“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” – Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 – 1957), famous Greek writer.
Vasilios Doudoulis, 96, has only one regret in life.
“The sadness (παράπονο) of my life is that I didn’t experience the joy of schooling,” he says in Greek.
“I had eight years of lost education.”
Doudoulis sat in the kitchen last Saturday, hours before his regular trip to Springvale Cemetery to visit his late wife’s grave and a day before Father’s Day, as he lamented how Greece’s involvement in World War II and the Greek Civil War in the 1940s robbed him of the education he so craves. He only went up to grade 6.
Sitting by his side, was his daughter, Michelle (Μοσχούλα) Papadopoulos, 65, while his son Con (Κωνσταντίνος), 67, came in-and-out studiously performing the necessary chores required to make Doudoulis’s house just right. And the house needs to be just so: Doudoulis is master of his domain.
Bought brand new in a quiet street in the predominantly Greek suburb of South Oakleigh in Melbourne’s south-east, Doudoulis’s house boasts luscious flowers and flora in the front yard and rows and rows of vegetable plants at the back. Inside there are stacks of books.
There is the Greek Encyclopedia (Ελευθερουδάκη) Doudoulis ordered from Greece and read to Michelle and Con when they were children. There is also the biography of Greek People’s Liberation Army (E.L.A.S or ΕΛΑΣ) leader, Greek journalist and politician, Aris Velouchiotis titled Άρης Βελουχιώτης, «Ο πρώτος του Αγώνα». There are also more practical books he uses everyday, like the 1980s edition of Maria Vlachou’s, “New Culinary Pastry” («Νέα Μαγειρική Ζαχαροπλαστική»).
“I can’t find enough books for him to read,” Michelle says in frustration.
She reckons there are more than 200 books in her father’s house.
THE WAR YEARS
Doudoulis was born on 26 March 1929, in the semi-mountainous village of Mikro Souli, 60km south-east of the city of Serres, in central Macedonia, in Greece. He had one sister.
Doudoulis has lived through some of the most momentous and tumultuous times in Greece and Australia in the past 100 years.
He witnessed a massacre at 12 years old.
A farming family, his father was originally from nearby Mesolakkia and had land 800m from the ancient villages of Upper and Lower Krousouves(now Nea Kerdillia) in the mountains.
“It is a good field,” Doudoulis says.
“It is a strong field. It is close to fertile land («βάλτα»).
Like other villagers from Micro Souli, Mesolakkia and neighbouring Palaiokomi, he left with his father early to plough the tobacco, on the morning on 17 October 1941. Then at about noon, he and the other farmers saw a flare in the sky followed by gunshots and smoke.
Doudoulis says his father and the other farmers realised quickly that it was a Nazi attack on Upper and Lower Krousouves and the two villages had been set alight. He, his father and the other farmers made a run for it back to their own villages.
“The Germans are burning the villages (Krousouves),” he remembers the adults screaming.
“The Germans are burning the villages.”
As he, his father and the other farmers returned safely to their respective villages, Doudoulis remembers seeing from his own village of Micro Souli several kilometres away the smoke burning well into the night from Krousouves.
The Nazi occupying force would go on to repeat these massacres on hundreds of Greek villages during World War II. Nea Kerdillia commemorates the 84th anniversary of their massacre next month with the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff(HNDGS), General Dimitrios Houpis*, expected to attend as he did last year’s commemoration.
As was customary decades ago, songs or ditties would be written about major events and locals would recite them. One was written about the destruction of Kerdillia and Doudoulis recites it effortlessly.
«Καθήστε να σας διηγηθώ, Γιά το σαράντα ένα. Τα όμορφα τα Κρούσουβα, Τα κάψαν ένα, ένa. » he remembers the first verse.
(Now listen while I tell you a story, About 1941. The beautiful Krousouves, Which they burnt down one by one.)
Doudoulis, who lost some relatives in the massacre, says the massacre happened at the beginning of the Nazi occupation, the song was born from pain and bitterness( καήμος) and his fellow villagers would express their sorrow by performing the zembekiko solo dance to it.
“Only Kerdillia in the area was burnt,” Doudoulis remembers.
“The musicians would play and we would sing the song.
“We danced a heavy zembekiko to express our bitterness.”
FAMILY LIFE IN GREECE
Doudoulis and his wife were established tobacco farmers in Micro Souli, in Greece. But a confronting incident between his wife and a tobacco buyer would mark a turning point.
His late wife, Litsa (Ελιά) who died in 2007 and who already had two brothers in Australia, was left in the village to meet with the male buyer of their tobacco crop one autumn day. Doudoulis was away working on building sites in Thessaloniki in the cooler, non farming months.
The price for the tobacco had been set by weight and all his wife was going to do was to show the tobacco buyer the crop he had agreed to buy.
