Part 10 – Trpo and Trijada’s Story

October 2005

by Risto Stefov
rstefov@hotmail.com

Trpo’s Story

Trpo, son of Vane and Petra, was born in Oshchima in October 1933. As a child Trpo spent most of his time working on the farm and helping out with family chores. Trpo was able to complete grade four before events forced schools to close. Trpos’s father was originally from Rula but after marrying Petra he moved to Oshchima to live with his wife’s family.

When asked what he remembers from Oshchima, Trpo smiled and said “Many things.” He remembers when he was eight years old he was hired by the village Oshchima to herd sheep, he remembers working in the fields and herding cows. He also remembers some unpleasant experiences. “When I was five years old, I remember one day walking with my dedo (grandfather) on his way to plough a field when we decided to stop off at the Moisiov store so he could buy me some candy. I remember he had poor eyesight and did not see a policemen coming towards us as he was lighting a homemade cigarette. Smoking home grown tobacco at the time was illegal. Dedo, I said, a policeman is coming, put out your cigarette. Dedo quickly tossed his cigarette and pretended nothing happened. Unfortunately the policemen saw him and as he passed by us he gave dedo a warning. We were lucky this time, dedo said.”

When asked what else he remembers from Oshchima, Trpo had a little story that went something like this: “I was six years old when my mother and I went to the village Vrbnik to visit the bachilo (dairy) where my father worked. When we arrived I saw three wooden flutes that belonged to the shepherds, all covered in butter. They were left there to soak and keep from drying and cracking. My eye caught the flutes and I could not get them out of my mind. I wanted one but didn’t know how to go about getting it. Finally, just before leaving, I got enough nerve and pinched one. I stuck it in my pants and covered it with my shirt. It was very long and extended from the top of my knee to the bottom of my neck. I was not seen and to this day I am still amazed as to how I did it. After we left the dairy to head for home and were a few kilometers away, I pulled the flute out and began to play it. My mother must have been distracted because she said nothing until I got her attention and showed her my prize. When she looked at me she could not believe her eyes. I was covered in butter from neck to toe. I was not allowed to keep the flute. It was returned to its proper owner on our next visit to the dairy. My punishment was light.”

Trpo had a nickname and to his peers in Oshchima he was known as “Trpo boumbata” (Trpo the bomb). The story goes something like this: “My father and I were ploughing one of our fields at Stara (old) Oshchima. I was in the nearby brook securing the mule and donkey while my father was busy ploughing the field when Pando arrived with a small axe in his hand.
Before I continue with my story, I have to tell you that some time ago an English bomber had crashed in the area with its bombs still onboard and left unexploded bombs all over the place. One had fallen in our field.

Looking a bit rough and distraught, Pando came up to the bomb in our field, raised his axe and was about to strike it. He then called out to my father: ‘give me one of the sacks of grain or we will all be dead’. After some silence, he continued: ‘I am poor and have nothing to live for, my family is hungry and will die of starvation unless I can provide for them. If you don’t give me the sack of grain, I swear I will blow us all up.’ My father did not know what do. Pando was crazy enough to kill us all. My father was more concerned for me than for himself so he tried quietly to warn me, ‘Trpo run the bomb will explode, Trpo the bomb, Trpo the bomb.’ Unbeknownst to my father and me the whole incident was staged; a joke. Although we did not find it funny at the time, it was pretty funny. Pando not only killed himself laughing but spread the joke to the entire village. My friends also found humour in my father’s desperation and we became the butt of their jokes. After some time I resigned myself to the fact that my friends would always call me Trpo the bomb and graciously accepted my nickname.”

When I asked him to tell me more of his life’s story, Trpo became serious and began to tell me experiences that were not at all funny.

In 1946 or 1947 Trpo’s father traveled from village to village to make a living, purchasing and selling goods. One day as he was heading for home he was stopped by the Greek military police. On this particular trip Vane was coming home from the village L’ak and was accompanied by a little girl, a family member. The little girl was too young to walk so he had her riding the mule.
Trpo, anxious to meet his father, waited at home and was surprised by the arrival of the mule with the little girl but no father. He waited but still his father did not come. He then dashed about looking for him in the usual places he frequented but still no father, he was nowhere to be found.
Trpo came home again and tried hard to get information from the girl but she was much too young and unable to tell him what had happened, where his father was or what village they were coming back from. By then Trpo was desperate and called on his neighbours. In no time the entire village became involved frantically searching for him.

