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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