Why the Fighting Didn’t Stop for Greece After WW2 - The Dark Reality of a Deeply Divided Nation 

Sad reality is the fighting didn't stop for a lot of countries just because Germany and Japan surrendered.

TITO WAS THE ONE THAT INVENTED AND PUT THE "MACEDONIAN" IDEA INTO THE MIND OF SLAVS ...FOR OBVIOUS REASONS ...

They don't speak "Macedonian" they speak Bulgarian and they are Bulgarians. Macedonians are Greeks .

as a greek teen i've heard a lot of stories from my grandpa who is now 88 years old.when WW2 began he was 5-6 years old and live in epirus which is pretty close to the albanian border. He told me many things but he almost always pointed out that when the germans came thats when hell began cause from what I understood the italians did little to no damage.So when the germans came they came in greece thru epirus and ironically very close to my grandpa's village.When the axis took over greece the germans would often take much of my grandapa's food which was not much and left.It is also worth noting that my grandpa had 5 siblings so food was really essential.There are many stories but pretty much my grandpa's family sirvived with bread ,cheese and milk which came from their goat.after WW2 things took a turn for the worse.My grandpa wanted to go to school so he decided to move to a city which close to the village but not close enough that his parents could visit.Because he didn't have any money at that stage he was staying at an orphanage.So 1 night so people came in the building I believe they were communists and their objective was to kidnap the kids and send to communist countys like yougoslavia alabania bulgaria and the list goes on.So when the kids were inspected to see which ones were fit enough to come a soldier told my grandpa to kind of bend down and look smaller so that the chief would leave him alone and let him stay in greece.That soldier had also given my grandpa his spare boots cause he was walking in the mud and in the spikes barefoot.after then my grandpa ended up staying in greece thanks to the advice of that man but many others were not that lucky and they visited greece again only when the ussr collapased

After acts of heroism by the Greeks such as the Pilot Marinos Mitralexis, who when his PZL 11 was outta Ammo flew on a Kamikaze run into an Italian Bomber, baled out and landed nearby to take the survivors prisoner and march them to nearby Greek positions, it makes anyone sad to hear how divided the country was when they were finally free

My grandfather lived in Athens during the Civil War afterwards, ended up immigrating to Canada. Thanks for covering this!

There are not many videos on that topic, excited for this one!

I read that Hitler had no desire to invade Greece but after the bungled Italian invasion decided to invade Greece to save face. Also the largest Greek population outside Greece resides in Melbourne, Australia.

I feel like there was much talk about "Steve", and less talk about the Greek children that were forced to leave Greece (some argue that it happened for their safety) and the actual destruction that the civil war caused (the economy, the deaths, the growing divisions inside Greek society, etc.), which were only briefly mentioned. Good video anyway 👍

"If the Greeks never fight ech other, they would have conquer the World" Otto von Bismarck

"were speaking Greek and not Macedonian". Hurts my ears to hear

I commented on your previous video about how Greece resisted the Axis Invasion - Spoke of my Great Uncle who was a forward Medical Officer and his experiences during the war. I mentioned that he saw action in the Civil War but never went into depth about it. To give background - My great uncle fought during the Greco-Italian War, where he acted very bravely, and thus was on leave when the Germans invaded. After some time enduring the occupation in his own village, he managed to rejoin the Army in Exile and in 1944 he returned home with his unit. When the Civil War broke out, he of course went to both fight and save lives for the King's Army just as he had done during the War. Before he died he told a story from the Civil War to several members of my family - myself included as I was a boy at the time. At one point during the Civil War, my great uncle was working at a field hospital in Epiros near the Ionian coast. There was heavy fighting happening further inland, and they had a lot of casualties coming in from the battles. There was an Infantry Officer that my great uncle was treating who was mortally wounded, and it was soon realized that the man wouldn't survive. The officer asked my great uncle if he was going to die and asked him to please be honest as a fellow Army Officer. He told us that he decided to tell the truth, that it looked as though they wouldn't be able to save him. The officer thanked him for his honesty and produced a photograph of him and his young wife together. He told my great uncle the name of his village and his wife's name, and asked him if - when the war was finally over - he could take the photograph back to his wife in the village and tell her that her husband loved her in his last moments. My great uncle agreed, and not long after the Officer died of his injuries. Sure enough when the Civil War was over, my great uncle attempted to honor the Officer's final wish and find his wife. He went to the village to try and find her, only to find that she had been killed during the Civil War too - executed with a number of other inhabitants by the Communists. He told us that he saw many terrible and disgusting things during the war - that he would never forget the horrible feeling of having to fight against his own countrymen, and how different it felt from actually defending Greece from invaders like the Germans or the Italians. In his own words after telling that story: "That still fucks me up today." Let us never forget what divisions can do to even the most courageous of people, and the most resilient of countries. Let us never forget what they saw in those dark years, and may we never let such a terrible thing happen to our country again.

