Shiperkov Pando

I can still see Pando Shiperkov alive before me as a fearless regiment leader in the middle of the fire and storm of battle who, as a young commander at the most difficult times, filled people with faith and courage; who was a friend with an open heart and a clever confidante between battles.

That simple Macedonian from Smrdesh understood the secret that troubled the hearts of the fighters. Everyone - big and small - in the battalion respected him and held him in high esteem. His word was law for the fighters. His personal bravery - our ideal; his stamina was an example for us. Whoever went into his battalion refused to ever leave it. In the marches he was tireless and led the column. He helped the stragglers and he gave courage to the down hearted, he helped others with their packs. In camp, he was the last to go to sleep. In battle he was first, in the front trenches. First to attack, last to withdraw.

He was olive complexioned with a firm body. When he stepped he recalled the eagles with wide wings in the mountains of his birth. Hard as Vasil Chakalarov; modest like Pando Kljashev, it seemed that he was given by nature the talents of two legendary freedom fighters from his own village. When he spoke to you he would look at you with a thoughtful and bright look; you felt that in his face was gathered all of the wisdom of the years and the flaming pain of his enslaved homeland.

And it was true. Those years, when the whole world was embroiled in a storm, when the nations picked up weapons and stood against the German occupiers, left a deep impression on him. A young man with no whiskers on his face, he picked up a rifle and joined the ranks of ELAS so that he could fight for the liberation of Greece, to liberate his own homeland. And those years made him a mature and experienced regiment leader fighting for freedom, for an indivisible freedom for the two peoples, which the two peoples sought - the Macedonian and Greek peoples.

And he remained a faithful soldier of that ideology, a faithful member of the CPG, dedicated entirely to the grand ideals. And he fell faithful to the obligation of dignity as an eagle, soaking the soil of his homeland with his own blood. He fell in the spring of 1948 in the locality Sveti Ilija - Paprasko, Kostur region, not far from his own village of Smrdesh. He fell, leaving to the living his sacred life as an eternal example that every fighter could follow in the fight for liberation, peace and the joining of the peoples.

N Kitopulos

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

© 2009

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