THE CHILDREN OF GREECE
Sut,—As the "unnamed correspondent" whose letter, quoted by Canon Howard in your issue of July 30th, launched the recent correspondence in your columns on the abduction of Greek children, may I be permitted a final word ? I am open to correction, but I believe Mrs. Lamprides has not been in Greece since 1946. As for my own credentials, my work as correspondent for one of Britain's greatest newspaper organisations has taken me continually to all parts of Greece during the last two years. I have travelled freely wherever I chose, from the Peloponnesus to the northern frontiers and the guerrilla war zones. I have learnt enough Greek to obtain my information without the medium of an interpreter who might, consciously or not, influence my, ideas. My dispatches, and my original letter to Canon Howard, are based on what I have seen, objectively reported without recourse to hearsay or propaganda "sob stuff" (to quote Mrs. Lamprides, who immediately regaled us with the "sob stuff" put out by the friends of Markos).
Mr. Hourmouzios has said all I would wish to say on Mrs. Lamprides' misrepresentation of the contents of the U.N.O. Commission's Report, and of Mr. Kenneth Matthews' broadcast. Since Mrs. Lamprides has recourse to certain journalists' reports for her information on the excel- lent conditions said to prevail in the "Greek children's hostels in the Eastern democracies," let me in justice quote the report of an interview with Mme. Koula Zografou, who recently arrived in Paris by air from Prague, after release from detention by We Czechoslovak authorities only
as a result of diplomatic intervention. Mme. Zografou described how she visited a camp where 3,000 Greek children, abducted by the Greek guerrillas, were living surrounded by barbed wire. The children were thin and pale, and were crying for their parents. They were obliged to address each other as " Comrade," and Greek Communists lectured them for three hours daily. Many accounts of the conditions under which Greek children were abducted by their guerrillas and of their life in captivity in the Slav States have become available from prisoners' state- ments and documents seized during the Greek Army's recent operations. Much of this material will be incorporated•in the United Nations' Balkan Commission's Supplementary Report.
As for Mrs. Lamprides' "sob stuff" account of the forcible evacdation of the children by the brutal Greek Government forces, this is just too ridiculous to observers like myself, who have seen the joy and eagerness with which parents, after travelling of their own accord over difficult and dangerous country, handed their children to the Greek troops for trans- portation to the safety of the big towns and the islands for just so long as the Communist-led berrillas continue their deliberate campaign of terrorism, destruction and abduction in the regions they control or raid. Everywhere I have travelled I have been struck by the peasants' affection and trust for the Greek Government forces and the excellent care of the children by which the Greek Government authorities, with all their faults, are repaying that trust.
As for evacuating the Greek children to British homes, the Greeks are a proud, brave and hopeful people. They see no necessity to send their children out of their homeland, since there is adequate security in the major part of the Greek mainland and in most of the islands. They believe and hope that pressure of opinion from the civilised peoples of the world will eventually prevail to stop the C,ominform-directed abduction of Greek children which, whatever the pretexts, remains a barbarous act of the kind rightly condemned at Nuremberg.—I have the honour to be,
Sir, your most obedient servant, KEITH BUTLER. 23 Byron Street, Psychiko, Athens.
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