KARAMANDI ELPIDA - NADA

( national hero)

Karamandi, Elpida Nada (1920-1942), Macedonian revolutionary, national hero. She was born in a poor family and thus from a very young age, she was living on a shoe-string, experiencing bitterly the hardship of the poverty. In the autumn 1939 she went to study to Belgrade. During the studies she joined the progressive youth at Belgrade University and as a nineteen year-old girl she became a member of SKOJ. After the occupation, under direct leadership of Stiv Naumov, she became one of the most famous organizers of NOB in Bitola, especially among the women and the youth. In 1941 she became a member of KPJ. Since then, she had been spreading the idea for uncompromising fighting against the occupation.

As a result of her activity, she was arrested by the Bulgarian police and although she was exposed to monstrous tortures by the occupation police forces, she did not reveal anything.

She was liberated because of lack of evidences. After Elpida was being set free she went into the underground. In the spring in April 1942 she was among the first fighters of the newly established partisan unit "Pelsiter". On 3.05. 1942 in the fight of the surrounded unit in a place just above the village of Lavci -Bitola, she was badly wounded, captured and after long tortures she was shot. She was pronounced a national hero on 6 October 1951.