Kapelis- The Hatmaker

by Andreas Kappa

  Panopoulos said, ‘Everything you need is there.’

  The next day, the men left, and Andreas gave his wife and children the heartiest of kisses and hugs and bid them farewell.

  That evening, when he went to the secret camp of the insurgents, he was greeted by over two thousand men, all from the surrounding villages.

  It was very cold, and the icy wind made it colder. There was a warm fire, and the excitement of being part of the movement meant that the men felt no cold.

  Andreas quietly and diligently reviewed the declaration. He drafted and redrafted the proclamation repeatedly. He did not sleep until he was satisfied the document reflected the mood of the resistance fighters and captured their passion.

  He wanted the emotion of the fight against the occupiers to make them shudder with fear.

  He finally completed his task and read it to the men, who were eagerly awaiting the completion of his work.

  Before he read it, Panopoulos said, ‘Do you swear allegiance to our country, Greece, and swear to serve EAM in liberty or death?’

  Andreas said, ‘I do so swear.’ Andreas then read the proclamation.

  To the entire Greek people

  Brothers,

  The occupier is preparing to commit a new crime against our people. We are facing a new manifestation of the bestial brutality of Fascism, directed, this time against the Jewish part of the Greek people. The bloodthirsty occupier is preparing to launch a most horrendous and terrible pogrom against Greek Jews, like the pogrom he had perpetrated in Germany and Poland. In Salonika, many thousands of women and children are facing the threat of execution in huge massacres in concentration camps by the vicious Gestapo. The oppressors and murderers of the ‘New Order’ in Europe are thirsty for the blood of many new victims.

  This new crime is not directed only against the Jews but also against the Greek people, since the Jews constitute an integral part of the Greek people as a whole and their fate is combined with that of the Greek people as a whole. The Jews have displayed the same level of patriotism and self-abnegation as the rest of us, sacrificing their own blood for the fight against Fascism and the salvation of the homeland . . .

  The National Liberation Front (EAM) therefore calls upon the inhabitants of Athens and upon all Greeks and all Christians to extend their help in order to save the Jews. This can be done by massive protest demonstrations, big rallies and general mobilization aimed at frustrating the terrible Pogrom. Let us give asylum to all persecuted Jews; let us crush any traitor that harms the Jews.

  Down with any pogrom against the Jews.

  Death to the occupier and to any traitor and collaborator.

  Long live the National Liberation Front.

  Signed under the seal of EAM by the general secretary of the Peloponnese

  Andreas Kapelis

  22 January 1943

  The men were beyond moved by the proclamation. Some yelled; some sang the national anthem; some were simply silent, taking in what was said; some pulled their swords out and pointed north-east towards the capital Athens and some wept.

  They were in agreement of one thing—the proclamation was perfect in every way. The proclamation was secretly sent by couriers all over the country.

  As it was the capital, Athens made the proclamation first.

  On the dawn of the 22 January 1943, Andreas Kapelis, in uniform once more, entered the town square of Kalavryta and said to those gathered around, ‘On behalf of the Peloponnese and as the general secretary of EAM, I make the following proclamation.’ He then read the proclamation in full to everyone.

  It was a defining and stirring moment for the region.

  The Germans had difficulties in controlling the area and came across heavy fighting from the EAM and other insurgents in that stronghold.

  Andreas then remained with EAM to ensure what he had started would finish in favour of his homeland. He seldom visited his family for fear of retribution by the Germans.

  The fighting between the Greek forces and the Italian and German forces in 1943 was severe throughout Greece.

  In particular, the fighting in the mountainous areas of the Peloponnese was savage and relentless. The Germans needed to teach the Peloponnese a lesson.

  On 13 December 1943, the extermination of the whole male population and the destruction of the town of Kalavryta in Greece took place by German occupying forces. It was a Holocaust of the Peloponnesian Hellenes.

  The German Army’s 117th Jäger Division began a mission named Unternehmen Kalavryta (Operation Kalavryta), intending to encircle Greek resistance fighters in the mountainous area surrounding Kalavryta.

  Andreas was warned by couriers from Tripoli in advance that Kalavryta was under siege.

  During the operation, seventy-eight German soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the EAM in October were executed by their captors.

  Andreas personally ordered their execution because the soldiers had found a small conclave of Jews and ordered that the Jews be skinned alive and their remains fed to the pigs.

  There were far more women and children than men.

  He was repulsed and sickened to his core when he was advised as to how these people had died. The punishment was befitting the crime in Andreas’s legal view. He felt no remorse in ordering the execution of the soldiers.

  In response, the commander of the German division, General Karl von Le Suire, personally ordered the ‘severest measures’ in retribution—the killing of the entire male population of Kalavryta.

  Andreas knew of the plan, and he and his troops remained in the mountains, avoiding Kalavryta. He tried desperately to help them by getting the word to the people of Kalavryta, but he failed, as all roads and passageways were swarming with German troops, ready to pounce.

  Operation Kalavryta was mounted from Patras and Aegion on the Gulf of Corinth and from near Tripolis in central Peloponnese. All ‘battle groups’ were aimed at Kalavryta from all directions.

