Re
https://goscf.com/t/15293&whichpage=14#399024 (above)
Thoughts on the Abduction of the Greek Children
First, let me extend my apologies to anyone who knows of these events thru their grandparents, their parents, or their own recollection.
I am going to engage in some 'fair-minded' speculation, and you might want to take a pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek...#paidomazoma ... the Wikipedia entry
Let's all agree that the Greek Communists (hereinafter "GrecoCommies", or "GCs") moved children, out of the land of their habitual residence, to camps in a variety of East European countries.
Let's all agree that the Greek Provisional Government (hereinafter "PG") moved children, out of the towns of their habitual residence, to camps in other parts of Greece.
Let's all agree that, given the chance, each party would say it was acting to protect the children from the other party, or from the hazards of living in a war zone.
He said, she said, as we say.
Let's all agree that, even if we had the patience & resources, a laborius search of local newspapers, family diaries, etc, would be unlikely to get us back to a completely convincing prime cause.
(This last might not be true, as every surviving primary document *might* tell the same story. Cut me some slack.)
Let's all agree that the GrecoCommies were assisted by the Yugoslavs et al, and that the Provisional Government was assisted by the British. Ah, the British.
The British had, only a few years earlier, benignly evacuated *their* children from (many of) their cities, to the countryside, to get them out from under Luftwaffe bombardment.
Moreover, British troops, less than fifty years earlier, had roamed the countryside of southern Africa and, when a Boer farmer was not at home, forcibly removed his wife & children & whomever else to a concentration camp.
(If 'fifty years' sounds like too long a time to be relevant, you are not yet, say, fifty-five years old. Once you can remember things that happened fifty years ago, they are not 'history' ... they are 'yesterday'.)
I am not familiar with all of the details, but I'm willing to *guess* that the Brits publicly argued that those otherwise-unprotected Boer women & children would be safer if they were not all alone on those widely-scattered farms, and would quietly argue - to anyone who would listen - that the farmer's very absence proved that he had joined the rebels.
And, perhaps, not so quietly.
The idea of suppressing an insurrection by going after the rebels' children was not, at the time of the Greek Civil War, new.
The idea that some children should be taken away from their parents, in peacetime, for their own good, was centuries-old.
The idea that children should be enrolled in ideologically-correct(ing) Youth Movements to mould their character was not only old, but continues to this day, particularly in religious communities & secular totalitarian countries.
What happened to the Green children was appalling, but it was hardly one-sided.
I do not think we need to sort-out the 'he said, she said' as, in all likelihood, had either side not started evacuating children, the other would have done so on their own.
But, as seen by the Greek stamps of 1949, history is written by the victors.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Posted 11/06/2015 02:57 am