Vane was finally found in a ravine, beaten unconscious and tossed under a thorn bush. Vane spent six weeks in bed recovering from his ordeal. His flesh had turned black and in places had peeled off the bone.

The Greeks suspected Vane of being a courier for the Partisans, carrying secret messages from village to village. Vane, however, was never a courier and had nothing to do with the Partisans. The police did not believe him and were not satisfied with his answers so they tortured him until he was dead, at least they thought he was dead.

The Greeks used a barbaric method of torture. They tied his feet tight between two rifles, raised him upside down and beat his feet, legs and body with a thin heavy stick. Vane knew nothing and could reveal nothing but his innocence did not save him from this harsh punishment.

After about twelve hours of enduring torture, Vane passed out for the last time and could not be revived so he was tossed in the bushes and left for dead.

After six weeks of recovery in bed, Vane finally felt well enough to take a walk. His first visit was to the Svety Nikola church to light a candle and pray to God for saving his life. Vane was no longer the same man, the incident had crushed his spirit and also left him physically disabled with a permanent limp. As if this wasn’t enough, on his way back from church Vane heard Georgi calling out for all men between the ages of fifteen and sixty five to immediately report to the village square.
This was indeed a black day for Vane and for the village Oshchima. On this day fifteen men, including Vane, were detained and sent to prison in the Greek concentration camps.

About a year later because of his bad legs Vane, along with other disabled prisoners, was given amnesty and released from prison.

When Vane returned to Oshchima he found his home empty. His wife and older daughter Stoja had been recruited by the Partisans. His son Trpo had left for Bulkes, his daughter Marijana had left for Poland with the refugee children and his youngest son Stavre (Talje) had left for Bela Tsrkva with the refugee children.

Left all alone Vane enlisted with the Partisans (D.A.G.) and stayed with them to the end of the Greek Civil War after which he fled to Yugoslavia.

Trpo recalls it was March 25th, 1948 when the children left Oshchima for the long trek out of the country. The program “Save the Children” was sponsored by the Partisan movement and called for the evacuation of all children under fourteen years of age from all regions that were under attack from the Royalist Greeks.

Trpo was fifteen at the time and did not qualify for the evacuation and was left behind. After the children left, Oshchima became silent and devoid of life and laughter. Then the planes came and bombs exploded everywhere. No one knew where the next bomb would land and if they would survive it. Trpo was frightened and wanted out.

His chance came when a group of refugee children from Turie was spotted making its way to Prespa. When the Turie group came by Oshchima, Trpo and some others (Kole, Ristana, Gotche and Sotir) who also wanted to leave snuck in and followed along.
The children arrived in Shtrkovo before nightfall and spent the night there. Before dawn they were escorted to the mountains where they spent the day. The children from Oshchima were separated from the Turie group and assigned to Tinka, a mother from Lagen.

The group crossed the border during the dark of night and entered the present day Republic of Macedonia at the Markova Noga crossing. There the group was divided and loaded into trucks for Bitola. The trucks were covered with tarps. When they arrived in Bitrola they were offloaded and placed in what looked like comfortable, well-lit hotel rooms and each child was given a blanket. The next morning when they woke up and saw the rail tracks and their rooms with wheels, they realized they were on a train which was bound for Skopje. Inside the train they were greeted by women in uniforms wearing the insignia AFZ, (Anti-fascist women’s Alliance). When they arrived in Skopje they were served bread rolls and marmalade. Trpo and many of the other children had never tasted marmalade before. They kept going back for more until they were full; saving anything uneaten for later.
From there, after two days of travel, their first destination was Belgrade where boys and girls were bathed together, given clothing and interviewed for personal information. From there their journey took them to Plandishcha, Voivodina where Trpo spent the next three months. Life was difficult Trpo recalls, they missed their families and there was very little food to eat, especially bread. Macedonian children were used to eating a lot of bread at home, which was now absent from their diet.

Tired, bored and missing their families, all the children could do was think of home. Then one day when they got enough nerve they opened the camp’s massive wooden doors and bolted out. Many escaped into the fields hoping to find their way home but were soon rounded up and returned to the camp.

After spending three months in Plandishcha, most of the children were transferred to Bela Tsrkva, a military camp that was run military style. Trpo spent the next seven months there before he was enlisted. A committee from Bulkes came to the camp looking for boys to enlist. Anyone with a large physical frame who was physically fit was separated and transferred to the military camps in Bulkes. Trpo recalls Bulkes was like a state within a state with its own radio station, transmitting in both Greek and Macedonian, news services, cultural houses, factories and perhaps even had its own currency?

