Jamila Andjela Kolonomos

There is so much for me to admire in this book.

First of all it is a story of incredible courage, written by the only surviving member of her family from Macedonia, the country that by population percentage, lost the highest number of Jewish people (98%) in the WWII Holocaust.

Secondly, it is a book written in and translated from Ladino, a dying Judeo Spanish language, which the author learned as a child, and through her writing and research has tried to keep alive through her academic career.

And thirdly, Jamila Kolonomos, the author of this book, has lived her life as a very strong and positive ambassador (and female hero) of her country ‰ÃƒÂ›ÃƒÂ’ as a member of Alliance of Yugoslav Resistance, President of the Alliance of Ant-Fascist Women of Macedonia, Vice-President for Macedonian Veterans and President of the Union for the Protection of Childhood -- not to mention her role as one of the first female Commissars of the Yugoslav resistance armies.

But there is more! The book is just fascinating in terms of family history -- through outlining the ancient Jewish presence in the Macedonian region, to explaining her own Kolonomos family heritage as Romaniotes of Greece. You get the feeling reading it, that there was ancient history lost as well as Jewish history with the extinction of some of these families in the region.

There are also the painful personal accounts of human tragedy after the war ‰ÛÒ of losing her first love she met in the resistance army soon after the war, and having their only child, a daughter born only a month after her first husband died, perish in a 1963 earthquake. And yet she found so much strength within her after so many terrible turns to go on with her life and make such a positive and important difference in the lives of others and indeed at a state and international level.

For me, this book has been both a tragic and inspirational account of one Jewish woman‰Ûªs life and family, as poignant and meaningful as the works of Elie Wiesel and Viktor Frankl.


"Se yeva mas ke la puedra"
Ladino proverb loosely translated as "To endure beyond expectations."
… (mehr)