When you’ve lived your whole life in Athens – and I’ve lived in this house for 60 years now, that’s to say, from just before the beginning of the Second World War …I came here with my parents in August 1940, and in October, as everyone knows, the war started…a catastrophic war that developed into a world war.

I don’t know where to start…what I do know, though, is that when I was a child I really wanted to live through a war. When I was a child in the second year of primary school, maybe the third, when I heard about everything the Ancient Greeks had achieved, I said to myself, "Please let there be a war, so I can see what it’s like." I thought it would be a powerful experience - that I’d behave like those Ancients had - and I, and everyone else, wanted to live through it…wanted to experience it first hand. I had no idea what war was! But, if I’m not mistaken, one Sunday morning, in this very house, we suddenly heard the wailing of the sirens – it was seven o’clock in the morning. I shared one of these rooms with my brother - we slept in the same room - and we were having a pillow fight…we were in our rooms when we heard the sirens. We weren’t afraid, because we didn’t know what it was. I, at least, had no idea what was to come, and what I’d come to witness a little later. There’s nothing worse than war. War’s got it all…brutality, death, prisoners, battles, people with their legs cut off…and when I think about everything, I just say, "Why should there be war? Why should people have wars?"

Anyway, that’s how it started on October 26 – the Second World War. Everyone was really happy, it was like a fair. Everyone went down – I was only a little girl, of course, because this was sixty long years ago…maybe even 61 years now because time keeps rolling by - and I felt the same joy as everyone else…yes, everyone went down to Larisis Station, and they were singing because a General Mobilisation had been declared, and they were driving down in cars, too…and the station was in the same place it is today…and they set off for the Front from there.

Of course, the war was fought in Albania and on the Greco-Albanian borders, because the Italians had struck us first from up there. Let me just say - I know everyone knows – that the Germans, the Italians, the Bulgarians - and later on, I think, the Japanese - formed what was known as the Axis. So, it was Italy that attacked us on our borders with Albania, and it was then that what it means to be Greek - what Greece stands for - really became clear: in no time at all, with a song on our lips and joy in our hearts, we’d almost driven them back to the sea. Every day saw a new town captured - I can’t recall the names right now…Avlona and other places - places up there that were Greek, but were occupied. And I don’t know what the Italians planned to capture when they sent their troops over there, but our boys almost threw them back into the sea.

That’s why they had the songs like, "Mussolini, you old fart, We’re gonna tear you all apart. Your Italians are so tough, but it’s obviously just a bluff, we’re gonna push you all the way back to Rome…" It was Vembo that sang all those songs, and that’s why they dubbed her the "victory singer"… Sophia Vembo. Of course, her first song had been written for another reason, but they wrote new lyrics about the war, "With a smile on their lips our boys go to war, and the Italians run as they give them what for!"… And it was to the sound of this song and many like it, that our boys set off for the Front.

Even the people who’d been imprisoned before the war by Metaxas – the one who said "No" during the war when they gave him the telegram…of course it was the people who said "No" first, because what use was his "No" on its own? – even they offered to go and fight. They were of the Left, but Metaxas refused to let them go. And when they were released later - I don’t know how they got out - they went to fight, too.

No one was left out of this war. The nation was as one, and it was the enthusiasm our soldiers - those brave lads - left with, that won us all those victories. But Germany was…Germany had other intentions and intervened, and that intervention wasn’t just bad for Greece, because we couldn’t take on the Germans...of course, how could we expect to fight them at that time, when Germany had Europe trembling in its boots, and countries like France, and Poland, where they started the war…all those countries invaded one after the other in the space of 10 days. Greece put up as much resistance as a small nation could. That’s why – if I remember rightly – Churchill said in a speech one time, "The brave fight like Greeks", or something like that. So the people really gave their all, but the weapons…people can’t stand up to guns.

And the retreat started, and all those bombardments that took place up on the Front – of course, I didn’t experience any of this first hand…I was behind the lines in Athens throughout. The bombardments and the frost bite…because the winter of 1940 - we said war was declared in October - was a winter and a half…it was the worst winter in 20 years. There was a lot of snow, and it was the frost bite that got a lot of our boys. And you saw that they didn’t know how to deal with it, and they came back with legs amputated to stop the gangrene spreading upwards and killing them. We had a lot of victims like that.

