April 2013
A few words about Eleftheria,
the widow of Constantine Pattakos (daughter of Efthimios G. Harokopos).
Eleftheria is today ninety one years old.
Despite the fact she was an excellent student in the elementary school of
Patsos and wanted with passion to further study, her parents decided not to
allow her continue in the high school in Rethymno.
She had it, and still has, heartache.
She
born and raised eight children.
With the free of cost Education, on one hand, and with the sorrow of a mother
not allowed to be educated, she saw all her eight children being Engineers of
the National Technical University of Athens.
Without her perseverance in education and without the free of cost education,
things would be different.
Only for this achievement of her, in other places of the world she would be a
"mother” model, a human template that never gives in, she would be
honored.
She liked to tell her young children the story of an American mother who, as
had been written in the newspapers, has been nominated as an professor-in-honor
in her country, in the famous University wherefrom her three sons had
graduated.
The following is the continuation of those mentioned, in June 2010, in the
letter of Eleftheria to the Mayor of Syvritos (available at http://www.pattakon.com/gr/harakas_en.htm
).
After Harakas.
Occupation.
Late in the afternoon of 9th May 1944 the kidnappers of the German General
Kreipe depart for the south coast with final destination the Egypt. Shortly
before leaving the German General salutes with respect the young Eleftheria,
impressed by what he saw and heard.
Parenthesis:
In
several occasions the Germans occupiers bowed in front of "standing"
Greeks:
When once they gave amnesty, and the fugitives had to pass from the center of
the Germans to take the relevant documents, her father Efthimios G. Harokopos
went, too.
To the question of the chief German officer, the "illiterate" but
wise shepherd Efthimios, after thinking for a while, he sorrowful replied:
"I had a country once, and now it is lost ...". The German military
flustered, bowed to the patriotism of the Cretan and ordered to give a seat to
sit this Greek.
Quote from the “memoirs” of Captain Manolis Badouvas (narration 1977-1978 to
Antonis Sanoudakis):
"After the liberation all the governments took care to dishonor the
patriots of the resistance, and if a weapon was found in the home of one, he
was sent to prison.
. . .
In comparison, when the Germans searching in a house were finding the weapon of
a fighter in the Macedonian wars of Greece, they saluted military and
leave."
The day of ascension (May 25, 1944), two weeks after the leaving of the
kidnappers from Patsos, Eleftheria with Sophia Psyharaki and Sophia’s mother
get up early in the morning and leave for Soros, a mountain 1,200 meters high,
south of Patsos. They go to pray in the Church of the Transfiguration of
Christ, two - three hours walking on a crag, on top of the mountain. It is a
simple ceiling-less church: actually a stonewall at the height of a man,
somehow protecting from the strong wind.
Arriving in the village in the afternoon they are informed that during the day,
a division of Germans surrounded the wide region of Patsos and searched everywhere.
They
had with them dogs who ferret out two or three Patsos villagers who were hidden
in caves / "holes". But they found nothing, neither British solders,
nor other incriminating evidence, so the village earned the presumption of
"innocence".
This
"presumption of innocence" is probably the reason that saved Patsos
village when, three months later, the Germans burnt a number of villages that,
according the Germans, had supported and helped the kidnappers of their
General, executing the male villagers (Amari, Gerakari, Kria Vrisi etc.).
In difficult situations the luck played a significant role.
In
"Spasmata", a field 500 meters east of Harakas, the Germans arrested
the father of Eleftheria, Efthimios G. Harokopos (nick name: Igemonas), who
grazes his sheep unconcerned.
In his back pocket he has a small - as a palm – British-spy gun. By luck (or,
perhaps, because the multi-patched clothes of the poor shepherd stank) the
German soldier does not attempt to search him (a weapon was equivalent with execution,
those days).
They take him, like quite a few other Patsos villagers, for identification and
interrogation at the village of Agion Apostolon, a few kilometers east of
Patsos.
The German who is controlling the papers is confused by the name "Skaroskopos"
that spells from the list and the parallel explanations of Efthimios who
insists that: “Skaroskopos is different than Harokopos" and that “he has
not a teacher son, but four daughters”. The German sends him to stand in the
queue of those “to be checked", Efthimios succeeds to get into the queue
of the already checked and then he leaves with the gun still in his pocket.
