Travel

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Svetlana Avdala

Date of Interview: December 2005

Reyna kept on constantly taking out things from somewhere. ‘This here is my father’s elegant working bag, look at his camera, and these here are the newspapers from the beginning of the century, these are his trousers – look at the label. Now I am wearing them.’

From a number of notebooks–diaries fall out Reyna’s collections from her childhood – cuttings of fairytale illustrations and pieces of tin-foil paper. Here are some boxes full of postcards – letters from that time and heaps of pictures, pictures, pictures…It was swarming with pictures everywhere. We are talking while sitting at an old solid carved table with four stable chairs around. I had the feeling that Reyna’s mother was still there. She had just gone out for a while and Reyna was taking advantage of the situation to mess up the place a little because she feels the order imposed on her as a burden.Otherwise in telling her story Reyna is amazingly precise, logical. She has a phenomenal memory for dates, quotes them in succession, she is always ready to be of help. For me Reyna is an example of the perfect worker and the fact that she went on working at the same place well after the age limit for retirement is not accidental. Even when she quit at her own will, they still wanted to retain her!

My name is Reyna Buko Lidgi. I was born in Sofia on 16th March 1929. I am a Russian Philology graduate and I have worked as an interpreter and a teacher. I don’t have brothers and sisters and I have never been married. My mother tongue is Bulgarian but I also speak Ladino, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, French.

My ancestors may have come from the town of Leon in Spain, but I am not sure 1 2. I have made this assumption according to some pieces of information form the Yearbook of the Jewish Organization. [‘Yearbook of the Jewish Cultural-Educational Organization’. The first issue of the Yearbook was published in 1966. On its pages appear materials devoted to the past of the Bulgarian Jews, scientific announcements about the history of the Balkan Jews, about their customs, way of living and culture. There also appear articles on historical, linguistic, ethnographic, demograhic and cultural topics. They are a serious contribution to the present and the past of the Bulgarian Jews.] They are Ladino 3 [Sephardi] Jews. I don’t have any information about my great-grandmothers and grandfathers. My memories begin with my grandmothers and grandfathers – the parents of my parents.

My parental grandfather’s name is Aaron Lidgi. I don’t have information about when he was born. I don’t know him because he died in 1929 in Bregovo village (Vidin region). My appearance has been planned after his death as a continuation of the family. He used to be a middleman of wheat and grain crops. His mother tongue was Ladino. I have no information about how religious he was. He had three sisters but I don’t know them and I don’t have any information about them.

My mother has told me that he used to be a very soft chap who loved her very much. It seems that their financial situation was very good, judging by the fact that they had the means to send my father to study in Vienna and Switzerland and by the golden jewels, which the family gave to their daughter-in-law, my mother. I have seen and I know that there existed a golden ring with a diamond, a golden watch and a golden wristwatch, two tiepins, as well as golden earrings, a golden shedai. I don’t know where they are as they disappeared as time passed. [Reyna is afraid to state that they still exist.] My paternal grandmother, Reyna Lidgi (nee Kohen) was born in 1868 in Vidin. She died in 1937 in Sofia. With my grandfather Aaron they had two children – my father Buko and his sister Rashel Lidgi (Pinkas by marriage). The family used to live in a house with a garden in Bregovo village (it was sold much later). I can’t say when exactly the move took place. I can’t say why but her daughter Rashel also moved to Sofia. Granny Reyna lived with us in our house for some time (in Pavlovo quarter at the time). [A special report of the Ministry of Finance connected to the repeal of the anti-Jew laws (1945) shows that 300 Jews owned plots and houses on the territory of Sofia Municipality – in Knyazhevo, Pavlovo, Dragalevtsi, Boyana, Moderno Predgradie. There is no information about the other details.] I remember granny Reyna. She didn’t know Bulgarian and spoke to me in Ladino. I owe my initial knowledge of this language to her as my mother and father spoke mainly in Bulgarian. They used Ladino only when they had to share something secret so that the others would not understand them.

My grandmother was a plump woman; she wasn’t pretty. I remember her with her knitting work in hand. She used to be strict, domineering, always pressing her views, she required corresponding attitude and my mother, who was very shy, always conformed with her, was even afraid of her. This was partly due to the fact that my granny Reyna didn’t like my mother because she didn’t have dowry. My mother had told me that when she went to live in my father’s house in the town of Vidin, before my birth, granny Reyna wanted her to do the cooking in the house but my mother couldn’t cook and she was shaking with fear so much that when she was told to prepare her fisrt rice granny kept quiet and didn’t give her a hand in order to see what her daughter-in-law was capable of. My mother then asked my father what to do and he said, ‘Well, put in rice, pour in water’ and the result was something repulsive. But my father thought highly of my mother’s prestige and when she served the rice, he said, ‘It’s very tasty! It’s very tasty!’ Granny was looking on that scene and said, ‘Why! I prepare dishes for you which are twice as better and you don’t like them and now you say you like this’. This makes me think that she was a domineering woman. After some time my mother tried to prepare French beans but out of fear that something would go wrong, she dropped the pot with the dish inside and soiled some mat in front of the cooker. She ran into her room and was hiding there until my father came back from work. Those were difficult months as a whole.

My mother’s father, Isak Moshe Beniesh, was born in 1863 in the town of Ruse and died in 1939. His mother tongue was Ladino. He was from a rich family, which was known in Ruse as the family of the Benishimi, who used to have sugar factories in the town. They were five children (altogether three brothers – Samuel, Mois and Isak and two sisters – Tihana and Timazal). I can’t say anything else about them. My grandfather was the youngest. To a certain extent my grandfather was a failure and he couldn’t find his place in life. He was poor – his brothers didn’t include him in their business. I couldn’t say what the reasons for their decision were. He used to be a commission merchant – he would offer goods to different companies and delivered them afterwards, but he didn’t profit very much from this activity. He used to be very religious – attended the services in the synagogue and afterwards would wake the whole family up for the Morning Prayer. Due to religious motives, as well as to his love for traveling, he decided to leave for Palestine [at that time] and to become a Hadji. [Hadj for the Muslims and Hadjiistvo for the Christians are connected to a pilgrimage to the sacred places. For the Muslims the sacred place is Mecca whereas for the Christians it is Jerusalem. There is no data about Hadji in Judaism.] Shortly before that, he had got engaged to his first wife, Sarah (nee Eroham). While he was in Palestine the rumor had it that she was very sickly, which was something terrible at the time but nonetheless, after returning from his pilgrimage, he married her in 1901. My mother was born in 1902, in 1907 in the town of Ferdinand my uncle Mois Beniesh was born (he died in 1976) and in 1910 in the town of Sliven my other uncle Nisim Beniesh was born (he died in 1948). His children were born in different towns because grandpa used to travel a lot. On the one hand, he loved traveling and, on the other, it was connected to his job. Additionally, the frequent change of the place of living was indispensable because of their necessity to find a cheaper way of living, as grandpa didn’t earn much.

In 1918 his first wife Sarah (nee Eroham) Beniesh, (by marriage) died from Spanish influenza [At the time of the First Balkan War in 1913 and World War I in 1914 on the front lines and in the regions of the military operations there were several outbreaks of certain diseases that took the lives of many soldiers and civilians. The diseases were cholera, typhus and plague and they were mentioned in the official statements of all the countries involved in the war. Probably Spanish influenza was also an epidemic disease.] in Ruse. I don’t know what the symptoms of this disease were, I know that it was a real pandemy at the time, which did all kind of harm and took more victims than the victims of World War I. My mother also caught Spanish influenza, together with grandma, but she managed to survive whereas grandma died because of her weak heart. Exactly forty days after the death of grandma Sarah, grandpa got married for the second time - to Dzhamila. He met her in Ruse where she was born in 1880 (there is no information about the time of her death). After the wedding, in 1919 the whole family, for I don’t know what reasons, settled down in Sofia.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Sarah Beniesh (nee Eroham). She was born in Ruse in 1880 and died in Ruse in 1918. She had three brothers – Solomon, Eroham and David and three sisteers – Duda, Sulcha and Esther. (I have absolutely no information about these brothers and sisters. When I visited Israel in 1960 I met with Esther only, who was living in a home for elderly people, and I found out that she had not been married and didn’t have children while all the other brothers and sisters had children.)

Grandma Sarah spoke Ladino, she was religious and she was an unbelievably good housewife. From her my mother inherited and mastered her sense of order. Nonetheless, granny Sarah didn’t allow my mother to spend too much time in the kitchen because granny wanted her to study. That is the reason why mother couldn’t cook when she was very young.

A relic has remained from granny Sarah - a dress that is called bindali. My mother used to protect it like something sacred during all our journeys. When I was a child she didn’t allow me to even touch it. It was bought in Turkey and was part of the dowry of the Jewish girls. It was wine-red in color – silk velvet with ornaments embroidered with a silver thread. It was being worn during different celebrations – engagements, births, weddings but it is not a wedding dress and it wasn’t granny Sarah’s wedding dress. I decided to put it on at a holiday organized by OJB ‘Shalom’ 4 and then it became the emblem of the organization.

The second wife of my grandfather, Dzhamila, got married for the first time to my grandfather when she was 38. At that time my mother was 16, Mois was 11 and Miko (Nisim) was 8.  Dzhamila couldn’t conceive in the first two years of the marriage and looked after her three stepchildren very well. Afterwards she gave birth to three more children – Sarika, Clara and Solomon. (I don’t have reliable information as to the years of their births. I only know that Sаrah – Sarika - was born in 1920.) The appearance of her own children changed Dzhamila’s attitude towards her stepchildren. From her stepchildren she loved Mois the most. His brothers and sisters from the second marriage also loved him very much and long after they grew up and left for Israel they went on calling him uncle Mois. My mother was the one who felt worst of all in the family.

There had always been some tension in the relationship between her and Dzhamila. On the one hand, it appeared because grandpa married her too soon, only forty days after granny Sarah died and, on the other hand, grandpa made my mother give the jewels, which were left to her by her mother Sarah, to Dzhamila. Eventually, she gave them, but this gave an edge to the relationship between her and her father Isak. (The third reason was that Dzhamila used to be a beautiful, domineering woman, very religious. She had special requirements for the food and even later, when she visited us she didn’t have anything to eat because she had doubts as to whether the food had been prepared according to all religious requirements. She had imposed the same order in the family that was new to her. At that time the family was already living in Sofia. I don’t know any details about their life but my mother told me that the family had a difficult existence because grandpa didn’t earn very much and it was difficult to provide for the six children. The poor way of living and the strained relations were a torture for my mother and she used to feel very depressed at home. That’s why she didn’t call her stepmother ‘mum’ for a long time. Not until much later, during one of our visits to Israel in 1960, when Dzhamila was already living in a kibbutz, did my mother call her ‘mum’ and granny Dzhamila, deeply moved, allowed herself a bite of the cake, which my mother had prepared and afterwards expressed satisfaction that she had prepared it ‘very cleanly’. Only then did their relation get warmer.

My mother, Elvira Isak Lidgi (nee Beniesh) was born in Vidin on 18th July 1902 and died in 1990 in Sofia. She used to like Mathematics very much. She finished her secondary education in the Second Girls’ High School in Vidin and later, when she was already married, attended a free university in Sofia but she didn’t finish her studies at the insistence of her husband. I can’t say what his motives for that were. She used to go to the synagogue regularly and she kept the rituals. She was a beauty, too, with a very stately figure, but she was extremely depressed after her mother’s death and was very devoted to her two brothers, and most of all to Mois Beniesh.

Mois Beniesh, who in 1939 finished his secondary education in a Trade High School, started work as a bookkeeper in the hosiery factory ‘Rufo’. He married Rebeka in 1935 and had a daughter – Maya Beniesh [An editor in the Theater Department of ‘Hristo Botev’ Program of the Bulgarian National Radio]. My uncle played an active role in the communist movement. In 1946 he left for Moscow as a spokesman for Georgi Dimitrov 5 and there he enrolled at GITIZ (State Theater Institute) – drama directing. He returned to Bulgaria and became a director at ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater. [Mois Isak Beniesh was born on 29th May 1907 in Ruse. He died on 6th May 1976 in Sofia. He initially studied at the Drama School at the National Theater and until 1951 - at the State Theater Institute in Moscow in the class of Y. Zavadski. He worked as a drama director at the National Theater from 1951 until 1976. He was teaching at VITIZ (The Institute for Drama Arts in Bulgaria) from 1952 until 1976. A professor in Drama Directing since 1969. A characteristic feature of his work is the combination between a width of social generalizing and a deep analysis of the spiritual life of the characters. He stages works by Stephan Kostov, Arbuzov, Arthur Miller, A. Hakett, J. Priestley, B. Brecht, Gibson.]

The youngest brother – Nisim (Miko) - had very well developed technical skills. I don’t know what education he got but in 1947 he was awarded the Gold Medal of Labor for his appliances for the sewing machine through which different operations for the production of overlogue could be performed, so he was one of the first bearers of this medal. He married Milka Beniesh in 1928 and they had four children – Sarah, Isak, Yakim and Mony. Uncle Miko died in 1948.

I have scarce information concerning my mother’s brothers and sisters from the second marriage of grandpa. Sarika studied at a vocational school in Sofia and acquired the specialty seamstress. I can’t say anything about Clara’s education. Solomon got some sort of technical education, I can’t say what exactly. Later my uncle Mois helped him to get a job as a technician in the hosiery factory ‘Rufo’, in which he, too, had worked.

In January 1941 the three children Sarah, Clara and Solomon left for Palestine by ship. Dzhamila, their mother, remained in Bulgaria, but left later, I can’t say when exactly. On board Sarah met Levy Meyuhas – a Romanian Jew. After spending some time in a camp on the island of Cyprus, [The ships which had Jews on board during World War II on course to Palestine sailed under the flags of different countries. In December 1940 from Varna to Palestine started the ship Salvator, which sank after a shipwreck not far from Istanbul. The Jews, Bulgarian subjects, who were about 180, were returned to Bulgaria at the beginning of 1941 whereas the alien subjects were probably taken to Cyprus from where they were gradually sent to Palestine.] they – Sarah, Levy, Clara, Solomon – left for Palestine. Sarah and Levy got married and they bought a house. Later on they had five children – Itshak, Elly, Mony, Beni, Veri. In order to provide for them they went to live in a kibbutz for some time. When the children had almost grown up, the family went back to live in their old house. Clara lived in a kibbutz as well. Her mother, Dzhamila, went to live with her. The other sister Clara married Juda Braha and had five children, but I can’t say what their names were. The brother Solomon lived in Palestine, too, and died in 1948 in the first war there. I can’t remember his wife’s name but I know that he had two children – Itshak and Haviva. I have a picture of the children with granny Dzhamila.

My father, Buko Aaron Lidgi, was born on 29th March 1892 in Vidin and died on 19th February 1941 in Sofia. He acquired education that was considered high at that time. He attended a Trade School of Higher Education in Vienna. While abroad he caught tubercolosis of the bone joint and his parents sent him to Switzerland to undergo medical treatment. He spoke German, Romanian, Ladino and Bulgarian. His life in central Europe had put a mark on the formation of his views as well as on his appearance. The western-European education built in him a broad-minded view of the world in which the focus was on the values common for whole Europe and not on the religiousness and the strict keeping of traditions and religious requirements. At his insistence I enrolled at a Bulgarian school of general education, not at a Jewish school. There appeared certain tension in his relation with his sister Rashel because of the money their parents spent on his education and medical treatment. Aunt Rashel didn’t acquire any education. In spite of the fact that he had a slight limp and wore a little walking stick due to his illness, he was a handsome man – an eligible match for many girls. Later, I can’t say when exactly, aunt Rashel married her husband – Haim Pankas – and had two daughters, Sarah and Reyna. In the 1950s her family left for Israel.

My mother told me that in order to get separated from the heavy atmosphere in the family in the 1920s, she went to visit a distant relative from grandpa Itzhak’s kin, whose name was Tiyasumha. She lived in Vidin. In the house next door lived my father’s family. At that time he was in Switzerland but had come back to ask permission from his parents to propose to a Swiss girl. He saw my mother and some emotions arose in him. He felt attracted by her modesty, by her unostentatious presence. He went back to Switzerland but his desire to marry the Swiss girl had faded. He started writing letters to my mother all the time but she didn’t respond because, at the beginning, she had a friendship with a Bulgarian man. His name was Stephan. At a certain moment there occurred some cooling in the relationship caused by the boy – a Bulgarian and only then did my mother write to my father that she was ready to accept his proposal. My father had proposed on several occasions in his letters but she rejected him, he even had a very valuable ring, which he wanted to give her. My mother didn’t accept it because she was very proud and considered this as a kind of commitment. This ring used to be something really remarkable, but unfrotunately it was stolen from him in Romania. So they got engaged regardless of her difficult financial situation. She didn’t even have a dowry – ashougar. They managed to get engaged – the engagement took place on 3rd September 1923.

