קהילת יהודי מונאסטיר , ביטולה

ילדי הגן היהודי עם הגננת לאה בן-דוד, ביטולה, מקדוניה, 1925 בקירוב
לאה בן-דוד באה מארץ ישראל על פי הזמנת הרב המקומי כדי לנהל את הגן וללמד עברית. היא נקראה "לה גברת"
(המרכז לתיעוד חזותי ע"ש אוסטר, בית התפוצות, באדיבות ג'ני לבל, תל-אביב)

צופים ובוגרים של קן "השומר הצעיר" עם המדריך משה אשכנזי (שורה ראשונה, שלישי משמאל), ביטולה, מקדוניה, יוגוסלביה, 1934-1933
(המרכז לתיעוד חזותי ע"ש אוסטר, בית התפוצות, באדיבות ג'ני לבל, תל-אביב)

Estreja Ovadija Mara (1922-1944), partisan, National Hero of Yugoslavia, born in Bitola (Monastir), North Macedonia (then part of Yugoslavia). She was active in the WIZO organization and then in the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia. A textile worked, she worked in Belgrade after 1938 until March 1941, when she returned to Bitola.

After the invasion of Yugoslavia by Germany and its allies in April 1941 she joined the anti-fascist movement that immediately started preparing the armed resistance. Bitola, as part of Yugoslav Macedonia, was occupied by Bulgaria, a German ally. The Bulgarian occupation forces started persecuting the Jews and limiting their movement. In 1942 Ovadija became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. She lived illegally under the assumed name of Mara. Her missions included encouraging Jews to join the partisan units. In March 1943, she managed to escape the deportation of about 3,000 Jews from Bitola to Treblinka Nazi death camp. Along with another seven Jewish girls, including her friend Jamila Angela Isaac Colonomus, she found shelter in the house of Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski, a tobacconist of Bitola, who hid them during the raid against the Jews conducted by the Bulgarian and German forces. On November 28, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski as Righteous Among the Nations.  

In April 1943 she joined the Goce Delcev partisan unit taking part in all the battles fought by this unit at Fuštan, Tušin and Kožuf against Bulgarian and German military. Ovadija served as deputy political commissar of her company within the Third Macedonian Brigade of partisans and on August 22, 1944, she was appointed political commissar of a battalion of the Seventh Macedonian Brigade. Four days later, on August 26, 1944, she was killed in action during a battle with Bulgarian border guards on Kajmakcalan summit.

On October 11, 1953, by order of the President of Yugoslavia, Iosip Broz Tito, Estreja Ovadija Mara was proclaimed a National Hero of Yugoslavia – the highest medal for wartime bravery in Yugoslavia. She was the only Jewish woman ever to receive this designation.  

Julia Batino (1914-1942), women's rights activist, community leader and antifascist, born in Bitola (Monastir), North Macedonia (then part of Serbia). Batino was involved with the Jewish community of Bitola and its Zionist organizations. In 1934, when she was only 20 years old, Batino became President of the Bitola branch of WIZO in 1934. Her efforts were directed to the emancipation of Jewish women. With the help of the Jewish community of Belgrade, she managed to arrange for a number of Jewish girls of Bitola to study or work in the Yugoslav capital. Estreja Ovadija Mara, later a partisan commander, was one of those that Batino helped to travel to Belgrade. After Yugoslavia was invaded by Germany and its allies, Batino was arrested and sent to Jasenovac concentration camp where she died.  

