The following texts are the summaries of the conversation between Gustav Schminck Gustavus and the five survivors of the massacre about their experiences on the third of October, 1943.
Nikolaos Rouskas
Nikolaos Rouskas was 23 when the Germans attacked the village. He saw them getting up to the village with five trucks and two ambulances. They took hold of every person in the village and brought them to the main village square, guarding them with machine guns. Then, according to Nikolaos, it all went really fast: They were separating the people and brought them, under beating and hitting, to the basement of a house, shot all of them down there and afterwards burned that house and all the other ones in the village. Nikolaos was also in the basement, together with other villagers, holding his two year old babygirl. While they were shooting, the people fell down and Nikolaos with them. A bullet streaked his arm and killed his daughter. He was laying on the floor as the Germans started burning the house. Through the smoke he later managed to escape from the basement. Injured he slowly managed to trudge up the mountains.
Eleni Cholevas
She tells how the Germans came and told them not to be scared, shortly before they separated them into men and women. All men were killed. They pushed the women into a basement and started shooting. The Germans killed her son and her daughter. Seemingly, everybody around her was dead, while she was laying still and waiting anxiously, frightened by what horror she had just witnessed. The Germans left and the fire came. She managed to escape with two others who survived the shooting and the flames, Anastasia and Charilaos. They crawled out of the house and ran up the mountain. Eleni says that this was very difficult for her as her feet did not want to walk and she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her dead family behind.
Charilaos Liouris
On October 3, 1943, Charilaos Liouris was fourteen years old. He was alone at home, watching Siaphakas, the little son of the mayor of the village. He saw about 200 men approaching the village. He explains how the Germans took hold of every person in the village and surrounded them with their guns. Then someone started to divide the people into groups of three or four and took all the men to the house of Tsirikis. The people left on the village square heard how the Germans started shooting the men. Then the soldiers took one of the other groups away, then picked up the next group, and then the next. Charilaos was in the third group. With Nikitas on his arm he was walking in the back of the group but when a German officer hit him with the butt of his rifle, he ran to the front. They were led to the basement and the germans started shooting. He was holding Nikitas on his arm, who was shot in his head, the blood was all over Charilaos but he wasn’t hit. He fell to the floor and all the other people fell on top of him. After some time the Germans checked again if there was still someone alive, but the ones that were, Charles, Eleni Choleva and Anastasia, didn’t move. However, also Anastasia’s mother was alive at that moment with the baby on her breasts. But the baby started crying and the Germans started to shoot them again, this time killing both of them, the mom and the child.
Then they started to set the house on fire. As the fire reache the basement, Eleni was the one that stood up first, then Anastasia, who realized that Charilaos was alive as well. Charliaos remembers being terribly scared, too scared to move and to talk loudly. The front of the house was already burning so they had to go through the chimney, which was big enough at that time. They crawled out of the chimney and found the entire village in flames, with no other moving people, and thus ran towards the mountains.
Anastasia Phouka
Anastasia Phouka was also only 14 years old when the Germans attacked the village. She saw the soldiers arriving in the village. The villagers were told to wait at the square in front of the school. The villagers watched the Germans take all their belongings, carpets, clothing, food and all the animals. Shortly afterwards, she and others were confined to a basement, the same one as Eleni and Charilaos. Anastasia was holding her five-year-old brother in her arms. The Germans started shooting and she couldn’t hold on to her brother. He fell down and she with him. She doesn’t remember anything of what happened afterwards. Eleni is the one that realized Anastasia still lived. She told her that the house was about to burn down and that they needed to leave the house before it would fall down. They found Charilaos and all three escaped through the chimney. Afterwards they fled towards the mountains and found the Saraktschanen – who asked what was happening in the village, but all were as if paralyzed and not able to answer. Later they were brought to Karyes, where they were given fresh clothes. Anastasia mentions she had a wool cloth. On it were dried remnants of her little brother’s brain. She tried to wash it out many times until the cloth fell apart, then she stopped.
Panos Babousikas
Panos Babousikas was born on July 16th, 1942 and thus 15 months old when the massacre happened. He is the only witness that is still alive. He was found in the arms of his dead mother, drinking her cold milk. The Germans jabbed him with a bajonett in his back, leaving a 30 – 40 cm scar that he still has to this day.