My father came to ask my mother’s hand from grandfather Isak in their house in Sofia exactly when the September Rebellion started. 6 And the two of them spent the night by the window because at that time there was unrest in Sofia. In fact, my father spent the night in the home of the Beniesh family. This is a story that my mother has told and I can’t give any more details, nor do I remember whether my mother has ever told me more about the September Rebellion. (The date fixed for the wedding was 1st June 1924. So, these nine months were a period of cooing, obviously. My father used to work in Vidin. And then began the agony of preparing the dowry – ashougar. I don’t know what exactly the dowry used to be and what it had to consist of.) [Ashougar or the dowry of the Jewish girl consists of: six sets of bed sheets and pillow-cases, decorated with hand-made embroidery, a special chemise for the first matrimonial night, garment, secular, and for keeping Sabbath as well, bought by the bride’s parents. The well-to-do families used to buy a bindali dress, which Reyna has mentioned; there was also the so-called ‘djura’ - a counterpane whose knitting patterns were given from mother to daughter and the very start of the knitting was to be performed in secret by an owner of an already made ‘djura’, a counterpane for a woman in child-birth.] Aunt Sulcha – granny Sarah’s older sister used to be very rich and she had promised to send out the dowry for Elvira. And there comes a big parcel, they open it and what do they see – old underwear, old chemises. This is the way a rich aunt treats her poor niece. My mother, as I have already told you, was very proud. She hires a seamstress, they repair everything, put the things in a parcel and send it back to aunt Sulcha with a letter, which says ‘You have another daughter, you may need this.’ But after all, there were some things left from granny Sarah. [The dowry was an important thing at that time as the tradition was to spread it on the fence so that everybody could see that the daughter-in-law was wealthy. My mother pulled her weight together and prepared her dowry alone. I still keep some parts of her dowry – a counterpane decorated with typical Bulgarian embroidery, garnish for a woman in child-birth – a silk cloth with hand-made embroidery, the bindali dress… probably there were more things but I don’t know what happened to them. So my mother exhibited some dowry. My father, on the other hand, gave 1, 500 leva to grandfather Isak, so that he could give them as a dowry to his daughter.

They married in 1924 in Vidin. According to a story my mother told she didn’t have her own wedding dress. They borrowed it from Auntie Lizi, wife of a cousin of my father. His name was Izidor Lidgi. At the moment when some photographs of the bride and the kin were being taken, my father’s siter Rashel, accidentally or on purpose – I don’t know - stepped on the veil and it was torn. They found another veil but my mother’s white stocking ran a ladder, then somebody spilled something on the bride’s dress and it had to be washed quickly. So, my mother set off for the synagogue in Vidin with a ladder on her stocking and a wet dress. The procession was followed by music performers. After the wedding, the family spent some time living with granny Reyna in Vidin but due to the tension, which arose between mother and daughter-in-law, my father decided to leave for Sofia with his wife in 1925.

I remember Sofia from 1935-1936. It was a small, relatively clean town. I have most vivid memories of Dondukov Street, where now is the Sheraton hotel and TZUM [Sofia’s Central Trade Center] – the so-called Largo [the St. Nikola Passage was situated there]. [The Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman yoke in 1878 took place when Sofia was in an extremely miserable state as a town, as an object for communication and esthetics. The population amounted to approximately 20, 000 people, who used to live in about ten quarters with narrow, dusty and muddy streets. One of the first tasks of Sofia Municipality was to give start of the building of a new Sofia. For this purpose famous foreign architects like Kollar, Grunanger, Mayerber, Schwanberg, Yovanovich were invited. For a short period of time they built the beautiful buildings of the Synagogue, the Parliament, the Military Club, the Phoenix Insurance Company and so on. Some Bulgarian architects like Lazarov, Nachev, Fingov, Nichev, Yurukov, Marichkov, Torniov, Milanov, Koychev and others, also contributed to the construction of the new face of Sofia. Dondukov Street is situated in the central part of Sofia, the so-called Largo. The buildings in that part of the city were designed in the so-called Wagner-style (Secession). Some Renaissance elements were included in them too. In the monumental buildings, the architects had made an attempt to include details from the old architectural tradition; they achieved colourful effects, typical of the Byzantine-Bulgarian architecture from the Middle Ages. The old churches in Nessebar served as models. An example in this respect is the building of the Central Public Baths.] It was a nice, paved street, there was a tram moving on it. There were confectionaries; Tachev Cinema was there. In the bookstore ‘Chipev’, in that same street, my father would often drop in to buy his favorite pens, which he used to collect. Opposite the bookstore was the butcher’s ‘Dokuzanov’ where they sold fresh sausages, still hot, steaming… The ham was very tasty. I was often sent to do the shopping at St. Nikola market place [now TZUM], which was situated between the Central Public Baths and Dondukov street.

I was born in an apartment house, which was situated on the corner of the streets ‘Tzar Simeon’ and ‘Tetevenska’, now ‘Budapeshta’. Afterwards my family moved house to Pavlovo quarter because at the age of five I got dysentery. My father decided to rent a little house in Pavlovo and to live there until my recovery. There came my granny Reyna in 1935 when she decided to move to Sofia. During that period – 1935-1936 - the rest of grandpa Isak’s family (my mother’s father and Dzhamila) lived in Sofia as well. I remember they lived on the corner of ‘Bratya Miladinovi’ and ‘Makriopolska’ and afterwards in ‘Opalchenska’ street, but my memories are fading.

And after Pavlovo, we lived on 51 ‘Bratya Miladinovi’ street, afterwards on 41 ’Pop Bogomil’ and finally, before the internment 7, on 2 ‘Makriopolska’. My father liked us to change our premises because he was educated in Europe, and in Europe people used to move house more frequently than in Bulgaria and they prefered to live in lodgings.

I remember our place on 51 ‘Bratya Miladinovi’ and ‘Makriopolska’. We rented the place until 1937-1938. It was a three-storey apartment house, which still exists. Our two-room apartment was on the third floor; the owners lived on the second floor. Our neighbors were Bulgarian and we were on best terms with them. There weren’t any other Jewish families in the apartment house but opposite us, in ‘Bratya Miladinovi’ street too, lived the Primo family who we were friends with. We rented two rooms and a kitchen but, as we weren’t in a blooming financial situation, we had a tenant in one of the rooms. My father, mother and I used to sleep in the other room. The toilet was in the apartment and, since my mother was very house-proud, she kept it immaculate. My father also cared a lot about the toilet. He, as a person educated in Europe, used to say that in Switzerland and Vienna whenever you want to rent a place, you first go into the toilet. My mother had also cut some pictures, art reproductions from the magazine I used to receive then – ‘Kartinna Galeria’ [’Picture Gallery] [‘Kartinna Galeria’ – a Bulgarian monthly illustrated magazine. On print in Sofia between 1905 and 1925. Editor-in-chief – G. Palashev. In 1920 its name was changed to ‘Kartinna Galeria za Mladezhi’ (’Picture Gallery for Young People’). As an appendix to the magazine there was a special file with color reproductions of pictures by Bulgraian and foreign artists. The magazine played a significant role in the artistic cultivation of generations of Bulgarians.] – and had put them in the toilet for decoration.

Our next home was on the corner of 41’Pop Bogomil’ street and ‘Maria Luiza’ boulevard, rented again. The apartment was on the fourth floor. The whole burden in moving the house fell on my mother because my father had undergone a leg operation. She was very devoted to our belongings, and very tidy and meticulous on top of that. When we had to move every single object was carefully wrapped. Just imagine what it meant to move from one place to another. And she had difficulties to part with her belongings.

On ‘Bogomil’ we lived only for a while because at that time my father had problems with the heart and couldn’t climb the stairs to the fourth floor and, despite the nuisance of moving, we had to change our home again. The new one was on 2 ‘Makriopolska’ – our last home before the internment during the Holocaust. We lived on the second floor and we had a tenant again. Our tenants were usually boys from Vidin who studied in Sofia. The apartment was furnished modestly. We used to have a massive stable wardrobe. When we were moving house once the porters couldn’t take it down the stairs. They had to tie it with ropes and to suspend it from the window. The rope broke but the wardrobe fell on its legs and was absolutely unharmed.

In the room we had a big extending table, which we sold during the internment and we slept in beds with paintings on the boards. In the kitchen we had a sofa, a cupboard and a table with several stools. On ‘Bratya Miladinovi’ we had a built-in fireplace, something like a tile stove on firewood. The wood was provided at the right time and there came some people to cut them in pieces. On ‘Makriopolska’ I remember that we already used coal, which means that we were using the Pernik-type stove, which I still keep, for heating.

At home we used to have a lot of books – my father’s were in German and Bulgarian and I used to have my children’s books and magazines. Additionally, my father liked reading nespapers very much. I remember the caricatures in the ‘Papagal’ [Parrot] newspaper. They used to buy a lot of other newspapers like ‘Zora’ [Dawn] 8, ‘Utro’ [Morning] 9 and one of the reasons were the crosswords – my father’s favorite pastime. My mother was reading a lot and she used to be his constant consultant in this pastime of his. We had also stored some communist books belonging to uncle Mois, in order to keep them hidden. And here I can tell you an interesting story. The action takes place in the 1940s. At that time the so-called [police] blockades were taking place looking for politically unreliable individuals and evidence against them. Then my father wasn’t going to work and I was very happy because we were taking walks around our house to find some confectionery. He would buy me a chocolate bar and in these bars there were pictures that we would stick to a poster with the dream of getting a bicycle if we succeeded in covering the whole poster with pictures, without realizing, without understanding that daddy remained home because of that blockade. We were trembling with fear that if the police came home, they would find uncle Mois’s communist books. That is why we had carefully hidden them behind my children’s books but mum was using another excuse too. As my father was ill, whenever there was a knock at the door, she made him lie on the bed and said, ‘My husband is ill, this is a children’s bookcase’ and somehow they showed understanding and would leave us alone.

Our homes were always furnished modestly and it wasn’t necessary to put great efforts into keeping them neat and tidy. My mother used to do that as well as the cooking. From her I learned a recipe for leek croquettes. [In Ladino these croquettes are known as ‘Friticas di Pras’] Here is the recipe: you chop and boil two onions and six sticks of leek. You squeeze them well to get rid of the water. You grind them with a meat-mincing machine together with a boiled potato. You add two eggs and 300-400 grams of minced meat, but you can prepare them without meat if you wish. You form croquettes, roll them in flour and fry them, but as my mother had colitis, we would bake them in an oiled baking dish and on every croquette we would drip a few drops of oil. A washerwoman called Evtima used to come once a week. She used to always eat with us at the table. This was at the insistence of my father who was a democrat in his convictions.

When I was two months old there were nannies to look after me because mum was working as in insurance agent at Asicurazione Generale. [‘Asicurazione Generale’: a joint-stock company. The headquarters of the company were in Trieste, Italy. In 1927 the company opened a branch in Bulgaria. The company offered services in the sphere of life and property insurances. It existed until 1944.] I can’t remember where it was situated. The deepest traces in my memories were left by granny Natalia – a Russian. She was of noble origin. Her husband had been a general kiled by the bolsheviks 10. She fled the country with her three daughters by sea and all the jewels were sewn in a doll. When disembarking from the ship, the doll fell into the sea. After that she was living in poverty and she was forced to almost gather potato peels in order to provide for her daughters. She accepted to become a nanny in our family. She looked after me for three or four years as if I were her own child. I loved her very much. She didn’t use Russian with me; she used to speak to me in Bulgarian with strong Russian accent.

My mother played the most fundamental role in my upbringing and my life, my father used to go to work. And he died very early, when I was only eleven years old. My mother worked at the beginning, because she was educated – she had a college education. She started work as an insurance agent in an insurance company, but when I caught dysentery at a very early age she was forced to quit and remain at home to look after me.

Mum was strict, but very good at the same time, of course, and if I tried to show any stubbornness, she succeeded in suppressing those manifestations, so I grew up under her wing. Her star sign was Leo and I am a Piscean, maybe this is significant in some way, I don’t know… On remaining at home she started dealing with the housework with great diligence, she was imposing an order, which was even a bit of a burden. (My father, who worked as a bookkeeper, was compelled to take on more work from other companies. His last workplace was the ‘Fayon’ tannery, which was situated on the corner of the streets ‘Maria Luiza’ and ‘Tzar Simeon’.)

My father’s tastes and attitude were European. He liked the nice, beautiful things. He was a collector of expensive pens, he was always dressed smartly, and the colors of his clothes were always combined with a lot of taste. He was trying to cultivate this in me as well. He was aware that I had a favorite shirt, a favorite tie, but would always say ‘Reny, what should I wear?’ And I would say ‘The blue shirt and the suit.’ He insisted on mum’s elegance, too. Mum was always with a hat, with the high-heeled shoes. A seamstress was coming to our place, to sew clothes. My father would choose the fibres, he would choose the designs, and they were joking that she wouldn’t go to the toilet without his approval.

We always gathered around the table at dinner. I can’t say that we were a particularly cheerful family, but we were united. After dinner mum and dad would start dealing with the ledgers. This was my father’s additional job – to assist different companies with their bookkeeping and my mother used to help him finish his extra-work faster.

My father was a soft and yielding chap. My mother thought he was spoiling me. When Sunday came, he took walks with me. We started from the place we lived in, continued on ‘Maria Luiza’ until we reached the Palace. [The Palace of the Tzar in Bulgaria is situated in the center of Sofia, on Tzar Osvoboditel Boulevard. The Palace belongs to the state and it was built in the place of the old Turkish konak (police office). The reconstruction of the konak in 1878 was completed by the Austrian architect Rumpelmayer and its expansion and the application of the final touches in 1894 were done by architect Grunanger.] 11 There used to be a Viennese confectionary nearby and I would buy something sweet in that sweet shop and we headed home afterwards. My mother always made remarks to him that he was indulging me too much and that he shouldn’t satisfy my every wish. When I went out with mum she succeeded with her tactfulness, ‘Mum, buy me this…’ ‘There is something better down the street!’, ‘Mum, buy me that…’, ‘There is better down the street!’ and we reached home on relatively, you know, good terms. Yes, my mother was a strong-willed woman, with a very enduring spirit, with a desire to overcome the obstacles on the road that we had to follow and I am inclined to say that we managed to tackle with the difficult situation during the Holocaust thanks to her and thanks to her we succeeded in moving ahead.

Every Saturday or Sunday our family made outings three or four kilometers from Sofia, in Knyazhevo, for example. If my mother had some house chores to complete, she remained at home and I went out only with my father. He was an amateur photographer and during those outings he was taking a lot of photos. He was an admirer of nature and that is why the focus in them is on nature, not on man.

On Saturday evening we went to eat kebapcheta [grilled oblong rissoles]. On Sunday my father would take me to the children’s day performances at the National Theater but I can’t remember any titles 12. The three of us used to go to the cinema in ‘Moderen Teatar’ [Modern Theater] 13 and in ‘Odeon’ 14, but I can’t remember any movie titles.

My parents didn’t keep contact with the Jewish community. Apart from the kin, they kept in touch with other Jews from Vidin who lived in Sofia – Itshak Mindal’s family, for example, and Josef Perets’s family. We didn’t keep in touch with the Jews from Iuchbunar 15.

Sometimes during the holidays we went to the seaside alone, only the three of us, without friends or relatives. I remember Nessebar, then called Messembria, in 1936. Our departure for the seaside was an event to remember because we used to take a lot of household belongings, a mattress, crockery, everything, because there we would rent lodgings from local people and we had to do the cooking. In the morning, mum would cook and afterwards we would go to the beach with a donkey carrying our luggage, and after the beach we would return to the lodging again. I have a dim memory of the time spent there but I have a photo. We probably took the train to Nessebar, I can’t remember, but I keep the suitcase with which we travelled.

I remember the synagogue. I visited it mainly on high holidays like Rosh Hashanah, [Yom] Kippur, Pesach and not so much on Fridays. If we had ever been there on Friday it was when the visit was initiated by granny Dzhamila and grandpa Isak, who came to live in Sofia in 1919.

When some holiday was approaching my parents would buy me a new piece of clothing. After that, dressed in our best clothes, we went to the synagogue. Women went up to the balcony. I was present at my uncle Mois Beniesh’s wedding in the synagogue, or midrash maybe, in Odrin street in 1935. Uncle Miko got married when he was very young – only eighteen years old – to Milka, in 1928, a year before I was born. My mother was a witness at uncle Mois’s wedding. I remember that she was very elegant, wearing a fox fur borrowed from a friend of hers. I got startled when they broke the glasses during the nuptial ritual. This is the only thing I remember. My mother became very attached to her sister-in-law Rebeka, who was extremely beautiful. The two of them had a very close relationship throughout the years.

On Jewish holidays we convened mainly with uncle Mois and his wife Rebeka. I remember Pesach and Purim. For Purim mum liked to prepare a cake with walnut filling, she shaped the cake into the first letters of the names of my two aunts – Rebeka and Milka and gave it to them, no matter whether we convened with them or not. I don’t remember if there was any masking at Purim. Three weeks before Pesach mum would clean the house thoroughly, she washed all the clothes and scrutinized for breadcrumbs.

On holidays we sometimes convened with the family of my good friend, Viska Lazarova, and the mother of another friend and neighbor of mine who lived in the apartment house next door, Eti Rahamimova, used to make wonderful pastel – pasty with beef – and she would invite us.

For Yom Kippur, the house was cleaned, the fasting called taanit, started in the evening. We usually went to grandpa Isak, for a last meal so to say, at about 6 o’clock so that the fasting could start afterwards. It started in the evening and continued throughout the following day and then in the evening, after the visit to the synagogue, we could eat something. During the day we would smell a quince with cloves stuck into it so as not to faint because it was usually hot at [Yom] Kippur even though it was in September.

The first thing we had to put into our mouths after the fasting was bread dipped in oil so that it could easily slide into the organism. After that came the traditional hen with rice. There was a tradition to make kapora [Kapora is an old tradition, which required a rooster to be spun above the man’s head and a hen or pullet above the girl’s or woman’s head, a prayer was read, the idea being to transfer all the sins from the man to the animal after which it should be slaughtered. A new type of kapora nowadays is to give money with the same purpose in the synagogue. It is then distributed among the poor.] for [Yom] Kippur using a white pullet which had been bought in advance and kept in the house for some time. Before taking it to the synagogue to be slaughtered, my grandpa Isak would spin it above my head. The slaughtering of the animal was a torture for me because I usually got attached to the animal while it was at home. Usually it was my mother, who took the chickens to the synagogue, but once she was busy and I was sent to take two chickens to the synagogue. They were in granny’s garden. I dropped them because I was afraid and they started running. It was good that a man helped me to catch them. And I took them to the synagogue with grief in my heart. There was a special place for the sacrifice and a special shochet – a person who slaughters the animal in the most painless possible way. After the animal was slaughtered it was left so that the blood could flow out of it because the meat had to be cleansed of it.

