(Page 321)
fashion twenty-four Bulgarian soldiers were slaughtered in the most barbarous fashion, when at length a Greek officer arrived, and said that that was enough. The eight men who survived, including Limonev himself, were brought to Serres on the 8th, cruelly beaten and shut up in the girls' school." Among the sixty Bulgarian civilians imprisoned with them in an upper room, were four women, one of them very old. Describing what he saw after his escape, Limonev states that the Greek artillery mistook the Greek refugees, near the station for Bulgarians, turned their machine-guns upon them, and killed an immense number.
No. 58a.--DIMITRI AUGUELOV, wine merchant of Serres, arrested on July 7, was shut up in the school, escaped with a Jewish prisoner on Friday, and was concealed by Jews of the town.
No.58b. STRATI GEORGHIEV, of the Dibra district, was arrested on July 10 by ten armed Greeks and five Turks. A Turk told him that all who wore the costume of Dibra would be put to death, because they were Bulgarians. Among the corpses on Friday he saw an old woman with her head cut open, and three young women, all killed. There were fifty corpses in the room. He escaped with Belev and the others, severely wounded.
No. 59.--EVENTS AROUND DEMIR-HISSAR.
A group of Bulgarian villages in the neighborhood of Demir-Hissar was the scene of a
systematic massacre. Most of the inhabitants of these villages, German, Kruchevo, Kirtchevo,
and Tchervishta, had fled early in the second war. Letters were then sent out over the signature
of Dr. Christoteles, an influential Greek doctor of Demir-Hissar, which invited them to return and
assured them of safety. (See No. 44.) Marko Bourakchiev, of Kirtchevo (180 houses) had
returned to his village with about eighty other families. On the arrival of the Greek troops on July
15 (he states), the villagers made them welcome and brought all they called for. Suddenly he
heard the roll of a drum and an indescribable tumult followed, amid which he heard the cries and
groans of the dying. He left his house and saw his neighbor Stoiana Tchalikova in a pool of
blood, dead of bayonet wounds, and the corpse of little Anghel Paskov. He went back to his own
house and saw two or three soldiers searching his grandmother for money. She had none and
they cut her throat and plunged their bayonets into her breast. They then seized him and took him
into another house, where were other soldiers and andartes. They began to discuss,
something which seemed important. He was forgotten and a soldier made him pour out water for
him to wash his blood stained hands. Then the soldier made a sign to him, and pointed to the
door. He fled as fast as he could, and those who pursued failed to overtake him. From a hill he
saw the village in flames.
Dimitri Guidichov and Ivan Radev, who also escaped from the village, relate that the men were shut up in two houses and burned alive. Forty women were shut up in the house of Anghel Douriov and there beaten, undressed, and violated. Four women (named) were killed, and four (named) were carried off by the soldiers. Twenty peasants of Tchervishta and Kruchevo were also massacred at Kirtchevo, together with two priests.
Paul Chavkov adds that he saw the soldiers taking seven or eight women naked to Gorno- Brodi. (See also No. 44.)
No. 60.--At German the same procedure was followed. Thirty families returned as the result of Dr. Christoteles' letter and welcomed the Greek troops. The men were shut
up in the church and the women in the priests' house. One of the men, Dimitri Georghiev, escaped from the church and afterwards met Apostol Kostov of German, to whom he told his story. One woman also escaped, Stoianka Konstantinova, aged twenty. It is not known where she is at present. Some distance outside the village, as she was fleeing, she met her uncle, Thorma Ivanov, who was returning to it. She could hardly speak in her terror, and her uncle quotes these words: "I can't, I can't tell you anything. There's no describing what I've seen. God! how they tortured us, undressed us naked, while we cried and wept. * * * I am saved, but the others. * * * The village is burning. They were killing in the streets. Cries and the sound of shots were coming from the church. All the men were massacred there." The uncle and the niece fled together. He reached Bulgaria, but she remained behind on the way with some other peasants of German. (See also No. 46.)
No. 61.--ILIA KONSTANTINOV, of Tchervishta, relates that when the peasants of his village returned in response to the doctor's letters, twenty of their notables, himself among them, were taken to Kirtchevo. He saw them all massacred, the women led away, and the village burned, but managed himself to escape.
No. 62.--The same thing happened at Kruchevo. Nearly all the inhabitants returned and welcomed the Greek troops. The officer made them a speech, in which he told them that they were all Greeks and not Bulgarians. That same evening, the soldiers forced their way into all the houses (800 houses), pillaged everything and violated all the women and carried off the prettiest girls.
