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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