Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
I had heard of him from different people and had been trying to find his phone to contact him…
Through the help of dear friends, I would finally find him and we would agree to meet in Larnaca…
I would ask our `Mukhtar Pasha`, Dimitris Dimitriou Kocchinos to help me with translation…
We would meet in Larnaca and sit and Dimitris would translate for me his words…
I am talking about Panayiotis Theodosiou Digenis from Pyla who had saved the lives of Turkish Cypriots in 1974 from being executed by EOKA-B… It had not been the first time he had done that – he had saved some other co-villagers, Turkish Cypriots from being killed and `disappeared` back in 1964…
He had come with an oxygen tube to our interview… He was ill and could only move about with a portable oxygen tube…
I would see him again at the funeral of a `missing person` some months ago and we would talk outside the church for some time…
Something had gone wrong with my tape recorder and until I had it fixed, more time would elapse…
Finally when it was okay, I would sit down to decipher his tape…
I would call him to ask him a few things about the interview but my call would fall into his answering machine…
First I would think that he might be abroad…
Then I would start suspecting that something might not be right…
I would call the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar of Pyla, Nejdet Ermetal and he would give me the sad news…
`He passed away four-five months ago and I went to the funeral with my flowers` he would tell me…
`To tell you the truth, he never treated Turkish Cypriots badly in his whole life…`
I feel sad and feel this is more reason to write about him…
This is more reason to let the whole world know how he had saved the lives of his co-villagers from being killed…
May he rest in peace now…
Panayiotis Digenis was born in Pyla… His mother's name was Milou and his father's name was Theodosis Ioannou… His father had had an accident in the mandra one day and had died when Panayiotis was only seven years old… He had left behind three girls and two boys, the youngest being Panayiotis…
His mother Milou would work at the button factory in Larnaca and would also sell clothes, going round the houses… They were a very poor family and everyone in Pyla remembers Milou and appreciates her… She spoke very good Turkish, the Turkish Cypriots remember…
Growing up, Panayiotis remembered his mixed village Pyla as truly mixed… He would tell me:
`We used to play pirilli, we used to play football… It was a mixed village, as it is now where Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived together… There was a very natural life… Pyla had only one football team, we used to play football together. I was the youngest boy of the family and after elementary school, I could not continue my studies since someone had to work for our family to survive and I had to work. I went to learn sewing as an apprentice under Ahmet Terzi, a Turkish Cypriot tailor in Pyla. After 3-4 years, I begun working in Larnaca… I used to collect clothes for dry cleaning from the village and I would get a few piasters as commission. I would continue to work as a tailor…
Then came the 50s and EOKA came into being… In 1956 some of my friends had been arrested by the British and taken to the camp in Kokkinotrimitia… At that time, I had become the EOKA leader in Pyla, after the arrest of my friends… In 1958, the British had arrested every man in Pyla! 80 men from Pyla had been arrested…
At that time, some Turkish Cypriots from other villagers would come to Pyla and try to convince the Turkish Cypriot leadership from Pyla to create provocations. This was TMT – in 1958, the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar of the village was Hasan Durumali. These Turkish Cypriots who came from outside, wanted the Greek Cypriots' houses in Pyla to be burned. In the coffee shop where this conversation was taking place, there was this guy Andronikos Zavidis who spoke Turkish fluently. So he heard all that was said… The Turkish Cypriot mukhtar told these Turkish Cypriots who asked for provocations to be implemented, `Drink your coffee and go back to where you came from… For so many years now, we get along fine with Greek Cypriots` and he had sent them away… Then one of those Turkish Cypriots had sworn at the muhktar saying `You are all bastards!` because the mukhtar would not allow such provocations in Pyla. Zavidis would tell everyone what he had heard and what he saw and everyone would be happy since they realized that such provocations would not happen in the village… They had realized that the Turkish Cypriots of Pyla would not create such fasaria in the village.