The war came to an end soon after the German intervention, the peace treaty was signed – by Tsolakoglou if I remember rightly – and that whole victorious army which had left with so much enthusiasm and won so many victories, was free to come back home. They just let them get on with it. I should mention that lice was a big problem for our soldiers. Their greatcoats were crawling with lice, and their blankets were, too. And all those that made it had to struggle back on foot. My brother and my husband were part of that piece of history. When he left, we weren’t actually married yet. And he always remembered something that happened to him - because he’s not a person that likes war - but he found himself in a difficult situation. An Italian jumped out of some hiding place and tried to kill him…but my husband got him first, up here. And he never forgot what happened – he went up close to him and said, "Ah, Mussolini! How many kids have you got on your conscience?" And he gave him his watch, and I don’t know what else. War is bad, because it’s your life or mine. That’s what he actually ment….

That’s what the war in Albania was like, but what came after that war was probably the worst time of all for Greece…because the conquerors arrived. The Italians took over the country, but the Germans took over the Italians. And I have to say, if I remember rightly, that the Italians didn’t want the war…and the Germans didn’t trust them…they sank a whole ship of their former allies on its way out of Piraeus harbour . And the people of Athens treated the Italians differently because they behaved differently. They hid them whenever they could, and did what they could to make things easier for them.

And the war continued, but it was now being fought behind enemy lines. Hunger. I don’t know what to remember. I was still at school then, but they made us work – like the schools had before for Metaxas’ "public order" organisation - but this time handing out food. And I found myself in the soup kitchens, and the things that happened! People would wait in line to get their share, which wasn’t…it would just about keep body and soul together. But just think that they hid their dead to keep their ration books!…because everything was carefully rationed.

And there wasn't any bread to be had. The bread we had – I don’t know what went on the black market - well, it was, and at the same time it wasn’t, bread. It was broom seeds, like mud they were, stuck on a piece of grease-proof paper, and they’d give you some with your ration - and because they wanted one portion more, they’d hide their dead…they didn’t register their death, but who was going to ask questions back then, when if you went out onto the street in the morning in this neighbourhood – because we’ve always lived in this same house – to go from here to Kallithea along the same roads you’d go along today - they’re no different…of course, there’s been the odd change - you’d see dead bodies on the streets with swollen bellies, and kids with their bones sticking out - and them dead, too. And the Town Hall would send a cart round every morning - the Council truck – and they’d throw those people into the back, just like you would a side of beef. I’ll never forget it, them just lying there…and them picking them off the street.

And it wasn’t just that. There’s so much that comes to mind, but I don’t know where to stop. There was the collaboration that went on - and that’s a sad thing - the blackshirts who collaborated with our enemy, with the Germans. Now, I’m not someone who bears grudges, even if people treat me badly. I don’t bottle things up. But those people I can’t forgive, because the way I see it, they co-operated with the invaders. And it was them that took the Germans to different neighbourhoods to make it easier for them to get around the city and all the rest of it. The German didn’t know their way around…in fact, they were scared. Of course, the blackshirts were pretty worthless people… just some losers they picked up - I don’t know how or why - from all round Greece, and the Peleponnese in particular. And they put them in the honourable tsolias uniform – which is why they were called tsoliades, although that’s exactly what they weren’t. And they stood out - like I said, people were hungry, and there they were swanning around with a can of beans, and the smell would waft through…there were trams then, and they’re bringing them back now…the smell would waft through the tram, reach your nose and you’d faint from the smell because you hadn’t seen beans for as long as the war had been on. And they’d carry these enamel buckets of steaming beans around. They were just trying to provoke us – that’s exactly what it was – nothing more and nothing less.

And there were the roadblocks – which I know you know all about, but I’m not sure how many other people do. My house is very close to Syngrou Avenue, a hundred metres or so away. The surrounding area wasn’t built up. The land had been left to an organisation to build a crèche – like the PIKPA – and a park. Unfortunately, there’s a bank there now…they got their hands on the land. And where the Hotel Intercontinental is, right opposite my house, on Syngrou Avenue again, because the Intercontinental starts on Syngrou…it’s a very big road is Syngrou Avenue, one of the biggest. It connects the centre of Athens with the coast… you get to Sounio and all those sea-side places along it. Athens used to be very beautiful…pine frees, olive trees, detached houses surrounded by greenery, the sea next door, and trees everywhere. Things have changed nowadays, of course. They like the beautiful bits, and they grab them one by one.

So, as I said, there was an area around our house with no buildings, and my bedroom faced out onto it, and on the other side…because my flat’s on the corner of the block…there was a factory that had shut down. The bank had repossessed the factory and there was the yard and the factory building. Tsolapoglou bought it later. Yes, the Tsolapoglou who made the furniture, if I remember rightly. Or something like that…Tsaousoglou, it was.

