Based on true events – a story in sequels
A tree grows under the Acropolis
― Do you remember any other special incident from the Occupation? Something that impressed you?
― Of course I remember because I was the firstborn in the family and wherever my father wanted to go, he would take me with him. Some evenings we would go to a house in what is now Daphne, which was then called Katsipodi, to a family where my father was like a brother to the father of this family. They had two sons, Grigoris and Pavlos. Strong boys, both of them. They had also come from Russia during the revolution against the Tsar.
On the feast of Saint Gregory, the eldest, Grigoris or Grisas as we called him, was celebrating and invited my father to go because they had prepared a feast. So, he took me with him and we went. These people had a detached house and the youngest son Pavlos loved music very much and played the piano at the time. Of course, gatherings were forbidden and there was a blackout during this period, which meant that the windows were covered with blue tape so that no light could be seen from outside. This was so that they wouldn't bomb us.
During the Occupation, the Allied forces were now coming in large numbers to bomb important targets such as Hassani, even though Athens was considered an unfortified city. They were bombing the airport and the port of Piraeus. Of course, we did not learn about the results of the bombings, whether anyone was killed or not, because there was no mass media. The press was controlled by the Germans, newspapers were censored and there was limited information. We only heard the planes approaching and the sound of sirens indicating that Allied aircraft were coming. However, the Acropolis was not bombed by either the Germans or the Allies. They respected the monument and I have not heard anything about bombs falling there.
We sat down and ate. There were only a few people in the house, my father and I, this family and maybe two more people. There was no limit to the number of people but anyway everything was done with great caution. Then, it was time to leave and it was already late. When it was time to leave, we said our goodbyes and went out of the house. When we went out, it was completely pitch black and we couldn't see where we were going, nothing, there were no lights on the streets or in the houses. We went from a light that was inside the house, into absolute darkness.
At that time, the streets of Athens had been dug up and turned into ditches. Because every time we heard the sirens and the enemy was approaching, even though the Italians and Germans were not bombing Athens, people were afraid and fell into these ditches, the so-called shelters. As we walked, we did not see one of these ditches and when my father lifted his foot and took a step, he fell into the ditch and hit it. Holding my hand, he dragged me with him and I fell on him. It was very deep but I did not hit it; I was a child and my body was rubber. But my father could not get out, he had been hit hard and I could not help him. He was moaning and asking for help: “Help, help!” Of course, we were not allowed to be outside at such an hour, but he would shout for help, in case someone from the neighborhood heard him and came out to help him. I, as a child, somehow managed to climb up and get out of the ditch, but I couldn't pull him. But instead of a door opening and someone coming out to help, nothing happened because everyone was afraid. An Italian soldier in uniform stopped, accompanied by a Greek girl. At that time, many Greek women knew Italian soldiers, married them and left for Italy.
One of them is the sister of a friend of mine. She married an Italian, lived there in Italy, had children, her family. A few days ago she even came back to see her sister who lives in Chalandri. We attended a memorial service together, my friend Anna, her sister Aliki and I. There were many girls like Aliki. Of course, at that time, girls who married Italians were reprehensible.
But to tell you the truth, when recently, after your grandfather died and I started to make my first trips, I traveled with a church excursion and we crossed Italy, starting from Venice, I loved this country so much! I liked the country and the people so much that I said I could live there! What can I do to you, I was only fourteen years old during the Occupation. If I were eighteen, of course I would have married an Italian.
During that time, of course, the girls did not know what Italians and Italy were like. Many of these girls were simply hungry and, if they had an Italian partner, the problem of starvation would be solved because the Italians had plenty of food; the bobotes, the kuramanes and the spaghetti, which they gave to their girls. They then shared it with their family and friends. While there were such stories with Italians, there were very few girls who got involved with Germans, because the Germans were considered a cold nation that was not easy to approach. And their commanders did not let them either. The Italians, on the other hand, were a warm people, they were a people of love. Perhaps it was the Italian soldiers who bothered the girls. As for me, I was a skinny and weak child, who would pay attention to me among the Italians!
I see a girl approaching, one of ours. Our eyes had now adjusted to the darkness and we could make out faces and everything. The girl comes over and says: “What’s going on?” and I tell her: “As we went out to greet a nephew of my father’s who was celebrating, we came out of the house in the dark and we didn’t see the ditch. My father fell in and I fell on him but I managed to get out. My father has been hit and can’t get out.” She spoke, told the Italian what was happening, but the Italian had immediately activated himself and was trying to get him out, he was already halfway down and was pulling him. After he got my father out of the ditch, he took him on his back.
From that point to the house, until he put him to bed, the Italian had him on his back. And the girl and I followed him from behind. I will never forget that. When we got there, my mother picked him up and my father stayed in bed for two months, he was so badly hurt. I don't know if he had broken anything, but he was in a lot of pain all over his body. And if he had broken anything, it would have healed on its own because... where would we go? There were no doctors or hospitals back then. We did the traditional medicine, plasters, rubbing, everything my mother knew how to do for the pain. My mother thanked them but beyond that, we lost them, we never saw them again, we don't know what happened to the girl or the Italian. But that incident left an indelible impression on me and I will never forget it as an important chapter in my life. Even if I was just a child, it made a big impression on me.