But the man was aggressive when he saw a woman, checking and re-checking the tobacco, finding fault with it and scattering the leaves so as to buy only the best tobacco leaves and reduce the cost.
“The price was set,” Doudoulis recalls.
“If I was there, the tobacco buyer wouldn’t have scattered all the leaves.
“From then on, my wife said: ‘ I’m not planting tobacco again. I’ve got two brothers in Australia’.
“This is the reason we migrated to Australia.”
MIGRATION
Doudoulis, his wife and their son and daughter travelled via the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ΔΕΜΕ in Greek) to Australia on the “Patris’s” last voyage transporting migrants to Australia. To coincide with the school year in Australia, they chose to travel the whole voyage by ship, taking 32 days and arriving in Australia on 19 October 1971.
Doudoulis agrees it was a bold move for a man of 42 years old with a wife 38 and two children 13 and 11. The plan was to only stay six years while the children finished secondary school.
“We came for a better life,” Doudoulis remembers.
“The last years we were in Greece, there was a lot of poverty.
“But my wife’s siblings in Australia were also a pulling factor.”
Michelle remembers the poverty which was exacerbated by the military coup in 1967.
Etched in her memory is her mother trying to cook and striking the last match in the house in order to light the stove.
“It failed to light,” she recalls.
She “felt the horror” in her mother’s face.
EARLY YEARS
The late Doudoulis’s brother picked the family up from Port Melbourne pier. They rented a house with another Greek family in Highett Rd, Highett, for a month, Then they rented a house with another Greek family in Middleton St, Highett. Their share was $35 a week.
Doudoulis worked at the existing laminates producer Laminex, in Bay Rd, Highett, for $45 per week: Doudoulis worked in the nearby former rubber and plastic components manufacturer, Lucas Industries (Australia) Ltd, at the corner of Nepean Hwy and Bay Rd, Cheltenham, for $30 a week. Within a few years they saved $5000 for a deposit and bought their first house in Bernard St, Cheltenham, in 1974, because the house was three houses away from the former Cheltenham High School.
The couple were careful with their money, (κάναμε οικονομία) and Doudoulis remembers paying off the $26,500.00 house within five years. Years later the couple bought their current house, brand new in South Oakleigh.
Michelle remembers her brother and her negotiating with real estate agents every time the family changed houses.
“I became a parent to you both from 11 years old”, Michelle turns to her father and says.
“We (children) didn’t know anything differently.
“My parents would say: ‘We are going to the real estate agent to find a house.”
A FULL LIFE
Doudoulis has nothing but praise for Australia and is thankful for his life here.
“We made money,” he says.
“And we lived a rich life.
“I didn’t see anything bad (in Australia).
“This country, for me, was good.”
He went to Greece for holidays seven times, the last time being 2014.
Even though widowed, Doudoulis, says his days are full.
He spends time with his two children, seven grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and four godchildren, as well as tending to his house and the garden, and loves cooking.
“I open the dough in thin filo pastry (ανοίγω φύλλο),” Doudoulis says
“I make cheese pies(τυρόπιτα), meat pies(κρεατόπιτα), any type of pies.”
Michelle says she’s made things easier for her father recently by buying him ready made filo pastry.
THE SECRET TO A LONG LIFE
Doudoulis is in excellent health, has a sharp mind and is still living in his house. He says constantly learning is his secret to a long life.
“My secret is, I have the joy of reading,” he explains.
“I am always able to reason.
” «Γηράσκω αεί διδασκόμενος» (Live and learn) said Socrates.”
Doudoulis who has outlived his wife and almost all his peers including many relatives, said he didn’t fear death.
“No, I don’t fear dying,” he says defiantly.
“You must love your fellow human beings and respect them.
“Logic dictates this.”
Doudoulis who has seen death, destruction and hardships during almost a century, draws on Greek literary great, Nikos Kazantzakis’s words, to describe how he has nothing to fear.
«Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λέφτερος.»
(“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”)
The holocaust of the two Kerdillia (formerly Krousouves)
Now listen while I tell you a story,
About 1941.
The beautiful Krousouves,
Which they burnt down one by one.
They put the men in a line,
And tied them up two by two.
Then they killed them,
With the machine-gun.
The women were crying out,
“Our men and husbands, where are you going?
“You’re going with the enemy,
“To sacrifice your young lives.”
The children were all crying,
The women were quivering violently,
Those who were within hearing range,
Just looked at them and laughed.
As recited by Vasilios Doudoulis, 96 years old, of South Oakleigh, Melbourne.
Translation: Dora Houpis
Ends
(Translation: Dora Houpis).
*HNDGS, General Dimitrios Houpis, is Dora Houpis’s second cousin. The Houpises hail from Nea Kerdillia ( formerly Krousouves).
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