y

IN GREECE
Norman DODDS, M.P.
An eye~witness report by Stanley TIFFANY, I / .
Leslie SOLLEY, M.P.
 !J I ‘

READ ALSO

GREECE:
THE FACTS
by L. J. SOLLEY, M.P.
Published by
The League for Democracy in Greece
PRICE 4d.

IIOL. ia >
PuhUehed by Progrew Publishing Co. Ltd.. 1Doughty Siroot. W.C.l.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
C h a p t e r 1 . — I N T R O D U C T O R Y.
Sec. I. The Delegation .. 3

II. Diary of the Delegation 5

S&-\piER2.—THETERROR.
Sec. I. First Incident 9

n. The Hadjicosta Prison, Athens 10

III. The Women’s Prison, Salonika 14

IV. ABoy Beaten Up 16

V. M a y D a y O u t r a g e 17

VI. Visit to Larissa 18

Vn. The Situation in Patras 21

VIII. Salonika Enquiry 21

IX. Visit to Volos 24

X. Visit to Sohos 24
XL The Closing of aClinic 32
XII. Testimony of Liberals 33

Chapter 3.—MAY DAY AND THE TRADE UNIONS.

Sec. I. Our May Day Experiences 35

II. The Position of Trade Unionism 37

Chapter 4.—COLLABORATORS WITH THE ENEMY.

Sec. I. Who are the Collaborators? .. 41

II. The Black Record of the Gendarmerie 45

III. Justice in Greece 49

Chapter 5.—THE ELECTION AND THE PLEBISCITE.

Sec. I. Reports of the Election 52
II. Views on the Plebiscite 55

Chapter 6.—THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Sec. I. The Last Vestiges of Democracy 57

II. The Responsibility of Britain 59

III. Conclusion 61
1
METAXAS*

>

( (

You may now change your butcher ’

{With acknowledgments to the^ News Chronicle }
 Tragedy in Greece
CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTORY
SECTION I.—THE DELEGATION
|*TheBntishLeagueforDemocracyinGreecehadforsome
n^me been corresponding with the Pan-Hellenic Union of
DemocraticAssociationsinAthensaboutmethodsoffurthering
tne common aims of the two bodies.
In April the League received an invitation from General
Otooneos President of the Union of Democratic Associations and
aformer Premier and former Commander-in-Chief of the Greek
Army, for asmall delegation of British M.P.’s to visit Greece
asguestsofhisorganisation.TheLeaguegladlyaccepted,and
members of the Executive Committee—Mr. N. N. Dodds
(Member for Thurrock)
andMr.S.T^any(MemberforPeterborough)—werenominated
to go, together with Mrs. Diana Pym, the secretary of the
League, who acted as secretary to the Delegation.
Beforeourdepartureweknewofthewidesupportforthe
UnionofDemocraticAssociationsandtheirbroadcomposition
but our personal contact with them in various parts of Greece
raisedthemStJfurtherinourestimation.Representativesofthe
Ri^t both British and Greek—assured us that they w e r e

Commumst” (a term we soon learned to recognise as

^^ monarchist). We found, however,
that they were not apolitical party, but ameeting ground for
all progressive movements and individuals, with middle class
andprofessionalelementspredominating,although EAM and
Communistswerefreelyadmitted.Anideaofthecomposition
ot the Union may be gathered from the elections to the
ExecuUve Committee for the Athens-Piraus Area, which
comprises60Associations.OnlyoneCommunistwasamong
Mr. Petmetzas. aformer Minister
wthe Sofouhs Liberal and Centre Government, and Mr
DemitnosGonatas,formerHighCourtJudgeandbrotherofthe
present Minister of Communications. Twenty-five former
VenizelistLiberalDeputiesaremembersoftheAssociations,and
mrge numbers of non-party democrats, such as Colonel
1simikalis, whom we met on our first night in Greece.
OnSaturday,April28,anofficialreceptionbytheUnion w a s

3
given in our honour in Athens. Among those present, all of
whom are associated with the Union, were: /. Sofianopoulos,
ex-Foreign Minister; Petmezas. ex-Under Secretary of the Press;
Peltekis, ex-Minister of the Mercantile Marine; the Bishops of
Kozani and Ilias; Generals Othoneos, Grigoriadis, Hadjlmilialis.
Sarafis, Mandakas and Skandalis; Admiral Yiannicosi^; and
Professors Kokkalis (Medicine), Angelopoulos (Economics), and
Kallitsounakis (Economics). The above list of names indicat^
the breadth of membership and standing of the Union.
We arrived in Athens on Friday, April 26, and left on
Thursday, May 9. We did not confine our activities merely to
Athens and the surrounding country. Tiffany and Solley
examined conditions at Patras, Volos and Larissa; and Dodds,
accompanied by Mrs. Pym, at Salonika and in Macedonian
villages covering awide area.
Wherever we went, we were asked to receive representative
delegations of trade unionists, peasants, professional men,
political parties, etc., and were presented with voluminous
dossiers containing detailed information as to terroristic and
anti-democratic activities. We were almost invariably asked to
investigate every allegation personally. This was quite impossible.
But we chose anumber of cases for personal investigation, and
many of the interviews we describe were the result of this. We
were careful in examining witnesses not to “lead” them, and
where necessary submitted them to athorough cross-examination.
Where several witnesses spoke of the same event, we questioned
each separately, not in the hearing of the others, thus ensuring
that we were not being deceived by astory concerted for our
b e n e fi t .
We are satisfied, as the result of our investigations, of the
essential truth of the allegations made to us.
We very much regret that the exigencies of air travel neces¬
sitated cutting aday off our schedule, and therefore omitting
proposed interviews with UNRRA and the British Economic
Mission. We are therefore conscious that references to economic
conditions in the report are rather slight.
We found that the Right called everyone Left of, and including,
Sofoulis, “Communists,” and everyone Right of him
“Nationalists,” while the Left called everyone Right of Sofoulis
“Monarcho-Fascists,” and everyone Left of him “Democrats.”
In order to avoid confusion, we have used the terms Right,
Centre and Left, and set out below which parties we include m
e a c h c a t e g o r y.
4
 RIGHT .pXrties O R G A N I S AT I O N S
Monarchist To u r k o v a s s i l i s
Existing
Dimitratos X-ites
Populist Party “Battalions of
National Liberals King George II ”
(Gonatas) SAN (Military League)
Nationalists Reformist trend in
(Zervas) GCL (Makris)
%PE Democratic Socialist Former
(National (Papandreou) EDES (Zervas Resistance
Union) “Unifying ” Army dissolved 12.2.45)
(Cannelopoulos) PAO (quisling Mace¬
\Liberal (S. Venezelos) donian organisation)
CENTRE
Liberals Existing
(Sofoulis) None
Progressives Former
(Kafandaris) EKKA (Resistance Army
dissolved 12.2.45)
LEFT
Republican Left Existing
(Sofianopoulos) EPON (EAM Youth)
ELD Socialists GCL (Greek Confedera¬
(Svolos) tion of Labour)
Left Liberals
(Grigoriadis)
E A M /Democratic Union Former
COALITION Radical Democrats ELAS (Resistance Army
-AKE (Agrarians) dissolved 12.2.45)
SKE (Socialists)
KKE (Communists)
OTHER ORGANISATIONS
Mutual Aid—the Red Cross of the Resistance).
Ihe Pan-Hellenic Union of Democratic Associations (Leader,
General Othoneos). Open to all Democrats.

SECTION 11.—DIARY OF THE DELEGATION

Friday, April 26:
Arrived in Athens by plane. Met by
General Othoneos and adelegation from
the Pan-Hellenic Union of Democratic
Associations.
5
Friday, April 26; 5to7p.m—ReAptionatofficesofthe
Union of Democratic Associations.
9.30 p.m.—Kalithea Police Station (No. 11),
to investigate arrests.
Saturday. April 27: 10.30 a.m.—Interview with Sofianopoulos.
12.30 p.m.—Visited Hadjicosta Jail.
3p.m.—Visited Partsalides—EAM.
4.30 p.m.—Solley and Mrs. Pym visitg#
the G.C.L. (Greek T.U.C.).
Dodds and Tiffany went to Pireeus to
investigate acase of beating-up.
6p.m.—General Othoneos—family party.
Sunday, April 28: Interview with the ex-Nomarch (Pro¬
v i n c i a l G o v e r n o r ) o f B o e o t i a — M r.
Kurassis.

6p.m.—Official Public Reception by the

Union of Dembcratic Associations.

Monday, April 29: Dodds and Mrs. Pym went to Piraeus and
visited the Seamen’s Federation. Went to
Salonika by boat with Theos (Greek
Trade Union leader). Solley and Tiffany
went to Patras.

Diary of N. N. Dodds and Mrs. Pym

(April 30 to May 5)
Tuesday, April 30: Arrived in Salonika. Met T.U. Delegations
at the Labour Centre (Trades Council).
6p.m.—Interviewed Mr. Kottas, Governor
of Northern Macedonia.
Concert and firework display given by the
Tr a d e s C o u n c i l .

Wednesday. May 1: Spoke at the Salonika May Day Demon¬

stration. Visited Police Station No. 8,
where three men had been arrested for
wearing ELAS badges.
3p.m.—Interviewed British Consul.
7p.m.—May Day Concert.
Thursday, May 2: 8.30 a.m.—Visit to office of the E.L.D.
Socialists.
9to 11 a.m.—^Visit to ofiice of the Union
of Democratic Associations.
6
 »■*

Thursday. May 2% if a . m . — To u r o f t o w n a n d o f W o m e n ’ s
(continued) Prison.
4to 7p.m.—Met delegations from
villages, etc.
8p.m.—^Attended the General Meeting of
the Democratic Associations.
Friday, May 3; 11 a.m.—^Visited the British Police
Mission. Dodds visited No. 10 Police
Station and toured Macedonian villages.
6p.m.—Mrs. Pym had interview with the
Left Liberals.
7p.m.—Interview with representatives of
Women’s Organisations.
Saturday, May 4: Visited Langada; saw the smashed premises
of the Agrarian Party, a' Colonel of
Artillery interviewed, met local Royalists,
visited village of Sohos.
11 p . m . t o 1 a . m . — Vi s i t e d t h e B r i t i s h
Consul, Police Mission, etc.
Sunday, May 5; Farewell Reception organised by the
Executive of the Union of Democratic
Associations. Investigated case of aT.B.
patient who had been beaten.
Flew to Athens.

Diary of L. J. Solley and S. Tiffany

(April 29 to May 5)
Monday, April 29: 5to 10 p.m.—Solley and Tiffany attend
trial of ELAS heroes at Special Court, and
have interview with President of the Court.
Interview with Mr. Saghias, Populist
Deputy for the Region.
10 p.m.—Solley and Tiffany have dinner
with the 15 Defence Counsel.
11.30 p.m.—Solley and Tiffany visit Patras
Police Station, and investigate arrest and
beating-up of atrade-unionist.
Tuesday. April 30: ReceivedadeputationfromtheAgrarian
Party in Patras.
Visited Patras Trades Council and met
T.U. delegations.
7
Tuesday, April 30: Returned to Athens by, car.
(continued) Noted behaviour of Royalist soldiers at
awayside caf€.
Wednesday, May 1 Spoke at Athens May Day Demonstration.
Then went to Peristeri to inve^gate a
shooting incident.
Thursday, May 2: Visited Larissa by car. P
Friday, May 3: Received delegatipns. Dinner organised
by the Union of Democratic Associations,
Left Liberals, Republican Left, Agrarians,
ELD Socialists, Communist Party, the
P r e s i d e n t o f t h e Tr a d e s C o u n c i l , t h e
President of the Co-operatives, and pro¬
fessional men.

Saturday, May 4: Breakfast with three local M.P.s and

ex-Premier CaneUopoulos. Visited Volos.
Sunday, May 5: Received delegation from Athens EPON
(Democratic Youth).
Interview wit^i Loulis, President of EA
(Resistance Red Cross).
Diary of Reunited Delegation
Monday, May 6: 10.30 a.m.—It was reported that a
Hospital for Resistance Fighters had had
notice to close within 24 hours.
12 noon.—^Visited British Embassy.
5p.m.—Mrs. Pym met representatives of
the League of Greek Women.
10. p.m. to 1.30 a.m.—Interviewed Sir
Charles Wickham.

Tuesday, May 7: 10.30 a.m.—Visited the Hospital for

Resistance Fighters that was closed down.
3p.m.—Interviewed ex-Premier Sofoulis.
5‘p.m.—Attended areception organised
by EA.
8p.m.—Attended aReception given by
Sofianopoulos, ex-Foreign Minister.
Wednesday, May 8: 11 a.m.—Interviewed Zachariadis, leader
of the Communist Party.
1.30 p.m.—Interviewed Premier Tsaldaris.
3pjn.—Interviewed Professor Svolos,
8
 Wednesday, May "8 ELD Socialist leader.
{continued) 5p.m.—Interviewed S. Theotokis, Minister
o f P u b l i c O r d e r.
7p.m.—Attended areception given by
% Professor Angelopoulos.
Thursday. May 9; The three M.P.s left for London by air.
Diary of Mrs. Pym
Thursday, May 9: Addressed aDelegate Congress of Athens
Democratic Associations.
Friday, May 10: Interviewed an employees’ delegation
from Pirsus Electric Co.
Visited the Health Division of UNRRA.
Interviewed Mr. Pistolakis, former Presi¬
dent of the Greek American Council.
Saturday, May 11; Visited the Blue Cross Hospital in
Syngrou Street.
Interviewed ex-detainees from the African
Camps.
Visited Professor Kokkalis and the EA
Hospital Committee.