And one morning at the height of summer – it must have been August 5, but I can’t be completely sure – it was 6 in the morning, in 1944. My son was just a babe-in-arms then, my little Miltos, in his pram. And the tsoliades arrived bright and early with the Germans, and it was out with the megaphones and they shouted, "All males over 16 will come down to this square"…there was a square where I told you the bank is now. "We will check every home. Anyone found hiding, will be executed on the spot." They got all those people out into the heat, and then started to search the houses. My mother – we lived with my parents in here – was so terrified that they’d find something and we’d be in trouble, grabbed all her nice photos of people who might have taken part in the war - as partisans - and burnt them so they wouldn’t find anything. That’s how scared she was! And any books in the house – let’s say an encyclopaedia – and there were books in the house because my husband worked with books – she grabbed them all and hid them under the pram, with the baby all dressed and ready to go…she hid them under there…she was so afraid of the tsoliades and the Germans.

And as I said, they gathered all those people together down below. There was an area very near our house called Tourbouti. That’s what they used to call it. It was mostly Armenians who lived there, and you know what an important role the Armenians played in the partisan war, and earlier in Smyrni – where my family came from…I heard from my parents that the Armenians suffered the greatest losses there. So they had it in for them because they wouldn’t co-operate…they really had it in for them. And the people stayed in the square…

I have to say they kept those people in the heat there from 6 in the morning till 6 at night – and on their knees the whole time. And my mother – we didn’t belong to any political party because the resistance here embraced everyone, irrespective of their politics…the EAM grew out of the Communist Party, and was the first resistance group, but it embraced everyone because everyone was resisting. And there were areas where the EAM were more in charge – like the Eastern districts round here – Kaisariani, Pangrati…And scattered around Athens were people – whether they were what we called X-men, or members of one of the other gangs which belonged to the EDES and collaborated with the blackshirts and the Germans. And you couldn’t go through Thisseio any more, even though it was so nearby. So you stayed in your own area – it was safer…because they didn’t bother you here. You didn’t bother anyone, and they didn’t bother you, let’s put it that way.

Now, I was telling you about the road block, so let’s get back to that, because I wanted to give you a picture, because all sorts of fragments of things are coming to me, and I didn’t write them down to tell you. And at this roadblock they held the people like I said from morning on. My mother with a…I don’t know what she was holding…a jug or something like that…went down and gave the people water to drink. I looked out of the window to see what was happening, and a tsolias comes out and says, "Get inside, or I’ll shoot!" They didn’t want us watching out of the window. And another time, which I’ll tell you about, I was looking at something going on through the window that faced onto the fire escape and the light well…they were taking a young man out to shoot him, and it crossed my mind that he might betray the local resistance. There was tsolias on each side of him, holding him, and they stood him up against a wall and shot him…I saw it with my own eyes. My mother was next to me, and I pulled at her gown and said, "The shame!". I couldn’t say anything else…I just pulled at her dress. So, when they’d put all the people where I told you,…you’ve heard of the mask, haven’t you? I don’t know if it was a Greek invention, or if they used them in other countries, but the blackshirts with their guns had an informer and they’d put a mask on him– but, of course, we knew who it was, because it was obvious from his build and everything else – and he didn’t say a word, he just pointed, just pointed. And they took the person he pointed the finger at into the factory – the one I told you about opposite my room – and beat him, and when he couldn’t take any more, they’d put a mask on him too, so he could point the finger at others. And they did that to…some time before, I’d attended night school, and there was a very nice boy there who was brilliant at everything, and they took him and put the mask on him. What could a 16 year old boy like him do? How much beating could he take? And he pointed the finger at some others. When the road block was over, they loaded all those people onto the trucks…they needed them now, because it was now ’44…the end was near and the occupation would soon be over…and they left some of them lying dead where they were, and they took some others to Chaidari – including the boy, my schoolmate – and he was never seen again after that, and they sent some others to Germany. I don’t know how they took them to Germany, they must have taken them to work, I should think. And among them was my brother, who was a surveyor and had a paper saying he was a worker and was employed on some works or other which the Germans wanted finished. And when they were separating those who were going to work, he showed them the paper so he’d be chosen to work, and climbed into a truck, and when it got a little further down – to where the Panteios School is on Syngrou Avenue – he jumped out of the truck…he could have been shot, but no one noticed. And when it had finished and they’d taken everyone away, they went into the factory – and I went in , too, and I’ll never forget one young man there – I should mention that a roadblock wasn’t just for one area, or one city precinct, they called it a block because they blocked every crossroads in the area. That meant that they stopped every single bus going towards the sea down Syngrou Avenue. And they brought everyone to this one square. And they brought people down from the crossroads on Vouliagmenis Avenue – which is the same as it is today, another important street. And they brought everyone down from Agios Dimitris, or Brachami as they call it. They brought down everyone they wanted. And that’s how they’d gathered together so many people.

