Ein griechischer Hirte und kretischer Widerstandskämpfer während des Zweiten Weltkriegs diente er als Kurier hinter den deutschen Linien. Nach dem Krieg wurde er fälschlicherweise inhaftiert, was ihn dazu veranlasste, seine Kriegserinnerungen zu verfassen. Diese eindringlichen Berichte über seine Widerstandsaktivitäten erlangten später beträchtlichen Erfolg und bieten eine einzigartige Perspektive auf den Konflikt.
George Psychoundakis was a young shepherd boy who knew the island of Crete intimately when the Nazis invaded by air in 1941. He immediately joined the resistance and took on the crucial job of war-time runner. This book presents an account of George's activities across mountainous terrain, come blazing summer or freezing winter.
His story of the German Occupation
George Psychoundakis was a twenty-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor. Includes thirty-two black-and-white photographs and a map.