CHAPTER TWO. THE TERROR

SECTION I.—FIRST INCIDENT
We realise that ^,the vendetta
survives mmany areas and that
violencebetweenLeftandRightfactionsisboundto,anddoes,
occur. What reaUy shocked us was the role of the Gendarmerie
in this. Not only did they not maintain law and order and
puiush wrongdoers, but they were actually taking the lead in
beatmgs-upandterror.Theirvictimswerealmostinvariably
democrats. No Leftist we met had any confidence that he could
obtain justice from the gendarmerie and the courts; what
surprised us was that more of them had not taken the law into
their own hands. If aRightist was murdered, arrests of demo¬
crats were made for miles around; if aLeftist was murdered, the
assassins frequently remained at liberty and armed.
Within afew hours of our arrival in Athens, we were
approached in arestaurant by amessenger who told us that two
young men had been arrested, beaten, and taken to Police Station
Mo. 11m the Kalithea district for distributing leaflets advertising
amating of the Democratic Associations, at which we were to
speak on the following Sunday. We immediately went to the
9
 /

policestationandaskedtheofficerinchargewhathadreally
happened. In the police stotion portraits of King George ot
the Hellenes and Mr. Churchill were prominently displayed, we
later found that this form of decoration was almost standard in
Greekpoliceandgendarmestationsandprisons.
The officer in charge told us that the two young min, who
were members of the Democratic Association, had be^
arrested because they were collecting subscriptions for tht
Association in private premises (a shoemaker sshop .We
enquired if this was against the law, as the Associations “em ,
selveswerelegal,andwereinformedthatthelocalpolicechief
had made an order for his district forbidding ffie coUection of
subscriptions except at the central office of
becausehehadreceivedcomplaintsfromnon-membersthatthey
werebeingcanvassedfordonations.Hesaidthatthisorder
had been conveyed to aspecially summoned meetmg of me
presidents ofthelocal“Communist.organisations.
Th^e
turnedouttobetheDemocraticAssociaUonandtheEA(ffie
RedCrossoftheResistanceMovement).Bothofthemare
predominanUy
non-Communist
and
include
alarge
representation
of the democrats of the Centre. The President a^"gular army
colonel whobelongedtonopoliticalparty,^
he had never been informed of ffie police order fojbidffing
collections in members’ homes, and that
here
the ffia
hadbeenaspeciallysummoned,orany,meetingofthe
presidents was totally false. n n l i c e
Afterprolongedquestioningofthearrestedman,thepoice
chief,andthepresidentoftheKalitheaDemocraticAssociation,
w eelicited the following facts: .
Thetwoyoungmenwereoutcollectingsubscriptionsforffie
DemocraticAssociationsanddistributingleafletsformeeting
whichweweretoaddress.Theonewiththecollectingbook
wasarrestedandffieotherrantoinformColonelTsimikahs,the
president of
theAssociation. While
thecolonel
wastelephoning
thepolicechief,threeuniformedpolicemenentereddragg
ffieyoungmanout,andstartedbeatingandkickinghm.
Thefollowingdayweheardthattheyoungmanwiththe
coding S^as^entenced two
tomonths’ imprisonment,
while the one who was beaten was released.
SECTIONII.-THEHADJICOSTAPRISON,ATHENS
Thenextday,whenwewereleavingtheofficeofMr.John
SofeL^^losa.about1p.m„weweremetintoiobbybya
10
 deputation, mainly consisting of women relatives of detainees in
Hadjicosta Jail, led by Mr. Dendrinos, Legal Adviser of EA.
They told us that this morning relatives who were bringing food
.to the detainees, as is the custom in Greece, had been refused
admittance, that the prison was surrounded by armed guards
and that they had heard the detainees shouting for help. They
^ared that they were being beaten by the guards and begged
us to go immediately and investigate. This we did and were
received by the director of the prison, Mr. ^orfutakis.
Mr. Corfutakis told us that visiting facilities were now restored
and had only been interrupted owing to adisturbance that
morning because of the transfer of 41 men from Hadjicosta to
the prison island of Aegina. The men disliked going to Aegina
because their relatives could not visit them. He admitted that
13 of the 41 had not been sentenced and that Aegina w a s

supposed to be for convicted men, but stated that the order had
come from the Minister and was probably because the 13 had
been “threatening” the other detainees.
It subsequently transpired that they were all members of the
Prison Committee, elected by the men themselves—also that a
general order had been issued by the Tsaldaris Government
forbidding prison committees.
The director was most polite, and once he had got telephonic
permission from the Ministry of Justice, allowed us to go every¬
where and speak freely to the prisoners. Though he admitted
that there had been aconsiderable uproar and protest from the
prisoners at the removal of the 41 he denied that there had been
any beating up. We did not see the 41, as they had already
been transferred.
The jail itself consisted of aseries of very large rooms round
abig courtyard. The prisoners were allowed to move about this
area freely and it seemed reasonably clean, light and airy. They
had decorated the rooms with some lively paintings and
numerous portraits of democratic leaders, among whom Attlee
was prominent. Leaders of the Greek past and recent National
Liberation Movements, past and present, were also represented.
King George of the Hellenes was to be found only in the
director’s office. The total number of prisoners was over 500,
most of them political detainees.
We received amost warm and moving reception from the
prisoners and, after explaining who we were, asked them about
the disturbances that morning. They said that they w a n t e d
to take some of our friends away,” and that this was illegal as
n
they had not been sentenced, About 250' of the prisoners
in Hadjicosta had not been, sentenced; some had been there
as long as 17 months.
We asked about the alleged beating up. Only one young man
came forward and pointed to the guard who had kick^ him.
There seems to have been ageneral uproar and aguafd went
into the courtyard waving arevolver (which was against the
regulations).Armedguardswerepostedoutside.Weourselvel^
w e r e
greetedbyun^prmedmenwithtommy-gunsinthecorridor.
We were told that on that very morning machine-guns had been
posted on some roofs across the way which overlooked the
rooms. We were shown bullet marks on the walls and told that
in July, 1945, machine-guns were fired from the roof into this
room, wounding an ELAS captain, Venezanopoulos. But the
machine-guns were removed as soon as we arrived.
We spoke to adoctor who stated that he had been accused on
false evidence given by collaborators. He was in charge of the
prison hospital which we were shown, and which had been
organised by the prison committee. He said that he had great
difficulty in getting ELAS prisoners, who needed treatment,
admitted to hospital.
Other prisoners who spoke to us were:
Colonel Tsiklitiras had been in command of the ELAS
Forces near Kalamata. Major Wilkes, M.P. had particularly
asked us to look out for him as they had fought together against
the Germans. Major Wilkes had ahigh opinion of the colonel’s
military achievements and personal integrity. Since our visit
—and representations by Major Wilkes—we now learn that the
colonel has been acquitted.
In February, 1945, Colonel Tsiklitiras was charged with
shooting 135 men. In April, 1945, he was arrested and detained
in Sparta for 260 days. He was severely beaten-up and his arm
broken—we saw his scars.
He was released in January this year and lived openly in
Athens. On April 17 he was re-arrested and sent to Hadjicosta.
His trial had been fixed for May 3, although no investigation
had taken place when we saw him (April 27). He was charged
with murder in adistrict which he had not visited for years. He
met his “accomplices ”for the first time in Hadjicosta.^ His
first name and that of his father were incorrectly stated in the
charge, in which he was described as amajor in the gendarmerie,
whereas he was actually in the artillery.
Monies had been held for 17 months without trial. He was
12
 p

charged with murder between June and August, 1944 (under the
German occupation), but he claims that at that time he was in
the mountains.

An old man of 85 had been sentenced to 18 months’ imprison¬

ment fqr illegal possession of arms. He was so old that he could
scarcely hobble and was by trade arepairer of arms.
,George Sideridis was charged with being a“Bulgarian officer.”
Actually, he worked for the British during the occupation, in
connection with the re-fuelling of British submarines, H i s
leader, Diamandopoulos, was executed by the Germans.
There was ageneral complaint that the prison guards w e r e
all collaborators, and the following detailed charges were made:
Georgios Phyldissis was amember of the Gestapo at Nauplia.
Warrants had been issued against him and his wife for having
surrendered patriots to the Germans.
Papadongonas was amember of the German Bund. He is a
nephew of the notorious Colonel Papadongonas, leader of the
Quisling Security Battalions in the Peloponnese.
We were also told that two or three of the guards peddled
hashish to the prisoners. This had been reported to the
authorities, but no action had been taken against them.
Since the elections, the prison cinema, theatre and singingw e r e

prohibited and there were threats to remove the pictures and

decorations from the walls. The prison authorities alleged that
this was done on the instructions of the British Police Mission.
We later received aletter telling us that the stage of the
theatre had been dismantled, the pictures taken down, and study
classes prohibited.
We were all deeply impressed with the bearing and discipline
of the prisoners. There was complete silence on the part of
the other prisoners whilst each told his story. Many spoke
English or French. There was also amost moving faith in the
democratic British people for whom more than one cheer was
raised, and this in spite of the scurvy reward meted out to such
patriots as Colonel Tsiklitiras who had risked their lives to help
the British and now found themselves in prison guarded by
ex-collaborators with the enemy.
Aword should be said here about the other prison which w a s

visited by two of the delegation. This was the New Prison at

Salonika, where N. N. Dodds and Mrs. Pym visited the women’s
section. The following is their story.
13
SECTION IIL—THE WOMEN’S PRISON, SALONIKA

On May 2we visited the Women’s Section of the New Prison.

We had previously been told that the women had been beaten
and that the conditions were appalling. They certainly were.
Twenty-eight women aged between 16 and 60, atcn-cfeys-old
baby and alittle boy of- two were crammed into two-tier bunks
with very little space between them. The place reminded u^
vividly of air-raid shelters in the blitz.
Amale guard and an old woman wardress were present
throughout our interview with the women prisoners. The guard
was the one accused of beating them—he did not deny it, but
said he had “only smacked their faces! ”Marks on their arms
and bodies belied this. In view of the women’s allegations
against this man, Mr. Dodds asked the prison governor at least
to detail adifferent guard to be present at the interview. The
governor said this was impossible, as the guard was not under
his orders.

There had been two recent cases of beating-up—one on

April 7, when the women, including apregnant woman, Olga
Haventidou, were beaten for singing Resistance songs. As a
result of this the baby came prematurely and the mother had
to be sent to hospital, from which she was sent back to prison
with her unfortunate infant after only eight days. Both she
and the baby looked terribly ill when we saw them.
She stated that she was in prison because the murderer of her
brother had denounced her for killing aman who was actually
killed in abattle between ELAS and the Germans and Security
Battalions on November 4, 1944. She had never fought with
ELAS and seemed avery quiet girl of 23. She had been hit on
her back by the guard with his fists because she asked for a
visitor. She got no special diet for her baby.
Only one of the 28 women had been sentenced—C. Dzibili.
She had been given 11 years for the illegal possession, not of
arms, but of bullets. This sentence is to be compared with
the sentences of two months’ imprisonment imposed by the
Athens Court of Appeal, on April 25, on three “X-ites ”accused
of illegally bearing arms. Incidentally the same court on the
same day sentenced ademocrat to 11 years’ imprisonment for
exactly the same offence. Another girl of 16 was on trial on the
day of our visit. The other women bad been awaiting trial for
from 4to 13 months.
14
 Here are some of the women's stories:
Joanna Aktipi was charged with 532 murders, of which she
had been acquitted of 105 by the investigator. She is awidow
from Zante Island with children aged 14, 13 and 10. She and
her husband fought for 13 months with the partisans. Her
husband was killed in action and the Germans and Security
Battalion men burnt her house because they could not find her.
She had been lying ill in bed on April 29 when the guard dragged
her up, tearing her vest and beating her. She looked terribly ill.
Rapi Zantopoulo (18) was accused of the murder of aSecond
Lieutenant in Kilkis. TTie man was actually killed in the battle
of Kilkis on November 4, 1944. This girl was in EPON (the
EAM Youth Movement) and had been with the ELAS reserve
as anurse. She was not at the battle of Kilkis, but at Langada
at that time. ASecurity Battalion man had killed her father
in June, 1944. He is aprominent Monarchist and still at
large in Kilkis. She laid acharge against him after December,
1944, at the court in Kilkis. The only result had been that she
had been held in prison for seven months without trial.
Aspasia Stephanou had been in prison for four months charged
w i t h t h e m u r d e r o f a m a n w h o h a d d i e d o f T. B . a n d o f w h i c h
she had previously been acquitted. The guard intervened to
say that she could not have Been re-arrested on the same charge,
but she insisted that her lawyer had told her so. She was a
member of EAM and had two children.
Stamatoula Martinidou (20) had been eight months in prison
accused of espionage. She was arrested in AxioupoU and not
even told what she was charged with for two or three months.
She had sheltered British soldiers during the occupation,
including acommando—Major Phillips. Her brother had acted
as aliaison with commandos who blew up arailway line.
Her house had been burnt by the Germans and Bulgarians when
they failed to arrest her.
The final case was the most shocking of all:
In the very small prison yard lay awoman, Eleni Latsarnaki,
on astretcher. She was in the last stages of T.B., spitting blood
and obviously incapable of getting up off her bed. She had been
there for three days, charged with the illegal possession of arras.
There was nowhere to put her under cover if it rained (which
it had done on the previous day)—it would have been impossible
to get her stretcher into the bunked room, which was the women
prisoners’ only bedroom and living room—even had it been
desirable on health grounds.
15
 When we protested to the governor*about this, he said that they
took her into the hall of the administrative block when it rained.
(The prisohers, however, insisted that she had been in the
yard all the time.) He said that he was trying to get her moved,
but there was no special prison hospital available in Salonika.
The most recent beating up of the women had taken place on
the Monday, April 29, three days before our visit. The women
had shouted and protested because they were not allowed
visitors. Guards had been called in from the 8th Police Station
and together with the prison guard had beaten the women with
their fists. Two had been so severely hit on the head that they
had bled from the nose and mouth (we saw the marks on their
faces). Others had bruises on their arms and backs.
Dodds expressed his horror to the governor at the uncivilised
conditions prevailing in the prison, and said that he would hold
him responsible if there was any further beating of the women as
aresult cf our visit.

SECTION I V. — A BOY B E AT E N UP

Whilst at the EAM offices on our first Saturday afternoon in

Athens, acaptain of the Greek Army called. He was in amost
distressed condition. He explained that his son, who was a
student of theology, had been very badly beaten up and asked
that we should go and see him. Dodds and Tiffany went to his
home in Piraeus, and there were informed that the father, who had
been amember of the Resistance forces, paid amonthly sub¬
scription to afund to help the relatives of Resistance fighters.
This fund is legal and recognised by the Government.
The boy had paid the subscription on his father’s behalf and
had pocketed the receipt.
Whilst on holiday in avillage he and his companion were
asked by the police to report to the police station. There
they were ordered to turn out their pockets and, when the
receipt was found, the young man was taken into acell, his
legs were tied to arifle, and the bottoms of his feet were
beaten until they were like pulp, and he bore terrible
bruises from his feet to the crown of his head. We saw himl
lying on abed and felt that he would be very lucky to survive.
The father said that he could get no protection and that justice
did not operate. He therefore felt that he would be forced, like
many others, to take to the hills and fight
16
 S E C T I O N V — M AY D AY O U T R A G E
On the afternoon of May Day, Solley and, Tiffany went to the
Peristeri quarter of Athens to investigate some outrages which
had been brought to their notice. The following is their report-
W e
'dsited alocal Labour Centre (Trades Council) office
which h
had been broken into the same night and the premises
damaged. On the walls the assailants had written the “X”sign
and underneath the words: Yo u h a v e m o r e t o s u f f e r !
We then investigated the case of the murder of C. Papagheor-
ghiou of 3lassonos Street. His sister, Mrs. E. Jakobiou, said
that at 11 o’clock the previous night she was informed that her
brother had been severely wounded and that she must go to him.
She went to the house and saw her brother in apool of blood.
Ultimately an ambulance came and the wounded man was put
into it accompanied by adoctor, apoliceman, Miss P. Schari
(the fiancee of the murdered man), and his sister, Before the
ambulance came, the sister and the fiancee were threatened by
“X”-ites, known locally, that they should not call adoctor, but
let the wounded man die.
As the ambulance reached abridge on its way to hospital, it
was stopped by five “X”-itcs and one local policeman, who
were recognised as being the persons responsible for the original
outrage. They ordered the ambulance to stop, opened the door
(holding pistols and automatics), while the relatives pleaded with
them: “Don’t shoot, he is wounded.”
The sister flung herself on the wounded man’s body to protect
him. They shot her in the left breast and little finger, and tore
her away. She showed her wounds as she told the story.
They shot the wounded man in the shoulder and then
left, and the man was brought to the hospital dead. The police¬
man who was with the ambulance and who had apistol took
no steps at all until after the X”-ites had departed, when he
fired some bullets into the air.
The murdered man had first been wounded at home in the
following circumstances, according to his fiancee who w a s a n
eye-witness:
At 10.30 p.m. five X”-ites and the policeman above
described stopped at the house, rushed in, and asked the fiancee
to put the light on, the premises being in darkness. She rushed
upstairs. C. Papagheorghiou got out of bed and the X ” - i t e s
asked him: Where is your brother?’ (His brother is an
active member of the Democratic Associations.) Papagheorghiou
17
 ^ 4