A few minutes later another arrested Patsos villager is interrogated and
informs the German investigator that Harokopos, the father of the
schoolteacher, was in their hands and left him go (from the interrogated quite
a few were sent to forced labor at Tympaki).
By
luck her brother George is saved:
A
German patrol comes "face to face" with the wanted Iorgis (George E.
Harokopos), the teacher, on the road from Patsos to Pantanassa.
"Halt" they shout.
Iorgi knows he is lost if arrested.
On one side of the road is dense wild forest. He jumps with all his guts to the
forest and starts running. A German shoots.
A village girl, who was grazing the animals of her family nearby, sees the
scene and thinking that the Germans killed Iorgi, informs Iorgi’s family in
Patsos.
Lament.
Eleftheria promises to God she will become a nun if the bad news is not the
truth.
And thankfully it is not.
Eleftheria still fears the wrath of God for not keeping her promise.
Indicative of how things worked that time:
The Germans have suddenly "encircle" the Patsos village, and going
from house to house they are ordering the villagers to gather in the village
church.
Eleftheria cooks when a German soldier appears ordering: "to Church
immediately."
Until to extinguish the fire, she must find a way to notify her father and her
brother Iorgi, who are in their vineyard at "Roupakias" one kilometer
northwest of the village.
Her mother, Bethlehem works in "Pervola", a field some 300 meters
outside the village, low, seen from the yard of their home.
The German is in a rush.
Eleftheria shouts: "Mother, mother."
"Yes my child" responds Bethlehem.
"Mother I am going to the church."
"OK, my child. Go." Bethlehem responds.
Again: "Mother, I HAVE TO GO to the church."
"So go, my child" responds Bethlehem who is trying to understand what
is happening to her daughter.
And Eleftheria shouts in despair:
"Mother, a German commands."
At last the “message” passes to Bethlehem who runs furiously to alert her
wanted husband and her wanted son to runaway.
Indicative also of "how things work” those days:
German police officers, soldiers and "escorts", are arriving in
Patsos. The three leaders, holding a map, follow the downhill and reach the
house of Efthimios wherein the young Eleftheria is alone.
The chief of the triad asks: "Where is your father?"
"In Rethymno" answers innocently the girl.
"Are you saying the truth?" asks again the German.
"Why to lie? My father is in Rethymno "answers Eleftheria, trying to
show calm.
"You are scared" says the German.
"Why to be afraid?" replies Eleftheria, who worries more and more;
"to be afraid of the soldiers?"
"Don’t you fear of them?" asks the German.
"No I do not fear them," answers Eleftheria, and she is meaning it.
(A few days ago at “Plates”, next to the Harakas, Menelaos Xilouris with his
resistance team stopped for a rest. They had just arrived from Egypt holding
their new weapons which were "glowing", making in the eyes of
Eleftheria, the guns of Germans seem as of inferior quality guns)
"Do you love them?" the German changes the question.
The Cretan girl avoids the answer going to the neighbor room to bring raki
spirit to offer them drink.
The chief drinks the first glass in one gulp. Elefteria refills the glass to
offer to the second German, but the chief takes the glass with the raki and
drinks it again in one gulp He takes the refilled for third time glass and
drinks it too.
"This is fire," says Eleftheria, who worries about the outcome.
"We are the fire," says the German.
Fortunately at the nick of the time arrive at home furiously Bethlehem her
mother, with Fragias, her uncle, and a young Patsos kid who collects eggs and
cheese in order the village to feed the Germans.
During the Occupation forced labor is a commonplace:
The
president / official-head of Patsos dislikes him and puts the name of Efthimios
G. Harokopos in the list of those for forced labor, but Efthimios is not
obeying and is not going, regardless of the consequences.
Only
once, things come so wrong that Efthimios is obliged to follow the group.
They
arrive at the place of forced labor.
The
Greek foreman knows Efthimios, knows his contribution to the resistance and
wonders: "You, Mr. Harokopos, you for forced labor?!"
He
gives him a mule to return to the village and a certificate that "he is
performing an ordered mission to bring piles for the project's needs".
Arriving
at Patsos Efthimios greets the official head saying: "Mr. president, you
sent me on foot, I am back on a horseback."