My father, of course, didn’t keep the strict fast. Sometimes during the day he opened the lid of the pot with the meal for the evening. And he would take a bite. He didn’t stick to, I even remember that he liked to take us out of town and exactly on [Yom] Kippur to say, ‘Today we are going to…’. Whether it was to Knyazhevo, or somewhere else, I don’t remember, but mum was always beginning to worry, ‘I won’t be ready for the synagogue…’. Nothing to worry about, and he usually took us home when the ritual in the synagogue had already finished. But mum used to keep the fast. And this tradition – to keep [Yom] Kippur and to attend the ritual in the synagogue – continued almost to her death in spite of the severe colitis she suffered from.

I attended a Bulgarian school. Dad had never considered sending me to a Jewish school 16. Initially I went to a nursery school and then I started school earlier than the other children – at the age of six and a half. The first grades I attended in ‘Naum Simcha’ school near ‘Simeon’ – the building still exists today. There were thirty or forty children in my class, half of them were Jewish. We used to study Christian Religion and we all attended these lessons, I even imitated my Bulgarian classmates and crossed myself. I once asked my mother whether to cross myself or not and she told me ‘You are a Jew but you can do it if you want to.’

Although my father had European education and views his dream was to make me bat mitzvah when I become twelve but, unfortunately, he died shortly before that. My mother didn’t cook kosher. We used Bulgarian at home. My father was fluent in German, but he refused to use that language with me because he didn’t like the Germans, probably because of their fascist excesses as well. On the other hand, when I was in the second grade at school, there came a teacher in Italian who offered us to enrol a course in Italian and my parents didn’t object. This is how I learned to talk and write in Italian. We were not obliged to go to church and on the Jewish high holidays we were exempt from school.

Mum helped me with Bulgarian, mainly with the essays because dad asked her to, ‘Elvira, help the child…’. And she often replied, ‘She must get used to it, on her own!’. So I tried to write my essays alone. With arithmetics, I used to have a lot of difficulties, but later I started doing better. I didn’t like drawing. After finishing primary school I moved to ‘Konstantin Fotinov’ school [most Bulgarian schools bear the names of Bulgarian activists from the Bulgarian National Revival period or of heroes from the national liberation movement. ‘Konstantin Fotinov’ school still exists today under the same name.], which was on ‘Hristo Botev’ street. There were twenty-five or thirty students in my class, half of whom were Jews, because the school was near Iuchbunar – a quarter with a very solid Jewish population.

When I was in primary school I was a member of a Jewish society. It was called ‘Akeva’. I don’t remember how I had decided to join ‘Akeva’; I only remember that it was on the last floor of Bet Am 17. At one point, it was run by Rebeka Arsenieva, [Rebeka Arsenieva was a radio director for many years at the radio theater in the Bulgarian National Radio] Ani Mayler’s mother. There we used to sing songs, play, dance Israeli, Palestinian, called Jewish dances at the time, we learned the basics of Hebrew, we used to have meetings. Moreover, we had a uniform and an emblem – a piece of cardboard with three stars. This organization was Zionistic by nature. We used to talk often about the remote country of our ancestors – Palestine. I was sent to a youth camp in Tserovo through this organization. My memroies of the stay there are vague. In June 1942 I finished my primary education with excellent marks, and then we put the badges [yellow stars] 18.

I was enroled at the Third Girls’ High School because my mother wanted me to study medicine. Half of my classmates were Jews. There were already Branniks 19 in the class. They were easily distinguishable from us because they had grey uniforms and silk stockings. They put on those uniforms when there were demonstrative processions and celebrations. I don’t know who had given them that right as it may have been in discrepancy with the school regulations, and we used to wear black uniforms (aprons), badges and thick stockings. We envied them to a certain extent. We, the Jews, even when we wore badges, were not allowed at manifestations and other official, open celebrations. We were not supposed to be shown and seen. Before the first year had ended, before finishing the school term, we had to leave Sofia.

My first good friend was a Jew – Viska Lazarova. We were inseparable from the first grade until the internment. She lived on 32 ‘Serdika’ street. She used to come to my place on ‘Makriopolska’ street, collected me and we would go to ‘Fotinov’ school together. I had another friend – Eti Rahamimova, she was my neighbor as well. Our parents were friends, too. I also had Bulgarian friends. We are still close with a classmate from the primary school and we call each other on our birthdays. Her name is Magdalena Stefanova. Her brother, Kolyo, was my bodyguard. And as I was faint-hearted and some of the boys were teasing me, he didn’t let them touch me.

Mum wanted me to spend more time at home, not to meet a lot of children so that I wouldn’t catch some disease. I used to have some very interesting toys – a sleeping doll Freda, a little gramophone with records, a car that could be wound and made curves, a jumping monkey, the Monopole game. All those were bought from abroad and ordered by my father, probably to friends or colleagues. I can’t be sure. I didn’t like the dolls so much as a one-legged teddy bear. Usually the children came to me, to my place. Or, if I was ill, and I was ill very often, I put the toys on the windowsill and the children looked at them from the outside. When dad was ill and stayed in bed at home, we would play cards.

My big dream was to learn to ride a bike. Mum’s financial situation wasn’t very good and hiring a bike cost, with the old money, five leva per quarter of an hour and five leva was the cost of a loaf of bread, white bread. Mum could only give me five leva per week. And by the time I had taken the bike from the place where I hired it to my street, five minutes had alreay elapsed. Some of the other children would say, ‘Let me ride it for a while! Let me ride it for a while!’. And then I had to return the bike. So this is one of my unfulfiled dreams – to ride a bike.

I could say that until 1940 there weren’t anti-Semitic activities. No. My first memory of that dates back to after my father’s death. Mum sent me to buy cheese, yellow cheese, from that shop, which was on St. Nikola square. Coming back from the shopping I found myself in ‘Maria Luiza’ boulevard during the breaking of the window shops – for me personally this was the first manifestation of anti-Semitism in Bulgaria, the year must have been 1942. It was a very scary experience for me. I ran home, I was very young and said, ‘Mama, they are breaking the window shops!’, and this was my first clash with such manifestations. The second difficult moment was when we were made to wear badges; I was twelve at the time. I still keep the badges. After that I finish the third grade and as usual with excellent marks in everything but my teacher in Bulgarian, Dragneva, who liked me very much, said, ‘We can’t give you the big award because you are an individual of Jewish origin.’ And I was awarded a Bulgarian book – ‘Notes on the Bulgraian Uprisings’ [by Zahari Stoyanov] and a book about the tzar in which it was written – ‘Given to Reyna Buko Lidgi for her excellent marks – an individual of Jewish origin.’ I still keep that book.  

The year was 1941. My father was fired from ‘Fayon’ tannery. According to the Law for the Protection of the Nation 20, the owner Jew couldn’t hire clerks who were Jews. [According to the Law for the Protection of the Nation the Jews cannot own field. The Jews cannot take state, municipal or other positions of the public authority and private-legal organizations, cannot practise freelance jobs, trade, industry and crafts.] They told him, it must have been on 19th January 1941, ‘You don’t have a job from tomorrow.’ He exclaimed, ‘But I have a family, how will I support them?’ And because of the stress my father got an apoplectic stroke. He had problems with the heart, had suffered from severe pneumonia. Before leaving for work that day, the right part of his face paralyzed. It was a real agony the next three weeks. I witnessed it because I was in the same room. During these three weeks my mother and my aunt Rebeka, Mois Beniesh’s wife, looked after him. He died on 18th February, in the room where I was sleeping too. It seemed to me that my mother screamed when he died.

The coffin was put on the table in the apartment in ‘Makriopolska’ street. According to the Jewish religion the dead person should not be dressed, he should be placed in the coffin after being washed and covered in a white sheet. The coffin was then covered and afterwards nobody had the right to look at the dead man. All that was done. It was a rainy day. And they came to take the body. The women, then, didn’t have the right to follow the coffin. Only the men went. After he had been buried, my uncles and my aunts returned or Rebeka Beniesh, Mois Beniesh’s wife and Milka Beniesh, Miko (Nisim) Beniesh’s wife. And my mum and I had to sit on the floor, according to the Jewish ritual, and stay there for seven days. Apart from that, according to the ritual, the underwear is cut because it is nearest to the body and you have to feel the pain from the loss. They dressed me in black, removed the white collar from my black school uniform, they put black socks on my feet. Mum was entirely dressed in black. She went into mourning and even dyed her underwear black because her love was very strong. We didn’t change our underwear and didn’t take a bath for seven days as the ritual requires. While the sitting takes place, the so-called ‘insietti’ in Ladino, ‘insietti’ meaning ‘seven days’, the bereaved don’t have the right to prepare food for themselves. The food should be brought by relatives and they agree on who will bring food for lunch, who for dinner and they stay together with the bereaved, but they sit on chairs whereas the bereaved sit on the floor. These seven days are quite hard because the relatives ask the bereaved how the person died, what happened and what… and all this makes the situation terribly depressing. For me it was extremely difficult because I loved my father very much. And we had a lot of relatives who were bringing food, but not every day and sometimes mum had to stand up and prepare something for eating from our modest supplies, which had remained after dad’s death and so came the seventh day. On the seventh day the women have the right to go and see where the dead man is buried.

Mum remained without any resources because everything we had was mainly from the companies that dad had assisted and they paid him, or, as it turned out later, some of them hadn’t paid him anything.

And dad was buried at the lowest possible price, according to mum’s words, but I didn’t know what exactly that meant. Mum started to look for a job. Robert Kohen’s family, who was an acquaintance of uncle Mois Beniesh and owned a haberdashery in ‘Pirotska’ street, helped her initially. He gave her 2, 000 leva, somebody anonymously bought us coal and wood for the winter, then she got some other aid again, but the situation was terrible because mum was still without work. After dad died a neighbor, Marko Rahamimov, my friend Eti Rahamimova’s father, taught her accountancy. She had helped my father while he was still alive but she didn’t know accountancy. The knowledge she acquired was of help later.

Soon after dad died, while she was still without work and the situation seemed desperate, she thought of leaving a letter to my uncle Isak. She had a plan – to get up earlier and to jump under the tram because she couldn’t see a way out of her awful situation.

I will tell one of her dreams after dad’s death, which she told me on waking up and from which, she believed, she got information about the future course of our life. She dreamt that my dad and granny Sarah came near her bed and told her, ‘Come with us.’ She was in her night gown and while walking on a way she said, ‘I can’t…’. There were torns. She then saw a bloody trace in front of her, but he told her to continue and they reached the bank of a river. He said, ‘We will go to the other side and will throw something for you.’ And then she saw a big fish in the air but the fish fell into the water. Granny Sarah shouted from the other side ‘Don’t worry, we will throw something again.’ And they threw a small fish. She woke up. And she woke up later than the possible time at which she could wake to throw herself under the tram. And she told me the dream then. And I smiled and said, ‘Well, Mama…’, can you imagine to say that, at the age of twelve, ‘Mama, this is just wishful thinking.’ At that moment, and this is really strange, it is difficult to believe in these things, so at that very moment a neighbor, the wife of Rahamimov – the person who taught her accountancy, came to look for her. She said, ‘Elvira, I read that they are looking for electricity collectors.’ And mum, using the information from the advertisement, took an exam for electricity collectors in Sofia. The exam was very difficult, but she passed all the exams and they hired her in the electricity company. The situation was complicated, but as the company was international, they could hire her even though she was a Jew. They had that right and then again some strange force helped her. She started going round Sofia and taking down the indications from the electric meters.

One day, an assistant of hers from her previous job saw her and asked her, ‘Mrs Lidgi, what are you doing here?’, ‘Well, I am here at work.’. This work involved going round the streets, to measure and calculate the indications from the electric meters. And this woman went immediately to Mr Kastermans, a director of the electricity company, and said, ‘Mr Kastermans, I want to take Mrs Elvira Lidgi in my department, as my employee.’ and she actually went there, to a better position in the accountancy department of the electricity company.

And after that, just think about that dream! - one day she met the very director of the insurance company ‘Asicurazione Generale’, where my mother had worked until I turned four. He asked, ‘Mrs Lidgi, why are you in mourning?’, because mum was wearing black from head to toes after my father’s death. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ ‘Well, I remained a widow.’ ‘Do you have a job?’ She told him where she worked, after which he offered her a job – much better and well paid. In this way she changed her job for the third time after my father’s death. So she started work there, it must have been in 1941 and stayed there until our internment.

We received a subpoena that we had to leave for Vratsa and, additionally, one of dad’s cousins, his uncle Izidor Lidgi’s son, who regularly sent us a check to help us, sent us a letter at that moment saying that mum had to do everything possible so that we could leave for Vidin. Mum started preparing, she went to different commissariats and in the end succeeded in obtaining a permission for traveling to Vidin. We were allowed to take anything we wanted but this meant transportation and more money. Mum simply had to sell the furniture and part of our belongings. While mum was trying to get the permission, I had to pack the luggage. We loaded everything up the train. At the station we were seen off by Robert Kohen (who had given us 2, 000 leva) and my favorite teacher in Bulgarian, Nadezhda Dragneva. We had a close relation because I was a good student. She visited us often, she wasn’t afraid that we were Jews, my mother and I had also visted her home. She had two sons. We kept in contact even after 1944 and, now, without being afraid, she had come to the station to see us off despite the risk she was taking in that way. Uncle Mois’s family was interned to the town of Ferdinand [now Montana], and uncle Miko’s – to Sliven. Granny Dzhamila was still in Bulgaria but I don’t have information how she survived the Holocaust. She was probably interned to Ruse. My mother’s problems after dad’s death were so many that obviously granny Dzhamila was in the background.

In Vidin we lived in Izidor Lidgi’s big house. It was one of the most impressive houses in Vidin. There was a piano there. My mother and I lived in one room on the floor below, Izidor Lidgi, his wife Liza and their children Marcel and Sofka – in the room next door. His mother, granny Sophie, lived in a separate room. On the floor above lived Buko and Lika Pinkas and their son Bentsion, in the other room – the Zilbermans. In the third room was a friend of the family – Liutinger. All the other Jews lived in much worse conditions in the building of the school in the old part of the town called ‘Kaleto’. There the conditions were tough and they were foddered.

There was a curfew and we were allowed to go out only between ten and twelve o’clock in the morning. The rest of the day we used to spend inside. My mother, in her attempt to make up for the food we were given, began cleaning the floor below and the toilet outside regularly. Getting supplies was a major problem. Marko Kohenov sent us parcels from the town of Kula, where he lived because he loved mum very much, as a wife of his favorite cousin, Buko Lidgi. My mother and I ate together with granny Sophie and Izidor Lidgi’s family. Granny Sophie would sometimes give us a 100 leva note so that we could have some money.

The time was passing slowly although we talked to each other in the house. Through Bentsion I came into contact with the progressive [leftist] youth – the members of RMS [The Union of Young Workers (UYW)] 21. We had meetings with them, took off the badges and sneaked through the gardens in order to meet other Jews from ‘Kaleto’. In spite of the hard life, I didn’t have a clear idea of what was actually going on. We didn’t know about the concentration camps in Europe but there was something in the air… There were rumors that we were going to be sent to Poland, but nobody knew what would happen afterwards. The word Poland was a threatening word…

The other problem was my studying at high school. According to the regulations only two per cent of the Jews in a certain town could attend high school and, of course, the local people had an advantage. My mother couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t get proper education and she wrote a letter to the then minister of education, Yotsov, who replied that I should stick to the regulations as a Jew, but I had the right to attend the high school as a private student. We started looking for teachers to prepare me. Mum succeeded in finding the teachers needed and I, in this so complicated situation, started preparing for the exams. [According to the Law for the Protection of he Nation, the admittance of Jews to the schools was limited. Nonetheless, in most of the schools – talking about the middle class Jews – they continue their education in exactly this way – as private students.] We often heard shots and could see the smoke from the Romanian bank opposite because they were bombing Kalafat – they would sound the alarm whenever planes of the English-American union passed over Vidin. On such occasions, we would leave the town and hide in airraid shelters. [On 27th September 1940 the Tripartite pact was officially signed – in fact that was a union between Germany, Italy and Japan. On 1st March 1941 the government led by Bogdan Filov signed a protocol and Bulgaria joined the pact. On 12th December the same year Bulgaria discontinued its diplomatic relations with the USA and Great Britain and declared war on these states. As a reaction to this decision the allies Great Britain and the USA declared war on Bulgaria. The English-American airraids on the Balkans were particularly intensive from September 1943 – on 13th the towns of Stara Zagora, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Kazanlak were bombed, in October – Skopje, Veslets and Nis. In the period between 1st Novemver and 20th December the headquarters of the strategic airraid forces of the USA in Europe formed the 15th Air-borne Army for bombing Bulgaria. In December Sofia and Plovdiv were bombed. At the beginning of 1944 after the second massive airraids on Sofia, the allies attacked the air space over Skopje, Vratsa, Kunino and Beglezh.] I managed to prepare for the exams in May 1944. I sat for all the examinations, passed them and got a certificate that I have finished the fifth grade.

We welcomed 9th September [1944] 22 in Vidin. Our boys managed to enter the District Administration and they said that there were found lists according to which the male Jews should have been sent to Poland, whereas the women and children were supposed to be put on barges and sunk into the river. I don’t know whether this is true.