s a i d : “ I d o n ' t k n o w. " T h e “ X ” - 1 t e s t h e n s a i d : “ Yo n m u s t
die. You have killed Roussqs.” (This man had been killed earlier
that evening in an incident in which “X”-ites had attacked
democrats and in which the man named had been accidentally
killed by his colleagues.) The “X"-ites ordered Papagl^orghiou
to dress, and while putting on his pants he was shot in the back
with three bullets by an “X”-ite. The five men then left the
room, and while doing so one of them threw ahand grena<fe
at the bed. This exploded. Miss Schari shouted for help, and
one of the “X”-ites returned and hit her with arifle saying :
"Stop screaming !"The police station is only one minute away
from the scene of this event. The police did not, however, arrive
at the house of the injured man until 20 minutes later. Although
the perpetrators of this outrage are well-known locally, not one
of them had been arrested up to the time of our departure from
Greece. On the contrary, the police had rounded up and beaten
anumber of well-known local trade unionists and democrats!
SECTION VI.—VISIT TO LARISSA
On May 2the Secretary of the Democratic Associations at
Larissa, Mr. E. Skylakos, told Solley and Tiffany: “Many false
charges of possession of arms are made against democrats.
Bandits, if they appear, are acquitted, e.g., four months ago the
Military Commander of Thessaly arrested four monarchist
bandits with tommy-guns. They were acquitted because there
appeared awitness for the defence, aregular army officer, who
declared that these guns had been given to them by the officer in
order to attack democrats. The secretary further told us that
the Deputy Pro.secuting Attorney of the Larissa Court of
Appeal, Nicopoulos, had been mentioned in an Athens news¬
paper as the Prosecuting Attorney of the Court of First Instance
in the town of Preveza during the Occupation under the Quisling
Government, when he had co-operated with the Germans and
Italians. In fact, there were writs in respect of these matters
issued against him in Preveza. The judges of the Court of
Appeal of Larissa, he said, had all fulfilled their judicial
functions during the Occupation, but had worked in other
regions, As to the “popular ”judges, or jurymen, one had a
writ against him for co-operation with the enemy, and after
serving some time as a popular ”judge of aspecial court set
u p to try collaborators, he had to be removed as aresult of
considerable public clamour.
E. Skylakos also stated: ‘ The police are illegally preventing
18
 trade union meetings, ancl terrorism is exercised in the first
place by the group of bandits headed by Sourlas. Another
bandit, Karaghiorgalas, has been sentenced to death in his
absence for being acollaborationist. In the region of Volos the
chief qf the bandits is Kalambalikis. They murder, beat up,
rape aTtd rob democrats. No bandit has been arrested in
spite of specific denunciations.”
*In an interview aMrs. E. loannidou said; “My son was
murdered in November, 1945, when he attended the funeral of
amurdered democrat. The police fired and my son was killed.
Ihave made complaints to the police, but nothing was done.
1used to write to the newspapers about ray son’s death, and
yesterday an unknown boy came to me about 1o’clock and told
me that he had been instructed by someone whom he did not
know to tell me to stop writing letters and not to see you British
M.P.s or Iwould be beaten up.”
The following is the testimony of Dr. V. Dadalieris:
“Iam adoctor and Iam’ also the secretary of the Agrarian
Party of the Larissa Region. On April 26 the party was holding
acongress at Larissa. With three other persons, during arecess
in the proceedings, 1was walking in the central square when w e
were illegally arrested by the police, taken to the police station
and severely beaten up.' We were not charged and were released
a f t e r a b o u t o n e h o u r.

“In my professional capacity as adoctor Ican speak of

specific cases of violence. For example, Iwas called to attend
Mrs. Zambokos at the village of Sykia who told us that she
had been maltreated by two members of EVEN (a royalist youth
organisation), whose names she gave me, because her husband
had not voted. In the village of Yasniou, three days after the
elections, Iattended six people who had been maltreated, one
suffering from abullet wound fired by the gendarmerie. Many
people had been rounded up in the village three days after the
election because there had been abstentions.”
Mr. G. Papaioannou, alawyer by profession and amember of
the EAM Executive Committee of the Thessaly region, told u s

that on April 29 at 8.30 p.m. he was escorting two friends from

his house when an attempt on his life was made by two men
who fired at him with revolvers, fortunately missing. He offered
to show us the bullet holes in his house. He had no personal
enemies, so the attack was clearly political in motive, H i s
assailants had been recognised and one was amember of EVEN.
The lawyer told us that he had been exiled for nine yqars under
19
 H

Metaxas and had been mayor of the town for two months after
the Liberation. He was not aCommunist, but was amember of
Sofianopoulos’s Party. “Icannot go into the villages to carry
on my business because the monarchists terrorise anyone like
myself known to be ademocrat.”
.Solley and Tiffany then interviewed General Psiarris, a*- retired ‘
regular army general, twice aLiberal M.P., the last time being
in 1936, and now amember of the Left Liberals. He took paiJ
in the Resistance Movement, and was .commander of ELAS
forces in Thessaly. He also took part in the National Council
held in the mountains in 1944. For six months before the
Liberation he was Governor of Thessaly. After the Varkiza
Agreement, he had been arrested, and imprisoned without a
warrant or charge, from March 26 to December, 1945, when
he was released. He said:
“1have ahome and family at avillage near Volos in the
territory ruled by the bandit Kalambalikis. Icannot return
there because my life would be in danger, as the gendarmerie
collaborate with bandits. Iwent to the Commander of the
Volos regional gendarmerie and asked him if he could guarantee
my safety if Ireturned home, and he said: “No, the
responsibility will be on you if you are killed.”
“On the eve of May Day in Volos the Second Group of the
9th Greek Artillery Regiment had gone to the premises of
EPON, the democratic youth organisation. There were about
ten soldiers in uniform with tommy-guns. They told the boys
and girls, whose average age was about 18 to 20, to put their
hands up, and rushed them out of the premises. The furniture,
desks, books, registers, etc., were taken outside and burned. A
major of the unit was present, by the name of Kasicopoulos.
During the same evening and in another part of Volos, called
Palia, soldiers destroyed ■another of the youth organisation s
premises. EPON is affiliated to the World Federation of Demo¬
cratic Youth and is alegal and democratic organisation.
On the following morning Solley and Tiffany visited these
premises and by direct observation and questions on the spot
confirmed everything the general had said.
As an example of the way in which the “X”-ites go
unpunished, the general told of the case of the murder of an
ELAS man, Theodorou, by an “X”-ite, Theodoropoulos, on
Good Friday, April 19. The man murdered was actually afriend
of the ”X”-ite, and the latter, filled with remorse at the murder,
confessed to the crime and handed over his revolver. In spite
20
 of this confession; the “X”-ite was not arrested and some time
later joined the local bandits. Th,e EAM Committee of Volos
interviewed the British Police Representative and reported this
murder. The police chief said to them: “What are you going
to do*L There is nothing Ican do about it.’’

SECTION VI I.—THE SITUATION IN PATRAS

!When in Patras, Solley and Tiffany received adeputation from
the Agrarian Party (Mr. T. Coulombas, Deputy Secretary of
the Peloponnese Committee, and Mr. A. Papahatzis, member of
the Executive Committee, and former President of the Union
of Agricultural Co-operatives of the same region).
The Deputy Secretary said : We cannot go into the villages
in the Peloponnese area to fulfil our duties because of the terror.
Imyself cannot go to my birthplace in the Messinia region. The
monarchists have killed many democrats there. The name of
my village is Cfaarokopio.”
Manganas, the leader of the Kalamata outrage, was seen three
days ago at Tripolis, walking around the central square and
afterwards in the company of gendarmes. News to this effect
was published in the local press on March 30, 1946, and the
newspaper Eleftheri Achaia, produced and shown to the M.P.s,
reported as follows :“Manganas visited the gendarmes of the
town of Kyparissia on March 24 and talked to them. Many
citizens and national guardsmen recognised him, but were not
able to interfere.”
The Deputy Secretary went o n : On Easter Day
Tsonoghiorghos, chief of the monarchist bandits in the Patras
region operating in about twenty villages, forced villagers to
give him lambs and eggs, which he gave as apresent to the
chief of the police station of avillage near Patras called Bozaitika.”
SECTION VII I.—SALONIKA ENQUIRY
When Dodds and Mrs. Pym visited Salonika, it was announced
in the Press that on May 2, from 4to 6p.m., they would be
present at the offices of the Union of Democratic Associations.
Avery large number of people came, and interviews with them
lasted from 4to 7.30 p.m. Even then it was necessary to address
the crowd that remained, as there was no time to see them
individually. The following is the account of Dodds and Mrs.
Pym of anumber of the cases they interviewed:
Case 1.—Dr. John Conayannis, recently retired from the
army, where he held the rank of lieut.-colonel.
21
 He resides in the village of New Madytos about 38 miles
from Salonika, where he ^sa:id ■the situation was becoming
intolerable because of the terror of the gendarmes and the
monarchist organisations. He said that they destroy shops and
premises of the Left-wing and that one must be^me a
monarchist or die. He and his wife had been badly bfeten-up
because they protested, and we saw evidence of this maltreat¬
ment. He mentioned the fact that during the election thi
monarchists were going round the village forcing the people to
go to the poll, and he further stated that this was well known
to the gendarmes. He is aSofoulis Liberal.
Case 2.—Vassilios Othondides—was aone-legged member of
EAM who kept asmall tobacconist's shop in Katerini, avillage
in Macedonia. When he went into acertain caf6 the proprietor
called the police, who took him to the Gendarme Station No. 6
in Salonika. There the gendarme, Constantine Raftopoulos,
together with seven others, beat him for three hours. They gave
no reason for this at first, but later they said: “We’re beating
you because you’re aCommunist; one day we’ll kill you.” After
six hours they freed him; he was never charged with any offence.
He protested to the gendarmerie chief, who said that they had
beaten him because he was drunk.
Case 3.—Andreas Vasolarides, of 1Palamidou Street, was a
former member of ELAS. He sold newspapers in the streets
when he came from the mountains. Agendarme warned him
not to do this, although he had no legal grounds for doing so.
Twenty days later the same gendarme shot him through the leg
and foot without warning (we saw the wounds), and passers-by
took him to hospital.
The same day anumber of gendarmes went to his house and
beat his seventy-year-old father and threw his sister down a
ladder. As aresult of this his sister has lost her reason and he
does not dare to live in his own home.
Case 4.—A. Argyropoulos—was the owner of aflour mill in
Kavalki, 20 miles from Salonika. He is ademocrat and
Anglophil. His house was destroyed in May, 1945, by former
members of the Security Battalions including the son of arival
miller- who is in EVEN. The gendarmerie made no arrests.
The chief of EVEN in the village, Aristidis Arabadgis, betrayed
eighteen British soldiers to the Germans, and is still living openly
i nthe village, although his case was reported to the Allied
Electoral Commission.
22
 !-

Another man from the same village, D. Dimitriadis, who

sheltered aBritish soldier during the Occupation, dare not return
to his village because EVEN threaten to kill him. Many other
families have fled from the village because of the terror.
On June 14, 1944, in Kavakli, Germans and Security Battalion
killed 20 men, 7women (including Dimitriadis’s wife) and
m e n

ababy. Today, the former Security Battalion men are terrorising

the democrats in this village. Four of them are actually in the
gendarmerie; Panayiotis Vergides (who killed Dimitriadis’s
wife and now threatens to kill him), John Stefano, Nicholas
Tsamourdjis and Argyrios Karagounis.
Case 5.—Nicholas Papadopoulos—aged 20, from Kilkis , w a s
accused of killing 48 “unknown men because he was in ELAS.
While he was in the New Prison, Salonika, aprison guard hit
him on the head with arifle while he was asleep. As aresult
he lost the sight of one eye. He had aterrible scar on his head.
He was later freed under the amnesty.
Case 6.—George Spiropoulos came from the village of
Komnina, near Kozani. He sheltered aBritish soldier, H. W.
Beane, for two years (he draws apension from the British
Government for this).
Amember of the Security Battalions, Nicholas Kurtsidis,
reported Spiropoulos to the Gestapo—^he was warned and
managed to escape to the mountains with the British, but the
Gestapo killed his two brothers. Kurtsidis, who has named
his son Hitler, is still free, is armed, and is amember of the
“X”organisation, and threatens to kill Spiropoulos. H e
informed
the gendarmerie that Spiropoulos had killed
eighteen people (which is completely untrue), so Spiropoulos
dare not return to his village.
Case 7.—Three N.C.O.s of the Salonika Gendarmerie:
John Sidis with 17 years’ service and afirst-class gendarmerie
c e r t i fi c a t e .

John Kravaritis with 10 years’ s e r v i c e . \

John Doskoridis with 10 years’ service.

They came as adeputation from 130 gendarmes in the region
of Salonika who were being suspended on the following day,
because they were moderates, did not like beating-up the people,
and would not fit into the campaign which was being prepared
against the Left-wing.
They stated that there were 2,000 moderate gendarmes
in Greece who were being suspended on these grounds, and
23
when Mr. 'Dodds and Mrs. Pym mentioned this to Colonel
Gordon, the chief representative of the British Police Mission in
Salonika, and later to Sir Charles Wickham, the British Police
Chief in Athens, no denial was forthcoming., Mr. Dodds and
Mrs.PymtookthismatterupwiththeMinisterofPubli^Order
in Athens and he, too, did not deny the statement.

SECTION IX.—VISIT TO VOLOS

{Report of L. J. Solley and S. Tiffany)
We visited Volos on May 4. Our car was stopped on the
outskirts of the city by areception committee of local demo¬
crats and we proceeded in aprocession of four or five cars
to the city. When we got near the market square there was an
enormous crowd and we were cheered to the echo. This cheering,
w a s taken up by individual batches of Volos’s citizens wherever
we went. The crowds round our car were so huge whenever we
stopped that on one occasion the window of the car was broken.
There was alarge number of women who surrounded the
car who were almost hysterical. They were crying: “Help us,
save us and our children from the fascist terror.” It was
unbelievable that these incidents could have been organised
to impress us. One woman came into the office of the
Democratic Association while we were there, carrying ashirt
which was soaked with blood. She said that she had just come
from the police station where her son had been beaten up. The
atmosphere was one of cmen and women who could j not
stand the terror much longer. We investigated and verified the
breaking up of some of the Democratic Association premises
about which we had been told.