Besides the Germans, poverty and hunger were the other "curses" of
those times.
The several dozens of ally’s soldiers (Englishmen, Australians and New
Zealanders) found shelter in the house of Efthimios G. Harokopos the difficult
years of occupation, cause the food supplies / stock in the basement (the large
terracotta pot with dried beans, the two large terracotta pots with the wheat,
the large terracotta oil pot, the large terracotta pot with the wine) to
decrease at an alarming pace, before the arrival of the winter.
An observant, and tender-hearted, British soldier, guest in the house, asked
Eleftheria, who had the burden of their care (kneading, baking, cooking, water
supply from the fountain of the village etc.):
"We eat well now. But what about you during the winter? "
Another time, a young Australian soldier, Nick, guest to eat with them at night
before continuing his escape to the south coast, wants to impress Eleftheria
whose family fortune was some twenty sheep and a few goats, and says proudly
that his own family has five thousand sheep.
The girl, who as always does not accept assaults, replies immediately that, as
she heard from two other Australian soldiers who were hosted before him, the
one’s family had twenty thousand sheep, the other’s family had fifty thousand
sheep.
Nick, the Australian soldier, disappointed, almost with tears in his eyes,
confesses sorrowfully to the "pitiless" Cretan girl:
"Eleftheria, my family is poor…”
To protect his wife and children from starvation in case his home was burned by
the Germans (as it was “heard”), Efthimios asks his co-villager and friend
Pantinakis Vangelis, who has a large house, to give him some space at his
basement to transfer there, for just in case, the supplies / food required for
his family during the winter.
When he started carrying with his donkey the supplies, his neighbor Helen
Polyzois Pattakos, who knew firsthand how many fleeing soldiers and rebels have
found shelter and care in the home of her neighbor, is yelling to him:
"Do not worry. God will not allow to get burn a house like yours that
helps so many people. "
End of parenthesis
The next morning (May 10, 1944) Eleftheria is alone in her maiden home, the
northernmost house of Patsos village.
Her co-villager and friend Koumentaki Smaragda comes in a rush and says
Eleftheria to tell her brother, the teacher (who is wanted), to runaway
immediately because the Germans are surrounding the village.
Eleftheria calm her down and thanks her.
She knows that the problem is not with George because he is away from Patsos
with the kidnapers. The problem is that they have at home lethal evidences
that, if found by the Germans, would be a disaster.
In a box wherein her mother keeps a couple of jewels, there are
also the three pounds along with the note that Patrick Leigh Fermor put in the
pocket of her father the night before, there is also a spy British small
revolver gun and a small British flag left as a souvenir by a British soldier
from Liverpool.
There is no time to think about it.
She grabs the box and goes to "Pervola", a field planted with wheat,
300 meters north of the village. She is going to bury the dangerous box.
But the moment the girl is arriving nearby the grown wheat plants in “Pervola”,
she hears a wild voice commanding: "Halt."
It is a German soldier, fifty meters away, at the reeds field next to
"Pervola", standing with a gun in his hands.
Eleftheria just opens her palm leaving the box to fall into the wheat plants.
The German soldier takes no notice of what she did.
The girl, trembling, praises God for once again they have escaped from a lethal
danger:
Her
family, and her village, and the kidnappers.
Because if the Germans realized that a few hours ago their General (for whom
they were desperately searching, with every means available, throughout the
island, without having any evidence that he is still on the island of Crete),
it would be a matter of hours, not of days, to find and liberate him, erasing
from the map - as was their habit - all the villages that the group of
kidnappers passed through.
The disaster is avoided.
The German soldier approaching commands: "President’s House".
Eleftheria cools down. She “recovers”. The new "gathering" the
Germans command seems, as compared with the disaster so narrowly avoided, a
joke.
She finds the courage to begin the familiar game of "misleading" the
enemy, responding angrily to the German:
"Oh, come on. Stop troubling us. The one time in school, the other time in
the Church, now in president’s house."
The German gets angry:
"Your words show your village has correctly a bad reputation".
"Oh, yes! Look at a dangerous village!" answers the Cretan girl,
"ten women and five men!".
The German gets even more angry with her aggressiveness and threatens her:
"Immediately president’s house, or I will get you there."