Two days before 9th September the fascist authorities sounded the alarm. We were taken out of the town, but I can’t say if all the Jews were made to leave it. In this way the German forces quartered in Vidin were given the conditions to leave town unobstructed. The troops withdrew from the town but dug themselves in on some heights near Zaychar – to the west, on Yugoslavian territory. When the Russian troops headed for the border, the Germans started shooting from the high grounds and turned them into bloody meat. They drove the Russians to Vidin like that, in the trucks. On 20th September left the first Bulgarian forces, which were joined by a lot of Jews volunteers. The first victim was claimed – Zhak Kohen.

We started thinking of returning. Mum left for Sofia first in order to prepare things and there she accidentally met my uncle Mois Beniesh who had been interned to Montana [she means Ferdinand]. She succeeded in finding some lodgings and came back on a train full of Russian soldiers. We packed our luggage and left for Sofia, settled into the lodgings but the conditions were horrible. A friend of mine put us up temporarily at her place. Her name was Florentina Presenti. Meanwhile, mum managed to find a room on 22 ‘Macedonia’ square where we lived for thirty-four years.

My mother started work at the Insurance Company, which after the nationalization, became SIC (State Insurance Company). She retired there. I started the sixth grade in the Fifth Girls’ High School in ‘Tzar Ivan Shishman’ street. At that time uncle Mois starts work at Radio ‘Sofia’. Later, in 1946, he left for Moscow as a spokesman for Georgi Dimitrov, an announcer at Radio ‘Moscow’, and there he enroled at GITIS (The State Institute for Drama Arts). He graduated in 1950 and came back to Bulgaria with finished theater education and became a drama director at the National Theater. Uncle Miko, on the other hand, immediately after 1944 started some technical job. Auntie Rashel was in Bregovo village. Sarah, Clara, Solomon and their mother Dzhamila were already in Israel. They left as early as 1941. In 1948 my friend Viska Lazarova, whom I haven’t seen since 1944, left for Israel. I know that she had been interned to Pleven and after 1944 we went to different schools. I was probably sad but the events were tempestuous and the vortex big to leave us any room for such feelings. My other friend, Eti Rahamimova, also left for Israel with the first wave [Mass Aliyah 23. She became a doctor there. Immediately after uncle Miko’s death his son Isak left for Israel in 1949 and his sister Sarah left in 1951. His brother, Mony, left in 1961 or 1962 and Yakim – in 1966.

The migration of Jews to Israel wasn’t an issue of interest for us because my incle Mois, who was regarded with great respect by my mother, was a communist and his life was entirely devoted to the building of the new life here in Bulgaria. Moreover, she insisted very much on my studying and at that time I was only in my second year at university.

I have left-wing political convictions and have always believed in the system which saved our lives. After 9th September I became a member of UYW [The Union of Young Workers] while I was still studying at the Fifth Girls’ High School. This union later transformed into Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union [Bulgarian Komsomol] 24. Right after that I was offered a memebership in the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) but I refused because I considered myself to be too young for this responsibility. I didn’t manage to become a member of the Party anyway but I was always very active in the organizations of the Fatherland Front 25 like my mother who was very active as well. She used to give lectures, took part in gathering aids and membership fees, we organized programs and celebrations.

After finishing my highschool education I decided to take the entrance exams for Sofia University 26, I wanted to study Russian Philology despite the fact that this was in contrast with my mother’s exopectations. She wanted me to study medicine. I have made my choice because of the memory I have retained of our meeting with the Soviet forces in Vidin during the internment. Something more, some of them stayed in uncle Izidor’s house and their presence was unforgettable for me. I remember that, being a fifteen-year-old girl at the time, I fancied one Russian soldier very much. He was tall, fair-haired, with blue eyes. His name was Mihail Sarancha. He had luminous eyes and there was this feeling of warmth about him. I remember asking my mom to let him stay for one night in our room in uncle Izidor’s house because he didn’t have where to sleep. Mum was against it at the beginning but I was begging her so persistently that in the end she gave in. On the next morning we found out that he had brought lice into the room. I was deeply moved by the spirit of selflessness of the Russian soldiers and their will to achieve victory.

During the four years of study and because of my membership in the Youth Union (UYW) I was chosen for a courier of the faculty. I was delivering the correspondence of the Youth Union, and then, you know, of the Komsomol, as we used to call it. I would invariably sit at the first desk and, as we didn’t have textbooks, I was taking notes in all subjects. Of course, I liked studying Russian most of all. I was better prepared than the rest of my colleagues because I had practised the language, of course not very correctly, with the Russian soldiers who were in Izidor Lidgi’s house, and because I had taken some private lessons when I prepared for the high school exams in Vidin, I also studied French at Sofia University, which I developed and perfected later in language courses.

My last academic year was over in 1950 and we were the first Russian Philology trainees in Bulgaria. After leaving university I had to find a job. And the first job in my life was as a teacher at the school of technology ‘ORT’ 27 – a Jewish school of technology. It used to be opposite the nowadays hospital of the Ministry of the Interior, in the building of the Jewish orphanage. There I taught Russian to all classes. The education in the school was five years. The purpose was to prepare the speacialists for the future work in Israel.. There were all kind of specialities with weak currents. Not only Jews studied in it but some Bulgarians as well. [‘ORT’ leave Bulgaria most probably in 1948 and they open a similar school in Israel. The first teachers were the ones who were teaching in Bulgaria. Until the present day in the office of the international ORT there is a carpet which was made by the students in Sofia. It is one of the best schools in Israel. The organization returned to Bulgraia a few years ago and is now working together with school No134. The official closing of the school took place in 1951. The school took part in two international exhibitions – in Switzerland and Great Britain – with the above-mentioned carpet.] One of my famous students was the singer Sabin Marcov, and professor Mento Menteshev, Aaron Abramovich and others, as well as the Bulgarians Lyubcho Mitsev and Mitko Gulubov. But the fact that I have finished my studies at university didn’t mean that I had graduated. For a year I was preparing for my last exams in Russian and Soviet Literature. And in 1951 I graduated, with excellent marks. Then the marking system was based on five grades and I had 5.54. But then the problem with finding a job appeared again. My mother had problems with her kidneys, she had acute pains in her kidneys. I started looking for a job. I was offered a place at the Air Force Headquarters. I took a difficult exam, passed it but I was told that there was a protégé of the general of the headquarter. They told me they were ready to give me references but that they couldn’t hire me. The shock was extremely strong. I started wondering what to do, I was twenty-one and applied for a job in ‘Himimport’ [a state company]. There was such an organization then – ‘Himimport’. At the oral interview they asked me whether I had any relatives in Israel. I, of cousre, didn’t have intentions to hide anything. I said, ‘Yes, my mother’s sisters.’ ‘Thank you, we will let you know.’ And I realized that this was the reason for rejecting my application at ‘Himimport’; instead of me they hired a woman from the whiteguards who even lived in my quarter. Then I met accidentally an acquaintance of mine, a colleague so to say. And she asked me ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m looking for a job.’ ‘They are looking for a translator at the Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies, go there. Tell them I have sent you.’. So I went there, introduced myself, showed them my excellent diploma. They asked me about what I could do and told me they would call me. And surprisingly, one morning, at seven o’clock, the doorbell rang. It was my colleague Todor Minchev with whom we had studied Russian Philology. I didn’t know he was working at the union. They asked him about me and told him to invite me to start work. And, on 26th July 1951, I started work as a translator at the Union of Bulgarian-Soviet Societies. I worked in the Cultural Relations Department where we translated current materials on the activities of the Union, apart from that we prepared materials for exhibitions, we carried out contacts with creative unions and once a year we accompanied Soviet delegations that came for the month of Bulgarian-Soviet friendship. When I worked for the Union of Bulgarian-Soviet Societies, I would accompany different delegations from the socialist countries. Once I had to accompany a Polish delegation. I listened to them talking to each other and understood most of the things they said. I decided to attend two-year courses so that I could learn and use the Polish language.

I worked for the Union of Bulgarian-Soviet Societies from 26th July 1951 until 1st September 1955. In August or at the end of July 1955 the then prime minister Vulko Chervenkov 28 took the decision to disband the Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies because, in his opinion, the movement had spread throughout Bulgaria and there was no need for a separate organization. And we were left to look for a job, wherever it was.

In August I entered a competition in the Bulgarian State Conservatory. I had found out about the competition from the ‘Vecherni Novini’ newspaper (Evening News). I decided to enter the competition without any experience with university teaching. The exam was rather complicated, there were twelve other applicants and as I was fluent with the language, came first in that competition and started work on 1st September 1955 as a teacher of Russian in the Conservatory. My work at the Conservatory made me delve into the musical terminology and I have never stopped expanding my knowledge in this sphere.

In 1961 while I was on holiday in Velingrad I met a woman from Spain. Her name was Reyes Bertal. In our conversation I used Ladino and she spoke in Spanish. We understood each other perfectly. I decided to expand my knowledge in Spanish with a language course at Allians. Until 1966 I was only teaching. We had long holidays so I decided to enrol a course for tourist guides. After completing it I decided to offer my services to the Concert Directorate [created in 1948 its name was changed several times. In 1949 its name was changed to Directorate for Musical, Creative and Performing Arts at the Committee for Science, Arts and Culture and in 1960 its name was changed to Bulgarian Concert Directorate. In 1969 it moved under the authority of Main Directorate Bulgarian Music.] as an accompanying interpreter. Because of my job I met a lot of guest-musicians and I traveled with them throughout the country. I became an assistant in most of the big international competitions and festivals like Sofia Musical Weeks, the Ballet Competition, The Competition for Young Opera Singers.

When I turned fifty-five, I was awarded the Golden Badge from the Musical Workers’ Union and when I turned seventy-five, I received the Golden Harp – an award from the same union. During my entire almost fifty-year work for the Musical Academy there were two cases that have insulted my Jewish self-awareness.

The first was in 1956 after one of the wars which started in Israel. I went to class… It was a habit of mine to talk to the students about some current event before starting the seminar because I wanted to make them say a few words in Russian about a certain piece of news and one of my students says, ‘I have always believed that the Jews are cowards.’ And I replied, ‘Are you aware that I am a Jew too?’ ‘Oh, no, I didn’t know that.’ But they managed to cope with the situation. And the second case was again because they didn’t know about my origins.

The second case: a student on another occasion threw in ‘But he is chifut 29.’ You can imagine how I feel when the word ‘chifut’ is being used as this word is associated with the most difficult years from the Holocaust and I say, ‘Do you know what this word means?’ ‘Well…no.’ ‘This is the most horrible word for a Jew, and I am Jewish.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ I informed the Party Secretary. She didn’t pay serious attention.

We didn’t keep strictly the Jewish traditional holidays. Usually on Pesach and Rosh Hashanah we used to convene in the house of aunt Rebeka and uncle Mois, but we continued to keep [Yom] Kippur – especially my mother, for her it was a law to keep it.

I have never questioned the existence of the state Israel but, on the other hand, I have never thought seriously about that because I knew that our kin were there and I could join them whenever I wanted to. I have never had any administrative problems in this respect. In general, I believe that the state Israel is necessary for our people who had suffered so much. I’ve been to Israel several times – I visited it in 1960, in 1993 and twice in 1996.

I’ll tell you a story – in 1967, for the first time I got the chance to visit my beloved, craved for Soviet Union - as a teacher of Russian for a qualification course. This coincided with the Six-Day-War 30, which started on 6th June 1967. I was in Moscow. A severe campaign against Israel started there. There started a TV program in which all the eminent actors, writers, artists were included and they had never even suspected they were Jewish, but there started a campaign against Israel, against the Jews. I called Sofia to ask what was going on, whether I needed to leave for Bulgaria right away. But mum told me ‘Don’t worry, here in Bulgaria there is nothing wrong.’ So I continued my stay in Moscow but there the reaction against Israel was appalling and then Bulgaria discontinued its cultural and its diplomatic relations with Israel 31. But we didn’t break our correspondence with our relatives and in 1961 my aunt Sarah Beniesh came to Sofia for the first time. We sent her a declaration to testify that she would stay with us but, due to change of circumstances, she was put up at uncle Mois Beniesh’s house. From the militia, they came to our home to ask why she wasn’t staying with us. Of course, I got a little scared, but I explained to them that my mother was on holiday; I couldn’t receive her so she had to go to my uncle’s. Everything that happened was closely monitored in that way.

I haven’t spent much time thinking about the political life and what was happening around us. I have always been leftist in my political convictions although I’ve never been a member of BCP, I actively participated in the Fatherland Front movement. My disappointments with the latter communist system appeared after 1989 because I found out a lot of things, which had been kept secret before that. During the coup d’etat on 10th November 1989 32, I was accompanying my mother to the polyclinic and while she was being examined I listened to the radio. At the moment when I heard ‘Todor Zhivkov is down!’ 33 I was so amazed that we started sayng together with doctors and my mother ‘Mama, Todor Zhivkov is down!’, which for me was a real… quite of a…, even a shock you may call it because we were used to his being at the head since 1956. My life after the changes wasn’t much different from a financial point of view because with my mother we owned that apartment in Mladost quarter, I went on working at the Academy but as a pensioner. I retired in 1989 but had regular classes even after that. My stress from the changes were of a different nature. I had regular classes, I went to the Academy, the students didn’t come, I went back home and started crying because for a person with so many years of experience not to have students… My mother tryed to console me, ‘Reny, child…’. This is what she called me usually…’We will live on our two pensions’. My answer was, ‘Mama, it’s not about the money. I suffer because of that morality, that they associated politics with the language. And one of my best students told me, ‘Comrade Lidgi, it’s not because of you but because of the language.’

And there started this succession of events. Firstly, the students refused to, they didn’t attend the classes in Russian due to the common desire for a new order and new democracy after the coup of 10th November 1989. Secondly, my mother’s worsened condition which led to a operation and her death… And I can tell you that I would never forget one day when I was supposed to stay beside my mother’s bed and look after her but I had to go to the Conservatory. It was right after 10th November 1989. At that time the desire for a new order and freedom led to all kind of situations, especially among the young people. I had to take something from my cabinet in the Conservatory. A group of students met me at the door, ‘Where are you going?’. I said, ‘I need to take something from my cabinet, something…’ ‘You can’t do that, you don’t have the right.’ I said, ‘Who is in charge of you?’ ‘We have a commandant but he went to a happening.’ I said ‘Will anyone of you accompany me upstairs because I need to take something from it.’ It was a shock for me because the students turned against their teachers.

I started participating in activities in the Jewish organization at some time in the spring of 1990. Stella Ilel, who chaired WIZO 34, invited me to the Jewish organization. I first became a member of WIZO, the women’s organization, and after that I was drawn into the town union. I started to contribute regularly to ‘Evreiski Vesti’ (Jewish News) [This is the only Jewish newspaper in Bulgaria which has existed for seventy years.] And when my mother died it seems to me that this organization gave me moral stability, the stability to know I have where to communicate because my mother’s death was a great stress to me. There was another fateful event. On 7th November 2000 I survived a car accident. I woke up in Pirogov Hospital. Later it turned out that I had a concussion, my two legs were broken and my pelvis was cracked. My body was a ruin to put it in a few words. My friends from club ‘Health’ at the Jewish Center [Bet Am] immediately took matters in hand. Sofka Danon and Morits Assa asked from the administration and Robert Dzherasi that, after being discharged from hospital, I should be put up for some time at the Home of the Parent, until I recover. The rehabilitation, the people who looked after me so much, helped me recover to a much bigger degree. In fact, my comparatively quick recovery was due to my physical preparation at club ‘Health’ before that because I acquired the things shown to me by the rehabilitator very quickly. It seems to me that I wouldn’t have recovered at all if it wasn’t for the Home of the Parent. Even now I am a member of Club ‘Health’. Sometimes I show the exercises. I go there every Monday and Wednesday. Every Tuesday afternoon I go to club ‘Ladino’. Every Thursday I go to a philharmonic concert – I have a subscription. Every Saturday afternoon I am in the ‘Golden Age’ club. On Sunday my friend David Kohen and I usually take a walk to Pancharevo. Once a week I find the time to visit my aunt Rebeka. I keep in touch with Sarah Meyuhas’s family in Israel. We talk on the phone. I am in a correspondence with a first cousin of my friend Viska Lazarova – Violeta Mendel. I also write to Florentina Presenti who lives in Canada. I have an active life. And I am very happy to have joined the Jewish organization.

Translated by Dimka Stoeva

Glossary

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov

Date of interview: June 2005 

Nissim Kohen views himself as a typical representative of the Jews from Iuchbunar   1. He spent his childhood and adolescent years there, surrounded by large families of relatives. He feels responsible to tell the events from his life precisely and in detail. He lives in a cozy, modern flat in a block, which was built on the site of the house he was born.

I am convinced that my ancestors came from Spain 2. I suppose that at first they settled on the territory of former Yugoslavia and later they came to Bulgaria. I do not have any concrete information on that, these are my conclusions. Unfortunately, there is no one to ask about that now.

I suppose my paternal grandparents Nissim and Amada Kohen were born in Sofia. It is interesting that they were first cousins. That was allowed by the Jewish tradition. They lived in the Jewish neighborhood in Sofia – Iuchbunar. Most of the Jews lived there. I also come from Iuchbunar.

