Refugees of The Greek Civil War - Greek Civil War

Greek Civil War

After the invading Axis powers were defeated fighting broke out between the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the Greek Government which had returned from Exile. Many people chose to return their allegiances as to what they regarded as the rightful government of Greece. Soon the Greek Civil War had broken out between the two opposing sides. Many peasants, leftists, socialists, Ethnic Macedonians and communists joined the struggle on the side of the KKE and the DSE. Backing from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist People's Republic of Albania helped the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) to continue their struggle. The DSE recruited heavily amongst the Slavophone community of Macedonia. It has been estimated that by 1949, from 40 to 60 per cent of the rank and file of the DSE was composed of Slav Macedonians, or from 11,000 - 14,000 of the KKE's fighting force. Given their important role in the battle, the KKE changed its policy towards them. At the fifth Plenum of KKE on January 31, 1949, a resolution was passed declaring that after KKE's victory, the Slav Macedonians would find their "national restoration" within a united Greek state. Although they had made a critical contribution to the KKE war effort, their contribution was not enough to turn the tide.

By the spring of 1947 the communist forces controlled much of the Greek rural areas but had yet to achieve significant support in the cities. At the same time, many Greek prisons were full of ELAS Partisans, EAM members and other pro-communist citizens. Thousands of people had been executed by firing squads on claims that they had committed atrocities against the Greek state. After the defeat of DSE in Peloponnese a new wave of terror spread across areas controlled by the Government of Athens. The Provisional Government, with its headquarters on Mount Vitse, soon decided to evacuate all children from the ages of 2 to 14 from all areas controlled by the Provisional Government, most of these children were from Slav Macedonian families. By 1948 the areas controlled by the Provisional Government had been reduced to rural Macedonia and Epirus. Soon many injured partisans and elderly people along with the child refugees had been evacuated to People's Republic of Albania. After 1948 the Yugoslavian Government decided to close the Yugoslav-Greek border, this in turn led many pro-Tito forces in the National Liberation Front to flee to Yugoslavia. Despite this Slav Macedonians continued to fight in the ranks of DSE. By 1948, Slav Macedonians comprised over 30% of the DSE's fighting force according to some estimates, but these estimates have been disputed by the KKE. In the ensuing aftermath, the National Army began to consolidate its control in areas previously controlled by the Provisional Government. Many villages were destroyed in the fighting and the displaced villagers often fled the country through Albania and onto Yugoslavia. One case is the village of Pimenikon (Babčor) in the Kastoria region which was eliminated by US bombers in 1948, displacing hundreds of people. By this time DSE effectively controlled parts of Northern Greece, along with areas of Macedonia where Slav Macedonians represented a clear majority, along with a large tract of Epirus., By the beginning of 1949, increased American aid for the National Army, the Tito-Stalin split, recruiting problems for DSE as well as the major defeat in the islands and in Peloponnese, helped to destabilise the position of DSE.

Many people fled due the collapse of the DSE, it has also been claimed that many Macedonians of Slavic ethnicity fled to avoid possible persecution by the advancing National Army. The Exodus of Macedonians from Greece was the experience of the ethnic Macedonians who left Greece as a result of the Civil War, particularly in the Republic of Macedonia and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora. The KKE claims that the total number of political refugees was 55,881, an estimated 28,000 - 32,000 children were evacuated during the Greek Civil War. A 1951 document from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia states that the total number of Slav-Macedonians that left Greece during the Civil War was 28,595 whereas some ethnic Macedonian sources put the number of refugees at over 213,000.

Over the course of the war thousands of Communists were killed, imprisoned or had their land confiscated. The headquarters of the Democratic Army in Greece reported that from mid-1945 to May 20, 1947, in Western Macedonia alone, 13,259 were tortured, 3,215 were imprisoned and 268 were executed without trial. In the same period 1,891 had been burnt down and 1,553 had been looted and 13,553 people had been resettled by force. Of the many Slavomacedonians who were imprisoned many would often form their own groups within the prisons. It is claimed that the Greek Prison Camps were located on the islands of Ikaria and Makronisos, the Averof jail near Athens and the jails in Thessaloniki and Larisa.