As a Greek who studied modern history in the UK, this is a very good video. Impartial and to the facts. The biggest mistake of the communist party was to abstain from elections and use force to take power. These actions led to the pardoning of greek colaborators and turned public opinion against them. Slavs living in Greece were suppressed, its true. But the majority of children were transported against their will. I know stories of Greeks living in Poland, they were given german homes as Stalin pushed borders westwards and evacuated all germans. By the way these slavs were not macedon as they did not have such identity as a nation. They were descendants of Bulgarians, who we fought in two balkan wars and two world wars. Also the historical macedonia of Alexander the great was different than the geographic borders of today that macedonian land is shared between 3 nations, thus the confusion as one has the monopoly. In Greece we do not learn at schools about the civil war or the 1967 dictatorship so as not to scratch old wounds. The persecution of communists and exiling them in islands was brutal, but was the price to be paid as a defeated, looked down as traitor.

My grandfather fought the Fascist in Albania, the Nazis in Egypt an later in Italy alongside the Canadians and then the Communists with their Slavic Allies. So a big thanks to all the men and women who fought to keep Greece free and Democratic.

Civil war is the darkest page of Greek history. And no one want to speak about it. It's like taboo. Even in schools we skip this part.

You could cover the Italian civil war and it's dramatic consequences, this would be very interesting like this one

An important insight is that many of the nazi collaborators during the occupation fight in the side of greek state as a result the gained amnesty and never punished for the crimes during the occupation Another aspect was many people accused as suspected communists even if they were not. Just like my grandfather sister who fled to Tashkent in order to avoid persecution. You could search the validity of these events

My grandfather was a commander in Elas during the ww2 and in Democratic Army during civil war. The husband of my grandmother was a soldier in Greek army during the civil war. A whole family devided. I heard too many stories about second world war and the german occupation about the rebels in the mountains, the traitors, the hunger but when i start ask about the civil war everybody avoid to talk. They just say ''mistakes. mistakes, mistakes from both sides that we are paying until today''.The slavs of Florina area dont speak macedonian, they speak a bulgarian dialect and of course they are macedonians only in their dreams.

Unfortunately, Steve's story is wrong, the Partisans and the Communist party did not promise a "state within a state" (sic) but a secession of Greek Macedonia & Thrace and the creation of an independent Peoples' Republic according to the Yugoslav or Albanian pattern per the decisions of the 5th national committee of the Communsit Party of Greece. This led to the voting and implementing of Emergency Law 509/1947 that considered those who aspired or enforced the secession of Macedonia & Thrace, as perpetrators of a "High Treason"

My grandpa was 16 then when the communists forcefully took him from his home but he managed to escape and go to Athens.

Thank you for a good analysis of the tragic Greek civil war. One important point to make is Tito supported the Greek communists because in return the communists would cede Macedonia and its strategic port to Yugoslavia. The big game for Tito was Thessaloniki and access to the Aegean. Many innocent throughout Greece suffered, not just in Macedonia but also in Peloponnesos.

