Tribune Excerpts
The following article appeared in the August-September 2006 Edition of the Macedonian Tribune
Dimov was a man without a country
By Virginia Nizamoff Surso
Done Dimov was only six years old when he left Statitsa with 154 other Macedonian children, including five other members of the Dimov family who became Detsa Begaltsi.
“I remember my dedo Gitcho standing by our side with tears in his eyes pleading with us not to go.”
“In 1948 the Greek Civil War began to escalate and move into Macedonia. The Communist party of Greece decided to evacuate all the children between the ages of three and 15 out of battle zones. It was to have been a temporary move until hostilities ended and we could return home to our families. The idea was to save the children from harm, as well as to free their parents, particularly their mothers, so they could help with the war effort,” Done explains.
His memories of those early days are sketchy, but he knows they walked to Oschima and from there to Ljubojno on the east side of Lake Prespa in Yugoslavia’s Socialist Republic of Macedonia. From there, they traveled to Bitola where a train, formerly used to transport livestock took them to Romania. The cars were laden with straw and the children slept most of the next two days.
Once in Romania, the Red Cross divided the boys from the girls, made them strip, cut their hair very short and burned their clothes because all were lice infested.
“We were very happy to receive new clothes and shoes and not hand-me-downs. Being the youngest in my family, I was particularly happy,” he recalls.
Later he lived in Poland and for the first time met Greek children who also were evacuated for the same reason – to avoid the Greek Civil War.
“Unfortunately, even though we all came from Greece, we spoke different languages and were unable to communicate with each other,” he says.
While in Poland, the children attended school and learned four languages – Macedonian, Greek, Polish and Russian. They also spent summer holidays in the mountains and at the seaside. One holiday, they were taken to Krakow “a very impressive city with old architecture, museums and other things.” It was here that he visited the museum of Nicolaus Coperenicus, who discovered that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun.
 | More vividly, he recounts the reunion with his mother. It was December of 1955, and the Red Cross initiated a project to re-unite families. He was transported to Skopie with new clothes, a suitcase, photos of his family and a book about Stalin. “People were everywhere. Parents looked at every face for a glimpse of recognition of their children. Mostly, the children were timid with heads and eyes cast down. We didn’t know what to expect. “Finally, a stranger came to me and said, ‘I’m your mother.’ I shied away. “Soon after, we left for Bitola where my mother was living in one room. It had a stove, a table, two chairs and no running water. We had to go to the park for water and use public toilets. I wanted to go back home to Poland.” “After I was enrolled in school, I took my book with Stalin’s picture to school. Four days later the police came and took the book.” [Editor’s note: Josip Broz Tito who ruled communist Yugoslavia split with Joseph Stalin who had ruled most of the rest of the communist world until the time of his death in 1953.] |
In 1948 at Ladek Zdroj, Poland, the children are (front, from left) Sote and Done Dimov and Itso Guzvarov; (second row, from left) Mite Kalajanov, Mite Guzvarov, Donka Dimova and Tanka Korenkova; (third row, from left) Tsveta Dimova, GTsila Korenkova, Sote Korenkov, Nase Bilkov and Tina Kizova. A teacher stands behind. |
