Pavlev Pavle (Dimko)
In the Surovichko region Pavle Pavlev was well known under the name
Dimko.
He was born in the village of Banica, Lerin region. He was a modest,
blond haired, thin young man. He did not know many letters. He had only
completed the local primary school. However he was clever and brave.
From a young age before he completed his primary school studies he
became familiar with hard work. He took cattle out to pasture, he herded
sheep, and performed all the chores at home that he could. He worked
in the fields and in the Banica mine, as did all the Banica villagers.
He thoroughly learned of the hardships of life up close and about the
inequalities that existed in society. He saw the exploitation of workers
with his own eyes. He and his fellow workers were paid just 37 drachmas
for a full day's work. There were no measures for safety or making the
work easier. The exploiters only looked after their own pockets. All
of this helped Pavle to orient himself politically and to select the
correct path to the struggle, the path to the revolutionary workers'
movement.
In the first years of the Nazi occupation Pavle was not quite 17 years
old. Then, in 1941 he joined the ranks of OKNE (Organization of the
Communist Youth of Greece). Later he worked as the secretary of the
village organization of EPON. In that role he developed an active record
and succeeded with his young collaborators to organize the Banica youth
into the ranks of EPON. He was tireless, working day and night, always
on the run. He collected weapons, clothing, food and everything that
he could for the partisan ranks that operated in Vich and Kajmachkalan.
He kept connections with the Germans.
At the start of 1943 the Germans blocked off many villages in Lerin
with the aim of mobilizing the people and sought volunteers to fight
the Albanian partisans. They got 50 from Banica including Pavle. They
shut them in a camp surrounded by barbed wire near the Banica train
station and from there they took them to Albania the next day.
The local party organization decided to free them from the camp and
that decision was successfully carried out because of the courage and
personal strength of the EPON member Pavle. During the night they cut
the wire and all but three escaped with their livestock.
The next day before the Germans could surround the village all of the
men together with the livestock left the village for the mountain where
they remained until the danger had passed.
The example set by the Banica villagers was followed by other villages
and so the Germans did not manage to mobilize people to fight against
the Albanian partisans. A very small number was mobilized but most of
those escaped while on the road to Albania and joined the partisans.
After this event, the people's liberation movement in the Lerin region
got stronger; new partisans joined the ranks of ELAS and together with
them was Pavle under the pseudonym Dimko.
In the autumn of the same year Pavle was elected as a member of the
regional committee of EPON in Surovichko. There, at his new post Pavle
demonstrated himself worthy of the trust that the youth organization
and the movement had placed in him. A fearless man, with a pistol in
his waistband and crossed cartridge belts across his chest he traveled
the Surovichko villages and educated the youth about the ideals of EPON.
He spoke little but worked hard. In the Surovichko villages, Macedonian
and Greek, the youth already knew Dimko. In Srebreno, Ajtos, Ekshisovo
and other villages Dimko taught the young Macedonians partisan songs
and the party line of the CPG on national rights etc.
With his work, with all of his capabilities Dimko became an activist
of EPON. Later he was elected a member of the Lerin Regional Council
of EPON. Taking on the bigger roles that were now allocated to him by
the organization with a new élan and powers, he threw himself into his
work in the struggle for the liberation of our homeland. Educated in
the spirit of unity and solidarity between the two people - Greek and
Macedonian - he gave everything that he had so that the ideals of EPON
could be brought to life, for liberation to be achieved.
Faithful to his post Dimko fell a hero of EPON, of our people, on 3
April 1944, shot by a German bullet. He fell into the Srebrenskata River
when he was returning to his own region from Belkamen where he had been
for organizational work.
S K
From: For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom
Fighters
© 2009
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For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom Fighters