Selected text
There were Greeks that helped the Jews and not the Germans. There were also Greeks that were already collaborating with the Germans, from the organizations that the Germans had set up. I remember that afterwards they created order battalions who helped the Germans in any of their actions against EAM [18] or ELAS [19].
They had great power; they covered the entire valley of Giannitsa, and the part that was Turkish speaking. There was also the area of Kilkis that was regarded as blacklisted. They were helping the Germans to do their thing. We from EAM/ELAS would go and disarm whole villages that were theirs, like the villages of Kria Vrisi, around Veroia. We went one night and got all of them with the gendarmes. Some wanted to leave, to be set free, and other gendarmes wanted to come up the mountains and stay with the partisans. They held a good position – helped, and really turned out to be fine men. There were others that followed because they didn’t know what else to do. We carried out many such attacks in villages where we knew people were thinking like that.
I took part in an operation when the Germans wanted to eliminate the people of Paiko, where I got injured by a German mortar. A serious attack by the Germans that took place in 1943. A group of German officers, who were hunters, came up to Paiko to kill wild boars. It seems that they had been told that up in Paiko they would find wild boars. They stopped exactly at the point that I was guarding. When I saw the strangers – in order to give a warning, I couldn’t shout but I had to give a signal – I had to throw a stone, for someone to come and ask me what was happening. After that they organized a team of five men to go and check what was happening.
When the Germans understood that our men were around, they got up and left. There were three Germans and a driver that brought them up. Our men didn’t think of surrounding them but they started shooting from one side, and the Germans started running away. They passed through many villages and they could see them running towards Edessa and our boys running after them to catch them. The only good thing that came out of this situation was that we got the driver and we took him up the mountain to interrogate him.
Coincidently, he was from Pontos and a resident of Ardea just like our captain. He was terrified. They told him that he shouldn’t be afraid because we were all brothers, ‘What we want from you is to help us. You will go to Edessa and tell you friends what we will tell you to say.’ He found the three of them and said that after they left, he got caught and was taken to a camp up at the mountain, where he found the partisans dressed in the best clothes, girls, nurseries and nurses dressed in white coats, food, the best meat, in short, a good life. ‘The partisans have a kingdom up there, with women working in basement workshops,’ he said. They asked him whether they could really believe him, and after his confirmation, they told him to return to his work, and not say a word to anyone.
And immediately the work started for the villages of Arcadia – there were about 40 villages –with the locals: to inform them that there were partisan units and they should support them with food and guns. And really, the villages became the food supplier for the partisans of Paiko. On Easter we even had Easter soup. In the meantime the Germans had decided that they had to eliminate Paiko and they started going to the villages in groups of 100 to 200 and conquering them. From the one side, then from the other, and they slowly started surrounding Paiko. Paiko is a mountain that can be surrounded by four sides, because there are villages all over, starting from the river Axios up to the city of Giannitsa. So they started taking the villages.
We knew that we would have to fight them in a battle one day. As we could see them getting closer to Paiko we knew that this day was drawing closer. They came up with their armor and started shooting. We were over 300 and had many people that didn’t have any armor as they had left their villages because of the Germans, and came to the mountain without anything. We were moving positions so it would seem to them that we were more than 300. This lasted a whole day. They were shooting and we were shooting back, until it became dark and they couldn’t see anymore, so we decided to leave.
Our captain, Captain Petros, commandant of the 10th division of Vermion-Paiko-Kaimaktsalan [mountain range], had a plan. A group of about fifteen Englishmen had arrived with a wireless and it seemed that they were helping the Germans and the Security police. Our captain went to speak with their group leader, who knew Greek well, and told him to call England and ask them to provide us with explosives so we could do our job, and the Germans would find themselves at a dead end in the morning. The captain told us his plan which was that if England accepted we would blow up the springs. So when the Germans would arrive in the morning to get to Paiko, blow them up and the panic that would arise would be for our benefit: to chase them and kick them out to the river Axios. If they agreed it would be a successful move, and all the village people would run and help get the German equipment.
So we were forced to attack at dawn towards the side that we knew that they were weak. We left and passed the valley of Ardaia and went to Kaimaktsalan where we found snow, a very rough mountain, and from there we moved on to Vermion. Vermion is one of the most quiet and easy mountains in Greece, it can be accessed from many sides and its easy to conquer, which is the reason why the Germans were always doing little excursions. So we got together with groups from Vermion and talked about what we could do because Vermion can be easily surrounded and they could reach us at any point.