"I go by my own", the Cretan girl answers angrily, and she takes the
pathway to the village. She passes out of her house and continues uphill to the
main road of the village.
At the end of the uphill, at the home of Vavourakis, her mother Bethlehem (her
family name is Aggelakis, from the neighbor village of Gerakari wherein three
months later the Germans had amassed at school and then executed all the male
villagers, with many of them being close relatives and all friends) is larking
and in the turn of the road she pulls Eleftheria inside.
Eleftheria knows all the passages. She knows where to hide. She leaves
carefully and goes west.
Just outside the village, at "Kapses" she listens a whispering call
from a dense clump with carob trees and shrubs.
It is her uncle Eleftherios G. Harokopos and her first cousin Dimitrios S.
Pattakos hiding from the Germans.
She hides with them and wait.
Her uncle asks her: "Eleftheria, what was that which Leigh Fermor
struggled to give you last night?"
"Nothing," replies angrily Eleftheria, who still remembers the last
night and what she went through in order to not accept Leigh Fermor’s payment.
Later the Germans depart dragging a group of Patsos villagers (women and men)
for forced labor in Tympaki, the military airport.
Several days later they are informed, as everybody else, that the kidnappers
arrived with their loot, General Kreipe, in Cairo. The great achievement of the
Allies, which is a great defeat for the "Nazis" had a catalytic
effect on the morale of the two opponents.
Only several months later they have the first news from her brother, the
teacher, who was well and was serving / fighting with the "Sacred
Band" of the Greeks.
Here is what it writes the marble plate placed in Harakas on 21 May 2010 to
remind the visitor / traveler the great things happened there in May 1944:
PLACE: PLATES - HARAKAS
HERE THEY WERE HIDDEN, 7TH & 8TH MAY 1944,
THE RESISTANCE TEAM UNDER THE BRITISH MAJOR
P. LEIGH FERMOR WITH THE ABDUCTED
GERMAN GENERAL KREIPE
ON THEIR WAY TO
SOUTH CRETE - EGYPT
PARTICIPATION IN THE GROUP FROM PATSOS VILLAGE
HAROKOPOS E. GEORGE, TEACHER, 25 YEARS OLD
PATTAKOS S. GEORGE, SHEPHERD, 22 YEARS OLD
SYVRITOS 2010
And this is what is written
by the one of the two British leaders of the abduction of the German General
Kreipe about what happened in Patsos:
From the book " ILL MET
BY MOONLIGHT " of Stanley Moss (first edition 1950).
Things have suddenly cleared up a lot.
The
night before last (May 7) we left our hideout at Yerakari and completed the
easy march to Patsos in quick time, arriving at our destination before midnight
– this, despite the fact that the mule which had been brought for the General
was so lame that we had to leave it behind. The General was obliged to complete
the journey on foot, but he marched very well and slowed us up scarcely at all.
It seems that this mountain air is getting him into fine trim!.
We
are now hiding in a delightful spot which is about a quarter of a mile from
Patsos. We sleep in a stone-walled hut which has been built against the base of
a steep cliff, so with trees on three sides and the cliff behind us we could
not have found a more sheltered position.
. .
.
The
dinner was excellent. We are being cared for by a charming family which, though
very poor, gives us everything it has. The father (Efthimios
G. Harokopos) is a fine, old-fashioned Cretan type, and he tell us that
since the German occupation he has looked after more than sixty British and
Colonial stragglers who were hiding from the enemy. His young daughter is a
sweet-looking girl whose face has the appearance of a delicate waxen mask – a
look of L’inconnue de la Seine – and altogether she is possessed of a natural
grace and charm which is all too rare among the island’s women folk. She goes
bare-armed, bare-legged, and wears a one piece canvas dress, and her hair is
arranged in two long plaits. It is quite possible, I suppose, that she is only
about twelve years old, and perhaps it would be best not to think of her as she
will be in ten years’ time. Her brother, Iorgi by name, is a handsome young man
with a quiet manner and Biblical face. He speaks a little English, and has told
me that he would like to go with us to Cairo. We may take him along if there’s
room on board.
. .
.
We
have been so well looked after at this hideout that this afternoon we decided
to give the family a present of gold (for we knew that its wealth consisted of
little more than some goats and a few olive-trees); so Paddy (Patrick Leigh Fermor) called the old father aside. He reminded him
that we were in all probability going to take his only son, Iorgi, with us to
Egypt, and therefore there would be no one left to help with the work at home.