Rafael Moshe Kamhi (aka Skander Beg) (1870-1970), revolutionary and activist of the Macedonian Nationalist movement, born in Bitola (Monastir), North Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire). His house in Bitola served as a meeting and hiding place for leaders of the nationalist movement and the resistance against the Ottoman rule. Kimhi served as a delegate for Bitola at the Congress of the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement held in Salonika in 1896. As a merchant, Kamhi travelled to Bulgaria and soon became a liaison between the Macedonian revolutionaries and the political leadership of Bulgaria. His activities arouse the suspicion of the Ottoman authorities and Kamhi was imprisoned along with his brother for a short period of time in early 20th century. His political activities increased during the Balkan Wars and WW I, when Kamhi actively supported the Bulgarian interests and advocated the inclusion of Macedonia within the borders of Bulgaria. After WW I he lived in Greece and resumed his activities in favor of Bulgarian interests. Kamhi continued to support the Bulgarian national goals during WW II, when Bulgaria, an ally of Nazi Germany, participated to the invasion and occupation of Greece, among others by establishing the Bulgarian Club in Salonika. Kamhi was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and was about to be deported to the death camps in Eastern Europe. At the intervention of a number of Bulgarian organizations and politicians, including Prime Minister Bogdan Filov, he was released and smuggled into Bulgaria at the orders of the Bulgarian General Kosta Nikolov, one of Kamhi’s friends from the time of his activities in the Macedonian Revolutionary movement. He lived in Sofia, Bulgaria, until 1949, when he immigrated to Israel settling in Tel Aviv. His brother and all his other family members in Salonika and Bitola were deported and killed at Treblinka Nazi death camp, and only a handful managed to survive, among them his brother’s children Rosa and Joseph. Because of his pro-Bulgarian activities, after WW II Kamhi was convicted in contumaciam in a trial in Greece and sentenced to death and the confiscation of all his property. Until his last days, Kamhi struggled unsuccessfully to overturn the sentence and regain his property in Greece. His memoirs, Аз, войводата Скендер Бей (“I, the voyvoda Skender Bey”) were published in Bulgarian in 2000 and reprinted in 2013.

His niece Rosa Kamhi, a Holocaust survivor served as Minister of Trade and Industry in the government of Macedonia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She married Beno Ruso, a general in the Yugoslav army. 

Beno (Benjamin) Ruso (1920-2006), partisan and lieutenant general in the Yugoslav Army, born in Bitola, North Macedonia (then part of Yugoslavia). He attended the high school in Bitola, but left and started working in a mechanical workshop. In Bitola he joined Hashomer Hatsair Zionist movement and took part in a preparatory camp (hachshara) in Novi Sad in 1938, and then in Golenic (now in Croatia). He was drafted in the Yugoslav army in 1939 and captured by the Germans during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. He managed to escape the POW camp and joined the partisan movement. Ruso became a member of the Communist Part of Yugoslavia and became the political commissar of a battalion and of 1944 of 10th Macedonian Brigade and then of the 42nd Division of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. After WW II he continued his studies, attending the Juro Djakovic Political School and then the Higher Military Academy graduating in 1952. He held several commanding positions with the Yugoslav army, including commander of the Skopje Military District and commander of the Territorial Defense of Skopje. When the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito died in 1980, Ruso was a member of the honor guard at his state funeral. Beno Russo died in Skopje, North Macedonia, in 2006. 

Beno Ruso married Rosa Kamhi, Rafael kamhi's niece, a Holocaust survivor who served as Minister of Trade and Industry in the government of Macedonia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 

Rosa Kamhi (1923-), politician, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry of Macedonia in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Holocaust survivor, born in Bitola, North Macedonia (then part of Yugoslavia), the niece of Rafael Moshe Kamhi. She was educated in Bitola, at a vocational school and then at a commercial high school graduating in 1941, when Macedonia was occupied by Bulgaria, following the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in April 1941. In the years before WW II she was a member of the local branch of Hashomer Hatsair Zionist movement headed by her brother Yosef (Pepo) Kamhi. Along with other members of Hashomer Hatsair in Bitola, she joined the Communist party of Yugoslavia in 1941. Along with her friends Adela Faradji and Estreja Ovadija, she managed to escape the deportation of the Jews of Bitola to Nazi death camps while hiding in a store owned by a non-Jewish member of the Communist party. In April 1943 she was arrested by the Bulgarian police and imprisoned, the only Jew in that prison, until Bitola was liberated in September 1944. After WWII she settled in Skopje working for the finance ministry from 1945 to 1949, then for the regional district of Nis, until 1952, when she moved to Belgrade working for the National Bank until 1956, when she along with her family returned to Macedonia. In Skopje she was promoted to assistant to the minister of finance, then to the position of under-secretary to the ministry of finance until her retirement in 1982. Rosa Kamhi was married to Beno Ruso