I had the chance to interview my grandmother, Katina Chiampas, about one of the many struggles during her childhood.  She was born in 1936 in a small town called Gargaliani Messinia, Greece.  She was the oldest child out of four kids and had a brother who sadly passed away years ago, and two twin sisters. She was only three and a half years old when her town was invaded by their own countrymen during their civil war in 1939.  Since she was so young, she didn’t really understand what was going on, yet she remembers so clearly what went down those 24 hours that they were under attack.

Where did you grow up, and how big was the town?

I grew up in Gargaliani, Messinia, Greece.

And how big was the town?

It was about 10,000 people.  They call it Cosmopolis, small city.  Not a village, but a smaller city.

Were you born in your house? Or in a hospital?

I was probably born in the house with the help of midwives.  The women were professionals and took care of mothers to be, so they took care of my mother before I was born for all 9 months. When they came to the house they prepared the room, and they brought hot water because we didn’t have the medicine we have today and they had all the things that they needed.  It was a good birth and everything was okay.  If they needed a doctor in any case, they would have one in the city to call for help.  But those days as they say because I can’t remember in my days who died giving birth, especially in the small villages.

How many siblings do/did you have?

There were three girls and one boy and I was the oldest one, and my brother, who had 13-14 months difference from me.  And then my father went to the second world war, and when he came back, my mother had two girls.  They were twins.  So it was the four of us.

And who was invading your town?

Well, unfortunately they were Greeks.  It was after the…(short pause) my father went to war in 1940, October 28th and the Italians came and they asked Greece to give up and let them go through Greece, but the Prime Minister at that time said “No, we are not going to allow you to come to our country.”  So the next day, the war started in Greece.  After that war, they started the Civil War between Greeks from the left and the right wing; the communists and the other side.  So these people, in my town it was more to the right side, not the communists, but the communists wanted to take over the city and they start fighting us.  I was only four years old.  I remember many things I remember the whole thing because after that they were talking about it for many, many years and I could never forget it. So they invade our country.  It was a war for 24 hours, and the communist came in and they killed a lot of people, they actually killed 1,000 people from my town.  Greeks killed Greeks.  Most of them were killed by knives because they wanted to save the bullets for another war.  So it was a devastation.

Did you know they were coming?

Yeah.  When they came we had no more amunitions to fight the war of my town.  They broke in and they were coming and they told us to get out from the houses and to go to the church that was the church of my town, and other people went to the high school, or the grammar school. They divided the people close to their houses so my family went to the church which was maybe a couple kilometers from my house...or one and a half or something like that and we all went there and they put us in the area of the church and we stayed there overnight and they were picking up people and were killing them right outside the church.  The next day, they let us go back home but when we went home, our house was luted.  They stole everything and anything from the house.  Clothes, jewelry, whatever my mother and grandmother had because we lived with my grandmother and my father with his brother.  We all lived together and there were 9 of us.  We didn’t know where my father was because he wasn’t there.  He left because they would be killed and they went to another town. My mother thought he was dead but we didn’t really understand it, you know, my sisters were only two years old, they were babies.  So that was the devastation for the town.  They also burned down houses and they did a lot of atrocities there.

Did anyone fight back?

They couldn’t fight back because everybody was too scared.  They were scared for their lives. 

Was anybody in your family killed or injured when they invaded?

Not immediate  family but my fathers two first cousins were killed and my grandmothers first cousins tried to get out with a boat to go to another city but there were too many people on the boat so it drowned with everyone on it.  But I saw one my my neighbors when they took us to the church and across the street from our house there was a young man and he was with his family.  He didn’t have any kids and they asked him if he was participating in the war and he was so innocent and he said “they just drafted me but I didn’t want to go so they took me by force.”  and then they killed him right there in front of his mother and his whole family with a knife so I never forget that scene.

And you said there were 1,000 people that were killed?

Yeah, they were selecting the doctors, lawyers, the mayor, who was my grandma’s first cousin and they told him they wanted to interview him and he was in his pajamas and his robe ready to go to sleep and he said “well let me go dress up really quick” and they said “no you don’t have to go far away, we are going to come back home just come the way you are.”  It took them two hours with him to walk through the mountains and when they stopped, they killed him.

What was going through your head the whole time?  Did you think you were going to live?

To tell you the truth, I had no knowledge and I didn’t understand what was going on because I was only four years old, not even four.  But the next day from the church, we were able to go home and me and my brother were counting all the people on the streets, I remember that but still, we couldn’t understand the whole thing because we were kids.

Was there at any point a gun pointed at you or to any of your family members?

No, not to us personally.  But as I said I saw that young man get killed and another lady who was already injured, they had a knife in her nose but we didn’t see it when it happened, but they took that lady and showed us going by all the people in the middle of everyone saying that if we don’t listen to them, the same thing will happen to us and then they took her out and killed her.  But now after when I grew up, they were talking about the war for years and years and I thought how difficult it was for my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, how difficult it was for them for us to be killed but we were too young to understand.

So what happened after they left?

Well, we were under their orders for a couple of months, but as I said the English people were all invading in France and then the peace came.  The Germans lost and little by little, the communists and the gorillas went up to the mountains to try to work with the Russians but they couldn’t win anymore so that died down.  But the government put a lot of the communist in special places and they kept them there.  They call it Exorea.  They put them in the cities together to control them  and eventually some died and others got out after some years.

Is there anything today in remembrance of that day?

Yeah, in my town in the cemetery by the main entrance, on the left side there is a big tomb with all the names in one spot as I said before they were killing people all together maybe half an hour away from my town.  So all the names are there on that tomb and on the other side, there was another group of names of those who were killed. 

Okay, last question.  If you could go back 2 days before they invaded and you knew they were coming, what would you have done differently? Would you tell your town that they were going to be under attack?

To tell you the truth, I could not answer that for myself because I was too young, I was a little girl only three and a half years old not even four, but a week before the war, my mother had two cousins who both were educated and they were with the communist.  They wrote a letter and they sent it to us.  My mother was from another village, not from my town but she got married and then came to Gargalianoi.  So they sent a letter because my mother had two other sisters and the letter was saying to “take your families and come to the village because the next week was going to be a big massacre in your town and everybody is going to be killed” they said but they did not believe them.  My mother and her sisters got together and were talking about it and they agreed that they did not think anything would happen and I remember most of the things that happen today, like when I hear a gun fire, my mind goes there to that time.

So it effected you in that way?

Yes it affected me that way and years back there was a movie in America called Eleni. It’s about a guy who plays as as Bill Gates that wrote a book about his mother who was from Greece and the Communists killed her so he wrote the book about his mother and I went to see that movie here in Chicago.  When they show the scenes of how they were fighting and the gun sounds, I couldn’t stand it and I had to leave the movie theater because all the memories I had came back to me and it stays with you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.  And I hope nobody has to experience this again.

Today, she has been married for about 54 years and has three kids.  When she was older, she immigrated to America by herself to have a better life for her and for her kids to get an education.  That’s actually how she met my grandfather.  She has five grandchildren (including me) and she couldn’t be happier.