Leon Levi

This picture is copied and enlarged from my ID documents when I was 14-15 years old. Then I was living in Sofia and I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair. I studied in a Jewish school. I wasn't a bad student. There, when we finished the 4th grade, we usually had a final examination, which was held in the presence of a representative of the ministry of education, our director and two teachers. I remember we had exams in Hebrew, the Talmud and the Torah. I remember I had to talk about Spinoza. I must have told it well in Hebrew because the ministry's representative gave me a pat on the shoulder and said that I was very well prepared and that I had a future. Later on I went to secondary school and I was good there as well. Then I started studying by myself in order to make my living. I was the most educated person in the family; I was the only one who had graduated from high school and later had a higher education. As a young boy I was in Hashomer Hatzair for a while, but it happened so that at 16 I was already in prison. Generally, the young Jewish people split into Apoel and Maccabi members. Others were in Hashomer Hatzair and there were also Betar members who were rightists. There were arguments among us but they were of minor significance. Everybody knew that those groups had a very good background and a lot of sports activities were held within them. We used to gather in the large gym of today's 30th school that was then equipped with all the training apparatuses. There was an Albanian sweet shop on Bregalnitsa and Positano. They sold boza there and when we had some money we used to go there.