Category: Non-Fiction

By: Macedonian Welfare Workers’ Network of Victoria (Australia)

P/b: 95 pages  (includes 30 photos & illustrations)

Editor & Translator: Jim Thomev

Price: $18 CAD            USD$14

A book of recollections and reflections from some of the 28,000 Macedonian child refugees who were evacuated from their homes in northern Greece between 1948 and 1949 during the Macedonian struggle for independence in the Greek Civil War.

Five of the oral histories are from child refugees, the sixth from the mother of one of the children.  The six individuals are from the villlages of Bapchor, Lagen, Neret & Krushoradi.  All are now Australian residents.

The stories recount village life before the war, destruction wrought by Greek soldiers and their American and British allies.  There are memories of separation from parents and family, the journey to Eastern Europe, growing up in foreign lands, and their eventual arrival in Australia.  The refugees, now in their 60’s, use their growing maturity and insight to understand the events and experiences that changed the lives of all Macedonians from northern Greece.

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By: Lefa Ognenova-Michova & Kathleen Mitsou-Lazaridis

P/b 112 pages

Price: $20 CAD           USD $15

This is the story of Lefa Ognenova, a girl born in the picturesque mountain village of Neret, in Aegean Macedonia. This the first book published about Neret, which tells about Lefa’s childhood in the village and how she, along with thousands of other Macedonian children, was evacuated during the Macedonian War of Independence in Aegean Macedonia (Greek Civil War from 1947 – 49)

Lefa became a child refugee and grew up far from her family in Hungary, and finally re-joined her parents in Australia, where she was able to build a new life.

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By: Harry Vjekoslav Herman, Ph.D.

© 2007                       

Tpb: 141 pages

Price:  $15 CAD          USD $11

Herman’s documentation of the surprisingly high concentration of Macedonian immigrants in Toronto’s restaurant industry appears at first to be a striking case in point.  However, this micro-level study indicates instead that ethnicity does not have to be restrictive but can in fact be manipulated to secure both economic and social gains.  The significance of Men in White Aprons lies not only its revelations about ethnicity but also in the intimacy of its portrait of Toronto’s Macedonian community.  Herman has also included a brief history of the Macedonian people, a survey of the social and economic conditions in Canada at the time of their arrival, a description of family ties and responsibilities and a discussion of how the Macedonians adjusted to their new environment.  The book is a valuable contribution to Macedonian ethno-history.

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By: Lillian Petroff

© reprint 2012        Tpb: 154 pages

Price: $25.00 CAD             USD  $18

In a period when validity of multiculturalism in current Canadian society has come under increasingly critical scrutiny, the study of the ethnic communities that contribute to the “Canadian mosaic” are still of great interest and value.

Whatever one thinks of multiculturalism as part of the future national agenda, the study of how those communities originated and evolved is one of the most important of all Canadian historical inquiries.  Filtered through the mind of a good historian, ethnic studies can tell us as much or more than any other investigation about the interplay of culture and context in Canada’s past.  In this excellent book on the “interior history of the Macedonians in Toronto”, Lillian Petroff made an outstanding contribution to this field by carefully examining complexities and nuances in this community’s evolution from about 1900 to 1940.

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