The good thing was that it was raining all day and all these people, partisans and civilians, were caught in the rain. So the committee got together to decide what to do next. There were unions from villages that showed us a way to leave without getting on the site of the Germans. They took us down the mountain from places that only eagles can reach. Us, others with their rustic shoes, others barefoot. We managed to get out of the encirclement and go towards the valley of Siniatsiko.
It kept raining and most of the unarmed were Jewish. They were victims in the sense that they were human, and they didn’t have the force to fight with the wild animals of nature, but were quieter people. They found a place to sit to find shelter from the rain, fell asleep and when the Germans came, found many skirmished. Only few followed the route to the valley of Siniatsiko to the end. I was the only machine gun shooter in the group. We were drenched, barefoot, and when we got to the foot of the mountain, we started climbing because we knew that the Germans were following us.
We got up and got in our war positions, drenched and full of mud and waited. And the Germans started showing, who were fighters and would fight standing up, which was convenient for us because this way we had clear targets. When they started climbing to the top we were aiming at them. One here, one there, they were dropping down, and I was pleased. I was pleased because I was thinking that here is being judged the luck of the Jews against the Germans. That’s why I was saying, ‘For us the Jews, for Greece, for our homeland.’
At some point I realized that I was running out of ammunition, I told the boss and he told me that I should shoot every now and again and stay put until they bring me some more. And we continued fighting, only that when the ammunition came, I wasn’t in a position anymore to hold a gun as the Germans had shot me with a mortar and hit my finger. The captain saw the situation and told me, ‘Leave, they will take care of you at the surgery.’ They took me there and dressed the wound.
A little further on was a village, where they were accepting all of us that were not active, and they would give us food, hot water, and so on; the women worked there. They took us there, gave us shelter and a blanket, we gave them our clothes to get cleaned, and we had a chance to get dry there and spent the night there.
The Germans suffered a great loss in this battle, even though they had mortars and could shoot. The groups from Siniatsiko managed to surround the Germans and teach them a good lesson. In the history of the partisans this battle counted as one of the most aggressive ones.
Colonel Frizis had a brother that came up the mountain in Vermion. The villagers of Vermion were very supportive to all the Jews that were coming. They would help to find a place to hide, food, a glass of water. When he went to the village they found him a good hiding place, food etc. When the Germans came to the village they asked all of them to gather at the village square. The villagers told him not to come out because he wasn’t dressed as a villager and the Germans would understand that he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t listen and a soon as he appeared, a fine young lad, the Germans saw him and we lost him. We never found out what happened to him.
They had great power; they covered the entire valley of Giannitsa, and the part that was Turkish speaking. There was also the area of Kilkis that was regarded as blacklisted. They were helping the Germans to do their thing. We from EAM/ELAS would go and disarm whole villages that were theirs, like the villages of Kria Vrisi, around Veroia. We went one night and got all of them with the gendarmes. Some wanted to leave, to be set free, and other gendarmes wanted to come up the mountains and stay with the partisans. They held a good position – helped, and really turned out to be fine men. There were others that followed because they didn’t know what else to do. We carried out many such attacks in villages where we knew people were thinking like that.
I took part in an operation when the Germans wanted to eliminate the people of Paiko, where I got injured by a German mortar. A serious attack by the Germans that took place in 1943. A group of German officers, who were hunters, came up to Paiko to kill wild boars. It seems that they had been told that up in Paiko they would find wild boars. They stopped exactly at the point that I was guarding. When I saw the strangers – in order to give a warning, I couldn’t shout but I had to give a signal – I had to throw a stone, for someone to come and ask me what was happening. After that they organized a team of five men to go and check what was happening.
When the Germans understood that our men were around, they got up and left. There were three Germans and a driver that brought them up. Our men didn’t think of surrounding them but they started shooting from one side, and the Germans started running away. They passed through many villages and they could see them running towards Edessa and our boys running after them to catch them. The only good thing that came out of this situation was that we got the driver and we took him up the mountain to interrogate him.
Coincidently, he was from Pontos and a resident of Ardea just like our captain. He was terrified. They told him that he shouldn’t be afraid because we were all brothers, ‘What we want from you is to help us. You will go to Edessa and tell you friends what we will tell you to say.’ He found the three of them and said that after they left, he got caught and was taken to a camp up at the mountain, where he found the partisans dressed in the best clothes, girls, nurseries and nurses dressed in white coats, food, the best meat, in short, a good life. ‘The partisans have a kingdom up there, with women working in basement workshops,’ he said. They asked him whether they could really believe him, and after his confirmation, they told him to return to his work, and not say a word to anyone.
