Elpida Karamandi (, ) was an Aromanian

Yugoslav partisan The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...

and resistance fighter. She was born on 1 January 1920, in

Florina Florina (, ''Flórina''; known also by some alternative names) is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'. The town of Florina is the capital of the Florina regional uni ...

, Greece, in an Aromanian family. Her mother was divorced from her husband and moved to her relatives in

Bitola Bitola (; ) is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing ...

, then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where she remarried. Karamandi grew up and was educated in Bitola and later continued her studies in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, where she became a member of

SKOJ The League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia (SSOJ) was the youth movement, member organisation of the People's Front of Yugoslavia, Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia (SSRNJ). Membership stood at more than 3.6 million individuals i ...

in 1939. When the Second World War began, Karamandi came back to Bitola. In June 1941, she joined the

Yugoslav Communist Party The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the founding and ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919 as the main communist opposition party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats a ...

, but her activities were detected by the Bulgarian police and she was arrested. On her release she resumed her resistance work against the occupiers. In April 1942, she left Bitola and joined the First Bitola Partisan detachment. On 3 May 1942, the detachment was surrounded by the Bulgarian police. Heavily wounded, Elpida Karamandi was captured, and later died in Bulgarian captivity after being tortured. She was declared a Yugoslav national hero on 11 October 1951.

Legacy

In 1984, Yugoslavia honoured Karamandi with a stamp as part of a series of national heroes of Yugoslavia. A bust of her was erected in Gradski park in Bitola, along with a street that was named after her. * Elpida Karamandi Primary School in Bitola, North Macedonia (established 1980)

References

External links

Elpida Karamandi Primary School (in Macedonian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karamandi, Elpida 1920 births 1942 deaths People from Florina Yugoslav Partisans members Recipients of the Order of the People's Hero Women in the Yugoslav Partisans Greek people of Aromanian descent Yugoslav people of Aromanian descent Aromanian military personnel Immigrants to Yugoslavia Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Macedonian Partisans