards even angrier.

Eventually we arrived at a command post, "piazza", "tapa" or whatever they call them, in Amerikis Street. We went into the office 5 at a time, and when it was our turn to go in, there was a guy on my right and another on my left. The one on my right…there was a "camicionero" in front of us. He was a huge brute. I’m tall, but he was a good head taller than me. And he started talking to us in Italian and giving us a lecture in Italian – well it might as well have been Chinese to us.

We pretended to be listening to him, but the guy on my right, God knows what he was thinking – says to him "Parlez-vous français?". And he exclaims "Porca mise…! Io sono Italiano! Che france?" and he started walloping him around the head, and since I was next to him I got my fair share as well. And I said "Me no français! That idiot français. Me, no français!"

And they let us go.

I had another little adventure in the summer of ’41.

The senior educational advisor, a Mr. Karachristos, had a German wife and a house in Palaio Faliro. He was a friend of the uncle I was staying with, and I managed to get some food coupons out of him to go and eat at Floisvos – the well-known restaurant in Palaio Faliro. That was where the German officers used to eat.

One afternoon I was sitting by myself at a table there, all the other tables were taken, and a guy in civvies and a couple of officers asked me if I would mind their joining me at my table. I nodded. I didn’t say anything, and they were speaking in German.

The two officers left, leaving the civilian behind. "Parlez-vous français?" he asked…Ah, no… first he spoke to me in German. I said "I don’t understand." Then he tried Italian. No response. French, nothing. "I’m Greek" I told him. "Well, why didn’t you say so, my friend?" and he started speaking to me in perfect Greek, just like he’d spoken all those other languages perfectly.

And we started up a conversation and he asked me how I happened to be there and that sort of thing. I told him that my parents were in Egypt and that I’d come from there to study in Athens and that I was a bachelor and that I couldn’t contact my family in Egypt…and he asked me my name and where my parents were in Egypt and various other things, and I saw that his intentions were good and I told him, I had no reason to hold anything back and not tell him that my father lived here or there…and then he asked if I ate there often. I told him I did whenever I could get hold of a coupon.

A couple of weeks or so later he showed up again and told me "Here’s a couple of gold sovereigns. They’re from your brother in Alexandria." I was speechless. I told him: "Listen. Arrest me if you want to, but I haven’t done anything." I started to feel really scared. And then he told me some things which he could only have found out from my brother. "Listen, I’m a double agent", he said. "The Germans think I’m German. The Italians think I’m Italian and the English think I’m English."

And he gave me a card which I remember to this day: Alexander Edmond. Baron von Agenauer Lichtenberg, Wein.

He said "I want you to help me." I asked him how. There was a dancer, a great dance teacher at that time…I don’t know if you’ve heard of her…called Elli Zouroudi. We used to meet there and Alexander would give us some small things to do. One time he told me that the English were going to bomb Piraeus. They’d sent a message that they weren’t going to bomb the petrol tanks because they were empty. He told me the Germans had moved the tanks further up the mountain. And that’s exactly what happened.

I was living with my uncle in Robertou Gali Street, just down from the Acropolis. He was a university professor, and although he’d studied in Germany, he was really frightened.

One afternoon when I came back from university I found him, his mother-in-law and his wife waiting for me behind the door. They locked the door and showed me a note that a girl had delivered. She’d been walking along Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, and as she passed the police station there they’d called her over from an open window and given her the paper. "Give this to Kaliafas at Robertou Gali 24", they said. She took the letter and delivered it. "Vont attrapper les Italiens. Venez…"[The Italians are going to attack. Come!]

The moment they saw it, my aunt and uncle locked the door and there was no way they’d let me go out or even talk to anyone. What could I do? I did as they told me.

Anyway, lots of things did happen, but I can’t give you all the endless details.

One day they were gathered at Zouroudi’s dance school - a friend of mine was also there. He was also a member of that group … I was not - and the Germans, or more probably the Italians, raided the place and arrested everyone including Alexander. That was the end of him, we thought.

One morning when I was walking along Panepistimiou Street towards the university there was a wobbly old man begging in front of the university. "Can you spare some change?… Can you spare some change?…"

As I was walking past him I suddenly heard someone call my name "Ptolemaio!".

