Lotika died in 1938 – Last year she saved my life

Written by: Lydia Ramis, Jelena Djurovic

This story was initially published in Spanish in “Enlace Judio” on 8^th of December 2024

Original article is edited for clarification

Beginning of November, 2024

Croatian director Irena Škorić began shooting her long documentary In Search of Lotika / U potrazi za Lotikom in the House of Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić in Herceg Novi, Montenegro last weekend. The film is a coproduction between Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia and Poland.

Jewish-Montenegrin journalist Jelena Djurović receives an unusual task from her mother, Svetlana: she must go to Višegrad, to the grave of her great-grandmother, Adela, and say the Kaddish, as the prayer for the dead was not held when she was buried. Svetlana also asks her daughter to find out as much as possible about the fate of Lotika Zellermeier (1860-1938), the sister of Adela.

Lotika not only inspired one of the most famous characters in Ivo Andrić’s novel The Bridge on the Drina (1961), but she was also one of the first women who ran a private business in the Balkans, as she was the manager of a hotel in Višegrad, and fought for her position as a woman. Zellermeier sisters – Lotika, Debora and Adela are considered to be first female entrepreneurs in this part of Europe.

Film Center Serbia, the Film Centre of Montenegro, the Radio Television of Slovenia, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the Polish Film Institute are supporting the project.

“The film is a road movie about Jelena’s search for the truth from Tarnovo in Poland, through Herceg Novi, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade, Ljubljana and to Višegrad, but also about burying old family wounds”, reads a press release. In addition to the aforementioned towns, the crew will also shoot in Warsaw and Krakow.

Some members of Zellermeier family, Višegrad. Lotika, first on the right

Question: Hello Jelena, I have to confess that the story of your great-grandmother has touched and captivated me from the first moment I heard it. My first question would be, when did you discover that your great-grandmother is the main character in the novel by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric, “A Bridge on the Drina”? 

A: Thank you, I hope that other readers will able to relate as well.

As I see it, this is really a story that (even as I was not a protagonist or personally involved) would be interesting for broad audience. I was working as a film critic for years, and I follow long documentary genre ever since I started my studies at Faculty of Drama and Arts. And yes, I would go to the cinema to watch “In search of Lotika”. It is a mixed of genres: road movie, family drama, emotional journey, has historical and educational context, and most importantly – comic relief parts.

Story, or shall I say family secret about Lotika, was revealed to me when I was 11. That is almost the age when Jewish girls have their Bat Mitzvah, although I never had one.

I grew up in very liberal household. My mother and father, both lawyers, were “children” of European 1968. cultural revolution. Father was a son of famous Montenegrin partisan and was proud of his Montenegrin heritage – mostly because people from my fatherland are courageous, charming and quite unhinged. So, religion was never mentioned, not because it was taboo, but because everything around me screamed “modernity” and “liberation”. I watched Polanski’s early movies with dad, and even Casanova’s memoirs were scattered around the library. Every topic was discussed, and I being conservative or shy was pejoratively considered a trait of “petit bourgeoise”. On one night in April, and to quote an old antisemite “the cruelest month”, my father was gone. He died in a car accident when he was 37 years old. I was ten.

With father Vukašin Đurović

In these unfathomable circumstances, my mother Svetlana and grandma Helena took care of me the best way they could. As I have no siblings, I was mostly left to my own devices. I found escape from this enormous loss in things that still keep me relatively sane: music, books, movies and first and foremost – dark humor. Of course, I watched many movies with Jewish characters in it, being especially fond of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. Art was, and still is my escape. But losing a father at tender age still feels like I am repeatedly putting temporary bandage on a permanent wound – going to Mary Gordon and her “A fatherless girl thinks all things are possible and nothing is safe”.

And just after I started adjusting to this new reality in my household, mother and grandma decided that it is time to tell me that the characters from the book we are about to discuss in our Serbo-Croatian class, were actually my great-grandmothers. It came out of the blue, and they told me this with no particular drama.

“Next school year you will read some parts of Ivo Andric’s Nobel Prize winning book. And that famous woman Lotika, who owned the hotel, well she was the sister of your great grandmother. Also, the guy who owned a turpentine factory, Mr. Caler – he was your great grandfather…And they are all Jews.”