I heard a quote once that 'no one kills Greeks as good as Greeks' and isn't that such a tragedy, that in thousands of years of heroism, someone let ideology get in the way of freeing their country for them all

My grandfather was a teenager still alive 92, our village kratero refused the communists. They killed the church and town officials razed it to the ground for 3-4 years my Papou lived in a military camp.

"Recognizing and accepting both the responsibilities and the opportunities leadership offers you is a significant step in your development as a leader." -Kevin Eikenberry

I remember how my grandpa would tell me how he found his brother dead in a ditch, when he asked some people said he was caught saying socialist things. What they didn't know though was that his brother was mute his whole life so his death was irrelevant. The greek civil war also reminds me a lot the Spanish civil war.

7:52 "they were speaking Greek and not Macedonian" there is no Macedonian language like there is no Athenian or Spartan language, you are referring to the Slavic population in Macedonia (region of Greece) which spoke Slavic mostly Bulgarian language, what you said is historically inaccurate destroys the whole meaning, Macedonians are Greeks and live in the Greek region of Macedonia.

It is obvious that research has been made in the process of making this video, however there are mistakes and omissions. First of all, it is not mentioned that the civil war that followed the three-fold, Axis occupation of Greece (German, Italian & Bulgarian) was actually the first episode of Cold War (although a hint is made). Within the frame of the conflict between Britain and USA endorsed and supported monarchists - governmentalists and members of the EAM - ELAS organization, the will of the Greek people was totally ignored and the country was used as a... lab rat, for the implementation of new policies, new doctrines and ultimatelly new weapons (e.g. who knew that napalm bombs were first used in the Greek Civil War at the expense of the DSE?). Second, the use of the term "Macedonian" to describe the slavic community of Greece is scientifically unfounded and historically arbitrary - to say the least. Macedonia is a territory, a region if you will, which includes parts of present day Greece (the biggest part), North Macedonia and Bulgaria, thus there are Macedonians of Greek and Slavic ancestry. There is no Macedonian ethnic group. I'll stop here although I could mention more.

The photo of "Macedonian villagers in Greece in 1947" is in fact a photo of greek sarakatsani (nomads), judging by their clothing, and due to the fact that the baby is my grandmother with her brother peaking on the left and her cousins on the right, her auntie is holding her.

My grand father was a resistance fighter for ELAS and his Brother a lieutenant of the Greek army. The civil war torn families apart and in same places it still is a very painful memory

BTW for those who don't know Hellenic is another word Greeks often use to say they are Greek.

And public schools don’t even bother to tell you about the Greek civil war

When you drive through the Peloponnese, you come across monuments to WWII atrocities. After visiting one of these monuments, I asked my father how his brothers could own German cars. His answer was that the Greeks did worse things to each other after the Germans left.

Stop calling the dialect of Bulgarian spoken in Skopje as Macedonian, it’s Bulgarian.

My grandfather grew up in Epirus during the Civil war, his mother was a Refugee of the Constantinople Pogrom. The Albania PLA marched into his village and massacred all men of age starting with his Grandfather, the mayor. His aunt who lived in Athens hitchhiked and walked all the way to his village to bring him to Athens

You should probably mention that ELAS executed most other resistance groups calling them "fascists" as in not communist enough despite those groups being democratic.

Makedonia language ? Haha Makedonias language was Greek with their own dialect just like Cypriots , that language you say its bulgaria(Slavic) nothing to do with the Makedonia.

Good stuff! I knew “about” the Greek civil war but I didn’t know any details.

Love this channel so much! I love how the intro feels like something from the hay day of the history channel!

Nice job!!! There isn't much around on this subject, in print or on video. So this was very interesting

Yea the one thimg you forgot is that in many places near the border of macedonia the comunists burned and destoed any village which did not agree to help them i know because my ancestery is from epirus and when we went to see the villages there where many villages destroed

Can you do post ww1 albania? Alot happened with the country, with the king too, the heaviest smoker and the man who turned the gun at his assasin

Can say I've actually got family related to this, as my Great Grandfather was involved here as a British engineer. It's nice to finally understand a bit of the conflict.