My grandfather's house was on 12 Slivnitsa Street. Later the street was renamed to 7 Gyueshevo Street. Our house was made of adobe and at first it had only one room and an entrance hall. Later another room was added as well as another extension, which was the house of my uncle Rafael Kohen. My father's elder brother Eliya Kohen also lived in that yard. His house was the most solid one. My father Mihael Kohen took a half of one of my grandfather's rooms and enlarged it. He also built another room with a small entrance hall where he lived with his family. There were some inconveniences. The toilets were outside and we had no running water inside. There was a tap on the street, which we used. We had electricity. Later we had running water in the yard, but not in the house. The street, on which we lived, became all muddy when it rained. And so did most of the streets in the Jewish neighborhood.

My grandfather was a leather worker. He had a small workshop in the center. He made shoes of calf and horse hide called 'opintsi'. Those shoes were low and shallow. They were closed and were made of processed or unprocessed leather. They were pointed, the color of the leather and had shoelaces. Our grandfather's kin was called 'los konyos'. This is a combination of Bulgarian and Ladino 3. It means 'people who work with horses'. My grandfather and uncle Eliyah bought horse hide, tanned it and sold it. That's how their nickname appeared. My grandfather had a small beard and he wore a hat. He was fair-haired and a little stooped. He was a wise man and his word was respected in the family. We spoke to him in Ladino. My grandmother was always ill and rarely went out of the house. Sometimes she stood on the doorway in the yard or in front of the house. She was a wise woman with a very good memory. She knew a lot about many people, although she stayed mostly at home. My parents looked after my grandparents. My mother did all the housework.

My father had three brothers – Eliyah, Rafael and Azarya Kohen. The eldest one, Eliyah Kohen, was a cobbler. The next one, Rafael Kohen had a workshop for mending shoes in the center of the town. He took to drinking and lived very miserably. Before going home, he would stop in a pub and since he was in much debt, he had to get home using less traveled roads so that he would not meet any of the people whom he owed money.

Later he moved his workshop in our house. The third brother of my father Azarya worked as an adolescent for the Arie family 4 in Samokov 5. That was a rich family, whose house is now a museum. The Arie were in the leather and the banking business. My uncle was a leather worker. He worked for free, because my grandfather had taken money from them to build his house. There my uncle learned the craft and decided to start a leather business by himself. He also lived in the Jewish neighborhood on Shar Planina Street and Tri Ushi Street. I had a lot of cousins in Sofia. There were nine children in the families of my uncles who lived in our yard. Uncle Eliyah had four children – Mindusha, Moshe, Sofka and Hemda, and uncle Rafael – five – Buka, Simanto, Nissim, Elazar and Milka. Uncle Rafael married Buka-Miriam (nee Toledo) who was from Provadia 6. Uncle Azarya had a girl – Hemda, who lived and died in Sofia. His wife's name was Buka, nee Konfino and was born in Shumen 7. My father Mihael Kohen tried many things in life. He spent eight years in captivity during World War I 8. He was held captive by the French army near Salonika (Greece) as a soldier from the Bulgarian army. After that he worked as a tinsman. He took part in the construction of the roof of the first building of the Sofia University 9. He traded with second-hand products. Later, together with an uncle of my mother's Chelebi Haravon, and with the active help of my uncle Mois Haravon, he managed to set up a haberdashery on Lomska Street [present-day George Washington Street, near the central Sofia synagogue], but those were the years of the great crisis 10 in 1929-1932 and he was forced to close it down. Then he started work as a street vendor and walked around the neighborhood with a tray selling elastic cords, tights and haberdashery. Then he made a warehouse selling coal near our house. At that time people could not afford to buy a lot of coal and came to buy 5-10 kilos. In this way my father was able to support us and helped the people in the neighborhood. That continued until the passing of the anti-Jewish laws 11 when he was forbidden to work.

My mother's kin comes from Kyustendil. My mother's parents Yuda and Bohora Haravon lived there. I went there every summer when I was a student in the first grades of the Jewish school. My grandfather was a tinsman and my grandmother – a housewife. My mother's kin is very large. She had six brothers – Yosif, Rahamim, Shimon, Nissim, Chelebi and Mois Kohen. What is interesting about them is that my grandmother's parents left as early as the beginning of the 20th century, around 1906-1907 to the blessed land (Palestine at that time) to die there. They left their lands, their children and set off. My mother Sarina Kohen was 8-9 years old then. As far as I know my grandparents have graves in Jerusalem.

There were a lot of Jews in Kyustendil. They had their own synagogue and a community house. My grandparents lived in the Jewish neighborhood, which was around the synagogue. I remember that they lived in a small house, which had a ground floor and another floor. A relative of my grandfather's lived on the ground floor. His name was Manoah, and on the next floor lived my grandfather's family and my uncle Isak Haravon.

My maternal grandfather had two sisters Reyna Elazar and Sara Elazar, who had many children. They both adopted the family name Elazar after they married, but I do not remember if their husbands were relatives. Both sisters were very different. Sara was more talkative and funny and the other one was stricter and more aristocratic. My grandfather was the eldest. He was a silent, but a pleasant man.

My mother had four brothers – Buko-Aron, Chelebi, Mois and Isak Haravon and two sisters – Sofi Haravon and Victoria Eshkenazi. The eldest one, Buko-Aron Haravon was a shoe merchant. He lived in Sofia and died in 1951. His wife is from Sofia and her name is Matilda. They had two daughters – Liza and Bienvenida, who was killed in 1944 as a partisan. Chelebi Haravon was a tinsman and sold coal. He moved to Sofia, where he opened a warehouse for combustibles. His wife was born in Sofia and her name was Buka. He died from apendicitis in February 1938. They had three children – Leon Haravon, who was killed as a partisan, Sofi Mayer, who left illegally for Palestine in 1945 and Nissim Haravon, who died in Israel. He was a composer. Mois Haravon was also a merchant. He went to Sofia when he was young. In 1930 he married his wife Roza Katalan, who is from Sofia. They left for Israel during the big aliyah 12. They have two sons – Leon and Gavriel, who live in Israel. My mother's youngest brother Isak Haravon, was an electrical technician. He lived mostly in Kyustendil. He was a fan of Tolstoy 13 as regards moral and character. He did not drink and he was a vegetarian. His wife's name was Matilda, nee Benaroya, and she was born in Berkovitsa. They left for Israel. They have two children – Ida Levi, who was a housewife and Yeuda Haravon, who worked as an electrical engineer. Isak Haravon and his family lived in Ramat-Gan. One of my mother's sisters Sofi died very young while giving birth. About her I only know that she married a Jew from Botevgrad [a town in northwestern Bulgaria]. My mother's other sister Victoria Eshkenazi, married in Sofia. Her husband's name is Gershon Eshkenazi and he was born in Ruse. She was a housewife and her husband worked in the enamel factory [factory, producing dishes for Sofia]. They moved to Israel and she died there. She did not have any children.

My parents met in an interesting way. During World War I or probably at the end of the war, my uncle Azarya Koen was injured and was sent to the family of my mother in Kyustendil to be looked after. There he decided that my mother would be the perfect for wife for his brother, my father. After the war ended and my father returned from captivity, his brother Azarya told him that he had found a very nice girl from Kyustendil for him. My father retorted that he did not need a wife and Azarya should marry her if he liked her so much. But his brother was already married. There were other attempts to bring them together at that time. But in the end, they met by accident when my mother came from Kyustendil to visit her brother Buko Haravon. Later it turned out that she was the girl that uncle Azarya was talking about to my father. They liked each other and got married. Their wedding was in 1922 in Sofia. In my family my mother did all the housework and she helped my father who had a warehouse for coal near our house.

My mother had graduated primary school and started studying in a vocational school, which she did not finish due to lack of money. She kept her notebooks from the vocational school for many years. They contained sewing designs, which can be drawn only by a professional designer nowadays. My mother had a hard life. She had two more boys after me, but they died. My first brother Leon was born in 1927 but he died of diphtheria in 1933. In 1929 my second brother Albert was born. He died in 1934.

My mother got seriously sick of typhus. At that time Leon, my younger brother, and I were sent to my grandmother's house in Kyustendil and my father took care of my mother at home. When she was pregnant with my sister in 1937, my mother had a serious appendicitis crisis. A surgeon from the Jewish hospital in Sofia 14 came and ordered them to transport her to Sofia for an operation. My father made a stretcher out of blankets and with the help of the neighbors we transported her to the hospital, where she underwent an operation. Some months later my sister Sofi was born. In the beginning of 1938 a lot of people close to my mother died – firstly, her brother Chelebi and then her mother, who had come for the funeral of her son. Then in the summer of the same year her father died. The same year, 1938, I got very sick of acute typhus and was admitted to hospital. While I was in the hospital, there were the so called 'blockades'. Streets were blocked by soldiers and no one was allowed to go out. Those blockades were set up when governments were replaced and when there were serious changes in the power structures. They lasted for a couple of days. Blockades were also set up when illegal people were searched for. I do not remember the reason for the blockades when I was in hospital. Then my mother stood up to the soldiers and wanted to come and see me in the hospital but she was not allowed.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning my parents and especially my mother went to the synagogue. There was a midrash near us. [Editor’s note: There is no exact data on the number of midrash in Sofia. That midrash must be the Iuchbunar synagogue where rabbi Daniel Zion organized meetings.] My mother went to the meetings organized by the rabbi Daniel Zion 15 who had a very high reputation, encouraged charity and taught the Talmud.

My mother was clever and hard-working. She read books in Ladino. I think she got the books from acquaintances. At home we had Bulgarian literature, which we took from the community houses. There was a Jewish community house on Klementina Boulevard [present-day Stamboliiski Blvd] and on Lege Str. I also took books from the Bulgarian community house on the corner of Tsar Simeon Str. and Bregalnitsa Str. Its name was 'Hristo Botev'. Thanks to my mother I learned to read a little in Ladino in Rashi. She had a beautiful handwriting and expressed herself very well. Her Bulgarian was also very good. Uncle Mois Haravon also expressed himself very well. He wrote to us very good letters in Bulgarian from Israel.

Our neighbors in Sofia were mostly Jewish families. On our street 'Gyueshevo' there were Bulgarian families too. Most of the people were traveling salesmen and Bulgarian families. There were a number of grocery stores, some barber shops, cafes and pubs. Iuchbunar was like a hotel for many people. They came here only to spend the night and spent all the day working as salesmen, or workers in factories and tobacco warehouses. Almost none of the Jews in Iuchbunar worked as clerks on a state or municipal position. I do not remember knowing such Jews, except for a cousin of my father's who became a director in the Bulgarian Post. I started work as an electrical technician, but after an illness I experienced, I started work in a trade company. After the adoption of the anti-Jewish laws I went to work in the enamel factory producing dishes.

My father and his brothers were not members of any Zionist organizations but they had their political affiliations. My father voted for the left political formations – mostly for the socialists. I know that at some time the famous general Lazarov ran for a deputy. During the Balkan war and World War I the general was a commander of a regiment including many Jews. They worshiped him and he expected to receive wide support from the Jewish neighborhood. My father always spoke about him with pleasure and love. But the general did not manage to gather enough votes.

The Jewish rites were strictly observed. We did not mix milk and meat meals. At home we had separate cutlery for meat and for milk. We also had separate dishes for Pesach. Before the holiday we cleaned the house thoroughly and whitewashed the walls. The children received presents. Presents were also made on Purim and Rosh Hashanah. On Yom Ashekel there were marches and money was raised for the Jewish National Fund. On that day all Jewish organizations gathered on the streets around the Jewish school in Iuchbunar. I remember that there were arguments whose flags to be first during the march. It started from the Iuchbunar school, passed along Klementina Str and reached the center somewhere around Lege Str. All members of Jewish organizations were dressed in the respective uniforms. They sang songs in Ivrit and Maccabi had a brass orchestra and drums. A lot of Jews took part. One street was not enough for us all. After the march the children went to play sports games in the yard of the Jewish school and the adults went to a meeting in the Jewish People's Home. The Jewish National Fund was a structure of the World Zionist Organization of Chaim Weizmann, Max Nordau etc. In August 1937 I had my bar mitzvah. I made a promise with a speech towards my parents. While the other children had the speech made by a chazzan or a rabbi, my speech was written in Bulgarian by the Ivrit teacher in the Jewish school Mr. Benmair. The bar mitzvah was done at my uncle Azarya's place. A lot of guests with many presents came. My grandfather was still alive and was also present.

When my grandfather was still alive, on Pesach we gathered in his room together with my father's four brothers and their families. The table was long. On one of its sides there was a minder (a low and long bench) and on the other side there were chairs. 20 people could sit on that table. In the middle of the table we placed the three boyos [special unleavened bread without salt] and a plate with seven meals and the so-called ‘charoset’ [mixture of nuts, fruit, wine and other ingredients for the Pesach ritual, which represents the mortar used while in slavery in Egypt], which was made of apples, honey, walnuts and maybe dates. At first, we performed the ritual of washing the hands. The women presented a basin to my grandfather and to us all to wash our hands. Then we drank a glass of wine. My grandfather drank a little wine and read the prayer. We accompanied him. One of the boyos was broken in half and put in a towel, which the children carried on their backs to show that they were leaving to Israel. The food was festive. There was usually soup of matzah and boiled hen. The matzah was dipped in egg and placed in the soup to boil for a while. Another typical dish on that day was leaks balls.

In Sofia, especially for Pesach, one or two bakeries were hired and after they were meticulously cleaned, they were used to make matzah and boyos. Boyo was different from matzah. While matzah had a tiny crumb, boyo is round and looks like a thick bun. It does not rise, because it does not have yeast. There was a period, when only matzah was made in the bakeries and my mother tried to make boyos at home. Boyos were very hard and we called them 'brick'. What was left from the boyos after Pesach was used as rusk. It was delicious dipped in tea or eaten with cheese.

Hens were bought alive from the market and brought to the shochet to be slaughtered. There were two places where hens were taken. The first one was at the central synagogue and the other one – at the Iuchbunar synagogue. Later, after 9th September, when there was no longer a schochet, my parents asked a neighbor to slaughter the hen. Another typical dish for Pesach was burmolikos 16, which were made of matzah and eggs. They were sweet or salty. At home the sweet ones were dipped in sugar syrup or covered with powdered sugar. It was usual for Pesach to put lettuce on the table. We ate matzah or boyo for eight days.

On Purim the Jewish school organized a fancy dress ball. The Jewish school had a very good choir led and conducted by Mr. Aladgem. The famous opera singer Mati Pinkas started from this choir. I remember a school celebration of Tu bi-Shevat. The whole school gathered in the gym together with the children's parents. There were a lot of songs, the tables were covered with fruit, there were many people.

The so-called 'buying off' was typical for Jewish families. If a large family had only one boy and a lot of girls or vice versa, the boy could be bought by one of the relatives. That is 'el mercado' in Ladino, meaning 'bought'. That was done to save the life of the only one. The relatives who had bought the child, received presents on Purim. A nice tray with a small present was prepared – some sweets or masapan and it was presented to the one who had 'bought' you. And that person bought shoes and clothes for the child. I was bought by a relative – Hemda Kohen, who is daughter of uncle Azarya Kohen, and my mother had 'bought' a neighbor on our street.

There was a tradition among Jews, similar to fooling fate. When there was someone seriously sick, the chazzan went to him and if his name had been Avram, he received a new name, for example Nissim. The reason for the new name was that if the man was sentenced to death as Avram in the 'list', he would be saved with his new name. And sometimes it worked. An aunt of mine, wife of my uncle Buko Haravon, Matilda Haravon, had her name changed. Nevertheless, she did not recover, and died soon after that.

Jewish traditions were strictly observed in our family. On Sabbath my father did not go to work. My mother did not light a fire and prepared the meals on Thursday or Friday. According to the Jewish tradition you are not allowed to work and should not allow your cattle or your slave to work on Sabbath. Sabbath is for all. In the winter when it was very cold my mother cleaned the stove and filled it with coal. Then she asked a neighbor who was not a Jew or a passer-by to come and light the fire.

On Pesach we played with walnuts. The girls arranged two or three heaps of walnuts and aimed at them from a distance. They won the heap that they managed to hit. The boys also played a game with walnuts. We made a small hole in the ground next to a wall and we threw walnuts in the hole. The walnuts which landed in the hole were won by the boy throwing them. There was one more game with walnuts. Every boy received two-three walnuts. They formed a line and tried to hit other walnuts placed on the ground with theirs. If they managed to hit a walnut, they won it.

At home we never ate on [Yom] Kippur. While I was a child, that rule was more strictly observed. When I grew up and started learning things, it was not so strict. We had a saying that 'the Jewish child becomes worse when growing up'. On [Yom] Kippur we went to the Borisova Garden where we rowed boats. Mati Pinkas sang a very nice song 'Oh, Jerusalem nights' in the evenings there. During the day on [Yom] Kippur the children took a quince, sprinkled it with clove and smelled it all the time not to feel hungry.

On Purim children put on fancy dress clothes and went from house to house. They sang songs, told poems and received money. We used what we could to make masks. Some children turned the inside of their coats out, others wore their pajamas. There was a song sung in Ladino 'Last night I ate cheese pastry and my tooth fell. Give me money, to fix my tooth.' That was a joke song.

We celebrated Chanukkah. We did not have candlesticks. Then we used float lights. In a glass bowl filled with oil, we placed paper with a small hole in the middle. We pushed a wick made of cotton through the hole. One of the cotton ends was in the oil and the other end was lit. We made ten such bowls. Every day we lit one of them. We made the candles for Sabbath in the same way.

There were around 10 praying homes in Sofia. There were societies, which took care of the funerals. [In the 1930s there were a lot of Jewish charity societies such as 'Kupat Tsedaka and Bikur Holim', 'Moasim Tovili', 'Malbish Arumim'. There were also religious and funeral ones – 'Chevra Kaddisha', 'Oavim and Orhot Haim'.] They were at a synagogue which was on Bregalnitsa Str. There were the so-called midrashi next to our house. They were small praying homes for around 30-40 people. My father visited such a praying home on Odrin Str.