The only logical question was – am I half-Jewish? Mom explained that I am not half-Jew, but basically – fully Jewish. Our female lineage was Jewish for seven generations…

Of course, I asked about my grandfather, my mother’s dad. They shrugged and smiled a bit. Mom understood that this new info is messing with my mind and that I am trying to find a bypass in order not to think about some “complicated new developments”. Actually, my grandpa’s dad was from Novi Sad, but his mother was Stanislava Steinberger from Poznan, and they met in Bund conference in Leipzig. And Bund was Jewish workers movement. So, yes by all means father of my mom was Jewish as well. By the rules of that particular religion, grandpa is Jewish also.

In my typical comical manner, I asked: “So, any property or obscenely rich cousins I should know of…? Do we pray from now on? Shall we cross the street and join the club?” (We lived just across Belgrade Synagogue)

Helena left the room. Mother remained another few minutes and told me: “While she is alive (referring to grandmother) you don’t speak about this. Her uncle Benjamin was killed in concentration camp in Belgrade and twenty-two members of this family perished in Dachau. She is scared because all of us barely survived. They went bankrupt – so many war profiteers we had to bribe in order to give her and the family false identity and hide their Jewishness during the war. I have to tell you this as well – since you were five, you are the member of the Jewish Community of Belgrade. Grandmother allowed that. But do not mention it never ever, unless really necessary.”

She wanted me to respect her fear.

In the forthcoming months I went bought as many books about Jewish history and religion that I could find. I was interested and invested.However, I was never active in any Community until my grandmother died in 1998.

Days before NATO intervention in former Yugoslavia, Jewish Community organized “Pesach seminar in Budapest”, codename for evacuating everyone who wanted to leave. I was on train even before the Community buses, and my cousin and her young child came with others – all of this was organized by American Jewish Committee. It was exactly one year after my granny passed away. I spent that Pesach in Dohany Street Synagogue, and that place of worship means a lot to me.

Helena (Jelena) Davidovac, grandmother

Question: What is your reaction, what do you think and feel when you discover that Lotika “The Beautiful Hebrew from Tarnovo”, is your great-grandmother? 

As I wrote in my previous answer, I was startled. But as time passed, and the more I learned about my family history some things started to fascinate me. I always try to look at my personal journey from the point of view of a writer and a journalist, because these professions define me.

Parallels between the lives of Lotika, my grandmother, my mom and myself are almost unbelievable. My grandmother, as Lotika did, went completely bankrupt due to wars and economic crisis but still managed to handle herself pretty well. She lived in a villa in center of Belgrade, but after World War Two, this lady in gloves, this famous milliner, bought few chickens and started selling eggs to neighbors. During the day she was selling satin silk gloves, and during the afternoons she distributed eggs. All while wearing a hat and little silk scarf.

Lotika was a widow since she was 19 years old. Allegedly, as per historians and experts in Ivo Andric’s opus, Lotika was having an affair with one member of Ottoman hierarchy, mentioned in the book. She was the owner of the hotel, matriarch, “padrona”. Most of her guests were men, and her social skills were unseen for those times and that place. I learned a lot from Merima Handanović – female characters in Andrić’s novels is what she teaches at the University of Sarajevo, among other things.

With Darko Herić (DOP) and Merima Handanović PhD of Comparative literature, Sarajevo october 2024.

Question: How, when and with whom did you start to create the idea of ​​making the film? 

Irena Škorić, my director – I met her more than decade ago. It was click at the first sight. I adore her talent, her passion for movies…Irena is beautiful, very delicate looking woman with guts and attitude of John Wayne.

We discussed this project – not as friends, or as two women who want to make a pitch that sounds good, because it really does: “Three sisters, first female entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe, depicted in Nobel Prize winning book, all Polish Jews in a strange new city”…However cool this sounds, we discussed project as two people who have degrees from the same University (Irena has a PhD and she is also a professor in Croatia).

As you might understand, I like to put emotions aside when it comes to work. She can do that too. We came to the conclusion that the idea is good and worth a try.

Question: What feelings have you experienced on a personal level during the development of the entire project? 

In the past few years, I became quite sensitive health wise and as the budget is tight, we need to balance between my health and director’s ideas. Irena is ambitious and quite strict when she is filming. Our dynamics on set is complicated. I am in almost every scene of 90-minute movie. Of course, that means that I am having my tantrums, she handles me without sentiment and onlooker would say “these two would never speak again”. But then the evening comes, and we talk like nothing happened. This smooth changing of roles from professional to personal is quite important. Not to hold grudges. And we both mastered it, I think.

