Bouena Sarfatty

• Born — 15 November 1916 • Birthplace — Salonica, Macedonia, Greece • Died — 23 July 1997 • Place of death — Canada

She was born in Thessaloniki (then Salonica) in northern Greece. As a young woman, Sarfatty was well educated. She studied couture in Marseille, and was fluent in French, Greek and Ladino. She was part of the high society of Salonica, being presented as a debutante. After the Nazis invaded Salonica in 1941, she volunteered with the Red Cross, and also carried messages between young men in the labour camps and their families. She fell out with Vital Hasson, the leader of the Jewish collaborators. She was engaged to be married but her fiancé was shot on what was to be their wedding day after Hasson informed the Nazis that he had escaped from his labour group. Sarfatty was imprisoned by the Nazis in their Pablo Mela prison, but escaped with the help of a partisan disguised as a German officer: this partisan was later captured, tortured and killed. Sarfatty joined the partisans, adopting the name of Maria (Maritsa) Serafamidou, supposedly from Komotini in Thrace. She worked with them during the rest of the war, and a film was later made, in Greece, about her achievements. In 1945 she returned to Salonica to work as a dietician for the refugee camps but also, under cover, to arrange transport to Palestine for Jewish survivors. In 1946, she married Max Garfinkle, with whom she had worked in Salonica. After a short stay at his kibbutz in Israel, they moved to Montreal, Canada, in 1947. She died there on 23 July 1997, leaving a son and four grandchildren.