There were two Jewish schools in Sofia. One of them was in Iuchbunar on Bregalnitsa Str. and Pozitano Str and the other was in the center of the town. There was a synagogue next to the Jewish school in Iuchbunar. For a time while we were students, we went to the synagogue in the neighborhood on Saturdays to pray. The adults went from 9 to 10 am and we went after them. We were in junior high school then and prayed separately from the adults.

I studied in the Iuchbunar school. I also went to nursery school. We started studying Ivrit in the nursery school. We learned songs and fairy tales in Ivrit. In the first grade we had a teacher who taught us reading, writing and maths in Ivrit. We also studied Bulgarian. Until the fourth primary grade we studied all subjects, such as reading, writing, botanics, mathematics etc. in Ivrit. We studied in the mornings and the afternoons. The classes were mixed. Our classes were from 8 to 12 and from 14 to 17. We also had physical education. After the fourth primary grade, in the junior high school grades, all subjects, except the Jewish ones, were in Bulgarian. The Jewish subjects were learning the Torah, Jewish history and Jewish literature. We had both Bulgarian and Jewish teachers. We also had teachers from abroad. Those who taught Ivrit were mostly from Poland and Russia. Our teachers were very good, but they were not well paid. I remember that they were on strike once for not receiving their salaries. The salaries were provided by the Jewish municipality.

From first to fourth grade our Ivrit teacher was Ashrieli and our maths teacher – David Pilosof. Then, in the higher grades I remember Mr. Dembovich, teaching Ivrit, Torah and Jewish history, Benmair – in literature and grammar, Mr. Temkin – in Torah and Jewish history. Mr. Temkin also taught in the central Jewish school.

Jewish schools were the so-called 'private schools' and that is why after the third junior high school grade [present-day seventh grade] we had to sit for an exam in front of a commission formed by the Education Ministry. For a couple of months we had to revise and learn well everything we had learned in Ivrit from first to fourth primary grade so that we would be able to talk about it in Bulgarian in front of the commission. We were very well prepared in Bulgarian language and in maths. In our class 19 of the 30 students received excellent marks. I remember that even the newspapers wrote about our success. It was thanks to our teachers and to the fact that there was a natural selection among the students through the years. What was typical about Jewish schools was that in the first grade we were three or four classes and until the last junior high school grade only one remained. There were many reasons for that. Firstly, it was hard to study in the Jewish school because of the language. Secondly, education was all the day. All the other schools studied until one o'clock in the afternoon but we studied in the mornings and in the afternoons. Thirdly, many of the people in the Jewish neighborhood were poor and wanted their children to start working from an early age in order to help the family. So, some of them were sent to Bulgarian schools, and others were sent to work.

The Jewish school was between Osogovo Str, Bregalnitsa Str and Pozitano Str. There was a synagogue complex on a part of Pozitano Str. There were two yards. The Jewish school had two buildings – a new one and an old one. The nursery school, first and second primary grade were in the new one and the other classes were in the old one. The new building was opened in my time – approximately around 1930. I was among the first students who entered it. What was typical for the times was that the children living in the center of Sofia near Hristo Botev Blvd studied in the central Jewish school. The other children studied in the Iuchbunar school. The classes consisted of 35 to 37 children. But gradually that changed and children from Iuchbunar went to study in the central school, because the number of children there was declining. Some of my classmates had to move to the central school in the last grades. There were three classes in the nursery school, and there were 35 – 40 children in each one. There were at least three classes in the first grade. The number of students in the classes declined throughout the years and in the last junior high school grade there was only one class of 35 students.

A lot of the subjects in junior high school [three grades after the four primary grades] were in Bulgarian. Zoology, anthropology, physics, chemistry and maths were in Bulgarian and Jewish literature, Jewish history and the Torah were in Ivrit. We graduated junior high school in third grade, which is equivalent to present-day seventh grade. We had various teachers. Most of them were very talented. Our music teacher Aladgem later became famous as the conductor of the Army orchestra. He did his military service in the King's Symphony Orchestra and in the school he was replaced by the artist Yosif Yosifov, who also became famous later on. We had very good teachers. We had a maths teacher Nikola Shopov. Unfortunately, he did not teach me, but everyone spoke about him with veneration and they said that after he died, his brain would be given to research because he was extremely clever.

We had a lot of fun at school. Once a rabbi from Serbia came and wanted to organize a choir at the synagogue. But he did not know Ivrit. We were already members of Zionist organizations and we tried to talk in Ivrit. That man got into very funny situations with his bad Ivrit. Instead of asking us 'Are you in the choir?', he would ask 'Are you in a hole'. In Ivrit 'choir' means 'a hole'.

I learned Ivrit at school. We studied the Torah, Jewish literature and history. We were obliged, but also willing to talk in Ivrit. My parents knew only a few words in Ivrit. My mother knew more than my father because she had studied four grades in the Jewish school. She could read in Ladino in Rashi. She read books in Ladino.

I graduated high school in 1938. In 1937 the son of King Boris III 17 was born – Simeon II 18 and then all our marks at school were raised one point. No one was expelled for bad marks. There were also students who received the mark of 7 [6 is the highest mark in Bulgarian schools.]

The Jewish school was the focus point of all Zionist organizations. Those were Hashomer Hatzair 19, Betar 20 and Maccabi 21. Other organizations such as Akiva and Akara gathered in the Jewish People's Home. I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair. All organizations educated their members during meetings, marches, gymnastic exercises. In Hashomer Hatzair they focused on scouts education, cultural activities and preparation for leaving to Israel as pioneers in the new country. In Maccabi they focused on exercise and Betar – on military discipline. There were neverending disputes between the members of these organizations.

Before Hashomer Hatzair I was a member of Maccabi, when I was a student in third or fourth primary grade. Soon after that our whole group transferred to Hashomer Hatzair. We were there until 1941 when Jewish organizations were disbanded and then I became a member of the UYW 22. Hashomer Hatzair was a left scout’s organization. It was an educational organization characterized by a love of nature and freedom. Once or twice every week there were meetings of the boys' groups, the girls' groups and the mixed groups. There was a group uniting the members at a certain level of development. That level was defined by age – children, students and adults. During the meetings we discussed books and exchanged information on many topics. We discussed a famous book at the times 'Discussions with a philosophy teacher' by Trachtenberg. That is a German author, whose book was on Marxism. The discussions were in Bulgarian. We played Kuntsovi games – in quickness of wit and guessing. [Interviewer’s note: He says that they called the games 'kuntsovi'. He cannot explain the name. Would that be 'kunst' games? I suppose it might come from German – kunst meaning art in German. Also, there are some tests and theories in psychology – it might be one of them.] For example, we had to guess the object by its smell or its sound – for example, whose watch was ticking. We also played games in nature – searching for tracks and uncovering hidden objects. In the summer mountain camps were organized, the so-called 'mashabot', I went to Tsigov Chark area in the Rhodope Mountains. The Hashomer Hatzair members had a uniform. It was with a different tie depending on the level of development. The green tie was for the children, the blue one – for the adolescents and the black one for the adults. Each group had its flag. The organization in Maccabi was similar. But they put more focus on exercise. Their uniforms consisted of white blouses and black trousers. Betar and Hashomer Hatzair had different views on what kind of state Israel should be. We advocated for a mixed binational state, cultivation of the land, development of agriculture, while they advocated winning the land with a weapon in hand. They sang a song about the Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River.

Hashomer Hatzair considered itself a more leftist, younger-oriented and more vigorous organization than the others. The meetings took place in the building of the Jewish school after classes. There we also played people's ball and volleyball. It was a leftist organization and that is why it was close in ideas to the UYW. That is why, sometimes the Jewish municipality did not allow Hashomer Hatzair to stay in the yard of the school. Then we met in some park – usually the town's park. Later, around 1938 the organization opened its own club on Klementina Str (present-day Stamboliiski Blvd) at the streets Osogovo and Stara Planina. Now that location is changed and the old buildings do not exist any more.

Political issues were seriously discussed in Hashomer Hatszair. There was the so-called 'Court of War'. That was in the beginning of 1939. Each of us took the position of a certain party in a conflict, which was controversial at the time and we discussed the issues of war and peace. I represented China, others represented Germany or Russia, England, France. Everything was like a game. We invited all members of the organization and we sat on a table in front of them as judges, prosecutors and defenders. The idea was to defend peace and condemn war.

In Hashomer Hatzair we raised money for the Jewish National Fund 23. There were different ways to raise money. One of the ways was on Purim, another – in the synagogue during a wedding. A third one was on Yom Ashekel. On Purim a group of people went from house to house of Jewish families with blue and white money boxes to ask for donations, with which the Jewish National Fund bought land. Most of the people in Iuchbunar were not rich. We did not know where to go and knocked on three or four doors. It was harder with the blocks of flats outside Iuchbunar. But we looked at the family names on the doors and knocked only on those with Jewish names. In this way, we raised a little money. There were also funny moments. We made jokes with the expression 'The missis said she was not at home' – that is, there were cases when a maid opened the door, went to announce who was at the door and what we wanted and then returned to say that the missis was not at home.

Another way of raising money was at weddings. We usually placed a box labelled 'Keren Kayemet le Israel' (Jewish National Fund) at the entrance of the synagogue. So, everyone passing by, could throw something in the box. And the third way was on Yom Ashekel. That is the day, which was close to our holiday Lag ba-Omer. On that day Zionist organizations organized marches. Young and old gathered at the Jewish school, formed lines and started marching towards the center. I do not remember any special reaction of the society to our marches. On that day the children carrying money boxes raised money for the purchase of land.

In Hashomer Hatzair we prepared ourselves to become pioneers and leave for Palestine. With the announcement of World War II, the chances of leaving decreased. That is why, we, the members of Hashomer Hatzair, in our desire to fight fascism became close with UYW and many of us joined UYW. That merge happened in June – July 1941 when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The UYW were organized by the community houses in the neighborhoods. Our meetings also took place there. The structure was the following: there was a neighborhood leadership, below it a section leadership and below it UYW groups working in a specific sector. I was working in the crafts school in Sofia. The goal was to establish UYW groups there through meetings and propaganda. The meetings were done at houses, during an excursion or in a park. My parents knew about my activities, because some illegal UYW friends spent the night at home. My parents were sympathetic to us.

It was typical for Jews in Iuchbunar to say that their education ended after junior high school. In Ladino that was the expression 'skapado di shkola'. We had to look for work and we went from shop to shop and workshop to workshop to ask if they needed apprentices or workers. I started work as an electrical engineer for some Bulgarians. I installed chandeliers. I also went to electrical technical courses organized by the organization for professional development of Jews 'Ort' 24. That was from September 1938 until January – February 1939. Then I got sick of typhus and could not continue. Later, in 1942, I started work in a trade company. The anti-Jewish laws were adopted then and its owner, who was a Jew, had to close it down. Then I started work in the enamel factory. Its owner was Valentin Velyaots. The owner's wife was a Jew and he also had progressive [i.e. leftist] ideas. I did not have any problems with him for being a Jew. He also had an employee of Russian origin, who was the main decorator and did not like Jews. I also worked as a plumber – I helped a friend for 15 – 20 days, but we did not receive any money. Later I started working for a man named Nikolov, who produced metal boxes for cosmetic creams and tins. We worked very well together, but unfortunately, while working with the metal press I cut a part of my finger. That was the end of my work in that company. It also coincided with the worsening of the situation of Jews in 1943 when the internment started 25.

We were forced to wear badges [yellow stars] 26 soon after the adoption of the Law for Protection of the Nation. Then the troubles for the Jews started. Labor camps 27 and many limitations were set up. They placed boards on the companies, shops and houses of Jews as well as boards 'made by Jews'. We, for example, had a board 'Jewish house'. I could work but only during the day, because we were not allowed to go out after 6 pm. As for the general attitude of the Bulgarians towards the Jews I could say that there were nice and malicious people. Yet, most of the people sympathized with us. In our neighborhood a couple of demonstrations against the anti-Jewish laws took place. I took part in one of them and in the famous demonstration on 24th May 1943 28. I can say that the Bulgarians in our neighborhood defended us.

There are some things in history, about which it is difficult to say if they are true or not. Let's take for example the demonstration on 24th May 1943 – who organized it and who made it. It seems that there is more than one truth. I put aside the attempts to cover up the truth, to deny or extol the moment. In the end everyone has their own point of view and a moment they remember or have forgotten. What I saw was the following. When the message that the internment will start appeared, discontent rose among the Jews as well as calls for protest. On 24th May 1943 leaders of the Jewish community such as rabbi Daniel Zion and colonel Tadjer and some other representatives of the consistory tried to meet with the king and negotiate the cancellation of the internment. I think that while waiting for them to return and see what had happened, people started to gather in the synagogue in Iuchbunar. My friends, who were UYW members, played football in a nearby playground. I stayed with them for a while and when I was leaving I noticed that many people were gathering around the synagogue. I went back and told my friends that there were many people in front of the synagogue. We also went there. Someone shouted 'let's go forward' and we all started our demonstration along Osogovo Str and then Klementina Str carrying the Bulgarian flag in front of us. In my opinion that demonstration happened accidentally, but meanwhile there are people whom I trust and who say that the previous evening, on 23rd May, they were visited by communists who agitated them to take part in the protest.

I think the demonstration continued until Sredna Gora Str and Strandja Str. There were police cars there, who dispersed the people. A friend of mine and I took Strandja Str in the direction of the Central Station, we went round the neighborhood and went home without any problems. Throughout the day and the next day people were arrested. The rabbi Daniel Zion was sent to the prisoners' camp in Somovit.

Shortly before the internment some of my Bulgarian colleagues from the metal can factory came to see me. That was a while after I cut my finger. Later, a little after 9th September 1944 29 one of my colleagues from the same workplace came to see me. He said that a neighbor of his had taken our family chest, which we had left at home during the internment. We wrote a request to the police and managed to get it back. It is still with us and now it is in my daughter's flat. So, my colleagues and my acquaintances, who were Bulgarians were kind towards us.

Before the internment, but after we already knew that we had to leave our houses, the Jews from Iuchbunar tried to sell their belongings and something like a market was formed in the neighborhood. Everything was sold almost for free. Two women came to us and wanted to buy our wardrobe. They were very sympathetic and gave us their address so that when we came back, we could go and take our wardrobe back. But later we did not go to look for it.

My whole family – my parents, my sister and I, were interned to Dupnitsa. We had a manual sewing machine and my mother insisted to take it with us. My mother had made separate bags for everyone because we did not know what might happen – whether we would be together or not. Every family received an individual notice about the internment.

We travelled to Dupnitsa by train. A cordon of police, spread out up to the center of the town, met us at the station. My mother had a cousin there – Mati Shekerdjiiska. She lived in the center and had two rooms. Her family had four members. We stayed at her place from the first night. We were very thankful for her hospitality. There were limits imposed on our movement around the town and the places, where we could shop. There was a special Jewish bakery, which was the only place we were allowed to buy bread. Its bread was much worse than the one in the other places. Some people sympathized with us, others harassed us. There was a group of young men who chased us and beat us. I do not know if they were Branniks 30, they were more of vagabonds to me.

It was quite crowded in our house and we had to move to another flat near the Jewish neighborhood. As for work, we did all kind of work we could find. For example, we took part in the renovation of the high school, and in the construction of the water conduit in the town. I also worked in a brigade at the station. There were many warehouses in the station and a group of 7-8 people loaded and unloaded the wagons. They invited us to join them and took care of us. They had a lot of work they could not get done alone and what they couldn't, they passed to us, the Jews. They also protected us from people who harassed us. When there were sacks with grain or corn, we filled up our pockets as much as we could. We took off our coats, filled them up with corn and tied them like bags. In that way we managed to provide food for our families and the people living around us. Once there was some trouble at the station. Some cartons used for the production of cigarette boxes arrived. We started unloading the wagon but someone had stolen a few cartons. They were an exact number and the owner found out. A Jewish boy and I were blamed for that. The policemen took us to the police station and beat us. We were held there until late at night. We denied everything and they had to let us go. The moment we stepped out, another policeman arrested us for violating the curfew. After a couple of hours we were once again released.

We had to find another flat in Dupnitsa because other relatives of Mati Shekerdjiiska came and it got very crowded there. We shared our new flat with other interned families. My father did not work because he was sick. The eight years he served in the army during the Balkan War and World War I had affected his health.

In Dupnitsa I received a summons for the Jewish labor groups and in June 1944 I was sent to Lovech. We built the road Sofia – Lovech. From there we observed the American bombers, also called 'fortresses', which were flying to Romania and we hoped that they would bring us freedom. Once the camp was attacked by partisans with the goal to frighten the commandment and release some people. We filled a cart for them with walnuts and food. That took place in August 1944 when Prime Minister [Ivan] Bagryanov was replaced and we were allowed to take our Jewish badges off. Around 7-8th  September the same year we were already anticipating the coming of the Soviet army and the labor camps were disbanded. There were six labor groups around Lovech. We left the camps. No one could stop us any more. We traveled to Pleven. In the evening I took the train to Sofia together with the political prisoners from the Pleven prison, who had broken free. So, on 9th September 1944 I was in Sofia. There were soldiers everywhere. I traveled to Dupnitsa and arrived at noon. The people there were waiting for the Red Army and the men of Zhelyu Demirevski 31. When I left my baggage at my parents', I enrolled as a volunteer in 3rd Guard Regiment led by the legendary partisan commander Zhelyu Demirevski. There were a lot of other Jewish volunteers too. I think we were around 50 people. Overall, around 60-70 Jews from Dupnitsa took part in the Fatherland war [Bulgarian Army in World War II] 32. Some of them were mobilized and others were volunteers.

