Hana Gasic's aunt, Ela Gjebic

This picture was taken on November 19, 1928. This is my mother Flora Kohen's sister Ela. Ela married a Catholic man named Zvonko Gjebic. She converted and changed her name to Jela. Despite her name change, my mother and the rest of us always called her Aunt Ela. They lived in Uzice, Serbia, where Zvonko worked in the Foma ammunition factory. They had two children, Anton and Zorica, who today live in Kragujevac, Serbia. My aunt Ela was able to survive the war because of her marriage to a non-Jew and her new identity. Both of my parents came from traditional Sarajevo families, and like many of those families they were from modest financial backgrounds. When my mother's siblings married non-Jews, it was not as devastating as it might have been had they had more money. When you are poor, you take what you can get, and many non-Jews did not look for dowries.