  Kalavryta was encircled. Wehrmacht troops burnt villages and monasteries and shot civilians on their way with impunity.

  When they reached the town, they locked all women and children in the local school, set it alight from outside, and marched all males twelve years and older to a hill just overlooking the town. There, the German troops machine-gunned them to oblivion.

  There were only thirteen male survivors who lived to tell the tale by hiding under the dead. More than a thousand died at Kalavryta.

  After they were exterminated, the clock in the town square, which had been operating without pause for tens of years, stopped and never started again.

  The following day, the Nazi troops burned down the Agia Lavra monastery and threw more than forty monks off a cliff face to their deaths.

  Thirty villages surrounding Kalavryta were destroyed, and the Germans looted and burnt all the houses and seized farm animals and produce.

  The soldiers then went into Mega Spileo and also dehumanised the monks there and threw them off the mountain top to their demise below.

  Upon hearing of the brutal news, the blood of the Greeks scorched.

  During the occupation of Greece, there was a caretaker government controlled and manipulated by the Germans, with prime ministers who were nothing but traitors and German puppets.

  EAM was rising in number and growing stronger in its resistance.

  It was mid 1944, and the resistance was gaining further momentum as the Nazis were losing forces in their on-going battles with the Red Army of Russia and the reinforcement by the United States. The Russian campaign was becoming a disaster for Hitler and his allies.

  EAM now had an estimated force of between 1 to 2 million fighters. The belief was that their principles were that of communists but that they were actually freedom fighters of all political persuasion.

  The military leader was Athanasios Klaras, whom A
ndreas had met. The core, highly trained soldiers of EAM, was the ELAS. Klaras was a man with dark eyes and a huge bushy beard, and he always wore his military uniform with bullets on a leather strap across his chest.

  When he spoke, he commanded respect and attention. He was a man of very few words. He respected Andreas for his intellect and his capacity to be a soldier and leader of the EAM in the Peloponnese.

  Both Andreas and Klaras agreed that the protection of Greek Jews was paramount for Greece to respect its ancient principles of democracy and the humanity of their Orthodox beliefs.

  Whilst in exile, the politician George Papandreou was requested to lead EAM. He refused.

  Also, whilst in exile, King George addressed the United States Congress of the virtues and courage of the Greeks and sought aid, but he did not return to his country and fight with the people. More hollow words from a king of Greece.

  Archbishop Damaskinos bravely ordered his priests to ask their congregations to help the Jews throughout Greece. Many Greeks risked their lives by hiding them in their apartments and homes despite the threat of imprisonment.

  Greek police ignored instructions to turn over Jews to the Germans. Many Greek police were either imprisoned or shot for disobeying this order.

  One police officer who was ordered to take down the Greek flag and bring the Jews to the Germans wrapped the flag around his body and shot himself in mortal defiance of the Germans.

  When Jewish community leaders appealed to the then prime minister Constantine Rallis, he attempted to alleviate their fears by saying that the Jews of Thessaloniki had been guilty of subversive activities and that was the reason why they were deported. That was an abominable act by Rallis, and he was hated by the people.

  At the same time, Elias Barzilai, the grand rabbi of the city of Athens, was summoned to the Department of Jewish Affairs and told to submit a list of names and addresses of members of the Jewish community in Athens. Instead, he destroyed the community records to save the lives of thousands of Athenian Jews. He advised the Jews of Athens to flee or go into hiding.

  A few days later, the rabbi himself was assisted to leave Athens and became an EAM-ELAS fighter and joined the resistance in the Peloponnese. Andreas welcomed the Rabbi and treated him like his brother. Andreas met many Jews like the Rabbi in his time in EAM.

  With the help of EAM-ELAS, many Jews escaped and survived. Many of them stayed with the resistance as fighters or interpreters.

  The Jewish population of Greece was depleted. Over sixty-seven thousand Jews at the time were deported to Auschwitz, with forty-three thousand from Thessaloniki alone.

  As a final barbaric act, the synagogues throughout Greece were dynamited by the Germans, and Jewish businesses had been given to Greek traitors, as had their homes.

  By August of 1944, the Russians had crossed through Romania and into the Balkans. The war was coming to an end.

  The Germans in Greece were in danger of being cut off from their homeland and began to retreat north. As the last German soldiers removed the swastika down from the Acropolis and began to drive through the city towards the road north, crowds of Athenians in a state of happiness waved the blue-and-white Greek flags and embraced.

  Church bells rang all over Greece. Some threw rotten tomatoes and peppers at the last Germans leaving Athens.

  Andreas returned to his home in the village to the triumphant joy of his family.

  It was time to rest and regroup.

  He attended church the first Sunday he was home with his entire family. He spent quality time with his wife, and they made love.

  Countryside Greece was most affected by the German tyranny, with houses burnt, whole villages destroyed, and the legacy of poverty and starvation was left.

  Andreas was re-instated as the mayor of the village and was informed by the Department of Justice in Athens that he was now appointed a full-time judge in the EAM for his village and its surrounding villages. His friend Stavros Kalapaseas was also reappointed by the state as a full-time judge in Aegion.