Ivan Bojov and Haralampi Jankoulov relate some incidents which they witnessed in the sack of Kruchevo. The soldiers (1) robbed George Tochev of T250; (2) robbed Ivan Kakidine and killed him and his wife; (3) killed the widow, Ransa Hadjieva, because she had less money than they demanded; (4) killed Soultana Xalianova because she locked her house to protect her two daughters and daughter-in-law; (5) violated and then killed VeIa Harmanova and Ransa Souchova; (6) took the daughter of the priest, Theodore Staev, gouged out his eyes, and two days later took him to Kirtchevo, where he was killed with the other notables.
No. 63.--SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE COLLECTED BY PROFESSOR MILETITS.
(a) Athanase Ivanov of Kukush who fled from the town on July 4, saw from his brother's house at a distance of three or four hundred paces the slaughter of two old men, three women and a little girl, by the Greek cavalry. The Greeks were then driven back by Bulgarian cavalry and the witness fled with the latter.
(b) Kolio D,elikirov and Ivan Milev, of Akangeli, state that the Greek officer (see Nos. 39-43) ordered the villagers to bring their arms and all the money they possessed. The arms were given to the Turks, and the money kept by the Greeks. Four peasants (named) brought each of them from T100 to Tl5O. While the arms were being given up, a rifle went off by accident, and the Greek soldiers fell upon the peasants, who fled in every direction. But they were soon surrounded and bound. Fifteen only were released, in order to fetch food for the soldiers; some of these fled and hid. Those who remained in the hands of the Greeks were massacred. * * * The young women were taken to a place called Karakol and violated. Two girls from Pataros, who were in the house of the teacher, Dimo Christov, were violated until they died.
(c) Vanghel Kazanski, of Kazanovo, saw the Greek cavalry between Gavalantsi and Dragomirtsi riding down old men and women who were fleeing. They shot Mitza Kouschinov, and then dismounted, but he could not see what followed.
(d) Mito P. Stoyanov, of Moritolovo, states that Greek cavalry killed the mayor and gendarme of the village with their sabres.
(e) Mito Nicolov and his brother, Petro, of Doiran, in their flight, saw three Bulgarian villagers fleeing from Kodjamatli overtaken by Greek cavalry and killed.
(f) Thomas Pop Stoyanov, son of the priest of Dolna Djoumaia, states that his father and twenty-five notables of the village were killed by the Greek troops, and that four women were beaten or violated until they died [gives names].
(g) Gotze Ivanov, of Popovo, who left his village on July 6, states that the Greeks gathered the arms of the peasants and pillaged. The men were separated from the women and on the first day thirty disappeared. The women and girls were gathered in the house of Colio Theodorov and violated. Slava Coleva was violated and then killed in the street. Only three men escaped alive. The village was burned.
(h) Eftim Mitev, of Moklen, states that fifteen shepherds of his village, whom he names, were caught by the Greeks near Kalapot and massacred.
(i) Nicholas Anastasov, of Alistratik, states that Greek troops killed nine Bulgarian villagers, after first imprisoning them, also two young women and four children.
(j) Ivan Christodorov, of Guredjik, states that he saw Greek soldiers enter the houses of the village and begin to violate all the women. He fled.
(k) G. Markov, of Pleva, states that forty men of his village were taken outside it by the Greeks and slaughtered.
(l) Blagoi Ikonomov, of Mehomia, names four men killed and two women violated in his town. There were others.
(m) Dinka Ivanov, of Marikostenovo, states that all the women in his village were violated. He fled, was fired on, but escaped.
(n) Ivan Stoitchev, of Sveti-Vratch, says that the same thing happened there, and also at Polenitsa.
(o) At Pancherevo, the people awaited the Greeks and welcomed them and were rewarded by the killing of six, and the carrying off of ten, of whom three escaped.
(p) At Grada, all the women were violated. At Matchevo, four villagers were killed.
(q) At Roussinovo, a woman died as the result of violation, three men were killed, and two women and a girl were carried off by the Greeks. The village was burned.
(r) At Smoimirtsi, the priest and people went out to meet the Greeks. The priest was tortured and died. A man was killed.
(s) From Vladimirovo, fourteen girls and an old woman were carried off by the Greeks.
(t) The people of Oumlena met the Greek troops. All the women were violated. Two were carried off, and kept for six days by the officers. One old woman died of ill-treatment, two men killed and five houses were burned.
No. 64.--From the official reports of some of the Bulgarian prefects in the new territories, we extract the following statements:
(a) The losses due to the systematic pillage by the Greek army in the following places is estimated thus in francs:
MEHOMIA. Grain, 356,850 fr.; cattle, 164 fr.; household goods, 402,200 fr.; merchandise, 160.24 fr.; total, 759,374.24 fr.