We fought in the area between 1st and 2nd Bulgarian Army. That was the region of the volunteers' division commanded by Slavcho Transki. Our task was to liberate the town of Boyanovats and intercept the Germans between Skopje and Belgrade. Many people died in the fightings, including the regiment commander Zhelyu Demirevski. I returned in the end of December 1944. Some of the soldiers - volunteers or the so-called 'guards' from 3rd Guards Regiment were discharged because they had already done their military service. Those who were younger were also discharged. And the others, like me, who had not done their military service yet, had to do it in the country.

My military service was in Sofia. We were accommodated in the school 'Vassil Drumev' and 134th School, which were close to our house. In the end of May 1945 we were moved to Botevgrad. Then an order was received that those who had already spent some time serving should be discharged. In August 1945 I completed my military service. I started working in a warehouse doing repairs, but I got sick and quit for some time. Then until 1949 I worked in the glass factory Stind in Orlandovtsi district as a sorter and worker. Later I started work in the co-operative 'Mashinostroene' [Machine Construction] and I was in charge of the supplies for the workers – I rented flats for them and arranged the food supplies. Then I started work as head of the personnel department in the machine construction company 'Orel' and worked there until 1950.

In 1950 the Bulgarian government decided to establish the so-called 'Workers' Candidate Student School'. It was similar to the Russian 'Rabfak' [Worker’s Academy] 33. It was for workers who wanted to prepare to study at university. The goal was to educate a group of specialists who would be loyal to the authorities. I entered the school in 1950. For an year and a half I took all the high school subjects. I studied maths, history, literature and natural sciences, but I did not study music and painting. Then I entered the Chemical Technological and Mineralogical Institute.

While I was studying at 'Rabfak', I met my wife Sofi. She was working as a printer and was also studying at 'Rabfak'. When we graduated, we became even closer friends. She entered the Higher Technological Institute and studied machine textile engineering. The studying was very hard for us because we were not prepared very well, but we focused our effort and managed to graduate. At that time, in 1952 we got married and went to live in the house of my parents. My degree is in selicate industry, although I was also working with the famous then inorganic technology. My fondness of glass directed me to selicate materials. When I graduated the institute, I started work in the Stind factory, where I had worked for a while before. By 1947 Stind had been a small factory in Orlandovtsi. There were other similar factories in Sofia – in Nadejda district, in Gorna Banya etc. After the nationalization in December 1947 all small factories were united under the name 'Stind'. I started work as an engineer in the factory in Gorna Banya. Later I also worked in the factory in Nadejda. Then I decided to apply for the post of a teacher in the technical high school on glass and fine ceramics. I taught analytical chemistry there for a year. In the end of 1959 I started work in 'Design Organization'. It changed its name and structures a lot through the years. It was also named 'Promproekt', 'Zavodproekt' etc. Nevertheless, from the beginning until my retirement in 1984 I worked on the design of glass factories.

I have two daughters – Rina Kohen and Jana Geron. Rina graduated the secondary polytechnical school in Sofia. She works in accounting. My other daughter Jana has a degree in statistics from the Economy Institute and works in the Statistics Institute. She is married to Mishel Geron and has two sons – Emil and Mihael.

Many changes took place in Jewish life from 1945 to 1950. People returned from the internments and faced many difficulties in finding places to live. Jews died in the war or as partisans. People had to start their lives anew. The Zionist organizations  abolished by the Law for Protection of the Nation appeared once again. Those were Maccabi and Ehalutz, which continued the traditions of Hashomer Hatzair. Some Jews wanted to immigrate. Ben Gurion came to Bulgaria. He negotiated with the Bulgarian government the immigration of Jews. Before that, in 1941 on the eve of the signing of the pact with Germany many young people left for Israel. So, now their parents wanted to go to their children. Many people left from 1948 to 1950 [the Mass Aliyah]. At one point I also wanted to live and applied. But I was much influenced by the ideas of a new life in Bulgaria and I believed that origin would not be of matter any more. We believed in the socialist ideas. I thought that in the future there would be no problems to travel wherever you liked. My parents were also old and sick I could not leave them. Probably many people left and stayed, it is hard to find the right number. There was Zionist propaganda but I do not know if that was what convinced the people to leave. Certainly, Zionists were the people who helped people to leave. They provided steam boats and took care of the people when they arrived in Israel.

All families on my father's side and most of those on my mother's side left for Israel. I do not have many close relatives here. We wrote to each other regularly when they left. But to my regret, I did not write much. My mother kept the contact with our relatives in Israel. I went to Israel for the first time in 1981. Then I got in touch with more people and wrote them more often. During the wars in Israel [Six-Day-War] 34 [Yom Kippur War] 35, I do not remember how we kept in touch with our relatives. The diplomatic ties between the two countries were broken at that time 36. We worried about our relatives. We did not receive much news about the situation there. During the war in the Persian Gulf when Iraq bombed Israel, we phoned regularly our relatives there.

In 1962-63 as employees of design organizations we were able to get a flat. We lived there until 1985 when blocks of flats were built on the site of the house where we were born and we received a flat in one of them. When my daughter Jana married, my wife and I went to live there.

My sister Sofi is much younger than me. She was born in 1937. She was interned to Dupnitsa with us. She studied in the Jewish school which after 1945 became a Bulgarian one. She graduated the Pedagogical Institute and was a teacher in a primary school in Sofia. She was a respected teacher in chemistry and maths. In the 1990s she left for Israel but she came back. She lived on the upper floor of our block until she died. She married Rahamim Komfort, who was born in Dupnitsa. He was a machine mechanic. They have two children – Mihaela, who left for Israel and Nissim who lives in Sofia.

After 9th September 1944 we did not stop celebrating the Jewish holidays. We have a tradition to gather with our children. We have always lit candles on Chanukkah. My mother went to the synagogue when she could. Even when she was not able to go there by herself, we drove her and then we took her back. I did not have any problems to accompany my mother to the synagogue. It could have had negative consequences, but I personally did not have any problems. During totalitarianism the religious followers were persecuted. Yet, I have not heard of any Jews arrested for visiting the synagogue. My mother died in 1991. She went regularly to the synagogue until 1990.

I did not have any problems for being a Jew at my workplace. There were some minor incidents on work issues, but nothing out of the ordinary. In the 1950 some Jews on high positions were fired, but I was never on such a position.

The entering of the Soviet forces in Hungary in 1956 37 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 38 was supported by Bulgaria. People thought that socialism was threatened. Those were the times then. Now Bulgaria supports the USA in the war in Iraq. But I was strongly opposed to the Revival Process 39. I do not think such measures should be taken towards gypsies, or Turks, or anyone in Bulgaria.

We had a neighbor near our old house, who was among the people I trusted the most. During the internment he strongly defended the Jews. I was curious what his opinion was on the Revival Process. To my regret, he was against the Turks. I see things from the human side. Everyone has their right to speak their mother tongue and believe in their own religion, if they do not disturb the others. But interstate relations between Turkey and Bulgaria were also involved here and the problem was more complex. I do not know if I am right, but my opinion on that issue was very firm.

In 1981 a colleague of mine invited me on a visit to Leningrad [present-day Saint Petersburg]. He was a Russian Jew in a design organization and we made a project together on the glass factory in Razgrad. His name was Ilya Faintich. In Razgrad glass production with Soviet machines was introduced and the project was mostly a Soviet one. We met a couple of times and I wanted to visit the Soviet Union. So he invited me. In Leningrad I had an embarrassing situation. An officer in the police station interrogated me about who I was and what I was doing there in order to fill in an address card. All that was because of my Jewish origin. That cast a gloom on my stay in the city. What's more, there were anti-Jewish posters on the walls in the police station. I think that the negative attitude towards the Jews after 1944 was not an ideology, but introduced by people who wanted to preserve their positions in the power structures and were malicious in nature. That is, it is all up to the individual person. Now Ilya Faintich and I exchange postcards for our birthdays. Sometimes we phone each other. We speak in Russian. Ilya Faintich and his wife Irina Solomonova now live in Germany.

My wife and I were not rich, but we were both engineers and we managed to lead a comfortable life and go on holidays. We received vouchers for tourist holidays homes allocated to the design organizations, in which we worked. Every summer we brought our children to the seaside resort of Kiten.

Now I visit the Jewish home [Bet Am] 40 regularly. I lead a group of 18 people speaking Ivrit. We meet once every two weeks. We read in Ivrit and visit each other. I also visit the meetings of the 'Golden Age' club every Saturday ['Golden Age' club is established in 1999, where 30-40 Jews gather every Saturday. They have guests who are famous personalities, musicians, artists, economists, politicians. That is one of the most active and interesting clubs in the Jewish Home in Sofia.]

As for the trips to Israel – sometimes they allowed us, sometimes not. I do not know on what they based their decision. Once some friends of mine from Sofia – the Ninyo family came to me after a trip to Israel. They brought me an invitation from a friend – Marcel Lidgi and I applied to the police station for a permission to leave. Then I was sent on a business trip for a week and when I got back, I received my permission. Then I applied for visas and I had to decide if I wanted to travel by plane or by ship. I also applied for a Greek visa in case I decided to travel by ship, but I did not use it, because I used a charter flight. I spent five weeks in Israel. Marcel Lidgi is one of my friends from Sofia. He is the husband of a classmate of mine from the Jewish school – Mati Amar. We were together in Hashomer Hatzair and in the UYW. Now we still keep in touch. They left for Israel in 1950. They live in Tivon, near Haifa. They also visited us in Sofia. I still keep in touch with my UYW friends. They were mostly Jews. About 90% of my friends now are Jews. I also had Bulgarian friends. Now I mostly meet with the people from the Bet Am.

It is difficult for me to evaluate the changes in Bulgaria after 1989 41. There were definitely many imperfections during communism. But I am convinced that the situation got worse after 1989. I do not know if we would live better after we enter Europe. On the one hand, it is nice to lift the borders between countries, but on the other hand, we could lose our Bulgarian culture and identity in this world globalization. Yet, the world is heading towards that.

Translated by Ivelina Karcheva

Glossary

Ruzena Deutschova
nee Rozalia Eilander
Galanta
Slovakia
Interviewed by: Martin Korcok
Date of Interview: September-October 2004

Ruzena Deutschova lives in a house with a garden in Galanta. This lively elderly lady wasn’t always without emotions during our meetings when she told us of the extraordinary events of her life. The interview was completed in five conversations. Ruzena Deutschova is one of those few to whom the lifestyle of Jews before the war is not unknown. In Galanta, aside from her, there are only five people whose memories we could rely on, and from whose testimony we could collect a verifiable picture of the previous period.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My father’s great grandparents were from Dombo, for sure, they came from Subcarpathia 1, from Ungvar [Uzhhorod]. Dombo belonged to Tecso county during the First Czechoslovakian Republic2. It was close to Huszt [Khust], Beregszasz [Berehevo] and Maramarossziget. The people from the area went there, when they needed something, or had to go to the hospital. I don’t remember now if there was a hospital in Beregszasz or Huszt [Hospital was in Beregszasz]. But it wasn’t far.

The residents of Dombo were Jews and Ruthenians [sometimes called Rusyns]. There were two schools in the village, the Ruthenian and the Czech one. Most of the Jews went to the state Czech school., There were mostly Jews living in the village, and richer Ruthenians like the tavern owner and the teachers. The Ruthenians lived in the hills outside of the village, I remember that.

There were a lot of Jews living in the village. As I was very small, I only vaguely remember these things, but I know that the locals went to two prayer houses [bet midrash]. All the Jewish families were very religious. There was great poverty there. My great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents all were very poor. They lived from one day to the next. And we ate corn bread, my mother made brioche only on the Sabbath, and barkhes. We didn’t even know about white or black bread, you only got cornbread in Dombo. I don’t remember a thing about my great grandparents, so I couldn’t know what they did.

It’s difficult to remember my grandparents, since I saw them last when I was seven years old. [They moved to Felsoszeli]. I also couldn’t have known my maternal grandfather, since he died before I came into the world. All I know about him, was that his first name was Lax. One time, still in Dombo, they took me out to the cemetery, and said, this is where your grandfather is lying. I never went to his grave again.

My mother’s mother lived with us. She was called Jechevet. Mother’s brother, Uncle Lax Wolf, who lived in America, helped us build a house. Mother had to support Grandma, that’s why Uncle built us a three-room house with a little kitchen. There was a stove in the kitchen, we baked and cooked there. Grandma was a midwife.

I turned six, and I remember that Grandma slept in a separate room. Grandma was very deaf. If they knocked on her window at night, it woke me up, I went in to her, and shook her. I told her in Yiddish that they’re knocking. I also remember as a child, that Grandma’s gravestone was bought, I don’t know how many years earlier, and was put next to the house in the garden. She really loved to work in the garden – crimson rambler roses bloomed there – she collected their petals and cooked syrup from them. She collected many kinds of herbs, if a cure was needed, she found one for almost every malady. If the family was poor, she would cure them for free. She didn’t accept money from the poor, my mother always talked about that.

My father’s parents lived across from us on the other side of the street. They heated with wood, and since there wasn’t electricity, they lit with [mineral spirit] lamps. Grandpa Izsak Eilander was a tailor. We called Grandpa, ‘Zaidi’. I remember him sitting at a machine with a black kippah on his head. He wore a big beard. I remember a funny story connected with him. When I went to their house, he took me on his knee and said, ‘Gib mir ain kis’ [give me a kiss - Yiddish]. I didn’t want to give him a kiss, since he stunk of garlic. Grandpa laughed, but I always got a piece of candy for it.

Grandma Rachel, my father’s mother was a fat lady. She lived with Grandpa in a two-room house. They kept a cow. The stable was in the courtyard. Aunt Hindi, who was my father’s uncle’s wife – unfortunately, I don’t remember her name anymore – she and I went to feed the cow in the stable. She sent me up to the loft, and I threw down the hay from there. Aunt Hindi was fat, she didn’t fit up the ladder, that’s why she sent me.

Grandma wore a black skirt, blue apron, black headscarf and ‘pruszliks’ [Hungarian style bodices]. On her feet, she wore high-legged lace-up shoes of fine zsevro leather [Sevro leather – finely worked goatskin used for shoe uppers]. Grandma also wore a scarf over her wig. Grandpa went in trousers, a vest and shirtsleeves. He grew his payes, as did all the Jewish men of Dombo. My father had a beard, too, and payes. On his head, he wore a kippah. He didn’t wear a hat at home. The majority of Jewish men wore kaftans [It is likely that the community in Dombo were Hasidim], and they also wore streimels, but that was only what Father usually told us.

I don’t know anything about the siblings of my grandparents. Mother never spoke about them. My grandparents never talked about their childhood, either. I was seven years old when we moved away from Dombo. Yet, I never saw my grandparents again after that.

I’m sure my father, Lajos Eilander was born in Dombo in 1902. In the town of his birth, everyone called him by his Jewish name, Arje. I remember, that from morning to evening, he sat by the sewing machine, he pedaled it, and just sewed and sewed. It wasn’t easy supporting eight children. Every morning, he tied on the straps, the tefillin and prayed in the kitchen or the big room. In Dombo he still prayed alone, because Benci was still very small then. He was a quiet man, he lived only for his work.

My mother was called Malke. She was born in 1901, so she was a year older than my father. At home, she always wore a headscarf, but if she went out on the street, she put her wig on. In Galanta, if she was going to temple, she put her hat on her wig, but she didn’t in Subcarpathia. My mother wore long-sleeved dresses, even in the summer.

She always cooked well, she was a very good housewife, always knew how to economize. She worked a lot, washed a lot and ironed. Despite that we were poor. She made warm dinners so we would get our fill. The meal varied. Although Mother never had help with anything, she always made time for us. She combed our hair with her own hands when we came from school, and she made sure there wasn’t a chance we’d get one louse, she especially watched out for that.

I don’t know how my parents got to know each other, unfortunately. I don’t even know when they were married [1924 – determined later from the photos]. They were married in Dombo, in the synagogue. The marriage certificate was written in Russian. My parents spoke Yiddish between themselves. When they didn’t want us kids to understand what they were talking about they switched over to Romanian, Ruthenian or Hungarian.

My parents were strongly orthodox Jews. They kept a kosher household. Everything at home was kosher. They kept all the holidays. For example, when it was Rosh Hashanah and then the Day of Atonement came a week later, Yom Kippur, we always fasted from evening to the next evening. We held every fast, us children, too. There was the fast of Ester [Purim]. There wasn’t a fast that I didn’t keep from the time I was twelve years old. My mother often visited the mikveh in Dombo. It was in a building at the bottom of the hill. I remember as a child, Mother often took us with her as well to bathe. In the baths, there were big wooden tubs. First Mother would dunk herself, then she would wash us. I’m sure she paid something for the warm water, we took soap with us. My father also went to the mikveh, because he was very religious. At the coming of the Sabbath, the men would go into the bet midrash dressed in a black kaftan, with a streimel on their heads.

In Dombo, we heated our house with wood, and lit with [mineral spirit] lamps - one by my father’s sewing machine, and one hung by the table. We didn’t have electricity. We lived in a house with a garden, whatever we needed, grew there. We had a lot of apples, we raised poultry, geese for ourselves. The furnishings were humble. There were two beds in the bedroom, with two standing chests of drawers. Below, in the drawers, we usually kept fresh-baked biscuits, crescent rolls. Nobody helped with the household chores, we never had a maid, anyway, we never had the money for one. We were very poor in Dombo.