And when all this was over and the front collapsed, the German flag was lowered from the Acropolis, the Greek government returned from Cairo and the celebrations lasted a whole week. What was happening in Syntagma Square, joys and festivals, I can't even describe it... And then, I was no longer a girl; I was growing up and boys started to notice me on the street. I had now formed into a girl - I was 17 years old, a girl ready to become a woman and it was my turn. I remember wherever I went, the boys would whistle, they would flirt. As I walked from my house to the third girls' high school on Tsami Karatasou Street, I remember meeting the boys from the sixth boys' high school in Faliro and Petmeza and all the boys were standing there waiting for the girls from the third girls' high school to pass.
Many romances developed this way, despite the fact that schools were divided into boys and girls. If the boys saw you on the street and made sweet eyes and you responded, they would find a way, wait somewhere to talk to you and things would develop easily. It's as the bride and groom want it, may the father-in-law be blind!
I also experienced this phase, passing through the streets but I had no mind for such things. I did not respond to any whistles, to any teasing because I had other things on my mind. I was devoted to studying. I wanted this rivalry, the noble rivalry, to continue, to have the favor and love of my teachers. These things filled my soul and nothing else interested me, I did not reciprocate, I did not even seek social contacts and friendships.
As for my sister, she had a different life. She became a seamstress and stayed at home. Despite our poverty, my father bought her a Singer sewing machine, the foot-operated one, which was a good machine, and she started sewing. He bought it in installments and easy payment terms, and so my sister started sewing for households in the neighborhood and developed into a skilled seamstress.
However, I had a dear friend who I still remember, a close friend, who lived comfortably, as her family was wealthy. They had money and lived in a nice house. The family consisted of the mother and only two girls because their father had died and their mother worked in a well-known jewelry store, as a manager. The owner of the jewelry store was the best man at her wedding and helped them financially.
The youngest, Chrysoula, was my classmate and we were in the same class. She wasn't a very good student. Her house was down the street from me and many times when I left for school, we would meet by chance on the corner and walk together. And when we came back, we would walk together again and then we would part on the corner. At one point, she said to me on her own: "Do you want me to come to your house sometime so we can read together?" because she needed me. She had books, she had everything. While I didn't have books; I had papers and the notes I kept. We didn't have money for books and I learned them by tradition. "Let's read," I told her. So, she started coming to my house with her books. After school, we would part on the corner. She would go to her house and eat everything you could ever want - even bird's milk - and then she would come to my house. Meanwhile, we ate feta cheese, bread with herring every day, as the saying goes, and if we wanted something more special, we made a salad.
I didn't have any friends to flirt with, but I had a lot of different ones. There were people who asked me out, not high school classmates, but older people. I met people from friendly houses who were already students, students who were studying to become doctors, at the Polytechnic or even lawyers. Despite the many proposals I received from people I met in these friendly houses, I didn't accept any.
Especially from this medical student from Kalymnos… As all the kids I knew were from Kalymnos who had come here to study. My brother’s godmother, whose husband was a prominent doctor, had several rooms in Neos Kosmos that she rented out to students coming from the province. Through my brother’s godmother, I happened to meet many of these kids. One of them, Aristides, was a student at the Polytechnic University and because my friend Chrysoula and I both had problems with math, we would go there for help. We said: "Let's go to Froso's godmother" that is, my brother's godmother "so that Aristides can solve our problem." This child had proposed to me and we had gone out one afternoon to talk to me privately and ask me if I wanted to enter into a relationship until he finished his studies at the Technical University and so on, but I refused.
I didn't like that particular person and I didn't like the other medical student I told you about from Kalymnos either. The medical student, on the other hand, was head over heels in love with me. He came to my mother and proposed marriage to her and my mother said to him: "What can I do? She's young, she's in school and you're still a student. What do you want me to do? Finish your studies first, let her finish school too and then you can discuss it again." But he didn't understand anything, he even went so far as to go on a hunger strike for fifteen days because I wasn't paying attention to him. Anyway, let's forget all this because these things don't mean anything to me anymore. They don't affect our lives at all.
But what I wanted to tell you was about the Occupation, when a friend of my father's used to come over, who had a radio that wasn't sealed. Because they had confiscated the radios and you couldn't listen to whatever you wanted. I was twelve years old at the time and this man was thirty-two. There was a twenty-year age difference between us, or maybe even more, because he might have been thirty-four. He was a doctor, a gastroenterologist in a hospital. So every day, this man would take my father, every day he did this, and they would go to his house to listen to this radio.
The radio was rare at that time, it was also a luxury item. If someone found out that their radio was not sealed, they might even be shot! They would have to go through the courthouse now, the occupation. In any case, he had hidden it and my father was careful, after the news he would return home immediately.
The doctor's house was some distance from ours, a luxurious mansion and he lived alone since he had not married. He even had a piano in his house. He had no parents, but he had siblings, some living in France and some in Athens. He had an age difference with my father, but in the end it wasn't that he loved my father so much that he considered him a close friend. He had his eye on me.
(goes on)
photo by ArtTower, https://pixabay.com
