Sketches of Skiathos by Romanus Richard

Author:Romanus, Richard [Romanus, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Kurzgeschichten_Anthologien, Reise_Abenteuer
ISBN: 9786185048013
Google: nR29oQEACAAJ
Amazon: B00JVRJW9S
Publisher: Aiolos / Distributed by Greece In Print
Published: 2013-06-15T11:45:32+00:00

“Why do you embarrass me like this!”

“Why? Who is this man anyway?”

“This man…is the Bishop of Chalcis, Istiaia, and the Sporades Islands!”

“Oh, I see” she said. Whereupon Syraino pulled up her skirt and thrust her pelvis to Papa Gerasimos “Well, this for you, Papa.” Then she bent over with her bottom cheeks facing the Bishop “And this for your Bishop!” And then continued on her way with a grunt of displeasure at the old fraud.

As a child, her family was among the poorest on the island. She and her siblings were always hungry, the family subsisting on a dozen olive trees, a few animals, and summer and winter gardens on a small piece of land near Xanemos. An arranged marriage to shy, quiet Yiorgos, a fisherman with his own kayiki, finally improved Syraino’s life. Although the union produced no children, Argyro, who lived next door, had seven, and Syraino shared the responsibility for rearing them.

Fortunately for the two lost and injured airmen, it was a Sunday morning and the fishing fleet was at liberty when Argyro rushed into her sister’s house in a breathless panic. Syraino didn’t need to hear more than “Two British… Agios Fanourios” and she was off on a run in a pelting rain. Syraino found the two men huddled against a stone wall in the courtyard of the church. Unconcerned about the danger, she helped the airmen down the mountain, to her house, carrying one on her back part way, and hid them in her cellar. Her plan was to keep them there until she could organize their escape. As a single spark can light a fire, by the end of the next day the whole island was organizing the nursing and feeding of the men, and thus was born the underground route for Allied soldiers and airmen who would be smuggled to Volos from various parts of Greece, then hidden in kayikis to Skiathos, where they would be sheltered and fed in various kalivis around the island until Syraino and Yiorgos could safely take then to Alonnisos, where they would be met by a boat to take them to Egypt.

For two years, Syraino directed the operation from the kayiki, delivering hundreds of servicemen to safety, until the day friends of the family informed on her in exchange for money, and suddenly scores of soldiers were scouring the mountains looking for the fisherman’s wife. Staying one step ahead of her trackers, hiding first during the day at Kounistria, then at a small kalivi in Troulos, and finally high in the mountains above the Kastro in a cave where the villagers fed her for a week. In the meantime, the soldiers arrested her brothers, Stavros and Ioannis, and her husband, Yiorgos, after they burned his kayiki to the waterline, and sent them to Germany to Dachau and Buchenwald. Her sisters, Evangelia and Argyro, were taken to Kasaveteia, a prison camp in Volos, then to a work camp in Italy. By the time Syraino’s cave was discovered by

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.