From Detsa Begaltsi to Hungarian Freedom Fighter to loyal US citizen
It was the spring of 1948 when parents gathered the 60 – 80 children from the village of Vishani, Kostursko, Aegean Macedonia, and told them that they would be leaving home for a few months. The parents kissed their children goodnight, put them to sleep in the school and left to fight with the partisans in the Greek Civil War.
When the children awoke the next morning, they were alone with six maiki, women who watched over them for the next several years. They also kept in touch with the parents sending them notes and pictures about their children.
Mike Panchev of Fort Wayne was one of these children. At 12, he was one of the older boys and has a clear recollection of those times. He was accompanied by his 14-year-old brother Sotir (Sam), who lives in Adelaide Australia. Mike was born in 1936.
Above: In this group photo of the Detsa Begaltsi who left Vishani in 1948, Mike
Panchev is third from right in the back row. “Our parents chose to send us away for our safety because they believed heavy fighting was coming to our area.
“We walked for a few days until a Phantom 105 bombed us. From the air, we must have looked like guerilla fighters. It was an American airplane flown by Greek pilots. From then on, we rested by day and walked by night.
“It was so dark at night, that when we reached Prespa Lake, the first group walked right into the water, and this scared them,” Mike remembers.
Right: Mike and his brother Sotir are in the middle of the second row.
Mike and Sotir were lucky to be on the train bound for Budapest, Hungary, a more westernized country compared with other destinations such as Romania or one of the many Soviet republics. They arrived in Budapest at night and were dazzled by the bright lights of the first big city they had ever seen.
Immediately, those in charge separated the boys from the girls. The children stripped off their clothes, which were burned. Their heads were shaved and their bodies sprayed to rid them of lice. A doctor checked them over, pronounced most of them healthy and took care of those who needed care.
“That first night we slept six-in-a-bed made up with clean white sheets. We thought we were in heaven.”
The next day, the children were told they could not pray because the people in charge did not believe in God.
“Oh my God, we thought. For sure, we are going to hell. What do they mean we cannot pray?”
Later that day, they were sent to a Russian army headquarters in a village near a lake. It was a small village. Each family had one or two children and cared for the Macedonian children much as foster parents.
Mike’s “father” taught him to ride a bike. He took him up a huge hill, put him on the bike and away he went all the way down the hill.
“I think I hit every tree on the way down, but I was so excited. I had never seen a bike in my life.”
Mike also remembers going to school in Budapest. The boys lined up and the man in charge came through and designated the trade each boy would pursue. He was selected to become a tool and die maker.
He studied Russian, Hungarian, Greek and Macedonian in night school (the latter two for when he returned home), and two to three hours each day, he worked toward an apprenticeship.
“They taught in the German tradition. If you didn’t learn, they hit you up the side of the head,” Mike remembers.
Above: The group from Vishanie included (front, from left) Sotir, Mike and Dita Resova, who still lives in Hungary; (back row, from left) Hristo Markoff, Skopie; Peter Markoff, New Jersey, Tanas Skleefoff, Milka Skleefoff, and the late Ljube Rezov.
By graduation time, he was a category five tool and die maker and made pretty good money. He also was required to join the Hungarian Communist youth organization.
“We cried when Stalin died. We cried when a Greek Communist died. We were brainwashed.”
In 1956, he took an active role in the Hungarian revolution. One night he and his friends lured a tank down a dead-end street. A group of Soviet soldiers who looked more Mongolian than Slavic walked behind the tank. The young revolutionaries escaped through a manhole, and the tank was forced to back up. Apparently, due to lack of communication between the tank and the troops behind it, all of them were crushed.
As a wanted man, Mike slipped across the border into Austria with a group of friends. They gave a guide all the money they had, and he provided safe passage. They had to be careful not to end up in Czechoslovakia, another Soviet bloc state. The friends slept in a barn and left the next day by bus for Vienna – free men.
Above: Mike (left) scored the winning goal for his soccer team in Hungary. Tied 1 – 1, with only a couple of minutes
to go, the other team pulled their goalie, Mike scored on a diagonal kick which nearly hit the side.
In Vienna, their translator was a Hungarian who had served in the French Foreign Legion, a group the six young men had admired. He helped them receive social services from doctors, and dentists and got them jobs at Peugeot where they could practice their skilled trades.
“All the churches helped us – the Lutherans, the Catholics, the Jews, all of them."
As Hungarian refugees in 1956, they had special privileges. They were given a car to share, and they drove to Paris with thoughts of the French Foreign Legion in their heads and all the excitement Paris has to offer 20-year-olds.
n Paris, Mike got a job at Renault and attended night school to learn French. He lived with French people so he would become proficient in their language. He also called his father, who had settled in Skopie to ask, “What should I do?” “Don’t you dare come back here,” said the wise father, who had spent some time in an Albanian jail.
Soon after, Mike, who is fluent in seven languages, made passage for New York City. His future grandfather-in-law Tom Popoff of Marian, O., who knew him from Vishani, signed papers in his behalf.
Above: Mike (right) and his brother Sotir (Sam Pantsos) in their Hungarian school uniforms
After the tragedies of the Greek Civil War, Mike’s father was jailed in Albania and eventually joined his wife and other son in Skopie, where both parents died.
Left: Mike and the late George Tsuleff as young men living a free life in Paris in 1958.
Mike Panchev
Mike and his wife Shirley have two children and two grandchildren. Reann Danielle Roggenkamp is a micro biologist. Her husband Greg holds a PhD in agronomy. They live in St. Louis with their two children Seth and Samantha. Son Charles Christopher Panchev is a businessman in Denver where his wife Meredith practices law.