After 1959, life would go back to normal in the village…
Then I would open my own dry cleaning place in Larnaca and would name it `Digenis`. During the 1955-59 EOKA years people would use pseudonyms instead of their own names. And my pseudonym was `Diogenis`… So I called my dry cleaning shop `Digenis`…
Rifat Hasan Durumali was a chauffeur and he would collect all the clothes from Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to be dry cleaned and bring these to me… From onwards, they got to know me as `Digenis`… Then came the conflict of 1963… The conflict began in Nicosia with the killing of Djemaliye – but Turkish Cypriots were preparing for such a thing, having trained 10 thousand people, what I mean is that they were preparing for this… In those years, maybe in 1961 or 1962, a Turkish ship – maybe called Deniz – had anchored in the Larnaca port. While unloading its cargo, one of the crates fell off and guns came out of the crate… Rikos Karageorgis, working as a driver at the Lefkariti company had seen this crate and what was in it, that is the guns… He was shot by a Turkish Cypriot because of this but he survived…
But nothing happened during 1963-64 in Pyla… Ahmet Sakalli was the Turkish Cypriot `Pasha` of Pyla in those days and he would go round, making sure that everything was all right. After 1957, I was the Greek Cypriot `Pasha` of the village.
There was an incident in 1963… Djelal, who was the brother of Ahmet Terzi – my former boss as a tailor – came to me one night… He said that his brother had been arrested together with some other Turkish Cypriots in Varosha… He asked me for help.
I got up that night and went to the police station in Varosha.
I told them that there was a Turkish Cypriot from Pyla that they had arrested.
`He must be from TMT` they told me.
`Would you know better than me who he is?` I said to them.
I had good relations with Georgadjis because he was the godfather of my son.
Georgadjis would tell them, `Do as Panayiotis says, he knows his villagers much better than you…`
Ahmet Terzi was a quiet man, he had been my boss…
So the Greek Cypriot policemen in Varosha said to me `You go now, we will set him free tomorrow…`
I said, `No way, you will set him free tonight…`
And that night I took Djelal from the police station and took him back to Pyla…`
And the other Turkish Cypriots who had been arrested together with Ahmet Terzi were set free as well, thanks to the intervention of Panayiotis. Otherwise, we would probably be looking for their burial site now…
Panayiotis, in our interview would also tell me about what had happened in 1974…
`Some Greek Cypriots had come outside Pyla. These were people with extreme views, they had come to create fasaria in the village, they had come to do bad things against Turkish Cypriots in our village. I went outside the village and told them, `First you have to kill me, you will not touch our villagers…`
I had taken Ahmet Sakalli with me to go together outside the village. So he was a witness to what happened. And I managed to send them away… I told them, `If you are so strong, why don't you go and fight in Kyrenia?`
These fanatic Greek Cypriots who came outside our village Pyla were firing in the air… We had heard those shots… Turkish Cypriot children had started crying… So that is why I had taken Ahmet Sakalli with me and we went together outside the village. I told them, `Vre p…shtis! Who are you to fire in the air? If you are so brave, go and fight in Kyrenia!`
Nothing happened in our village because we would not allow such things to happen in our village, we would not allow them to enter our village…
We were born and we grew up in Cyprus, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. Both of us made mistakes, we have to understand that. We have to apologize to each other and say `We both made mistakes, we are sorry` and make a fresh start. Cyprus is too small to be divided… The problem is the Turkish army, if the Turkish army goes away, we have learned from the past not to make similar mistakes… When you get out now, you can't tell who is Ayshe and who is Eleni… What difference does it make? Both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots did terrible things but our communities don't carry `hatred`… We all know how the English used their policies of `Divide and rule`… They did this everywhere… Until the British came, there was no `Turkish Cypriot` or `Greek Cypriot`. There were Christians and Moslems and everyone respected each other. There were no serious problems… Problems were created by the British…`
These are in summary, the words of Panayiotis Digenis…
Thank you so much for your humanity for saving lives of your co-villagers dear Panayiotis…
May you rest in peace now…
21.1.2017
Photo: The late Panagiotis Digenis who saved lives of Turkish Cypriots of his village Pyla…
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of February 2017, Sunday.
(**) After I published in YENİDÜZEN newspaper the story of Panagiotis Digenis, Ahmet Sakallı, whom the late Panagiotis mentions in his interview with me called me and asked me to go and visit him in Pyla and that he too had stories of how they saved each other many times together with Panagiotis Digenis…
The links to my article in Yeniduzen newspaper:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/pileli-kibrisliturkleri-oldurulmekten-kurtaran-adam-gocup-gitti-1-10096yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/pileli-kibrisliturkleri-oldurulmekten-kurtaran-adam-gocup-gitti-2-10100yy.htm
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