There is no macedonian minority that was expelled after the Greek civil war, just bulgarians slavs living in macedonia who after aligning with their axis aligned bulgarian countrymen in bulgaria proper found themselves on the opposite end of the stick when the war finished. You conveniently forgot to mention the pogrom the bulgarian army did against the greek populace during WW2 i.e Drama uprising, instead focusing on 'Steve'. Well what about my ancestor who was killed by the bulgarian nazi affiliates, were is his story. 'Steves grandfather at least escaped with his life. But as the says "what goes around comes around". Payback is a bitch

An uncle of mine from the region of Epirus is one of those kids that went to Uzbekistan with the remnants of DSE. He was lucky enough to be taken there with his parents.

Good work The Front 👍

Guyssss....I just ate the most amazing orange

Thank you so much for covering this! My great grandfather fought in WW2 and in the Greek civil war. He was a officer in the Greek army and fought in Albania until he got caught and tortured by Italians. Afterwards he return to his village and joined ELAS to fight against the occupation, until the situation escalated. When ELAS started fighting with other partisan groups, my great grandfather stopped supporting them, but kept the weapons. Since he got a lot of them by assaulting many Germans and Italians, he was able to protect himself and the village. He was more or less a lone guerilla at this point, and would even go as far to threaten to kill traitors in his village. Because of this no one messed with him, he was basically like a Cretan in the Pindus mountains. When the Greek government returned, he for some reason joined the fight against ELAS, but I don't know why since he didn't talk much about his past when he was still alive. I also don't know what he really did during the Civil War, especially since his village was in a ELAS held region. I only know that during his time in ELAS and the Civil War, his nickname was Xanthis because he had blonde hair. After the war he opened a construction family business which he had until around 1980 or 1985. I wish he was still alive so I could ask him more about my family and his life back then. I would appreciate it if someone who knows more about the situation back then, would explain why my grandfather did the certain things I mentioned before. I can give more details if needed, since I left some things out to don't make it too long

My grandfather was a DSE guerilla during 1946-1948 where he got injured and sent to yugoslavia. he joined because the monarchist killed his 16 year old brother for suspicion of collaborating with the communists. My grandfather used to tell me stories how he destroyed american shermans with the pantzerfaust in the hills of macedonia , after he got injured he fled to poland where he eventually met my grandma and continued with his allegiance to the KKE from poland . he returned to greece in the 90s after the communists werent being persecuted anymore and till the endo of his life worked for the KKE newspaper.

My Greek dad (no relation just what I call him) told me how brothers fought brothers and how families were torn to shreds during the civil war after WW2. It's really sad to murder someone who thinks differently. The Greek civil war should be a reminder of what happens when we are no longer civil towards another person's ideas by using violence. This event is more relevant in todays age than ever before.

The Greek civil war saw the first deployment of Napalm bombs, and napalm as a weapon

I first heard about this war today and im history geek . Wow good job :)

They were not speaking this fake makedonian those villages were the remains of bulgarians that came to makedonia after the third Bulgarian Empire!!! They were and are a lot of villages with bulgarian influence in greece but they are only like 20 30 of them!! Stop spreading titos lies and rewrite history!!!!! There are no makedonians they are only bulgarians that speak with a weird accent!!! You forgot to mention as well that the name vardaska wazs change to makedonia during this period so in case of a KKE victory tito could control the port of Thessaloniki which is the current capital of the real Makedonia!!! I love your work i watch this channel since it had 1k subs but please as a real makedonian and as a greek dont spread misinformation!!!

