ALMOST GIVEN AWAY BY A HAT
ALMOST GIVEN AWAY BY A HAT
Description
During the Second World War, thousands of soldiers from New Zealand fought with the Allies in Greece against the Axis occupation. Hundreds lost their lives, and many hundreds more were taken as prisoners of war by the occupying German and Italian forces. In a village in Laconia, German and Italian soldiers suddenly descend on the home of a Greek family that has secretly been providing refuge to a soldier from New Zealand.
Part of Collections
12 Podcasts
THE 1940S
Tags
Credits
Field Reporter
- Dimitris Moschos
Interviewee
- Dimitris Doukas
Podcast Producer
- Stavros Vlachos
Sound Designer
- Iasonas Theofanou
Sound Editor
- Michael Ikonomidis
Voiceover
- Antonis Myriagos
Music
- William Ryan Fritch
During the German occupation in Greece there was a shortage of food. So, we left Athens and we went to my father’s village in Lakonia. The village was under the supervision of the Italians, there were no permanent occupation forces.
There, in the village they were hiding New Zealanders - New Zealanders were among the Allied forces fighting against the Occupation in Greece during WWII. Near the end of the war, some troops got left behind. There was this New Zealand regiment which was retreating, but they didn’t have time to collect them, and they had been left behind in Lakonia. This means that there were around twenty of them in the village, hiding.
We had three of them in our house, and they were in uniform, because if they were not wearing a uniform and they got caught, they’d be considered spies. Otherwise, they would be prisoners of war. During the day they stayed in a ditch, hiding amongst bushes, and at night they came to the house to sleep, in the shed. And along with our own misery, we had them to feed as well.
Nearby there was a larger village where there was an Italian officer, and he would come around once a week with three or four Italians. This officer knew French, and because my mother had studied in France, she had become the village’s interpreter with the Italians. Thanks to my mother, they could get on their good side. My mother would tell him that she’d been to Italy, they would talk about Italy, and the Italian would forget to do a search. They would talk about Italy, and how nice this or that was and the opera, he was a cultivated person. Well, in the end they would give him a turtle, a rabbit, some oil, olives and the rest, and the search would not be all that thorough.
One day, as we are sitting there in the parlor, as they called it, with the New Zealanders, it was evening, someone alerted us: “Hide the New Zealanders, the Germans are coming now!” We told them: “Go!”
We soon hear footsteps, and the Italian arrives first and walks inside. We could hear the Germans growling from the house across the street. The Italian comes in, takes a look at the table, there was the cap of a New Zealand officer on it. The idiot had forgotten it.
He picks it up and says: “What’s this?” We all froze in silence and turned deathly pale, because that meant execution right there on the spot.
As he is looking at us, “what’s this and what’s this,” we hear the growls of the Germans coming up our stairs. And what does the Italian do? He takes the cap and sticks it inside his coat. The Germans come in, he tells them: “I’ve already searched here, there is nothing”.
The Germans leave. After they leave, he takes the cap, throws it at our feet and tells my mother in French: «Vous êtes idiots!», and leaves. You are stupid. And we got away with it.
After the war I remember they came from the New Zealand embassy to the house and brought my mother a medal and an invitation, if she wanted to immigrate with her family to... Many people from the village went either to Canada or to New Zealand for that exact reason because they had harbored refugees.