And immediately the work started for the villages of Arcadia – there were about 40 villages –with the locals: to inform them that there were partisan units and they should support them with food and guns. And really, the villages became the food supplier for the partisans of Paiko. On Easter we even had Easter soup. In the meantime the Germans had decided that they had to eliminate Paiko and they started going to the villages in groups of 100 to 200 and conquering them. From the one side, then from the other, and they slowly started surrounding Paiko. Paiko is a mountain that can be surrounded by four sides, because there are villages all over, starting from the river Axios up to the city of Giannitsa. So they started taking the villages.
We knew that we would have to fight them in a battle one day. As we could see them getting closer to Paiko we knew that this day was drawing closer. They came up with their armor and started shooting. We were over 300 and had many people that didn’t have any armor as they had left their villages because of the Germans, and came to the mountain without anything. We were moving positions so it would seem to them that we were more than 300. This lasted a whole day. They were shooting and we were shooting back, until it became dark and they couldn’t see anymore, so we decided to leave.
Our captain, Captain Petros, commandant of the 10th division of Vermion-Paiko-Kaimaktsalan [mountain range], had a plan. A group of about fifteen Englishmen had arrived with a wireless and it seemed that they were helping the Germans and the Security police. Our captain went to speak with their group leader, who knew Greek well, and told him to call England and ask them to provide us with explosives so we could do our job, and the Germans would find themselves at a dead end in the morning. The captain told us his plan which was that if England accepted we would blow up the springs. So when the Germans would arrive in the morning to get to Paiko, blow them up and the panic that would arise would be for our benefit: to chase them and kick them out to the river Axios. If they agreed it would be a successful move, and all the village people would run and help get the German equipment.
So we were forced to attack at dawn towards the side that we knew that they were weak. We left and passed the valley of Ardaia and went to Kaimaktsalan where we found snow, a very rough mountain, and from there we moved on to Vermion. Vermion is one of the most quiet and easy mountains in Greece, it can be accessed from many sides and its easy to conquer, which is the reason why the Germans were always doing little excursions. So we got together with groups from Vermion and talked about what we could do because Vermion can be easily surrounded and they could reach us at any point.
The good thing was that it was raining all day and all these people, partisans and civilians, were caught in the rain. So the committee got together to decide what to do next. There were unions from villages that showed us a way to leave without getting on the site of the Germans. They took us down the mountain from places that only eagles can reach. Us, others with their rustic shoes, others barefoot. We managed to get out of the encirclement and go towards the valley of Siniatsiko.
It kept raining and most of the unarmed were Jewish. They were victims in the sense that they were human, and they didn’t have the force to fight with the wild animals of nature, but were quieter people. They found a place to sit to find shelter from the rain, fell asleep and when the Germans came, found many skirmished. Only few followed the route to the valley of Siniatsiko to the end. I was the only machine gun shooter in the group. We were drenched, barefoot, and when we got to the foot of the mountain, we started climbing because we knew that the Germans were following us.
We got up and got in our war positions, drenched and full of mud and waited. And the Germans started showing, who were fighters and would fight standing up, which was convenient for us because this way we had clear targets. When they started climbing to the top we were aiming at them. One here, one there, they were dropping down, and I was pleased. I was pleased because I was thinking that here is being judged the luck of the Jews against the Germans. That’s why I was saying, ‘For us the Jews, for Greece, for our homeland.’
At some point I realized that I was running out of ammunition, I told the boss and he told me that I should shoot every now and again and stay put until they bring me some more. And we continued fighting, only that when the ammunition came, I wasn’t in a position anymore to hold a gun as the Germans had shot me with a mortar and hit my finger. The captain saw the situation and told me, ‘Leave, they will take care of you at the surgery.’ They took me there and dressed the wound.
A little further on was a village, where they were accepting all of us that were not active, and they would give us food, hot water, and so on; the women worked there. They took us there, gave us shelter and a blanket, we gave them our clothes to get cleaned, and we had a chance to get dry there and spent the night there.
The Germans suffered a great loss in this battle, even though they had mortars and could shoot. The groups from Siniatsiko managed to surround the Germans and teach them a good lesson. In the history of the partisans this battle counted as one of the most aggressive ones.
Colonel Frizis had a brother that came up the mountain in Vermion. The villagers of Vermion were very supportive to all the Jews that were coming. They would help to find a place to hide, food, a glass of water. When he went to the village they found him a good hiding place, food etc. When the Germans came to the village they asked all of them to gather at the village square. The villagers told him not to come out because he wasn’t dressed as a villager and the Germans would understand that he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t listen and a soon as he appeared, a fine young lad, the Germans saw him and we lost him. We never found out what happened to him.
Period
Interview
Moshe Burla