SECTION X.—VISIT TO SOHOS

(By N. N. Dodds and Mrs. Diana Pym)
The Occupation

On May 4we visited Sohos village which is situated in the

mountains about 30 miles from Salonika. We had previously
been told something of the background of the village by m e n

who had fought in the 11th ELAS Division. There were three
main forces in the area during the occupation :
1. The Bulgarians and Germans.
2. ELAS.
3. The Security Battalions which grew out of YVE and PAO.
24
 The occupatioh forces in the area covered by the 11th ELAS
Division were distributed as follows:
Afully-equipped regiment of Bulgarians based on
Langada, about .. 2,000
ACompany of Bulgarians in Nigrita, about .. 5 0 0
A^egiment of Bulgarians in Kalkidiki, about .. 2,000
ATransit Camp at Kilkis with constantly changing
German and Bulgarian units, never less than.. 2 , 0 0 0
6,500-

sour■
We were constantly hearing rumours from Right-wing ces.
both British and Greek, of how ELAS had collaborated with
the Bulgarians—in fact “Bulgarian” was the most common
term of abuse by the Right about the Left—apparently e v e n

Louis Saillant, the French representative of the WFTU, had

his nationality changed for him by the Right! We therefore
made aspecial point of asking the local ELAS men about
Bulgarians and other foreigner^ in their ranks. We were informed
that in the 11th Division there were:
Six Russians (escaped P.O.W.s).
Two Yugoslav partisans who had escaped over the border
after partisan fighting in Yugoslavia.
Two Austrian anti-fascists who had deserted.
Two Bulgarian anti-fascists who had deserted.
The Bulgarians were workers from Varna and proved invalu¬
able to the partisans in obtaining information about Bulgarian
troop movements and in distributing anti-fascist leaflets to the
Bulgarian soldiers appealing to them not to fight the partisans, etc.
In April, 1943, about five partisans took to the mountains and
were joined by asmall band from Kilkis. By July, 1943, they
had grown to aregiment of over 900 with its base on the top
of Mt. Tsoplaki, above Sohos village. They had three companies
operating round Kilkis, Kalkidiki and Sohos and harried the
occupation forces so effectively that they hardly dared venture
outside the towns and villages. By the end of August a
Division was formed with 2,500 men. This was later brought
up to astrength of 4,800.
Just how difficult was the task of ELAS in this area can be
seen from the map. Their headquarters were in the mountains,
above Sohos, and there was no large “liberated area ”on which
they could base themselves. Nevertheless they contrived to keep
6,500 occupation troops tied up in the towns and villages; and
25
 t

J k
<

Sketch Map of the Sohos Area

26
 to supply themselves with arms and stores from enemy sources
and to harry and attack lines of communication and do extensive
sabotage.
The “Nationalist ”(Royalist) Resistance group began as YVE
(Defenders of Northern Greece). They never fought the
Bulgarilns and were soon unmasked as traitors. In the spring
of 1943 their name was changed to PAO (Pan-Hellenic Organisa¬
tion of Liberation). They began as aRight-wing Resistance
movement and at one time had contact with the British, but they
became more and more pro-German.
Their object was to fight ELAS and not the Germans and
Bulgarians.
They fought openly beside the Germans. To begin with, PAO
had contact with the Germans only and made ashow of being
.opposed to the Bulgarians, but, in December, 1943, Spiridis,
PAO leader in Nigrita, took the oath to Hitler before high
German officers in Dimilritis, asuburb of Nigrita.
Open co-operation with the Bulgarians followed the taking
of this oath and in the spring of 1944 PAO members appeared
openly in Salonika *wearing black caps as members of the
Security Battalions.
The Salonika section of PAO denounced those who took the
oath to Hitler, but they could not maintain aseparate organisa¬
tion and in April or May, 1944, PAO went out of existence and
most of its members joined what were known as the “Security
B a t t a l i o n s o f PA O
and which were denounced by the
Papandreou Government in Cairo and by British H.Q., Middle
East.

The two main leaders of these Security Battalions w e r e

Spiridis (in Nigrita) and Costas Papadopoulos (in Kilkis). The

latter is now adeputy for Kozani, returned in the election of ,
March 31.
The following is an extract from an Order issued over his
signature on October 3, 1944: “With aview to exterminating
Communism in our region, it has been decided to launch a

general offensive on October 3at 8a.m. with the participation

of German troops. ...Measures to be taken during the
offensive: (I) Shooting immediately of all armed persons
captured, (2) Reconnaissance of the terrain, searching of houses,
bams, etc., and the assembling of all men and women from 15
to 70 years who are suspect at Hellikon, where they will be
sorted.”

Early in May, 1944, two officers of the Security Battalions

27
 %

under the command of Spiridis, Papoulias and Nerangis went to

Sohos and gave arms to 50 ^well-known Rightists. ELAS sent
them an ultimatum to surrender their arms within six hours. Sohos
was vitak to ELAS as most of their provisions had to pass
through the village and it was alocal supply centre, T h e 5 0
refused and barricaded themselves in the school, where thiy held
out for two days. They had sent for help from the Bulgarians,
but it arrived too late. ELAS were very lightly armed and hac>
several casualties before they succeeded in forcing the surrender
by the use of petrol bottles. Only one of the defenders was
killed and another suffocated trying to escape through adrain.
The 50 were disarmed, and, after careful investigation, all but
five were allowed to go free. These five were taken by ELAS
to the mountains where they were given atrial lasting 12 days.
One of them, alawyer, had acted as “examiner” for Spiridis
and the Germans, when Resistance fighters who had been
rounded up by the Germans and Bulgarians were being tried.
He eventually confessed, hoping to save his life, and implicated
the other accused. He admitted having contact with the Security
Battalion officers (who were in direct contact with the Germans)
and that they had acted as spies and informers on ELAS. The
lawyer also admitted acting as interrogator for the Germans and
Spiridis, but excused himself on the ground that he had managed
to get some of them off. All five were found guilty by the
People’s Court and shot.
T h e S i t u a t i o n To d a y
We visited the village of Sohos because we had heard that a
gendarme had murdered aLeftist and that villagers were
frequently beaten up by the gendarmerie. We went first to the
gendarmerie station to inform them that we were there. The
officer in command, 2nd Lt. Iliopoulos, was in Salonika and
the sergeant out of the station, so we left amessage that we
would call back before we left the village. We also sent a
message to the village magistrate, George Vilias, that we would
like to see him and would call at his office later.
We had some difficulty in finding the house of the murdered
m a n No one spoke to us in the village street, but eventually an
old man guided us there. Both the Sergeant and the magistrate
turned up at the house of the murdered man^quite soon. The
magistrate stayed there while we questioned the people, who did
not mind speaking in his presence. He, however, would not
speak in front of them, and said that he would say what he had !
to say in his office.
28
 After awhile more and more villagers trickled into the house
to tell us their stories, but once we left no one spoke to us in
the street.
Alex Massis was ayoung man with an excellent record in the
Army. He had not fought with ELAS, but worked on the
political side with EAM ensuring supplies, etc. When he came
down from the mountains he had been elected president of the
Agricultural Co-operative, which had 800 members, and secretary
of the Agrarian Party branch.
When the National Guard came to the village to take o v e r
after the Varkiza Agreement, they twice came to his house to
search for him; he therefore left the village and made charcoal
in the mountains. In the winter, when he could not stand the
cold and hunger any longer, he decided to go to Salonika to try
to get himself cleared as he had not killed anyone. He returned
to his house to change his clothes, but someone betrayed him
and he was arrested in the house of his relative, Constantine
Katsinas (who told us the story).
Katsinas and his two sons and Alex Massis were taken out
in the snow by the gendarmes, who made them stand against a
wall with their hands up. The gendarme VassUius Raftis asked
abystander: “Which is the man?” and as the latter pointed to
Massis, the gendarme shot him in cold blood. There was no
attempt to escape.
This happened on January 25, 1946.
Raftis was “removed ”from the village—but not under arrest,
and he has never been brought to trial. Nor has any evidence
been called for from the eye-witnesses. The villagers think he is
in Salonika in the Security Section of the gendarmerie.
Fifteen able-bodied men have fled from the village because they
fear the same fate as Massis.
About sixty people have been beaten by the gendarmes because
they supported EAM. We talked to several of them, including
an old shoemaker who was beaten in his shop by Raftis, and a
young men who had lost his hearing as aresult of abeating he
had received for singing apartisan song. These people bore
unmistakable marks of severe beatings. One old woman stated
that her son was still in hospital as aresult of abeating he had
received on December 4, 1945.
We then went with the magistrate to his office, which was a
room off the main hall of the gendarmerie station. He spoke to
us in the presence of his deputy and began by bluntly stating that
29
no action was taken by the Greek state in his area to punish
those responsible for crimes, and murders. Hence terrorism
is encouraged. Not only do the gendarmerie take no notice of
him when he tries to uphold the law, but they actually threaten
h i m w i t h r i fl e s .
Civilians were constantly being beaten in the gendarmelfe post
outside the door of his office. He reported this to the public
prosecutor in Salonika, who told him that justice was afarce in*
Sohos and that it was his, Vilias’s, responsibility to do something
about it. The public prosecutor instructed Villas to take astate¬
ment from everyone who was beaten and submit it to his superiors
in Salonika.
On March 24, 1946, he heard cries of “Help! They’re killing
me!” outside his door. He went out and found aman being
severely beaten by the gendarmes. Villas instructed them to bring
the man to his office. They did so, and he began to take astate¬
ment. The gendarme Mandzaris burst in and tried to drag the
man out of the office. Vilias protested; the gendarme swore at
him and ageneral scuffle ensued in which Vilias was struck and
the commander of the gendarmerie post, 2nd Lieutenant
Iliopoulos, dragged the man out by force and threatened to kill
the magistrate. Vilias had to abandon his office and advised
the other civil servants in the village that he was no longer able
to carry out his duties as there was no justice in the village.
The next day he went to Salonika and reported the incident to
the public prosecutor, Karapiperis, who instructed an attorney
and acaptain of the gendarmerie to investigate the situation in
Sohos immediately. As aresult of their investigation, on the
same day, they cabled both Athens and Salonika recommending
the removal of the commander of the gendarmerie, Iliopoulos.
That was on March 27. So far the only thing that has happened
is that the gendarme Mandzaris has been transferred to another
station. Vilias believes that the Minister of Justice was notified.
We were told of many similar incidents which have subse¬
quently occurred in the surrounding villages.
Vilias, aman of about 27 or 30 years qf age, spoke to us very
frankly and was obviously pretty apprehensive as to what was
going to happen to him as aresult of our interview. We assured
him that we would make it clear to the gendarmerie sergeant that
we, and not he, had taken the initiative about the interview.
He ended by saying that in the four months he had been in
Sohos he knew of no provocation whatever by the Left and
30
expressed the opinion that If the gendarmerie left there would be
peace and quiet. \

We then went to see the sergeant of the gendarmerie, G. Tsolos,

second in command of the post and asked for his opinion on the
situation. He stated that the region was previously ELAS
headquarters and that the gendarmerie post had only been
re-established on July 16, 1945. The papers said there was aband
of 150 Capitaneos (ELAS partisans) circulating and that all the
Nationalists had fled. Gendarmes who had been in Sohos before
said that they would rather desert than go there because it was a
centre of Communist terrorists. The gendarmerie were warned
by'the Nationalists that terrorists would destroy the gendarmerie
post and that the house where we had been was their meeting
place.
Mr. Dodds then asked him afew straight questions.
“Can you give one case of agendarme being attacked?”
“ N o . ”

“Was the gendarmerie post ever attacked?”

“ N o . ”
”Did you beat old men and women?”
” N o . ”

“Did you beat young men?”

”They were Communists.”
“Is it legal for gendarmes to beat people?”
“No.”
At first Tsolos denied knowledge of the magistrate's protest
about the beatings. Under pressure, he admitted that he had been
told about it by Mendzaris.
Finally, Dodds asked the sergeant to call in all the gendarmes
with the magistrate, and threatened to hold the sergeant respon¬
sible if anything happened as aresult of our visit. He expressed
himself pretty forcibly about what we had seen.
One of the gendarmes began to lose control of himself, but
when we offered to take- down any statement he would like to
make, he was silent. The sergeant then said that it was their
duty to observe the law and to protect property. During the
occupation they had suffered from the Communists and many
gendarmes had been killed by them—they must defend them¬
selves against armed terrorists.
As we went out asmall group of women in black, whom we had
noticed lined up outside the sergeant’s door when we went in,
gathered round us and the sergeant said: ‘‘ Aren’t you going to
31
 V i

speak to these women?"’ We thought it odd that they should

be waiting for us inside the gendarmerie station and insisted on
interviewing them outside in the street. They asked: “Why
didn’t you come and enquire about the murders of our
husbands?” We asked them to continue. They said that they
had been murdered by the Communists. We asked whfen. In
all but one case it was on May 7, 1944. We asked if it had been
in abattle. They said yes, and it turned out that they were ali
widows of men tried and executed after the battle of Sohos
school described above.

It was quite obvious that this deputation had been organised

for us by the gendarmes—a technique which we know to have
been practised on previous British delegations to Greece.
As we left the village, our car was stopped by two young
girls—one about 15 years old—who gave us flowers. The day
after we left we heard that they had been beaten by members
of EVEN.

So concerned were we with what we had seen at Sohos that

we asked the British Consul at Salonika to see us that evening
together with Colonel Gordon of the British Police Mission.
After along discussion, it transpired that the British Police
Mission had only heard of the Sohos affair through areport in a
Left-wing newspaper which they had tended to discount.
Although the incident with the magistrate was over amonth
ago, they had not intervened in any way, and we formed the
conclusion that both the consul and the British Police Mission
were almost entirely dependent for their information on the
Greek gendarmerie, which is not avery impartial or trustworthy
source.

SECTION XI.—THE CLOSING OF ACLINIC

Even organisations catering for the Resistance movement,

which in Britain would be recognised as performing acharitable
function, are not exempt from interfei’fence by the authorities.
It is here appropriate to give an example from the experiences
of EA, the “National Mutual Aid,” which was at first part of
EAM, but later functioned as an independent, non-political,
organisation.
One of the recurring themes in UNRRA and British military
circles was that “the Greeks wont help themselves; they expect
us to do everything for them.” Yet EA, an organisation with
an outstanding record ,of self-help, has not only been obstructed
32

1
by successive Greek Governments, but is even unable to get
any supplies from UNRRA.
One of EA’s first activities was to conceal and care for British
soldiers and escaped prisoners. For the Resistance fighters it
cooked, mended, made clothes and laundered. It cared for the
dependents and farms of the combatants; it organised free
hospitals and dispensaries in places where such things were
finknown; it cared for the orphans and organised communal
meals. After the Varkiza Agreement (February 12, 1945), its
dispensaries and hospitals were closed and successive Govern¬
ments prevented its collecting of funds and arrested its collectors
a n d l o c a l o f fi c e r s .

