Eleni

by Nicholas Gage

Book Overview

"A devoted and brilliant achievement." The New York Review of Books In 1948, as civil war ravaged Greece, children were abducted and sent to communist "camps" behind the Iron Curtain. Eleni Gatzoyiannis, 41, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and her son, Nicola. For that act, she was imprisoned, tortured, and executed in cold blood. Nicholas Gage joined...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394520939
• ISBN13: 9780394520933
• Release Date: April 1983
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 470 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The best book I ever read!

I'm from Greece. Before 4 years i read this book, and till then I can't forget it. I visit the place where Eleni lived and died, I talked with people who met Eleni, or their childrens. Reading this book, I had in my mind my own village, where same stories were happened. I could wright more and more for this lovevly book, but my english aren't good and i don't want to anoy you. Read this book and learn what happened at the heroic Greece. I'm glad to be here. Nicholas.

the best book I've read

I'm half Greek but only recently heard of "Eleni" and the author Nicholas Gage ("Gatzoyiannis" in Greek). I'm not sure how I missed them growing up, though I think my parents may have read this story when I was little. "Eleni" is the moving story of Gage's mother Eleni (the Greek form of "Helen") and their family in war-torn northern Greece near the Albanian border. It recounts the effects of the Greek civil war (when Greek communists were fighting Greek nationalists for control of the country, post- WWII) on their village, Lia, and on their entire family. I cried a lot during the book. Not necessarily because it was sad, but because it was so moving and beautiful. Eleni the person can be summarized in one word: love. She took the necessary steps to help her children escape from communist-controlled Northern Greece, and for her effors the communists (fighting "for the people," mind you) murdered her, along with 4 other villagers that they felt were not "for the communist cause." Eleni's faith, devotion to her family, and continued struggles throughout her life are very inspiring for me. I am an Orthodox Christian, and I regularly pray to her now for intercessions to help me. I firmly believe that she is among the saints as a "New Holy Martyr of Greece," just like the Russians have new martyrs that died as a result of communist persecution in their country. Her 5 children (4 girls and one boy), Olga, Kanta, Glykeria, Fotini, and Nikola (who is now Nicholas Gage) are devoted to their mother. It is worth noting that if it weren't for Eleni, the 5 would probably have been shipped to an Eastern bloc country to be raised by communists, which was done in Northern Greece during that time. Children were taken from their mothers and sent to communist propaganda camps in the Eastern bloc. Kanta and Glykeria served time as "andartinas," young Greek girls taken from their families and forced to fight for the Greek communists. Gage's book is warm, loving, tender, and heartfelt. His style of writing truly makes you feel that you are there in Lia, witnessing what is going on to the characters, which is both good but horrible. Some of the events truly make you realize how evil men can be toward each other. I highly recommend "Eleni." I just ordered and am looking forward to reading the sequel, "A Place For Us," which recounts the story of Eleni's 5 children and their family after immigrating to America in the late 1940's.

Terrifying and Touching

Nicholas Gage (Nicola Gatzoyiannis)wrote a book that was both terrifying and touching. It was terrifying because it exposed the brutality of Communism and touching because it told of a woman's undying love for her children, especially the boy who would one day pay tribute to her. The descriptions of torture Eleni and fellow villagers endured at the hands of the ELAS/DAG were some of the most horrifying things I've ever read. The scene where Eleni tells her son, Nicola, to be brave and gives him a gift of a cross is one of the most touching scenes of family love I've ever read about. This story is a must-read for everyone. It is both instructive about the moral degradation caused by Communism and about the courage of a family. Also read Nicholas Gage's followup, "A Place for Us: Eleni's Children in America," which chronicles events leading up to Gage's life today. Excellent writer!

Overwhelming

Human diminishment is the theme of this masterwork, which shows how people can sacrifice their rational powers and nobler instincts on the altar of a reductionist ideology, then descend into the (home) economics of envy and the politics of resentment, and end up killing off even the mildest opposition. Concretely, it is about how Communist guerrillas in Epirus took over the village of Lia, reduced the once sturdy villagers to treacherous, starving, vermin-infested semi-savages, used them for slave labor, and finally murdered many of them. The story centers on Eleni Gatzoyiannis, who attempts to escape with her children, more for their sakes than her own. The Communists manage to get other villagers to snitch on her and they end up torturing and murdering her in a ravine along with a few other villagers. Nicholas Gage reports here on what he found out about exactly what happened in that doomed village and what happened to Eleni. Gage is, in fact, Eleni's only son and he managed to escape to America just before the Greek national armies managed to rid the northern mountains of the Communists. A successful journalist in the US, he has written a marvelous account of some unsettling and depressing events. Toward the end of the book he has the chance to take revenge on the person most responsible for his mother's fate, but decides it would be a more fitting tribute to her if he did without his revenge. Some parts of the narrative are (necessarily) reconstructed, but in general the work is faithful to the facts of history. Extremely powerful, it will stay with the reader long after the reading is finished.

The best and worst of the human condition

A disturbing, angering and emotion-filled recollection of events which touched the lives of many thousands of Greeks, living today. The life of Eleni Gatzoyiannis is a beacon, demonstrating a Christ-like love for her children and fellow man, despite the awesome terror she faced. Clear in the pages of this book is the tragically unjust suffering of the common man at the hands of political mad-men, drunk with their sense of self-importance and the fulfilment of their objectives - for which everyone except themselves ultimately suffers. Eleni is an important book for everyone to read, but especially Greeks, because it vividly portrays the depths to which Greece sank, in a time most can still remember. Despite this, many exiled Greek communists are received like heroes, and the horrors committed by Greek upon fellow Greek, rationalised as a political struggle. This clearly shows our ability to forget and our vulnerability to sink again to such depths in the future.