Eighty-eight boys left Bela Tsrkva and remained together in Bulkes where they were given jobs to work in the fields for six hours a day and military training for another two hours. One by one the boys were sent into action and after a few weeks only eight remained. Of the eighty sent into action most were killed and some returned to the camp wounded. Trpo contracted an ear infection and was temporarily unfit for military duty, which probably saved his life. After being admitted to a local hospital he sought permission from the Serbian police and left Bulkes for Krushevle. He told the police he had a brother there and wanted to see him. When he was asked what his brother’s name was, Trpo told them Giro. Giro was the only person Trpo knew who lived in Krushevle.
“How come your brother has a different last name than you?” he was asked. Trpo did not know what to say but seeing that he was sick and eager to leave, the policemen granted his request. Trpo spent two months in Krushevle and two more in Panchevo where he took a short educational course in “water works”. By then he found out that his father, mother, brother and sister had left Oshchima in the fall of 1949 and were now living in the town of Trakanie.

Trpo left Panchevo in the spring of 1950 and went to Trakanie where he found his family living in poverty. His mother and sister, out of necessity, were forced to beg for food at the parishes of the local churches. Fortunately this did not last long and soon afterwards the family went to Kochani where they spent the next three months before moving to Skopje. They entered Kochani as political refugees and were not allowed to leave the area without permission. Trpo recalls that his identification card had a red line in the center, indicating limited mobility. His father, however, wanted to work and convinced the authorities to allow him to go to Negotino Vardar in Dubrovo and seek employment. Soon after Vane’s departure, the rest of the family left and took up residence in Skopje. There, Trpo trained as a painter and got his first job painting houses. Then in 1956 he changed jobs and went to work in a factory painting cars. He spent the rest of his career there until he retired in 1990. In 1956 Trpo met Trijada and fell in love. A year later they were engaged and a year after that they married. The wedding took place in August 1958.

Trijada’s Story

Trijada, daughter of Lazo and Kostadinka from the village Banitsa, Lerin Region, immigrated to Skopje in April 1955 to be with her father. Trijada was born in October 1940 and completed grade six in the local public school before she began work on the family farm and trained to become a seamstress. With the outbreak of the Greek Civil War, Trijada’s father was drafted by the Partisans and remained a soldier until the conflict ended. Like many others, to save his life, Lazo left his homeland as a refugee and ended up in Skopje. He made many attempts to return home with no success. The evidence against him was overwhelming. At one point the Greek authorities circulated a letter with Partisan logos containing Lazo’s signature. Failing to return home, Lazo attempted to reunite his family in Skopje and start a new life there. The Greek government agreed to release his family and issue passports provided the family signed a declaration that once they were gone they would never return.

To this day Trijada has not been allowed to go back, not even for a visit.

As a young lady Trijada found life in the village harsh and full of fears. During the Greek Civil War while her father was with the Partisans, the Greek secret police used many tricks to punish those helping the Partisans. Trijada recalls strange men pretending to be Partisans coming to her house and asking for bread for her father. But Trijada’s grandmother was much too clever for them and always sent them away, telling them that she had none to spare. Families who fell for these tricks found themselves trapped in the clutches of the Greek police. The very next day they would find themselves accused of aiding the Partisans with the evidence presented before them for all to see. Many were severely tortured as a result of this trickery.

Trijada recalls, night after night, neighborhood boys being rounded up and escorted by the police to a military camp lockup. They spent the nights locked up like animals to prevent them from leaving the village and joining the Partisans.

Once she joined her father in Skopie, Trijada’s fears were left behind. She used her skills as a seamstress to find a job in a textile factory making socks, blankets, etc. Trijada worked there for about four years until the birth of her first son Doncho. Doncho was born in February 1959. Four years later, in January 1963, Trijada gave birth to her second son, Vasil. Unfortunately Vasil was born ill and spent his entire life in bed, cared for by Trijada. After many attempts to correct the problem, including brain surgery, Vasil could not be cured and died at age eighteen.
Trpo and Trijada tried hard to save their son including taking him to former Czechoslovakia and spending time from 1969 to 1972 pursuing various medical treatments and surgeries.

While his parents were seeking treatment for his brother, Doncho stayed in Skopje and pursued his studies, which eventually led him to a mechanical engineering degree.

After seven years and two jobs in Skopje, Doncho decided to pursue his career abroad. He applied and was accepted as a landed immigrant in Canada. Trpo and Trijada felt that there was nothing more for them to do in Skopje so when Doncho asked them to join him, they accepted and arrived in Toronto in 1994.