Berea Metodi (Todorche)
Metodi Berea was born in 1912 in the village Patele, Lerin region.
As a young boy he worked for others and at the age of 18 he joined OKNE
(the Communist Organisation of the Youth of Greece). His work for OKNE
was exemplary and quickly he becomes the organisational secretary of
OKNE for his village, which had a large number of members.
In 1933 he was a soldier in the 28th infantry, battalion in Lerin.
In the army, where the rules were very strict, he maintained serious
revolutionary work. For that reason he was carefully watched. In 1934
after his discharge from the army he became a member of CPG. He now
continued his revolutionary work with greater activism and in a short
time became the secretary of one party cell in his village. It has to
be acknowledged that the party organisation in Patele was, at that time,
very strong and was comprised of a number of cells.
In March 1935 in the days of the Venizelos military fascist coup after
a provocation operation by the local reactionary forces and the police,
five party officials from Patele were arrested with Mijale Klanev at
the head. The organisation in Patele and the wider Surovichko area suffered
a terrible blow. At that time, after a resolution of the Regional Committee
of the Party in Lerin, among the others, Metodi was nominated as a member
of the regional committee of the party in Surovichko. And there Metodi
worked intensely on the reorganisation of the party cells in Surovichko.
In all of the posts he occupied, Metodi showed himself to be a capable
leader. He, together with his comrades in the campaign for the First
of May holiday and other revolutionary activities put up posters and
appeals on the walls. In the pre-election campaigns in 1935 and 1936
he worked tirelessly to disseminate policies of the party for the equal
rights for the Macedonian people. He read "Rizospastis" and other revolutionary
papers and was one of those who was most dedicated to self-education
and ideological advancement.
From the very first days of the German occupation Metodi joined the
illegal activists of the CPG, who managed to evade prison and exile
and began even more intensive work for the reorganisation of the party
organs in the Lerin region. Hounded by the occupier forces he worked
illegally as an instructor in the regional committee in the most dangerous
region, which included most of the villages in the Lerin plain. Under
the pseudonym Todorche he covered the villages, he reorganised the old
party organs and created new ones. Todorche was intoxicated by the success
of the liberation movement in the region, and did not always take the
necessary measures of secrecy. And so, one day in the summer of 1943
he was arrested by the Germans in the village Kleshtina and taken to
the Lerin prison. And after a short time, on 9 August 1943, together
with other patriots, he was hanged in the village of Kabasnica, on the
road Lerin-Bitola.
Metodi faced death as he had faced battle and showed himself to be
a hero. As he approached the executioner to allow the noose to be placed
around his neck, he punched him and then raised his fist to the sky
to send a message to his comrades and the travelers who were passing
along the road.
The fighters of ELAS sang him a song. Together with Berea, the others
who were hanged were Popstambul from the village Nevoljani, Bai Naum
Kodshibanov from the village Voshtareni, Tanas Keomdzhiov from Dramsko,
M Drambi from Lerin and 10 other Greek and Macedonian patriots.
With the blood of the 15 Macedonian and Greek patriots who died with
a noose around their necks, with the death of thousands of patriots
who fell in the people's struggle, the two brother peoples were unified.
G Dishkov
From: For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom
Fighters
© 2009
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For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom Fighters