ANDROS ODYSSEY: LIBERATION

Transport Ship Ioannis (Mersina, Turkey, July 7-14, 1924) Haji Prodromos knew that he had lost all his business. He was wealthy enough though to board a private ship and go anywhere he wanted. Instead of doing that, he chose to stay behind and guide us to our destination. He took all members of our committee from office to office, until we were all registered in the list of a Greek ship, named IOANNIS. As we were trying to pass through the market, we became victims of a barbarous trap. Some Turkish hoodlums, full of hate against leading Greeks like Haji Prodromos, tripped him with a curved cane and threw him to the ground. They tore the old man’s straw-hat and spat on him. He looked at us with a stern eye: “Don’t talk back at them and do not fight back!” he yelled at us. “I have been doing this for several days now and if I can stand it, you can too.” As we tried to help him up, they started throwing tomatoes and eggplants at our faces. We followed his instructions and did not talk or fight back. As a follow-up to the vegetable barrage, we received a hailstorm of stones. We ran away with minor wounds on many of our group, wondering why this venerable old man took all this punishment for helping us, risking his own life. When we were told that it was time to board, we moved our families and our luggage to the pier we realized that our life in Turkey was at an end. My guts went into a tight knot, as I felt that I would probably never see again the place that I grew up and spent my childhood. I felt that this was the worst day of my life. We waited, as each family was counted and boarded onto a small boat. We thanked Haji Prodromos when he left us on the pier, as he and his aids walked back to start working on the next group. Our impression of him as a rich man evaporated, replaced by the satisfaction of meeting a selfless, hard-working human being. Before boarding, I bought a sack of bread for the trip. I was mistaken to do so. We threw it away in two days, because it became mildewed. The ship charged us 25 grossia per person. Our family boarded the boat and took us to the ship, anchored at a distance. As we approached the boat, we saw the Greek flag. There was no other time in my life that can exceed the exhilaration that I had at that moment. Twenty-one years later, after being liberated from the occupational forces of World War II, I would experience something equally exhilarating, but all of a sudden that day, the worst day of my life turned out to be also the best day in my life. As we came along the ship, we noticed that the sea was red from all the tossed fezzes by the refugees. The fez represented Turkey and Turkish oppression. Several Turks on boats were trying to fish them out, to resell them. We tossed our fezzes into the sea and sang the Greek national anthem, together with songs from Paul Melas, all talking about our freedom. A priest was praying unashamedly with tears in his eyes in front of the flag, as if it was his idol. People were crying from joy. Toddlers and babies that could not understand what was going on also started crying when they saw their mothers and fathers sobbing in joyful tears; the scene was a pandemonium, as every one realized that we were now on Greek territory. The captain and crew of IOANNIS were watching the whole explosion of emotion surprised and not knowing what to do with us. We started singing songs of Nikolaos Plastiras and Eleftherios Venizelos. “Venizele, Venizele mas patera tis patridos------- Venizele, Venizele father of our country Venizele, Venizele mas, patera tis filis ------------ Venizele, Venizele father of our nation Zito, zito lefteria, Zito ke Lefteris tis Cretis----Long live freedom, long live the liberator of Crete Cretis to pedi, Venizelaros, kato Germanos-----a child of Crete, oust the German-loving King. Everyone acted in a crazy manner; a manner that cannot be explained. It is very difficult to describe the feeling of “freedom,” to someone who takes it for granted, because they have had it all their lives. We, having experienced enslavement, no matter how much we profited by it, felt as if we were reborn. In spite of our situation, leaving all our lives, wealth and history behind and heading to a place with unknown future and difficulties, we celebrated our freedom with indescribable emotion. It was then that I vowed myself not to ever take my freedom for granted. It cannot be exchanged for anything in this life, including life itself. We spent the night on the boat, anchored in front of Mersina. The next day, IOANNIS raised anchor and sailed away from the coast. The captain placed a request for help from Greek speaking people. I raised my hand, since we were taught Greek at our elementary school. The crew dressed us in khaki clothes, to identify us as a sort of deputies to restore order. We were placed in charge of keeping order; we provided breakfast of toast, sardines and lemons, lunch and diner. The captain asked me to become a sailor, but I refused. I told him that I was not too fond of the sea, especially since I could not swim. He seemed to like me because I knew relatively good Greek and I was good in my geography. We had quite a few Greeks who could not speak a word of Greek, other than their names. Those men and women from Andavale (Aktas) and Kiolcuk were especially illiterate; they were rough peasants with no education at all. They never traveled anywhere and had a local Turkish dialect that even the rest of us had tough time understanding. On the boat, I met Kathryn, the niece to John Aslanoglou, who was a widow and had small children. She was married to Artemios, one of the unfortunate Greeks who was murdered in the Arabian Peninsula, drafted by the Turkish Army and used as an unarmed combatant. I took her and her children under my protection, helping them by bringing them their rations of food. The trip was especially interesting for me, who had never seen the sea before. I was fascinated with the dolphins that followed the ship. When we reached Rhodes, some Greeks from the town brought us a boatload of oranges, lemons and tangerines. They distributed them to us free of charge. We stayed there only for a few hours before departure.