“We would go down to Turkish villages and steal to eat”
Testimonial of Savvas and Parthena Papadopoulou (Vathylakkos, Kozani)
It was in late May, early June of 1920 when we took to the mountains. At that time Topal Osman—Kemal’s henchman—went to Erbaa and did immense harm, destroying and obliterating Christians. He was a blood-thirsty hound of war.
He ordered his soldiers to round up all men aged 15 to 70 and lock some of them up in the Armenian church, some others in prison and the rest in the basement of a big house that belonged to the Greek Anastas effendi, who was renowned for his wealth. There they had confined most of the men. So, at night Topal would have his men beat the prisoners to death with big bludgeons and throw their bodies out in the woods.
This torture lasted for ten days. They started with the basement of Anastas effendi and when it grew empty with the killing of the first men, they dragged the others there from the Armenian church and the local prison. They never lived to see another day. It was then that we took to the mountains and stayed out there for almost three years, until the summer of 1923.
We, the people of Tazlu and Kelemiç left together and went to the same mountain. We secretly bought bullets from our Turkish neighbors and had enough to get by and fight the Turks.
We stayed on the mountain for two and a half years. We would cut trees, add some dirt, and make makeshift shacks to stay in. We would go down to Turkish villages and steal things to eat. We, too, burned Turkish villages. The Turks caught many of our people and killed them. We led a feral life. We ate greens that grew in the wild and gruel with flour, whenever we could get some.
It was from one of our villages of Erbaa, namely Erzenus, that the first guerrilla group was formed in 1919, with Kotza Anastas as its leader and captain. People from the villages of Niksar joined him as well. The atrocities we witnessed; from up above we could see entire villages flare up. When Topal Osman did so much harm to Erbaa and left, on his way back he passed by Hadjibey and Kizilderen, gathered all men at the church of the Kirkharman village and set them ablaze. He burned the villages, too. Whoever happened to be there was lost forever. Whoever had got on the mountains survived.
That is how Ferişdag perished, too. They even threw people in wells. You’ve never seen anything like that, and you have no way of knowing what our eyes have witnessed. Things you wouldn’t believe.
From Kelemiç those that chose to stay were taken to Niksar and confined in a church. There they were plagued with disease, and many died. From Niksar they got them down to Tokat and from there to Diyarbakir and Kurdistan. Some died from disease, famine and exhaustion, and others were killed by the Turks. Until the Exchange was made not even a third of people had stayed alive. We lived in the mountains and did not know what was happening. All we could see was war and fire.
On our third summer up on the mountains a Turkish major came to find us and said, “There’s an Exchange. Your Venizelos made it. You all leave for Greece. Our people come here from your country.”
We got down the mountains and went to our villages. We found nothing there. Everything was burned and ravaged. Living souls and inanimate objects had all gone. Only our churches still stood. We stayed a few days in the ruins, and the Turkish gendarmes sent word for us and we all left for Samsun. We went there directly and stayed for two months before we could find a ship and leave.
They got us on a Turkish boat, and we went to Istanbul. We didn’t stay there at all. We changed boats, we got on a Russian ship and came to Greece. They took us to Karabournou in Thessaloniki. We stayed in a church for ten days and from there they took us and brought us here to Vathylakkos.