I discovered fascinating things, most of them will be shown authentically in the movie. Lotika and her sisters came to Visegrad in Bosnia from Krakow after Berlin Congress. Quite avantgarde – they were Ashkenazi Jews in former Ottoman province where only Sepharadim lived. That caused some friction. In no time, all Jews and Christians and Muslims were drinking and dining together in Lotika’s hotel “Zur Brucke”. One of my great-grandfathers became President of the Jewish Community of Visegrad.

While filming, for the first time I saw THE Bridge on Drina. Many atrocities happened in Visegrad during Yugoslav wars in the nineties, I followed that as a journalist and citizen. Visegrad is burdened with bloody history, both old and new.

They drove me on the tourist boat named after Lotika. Then we went to the cemetery where Lotika and all my great grandmothers were buried.

Two cameras and drone were filming while I placed stones on those graves. I cried. And I do not cry often or lightly. What you will see in the movie is authentic. The movie should end with me coming back to that place to put a gravestone. We will have bunch of Jewish and non-Jewish men and women. I want someone to say kaddish for my predecessors. To give them burial they never had. It would be an emotional and also visually attractive closure to this journey.

Jelena Đurović, Višegrad, october 2024
Photo: Irena Škorić

Question: You already mentioned this…There is resemblance between the lives of Lotika, your grandmother, mother and yourself?

My grandmother was modern as well. She divorced my “Lothario” grandfather when that was still scandalous – in 1960’s. Her pride and grace and courage are something citizens of Belgrade do remember even until now.

My mother became a widow when she was 37. And that made her absolute wreck. Without hesitation, after she understood she cannot help herself, she went to the mental hospital to ask for assistance. At that point in Yugoslavia going to neuropsychiatry was severely stigmatized. But Svetlana survived. My father’s family from Montenegro swindled her badly, she had no support. When I go to my father’s city, even with all the real estate his brothers and sisters ammased, I need to rent rooms and sleep at friend’s place. Yet, mom somehow went through all that like a champ.

And after all that, my turn came. Destiny wanted to check what was I made of…

As I said, my dad passed when I was 10. I found other father figure in Jasha Alfandari with whom I collaborated in creating Jewish Community of Montenegro, and I gave name and character to the Mahar Conference…I was his Vice President and right hand.

After seven years of team work, Jasha suddenly died. It was on my birthday, 2018.

Then, the coup by some shady people. I was thrown out of the Community that I created, and I was never invited to the Conference which name, content and concept was invented and written by me, all in emails I sent to Jasha. I climbed to highest possible position in Montenegro without any help of male members of my family. That is quite rare. I also had no “back” or “ground” in my background because I grew up in Belgrade and didn’t speak Montenegrin (father met my mom there, because University of Law did not exist in Montenegro until 1974). Without anyone to “make a call”, or to say “look, here is my niece, let’s do something for her” I made it both in Montenegrin society and very competitive world of Jewish diaspora activism. Jasha saw a potential, invested his knowledge, gave me approach to his connections…And just like that, everything was gone in a day.

Deafening silence and complete ignorance of my former colleagues, members of Jewish umbrella organization with whom I worked with for years – that is what I never expected…No one even tried anything, except a person who then left one of the leading global organizations quite abruptly. Another illusion shattered.

With Jasa Alfandari, december 2017. Photo: Bujar Berisha

But I thought – I still have my name, reputation, years in activisim…Even a front page of one Israeli magazine as an example of “new Jewish identity in Southeast Europe”. During that autumn I participated at few conferences and gave lectures. I was not the sailor who fell from grace with sea, but it was vice versa. I still remain publicly most active Jewish activist in this part of Europe, and in bizarre turn of events without any Community to use my experience and knowledge. Also, during Covid there was a podcast “A Rabbi and a Film Critic walk Into a Bar”, I recorded with Rabbi Uri Ayalon on his Radio Melitz. Numerous times I went to Israel as a member of Jewish Media pool, visited Knesset, met PM, opposition, and Presidents. And when my colleagues asked me “What is your community, where do you work?” I answered I do not belong to any. Sad, but true.

