“And now what. That’s a difficult question. Like this: I don’t have any problem speaking Czech. If I did, I wouldn’t accept citizenship. By the act of accepting citizenship, I became a Czecho-Macedonian you might say, like they say Czecho-American or Czecho-Canadian. They’re Czech by origin, but now they’re Canadians. Well I’m a Czech now, but I was born in Greece, that is in Macedonia. I don’t have any problem with that.”
“Until he came up to me - so I greeted him ‘Dobre utro’, which in my mother tongue means ‘Good morning’. And he looked at me, eyes popped in surprise - he knew we were Greek children - and he said ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good morrow’ ... ‘Good morrow’ I think he said to me, and it was my turn to pop my eyes that he’d replied our way. Then he started asking something, and I didn’t wait for anything, I rushed into the wagon and shouted like a mad man: ‘People, rejoice, they speak the same as us!’ ”
“Well, just that whether they were left-wing or right, and I’ll be entirely honest now, for us as ethnic Macedonians it was all the same. Both parties had the one aim - to erase the Macedonians inhabiting Greek territory.”
“Well, and even the education, I don’t know, in my days, my grandfather had perfect command of Turkish, English, and of course of his mother tongue, but he didn’t even know how to say hello in Greek, and he never learnt Greek. He didn’t know a word of Greek.”
"Honili partyzány, civilisty… utíkali i s dobytkem do Albánie, stříleli po nich z letadel. Tam zahynulo 80 000 lidí. Když to skončilo, tak… Přijeli Američané a Angličané, dotáhli tam kamiony, bagry a buldozéry. Mezi těmi dvěma jezery udělali jámy, sbírali ty mrtvé, házeli je do těch jam a zasypávali je nehašeným vápnem. Ta pole, co tam byla, ta se dodnes neobdělávají, leží ladem."
"V té vesnici jsme byli... nevím – tak deset nebo dvanáct dní. Spali jsme na zemi, protože tam nebylo nic. Naštěstí jsem měl z domu deku, co jsem si vzal, takže ty dvě holčičky – sestřičku a sestřenici jsem balil do té deky, ony spaly v té dece. Byly tam stohy slámy z dědiny, tak my jsme v noci nakradli slámu a spali jsme v té slámě s bratrancem. Byl tam jeden takový z dědiny jako hlídač. Z té dědiny nosili v kotli denně makaróny uvařené. Nám dali vojenské ešusy a jednu naběračku makarónů denně nám dávali, to bylo veškeré jídlo. Byli jsme hladoví, zmrzlí, špinaví. Šel jsem za tím hlídačem, to byl takový starší pán. Řekl jsem: 'Strejdo, jak to teda s námi bude? Jste nás sem vzali, abychom tu umřeli nebo jak? Trpíme hladem.' On se na mě smutně dívá a říká: 'Synku, já vím, jak trpíte. Ale nemůžu nic dělat. Ani my nemůžeme nic dělat. My sami nemáme nic. Nás tady Němci a Bulhaři úplně vykradli, vyplenili, i dobytek, my nemáme nic. Takže to, co vám dáváme, to se dělíme s vámi, co dostáváme z Itálie.'"
Konstantin Miovský was born in 1935 in the village of Strkovo (Platy in Greek) in the district of Florina in Western Macedonia, belonging to Greece. His family was of the farming type, he had two sisters, his father did on the Albanian Front in 1940, and his mother latter married a Macedonian partisan, with whom she had three more children. Miovský left Greece in 1948, stopping in Bitola and Prilep before arriving in Buljkes, from whence he was transported through Hungary to Mikulov (CZ). He was housed in children‘s homes in Ľubochňa, Slovenská Ľupča and Sobotín. After a short military exercise in Bratislava, he went into vocational training as a machinist in Esca Cheb. Upon obtaining his license, he received a working permit for Královopolské strojírny in Brno. Some time later and at the suggestion of his Greek colleague, he started a secondary technical school, and after graduating received a working permit for TOS Kuřim, where he worked until 1994. He spent his military service with the anti-aircraft defence of Brno, achieving the rank of Sergeant. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1964 for employment reasons, he renounced his membership in 1989. His is not politically active today. He has three children with his Czech wife (two sons and a daughter) - one of his sons is head of addictology at the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, the second teaches at a grammar school, his daughter works as a financial adviser. Konstantin Miovský is retired now and lives in Tišnov.
