Haim Estreya Ovadya

Haim Estreya Ovadya
Other name(s)	Mara (nom de guerre)
Born	(1922-12-25)25 December 1922 Bitola, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died	26 August 1944(1944-08-26) (aged 21) Kajmakčalan, Bulgarian occupation zone of Yugoslavia
Allegiance	Yugoslav Partisans
Years of service	1941–44
Unit	3rd Macedonian Brigade 7th Macedonian Brigade
Awards	Order of the People's Hero

Haim Estreya Ovadya (25 December 1922 – 26 August 1944) was a Jewish partisan from Bitola who joined the Yugoslav Partisans after the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 during World War II. She was posthumously proclaimed People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

Life

Haim Estreya Ovadya was born in Bitola, Yugoslavia (now in North Macedonia) on 25 December 1922 to a very poor Jewish family. She was sponsored by the Women's International Zionist Organization to go to Belgrade to find work or receive an education in 1938. She joined the Workers' Movement faction of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and was active in its women's sections.

After the bombing of Belgrade that began the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers on 6 April 1941, she returned to Bitola where she was forced into a Nazi Jewish ghetto due to antisemitic legislation imposed by the Bulgarian authorities. She then became a supporter of the nascent communist Yugoslavian partisans while organizing meetings of Jewish women in the ghetto to discuss women's rights. Ovadya formally became a member of the CPY in 1942. During the deportation of the Jews from Bitola on 11 March 1943, Ovadya escaped and hid in a cigarette kiosk owned by a member of the anti-fascist resistance - Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski, along with other anti-fascist Jewish fighters such as Adela Feradji, Stela Levi and Žamila Kolonomos.

Partisan career

Fighters of the Bitola-Prespa partisan detachment in Macedonia during World War II. Žamila Kolonomos (center) and Estreya Ovadia (right) between 1942 and 1944

The following month, she accepted the offer made by the partisans to fight the Axis forces and joined the new Goce Delcev partisan unit and then transferred to the Stiv Naumov Battalion when it was formed on 11 November. She fought under the nom de guerre Mara. When the battalion was integrated into the 3rd Macedonian Brigade, Ovadya was appointed as the political commissar of her squad. Her unit helped to organize the founding meeting of the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia on 2 August 1944, which proclaimed the Democratic Federal Macedonia.

Ovadya was appointed commissar of a battalion in the newly formed 7th Macedonian Brigade on 21 August and she was killed in combat with units of the Bulgarian Army on Kajmakčalan four days later. After the war, Ovadya was posthumously awarded the Order of the People's Hero on 9 October 1953 and Bitola built a monument in her honor. A school was also named after her in the city. In 1978 historian Stojan Ristevski published a biography about her. The Jerusalem Municipality also named one of the streets in the Ramat Beit HaKerem neighborhood after her.

Gallery

• 
  Drawing of Estreja
• 
  Estreya Ovadia's bust located where the Kal Di Aragon synagogue stood in Bitola
• 
  Mara Street for Estreya Ovadia at Jerusalem

Bibliography

• Vesković-Vangeli, Vera (2005). "Ovadya, Haim Estreya". In Haan, Francisca de; Daskalova, Krassimira; Loutfi, Anna (eds.). Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe: 19th and 20th Centuries. New York: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-7326-39-4.
• Cohen, Julia Philips; Stein, Sarah Abrevaya (2014). Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-080-4791-91-5.
• Bataković, Dušan T. (2011). Minorities in the Balkans: state policy and interethnic relations (1804 - 2004): Les minorites dans les Balkans. Balkanološki institut SANU. ISBN 978-867-1790-68-0.
• Himka, John-Paul; Michlic, Joanna Beata (2013). Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-080-3225-44-2.
• Troebst, Stefan (2013). "Macedonian Historiography on the Holocaust in Macedonia under Bulgarian Occupation". Südosteuropäische Hefte. 2 (1).
• Alboher, Shlomo (2010). The Jews of Monastir Macedonia: The Life and Times of the Departed Jewish Community of Monastir. Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia. ISBN 978-608-6512-91-0.