I never recovered from being out of something I built and was so invested in. But then I realized how all that was irrelevant…Love is the only engine of survival, Cohen wrote. I had all love, help and support of my husband, my rock, my eternal love. My Tom.

Tom got sick in 2022, and passed away from glioblastoma when he was only 51. I became a widow. During his illness my mind was a mess. Trauma from the past, death of my father, combined with extreme situation I was in – as first caretaker to my then paralysed husband placed me in what I can define as true hell.

I started treatments, in order to be strong when inevitable arrives. Neuropsychiatrists helped me stay alive. On daily basis they were mentioning my mom, the fact that I am the only child and what she went through. And every night I went to bed with the thought that I need to make it out somehow for her sake. With my mind in shambles I went to Jerusalem, in winter of 2022. It was Jewish Media Summit, but I did not go to see politicians and colleagues. I went to Kotel. Wrote a note. I had hope. But death was like wolf at the door.

Allegedly Lotika had nervous breakdown in 1918, after Austro-Hungary lost the war and Serbian troops marched into Visegrad. She went on the other side of the Bridge and, as Andric writes, her screams could be heard as an echo.

Oh, how I understood that part of the book in those months. I wanted to end my life so bad that I was confined and under suicide watch during Tom’s last days…I lost apple of my eye who hid me in the shadow of his wings, to paraphrase Psalm 17:8.  To salt the wound, Tom’s vitriolic family sued me for things so delusional that you would not believe. As this case is ongoing, I cannot say anything else.

After that, another “history repeating” thing that happened to my mom structed me quite hard… I never understood why so many lawyers, judges and pals of my dad disappeared after his death. He was universally loved, a real mensch in every sense of that word. Again, it was my turn to deal with duplicity and ‘fair weather friends”. After my husband’s death I sent an email, asking for some small help. Most of them pretended they never “got the memo”.

While everything was fine, our home parties were “Great Gatsby” style. Everyone wanted to be invited. Same as when my dad had his soirees, similar to Lotika’s VIP room in her hotel, well depicted in Andric’s book…

But when she fell bankrupt, when my father passed, and Tom died – everyone disappeared. Milena, my friend from Montenegro came to hold me during first nights that I spent as a widow. Rabbi Arie Edelkopf talked to me and sent me help. Right now, I am counting true friends on one hand. Is it in DNA, poetic injustice, of Greek tragedy, or just human nature?

Mother Svetlana, 2015.
Photo: Bernardette Alpern

Question: You started filming after 7/10, probably not the best moment to make a movie on Jewish topics. I suppose the situation was quite different then when you were in pre-production phase?

 What happened on 7^th of October affected me deeply, especially because I visited Nachal Oz few years before, I met these people. I couldn’t believe what I am watching that morning. One of the first military victims was a son of my former colleague. And here we are getting to the politics and affiliations. As we know, Jews are always accused for “double loyalty” and because of this type of covert antisemitism, accusations of this kind are useful tool in making someone’s life a nightmare.

After 7/10, I became one of the rare voices on X (formerly Twitter) that ever belonged to any ex-Yugoslav Jewish Community, who stood firmly against couch terrorists, looney left and “keffiyeh Karens”.

At that moment, many former colleagues in the region “cancelled” me. Palestinian Embassy is quite active, especially in some former Yugoslav countries. These things I conveyed to few Israeli Ambassadors in Belgrade, but also to representatives of Israeli MFA during conferences and Anti Semitism Forums I attended. In no time, most of regional civil activists were having watermelons on their X accounts.

What I was not expecting is to be ignored by “my Montenegrins”, those who knew Jasha and me quite well, and who knew how strongly and openly we both fought against Russian meddling into Montenegrin affairs. I addressed (via video) the biggest crowd in Podgorica, on a protest that was held by Montenegrin pro-EU activist and parties, in September 2020.

And just as some acquaintances in Serbia started avoiding me after seminal Montenegrin elections in August 2020, “my” Montenegro people simply vanished from my life the very moment they were reminded I was, after all, “that Jew”.

Whenever I appeared in the media “anonymous” forums were bursting with hate speech towards me, not just Gaza related, but completely ad hominem. As loony left is not super smart in hiding their tracks, phraseology that they are using is recognizable. I know that internet is “all gas and no brakes”, but I am not talking about some random conspiracy theorists. These are “dignified” and “preeminent” members of society who are supposedly fighting for human and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, feminists…”Woke” crowd.