EA, however, continued to work—now concentrating on

helping, the thousands of political detainees and their families
with legal aid, food, and so forth.
One of the offshoots of EA—the “Foundation for the Relief
of Resistance Fighters, 194p-45,” which ran aclinic mainly for
hostages returned from Germany—was avictim of such dis¬
crimination while we were in Athens. It was treating 100-150
out-patients daily—the doctors and nurses giving their services
free, but on Thursday, May 2, the police came and said that the
clinic must close down within 24 hours. In spite of protests by
the committee (which includes the Bishop of Kozani, Mrs. Svolos,
Mrs. Tsouderos and John'Sofianopoulos), the Minister of Public
Welfare confirmed the order and we witnessed the pitiful
spectacle of the patients coming on their crutches and in wheel
c h a i r s t o fi n d t h e i r c l i n i c c l o s e d ,
The building had belonged to acollaborationist doctor, who
used it as agambling house for Germans during .the Occupa¬
tion. It was requisitioned by the Sofoulis Government while
he was in jail and given to the “Union of Hostages.” When
he was released, his monarchist friends in the Tsaldaris Govern¬
ment promptly derequisitioned the building, so the clinic was
given 24 hours’ notice, extended to 48 hours as aresult of
protests.

SECTION XIL—TESTIMONY OF LIBERALS

We saw Mr. Kourvisianos in Athens, who said: “1 was appointed

Special Prosecutor by Papandreou after the hberation in Athens
for the prosecution of collaborators. Iserved in that office from
November 14, 1944, until October 1, 1945. Iwas then asked
to take avillage post at Agrinion in Western Greece. This was
33
intended as an insult and was the result of pressure on the
Government from the friends of collaborators whom Iwas
prosecuting. Accordingly, Iresigned.
“On April 20, 1945, an armed man made an attempt on my
life. The Security Corps was informed, but no arrest was made.
“On May 11, 1945, Diamantopoulos, an agent foe Ger¬
many during the occupation and against whom there was
awarrant for arrest, attacked my brother at Gastouni; ha
fired eight times but fortunately missed him. Diamantopoulos
was arrested and three months later sent to Patras where he
was illegally released by rhy successor. On April 8, 1946, my
two brothers were told by agroup of ‘X'-ites, led by
Diamantopoulos, that they would be murdered In my village.
Abrother of one of the group was sentenced to twenty years
for collaboration, in acourt in which 1had been the prosecutor.
“Two ‘X’-ites, together with the gendarmes and the Chief of
Police, arrested one of my brothers, and took him to the village
police station. They took olf his shirt and coat and stabbed
him three times and killed him. My murdered brother was an
eminent local Liberal, and was alawyer. The murderer is
free and the chief of police is still at his post.”
When we interviewed ex-Premier Sofoulis, he said: The

internal position is much worse than it has ever been. Law

and order are non-existent. The incidents which happened
during the period of my government Iwas unable to prevent
because of the reactionary elements within the state machinery.
Irefer to the Security Corps, police and gendarmerie. This situa¬
tion is an inheritance from the Metaxas dictatorship. The

Government of Voulgaris was areactionary one, and during that

period apurge was made of the State machine and the few
demaining democratic remnants were eliminated. The reaction¬
ary elements that now remain are linked with the Government,
and since no steps are taken against them, they feel perfectly
safe in doing anything they like. They supported the election
of the present Government and know they contributed to its
victory. They therefore feel they have been strengthened and
that is why the terror has been extended to aclimax resulting
in the further provocation of the extreme Left. The State
machine is only working for the King’s return. They have
turned against the democrats in order to be avenged, so they say,
and in this they do not make any exception of the Liberals, they
even characterise us as Communists in an attempt to justify the
34
crimes they commit against us. We, as Liberals, are paying
with our blood for the actions of. the Right and the extreme
Left. Most Liberal leaders in the countryside have had to
disappear or have been killed as aresult of terrorist activities.”
*
CHAPTER III

M AY D AY AND THE TRADE UNIONS

SECTION L—OUR M AY D AY EXPERIENCES

All members of the delegation participated in the May

Day celebrations, and all spoke at mass meetings: Dodds and
Mrs. Pym at Salonika, and Solley and Tiffany in Athens.
During their visit to Salonika, Dodds and Mrs. Pym saw quite
alot of the local trade union movement, being met on arrivd by
representatives of the General Confederation of Labour (Greek
TUC), and meeting anumber of deputations who came forward
with their complaints. These invariably related to persecution
of trade unionists by monarchists and by gendarmes throughout
the Salonika district.
Among these complaints was that in anumber of places May
Day demonstrations had been banned. So when Dodds and
Mrs. Pym called on the Governor-General of Northern
Macedonia, they requested that the May Day celebrations should
be permitted, and also asked for permission to carry out their
investigations freely in the province.
The Governor-General agreed that the demonstrations should
not be banned, and they were permitted in anumber of places.
H o w e v e r, i n t h e t o w n o f Ve r r i a t h e d e m o n s t r a t i o n w a s i n t e r ¬
rupted by the gendarmes who surrounded the band and forced
them to play the royal anthem, as aresult of which the
demonstrators broke up in disorder.
In Salonika the May Day demonstration was held in excellent
weather, and was attended by between 80,000 and 90,000 people.
The enthusiasm was tremendous, and the main slogans were
for ageneral amnesty. Dodds makes the following personal
report:
“ W h e n I fi n i s h e d m y s p e e c h , I w a s i n f o r m e d t h a t s o m e
members of the crowd had been arrested. We found .time
to go to the No. 8Police Station to investigate the case
of three men who had already been badly beaten up by
the gendarmes. One of the prisoners was acripple, having been
wounded nine times while serving on the Albanian front as a
member of the Resistance Movement. This man was in a
35
particularly bad state, and the officer in charge said that he had
found it necessary to lock the three men in acell, and to retain
the key, to prevent worse happening to them. When Iasked
why this had happened, he replied that they were wearing
ELAS badges, but they were to be released as there were no
other charges against them, and there was some legal rfoubt as
to whether ELAS badges were political. They were released
while we were there, but all of them had suffered seveOe
beatings.”
On the eve of May Day, Solley and Tiffany visited the Patras
Labour Centre, and their report gives almost exactly the same
picture as that in Salonika :
“At the Patras Labour Centre wc received alarge number of
delegations of different trade union branches and different
democratic organisations. We saw three women weavers who
had been dismissed that morning because they had been
distributing May Day leaflets outside their place of work. They
were not distributing leaflets in the factory, or during working
hours. They were dismissed on the spot, although that is contrary
to the law, but it would be impossible in practice to obtain any
redress. Permission to distribute these pamphlets had been
obtained from the police.
t t

We were told by adeputation of trade union leaders that

the day before the police chief had stated that the May Day
celebrations must not be held within the city, but his decision
had been altered later, and they informed us that this was
because of the news of our arrival. The meeting, although
permitted, was subject to stringent restrictions, e.g., collections,
dancing, singing and entertainments were all forbidden.
“During ashort adjournment at the Patras trial, which we
attended, we were talking to the Populist (Monarchist) deputy
for the district, Saghias, when aman rushed into the court-room,
his face and clothing covered with blood.
“He wanted the protection of the court because ‘X’-ites and
apoliceman had been beating him up. The man gave his name
as Petris, of 90 Deniinekion Street, Patras. The Populist deputy
angrily exclaimed that this was aCommunist trick to fool us,
whereupon Iput my hand on the man’s face, showed the deputy
the blood, and asked him if he thought this was red. ink.
“The only retort the deputy could think of was: ‘We have
been occupied by the Germans for four years, and our democ¬
racy is not yet as stable as yours.'
36
 “Petris was led away to the police station and later that
evening we interviewed him. He iold us that the police and
the ‘X’-ites who were working hand-in-hand, had caught him
distributing handbills. These had been passed by the local
prefect as legal, were announcing aMay Day meeting, and
had be^n given him by the Labour and trade union centre,
yet the explanation we were given at the police station for this
(ftitrage was that the leaflet contained the offending words:
‘Capitalist Oligarchy ruling in Greece.’
“Incidentally, after we left Patras by road for Athens, we
had an evening meal at awayside cafe, where agroup of
monarchist soldiers were also eating. They were singing a
royalist song, some lines of which included the following: ‘We
are going to jight the Bulgarian Communists with the arms our
Allies have given us.’ ”
On May Day itself Solley and Tiffany took part in the Athens
demonstration in the Panathinaikos Field where, in spite of
torrential rain, there was an enormous attendance, with 60,000
seated in the stadium, and one and ahalf times that number
standing, making atotal estimated at 150,000. Some of the
banners were in English, and one of the most popular slogans
was :“This is the 9.3 per cent who abstained ”—a reference to
the figures given in the Allied Observers’ report that only 9.3 per
cent abstained for political reasons.
At Larissa, the Executive of the Labour Centre told Solley
and Tiffany that slo^ns which were to have been on the workers’
banners for the May Day celebrations had first to be censored
by the gendarmme. They produced the official communique
from the gendarmerie, showing that three slogans containing
references to fascism had been struck out. These were:
1. “Condemn the traitors of the working class who collabor¬
ated with the fascists.”
2. “Monarchist-fascist terrorism must end.”
3. “The workers and employees will struggle for the
extirpation of the remnants of fascist reaction.”
SECTION II.
THE POSITION OF TIL\DE UNIONISM

Wherever we went we were impressed by the activity of the

local Labour Centres in welcoming us. They always made
the most of the opportunity to report to British Labour
M.P.s the state of affairs in their locality. And we must
37
admit that they were unanimous in the stories they told of
active terrorism and persecution of the trade unions, whether in
Athens, Piraeus or Salonika, Patras or Larissa.
SoUey and Mrs. Pym spent some time with members of the
Executive of the Greek Confederation of Labour
on i^ril 27.
Most of the Executive were present, including the veteran^eaders,
Theos, Stratis and Kalomiris. Theos travelled with Dodds and
i.
Mrs. Pym to Salonika.
Theos is afine example of the type of leader forged in the
long struggle to build free trade unions in Greece. He is only
50 years old, though 15 years in almost every prison in Greece
for trade union organisation makes him look much more. On
one occasion he was kept for seven and ahalf months in solitary
confinement, and as aresult of his sufferings he is nearly blind
and tubercular. The Metaxas dictatorship handed him over to
the Germans, but he escaped, and took aleading part in
organising Resistance in the mountains.
The General Secretary of the GCL is Mr. Paparigas,
who welcomed us, and invited the members of the delegation to
speak at the May Day demonstrations in Athens and Salonika.
The position of Greek trade unionism, as he described it to us,
is as follows :

After the institution of the Metaxas dictatorship in 1936, there

was no free trade unionism in Greece. The Metaxas “trade
unions ”were similar in form and activity to the German Labour
Front. Membership was compulsory, subscriptions being
deducted from wages by the employers! This system is still in
force even today, despite repeated protests by the GCL since
the liberation.

The “leaders ”of the Metaxas “trade unions ”were appointed

by the Government. Many of the previously elected leaders were
put in prison.
During the occupation, the Italians and Germans continued to
recognise the “official ”trade unions of the Metaxas period, but
at the same time areal trade union movement began to be
developed illegally, organising sabotage and in other ways fighting
against the enemy.
Following the December events of 1944, General Plastiras, the
Premier, once again appointed an official executive, and even
appointed leaders who had been in office under the Metaxas
dictatorship. Unfortunately the Citrine delegation in January,
1945, appeared to be persuaded that these appointments were
38
constitutional. The pre-1936 leaders, Theos, Kalomiris and
Stratis—all at that time associated with EAM—^protested at this,
and finally new elections were agreed upon under the supervision
of the British TUC.
Elections for aprovisional executive took place in Athens
and Pir^us under the supervision of Tewson, Papworth and
F e a t h e r.
!TThe first Congress of the new GCL should have taken place
in July, 1945, but was delayed till March, 1946, when it took place
under the supervision of adelegation from the World Federation
of Trades Unions, consisting of British, French and Soviet
representatives, who endorsed it as properly representing the
working class of Greece. This congress was held in spite of
considerable obstruction on the part of the authorities, in some
cases the local police prohibiting delegates to travel to Athens
for the congress.
The executive had intended to finance the congress by
collecting half aday’s wages from every member. Though this
was not illegal, the employers, police and gendarmerie intervened
to prevent collections being made and in some cases even
confiscated the funds collected. Out of 500 million drachmas
required, only 128 million were raised, and as aresult the
delegates had to sleep where they could, instead of being put
up in hotels.
Even since then, however, there is no real freedom for
unions to hold their meetings, these being frequently broken up
by National Guards, “X”-ites and by the gendarmerie and
police. On one occasion the judge who was supervising atrade
union election was beaten up.
Here are four examples chosen at random from the 36
telegrams of protest sent to the G.C.L. during April, 1946:
Labour Centre of Ana to G.C.L. on 14.4.45:
Arta Gendarmerie dispersed today (Sunday) at 11 a.m.
trade union meetings at Labour Centre and threatened to
arrest the secretary.
Xanthi Labour Centre to Prefect and Gendarmerie Commander
of Xanthi on 2.4.45;
S i r, — ^ X a n t h i L a b o u r C e n t r e o n b e h a l f o f i t s m e m b e r s
considers it its duty to protest against the illegal and unjust
arrest of its president and his deputy on Sunday, 31.3.45.
Ne'a Artaki Fishermen fUnion to Ministries of Public Order
and Labour and G.C.L. on 4.4.45:

39
 Security Corps set on fire offices of the Union of Fisher¬
men of Nea Artaki and destroyed furniture, files and books
a n d d a n c e d r o u n d t h e fi r e .

Union of Chemical Industry Workers to G.C.L. on 13.4.45:

On behalf of our 3,000 members we protest agjiinst the
breaking open of our offices and the destruction of 3,500
copies of the syndicalistic paper Proterghatis, the theft
60,000 drachmas, etc.
Since the general election the situation has steadily deteriorated.
The economic situation is worse, and the Government threaten to
make strikes illegal. Legal action has been started to annul the
decisions of the March Congress.
This action has been initiated by aMonarchist M.P. by the
name of Makris who, after the liberation, became the leader of
the extreme Right-wing within the trade union movement.
Despite the fact that he has enjoyed the closest collaboration and
support of the police and gendarmerie, and has made repeated
efforts to establish himself as the official leader of the GCL,
he received only 7per cent of the votes in the last trade union
elections. He has since tried to form abreakaway organisation
with no success.
Now, however, with an extreme Right-wing Government in
power, he is clearly hoping to become the appointed leader of
the Greek working class.
In the fifteen days, April 12 to April 27, twenty cases had
been reported of attacks against trade union offices and trade
unionists. On April 26 amember of the Athens Trades Council
was arrested and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for
organising ameeting. The distribution of May Day leaflets, as
we have already reported, also caused awhole crop of arrests.
There is no effective price control in Greece today, but very
effective wage control. Thus, while the cost of living since pre¬
war has risen by 200 times, the average wage rose by only sixty
times. !UNRRA goods are priced at approximately 100 to 150
times pre-war, except for bread which is fifty times pre-war.
The amount of sugar which cost 18 to 20 drachmas pre-war now
costs 12,000 drachmas on the free market and 4,000 drachmas
on the ration. What struck us most forcibly was that the rich
could get every necessity and luxury (many of which we had
not seen for five years in England)—at an enormous price—
while it was amystery how the poor lived when we compared
prices in the shops with the workers’ wages.
40
 One of the tragic results of the poverty was the number of
children from eight years upwards selling cigarettes and flowers
in the streets and caf^s. There seems to be acrying need for
asystem similar to the British one of rationing and price control.
We were told that UNRRA had recommended this, but that it
was turned down by the Government.
At present poor people cannot afford to buy most of the
1?NRRA goods, or, if they do—^particularly in the villages—they
have to sell such items as sugar in the black market in order
to buy enough black (or “free ”) market bread to keep them
going, as the amount of “rationed ”(i.e., price-controlled) bread
is quite inadequate. Hence the profusion of marvellous cream
cakes at about 5s. each.
“Destitutes ”are supposed to get afree issue of UNRRA
goods, but we heard many complaints that you couldn’t be
“destitute,” unless you were aMonarchist.
The present Government does not seem to have any economic
policy at all except to remove all controls on industrialists and
all safeguards that benefited the workers.
Premier Tsaldaris told us that prices were rising on the
Stock Exchange. The capable economist. Professor Angelo-
poulos, however, assured us that if the present trend of selling
gold sovereigns continues, the British loan would be exhausted
in two or three months, and there would be anew and worse
economic crisis.
The absence of reconstruction work was most striking. We
did not see anyone working on the truly appalling roads or on
the docks at Piraeus, which had been badly damaged and caused
such abottle-neck that food and goods were ruined because of
lack of warehouses and difficulty in getting them away.

