History Lesson(s) #18

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My son, we have received your letter from Chalkida, and we read in the paper that they have sentenced you to death, my child. Your letter makes the stones cry out. How will the heart of your mother and sister not break? Today we sent out the funeral procession from our house. Oh, how unjust it is, my son! Do you remember how they received you in the Summer of ’43, the whole of Lidoriki, all the good words that were said for you? Why now, my son? Oh, my child! I will die, my son, before they bring me the dark message that they have murdered you, and brought you into the black earth. All of us in the house are as if insane. We weep, my son, for the terrible things that have happened to us. We have lost both father and son and our house is falling down. Everything, my child, is missing in our house. As if that weren’t enough, my child, they have also shot our Eleni, and now we are left with nothing but death. Everyone, my son, asks about you. Do not therefore leave us without a letter. Many relatives and friends send their greetings. Your sister kisses you, my child, and we all wish for you to return to our house swiftly. Your dearest mother sends you her blessings and wishes that nothing bad ever happen to you.

Your dearest mother, Konstantina Petru.

--Letter written in Lidoriki by the mother of Georgius Petru, a DSE fighter, on 19th January, 1948. Spoken by Peter Nestler in Von Griechenland / From Greece (1965). Georgius Petru was executed during the Greek Civil War, alongside many hundreds of ELAS and DSE fighters who joined the struggle for a democratic Greece.