Please tell Steve to read this comment. You should have a look at the recently declassified reports and memos from the former USSR archives, that give a very interesting twist to the whole story. This video, though well filmed, is based on a rather poor research. Especially when it comes to the matter of macedonia, it ends up being a bad propaganda video. It is solely based on what "Steve" told you from his grandparents or whatever. This is not research. Stories such as Steve's but supproting the exact opposite exist in the hundreds of thousands. You should look them up. Decades before the civil war the peoples of this region were asked to choose whether they wish to stay under the authority of the Ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople (and hence were considered of Greek beliefs) or switch to the Bulgarian exarchate (and hence consider themselves as bulgarians). The overwhelming majority of these native peolple (though they spoke a bulgarian dialect) chose freely and willingly to side with the Greek cause. Many of them payed a very dear price for that, being injured or worse by bulgarian insurgents. Yes, a mentality of assimilation existed since the matter was settled, however such practices was a common place to all the countries and nations especially in the balkans (you should look up what happened to minorities in Albania, Yougoslavia, Bulgaria). Of course there were villages that chose to side with the bulgarians,howevere these were a mere fraction out of the whole population. What I write is based on a huge ammount of accounts of local people (such as Steve's grandparents). In the area where I live, out of 48 villages, only 2 sided with the bulgarian cause. A "macedonian" language never existed and the aforementioned dialect is a bulgarian one. The matter of a "Macedonian" nation was fabricated by the communist parties of yugoslavia and the KKE in order to achieve a situation similar to the one between North and South Korea today. As to the migration of childern to eastern block countries, this happened both willingly and unwillingly. As you can easily understnd the willing peoples were the members of the communist army who wanted to save their families.

Two observations. 1: At 5:41, it wasn't "someone who fired a shot", all testimonies agree that the police opened fired, unprovoked from the protesters. 2: Before WW2 the Slav Macedonians of Greece self-identified as Bulgarians, and their language and schools that they wanted to take back were Bulgarian schools. The emergence of a modern slavic-macedonian ethnicity occured during WW2, after Tito wanted to stop Bulgarian irredentism

Love ur vids

Enjoyed the video and I gave it a Thumbs Up

What you are referring as Macedonian language, its actually a mix of Bulgarian and a little Serbian. Macedonians speak Greek (Hellenic) since the dawn of the Hellenic nation. Other than that, a very accurate analysis.

My grandpa allegedly fought the nazis in ww2 and was one of 3 rose gardeners for the king. Unfortunately I don’t talk to the Greek side of my family so I don’t really have any more information. I tried to do some research on my own but couldn’t find anything

I've heard that my great grand father fought in the civil war, from what I've heard my grandma didnt see her father until she was 4 years old. Even though I've not heard a lot of him thats something I know. Thanks for the video

Amazing video! Especially the part about Steves family, my fathers side of the family is from around there as well, a village named armensko or alona now, I’m trying to learn more about the village and history. I’d love to here more stories like that if possible!

9:32 ) My grandmother ( still alive in the age of 88 ) , was taken by rebel in the late summer of 1944 to a march against the germans in the town of Feres . They made a wall of chirldren and told them to sing rebel songs . She remembers the german machinegunner aimming at them , thankfully never firing . We are proud of her , but as she told me , it was a really risky move ... . During the civil war some children were abducted from the nearby villages , she was living in Doriskos at the time . The most of the famillies moved to Feres after this . After that there was raid in Feres with casualties from both sides and the police evacuted to Feres the last 2 remainning famillies ( including hers ) . So yeah there were some abduction made by DSE .

Here’s a simple way to determine the sides in a war in Greece: If they come from the south, they are Athéniens. If they come from the South-West, they are Spartans. If they come from the West they are Ionians. If they come from the North they are Macedonians. If they come from the East they are Thracians. Ok, if it wasn’t clear by now this is a joke.

I'm glad you covered the Greek Civil War, it's a conflict I don't see mentioned often

Interesting personal reflections, thankyou!

Macedonia has always been Greek. The so called Macedonia you refer to, was Tito's creation in 1943 in order to lay claims on Greek territory, by taking advantage of the warring factions in Greece. Before this time the area was known as Vardarska Banovina and not Macedonia.

