Commemorative day of the Macedonian Jews

The day of Jews exile from Macedonia marked

The Jewish Community of the Republic of Macedonia marked the 11 March – the commemorative day of the Macedonian Jews, the day they were exiled from Macedonia, exactly 62 years ago by the then fascist Germany. On 11 March 1943, about 7,200 Jews were deported from Macedonia at the death camp Treblinka in Poland. The commemorative evening took place at the Museum of Skopje, where the president of the Jewish Community in Macedonia, Zdravko Sami, the Israeli Ambassador in the Republic of Macedonia, Irit Ben Aba and the Director of the American Jewish Distributing Committee  - JOINT, Jehiel Bar-Haim spoke in front of the present.

“On 11 March, at the Jewish settlements in Bitola, Stip and Skopje the ladino language was heard no more, the Jew merchants could be seen no more, the sounds of the songs En la Prision, Durme Durme silenced, etc. Suddenly everything stopped, no one believed that something like that was possible, especially not something so brutal and inhuman. Since that day, the big Jewish community in Macedonia silenced, it vanished…”were the words of the hazan in Macedonia, Avi Kozma.

That evening, the book by Zamila Kolonomos and Jasminka Namiceva “The Sparks of the Macedonian Sephards” was promoted. The book was written in three languages: ladino (a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew), Macedonian and English. In the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the Jewish community lay flowers on the memorial in Skopje, which is where the exile of the Macedonian Jews started, then at the Jewish cemetery in Butel where the prayer caddish by the rabbi of Yugoslavia and Macedonia, Isaac Asiel and the prayer “Av Arahamim” by the hazan in Macedonia, Avi Kozma.

 

D.M.