Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski

Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski was a member of the underground and the owner of a small tobacco shop in the center of Bitola, opposite the Bulgarian police station. Policemen were always entering and exiting his shop; he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. However, this did not deter him from hiding five Jewish girls - Roza Kamhi-Rusa, Estreja Ovadija-Mara, Gamila Kolonomos-Cveta, Estreja Levi-Lena, and Adela Faradji-Kata - in his shop, on March 10, 1943, the eve of the deportation of Macedonia’s Jews.  The next day, three more girls turned up at his shop accompanied by a member of the underground and stood at the counter as if they wanted to purchase something. They asked Siljanovski if he had any “Karter” cigarettes - which was a code. Siljanovski understood from this that they needed to be hidden, and he immediately showed them into a small shelter. Thus, all in all he hid eight Jewish girls under the noses of the police. Kolonomos-Cveta later recalled that Siljanovski was very skillful at deceiving the police - he often showed policemen certain goods in his shop in order to distract them from noticing the hideaway. There was no bathroom and no running water in the corner of the shop in which they hid. Siljanovski therefore emptied his wards’ sanitary pot and also brought them food and water to drink. When one of the girls fell ill, he even bought her medication. After three weeks in hiding in Siljanovski’s shop, the girls left there one at a time and joined Tito’s partisans. They served in a fighting unit and, one of them, Ovadija-Mara, died in combat and was later decorated as a national hero.

On November 28, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Stojan-Bogoja Siljanovski as Righteous Among the Nations.