Light shed on Greece and Poland’s entwined past
Dionisios Sturis, the author of a book on Greek communist exiles, hopes their stories will add to a better understanding of history
Polish journalist Dionisios Sturis wondered recently what it was that attracted him to cover the journey that refugees from Syria made through Greece. He concluded that it was the “refugee gene,” as he calls it, that he carries.
Sturis’s family fought with or supported the Communist Party-founded Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) in the 1946-49 Greek Civil War. They joined the thousands of Greeks who fled the country after the communists were defeated in 1949, mostly remaining in exile until socialist PASOK came to power in 1981 and allowed them to return to their homeland.
In the meantime, though, many of the exiles forged new lives abroad. Sturis’s relatives settled in Poland, along with some 14,000 others from Greece. He examines their stories in the book “Nowe Zycie” (New Life), which has recently been published in Poland.
The book was a personal journey for Sturis but also an attempt to shed light on an aspect of Greek and Polish history that has, in his view, been overlooked. He spoke to Kathimerini English Edition about the stories of those involved and why their experience is still relevant in Poland today.
The fascinating story of refugees from Greece in Poland is almost entirely forgotten. It was never properly told. Even people who used to have Greek or Macedonian [Editor’s note: The author is referring to people from Greece whom officials termed “locals” (ntopioi). Greece does not recognize a distinct “Macedonian,” ethnic identity.] neighbors, colleagues, friends or lovers know very little of them and of the reasons behind their arrival in Poland. With my book, I try to fill that void. I present individual stories of people I interviewed both in Poland and in Greece and what comes out of it is a sort of a group portrait. But it is also a report on true and beautiful solidarity toward people in need as it was shown by the Polish communist state and by the Polish people. A solidarity that is nowadays lacking.
Poland was a destroyed, traumatized and very poor country. People were still healing their war wounds. Hundreds of thousands were being sent to a territory in the west, which before 1939 belonged to Germany. It was now called “Reclaimed Land,” a part of Poland that needed new residents. They were people from the other end of the country, it was the Jews who survived the Holocaust and from 1948 onward it was refugees from Greece. At first it was almost 4,000 children of the “paidososimo” (the removal of children from Communist-supporting families to countries considered safer), and among them many orphans. They arrived either by train or by ship – hungry, ill, petrified. They were put into health resorts where wealthy Germans used to come for treatment. They were cured of all the diseases, fed, clothed and taken care of in an extraordinary way – with love and compassion. Many of them, like my aunt Kiriaki, are now in their 80s and they still remember the very first day on Polish soil – how they hid bread, apples and candies, out of fear there wouldn’t be anymore. Hearing a plane, they would crawl under their beds to seek shelter, shout and cry.
Then there were the wounded members of the DSE (Democratic Army of Greece). There was a secret hospital organized especially for them in a small town of Dziwnow by the Baltic Sea. They suffered from all kinds of diseases and were physically exhausted, with bullets still in their heads or limbs. Many who arrived without legs or arms needed an instant reamputation. Almost 2,000 people got comprehensive treatment there, which included surgeries, physiotherapy, dentures and glass eyes. I know of people who still use the wooden prostheses they were given almost 70 years ago.
The last group were defeated “andartes” (rebels) and their families. Altogether it was almost 14,000 people.
At first, they were all transferred to Zgorzelec, a town by the German border. It soon became known as “Little Athens” or “Little Greece” as the refugees were a majority. They seemed exotic to their neighbors – they looked a bit different, spoke a different language, cooked different food, yet they encountered openness. People weren’t scared of them. They were curious and ready to help. That’s how friendships first emerged and the first Polish-Greek marriages. After a year the refugees spread all over Poland, to dozens of cities and towns. One of them was Chojnow – my hometown. They even made it to the other side of the country and settled in a few small villages by the Ukrainian border, such as Kroscienko. It became a Greek village. The newcomers opened a cooperative called Nea Zoi which was highly successful and employed close to 1,000 people. It operates to this day. I went there and spoke to the few remaining Greeks – the village head is a lady called Danusia, whose father was a refugee from Greece. There is a Greek cemetery there and a monument to Nikos Beloyannis. Greek or Macedonian names don’t surprise anyone in Kroscienko.
This is another forgotten story, and one that Poles have no idea about. But I also think that the Greeks do not know much about the extent of assistance that was granted to the DSE by Poland and other countries of our region. Until recently even historians had limited access to that knowledge. The support for Greek andartes was huge but still far smaller than the help given to the other side by the Americans. It started in 1947. Nikos Zachariadis, head of the KKE (Communist Party), asked Stalin for support, not knowing he had had a secret deal with Winston Churchill from 1944 and therefore could not get fully involved. But he could delegate that duty to leaders in countries under Soviet influence. One of them was Polish President Boleslaw Bierut. He could have refused, given Poland’s dire situation, but he chose not to. He believed in the idea of proletarian internationalism. So, in the early autumn of 1947 a huge shipment was sent to Greece that included among other things 10,000 pairs of shoes, 10,000 shirts, 4 million bullets, over 5,000 rifles and guns, 2,500 land mines and 25 tons of medical supplies.
