Piskachov Miki

Miki Piskachov was born in the village Setina, Lerin region. He was passionate and progressive. He watched and understood that the situation was bad but at the start he could not orientate himself to work out what he could do for the liberation of the homeland.

The Krushoradski mine is near Setina. The workers who work there are from Krushoradi and Setina but also from other places as far as Lavrion. In the mine before the war there was a CPG organization and then later something new arose there. The workers gathered at night in certain houses and sat until late into the night. The words of the EAM Struggle were often repeated. The tasks allocated to the gathered mine workers were - to help to establish party and EAM organizations including in the surrounding villages. The leader of the party organization of the mine - the late Vangel Koichev, was first to set off for the surrounding villages.

In Setina preparations were made to establish a party organization from the Setina villagers who worked in the Krushoradski mine. Two Greeks from Epir worked as steel workers in the village: Anton Harisis and Mihal Harisis who were from a communist family. So, at the start of 1942 a party organization was formed in Setina. Miki Piskachov was among the first to join. He gave himself entirely to organizing the Setina villagers into the national liberation struggle.

In 1943 the western plains of Kajmachkalan, along with the villages Papdija, Setina, Krushoradite, Voshtareni and even Neokazi, which is in the plain, just one hour from Lerin, were under the control of ELAS. Miki was at his post and developed an extraordinary activism. He went from house to house. He collected wheat, flour, wool for the partisans. He went to other villages, even as far as Lerin as a courier and doing other tasks for the organization. In that time Miki was responsible for the ELAS reserve in the village. The entire year 1943 passed that way, the Setina villagers and other nearby villages liberated. The national liberation struggle movement in the region strengthened, as did the fighting unity between the Macedonians and Greeks. In Neokazi and other places with both Macedonian and Greek populations Macedonians and Greeks worked together for the general good, for liberation for all.

To hit the movement, on 16 January 1944 the Nazis brought from Bitola a division of the Bulgarian fascist army. With a Gestapo officer at its head, it arrested more than 400 Macedonians and Greek patriots from the villagers of Chegan, Papdija, Setina, Krushoradi, Banica Neokazi, Neos Kavkasos and others. All of them were imprisoned in the Lerin playground and in the Lerin high school, surrounded by the local guards of the Bulgarian soldiers and Greek gendarmes. The guards who crisscrossed the streets of Lerin day and night were also locals. After a few days the arrested were transferred to the camps of Domokos, "Pavlos Melas" in Solun and others to Germany. Many of them never returned. Miki was arrested during those days.

From: For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom Fighters

© 2009

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