In 1823 an 11year-old girl named Kallitsa, was kidnapped by the Turks in the village Apodoulou which is in Amari of Rethymnon and she was sent as a slave to Alexandria of Egypt. There, she was bought by an English archaeologist who took her with him to England in order to use her as a household servant. The story of Kallitsa is breathtaking and depicts the ability of the Greeks to survive.

In London a young naval officer, who became an admiral of the English navy, fell in love with her and married her.

After many years, the former slave returned to her village as a lady and met with her family.

They were hiding to save their lives

In 1823 the Turkish army passed through the province of Amari of Rethymnon.

In order to save their lives, the inhabitants of Apodoulou village left their homes in a hurry and looked for a place to hide.

When the men hid the women and children, they armed themselves and went up the mountain above the village, so that they could have an open view of the enemy and attack if necessary.

There was a man among the villagers named Alexander Psarakis, who took his wife and his four children, and three more orphan kids who were under his protection, and hid them in a hut, far away from the road that the Turks were 

going to pass.

He also adjured Aggeliko, his wife, to impose deathly silence in the hut and not let any of the children go outside.

He also asked his older children, 13year-old George, 11year-old Kallitsa and 8year-old John, to always hold 3year-old Stavroulio in their arms, to deter him from crying for any reason.

The next morning the Turks passed through Apodoulou, where they only found three old men who denied hiding and a disabled woman and they immediately beheaded them.

After plundering and burning the village, they headed to Tympaki, where the main Turkish troops were camping.

Two Turkish soldiers, though, had gone far away from the rest of the troops looking for pears and bird nests with eggs.

When they coincidentally passed out of the camouflaged Psarakis' hut, they went to see if anyone was hiding in it.

As they opened the door they saw the surprised and scared to death brood of children with the woman and they arrested all of them, intending to sell them to slave traders.

Only the older orphan boy was saved when he suddenly started running and disappeared in the forest.

The Turkish soldiers put their prisoners in a row and lead them to the camp of Tympaki.

On the road to the camp they freed Aggeliko and the baby, probably because they had no commercial value.

Aggeliko continued following them, crawling screaming at the Turkish soldiers begging them to give her back her children, but they barely listened to her.

Under her incredible pressure, when they reached Tympaki they gave her back a cachectic 6year-old orphan girl and after that she lost them. The children were mixed up with the rest of the troops.

She was sold in Alexandria

In Tympaki the Turks separated the boys from the girls that they took from the villages.

The traces of Alexander and the orphan boy were lost as of that moment, with the suspicion that 13year-old George was bought by a Bey from Heraklion.

Kallitsa was first taken to Chania where she was put on a ship that transported her to Alexandria of Egypt.

There, she was bought along with other Cretan girls by an English professor who was taking part in an archaeological mission in Egypt and took her to London to use her as a household servant.

He even sent her to school so that she could learn to speak and write well in English.

Kallitsa was immediately distinguished for her intelligence and beauty and she stole the hearts of her English masters.

There, in this new environment, she later met the English naval officer Robert Hey, a son of the admiral of the English navy, John Hey.

The two young people were attracted to each other, something that soon turned into a relationship and then marriage.

That’s how Kallitsa from Apodoulou of Amari found herself living in London, beside her husband, who after some time followed his fathers’ leadership of the English navy.
In 1843, Kallitsa's husband took her with him on a trip of the English navy to the Mediterranean ports.

Among the ports that the navy visited, was also the port of Chania in Crete, where the admiral met the Turkish pasha.

During this meeting he mentioned that his wife was Cretan and that she had lost her father since she was a child, and that she would really like to meet him.

The pasha immediately offered to bring Kallitsa's father to Chania and sent his people to look for him.

When the pasha's emissaries found him in Apodoulou, he was terrified because he had killed two Turks and he thought that they had heard about it and had gone there to arrest him.

But their behavior was not at all rough and not being able to deny, he followed them.

When he was brought in front of the pasha with Kallitsa there, the pasha asked: "Do you know this girl? Do you have a lost daughter?" "No, I have no girl", answered Alexander who was very frightened.

But after a while he found the courage to address Kallitsa and ask her: "If you're my daughter as you say, tell me about our home in the village".

Then Kallitsa, who had never forgotten her place and her language, described him the house in details and she even mentioned a locust tree which was in their yard.

The moments that followed were very moving, as father and daughter hugged and wept with joy.

After their reunion the father returned to the village and Kallitsa promised: "I will come back father and I'll visit the village and see my mother and brother, whom I love and I have missed so much".

In 1844, Alexander's son in law actually returned to Crete, but this time without Kallitsa, and found some time to go to Apodoulou.

In fact, he liked the area and the climate so much that he gave the order for an aristocratic tower be built in the village, so that he can visit with his family on their vacation.

Kallitsa's brother, Stavroulios, who was then 25 years old, was of a great help in the construction and the safekeeping of the tower-house.

The master craftsman who undertook the job was the most famous in Karpathos Island, and so were his assistants.

They brought the soil that they used in building the house from Santorini Island and the tiles came from Malta.

In spring of 1847 the big moment of Kallitsa's return to her place of birth had come. She arrived along with her two older children and her servants.

The scene where mother and daughter hugged, not being able to come apart was very touching. During the following years Kallitsa visited Apodoulou several times with her four children, until 1863 when her husband fell ill and died. In the meantime her parents had also died.

It escaped the burning

In 1866 the big Cretan revolution broke out, during which Stavroulios raised an English flag on his sister's tower thinking that perhaps it would be saved from the rage of Turks.

But during a battle, the Turkish soldiers were surrounded by the rebels and entered the tower for safety.

Stavroulios, on the other hand, was ready to give the signal for the house to be burnt with the Turks inside it.

Fortunately, though, at the last moment the enemies abandoned it and the house was saved.

In the years that followed and after the liberation of Crete, some of Kallitsa's English relatives visited Apodoulou and kept correspondence with their Cretan relatives.

Today, Kallitsa's tower belongs to Aristides Psaroudakis and his wife.

Kallitsa's story is about the cruel and horrific practices of the Ottomans in the 19th century in taking little children and selling them as slaves.

At the same time when great humanist movements were growing all over the world, they kept using people and especially children as if they were objects.

The people who told us the magical story of Kallitsa were Nick Tyrokomakis a professor from Amari and George Psaroudakis, the unforgettable former president of Apodoulou's community.

A great source of information was also the very exciting book entitled: "Kallitsa, the slave who became a Lady", written by Kritolaos Psaroudakis, and published in 1988 at Heraklion.

We also took the picture showing Kallitsa with three of her four children from the same book.

It is about a painting that faithfully represents the picture, painted in 1848 by Sir John Watson Gordon, chivalrous member of the British Royal Academy.

This painting is now in Florence, under the possession of an offspring of Kallitsa named Lilian Regano Hey.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com