I stopped. "Pretend to give me something." I searched through my pockets for some loose change. "Throw it into my hat and take the slip of paper." I didn’t even see his lips move. I took the note, and he told me "Call this number and say this…." It was Alex.

I never saw him again. Is he still alive, is he dead, or was he killed?. There’s was no trace of him from then on.

So that was a little adventure…well, everyone was doing that sort of thing…helping the Allies by spying and such like. I was very young at that time and had very little idea about such things. They told me "Make a call here, take something there." There was nothing else I could do, and the real sabotage hadn’t started yet.

I saw then that things weren’t going very well for me. Things were looking a bit black and I managed to get away and I went to my homeland– actually I hadn’t been born there and my father had left when he was a young man - Voreios Ipeiros. A big village up there called Droviani.

So I ended up in Albania, in Voreios Ipeiros, and we started up the resistance there.

We’d hit an occasional car as it passed on the main road and the Italians would come up for reprisals …but with the bit of resistance we put up the Italians simply stopped coming up to the village.

And we got better and better organised and better armed. There have always been weapons in that area, the people had always had guns hidden away and a lot of weapons appeared out of the blue…

Then the Italians surrendered. The war against the Italians ended and the Germans took over. Never mind that the Germans herded up the Italians and wasted them in Agii Saranta….

There was a guy from our village who was cooperating with the Italians. He earned easy money with his trucks and cars. And he betrayed 12 or so of us from my village… and they sent a message to give ourselves up because otherwise they’d take our families. What were we supposed to do? Let the enemy take our families?

The police chief came over to me and told me "Don’t worry – it’s better to surrender than to have them hunting your family."

So we gave ourselves up. They didn’t catch us, we surrendered. We went to Argyrokastro where they paraded us in front of the Prefect. We’d learned Albanian by then and the Prefect – I can still remember his name, it was Tair Koligini – came out of the Prefecture, came down some steps there were at the front of the building, turns round and says, and I’ll tell you what he said in Albanian…"Spie bata Drovianit mebourg"…"Throw those men from Droviani into jail"

And that’s where they put us. And there was a prison within the prison there for any prisoners who didn’t behave themselves – if you got put in there life really was much tougher.

Anyway, the day came…how did I manage to get out? Well. it wasn’t that hard for me.

Someone from the village, and I won’t give any names here, went mad in the prison and broke up some razor blades – you remember the old double-edged ones – and swallowed them. The authorities decided to let him out, and since I was a medical student they considered me to be a doctor… even though I’d just started my third year and knew nothing,– well, I didn’t know any less than anyone else.

Anyway, they assigned Doctor Kaliafas to accompany him. We were released from prison immediately, and crossing the mountains – we didn’t even use the main road – we made it to our village from Argyrokastro.

The other guy fell into the water tank and that was the end of him.

And they never saw me again after that. I was with the guerrillas.

When the Italians surrendered the Germans took their place. They were no joke.

We’d ambush their patrols on the roads… they used to have a sort of armoured car up front, well they didn’t have many real armoured cars, it was just a jeep, one of those with a machine gun and three soldiers – we’d kill a few Germans like that.

But in return they’d go into all the villages and burn every single one.

I wanted to get out of Albania by this point… I didn’t feel that I fit in any more.

So I managed to cross the border and joined up with the EDES guerillas. From there I went to Kerkira and then back to Athens.

The war was over, but a new one started right away… a civil war, unfortunately.

NOTES

Metsovo Town in the mountains of Western Greece.

Elbasan City in Albania

Koritsa City in Albania, in the Voreios Ipeiros area (a region with a sizable Greek population in Albania )

Mount Kozakas Mountain in Western Greece.

Trikala City in central Greece

Karditsa City in central Greece

Pogradets City in Albania, in the Voreios Ipeiros area

Dexameni in Kolonaki Central neighbourhood of Athens

Akadimias Street Central street in Athens

Ioannis Metaxas Leader of the Fascist regime in Greece from1936 till 1941.

Amerikis Street Central street in Athens

"camicionero"Camicia Nera, Black Shirt, Italian fascist

Palaio Faliro Posh area of Athens by the seaside

Panepistimiou Street Central street in Athens

Agii Saranta City in Albania, in the Voreios Ipeiros area

Argyrokastro City in Albania, in the Voreios Ipeiros area

EDES "nationalist" (right-wing) guerillas troops under the leadership of colonel Zervas.