What I have seen on these forums is pure, sick and unfiltered antisemitism. I am not woke. I was never asleep in the first place so I don’t need awakening, but this made me question my allegiances. Some of them were so pathetic that they went after my Wiki page, that was used for sole purpose of making our community more recognizable while Jasha was alive. He wanted to make sure that every conference I attended or lecture I was giving was there, with proper link.

To state the obvious, ninety percent of these not people but abominations were silent on 07/10. Or worse. They were celebrating publicly.

Filming in Belgrade, october 2024.
Jelena, Svetlana, Darko Herić DoP

Question: So, you are saying that you cannot get work as a journalist because you are Jewish. Or Montenegrin? Or both?

I am not owed anything. I had some naïve idea that my friends, colleagues, friends of a friends would be kind enough, human enough after everything I went through. But for some Jews I was never Jewish enough because of my name and because I did not attend Yugoslav Jewish summer camps as a kid. For Montenegrins I was never Montenegrin enough because the way I speak and the fact that I was raised in Belgrade. For Serbians, they don’t know how to file me. Which compartment? Hybrid?

Plus plot thickens in “Fauda” sort of way. I am trying to be ironical, however this is not overexaggerated reality, only reality: in order to prevent me to work, rumors that I “work for the Mossad” were spread, to the point that I had to deny this nonsense on Montenegrin state television. You can see that on YouTube.

My visits to Israel were counted. Come on, even I have no idea how many times I went there for events, conferences or as a part of Jewish media pool. Between 30 and 50 times, just a wild guess.

Job is essential for me not just financially, but for my mental and physical health which derogated extremely after Tom’s death. That is what makes filming so slow and complicated. I knocked on every door, asked literally everyone I know to help me find journalist engagement in any media. My career started on TV and radio when I was nine years old and I was working practically non-stop until my husband got sick. I wrote thousands of articles under my name or under pseudonym, if it was PR related. Finally, I gave up on searching for a job in my field. Then I wanted to find “any port in the storm”, just to be busier. I needed that. Sent my CV to some Jewish business people in this region, and of course, they found me overqualified. Here I am busting another myth about how we “all stick together while running the world”.

After a while, I stopped with that endeavor. I have this small store in Belgrade with my partners and that covers bills. Also, I am selling my old clothes online. But yes – gaslighting is real and rumors are like a plague. Lotika screamed and almost took her own life, but went back and restarted her hotel business after 1918. As for me, well if I am unable to be a journalist, I will sit on a till in a supermarket to pay for this irrational court case I am drawn into. At least that supermarket will be extra safe, because I also work for the Security Service of the State of Israel (laughs)

In my darkest hours I ask myself “What would Lotika do?”…  I read somewhere that the Nazis and antisemites who asked Jews to turn out their pockets didn’t do it because they believed they were guilty, but because of the satisfaction of watching them prove their innocence. My dignity and the dignity of generations of my female predecessors will be kept by the movie we are making.

Lotika saved me from drowning, I like to say. Thanks to Irena and other producers, this movie is my lifeline. It is my connection to who I was, and who I can be again.

With mother Svetlana, 2015.
Photo:Bernadette Alpern

Question: There is still quite a bit of time left to film the film. When do you think it will be released and will we be able to see it in different countries such as Spain? 

As for release date, I am trying not to meddle in every part of the process. Irena and the producers are setting the tone. Her plans are autumn 2025, or early months of 2026. After editing and postproduction film will have its festival life, and then who knows…I do not want to write Netflix and HBO, but I do believe in Irena and in the power of this story.

Question: Finally, Jelena, what would you like to tell the reader to go and see the film? Thank you very much for your answers and for your time. I hope that the film will be finished soon and that many people will be able to see it. Like me, I am sure that you will think that it is a fascinating story.

For the reader, and this one is from the heart, I am unable to sell myself or my project. I never got a job by sending my CV as I won’t make you watch our movie with filling the page with sentimentality. I follow my gut feeling when it comes to art. If the trailer resonates, come and see us. I can promise – you won’t be bored. And if you are, you can blame either the bicyclists or the Jews…Now, someone will surely ask “Why bicyclists” (laughs)