CHAPTER FOUR
C O L L A B O R AT O R S W I T H T H E E N E M Y
S E C T I O N I . — W H O A R E T H E C O L L A B O R AT O R S ?
We were frankly shocked at the attitude of some British
personalities and some Right-wing Greeks towards the
collaborationists. On more than one occasion we had to listen
to apologies for the German-sponsored Security Battalions who
did so much of the work of the invaders for them.
Therefore we think it necessary to define what we mean by a
collaborator:
We do not accept the cynical definition of “someone who
41
 collaborated more than Idid,” but prefer the definition laid down
in Decree No. 6of Janua-ry 20, 1945, which lays down that
those persons shall be prosecuted and punished who
(I) “having apublic appointment, whether military, or judicial
or administrative ...have been conscious agents of the enemy
or have carried out their duties in such away as to fadflitate the
work of occupation in an oppressive way for the people ..
or (2) who betrayed to the enemy Greek or foreign citizefts
working for the national or allied struggle or who caused their
discovery or arrest; the case being aggravated should the arrested
person be condemned ..or (3) “who have systematically
given information to the enemy about the movements of persons
or organisations working for the national or Allied cause ..
or (4) “who by any means hampered the national and Allied
war activity in general. ..
It should be remembered that Allied G.H.Q. Middle East and
the Papandreou Government both condemned the Security
Battalions. Nevertheless, former members of the battalions today
occupy key posts in the gendarmerie, the army and parliament,
while in the prisons which we visited the majority of the prisoners
were charged with killing Security Battalionists and collaborators,
often in battle, or with destroying State property during the
Occupation; and we estimated that alarge proportion of the
13,000 admitted by the present Premier to be now in Greek
jails must be held on similar charges.
P r e m i e r Ts a l d a r i s t o l d u s t h a t t h e r e w e r e “ n o c o l l a b o r a t o r s i n
Greece—only financial collaborators,” but his Government
includes General Gonatas, the founder and inspirer of the
Security Battalions, whose appointment by Plastiras as a
Governor-General even Mr. Churchill felt constrained to oppose.
We will quote but afew of the documented cases of
collaborators in high places which were brought to our notice:
Collaborators in Parliament
The first is Constantme Papadopoulis, recently elected as a
Gonatas (“ National Liberal ”) Deputy for Kozani. He was
chief of the Security Battalions in Kilkis and 130 warrants have
been issued against him for the murder of civilians during the
occupation. He is stated to have burned houses in several villages.
In 1944 Papadopoulos went to Austria to arrange about armed
collaboration with the Germans. We saw aphotograph of him
in Vienna with the German Commander-in-Chief. We also have
in our possession acopy of aquisling newspaper. The Voice of
42
the Greeks, published in. Salonika in August, 1945. The slogan
above the title reads :“The place of all Greeks is on Germany’s
side. It contains the following main news item:
“ C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S OF GREEK LEADERS TO

FU^RER ON THE OCCASION OF HIS ESCAPE.

“The following cable has been sent to Hitler, congratulating
mon the occasion of his escape from the assassination attempt
I'July 20: Col. G. Poulos, Leader of the Greek Voluntary Unit,
Kissa-Badjak, M. Papadopoulos, C. Papadopoulos, S. Vassiliadis
and Kapnopoulos, leaders of the Greek National Voluntary Army
GNVA or EEEZ, P. Dadoulis, Director of Press and Propaganda
of the GNVA, D. Agathos on behalf of the Greek Nationalist-
Socialists of Macedonia. ...”

We also saw photostats of an order signed by C. Papadopoulos,

Chief of the Nationalist Army of Kilkis, addressed to his troops.
It says: “With the object of exterminating Communism in our
region, it has been decided to launch ageneral offensive on
October 3, at about 8a.m. with the participation of German
troops. ...
“Objectives—The commanders of sections must know the
names of German section commanders, as stated herein.
“Measures to be taken during the offensive. (1) All persons
captured to be put to death immediately. (2) Reconnaissance
of the country, search of houses, and the assembling of all men
and women suspects from fifteen to seventy years at Hellikon
where the shooting will take place.”
The next extract is even more interesting. It is from the
decisions taken on August 31, 1944, by the “Nationalist Army
of Kissa-Badjak ”(Kyriakos Papadopoulos) :
“On 31.8.44 at 11 a.m. in conformity with the orders of the
Commander of the Nationalist Army, we have assembled the
following Commanders of Corps at Salonika :
“(1) Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Kissa-Badjak) (2) Michael
Papadopoulos (Michal Agas) (3) Constantine Papadopoulos, and
decided. ...”
We append hereto the order of the English Captain Weekstand
(name translated from Greek) of the Allied Mission addressed
to the chiefs of the Nationalist Army:
“Iwish to make known to you the actual situation which is
as follows:

“(1) You continue to aid the Germans actively and to fight in

43
collaboration with them against the forces of the Greek National
Government. '

“(2) Germany has already lost the war and her troops are
surrendering daily. Your help, therefore,’is of no further use to
the Germans, who will very soon throw you aside as useless.
“(3) The Greek National Government and its ’^Premier,
Papandreou, has dissolved and condemned your organisation
the ‘Nationalist Greek Army.’ The Greek National Govern¬
ment has warned you and ordered you to cease fighting in
collaboration with the Germans. If you continue to do so, the
Government will take that activity into account.
“(4) You have alast chance to deliver your arms to the
Second ELAS Division, which is the official army of the Greek
National Government in this region.
“(5) The Second ELAS Division has already given aguarantee
that you will be in no danger of reprisals.
“(6) The Allied Mission countersigns this guarantee.
Signed, Captain Weekstand. 4.10.44.”
And Constantine Papadopoulos was elected Deputy for Kozani
on March 31, 1946 !
We have alist of nineteen deputies from the Kilkis area alone,
ten Populists, six Gonatas Party and three Liberals, all of whom
collaborated actively with the invaders—^we give one example.
Cosmos Prokopidis, “Liberal ”Deputy for Kozani, was one
of the principal organisers of the massacre of Messovouni,
Kozani. In 1941 the inhabitants of this village engaged in
partisan fighting against the invaders. The Prefect of Kozani
and Prokopidis in concert with the Germans persuaded the
peasants to lay down their arms by promising that no punitive
measures would be taken. Trusting the word of Prokopidis,
they did so. One hundred and forty-eight were massacred and
the village was completely destroyed and plundered by the
Germans.

During the Occupation Prokopidis was the representative in

Western Macedonia of the famous traitor Hambouris, who was
in charge of collecting abandoned allied war material for the
Germans. For this activity Hambouris was condemned to death
by the local tribunal, before which there was also asimilar
charge of treason for Prokopidis. The trial was fixed for April
12, 1946. On March 31 he was elected to Parliament, and taking
advantage of his position as Deputy, got the trial adjourned.
The above examples, all taken from one very small area of
44
Greece, give aclear sample of the composition of the present
Parliament elected on March 31. »

SECTION IL—THE BLACK RECORD OF THE

G E N D A R M E R I E
*

Anote of explanation about the history and composition of

t|egendarmeriemaygivethereaderacluetowhatfollows.
The gendarmerie has always been armed. The police, which
was trained on British lines was (until the Liberation) unarmed,
but it only operated in Athens, Pirsus, Patras and Corfu. The
extension of its organisation to other cities was successfully
resisted by the vested interests of the gendarmerie.
Under the Metaxas Dictatorship (1936-40) the gendarmerie
were carefully purged of democratic elements. During the
occupation the vast, majority were faithful servants of the
Germans. Apatriotic minority took to the mountains and
fought with ELAS, for which they were rewarded by dismissal,
prosecution for “desertion,” and their widows were deprived
of pensions, unlike the widows of gendarmes who served in the
Security Battalions. During the Liberation, and the December
Events which followed, the gendarmerie virtually disintegrated
and their duties were taken over by the National Guards.
Gradually, however, the gendarmes were reassembled,
including the ex-Security Battalion men, and their ranks were
filled by drafts from the army.
In 1945 Sir Charles Wickham came with aBritish Police
Mission to help train the gendarmes “on the impartial British
model.” In spite of repeated denunciation by the Left of the
collaborationists and quislings in the gendarmerie, no steps were
taken to purge them, and there seems good ground for believing
that British influence prevented this, or at best did not insist on
apurge—on the pretext that there must be “no political
discrimination in police services.” There seemed to us to be a
general tendency in British official circles to ignore the fact that
the gendarmerie were already political (on the extreme Right);
and generally not to look further back than December, 1944,
for causes of present difficulties, even when, as in Salonika,
there had been no “December Events.”

The following examples from the Salonika area alone will

give some indication of the activities of the gendarmerie there
during the occupation.
45
 I. In ah Order of the Day addressed by Gendarmerie
C o m m a n d e r C o l . N . D a k o f » t o t h e o f fi c e r s o f t h e G e n d a r m e r i e
Corps on December .16, 1941, rewards are given to Captain
George Stravoskiadis who arrested an allied paratrooper and
neutralised supplies dropped at Langada.
In contrast, in the same period (December, 1941), EA 4n under¬
ground proclamations urged the Greek people “to help at any
s a c r i fi c e t h e h e r o i c A u s t r a l i a n s o l d i e r s d e t a i n e d i n t h e c o n c e i i -
tration camp of Pavlos Melas.”
2. The Gendarmerie Commander of Aghion Oros, the officer
Palmos, reports to the Salonika Command that his gendarmes
(names given) arrested British soldiers hiding in Greek homes
during the occupation. This officer Palmos is now serving with
the gendarmerie, being in command of aunit.
3. The chief of the gendarmerie in Langada is G. Tsalamidas.
We have in our possession aphotostatic copy of the following
order issued by him;
Salonika Gendarmerie Command.
No. 16/432/20. Langada, 23.10.44
GENDARMERIE SECTION OF LANGADA
Insistently search your region for the two following soldiers
who have escaped on 29.9.41 from the prisoners’ concentration
camp. If you find them, arrest and deliver them to the nearby
Occupation Military Authorities.
Ernest Jinison, Australian .soldier, aged 38, etc.
Lloyd Augustus, New Zealand soldier, aged 31, height 1.79/n.
D i r e c t o r : G . Ts a l a m i d a s .

4. The chief of the gendarmerie at Kilkis in Macedonia, is

C. Mavroedis. We have photostatic copies of the following two
documents:

Greek Gendarmerie, Salonika, 8.9.42

Sub-Command of Salonika.
No. 20/272/242.
TO THE HIGH COMMAND OF CENTRAL MACEDONIA
Ihave the honour to report that my gendarme, S. Mougakidis,
of the Gendarmerie Station of Nea Magnessia, has just reported
to me that the British soldiers, William Velana and N. Georges,
were arrested. The above soldiers were captured hiding near the
villagers’ farms. They were captured by the Gestapo and
tran.sferred here. Commander of the Sub-Command,
Officer: C. Mavroedis.
46
Greek Gendermed^,
Salonika Gendarmerie Command. '
No. 16/432/90. Salonika, September, 1941

TO THE HIGH COMMAND OF CENTRAL MACEDONIA

Ihavf the honour to report that at 8p.m. on September 15,
1941, gendarmes of the region of Magnessia, arrested the British
G^priot soldier, Ahmet Kiazim, whom they delivered to the local
gendarmerie' station. The Ge.ttapo was warned to take him,
which was done.
Deputy of the Commander
of the Getidarmerie Command,
C. Mavroedis.

Aphotostat of the following was published in Laiki Phoni,

Salonika, on February 28, 1945.
Xanthopoulos Apostolos is still the Chief of Gendarmerie of
Salonika.

GENDARMERIE HEADQUARTERS, SALONIKA.

