This was a terrible existence for such a young boy, for that matter, a terrible existence for any age. But he never cried again. The hunger pains in his belly demanded food, he was famished he realized.
Through the trash and debris, he searched for food, even crawled on his hands and knees in search of food. Sometimes he would compete with a stray cat or dog for a scrap of food. He learned not to show fear, so he could survive the stray animals.
At the same time, he loved animals and he felt sorry for them because they were hungry too. He found out the country side was not far off. Surely some person will take him in and help him to find his mother, at least, he thought.
The doors were shut on his face, everywhere he knocked. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, they realized he spoke German. The Greeks feared and hated the Germans. He kept on saying to himself it must be his language, oh, he wished he could speak Greek to tell them he was born in Austria, but he was part Greek.
His doctor father was all Greek, and he even gave his only son an ancient Greek name, Achillea. His parents were bringing him to meet his Greek yiayia, and the war broke out, please help me. He wished his father would have taught him Greek. Doctors’ lives are very busy and his father never taught Achillea Greek. His mother did all the teaching of language and music and she did not speak Greek.
Every day Achillea got dirtier, wandering aimlessly in the streets but he also became smarter. He knew his address back in Austria, but he could not get help from a local person to write to his mother. One day he noticed a mailman carrying a sack of letters. He followed him for hours watching him deliver letters to countless homes until the mailman returned to the post office. He followed him into the post office.
There Achillea wrote his mother’s name and their home address in Austria.
They told him he needed to have a return address, by pointing at the return address section on an envelope. He did not have a return address because he lived anywhere there was a little shelter.
The local people were devastated by the war and had many problems of their own. Just finding a dry place to sleep and some food and drink was next to impossible. These were Achillea’s main thoughts all day long, at first. How could he find food and water? Where could he find food and water?
One day Achillea saw some chickens at a small homestead. He waited till nightfall. He sneaked in the small chicken house quietly and carefully took a couple of eggs. The broody chicken was keeping these eggs warm to hatch, but she didn’t make a peep, when he lifted her gently and took only two of her eggs. He was starving. He even apologized for his actions and told the hen, he was sorry, in German.
He ate the eggs raw! This was a child that was taught by his parents stealing was a bad thing to do. He felt so ashamed, he said. That feeling was worse than the hunger pain in his belly. His conscience was bothering him. Two years later, after he learned Greek he went back to that farm and paid them for the two eggs and apologized. The Greek farmers were amazed for his honesty. So the Greek people began trusting the little German boy. They called him the Germanaki, the little German boy. They did not call him by his given name, the ancient name of Achillea. That, he never understood.
This struggle went on for many years. The local people felt sorry for him, but they had their own problems. This child slept out in the rain, snow, and his clothes got dirtier and dirtier. Eventually they were falling off him because he was getting bigger.
Because he slept under the glittering stars he learned to love looking at the sky. He dreamed that one day he would learn all about them.
Every night he prayed to find some food the next day. He hoped and prayed. What else could he do? He questioned himself.
A couple of years later the second Balkan war started. After that, World War I began.
Achillea lived through three wars on the street, and somehow he survived. During World War I German soldiers were everywhere in the streets. Achillea learned to have a good relationship with the German soldiers. He spoke their language.
The German soldiers befriended this young Austrian boy and asked him to do some errands for them. For a while, Achillea was matching local farmers with the needs of the German soldiers. Gladly the Greek people cooperated so the soldiers just did not steal their produce, farm animals and eggs, but they paid for them. In return Achillea was given food, drink and even some clothing. His body was growing he desperately needed bigger clothing. He accepted any type of clothes.
Once he saw his reflection in a little pond and he could not believe it was him. He looked like a little beggar. It depressed him for a while. He sat on a rock and dreamed of his home with his family, to make himself feel better.
Achillea knew how to play the piano and had a pony back in Austria. His mother taught his friends piano and other musical instruments like the accordion. Back home he remembered he also had a nanny. He even knew how to read and write the German language even though he had not begun school yet. His mother had taught him.
This child had a great beginning. I believe he survived those eleven miserable years on the streets in a foreign country, through three wars because he was bright and already had a conscience, his direct connection with The Almighty!
He already knew right from wrong, his parents had taught him well, and that is how his life was spared, by doing the right things, the good things.
He felt embarrassed, taking food from people. He was always so hungry. He knew that he needed to eat, to live. He thought if he offered to do some simple chores, he would be earning their gifts of food, drink and clothes, and then he would feel better about himself. He would earn his way. By now he is eight years old and he had figured out how to barter. From that time on Achillea survived by doing odd jobs for the local Greek people.
First, the jobs were very simple. As he got older and wiser the jobs became more complicated. The Greek people started to trust him because he wanted to earn everything. After all, part of his heritage was Greek. They eventually learned his story how this privileged child ended up an orphan in a foreign land.
Everyone felt sorry for him when they learned how he lost his family. Back then, over one hundred years ago things were very different. There were no social programs such as welfare and foster homes. There was no help from the state. It was up to the village to help or not help.
Even though there was trouble all around, Achillea had never gotten in trouble. He did his odd jobs and then he kept to himself.
One day a Greek man showed him a book with the Greek alphabet. Achillea knew it was a book; he already could read and write in German.
Back at his home in Austria he had many books for his age. The man took the time and pronounced the Greek alphabet, all the letters, one by one, very slowly. He gave Achillea the book for payment for the chore he had just finished. Achillea thanked him for the book and carried it with him wherever he went.
That book was his pride and joy for many months. It took him a long time, but he did it. He taught himself to read in Greek. Reading books became his lifelong hobby. Any time he found a book, he had read it. By the time he was sixteen this young man was very well educated. He dreamed he said, of becoming an ologist. These are all Greek words: Biologist, entomologist, geologist and so on. He was a walking encyclopedia, but still hungering to learn more.
Most of all he wanted to have a family, he wanted to be loved. He thought his life was empty because there was no love.
As he was getting older he started borrowing tools from the locals that finally trusted him to clean their houses, help them
