Victoria Behar's friend

This is a classmate of mine, also a Jew, whose name I don?t remember. The yellow star can be seen clearly on her dress. We studied in a Bulgarian school in Sofia. Afterwards, I entered the 1st grade of the French College. My favorite subject was chemistry. I didn't have a favorite among the teachers because they were all very considerate and exceptionally tolerant. I only visited the religious classes in the Old Testament. All Jewish students in the college were exempt from the New Testament classes. If someone wanted to, they could go to those classes, but we didn't. We were friends with everybody, regardless of nationality. As for my spare time and friends, the times then were more patriarchal and my father was a strict man, so I mainly stayed at home. I didn't take part in the events of the Jewish youth organizations of the time. After the Defense of the Nation Act was passed and we started to wear the yellow star [in 1942], we were forbidden a lot of things - to have our own business, to go out on the street after 8pm, to visit public establishments, such as restaurants, cinemas, etc. At that time I saw that many people from our quarter were also Jews - we recognized them only by the stars. On 24th May the Jewish students were forbidden to take part in the traditional students' manifestation in the center of Sofia. My Bulgarian classmates proposed that we, the Jewish girls, should take part like all the rest despite the decision of the authorities. But our teachers, who were nuns, and loved us very much, persuaded them that this could do harm to the college and to us. So, we gave up the idea of participating, but after the manifestation we celebrated in the school with the rest of the students. All Jews from Sofia and the larger Bulgarian cities were interned to smaller countryside towns.