Παιδομάζωμα - Communist child abductions in the Greek civil war

[akritas]

An excerpt from the "Paidomazoma - The great crime against our race" pp.30-35

by George C. Manoukas
Former General Inspector of the Child Gathering

Published by the Syllogos Epanapatristhentwn ek tou Parapetasmatos 1961

Announcement in Greek from Bucharest to the “Voice of America” 14 Feb 1950

“The Voice of America cannot stomach the fact that 28,000 Greek children and Slav Macedonians were transported to the Peoples’ Republics with the full accord of their parents. These children will continue to live there according to the wish of their parents, will be educated in their own language and national spirit and will learn a trade…”

Here is an example of the agreement of a family to send their children to the Iron Curtain to be “educated in their own language and national spirit and to learn a trade”.

The village schoolteacher in Zerma in 1947 was one named Mitsis. I do not know if he is still living. He had a wife and five children.

Budapest, August 1949. We had our base in Budapest. In August 1949 I was supervisor of the Central Office and “Inspector” again of the Paidomazoma. One day Yiannis, the colleague in charge of censorship says to me:“Comrade, a letter has arrived and it appears to be suspicious from beginning to end. Read it so that we may see what this fascist says”.

I took the “suspicious letter”, put it in my pocket and continued my work. In the afternoon after I had finished, I went by the Danube and I sat somewhere, watching the murky water of the Danube that flowed quietly. There I remembered the letter of the “fascist” I had in my pocket. I took it out, I saw it was well written and scanned to the bottom of it to see who was writing. I saw then it was from Mitsis, the schoolteacher of Zerma. What does he want - I thought to myself. What business does he have with us? And, my God, the wretched man wanted to know where his children were, where is his little one, whether he cries for his father and mother and whether they are all together,“Whether Spyridoula takes care of you”… and “try to find where your mother is because I do not know”. I read it over and over again. I remembered it was his Encyclopedia that we had confiscated and he was one our men were hunting and wanted to kill.

I went back to my office. I started browsing through the “registers” to see in which country were his children, because the letter said he had many. Five children!

I was glad to find they were in Hungary, and some indeed in Budapest. I thought to go immediately to find one of them , to give him the letter with his father’s kisses… but then I remembered about their mother. I had to find in which country she was, to put them in contact with each other so as to make them happy, the poor little souls.

I went through all the “registers’. I found nowhere the wife of the wretched schoolteacher. I began to curse the commissaries of the various countries for their insufficient records!!

I left my office and went to the children’s town. It was late and they were asleep. I left for my room, but I could not rest!

Next day I returned to the children’s town. I found one of them, a little girl and without letting her suspect that I had a letter, I began to ask: Where is your father? Your mother? Your siblings? And the little girl said to me:“My father stayed in Greece, I do not know where and if he is alive. Myself, my sister and a brother are here, I do not know about the other two. We do not know where our mother is. She may be in one of the countries. Because when the men took us and we asked for our mother, because we did not want to leave without her, they told us that we will find her here.“She has already left, she is ahead of you” they told us. I turned to leave when I heard again the little girl say:“Comrade, go see where our mother is and tell us! We have a year and a half to see her and we long for her, we are as orphans. Why, comrade, the men tricked us? Where is our mother?“

I was not satisfied by the little girl. She did not know much and so I went to find men and women from the region of Konitsa to find the end of this case.

And I found it! But what did I find! When I found out my legs and my arms trembled from the emotion. They informed me that the men shot the children’s mother near her village. That when the children were taken she was already dead. The children did not know. Neither their father! And the little one was waiting for me to come by the children’s town again, to tell her in which country(!) is her mother! Our men had taken care of her in the ravines of their village! And the children? The Party “took care” of them. And here “not even one child has been taken by force!...” What would the Communist Party of Greece claim? And what would the criminal voice from Bucharest?

translation from the United Macedonians

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Georgios Manoukas was the General Inspector of the 1946 Child Gathering and also a former member of KKE (Greek communist Party). He returned in Greece in 1961 and published a book on the Paidomazoma. One of the five-member council during the children abduction era was the Slav Macedonian Sikavitsas. This person was responsible for the Slavophone children. In the so-called Mountain Government (KKE), there were two Slavophone “ministers”. Their names were Metrovsky and Stavro Kocev. These Slavophones visited the children and aimed at the elimination of the Greek language used by the children.

[kostas68]

Two UN testimonies for the child abductions:

[kostas68]

An official Scopian confession: