Joined: 25 May 2006 23:57
Posts: 3892
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Originally posted by Alex G. (aka RMK), Translation by Rogi. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmNlukBOEDg--------------------------------------------------------- Here you go. Anyone, please feel free to correct me if anything below is wrong: First Person...
“If they told me even one toponym in Greek, I wouldn’t know it...even the army referred to them to them that way, in Macedonian, over their radio’s... for example ‘Crveni Brest(?)’, ‘Cheshma’ and so on, the same as how we know them”
“I hear from many people that they are being forgotten”.
“They are being forgotten... a lot... It disturbing that whilst the Vlach has his own dialect, the Pontian too, we have neighbours here Pontians, Gypsies, and from every race, they have rights and we have none. I don’t want to lose my dialect. I speak Macedonian, I know my mother tongue. I never spoke Greek with my mother, I don’t... never... my mother didn’t even know Greek, nor did my grandmother, neither of my grandmothers did!
“If I ask you how you feel, Greek or Macedonian, I know what you will answer...”
First I am a Macedonian, then I am a Greek.
Second Person (Pando)...
“I will tell you basic things, about my daughter. I wanted to christen her and I told the Priest the name ‘Donka’. That’s what I asked of from the Godfather, and the priest told me that I cannot christen her as ‘Donka’. He said ‘You call her as you like, I will christen her as Domna’. I wanted to christen my son as ‘Stojan’ and he told me ‘No, it can’t be – I will christen him as Yannis, and you can call him as you like’. Let me make sure we understand each other, we are Christians, we are Greek citizens, but we do not have Rights. What are Rights? Rights do not mean that I live well, it’s not about me eating well...”
“So what rights are we talking about?”
“So that I can christen my children as I like, why would you take that away from me? (Person off screen: “so that I can learn/study in my own language") So that I can learn my own language, at least at Primary school. Is that bad? For the Roma (gypsy) to know the Romani language, the Turk to know Turkish, the Vlach to know the Vlach-language”
“You want to be able to learn the language as school?”
“Yes, of course! People did not leave as economic refugees to make money! They left to save their lives!”
Next Person...
“When I was born, my village was called “D’mbeni”, with the old name, D’mbeni. Then when I grew up, the re-christened it to Dendrohori,
“In which prefecture was your village located?”
“In the Kostur (Kastoria) prefecture”
“Did you participate in the National Liberation Front - NOF (Narodno Osloboditelen Front)?”
“In 1940 I joined the KNE (Organisation for Communist Youth). From 1943 I joined the Communist Party of Greece and later into the Macedonian organisation SNOF – Slavomacedonian Liberation Front. In 1943 I went out to the mountains and fought together with the Communist Party of Greece, we had to organise all the villages against the fascism. The occupiers were the Germans, the Bulgarians and I don’t know who wasn’t an occupier here! We had to defeat them so that we can free ourselves so that we as Macedonians, living in Greece, together with the Greeks, together with the Greek democratists, could have our rights, to have our schools, our religion, to have...how can I tell you... out songs and so on. That was everything, we didn’t want to take part of Greece or anything like that”
“If I ask you now, what kind of national identity do you have? Macedonian or Greek?”
“I have a Macedonian identity, I am a Macedonian woman. So many years I fought...”
“But you fought or Greece!”
“Together with the Greeks, for Greece...”
“You were born in a village in Greece...”
“Yes...”
“Did your parents speak Greek?”
“No! They didn’t speak Greek. They never learnt the Greek language”
“Did they speak slavomacedonian?”
“At home and everywhere they spoke the Slavic language, the Macedonian language and that’s how I learnt, and the police would come to the windows of our house to hear how we would speak and if they heard you, they would come inside and write you a fine for 500 drachma”
“What do you aim to achieve with your organisations?”
“To be able to go to my village. To go to the graves, which were unfortunately destroyed. They don’t exist today, because the headstones were written in the Macedonian language. On the crosses it wrote... and they destroyed them all”
“That which you are telling me about wanting only to visit your village and the graves, contradicts the claim for land-titles. The documents which you are showing me here, show that you are claiming land-titles.”
“Ok, the land-title questions are separate.”
“They are not separate”
“They are separate. I can seek... that is separate... it’s not just the land-titles... I don’t even want the land-title, for that others are organising”.
“So then, your aim is first to have the right to visit and then to claim the titles to land?”
“It’s not just that. To be able to go freely, to be able to go even to Athens, to get to know... my cousin and uncle have passed away... my nieces and nephews, who I do not know. In Kostur (Kastoria) the same. In Lerin (Florina) we went 2-3 times, also in Voden (Edessa)... but for us we don’t care only for the land-titles. We want the Greek Government to recognise us, that we are a different people... how can I tell you... we are not Greeks by birth/ethnicity. We are Macedonians by birth/ethnicity, we have a Macedonian blood, not Greek blood”
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