BANSKO. Grain, 350,000 fr.; cattle, 200,000 fr.; household goods, 340,000 fr.; merchandise, 200,000 fr.; total, 1,090,000 fr.
NANIA. Grain, 30,000 fr.; cattle, 35,000 fr.; household goods, 41,000 fr.; merchandise, 5,000 fr.; total, 111,000 fr.
DOBRINISHTA. Loss by burning, 1,145,000 fr.; by pillage of grain, 200,000 fr.; cattle, 40,000 fr.; total, 1,385,000 fr.
Further, in Mehomia, seven old men were killed, two women beaten to death, and eleven old women violated. At Bansko five men were killed and four old women violated.
(b) At Petrits, twenty of the Bulgarian citizens were tortured by the Greeks to extort money. The method was to bind their arms behind their backs and then to twist the ropes with an iron instrument, one specimen of which was left behind. Twenty names are given, with the sums extorted, which range from T3 to T25. Four were killed. There were many violations, but the victims conceal their names.
(c) In the Strumnitsa district, occupied partly by Greeks and partly by Servians, T90 in money was taken by soldiers from seven men [named] in the village of Rablich, Tl6O at Smiliantsi, Tl00 at Inevo, T200 at Yargorilitsa, T70 at Radovitsa, etc. Six men, three women, and several children [named] were killed at Loubnitsa, five men and a woman [named] at Radovitch, two women [named] at Oraovitsa, and seven inhabitants [no names] at Pideresch.
No. 65.--EXTRACTS FROM AN OFFICIAL REPORT (communicated) by OFFICER CANDIDATE PENEV, Aide-de-Camp of the first battalion of the 26th Infantry.
On the road leading to Strumnitsa, between the villages Ormanovo and Novo Selo, in the defile on the right bank of the river, I found a soldier of the Tenth (Rhodope) Infantry crucified on a poplar tree by means of telegraph wires. His face had been sprinkled with petroleum and burned. I recognized that he was a soldier from the epaulettes which had been torn off and flung down near him. The body was already in a state of decomposition. Further to the west I found another soldier of the Thirtieth Infantry. His body was buried in the sand, and nothing was visible but the head, which had been sprinkled with petroleum and burned. The eyes, nose and ears had disappeared. A soldier of the First (Prince Alexander's) Infantry was hanging head downwards, with his feet bound with telegraph wire. The epaulettes lying in the mud showed that the unhappy man was a mechanician. His ears and hands had been cut off, and his eyes torn out. Further along the same road I found many other unburied bodies mutilated, belonging to soldiers of the Second, Sixth and Eighth divisions.
(NOTE:--It is proper to note that the authors of these disgusting outrages may possibly have been Turks.)
On the way the peasants told us with tears in their eyes of the inhuman treatment which they had met with from Greek officers and soldiers. At Ormanovo, the commandant of Petrits had all the men imprisoned in the police office, where they were kept without food for three days, and ill-treated by the Greek soldiers. They were made to pay Tl (23 fr.) for a drink of water. All the women and all the girls over eight years of age, were shut up in a house and violated. The same thing happened in Bossilovo, Dabine and Robovo. In this last village the Greek soldiers bound the priest and violated first his daughter and then the other women before his eyes. They then shot the priest and his daughter and burned the village.
Two-thirds of the town of Strumnitsa has been burned, notably the "Grecoman" and Turkish quarters, and some Greek houses in the Bulgarian quarter, together with the public buildings and the barracks. At the moment when the Greeks were about to set fire to the Bulgarian quarter, where several houses were already in flames, Mr. Cooper, the American Protestant missionary, arrived from Salonica. Mr. Cooper went to the Greek commandant and begged him to stop the burning, declaring that he would appeal to the,
British consul at Salonica. The fire was stopped by order of the commandant. I have this statement from Mr. Cooper himself, who sent photographs of the town burned by the Greeks to the British consul. The new Bulgarian church, a solid stone building, is half destroyed by three bombs which the Greeks placed in it to blow it up. The Bulgarian hospitals are also in ashes, and the Bulgarian wounded who had remained there were left without care or food. The Greek sentinels appropriated all the bread, milk, etc., which the good women of the town brought to the soldiers. Finally the wounded soldiers were shut up in the Turkish tower, which was set on fire. Their charred bodies were still lying there on September 16, when the Greeks evacuated the town. * * * A school teacher informed me that on the night of August 23, she was taken to the barracks, where she was first outraged by the Greek commander and then by twenty-four soldiers, one after the other. She is now in a pitiful condition.
END