The Beautiful Springs

Last week an old man called "Barba," a patriarch of the mountain town of Kalav-ryta, sighed and said: "The blood my family has shed in Kalavryta would fill three whole barrels."

High up in the mountains of the Peloponnesus, Kalavryta (the name means "beautiful springs") was once razed in Roman times. The Romans used it as a watering place; so, later, did the Franks and Turks. In 1821 Archbishop Germanos, of Kalavryta's ancient monastery, began the Greek War of Independence (against the Turks) by raising the Cross at Kalavryta.

In World War II, Kalavryta came to be known as the "Lidice of Greece." The Germans, angered by Partisan resistance, marched in during the winter of 1943 and summoned the entire population (about 2,000) to the main square. The men were led away and machine-gunned. Under the heaps of dead, eleven survived. The women & children were locked in a schoolhouse which, along with the rest of Kalavryta, was put to the torch. A horror-stricken Austrian soldier unbolted the schoolhouse door and some women escaped.

After the war, the town was partly rebuilt. New people came from the countryside; the population rose toward the prewar level. Kalavryta still had its beautiful springs and its luminous mountain air.

Recently the Greek government deposited in Kalavryta's bank 230 million drachmas (about $250,000). Also in the town was a heavy shipment of U.S. food parcels. The Communist guerrillas, from their spies, heard about this loot.

Two weeks ago 800 guerrillas attacked. Kalavryta's garrison--35 gendarmes and 200 newly mobilized national guards--resisted stoutly at first, but when ammunition ran short the gendarmes staged a sortie and got away. The guards' commander stood his ground, finally ended his life with his last bullet. Sixty-two defenders had been killed or wounded. The others surrendered and disappeared.

Among the Communists were several armed, bloodthirsty women. Two of them entered the house of Eugenia Fotinopou-lou, who was six months pregnant. Her husband had been impressed into the work crews who were loading loot into rebel trucks. When the guerrilla women heard that Fotinopoulou had been "taken away," they decided that he was a "fascist" and they fired four shots into Eugenia's swollen belly. Fotinopoulou came back from his labors for the enemy to find his wife dying. "This happened to me," he said, "just as life was beginning to smile."

Fifty townspeople had run away. Last week 30 of them came back to find all the money and food gone (except for a few hidden loaves of bread); the bank, the police station and the post office burned to the ground.

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