The Palikari Project: Part II – Commies, Nazis, and Truman the Mule

The Palikari Project: Part II – Occupation & Communists | In occupied Greece during WWII, life for families was tough enough with a ruling foreign force of fascists & Nazis controlling everyday life but the real danger was the communists from within and their campaign of violence & fear. This is the story of Spyros John Kass and the turbulent life in is his small farm village after the Nazis and before the Greek Civil War against the communists. This is the story of a family’s fearful existence devoid of song & dance, but also the story of a community surviving & individuals being brave in the face death and the small joy Truman the Mule brought them. This is The Palikari Project.

Read more about John Kass’ father here – The Palikari Project: Voice of My Father
Listen to The Palikari Project: Part I – Rizes

About The Palikari Project: Thirty-five years ago in Oak Lawn, John Kass & his brother Nicholas set a card table with coffee, cigarettes, & a tap recorder, hoping to capture their family’s story from a primary source, their father, Spyros John Kass. The tapes were part of an art project John’s wife Betty put together, a ballet. But the tapes were thought lost and the voice of the Kass patriarch with them after his death in 1992.

Check out more from Kass at JohnKassNews.com or contact me at john@johnkassnews.com, or Facebook, or on X (Twitter). Tell your friends about us. Join the great adventure. Subscribe today! And read writings from John’s brother Nick for the American Conservative here and here

Comments 10

    1. Raymond Kutz:
      I loved doing this. I loved my dad. Jeff Carlin put this together. He should win some kind of Emmy for this. But I bet he won’t. Why? Because of who I am and what I stand for. You’d think all that would be secondary. Yet I remember my wife Betty hauled before an arts tribunal asking her about her politics. She didn’t have any politics. She was a dancer who cared about movement. She loved my father.
      The questions to her were pointed and insulting. It was then I realized we were in a fight for our freedom. Years later the left wing’s cancel culture came after me at the tribune. You know that story.
      John

  2. John, a lot of Greeks today are Communists and for the life of me I will never understand that. It is like the Americans Voting for Socialism and Communism. Look at Greece today. All Socialists and so many including people that I know are Communists and that is why they Vote for Democrats.

    1. Well Helen ya know how it works. Give ’em enough free stuff they become Socialists. Put their neighbors in forced labor camps they become Communists….

      1. Enrique:
        Free stuff. that’s what the wild pigs said as they munched on the “free” corn as the farmer put up a fence. And then it was over.
        thanks for listening to The Chicago Way.
        John

    2. Thanks Helen Edwards:
      There is a strain running through Communist motivations whether Greeks or Italians in Italy or people in Chicago:
      Jealousy and Envy.
      The Greeks have a word for it. pronounced Zelia.
      And when the fighting starts, it’s all about clan hate and revenge. Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that.
      Thanks for listening
      John

  4. My favorite image is 1500 Greek troops preparing for battle by all making the sign of the cross in unison. All of the atheists disappeared. The suffering during the civil war must have been unimaginable.

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