  The two men became inseparable friends and colleagues. They would share learning and stories of the matters they tried. They would share meals together with their families by the seaside in tavernas that played live music of guitars, clarinets, and bouzouki.

  Both men knew, however, that there was a problem brewing between the EAM and the government in place in Athens.

  Andreas was not a communist. He was a democrat. He believed in a people-elected government with a prime minister and without a king.

  Kalapaseas was a slight liberal but was apolitical. He did not want trouble and simply wanted to do his job.

  Unlike all the other countries in Europe that had been divided by Russia and Britain into the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc, Greece was a plaything for Stalin and Churchill at the finite expense of the people.

  The great leaders agreed that, given Greece’s geographical position, the Greek communists and monarchists should fight it out to decide whether they would side with Russia or the West.

  It was a cruel game. Civil war broke out in Greece.

  Andreas and Ourania had their final child, a daughter they named Viatriki. All the children were at school except for the youngest. Ourania repeatedly warned Andreas to do his jobs, act cautiously, and refrain from speaking politics openly, or he would regret it.

  The Germans had left traitors hidden amongst the Greeks to incite political disorder to destabilize the government.

  In 1946, King George II returned to Greece after a referendum of the people, which many considered as engineered. He died soon after he returned to Greece, and his younger brother Paul was king.

  Andreas had been involved in EAM, and it was hard to brush off any labelling. EAM had its stronghold in the Peloponnese and had a large force.

  The politics in Athens was to now support the prime minister, Papandreou, and destroy the EAM. Many world leaders, like Churchill, visited Greece with the intention of providing assistance to the cause. Many meetings were held across from the parliament building in the Grande Bretagne Hotel.

  As EAM numbers depleted, many of its members were imprisoned, executed, or exiled from the country. Andreas was concerned about this new political trend in Greece and the incorrect labelling of members of EAM.

  One day, Andreas was advised by the prosecutor in Aegion that he was going to prosecute a man for stealing oranges from an orchard at the end of the month.

  In the days that followed, Andreas received a letter with the royal seal from King Paul I King of Greece. He opened the letter, and the following was revealed:

  I King Paul I King of Hellas hereby proclaim and decree as orders-in-council that any citizen who is, or is suspected to be, a communist, a communist sympethiser or a member or former member of EAM or ELAS, shall be found guilty of any charge he or she faces before the court, whether the evidence supports a finding of innocence or guilt.

  The maximum penalty at law will apply to those found guilty.

  Signed and sealed: King Paul I

  Under seal of the monarch of Greece.

  1 September 1947.

  Andreas immediately went to find his friend Kalapaseas.

  Kalapaseas took one look at Andreas and said, ‘We need to find a quiet place to discuss this. I think we should go to my shack in the orchard by the water immediately.’

  The friends went there, and Andreas opened the discussion by saying, ‘Did you receive the orders-in-council by the king?’

  Kalapaseas said, ‘Yes, Andreas, and we should follow it to avoid our conduct being brought to the attention of the authorities. Both you and I have families to feed.’

  Andreas said, ‘It is absurd. The decree is unlawful, unconstitutional, an abject abuse of power, and undemocratic. How can a king interfere in the administration of justice? He should be the one arrested and sent to prison! What absolute
rubbish.’

  Kalapaseas said, ‘Please, Andreas, be silent. If someone hears our conversation, we will be imprisoned for treason against the monarch, which you know is high treason.’

  Andreas said, ‘I will administer justice in accordance with the law of Greece we fought to reinstate, in accordance with the democratic rule, and applying fairness. We are not Germans, like the monarchs of Greece.’

  The friends parted ways.

  Andreas went home and said to his wife, ‘I am a judge, and I will act judiciously. Do you agree Ourania?’

  Ourania said, ‘Yes, my husband, but always keep in mind you have seven children who need the warmth of their father at night.’

  The prosecutor contacted Andreas two weeks later and presented him with the indictment and charges. The charge was against his lifetime friend Aspros.

  Andreas said that he had a conflict of interest and the matter should be referred to another judge, like Kalapaseas in Aegion or the two judges sitting in Kalavryta.

  The prosecutor said, ‘You are the presiding judge for this village, and you will hear it. Understood?’

  Andreas was immediately alerted to a danger in hearing the case. The prosecutor was adamant for Andreas to be the judge of his friend. It appeared to Andreas that he was being asked to convict his friend, guilty or not, to show loyalty to the king, or he was a conspirator.

  Andreas went home and took out his hat-making tools. Ourania was perplexed but left her husband alone.

  After a few days, Andreas had made a fisherman’s cap finished with fine corduroy fabric and deep blue.

  Before stitching the top of the cap, he delicately rolled the king’s proclamation, wrapped it in leather to seal the document into the body of the cap, and finally sealed the cap with stronger stitching.

  He invited Aspros to his home.

  Andreas said, ‘My dear friend Aspros, I am the judge who will hear the case against you. I don’t know the exact facts yet or the charges. I will read the facts shortly. Please do not tell me anything about the case. I have been directed to hear the case by the prosecutor despite my protests. I will be fair and apply the law.’