This video is quite unfortunate. The slavic population in Greek Macedonia received favorable treatment for the standards of the time. They first were staunch supporters of the Ottomans against the Greeks in the Balkans Wars. They then supported the Bulgarians in WW1, participated in the Massacres of the Greek populace. And they still were allowed to stay and live more less freely at a time when Greece had population exchanges with not only Turkey, but Bulgaria & Yugoslavia too. Then they jumped on the communist bandwagon while Greece was occupied in WW2, and again fought with ELAS more or less for succession. Which other country in the Balkans / Near East would of given such favorable treatment to such an openly seditious minority at that time. Need I remind you of the fate of the Greeks of Turkey who behaved similarly? And all this at a time when emigration from Greece was sky high. Secondly children don't willingly leave their parents. The Greek communists are famous in this period for specifically targeting, and massacering children. The Greek communists certainly don't deserve such a favourable doco. Sorry but overall this video is pretty low quality!

Nice video and its an interesting and dark piece of history. Currently living in the Ionian and you often hear stories of how a whole village and families were lined up and shot by the different groups. Brutal and a civil war is just that, a war on the civilians.

Very interesting!

One important thing to keep in mind civil war is a tool for the Great Powers to divide Greeks since the liberation from the Ottoman Empire. No one would like a strong naval nation in the middle of mediterrane that lean a bit east. Its the same tactic European countries and US later use to influence middle east for centuries. Divide and conquer.

The video doesn't give many details and present EAM-ELAS as the aggressor. In fact it was the British obsession to bring back the unpopular king that destroy the greek unity. EAM and the KKE didn't want to establish a communist regime but to follow the italian example. The Papandreou government was a british puppet government. Also the video doesn't mention that after the liberation the british rushed to save the collaborator forces like the notorious Security Battalions the majority of whom found refuge in the greek government forces.

Good video didn't know about this

Finally someone covered this one! Thanks

My grandmother is born at 1942, soufli village in thrace. During the civil war she was a little kid and witnessed her neighbours leaving the village for the mountains to join the communists. Because her village was the bigger of the area the hellenic army fortified it and had a garrison of militia inside. Soon refugees started coming from nearby villages and they got crowded inside. They were hearing stories that communists were abducting kids and women from their villages and so the militia organized an expendition with civilian volunteers to rescue them. At nights the village was attacked constantly by the communists who were coming down from the mountains just to harash the militia and terrorize the civilians. The village was well protected by fortifications so they never make any progress but my grandma was living in fear. After the war all the communists were banned from greece until 1975something. Thats when the right wing corrupt party that rules today greece invited them back and gave them priviledges. Free pensions etc

The mighty parachute regiment smashed the ELAS to bits post war

Excellent video buddy keep up the good work. Like Steve my family also went through similar stuff in greek Macedonia and when we omit such crucial facts as the spying and violent activities of hellenic army and police, it's like we never talked about the civil war. Bravo once again

For every grand conflict, there's always a series of lesser yet still important and bloody legacy conflicts after its end... Star Wars fans might know this quite well. At least the Reds didn't win here. That's a good thing. 1:35: Wonder if the Allies and the Soviets were inspired by this for their 46-year occupation of Germany?

great video man but... MACEDONIAN IS GREEK.Its one and the same not a different language...And as a Greek i assure you that most kids were forcibly taken out of their homes...

Seriously bro, calling the Slavs of Vardaska Macedonians?? I was even about to share the vid but this shit is straight up bull, this is clear propaganda you calling them Macedonians implying that its an ethnicity which is not and claiming it to be is completely ahistorical and unfounded

War didn’t stop in 1945 not only in Greece but Ukraine, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Baltic republics… And in some cases it rumbled until the late 1950’s

As a Greek, it's such a fucking shame we never get taught about this in school, we are so stuck in our ancient glory days, that we don't even mention what happened just 70 years ago. Thank you for this video.