So, Paddy continued, would he accept the hopelessly inadequate gift of a few
sovereigns in exchange of his son? But the old man – as well we might have
guessed – merely shook his head, thanked us for our kind thought, and politely
refused. We did not press him.
The
General, who had been watching this scene with interest, was most impressed by
the old man’s refusal, and he said as much to Paddy and me. It is a fact that
as each day goes by and he meets more Cretans he is becoming more and more
aware of their affection and self-sacrifice towards us. I don’t believe that he
ever realized before how much the German are hated on the island, and how
popular by comparison – despite let-downs and reversals – are the British.
Some
food now, then on to Photeinou.
The above text / book was written as the
events were occurring.
Although it was ready by 1945, only in 1950 it was allowed to be published.
If Greece likes so, it has many such texts to demonstrate, and many Greek
patriots that honored Greece, as that Cretan, Efthimios G. Harokopos and his
family in the difficult and dangerous days of the Occupation.
Efthimios was not a brainless "kid" looking for adventures. He was an
experienced - from his young age – fighter, a serious man with family,
responsibilities and problems.
He knew very well how many things were jeopardized by the support offered to
the kidnappers. He was poor, but he generously was offering what he had to
support the escape of the kidnappers with the General Kreipe to Egypt.
So did throughout the occupation helping the hungry and hunted allies soldiers
who were passing by his vicinity to stand on their feet and to continue, but
also those Greek patriots, left and right ones, fighting against the invader.
It's a pity Greece to wake only after sixty-six years to honor the heroes of a
great event.
And it is a shame Greece to honor the second players, forgetting those who, the
time of the crisis and of the truth, were admired by the British allies and the
Germans occupiers.
According to the book of Moss, the significant support received from the Patsos
village for the successful completion of the escape of the kidnappers team with
General Kreipe to Egypt, had a central character, Efthimios G. Harokopos: for
he gave them generously what they needed, for he put at a great risk everything
he had for their sake, for he refused to be paid when they tried to. Then it
comes anyone else.
Both, the “outside” testimony (the books of the British who designed and led
the abduction relying on Cretan guerillas but also on the local insubordinate
Cretans) and the testimony of the young - then - Eleftheria for what she lived
and went through (the descendants of those who also took part can be asked)
confirms one thing: the marble plaque hanged on the rock of Harakas is not the
appropriate.
In the "ceremony" / nomination of heroes, in May 2010 in the Harakas
of Patsos, they had brought up even a "price performance body", and
musicians and cameras.
We waited in vain to hear from the speakers what happened there in May '44
(they talked about “thin air blah, blah, blah"). Nothing to do with the
facts. After the speeches there was a fierce quarrel with the organizers of the
"ceremony" and we left.
The Mayor (the chief official of the "ceremony" of the unveiling of
the "plate") realizing that he was fooled and exploited, also
abandoned in the middle of the events the ceremony and followed us to the
chapel, supporting the troubled Eleftheria from the one side, and trying, in
the five minutes we walked together, to justify the unjustifiable.
If you like to say to a Greek youngster a story from those years, would you
talk for the "heroic mule drivers", or for the old-Cretan who proved
patriotism and a model of dignity and of humanity and supporter of all those
who resisted to the occupier, or for the proud Cretan girl who, at the time of
crisis, had the background, and the courage, and the guts, and the mind, and
the will and the decision to keep Greece pride high, above Germany (the
conqueror) and above England (the ally).
It makes unjustice to "ignore" the important, for the sake of the
ordinary.
Greek children would be proud for their history, but who will teach them?
The truths in the memoirs of Captain Manolis Badouvas (that
"illiterate" but wise Cretan shepherd, and unquestionable hero, who
managed to make the Germans tremble hearing his name) teach us today more than
ever:
"Greece has a great history. Other countries have no history and create
a false history for the next generations.
We (the Greeks) have history and destroy it and contaminate it and modify it,
and present it according the meters of those who write it. Those who exploit it
their own way, i.e. generals, politicians and others."
Thanks.
Manolis Pattakos son of Constantine and Eleftheria
e-mail: man@pattakon.com