SPECIAL SECURITY OFFICES
Doc. No. 19/199/16a. Salonika, July 23, 1941
To the Police Stations, General Security, Special Security, and
Aliens’ Dept., Salonika.
Herewith we communicate the document of the German
unit 183, Department 111, No. 68/141 dated 17.7.41, about
fourteen British prisoners of war whose data are given in the
enclosed lists.
We order that the under-mentioned British soldiers are arrested
and sent to the above unit. Let us know the results of your
actions. The Acting Chief of Gendarmes,
Xanthopoulos Apostolos.
In addition to the above we have documents showing that
C. Mavroedis, Gendarme Commander in the Wilkis area, arrested
Communist saboteurs and handed them over to the Germans
(Nov. II, 1943); that Lt.-Col. A. Grevenitis who is still serving
in the gendarmerie, sent Communists to the Paulos Melas
concentration camp for sabotage; that A. Patakos, now promoted
to the rank of major, carried out similar activities.
When it is remembered that the above are merely afew
samples from the Salonika area alone, and that the situation
throughout Greece is no different from that described above, it
is patently clear that the gendarmerie in Greece today cannot but
47
be an instrument of the pro-fascist forces against the democrats.
The following is an excerpt from amemorandum presented
to us in Athens, signed by six police officers, which entirely bears
out the situation described in Salonika:

“We are Greek Police officers and lower ranks who have put
ourselves at the service of our nation and people in^fighting
against the barbarian enemies during the occupation of Greece,
and who also served the allied nations in response to allield
broadcasts. We have opposed those leaders of the police force
who, influenced by the Germans, tried to turn the Greek police
into an instrument of the enemy of our country and the allied
cause. We refused to take up arms against our country and to
supply the concentration camps and the execution squads with
Greek patriots and allies; we have given shelter and assistance
to the sons of the British people.
“Among us, Police Director N. Papadimitriou, in charge of a
group under tlie dir^t orders of the Middle East Allied Head¬
quarters, has rendered invaluable services to the allied 'cause.
Policeman N. Koutsoumaris was imprisoned for two years for
belonging to an underground organisation and for giving shelter
to British officers, until he was arrested by the Germans. Police
Director D. Tsapoghas took an active part in the resistance
struggle in the mountains. Two of the above have now been
retired from active service, and the third has been discharged.
These are but individual examples of what happens on alarge
scale. Most of us were imprisoned by the Italians, having been
surrendered to them by officers of our police, who are still
members of the Force. Furthermore, the blood of our colleagues,
N. Vacalopoulos, S. Neochoritis, D. Arsenidis, and others who
were arrested and executfed by the Germans with the help of
their treacherous servants, has been mixed with the blood of the
boys of your great country in sacrifice to the common cause.
“Now, 18 months after the Liberation, we are considered
unsuitable for the police corps. About 200 officers and lower
ranks, who had been discharged by the Quisling Governments,
are kept out of active service, having been definitely discharged
by the present Government. The present leaders of the police
corps do not even blush at such decisions as that concerning
Policeman D. Soyopoulos, who was discharged during the
occupation, and is still debarred from active service, in
accordance with Minute No. 14/1944 of the Disciplinary Council
for lower Police Ranks, because he refused to obey the orders
o f a G e r m a n o f fi c e r . ”
48
 SECTION 111 —JUSTICE IN GREECE

The average British reader will be'startled to read the statement

of an ex-Minister of Justice that 90 per cent of the judges are
arch-reactionaries. But this is what Mr. G. Mavros,
M . P. f o r A t h e n s i n t h e n e w P a r l i a m e n t s a i d t o u s : The .
situation today is much worse than it was in November. The
State machine is in the hands of the Right. Justice cannot work.
Ninety per cent of the judges belong to the extreme Right. They
are so fanatical that, without regard to evidence, they will
always return averdict for the Right against the Left. As
regards the amnesty, three-quarters of the prisoners could have
been released under the de-congestion law passed by the Sofoulis
Government, if the judges had exercised their judical functions
properly. In some cases Ifound that twenty to thirty people
had been charged for the same murder. Under the de-congestion
law, if within ahundred days from December 21, 1945, people
accused of murder had not been charged, they had to be released.
March 31, 1946, was therefore the target date for the release.
On December 21, 1945, there were 18,000 prisoners not yet
charged, but only 3,400 were released under the law. Applications
to the Public Prosecutor are futile because of the fanaticism of
the judges.”
Some confirmation of this was obtained by Solley and Tiffany
who paid aspecial visit to Patras to attend the trial of agroup of
Resistance fighters who, during the Occupation, had taken part in
the trial and execution of agroup who had been collaborating
with the enemy.
The Patras Special Court owed its existence to adecree of
November, 1944, issued by the Government of National Unity,
which dealt with provisions for the prosecution of collaborators.
Under this decree Special Courts were established, to consist of
five members, the chairman to be ajudge of the Regional Court
of Appeal nominated by the Minister of Justice, and four
“popular ”judges nominated by representative organisations
of trade unions, peasants, intellectuals, tradesmen, etc.
In January, 1945, the Plastiras Government amended this
decree, and stipulated that the court would consist of three
professional judges of the Local Court of Appeal, and two so-
called popular judges, to be chosen from alist of jurymen com¬
piled in the following manner.
The Court of Appeal would draw up alist of persons, with the
required property qualifications, who were legally entitled to
49
 serve on juries. Workers and peasants were specifically excluded
by the new law. From the small number of persons so eligible
alimited list was to be drawn up for each area each year.
We were told by the chairman of the Special Court of Patras,
somewhat naively, that he himself had taken part in drawing
up the original list and he made sure that the persons os the list
were “respectable people, financiers, industrialists and the like.”
From the list so drawn up, ten are chosen by lot each montii
as jurymen and from these ten two are again appointed by lot
as “popular ”judges for the Special Courts.
We were told by Mr. Porphyroghenis, who was Minister of
Labour in the Papandreou Government of National Unity and
leading counsel for the defence in the Patras trial, that it was
invariably the practice for the list of jurymen to consist only of
monarchists. He himself had in March, 1946, acted as counsel
in an appeal to the Athens Court of Appeal against the choice
of the jurymen in the Athens area on the ground that all of them
were monarchists and collaborators. Specific allegations were
made, but the appeal was dismissed.
As far as the Patras Court was concerned, although set up
to deal with collaborationists, it was in fact trying acknowledged
leaders of the Resistance movement. In complete violation of
the fundamental rule of justice the three professional judges of
this Court, who were supposed to sit in judgment on collabora¬
tionists, had themselves received their pay from the quisling
governments throughout the occupation and had continued to
! f u l fi l t h e i r d u t i e s a n d f u n c t i o n s . A n d t h i s f a c t w a s a d m i t t e d t o
us by the President of the Court personally, in an interview we
had with him.
Incidentally, after assuring us of his admiration for British
justice and his desire to see that justice would be done at the
Patras trial, he declared that the accused would be found guilty
and would definitely receive their due punishment—this was said
when the trial had hardly begun!
Solley comments: “I have studied the original decree as a
lawyer, and in my view it is agross misinterpretation of it to say
that this court has the right to try Resistance fighters. This is
the agreed view of all democratic lawyers in Greece.
“The essence of the Prosecution’s case against the accused was
that by disbanding agroup of Greeks, and executing their leaders
(after trial by Court Martial), the accused were collaborationists
in law, and thus came within the jurisdiction of the court; for.
50
 said the Prosecution, this group of.Greeks was pro-allied and
not, as the Defence claimed, actively assisting the Germans.”
While we were present at the trial Mr. Saghias, one of the
counsel acting for the relatives of one of the executed collabora¬
tors, ai^onarchist deputy for the Volos region, came into the
court and—we presume unaware that we were there—addressed
th^ court. AGreek officer was being cross-examined by defence
counsel, on the Resistance activities of ELAS when Mr. Saghias
got up, took no notice of the bench, and made an impassioned
speech to the court on how ELAS had collaborated with the
Germans.

The president of the court, who knew of our presence and

wanted to preserve some semblance of order, was obviously
afraid to interrupt this M.P., and so the court withdrew leaving
the M.P. addressing the crowded court room.
We were informed by defence counsel that this was the
first occasion that the prisoners had not been manacled when in
court. We were given to understand that this was because we
were present at the trial.
We were told by one of the defence counsels that the Patras
Court had ruled, as amatter of law, that the killing of any
member of the Security Battalions during the Occupation was
murder unless it was proved that he had participated directly
in an act of collaboration with the enemy, We raised this
question with the president of the court, and, after much shilly¬
shallying, he admitted that this in fact was so.
We thus had an extraordinary situation. During the war the
Middle East Command and the B.B.C. had called on the Greek
Resistance to fight the enemy and the Security Battalions with
all means in their power. Today the Patras court—^which we
have no reason to consider untypical of Greece as awhole—is
actually condemning Resistance fighters as murderers because,
in carrying out the orders of Middle East Command and the
.B.B.C., they killed anumber of Security Battalionists during the
Occupation.
Solley adds the following comment:
”Having seen anumber of cases of people who were obviously
wrongfully arrested, Iasked whether there was any right of
appeal such as our own Habeas Corpus. Iwas told that there
is such aright of application to the prosecuting attorney, who is
obliged by law to bring the case at once before the Second Court
of Criminal Jurisdiction, consisting of three judges. But there
51
have been thousands of such applications since. the Varkiza
Agreement that followed the events of December, 1944, yet only
o n e
attempt was made by aprosecuting attorney to go forward
with the appeal.
This attorney was beaten up by “X”-ites and later discharged
from his job.
CHAPTER FIVE 1

THE ELECTION AND THE PLEBISCITE

SECTION I.—REPORTS ON THE ELECTION
We were not in Greece during the General Election of
March 31. We therefore did not see the situation at that time at
first hand. From what has already been said about the terror,
however, it is quite clear that the situation existing today is
merely an intensification of what has existed now for aconsider¬
able time. It is the firm opinion of all of us that under the
conditions of terror, interference with trade union freedoms, the
holding of thousands in jail without trial, and the giving of
official positions in the state, gendarmerie and police to notorious
collaborators with the enemy, no such thing as afair election or
fair plebiscite is apossibility.
Here are some first-hand stories of the election which w e r e

told to some or all of us during our stay in Greece:

At Salonika there appeared at the office of the Union of
Democratic Associations, an English-speaking Greek who had
lived in the U.S.A. until he was 19 years of age. He came to see
us from Verria, and stated that he had been an interpreter for
the Allied Observers’ Mission from March 1to April 5, having
been attached to Lt. Arthur Peel, from Waterbury, Connecticut.
His name was Michael Thomas Lefazanes.
This interpreter told us of voting booklets issued in the Sekias
area to people who did not live there, booklets issued to people
who did not reside at the address given on the booklet, and
booklets issued at Kouklouga to police officials who did not have
the necessary residential qualifications. When this was reported
to an officer he said he would report it to his superiors, but n o

action was taken.

At Koufalia, it was stated, the president of the Election
Committee submitted lists of monarchists to be registered at the
Court of First Instance whereas, in the case of democrats desiring
to register, they were told that they must go to Salonika
52
personally and show certain documents before being allowed to
register. As aresult only afew democratic supporters voted as
the others could not afford the time or expense for the journey to
Salonika.
The s|me interpreter maintained that in many polling booths
identification cards were not required while he was there, and
that men came from Kilkis by car and were allowed to cast votes.
Ii?Yannitsa, he said, the polling was rather poor, so the booths
were kept open for hours after they should have been closed and
the local police then “persuaded ”people to go to the polls.
In Larissa three individuals described to Solley and Tiffany
how two of them had been forcibly taken by monarchist bandits
to the police station in the village of Yanouli on polling day,
but had managed to escape and come to Larissa. They were
attacked the next day: they said that in many cases these
monarchist bandits voted, not only for themselves, but also in
the names of those who were abstaining.
The Secretary of the Labour Centre at Larissa, Skylakos, stated
that in two villages controlled by monarchist bandits the villagers
were forced to go to the polls by threats; the two villages were
Nei Carie and Saraslar; in the latter village, he said, the people
were actually lined up. In other villages armed bandits stood
outside the polling stations.
The following is the testimony of G. Vlachos, told to Solley
and Tiffany at Larissa: “Iam aLiberal, and for twenty years
was adeputy and asenator under E. Venizelos. Ihave been
told by many people in the villages of the terrorism which exists
there. They were forced to vote for the monarchists; many
of them were given monarchist lists to put in the boxes and
led by bandits to the polls, the gendarmerie actually assisting the
bandits. Imyself was aSofoulis candidate, but because of the
terrorism in the villages and knowing that my life would be in
danger if Iwent there, Icould not leave Larissa to conduct my
campaign and had to resign my candidature. Sofoulis himself
was able to participate in the election, but of the sixteen
candidates put forward by Sofoulis in this area, only one
ultimately decided to fight, and he /. Koutsinas, and he was
in fact arrested when he went to the villages”
John Sofianopoulos, former Foreign Minister and leader of
the Left Republicans, told us in our interview with him that in
his meetings in London in January with- Ernest Bevin, Hector
McNeil and Philip Noel-Baker, he impressed upon them the
53
necessity of postponing the election to enable more accurate
electoral lists to be prepared, and if possible to get the Left-wing
parties to take part in the election. He pointed out that unless
the Left-wing did take part the Right would get adominant
majority. Sofianopoulos said that his representations appeared
to have made some impression on the Foreign Office, so much in
fact that following on atalk with Philip Noel-Baker, he gained
the impression that the election would be postponed for two
months and he cabled Mr. Sofoulis to that effect. However,
there seemed to be achange of policy when the question of
Greece was raised at UNO.
As to the election itself, he stated categorically that it was
farcical, the electoral lists had been faked, and there had
been compulsion. For example, during March the civil servants
were threatened with dismissal if they did not vote, and their
chiefs could and did demand, after the election, the production
of their booklets as evidence of their having voted or otherwise.
He gave specific examples. Terrorism, he said, was rife in
villages where the local gendarmes operated.
He made the following observations as to the conditions and
the time of the election:
“If the Left parties had participated, greater terrorism on the
part of the Right would have been the result. The Left, by not
participating, had prevented the outbreak of civil war on the
day of the election.”
He said that ten to fifteen people were being murdered by
monarchists daily and that the situation was becoming intoler¬
able. He went on to say that he intended to make atour of
the country, but he could not guarantee his safety.
We had along interview with Professor Svolos, the leader
of the ELD Socialists, who do not now form part of the EAM
coalition. He spoke to us about the elections, saying that the
ELD Socialists wanted both free and fair elections and the
withdrawal of British troops. It was his firm conviction that
under conditions of fairness, all the parties of the Left could
get amajority of 65 to 70 per cent against the restoration of
the King. But law and order must first be re-established.
“The Allied Observers,” he said, “did not pay enough atten¬
tion to our suggestions, and paid too much attention to the one
question of reprisals. On the question of abstention they gave
figures that showed that out of the total population 40 per cent
abstained, and then said that only 9.3 per cent of these were
54
political This was untrue. It was not possible to abstain merely
through indifference, owing to the pressure on people to vote.
It is awell-known fact that thousands of votes were illegally cast,
and the Mission admitted that the registers were not fair. They
n o w askfor arecompiling of the registers, based on anew census.

