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This is a photo taken in the Rhodope Mountains above Yambol near the Arda River. I am to the left, third from left is Nissim Benbasat. The picture was taken in 1989 and I am already a pensioner here.
Liko Seliktar and Nissim Benbasat were active participants in the anti-fascist struggle in Bulgaria at the beginning of the 1940s. Their wives are also anti-fascists. Liko Seliktar's wife was even a partisan. Nissim Benbasat was a journalist and used to work in Radio Sofia.
As far as the attitude of Bulgarians to Jews is concerned, I can say nothing but the best. Because when there was anti-Semitism worldwide, when there were murders everywhere, there weren’t such things in Bulgaria. Bulgarians and Jews have been living for more than 400 years in an atmosphere of mutual understanding.
There were two great events in the 20th century. The first one is that 100 million people were killed, this was the most war-loving century. And at the same time there was a small nation, which saved 50,000 Jews. It’s a small thing, yet it’s a great thing.
You feel free as long as you have good friends. Even though they were fewer, there were Bulgarians, with whom we got on very well. Every year in the course of ten years we went on excursions – from 1981 to 1990, even during the new regime.