“Partisans escorted children to safe neutral countries” downright lies, the children were forcibly taken from their homes in order to force their parents to join the communist terrorist militias, when the communtists lost around 20.000 children were carried off to countries of the eastern bloc by and along with the communist leadership, barely any of them returned to their families. 90% percent of the communist fighters were either slav and Albanian nationalists who sought to have parts of Greece become autonomous and join neighbouring countries, or forced conscripts. Also there’s no Macedonian language, there’s only Greek and slavic

That was pretty much a British mess as usual. ELAS wasn't a communist organisation. It was democratic and it happened to have communist leaders like Ares Velouchiotis (not KKE leaders, just members). ELAS just wanted to participate to a coalition government as it had the majority of Greek population supporting them and the British said no and started firing at them (Dekemvriana). It is also interesting the fact you covered a part of why Macedonia is a complicated place (Greek Macedonian here). Until Ottoman Empire's collapse slavic was spoken in the region. After the rise of nationalism in Europe, countries were seeking to create homogenous populations to avoid future conflicts. Greece did the same and probably a bit sloppy but at the end it worked pretty well for us. We are not divided among Pontics, Vlachs, Arvanites and Slavophones (slavic tends to disappear) in the meanwhile the northern Balkans are in constant conflicts ruining their countries.

As a Greek I have to say it is true, just with a lot of war crimes in between. And the role of USAs intervension was much more significant than stated.

During the axis occupation of Greece, the Bulgarians were the wrost. Particularry in a village called Doksato, they found the priest in his house cut in half and hang on the wall, his wife with her eyes taken off and their children slaughtered. The entire village got burnt down afterwards. The bulgarian paramilitary also tried making the Thrace region of Greece more Bulgarianized, by banning the Greek language and changing names on graves in cemeteries to bulgarian ones

My daughter worked for a gentleman who escaped by boat from northern Greece to Athens as a boy and recalled how, huddling in the lower portions of the small boat, he heard the Communists shooting his Uncle under suspicion of attempting to escape. He remembers vividly the sounds of the machine guns killing his uncle! I can’t even imagine what that would have been like for a young child!

A well made video all around, though "Macedonians" don't exist the way people understand it nowadays. The majority of these people were either Bulgarians or Serbians. When Yugoslavia came to be, what is now North Macedonia was a mojority spoken Bulgarian population, Tito used these lies to make uneducated people believe that they were something they weren't, so Bulgaria has no justification against him. "Macedonian" are a dialect of Bulgarian, both can understand each other. Its like saying Creatans don't speak Greek but Creatan...wat de fak What is true however is that the Greek communists promised the entire Macedonia region to Tito once they have won the civil War. Before the break up of Stalin and Tito, an attack from Yugoslavia was very likely according to Greek intelligent services, however, after the fact, Tito was afraid of neighbouring countries attacking him, so thats why he didn't have a more active role. Finally, several soldiers have reported that the majority of communists fighting them were children or non Greek. Children are more interested on school and playgrounds, not guns and killings.

One day the partisans came to my aunts village, all fighting strength men were forcibly taken into a nearby forest, none returned. Note, the village was pro government and among the men was her grandfather

As a greek the civili War and as someone who has known and met people who fought in that war, this topic is gonna be interested to me

There is no Macedonian language these are Bulgarian

My Father lived through this and was a staunch anti communist for the rest of his life. He was just a kid during the Nazi occupation and the Greek Civil War. The things he had to endure, and saw, shouldn't happen to anyone, let alone a child.

In college I did a 25 page research paper on the Greek civil war. Got stuck in 1944

Song at 10:44 ? Description wasn’t really any help

Too much 'Steve' makes for a one-sided presentation.

There are no such thing as Slavic Macedonians

What sources did you use for this?

I’m in Oakleigh eating a souvalaki, and watching this video! I love Greece from Melbourne.

Thank you for covering a part of this postwar period, especially for the part with the exodus of innocent civilians simply because they didn't speak the same language.

When will u talk about the failed invasion of Afghanistan? Cold War, War on Terror or both of them

Another video les go

You forgot to mention that the Partisans that were caught were send to exhile in concentration camps in isolated Islands like Makronisos and Giaros where they would work all day in the sun to mine rocks. My Great Grand Father left for exhile 4 times.