For the next two years Poland coordinated the whole operation. Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania would send over their share, we would add ours and off went the ships to the Albanian port of Durres, carrying tens of thousands of tons of food (including flour, chocolate, sugar, coffee, pasta, tinned meat) and massive weaponry loads, some of which had previously been confiscated from the Germans at the end of World War II. The same ships on their journeys back would bring over the paidososimo children and the wounded fighters headed for the secret hospital.
At first, they were being told to be ready for another fight, to sleep with “opla para poda” (arms at the ready), because apparently the war would break out again soon and they would have to go back to Greece. When that turned out to be fantasy, the refugees started to settle in. They began a new life in a country they previously had no idea about. It was not easy but I heard many stories of those early years when the Poles proved to be welcoming and helpful. They made the whole situation easier for their new Greek and Macedonian neighbors, even if it was just little things like shopping, visits to a doctor, writing a letter, childminding, or finding a proper coat for hard Polish winters.
All the refugees got jobs – mainly in factories or in agriculture. The invalids worked in special cooperatives. They were given opportunities to enroll in a language course or get additional vocational training.
It wasn’t long before they made friends with their Polish neighbors and colleagues from work. But at the same time, they cared very much about their “Greekness.” In every town and city where there were Greeks, there were “Greek clubs.” The refugees gathered there every evening to play “tavli” (backgammon), to talk politics, to gossip, to teach their children Greek and practice Greek dances. They partied together (often with their invited Polish friends) and whenever there was a celebration they repeated the same toast: “Kai tou xronou stin Ellada” (And next year in Greece). Vodka was a popular substitute for ouzo, pickled herrings replaced olives.
Pictures from those parties were often printed in a refugee newspaper called “Dimokratis” – now available in the Polish National Library. At first it was a daily paper, later a weekly magazine, then a monthly bulletin. Written both in Greek and Macedonian, it brought important news from Greece and the world, but most importantly it chronicled the life of refugees in Poland – who married who, who died, who’d had a child, who’d moved to Kroscienko, where the Greek mandolin band was going to be in concert next, which Greek students won medals in school sport competitions, and where one could get real feta cheese.
Not all of them were orphans. Many had parents or at least one of them, so they waited for them to come to Poland to be reunited. But that took years, and before it was possible the children were placed in special care centers and were looked after by Polish, Greek and Macedonian carers. These children are now in their 70s and 80s and they all remember those times as the best in their lives. They were never hungry, they were healthy, full of energy, they joined the Polish scouting movement, they excelled in sports and art – especially in music, as there were many dance and singing groups. At first, they attended schools in the centers, but after a few years they were put in Polish schools, where they were welcomed. I read stories of young Greek students who’d win speech contests, reciting Polish poetry, or who became national champions in athletics. They were treated the same way as the Polish children, they had truly equal opportunities. Many of those children entered universities later in life and became doctors, engineers, artists or musicians.
There is no good answer to that question. These people knew very well what sort of life they would have, had they stayed in Greece. They followed the disgraceful Beloyannis trial (he also spent some time in Poland after the war before returning to Athens), they knew of the persecutions of the communists and the left in general. They had to live knowing that because of their past in the DSE their innocent fathers and uncles were given sentences of 10 to 20 years in prison or on Makronisos [an island off the coast of Attica hosting a prison for exiles]. So, there was grief and anger. But there was a longing too. Greece was their country, their homeland, they shed blood for it. They shouldn’t be here, in a faraway country. But on the other hand, that country saved them. It cured their wounds, it sheltered their children, it gave them opportunities they would never have in Greece. Ninety-five percent of the refugees in Poland could barely read, never visited a cinema or theater, never traveled. Yet in a village of Kroscienko they had their own cinema (organized in an old church), they had kindergartens and schools, their children graduated from universities. It was a huge difference. And that is why many people I interviewed emphasize how grateful they are – both toward the Polish state and the Polish people. They talk of kindness, friendship, understanding and compassion.
It happened naturally. The Poles remembered too well what war was and in the refugees, they saw victims of yet another war who needed support. So they were open toward them. There were lone quarrels and fights or bullying but on a level not worth mentioning. The Greeks were seen as very hardworking, honest and clever. After they learned to speak Polish and laid their roots, they stopped being exotic, stopped being “the other.” Especially the second generation – people born in Poland. Kids at school would give them Polish names and treat them like everybody else.