If this is now necessary, how could the election have been fair?
It appears as if the observers were acting on the instructions
0? their Governments, and Ipersonally got the impression that
they had already made up their minds as long ago as last
January.
“It was quite evident that the elections would result in a
Right-wing Government, and Sofoulis said this time after time
to Mr. Bevin. Mr. Bevin’s failure in foreign policy is complete,
because he has consolidated and strengthened the Right.
“We Socialists in Greece are compromised by his policy, as
the people say to us: ‘If you are of Bevin’s party we cannot join
you,’ and they turn more to the Left. The victory of British
Labour in the general election was aday of jubilation to all of
us in Greece. But slowly, day by day, we have been disap¬
pointed. The presence of British troops has caused arnoral
deterioration in Greece in the attitude towards Great Britain,
and the friendly feeling of the last 200 years is now at its
lowest point.”
Alsospeakingtousoftheelections,ex-PremierSofoulissaid:!
“Mr. Bevin knew from the information that Igave him that
the election would result in avictory for the extreme Right. I
also told him that the first action the extreme Right would take
would be to restore the King.’.’
Throughout our visit we found that, with the exception of the
extremeRight-wing,everybodysaidthattheElectionwascarried
through by means of forgery, perjury, terrorism, assassination
and every possible form of corrupt practice.
SECTION IL—VIEWS ON THE PLEBISCITE
In our interview with ex-Premier Sofoulis aconsiderable time
was spent in discussing the plebsicite. We took detailed notes
at the time, and the following is asummary of Mr. Sofoulis s
views on the question:
“If Bevin gives his approval for aplebiscite to be earned out
in the near future, then asituation of civil war is more than
imminent and highly probable.
55
 In November, 1945, aprogramme was submitted to us by
Mr. Bevin that elections should be held in March, 1946, and the
plebiscite in 1948. During the interim period, it was suggested,
there would be an opportunity for the restoration of law and
order and economic reconstruction, and thus the people would
be calm when they had to decide. Iaccepted this plal(, and as
far as the elections were concerned Icarried out my part of it,
though Idid this with the greatest reluctance and warned Be^^n
that aserious situation would develop. Itold him that if the
elections were postponed and the Left participated, then the
reactionaries would not have amajority, indeed no one would
have amajority, and aCoalition Government would result.
“I always warned against the dangers of abstention. The
Right would gain amajority, and areactionary State would be
the result Isaid to Bevin; ‘If you give apostponement of two
months to facilitate the participation of the Left, and if the Left
do not take part, then Iwill continue the struggle. Iam being
squeezed between the two sides, and there will be few who will
have the courage to vote for me. The Centre will be totally
destroyed.’ Ialso told Bevin that Iwould not do anything
contrary to British interests. He insisted that Imust take steps
to see that the elections were held in March, but Itold him that
it was my duty to say what the result was likely to be. However,
whatever the results. Ihad the assurance of Mr. Bevin that the
plebiscite would be held two years later, W h e n I h e l d t h e
elections, Idid so to fulfil my obligations to Bevin, but Idid
so on condition that the plebiscite would not be held until 1948,
otherwise Iwould not have been prepared to hold the elections!
“Ihope Mr. Bevin, who is known to be aman of honour, will
keep his word and insist on the second part of the programme
—the date fixed for the plebiscite. If not, Ifear the danger of
civil war. Ishould like to convey to Mr. Bevin, if he remembers
me and loves Greece, that he must keep to the agreement a s
regards the plebiscite.”
Mr. Sofianopoulos, ex-Foreign Minister, also expressed the
view that the plebiscite should not take place this year, and
Mr. George Mavros also expressed himself quite specifically.
He was among those who reached agreement with Hector
McNeil concerning the formation of the Sofoulis Government
and the fixing of the dates of the election and the plebiscite.
He said that he would never have agreed to the March 31 election
if he had known that the promise of the British Government,
56
that the plebiscite should not take place for another two years,
would be broken.

The above views are those of Liberals. Everybody to the

Left of the Liberals voiced similar or even stronger views with
regard to the proposal—of which we got news while it was still
only arumour—that the date of the plebiscite would be brought
forward to September this year.

C H A P T E R S I X . T H E P O L I T I C A L S I T U AT I O N

SECTION I.—THE LAST VESTIGES OF DEMOCRACY

We consider, as aresult of our investigations, that the political

situation in Greece may be characterised as one in which the
last vestiges of democracy are being destroyed.
It cannot.yet be said that acompletely fascist state exists
while the following conditions continue:—
(1) May Day celebrations and large Left-wing meetings are
still allowed (in the big towns only and accompanied by
numerous acts of terror and arrests).

(2) The Left-wing press is free to print nearly anything it

desires (where its printing plant and offices have not been
smashed up and its distributors not attacked by the Right
or the Army) but its free circulation is effectively pre¬
vented in the countryside.
(3) Free trade unions are allowed to function—although ham¬
strung at every turn by refusals to allow funds to be
collected, the arrest of leading members, etc.
(4) Left-wing parties are allowed to exist legally, although
every office of EAM and EPON (its youth organisa¬
tion) in Athens, Volos and Salonika, has been smashed up,
some as many as seven times, and to have been amember
of ELAS (the Resistance Army) means that you are* liable
at any time to be thrown into jail for having killed ■
members of the German-recruited Security Battalions
during the Occupation. Even singing or whistling a
Resistance song in the villages leads to abeating-up by
the gendarmerie.
There were, however, signs that the new Tsaldaris Government
does not intend to allow even these last vestiges of democracy
t o r e m a i n f o r l o n g . I n s u p p o r t o f t h i s w e q u o t e fi v e o f
the numerous indications which came to our notice.
57
 (1) The “Security Committees,” which were used by the
Dictator, Metaxas, as aweapon against his political opponents,
are being revived by the new Minister of Public Order, Mr. Spiro
Theotokis.
These committees which consisted of the Chief of the
Gendarmerie, the Prefect of the Province, the Public Prt)sccutor,
and aJudge, could decide if “public order and security ”
w e r e threatened, and could exile those “convicted ”frdm
particular areas, Mr. Theotokis told us with pride that
he had made them “more judicial ”by adding another
judge and taking the right to vote away from the Gendarmerie
Chief; he said he had also added the right of appeal to the
Governor-General; but he did not deny that the committees
would be used to exile Left-wing leaders from their villages and
towns, and he could not give us an assurance that the public
would be admitted to the courts or alegal defence permitted.
Under Metaxas these committees were used effectively to ham¬
string trade unions and political parties by exiling the leaders to
the islands. This could be done by acourt sitting in secret,
without even the presence of the accused on aspecific charge—
and they could and did act on suggestions from the police or
gendarmerie.
The political opponents of the Right have little enough protec¬
tion from the law today, but at least they have the prospect
(however distant) of trial in open court with legal defence on
specific charges. The Security Committees short-circuit all this.
(2) The ban on collecting donations or subscriptions is avery
real weapon for making the carrying on of “legal ”organisations
almost impossible. This method involves the arrest and beating
up of collectors and the confiscation of the money collected by
organisations ranging from the GCL (Greek TUC), to the
EA (the Red Cross of the Resistance), and the Panhellenic
Union of Democratic Associations. Even the League of Greek
W^men for Women’s Rights was forbidden to take part in an
international collection for the benefit of child victims of the
war!

* (3) An attempt is being made to set aside the election of the

administration of the GCL, held under the supervision of the
British TUC, and declared valid by the World Federation of
Trade Unions. This was being done by means of aHigh Court
action by the “breakaway ”trade unionist and Populist
58
(Monarchist) M.P., Makris, who only secured seven per cent
of the votes in the Greek trade union elections. We have already
commented upon the attitude and composition of the Greek
judiciary today.
Another straw in the wind is the dissolution by the Tsaldaris
Government of acommittee for the distribution of UNRRA
footwear set up by the previous Minister of Labour. The
workers had been represented on this committee by the GCL.
The work of the committee has now been handed over, first to
Makris, then, following aprotest by the GCL to anew
committee on which Makris was given equal representation with
the official GCL representative.
(4) We got an indication in Salonika that the gendarmerie
was about to be purged of its few remaining democratic elements
—all those who fought with the Resistance had already been
eliminated; and thus transformed completely into aweapon of
the Right for use against the Left.
(5) While we were in Greece the monarchist newspaper,
Embros asserted that Greece was “terrorised by the Com¬
munists ”and called on the Government to “render itself
indignant and to launch aruthless offensive by 120,000 soldiers,
gendarmes and police, to start exhaustive investigations, to fill
the workers' districts with mechanised patrols, to call the British
forces to help in the task, and to arrest Zachariades (Communist
leader) as soon as he spoke of self-defence.” Bearing in mind
ex-Premier Sofoulis’s remark, that the extreme Right call even
Liberals by the name of “Communists,” this call from aRight-
wing newspaper is extremely ominous.

SECTION IL—THE RESPONSIBILITY OF B R I TA I N

It is with regret that we have to report that wherever we went

we were told by all Left, Centre and trade union supporters:
“We have always been friends of Britain, but if this present
policy is continued we shall be forced to regard the British as
our enemies.”

We discussed the position of British troops and the probable

effect of their withdrawal with all the leading personalities we
met. From the Greeks of the Left and Centre there was a

unanimous desire for their immediate withdrawal, if possible with

the prior formation of amore widely representative government
and the establishment of conditions for new, fair elections. But
59
 - / !

even if these conditions could not be fulfilled, the general opinion

was that the longer the British stayed the worse would be the
disorders that would follow their departure. Their immediate
withdrawal would be the lesser of two evils.
We would especially like to draw attention here to our inter¬
view with Professor Svolos, quoted above, leader of^he ELD
Socialist Party, which is outside EAM and sharply distinguishes
itself from both the Communists and from the Socialists within
E A M .

Professor Svolos was no less critical of British policy in Greece

than any of the other democratic leaders to whom we spoke,
from Sofoulis, the Liberal, to Zachariades, the Communist.
Just as the Left, up to and including Mr. Sofianopoulos and
the Left Liberals, felt that they could expect no .justice or pro¬
tection from the law or from the gendarmerie, so also they felt
that they could not expect any protection from the British Army
or missions. It is hardly conceivable that aGovernment of the
Right would ask for British aid in defending the Left against its
own supporters!
The comments of ex-Premier Sofoulis on the present state of
law and order, quoted above, deserve the closest attention.
The Left and Centre politicians were further convinced that
the Right would prove to have no real backing in the country
once the British withdrew. The same opinion obtained about
the Police Mission, and there was awidespread feeling that the
presence of so many British and American advisers in the key
Greek Ministeries was an infringement of Greek independence.
The Right, on the other hand, were insistent that the British
should stay, as were the higher British officers and officials. The
British “other ranks,” however only wished to get home and
were quite unable to understand the reason why they were still
being kept in the country of an ally.
On the part of the ordinary Greeks there was anot unnatural
tendency to be irritated at ffie continued retention of many of >

the best buildings, theatres, etc., by the British, and such minor
examples of bad manners as the daily stopping of all the traffic
in the main street of Athens for at least fifteen minutes, while
aceremonial changing of the guard at British Headquarters is
performed.
In Salonika Dodds and Mrs. Pym interviewed the acting
British Consul, Mr. Peck, and also Colonel Gordon, the British
60
 I

Police Adviser. When Mr. Peck was asked how many acts of
terror had been recently committed he produced alist which, on
examination, proved to consist entirely of acts committed by the
Left against the Right. When this was pointed out, he said he
had alist somewhere of the acts of terror alleged to have been
commit!^ by the Right, but this second list was never produced.
One notable comment by Mr. Peck, in relation to British policy,
w*i6 that Governments may change, but foreign policy does not
change.
In the interview with Colonel Gordon, the delegates were able
to provide aconsiderable amount of information concerning
events in the Sohos area and other matters which had been drawn
to their attention. Colonel Gordon admitted that his men were
very few for the territory to be covered so that, in fact, he was
mainly dependent on reports from the Greek police and
gendarmes.
In Athens the whole delegation had interviews with the British
Ambassador, Sir Clifford Norton, and with the head of the Police
Mission, Sir Charles Wickham. The latter interview lasted from
10 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. and at the end of it Sir Charles remarked
that he had “never learnt so much on any night in his life.”
In the course of these interviews we became firmly convinced
that the highest British representatives in Greece receive most
of their information from Greek official police, gendarme and
army reports; reports which we know from our own experience
to come almost without exception from sources sympathetic to
the extreme Right. We further know, from our experience in
the consulate at Salonika, that even when reports of Right-wing
terrorism are placed in British hands, they tend to get mislaid
as compared with reports of terrorism on the part of the Left.

SECTION 11 L—CONCLUSION

Greece is rapidly becoming afascist state. Under afacade of

democracy, there exists aunilateral civil war, the war of the
extreme Right against all democratic elements to dare to disagree
with the Government. Murder, illegal imprisonment, brutal
assault and intimidation are the fate of thousands of victims.
The gendarmerie and police are fascist and rotten to the core
and take aforemost part in these criminal activities and openly
collaborate with the “X”-ites—the fascist terrorists. If aGreek
citizen has the temerity to complain about the conduct of the
61
 police he is immediately beaten up and imprisoned, frequently
without acharge being made against him, or sometimes on a
,trumped-up charge.
The premises of Republican and Left-wing newspapers, Trades
Union organisations. Youth Clubs, etc., are illegally raided in all
parts of the country and are shut down, For instMice, one
hospital in Athens which was known to be largely attended by
wounded Resistance fighters, but which, nevertheless, gave ^id
to all, has been closed.
The judiciary works hand in hand with the gendarmerie and is
viciously reactionary. Those judges who refused to collaborate
with the Germans no longer hold their posts. On the other
hand, the judges who received their pay from the quisling
governments are still in office, and, as in the trial now proceeding
at Patras, sit in Judgment against the heroes of the Resistance
Movement.

The Security Committees which did such infamous work for

the Metaxas dictatorship, are now being set up again as an
instrument for breaking up the Labour movement and imprison¬
ing and deporting political opponents of the present regime.
Just as happened in Nazi Germany, anybody who disapproves
of the present Government is immediately dubbed a
Communist.
Even the Right-wing Liberals, the party of
Mr. Sofouhs, are characterised as Communists, as Mr. Sofoulis
himself told us.

British prestige and moral standing is falling rapidly in

Greece. The presence of British troops on Greek soil is regarded
as an unwarranted intervention by one ally in the affairs of
another allied country. Indeed, the Greek people talk about
their country being “occupied ”by the British.
We return from our visit to Greece firmly convinced that the
Greek people as awhole have afirm desire to be friendly with
the people of Britain. We believe that this is the view of all
the parties of the Left and Centre. We feel convinced, however,
that this friendship is now being rapidly undermined, and will
be completely destroyed, unless British policy is modified in
Greece and aturn is made towards the fulfilment of our solemn
obligation to assist the Greeks-—as one of the liberated peoples
of Europe—' to wipe out all vestiges of Nazism and Fascism
on their sod.

At present, alas, our policy is having the very opposite result.

62
 t

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63
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 The League for Democracy in Greece
Chairman; Compton Mackenzie, O.B.E.

V i c e - C h a i r m e n : L o r d F a r i n g d o n , B e n n W . L e v y, M J . , ' W i l f r i d
R o b e r t s , M . P.

H o h . T r e a s u r e r : L . J . S o l l e y , M . P. Secretary: Mrs. Diana Pym.

E x e c u t i v e C o m m i t t e e : M r s . E . M . B r a d d o c k , M . P.
Major Donald Bruce, M.P., Norman Dodds, MP.
Capt. T. F. Peart, M.P., Dr. J. Precope.
D . N . P r i t t , K . C . , M . P. , L o r d S t r a b o l o i ,
Hannen Swapper, Captain Stephen Swingler, MJ*.
S. Tiffany, M.P., L. C. White.
AIMS:
(1) To rebuild the traditional friendship between Great Britain and
Greece on the basis of the establishment of democracy, which
depends on the achievement in Greece of:—
(a) Ageneral amnesty for all political prisoners.
{b) Fair elections,
(c) The restoration of trades union and other civil liberties,
(d) The suppression of armed terrorism and the trial and punishment
of collaborators. ^
(2) To organise the sending of relief to imprisoned Greek democrats
and their dependents, and to the dependents of those who died in
the fight for democracy.
(3) To enlighten the Greek public about the situation in Britain today
and to promote cultural relations and mutual understanding between
the two couiitrics.

To implement these aims, we hope to organise large public meetings

and lectures and to publish pamphlets and bulletins. All this costs
money, and we therefore appeal to you to support us by sending as large
adonation as you can afford.

Minimum membership fee is 5/-, which will include the monthly

journal “Greek News.”

For Speakers and further particulars please write to the Secretary

(temporary address), c/o Hannen Swaffer, 8St. Martin’s place, London,
W.C.2.

Printed by Farleigh PieBs Ltd. (T.TT. all depte.), Beechwood Rise, Watford, Herta.