Tribune Excerpts
The following article appeared in the July 2006 Edition of the Macedonian Tribune
From Detsa Begaltsi to Hungarian Freedom Fighter to loyal US citizen
By Virginia Surso
It was the spring of 1948 when parents gathered the 60 – 80 children from the village of Vishani, Kostursko, Aegean Macedonia, and told them that they would be leaving home for a few months. The parents kissed their children goodnight, put them to sleep in the school and left to fight with the partisans in the Greek Civil War.
When the children awoke the next morning, they were alone with six maiki, women who watched over them for the next several years. They also kept in touch with the parents sending them notes and pictures about their children.
Mike Panchev of Fort Wayne was one of these children. At 12, he was one of the older boys and has a clear recollection of those times. He was accompanied by his 14-year-old brother Sotir (Sam), who lives in Adelaide Australia. Mike was born in 1936.
Above: In this group photo of the Detsa Begaltsi who left Vishani in 1948, Mike
Panchev is third from right in the back row.
“Our parents chose to send us away for our safety because they believed heavy fighting was coming to our area.
“We walked for a few days until a Phantom 105 bombed us. From the air, we must have looked like guerilla fighters. It was an American airplane flown by Greek pilots. From then on, we rested by day and walked by night.
“It was so dark at night, that when we reached Prespa Lake, the first group walked right into the water, and this scared them,” Mike remembers.
Once across the border in Yugoslavia’s Socialist Republic of Macedonia, they begged for food. Before that, they were sustained by what bread they had stuffed in their pockets. Soon they reached Bitola, where trains were waiting to take them to places unknown. Their final destination was by indiscriminate grouping. So many children were assigned to each communist bloc country.
Right: Mike and his brother Sotir are in the middle of the second row. |
 |
