- Trials and tribulations of a Jewish family from Sarajevo during turbulent times between 1914 and 1945.
- The story of the Saloms, a Sephardic Jewish family with five daughters, Buka, Nina, Klara, Balki, Riki, and a son, Aleta, living an idyllic life in multi-ethnic Sarajevo. Their saga begins in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria/Hungarian throne, the event which triggered WW1.
The Sephardic community believes that their culture had survived for the last 400 years by rigid adherence to traditions and customs, e.g. they do not marry outside their Sephardic community. They still speak the Ladino language used by their ancestors who were expelled from Spain after the reconquest. The children marry in order of birth and usually to a suitable spouse handpicked by their families.
The Salom family led by Leon and Estera, is comfortably middle class, not too well off, as their father is never very successful at any business he has tried, but they are not living in poverty; however, all the daughters must earn a living. The mother's aim is to find suitable husbands from within their small and limited Jewish community and for the girls to have children who would continue their traditions. Instead the girls meet and fall in love with men outside their culture, sometimes the right ones, and sometimes not. Two of the men being real cads.
The eldest girl Buka, is in love with an older man David, who owns a bookstore, but he feels he is too old for her and suggests she follow her parents' wishes and marry Daniel Papov, the eldest son of a suitable Sephardic family. She does so, but it soon becomes apparent that Daniel is mentally ill, with what appears to be an inherited paranoid schizophrenia, and he is eventually institutionalized. Buka becomes ill at the beginning of WW2 and cannot leave Sarajevo when the German bombing starts. By the end of the war, Buka has died, as have her twin sons who were arrested and deported to concentration camps.
Two younger sisters, Nina and Blanki, run a small millinery salon. Nina falls for Skoro, a Christian Serb, and Blanki falls for his friend Marco Korac, also a Serb and a successful business owner. This does not go well with the families as associating with non-Jews and vice versa causes family rifts and ostracism as neither side will accept the other. Nina marries Skoro, but Marco is not the marrying kind and strings Blanki along setting her up in an apartment where they live together without wedlock until 1939 when they finally marry as WW2 breaks out. As the editor of a newspaper, Marco is concerned about the events in Germany and urges the family to leave Sarajevo after the bombing of Belgrade. During the escape attempt, Marco is arrested by the Croatians who believe he shot a soldier. He is released when the real shooter confesses, but is later arrested again and jailed. is home and businesses are confiscated by the military police. With the help of friends and forged documents, Blanki manages to free him but they have to flee and despite thinking they would be safer in Serbia, they have to move from place to place using forged papers and the help of friends to evade capture.
The youngest daughter, Riki, who goes to ballet school in Vienna with the help of the family and becomes a successful ballerina and rising star, moving up to better companies. She catches the eye of the married National Theater director, Milos Rankovic, and eventually become his mistress. He strings her along for several years with the 'my wife won't give me a divorce' line. When his supposedly estranged wife becomes pregnant, Ricki drops him realizing that he is a weak and cowardly man. Ricki is offered a contract with the Sadler's Wells Company in London but while fulfilling her contract obligations with her current company, falls after a jump fracturing her leg and hip. She discovers she has a bone disease and is dropped by the company as she will never dance again. Penniless, she is helped in secret by Marco to start her own millinery salon in Belgrade. When the German persecution begins she is persuaded by a friend from the ballet to leave Belgrade, and to avoid the Germans and betrayal she poses as a Serbian peasant and is hidden by a peasant family until the end of the war. Milos loses his wife in the bombing of Belgrade and joins the army. After capture by the Germans and some time in a camp he is released as he is near death and dies just before the war ends. Riki takes his death very hard realizing that she still had feelings for him.
Klara meets a handsome architect, Ivo Vlasic, while on holiday, converts to Catholicism, marries him, and moves to Paris. After two children arrive she discovers he is staying away working for long stretches of time, does not answer her letters, and sends her no money. She travels to Milan and finds that he is living with another woman and supported by her. He callously tells her that it is over, that it was nice while it lasted but he has gone back to his old philandering ways. He signs papers for a divorce listing multiple affairs. During WW2, with forged papers provided by the Italian Consul, Klara hides with her two children in Italy but finding work is difficult and they also have to keep moving. Klara's daughter finds work with the Americans after the liberation and moves to the USA after they marry.
Aleta marries an Ashkenazi girl and assumes the identity of Klara's Croatian Catholic husband. After an attempt to flee, they find it is safer to remain in Zagreb and wait out the war Nina, Blanki, Klara and Riki survive the war, but Buka and her children have died. The close knit family life they knew in Sarajevo is no more.
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By what name was Miris kise na Balkanu (2010) officially released in Canada in English?
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