Santo Avramov Solomonov

This is a picture of my father Santo Avramov Solomonov. It was taken in the Bulgarian embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 4th November 1964 after he was awarded a medal for his participation in the September uprising in 1923.. My father took an active part in the September uprising and held the power for seven days in the village of Koniovitsa in Nova Zagora district. When the uprising was suppressed, he was taken on foot from Koniovitsa to Nova Zagora. He was beaten not only for being a communist but also because he was a Jew. My mother was engaged to him at that time. She went to the place were he was kept under arrest in order to take him with her to Stara Zagora. It was then that he broke contacts with the Communist Party because he had been severely beaten. After he returned to Stara Zagora he became an accountant in the bed factory and cut his ties with the communists. He did this because of his family. After 9th September 1944, when the communists took power, he enrolled in the Bulgarian Communist Party again. During World War II my father wasn't sent to labor camps because of his advanced age. When we returned to Stara Zagora in the fall of 1944 after our internment to Targovishte, our entire household was intact. A doctor's family was accommodated in our house, which was a nice house close to the center of Stara Zagora. The doctor used to work in the hospital ascertaining causes of death. They were Bulgarians but they weren't pleased that they had to leave the house. The doctor had even expressed the opinion that it wasn't very clear how the war would end and that he hoped for the V2 rockets - [Hitler's] 'secret weapon'. So, they didn't want to leave the house at all, but they did anyway. Later it was commented that the death diagnoses he gave, especially to the communists before 9th September 1944, were not very correct. So, he counted on V2. Unlike him the other neighbors were very warm-hearted. The number of presents they piled up for us when my parents' left for Israel is hard to imagine! Our house was also well preserved.