When we went into the factory, we saw one of the young men they’d taken off the buses lying face down on the ground. It was summer and he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, but his head was wrapped up in his shirt, and as he was lying face-down his back was - how black can I say it was? - from the beating, and it was the tsoliades not the Germans who’d left him there. The blackshirts. His back was blacker than black paint all over.

As if it wasn’t enough that they took people, sent them to Germany or to this place or that place, and no one knew where they were going, and others to jail, and if they pointed the finger at you straight to Chaidari…they also went into the neighbourhood I told you about, poured liquid here and there and set fire to it. The tsoliades were responsible for that. They burnt down the houses, and that’s how the Armenians ended up leaving here and going to their relations in America or here or there who took them in. That’s why they left, their houses were gone and they were living a terrible life down here. So they gave whatever they had left away, and packed up and left. I don’t know if I have anything else to say. That’s until…

I have to tell you what happened in Athens when liberation came. And I want to tell you about something else that was typical of the times to help you understand, and because people really need to hear these things to learn what those people fighting on the home front were like….there were two students. One of them is still alive today. Glentzos. And the other one – I don’t remember his name. And those brave young lads had the courage to – and who’d even dare think about this – they dared to climb up to the Acropolis because they couldn’t stand the sight of the German flag they’d stuck up there. They climbed up to the Acropolis – a precipitous place with absolutely nowhere to hide, and if you climb up the rocks you’re sure to die - but they did it, and they got up there and pulled down the German flag - and I’m talking about before the Liberation, which the Germans jack boot was still pressing down on us, and executions were commonplace - And let me tell you something else - they lowered the German flag, and one morning we opened our eyes - and there were fewer houses back then so we had a clear view of the Acropolis and of Philopapou Hill - we could see everything clearly from our windows, and we saw the Greek flag. We crossed ourselves, you can’t imagine how important what they’d done was to us…it was a really big thing, a really important thing, and the boys got away safely.

I wanted to add something…but it’s gone now. Anyway, the Resistance was all-embracing, which was very important, and there were very many casualties, but the worst thing of all - and I want to tell you this because I can’t forget it, and I know there was something else - was that people went away to join the partisans, and then the war continued in the mountains…there was a second guerrilla war, a civil war. But do you know what the worst thing of all was? That afterwards all those people I told you about who openly collaborated with the enemy…but those that lived through the storms of war, imprisonment and the rest of it - some of them were exiled, while most of them were imprisoned and later executed. What I’m trying to say - because it’s coming out a bit confused - what I don’t want to be forgotten is that they executed two hundred people one time in Kaisariani. Kaisariani’s not far away at all, an area close by in Athens…and there were people of every political view in the resistance there. There was the rifle range in Kaisariani - the Greeks can so often be big hearted - those people are the ones I told you about at the beginning who Metaxas wouldn’t allow to go to fight…and when the Germans arrived they took them and locked them on the rifle range. Some of them got out, one way or another, but the ones they considered dangerous were the ones - the two hundred plus - they executed. Among those they executed was a man who interpreted for them - and who they valued. He was called Napoleon, I don’t remember his surname. And they said to him, "We can take you out and put someone else in your place." And he replied, "No. Only if no one has to take my place". And all those people died shouting, "Long live Greece! Long live freedom! Down with fascism!" That’s what they were saying. They died with those words on their lips. And we saw all those brave young people dying. But the others, who the Germans didn’t kill, were tried by special military courts after the war. Why? Because they’d fought the enemy? Because they’d become partisans for one reason or another? And then you’d see three lines in the newspaper for years to come, "Today, thirty people were convicted by the military court.." "Twenty people were executed today…" And that happened every day.

Nothing like that happened to the blackshirts - I’m talking about the ones who collaborated - they got all the good jobs. That’s why I say that I can’t forgive them…they collaborated with the Germans and they’re still around today, while the others were decimated. Exile, prison, executions…they all shared the same fate.

Well, I’ll stop there because I’ve probably said enough, and I’ve said everything I have to say. Everything I could think of…