In Dombo, we only had Jewish neighbors, as little children we played together with them. Dad would sew rag dolls, make little tables of wood. He even sewed clothes for us, while we were small. We went to a river, I don’t know the name anymore, to swim. Dombo was in a mountainous area, full of forests. We drove the geese up to the top of the mountain to mind them, and we played a lot then. The ground was clay, I remember, we made all kinds of biscuits out of it. We decorated them with little flowers, that’s how we played. Sometimes the geese would swim out on the water, straight to the nearby watermill wheel, from where they couldn’t get back, we lost them that way. We cried, that’s for sure. I don’t know which river it was, but it was a big river. They floated rafts of cut trees down the river to the sawmill.

I remember that Mother had an uncle in America. He lived in New York and when he came back in the 1930s, he took me in his arms, and put an earring in my ear. He also brought a pretty pink dress, with a cape and little patent-leather shoes. This American uncle was a tailor himself, he worked in his own tailor shop. He sent grandma a picture, with him, his wife and his daughter. He was missing the kippah on his head. Grandma sent the picture back, saying: ‘This isn’t my son, my son had a head [brain], but this guy doesn’t have a head’.

Among the siblings of my mother, the oldest was called Aunt Jente Joszkovits. They lived in Dombo one street over. I remember that on Saturday I always ran over to their house, because I got pumpkin seeds from them. Uncle had one eye tied with a piece of leather, because they shot out his eye in the First World War [Military in the Austro-Hungarian Empire] 3. I felt good at their house, because they had a daughter with whom I made friends. Sadly, I don’t remember her name.

My mother’s other sister, Rabbi Nuszn’s wife, lived in Romania. I was told they were really religious. The lady died young from cancer. I know that because Grandma wrote that in a letter to us. That’s all we got to know about her death.  Dad hid the letter away from Mother for a long time, but he finally told her what happened, anyway. We were already living in Felsoszeli then. I don’t know how many children they had, I think, there were six. During the Second World War, they were in an area in Romania where they didn’t deport the Jews. My uncle ended up there with his children. Immediately after the war, as soon as Romania was liberated, he left for Palestine with the children. In 1978, when I was in Israel for the first time, I met with my cousins. Two among them are still living in Tel Aviv, the others have died.

My father had an uncle, who lived in Antwerp, Belgium, but he didn’t have a family. He helped the other family members also, but predominantly us. He always wrote to my mother to have us girls learn some trade, he’ll find us husbands, just make sure everyone has a trade. The Second World War obviously wrecked those plans. They deported the Jews from Belgium also, that’s how he never returned.

The only sibling of my father’s that I knew personally was Aunt Etus. Her husband was called Nachman Tevlovits. They lived in Prague. Directly before the war, they had a daughter, Jindricka. I never visited them before the war, so I can’t say anything about them. They were taken away to the Theresienstadt 4 concentration camp. They were lucky because my uncle was a very clever man, he wove baskets from willow branches, and chairs and baby carriages. The Germans spared his life because of it, since they always needed something. He went down to the river to collect the willow branches. He set traps for the ravens, which my aunt made soup from. This is how the whole family escaped. They spent three or four years in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

When they were liberated, Aunt Etus told me, they went back to Prague in a horse-drawn carriage. They lived in a family home on the outskirts. In 1947, I married in Prague, and the reception feast was held in their house. After the war, until I married, I often stayed at their house. My aunt really loved me, I even resembled her. When her daughter was born, Evike, I washed diapers for her, and cooked for them. I helped them a lot. In February of 1948 5, before the Communists took complete control in Czechoslovakia, they emigrated to America. My uncle also had a friend living there, who sent a letter of invitation [required for US visa] and ship’s passage. Father went to say goodbye. They never saw each other again. Why they left, I don’t know. Maybe, they would have locked up my uncle, for having a broom factory.

At first, they lived in America in New York, from there in Michigan, then they moved to Detroit, where they belonged to an orthodox religious community. Their only son was born in Detroit, Ervin, who got the Jewish name Jichak. Aunt Etus spoke Yiddish with her children. After the political changes [1989]6, I visited them once in Detroit. I met my Aunt, Jindricka and Jichak. We spoke in Yiddish because my aunt couldn’t speak a word of Hungarian anymore. She only knew enough to write in Hungarian in her letters, ‘csokol Etus’[‘kisses Etus’]. She could write that still. My aunt died at the age of ninety-three. She’s buried in the Jewish cemetery in Detroit.

Jindricka remembered my wedding, and how she always asked her mother, ‘Mami, kdy budu ja takova slezna jako Ruzenka?’ [Mommy, when will I be a big girl like Rozika?] They called me Ruzenka in Prague. She remembered that. That made me very happy. When I was in America, Jindricka was about 64-65 years old. Jindricka was divorced from her husband, she has two families, both chose Jewish spouses. Today Jindricka is a retired teacher, her son is a pharmacist. Her daughter worked with computers, but she’s also retired now. The children are not religious, anymore. The son still goes to temple, but he’s not so religious. The girls [Jindricka and Evicka] don’t go to temple anymore either. Jindricka’s children live in Chicago, I didn’t meet them. I saw one of the daughters and the son of my other cousin, Jichak. The girl was a university student. His other daughter was living in Caracas then, I didn’t meet her.

Growing up

I was born in 1927 in Dombo. Everyone spoke Yiddish in Dombo. My mother-tongue was also Yiddish. I have no memories at all from my early childhood. I didn’t go to a nursery school, I was with my mother all the way until I was of schooling age. In first grade, I went to a Czech state school, there I learned a little Czech. Aside from Yiddish, my parents spoke Romanian, Ruthenian and Hungarian.

There was great poverty in Subcarpathia. In 1933 and 1934, we moved to Felsoszeli. My uncle, my father’s uncle, was employed with the Singer company as a traveling salesman. He travelled the whole of Czechoslovakia. He found out there was a Jewish school in Felsoszeli, but it didn’t have the required number of children to receive state support. By the time we stumbled over there, they had the required number, because there were six of us kids, and three of us were already in school. That’s how the Felsoszeli Jewish school got state support.

Father came to [Felso-] Szeli to live. We didn’t have any relatives there. He lived there for about a year alone, collected his pay and sent it home. Then we also wandered over. In Szeli there wasn’t a tailor, that’s how he became the Jewish tailor.

In Felsoszeli, only the wealthier people had electricity, but they didn’t have indoor plumbing, either. They brought water from the well. There wasn’t a sidewalk. If you had to go to Galanta for medicine, then I ran on foot into the city from Felsoszeli. I took off my shoes, so the soles wouldn’t wear out. Mother put a wet rag in the bag. On the Galanta bridge, first I wiped off my dusty feet, and only then did I put my shoes on, because we were obedient children. That’s how I came to Galanta to the pharmacy. On the way home, I took my shoes off again on the bridge, and put them in the bag, so they wouldn’t wear down. Lowinger, the village doctor, had an automobile, and probably the local factory owners, Eisler and Szold, did too. The majority of the peasants had horse-wagons.

The lifestyles of Dombo and Felsoszeli were very different. We still spoke Yiddish at home, but the Felsoszeli kids didn’t understand what we said anymore, only a couple old Jews still knew Yiddish. In Felsoszeli, our life was easier, a lot easier. In Dombo, there was a cobbler and tailor in almost every home. The Ruthenians had their dress and work clothes sewn from thick felt, they worked outside. They paid him, not with money, but with milk and sheep cheese. In Felsoszeli, Father was the only tailor. They respected him and liked him a lot, everybody went to ‘the Jewish tailor’ to get their clothes made. He got money for his work, just those who didn’t have money, they brought chickens, flour or eggs. The Jews also supported us, the religious community, also. There was a liquor factory on the edge of the village, Eisler and Szold were the owners. Mr. Szold kept us stocked full with potatoes and firewood. The community covered the cost of a doctor when someone got sick.

There wasn’t a typical occupation for Jews in Felsoszeli. They were chicken farmers, goose farmers, and merchants. Some worked for Szold in the liquor factory, and some in agriculture. In Dombo, the typical occupation for Jews was tailor and cobbler. Each opened a shop in their own homes. There were sawmills in Dombo, where they employed mostly Jews. The Jews of Dombo had hard lives, very poor lives. Many of them emigrated to America, like my mother’s older brother, Uncle Wolf did.

There was no rabbi in Felsoszeli, just two shochetim. The closest rabbis lived in Galanta, where there were two orthodox communities. One of them was led by Buxbaum, the other by Rabbi Seidl. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of our cantor or the president of the community. The shochetim, Krakauer and Ehlbaum usually led the prayers. The bet midrash in Felsoszeli stood in the street where the Catholic church is. There was a large courtyard attached to it, the Jewish school building was there, too. They went to religious class in the building behind the Jewish school. Next, there was the apartment of one of the shochetim, then the other shochet. We went to both shochetim, but mostly to Krakauer. Both were orthodox, but just part of the Szeli community was drawn here, the other part went to Ehlbaum. The Krakauers had a big family, they naturally went to Krakauer. The Mullers lived in Szeli, the Schwartzes too, they went to Ehlbaum. The Krakauers originally came from Dunaszerdahely, I don’t remember where the Ehlbaums came from. The mikveh was in the last building.

We only kept Hebrew books at home, among them was the complete Mahzor, so they were prayer books, for example, the Day of Atonement prayers, Kol Nidre, the five books of Moses. My parents read these books daily, and prayed regularly, morning and evening, too.

My parents kept every tradition, they were strictly religious. My mother kept a kosher household. There were special meat plates, and special milk plates. After eating meat, I couldn’t eat milk for six hours. Before meals we always washed our hands, we had to say prayers for everything, for the water, for everything. We kept these [traditions] also, from childhood. I remember when I first fasted, it was the fast of Ester. In the temple, they read about the life of Ester. As soon as the holiday ended, Mother was waiting for us in front of the bet midrash. She brought one slice of bread in her bag for everyone, so that we could make the trip home.

At the Sabbath, as soon as Father came out of temple with the boys, he blessed us. He came home, the holiday dinner had been made by then, Mother baked the barkhes. It was meager, but we had it. During the week, she always collected the ingredients. On winter days, everyone got an apple or pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin seeds they poured out into glasses for us, so we wouldn’t fight about them, and everyone would get the same. In the village, the Jews got dressed up in holiday clothes for Sabbath, but nobody wore kaftans and streimels.

Father also went often to the mikveh in Felsoszeli, then he was still very religious. My mom went there monthly with the children the same as in Dombo. Aside from that, we had to wash every morning behind a ‘Spanish wall’. There was a washbasin and water in it. It took a while for all the children to get washed up. We washed one after the other. Once a week we bathed in a wooden tub. Mother warmed the water outside, of course not everybody got fresh water, just warm water poured on them. In summer, on Friday afternoon we bathed, in winter it was on Thursday since the Sabbath comes earlier in the winter.

I vaguely remember my older brother’s bar mitzvah. His was in Felsoszeli, my mother had the cake baked at the Lowinger confectioners in Galanta. I was about ten years old when my mother sent me on foot from Felsoszeli to Galanta. The distance between the two places is about twelve kilometers (7.4 miles). The Lowingers had already put the cake into two large boxes beforehand. On the way back, I was lucky because a railway hand-car picked me up. I don’t remember the bar mitzvah really, as I didn’t go to the bet midrash, I only knew that all the Jewish men came to visit us that afternoon.

In Dombo, as I mentioned, I went to a Czech school, in Felsoszeli I went to a Jewish school. I went to that school for six years, from first grade to sixth grade. The teacher lady, Helena Bergerova, I believe, was from Nagyszombat. She only taught me for a short time. Then came Zoltan Reisner, a teacher from Bazin. I was in the same class with Hasi Muller, for example. In September of 2004, they buried him in the Galanta Jewish cemetery. He was the last from Galanta, who was a Galanta yeshivah student, where they continued their studies under the direction of Rabbi Duschinski and later, Rabbi Buxbaum. My later husband also went there, Herman Deutsch.

My favorite subject was history. I love it to this day. There was a teacher in Galanta whom I particularly didn’t like, because she always made exceptions for the children with wealthier parents. She always called me ‘Eilander’. ‘Hold out your hand’, and she gave us the cane rod. Zoltan Reisner was my favorite teacher. He came back here after the war, to Galanta, and wanted to marry me. I would have married him for sure, if I hadn’t become the woman of Herman Deutsch in the meantime.

I never encountered anti-Semitism in school, nor with my teachers, even though I went to an exclusively Jewish school, and the teachers themselves were Jewish. I didn’t take any extra music classes or language classes, there wouldn’t have been money for it anyway. I made friends in school, with some exceptions, Jews lived in my direct surroundings.

We lived in a common courtyard with an old woman in Felsoszeli, Miss Paula and a Lutheran family, the Kozaks. Miss Paula had a small textile business. If she needed something, she would send one of us kids to run along after it. Mr. Kozak was a carpenter. He had three families, two girls and one boy. Despite that my parents were on good terms with them, they rarely visited each other. They mutually respected one another’s religion. The Kozaks, for example, when they slaughtered, they put flour, eggs and a live duck in the breadbasket. That’s what they brought from ‘the slaughter’. At Christmas and Easter, they always gave us fruits and walnuts. They never brought brioche, because they knew we couldn’t eat it, since it wasn’t kosher. I remember that they respected our religion. The courtyard was wide. We had a garden, which we worked. My mother raised poultry and ducks. Beyond the courtyard, the Dudvag [river] meandered.

My parents only went to the bet midrash, they never made time to visit friends, they simply had no time. They worked hard, Father sewed, Mother was occupied with the kids. Sometimes washing clothes, sometimes ironing, there wasn’t time for that kind of thing [visiting friends].

We didn’t know what summer vacation meant, there was no such thing. Mother went for two or three months to visit her mother in Dombo. She usually took the smallest of my siblings with her, since the smallest still needed her anyway. They would pick all kinds of fruits and mushrooms in the Dombo forests. They dried those and sent them home. Those of us who were already a bit bigger, stayed home, because school started in September. Mother only got home later for the fall holidays. The last time she went home to Dombo was in the summer of 1940 or 1941. That’s when she saw her mother last, too.

There wasn’t a market in Felsoszeli, in Dombo, either. Only in Galanta. Everything that we needed was grown in Felsoszeli. I remember, there were market days, but how often, I don’t know. They came from Dunaszerdahely and elsewhere to the market day. When I was a little girl, at about ten or eleven years old, I already watched out so they didn’t steal. I always got a piece of material, which I then had a skirt or dress made from. The family didn’t have a regular merchant who they could have ordered anything from.

In Felsoszeli, where we lived, a big Communist was living there, and he had a son. His name was Bela Katyo. As we left the village, there was a bridge, the Rakottyasi bridge. We always teased Bela, ‘Hey look, Hitler’s coming across the Rakottyasi bridge, to take away the Communists.’ That happened in about 1934-35, there wasn’t any anti-Jewish atmosphere, yet. I was never made aware in my childhood that I was Jewish. No, not ever.

During the war

In 1938, when the Hungarians came in [First Vienna Decision]7, the very next week, they expelled us from the village, [saying] that Father was a ‘Bolshevik’. We didn’t even know what that word meant at the time. We’d been really okay in Felsoszeli, till then we’d had no problems with anyone. They wanted to send us back to Subcarpathia, because we didn’t have our Hungarian citizenship arranged. With the coming of winter, they only expelled us to the edge of the village, to Barakony. In December, it was already freezing, my parents were railroaded out into the cold, under the open sky with six children. The Jews in Galanta immediately intervened as well as they could. They sent a car and took us in it to Galanta. That was the first time I ever rode in an automobile. Right away we got a furnished room with beds. The Jewish community arranged these things, I don’t remember concrete people, sadly. They even when so far as to get us a residence permit, but my father had to report to the border police every day. Meanwhile, Hungary re-annexed Subcarpathia. My uncle in Belgium sent money, that’s how we got our citizenship. After this happened, Mother didn’t want to go back to Felsoszeli, so we stayed in Galanta.

I had eight siblings. Between my oldest brother Beno and the littlest, Miksa, there was a difference of fifteen years. Beno, Hana, Sari [from Sarolta], Manci [from Maria] and Eszti [from Eszter] were born in Dombo. Sandor, Gizike[from Gizella] were born in Felsoszeli, and Miksa was born in Galanta. I only vaguely remember my youngest siblings, since I was with them a relatively short time. My mother took the littlest ones with her in the summer break to Grandma in Dombo, so I didn’t see them for three months.

Beno, my oldest brother was a very hard-working kid. He learned the tailoring trade in Szenc. When my father was conscripted into work service [forced labor]8, then he supported the family, by that time already working in Pest [Budapest] in a tailor shop. He passed away during the Second World War. Mother adored him.

I spent the most time with my little sister, Hana. In Felsoszeli, the Dudvag flowed behind our house. In the winter, we skated on the frozen water, and sledded. Father made the skates out of wood. In the summertime, we picked corn ears, because our mother raised chickens. We worked the whole summer vacation.

I was together with Hanna in the Allendorf labor camp [a sub-camp of Buchenwald]. When we were liberated, we went home together. Hana stayed a while in Galanta, but in spring of 1946, she went to Kassa, and left from there with her later husband for Palestine. They captured the boat, the passengers were forced to debark in Cyprus. I wrote letters to her, and she sent pictures from there. They went by boat from Cyprus on to Israel. There she was conscripted as a soldier.

Hana’s husband fell during some kind of construction very young, and died. He was a Kassa boy. They had three families[children – sic]. I can’t speak with them. If I go visit them, they say, ‘Dada neni, shalom’, give me a kiss, then leave again, when I go home, they say shalom again and another kiss and that’s all. One of Hana’s daughter’s is a teacher, her name is Malke. My daughter also has this Jewish name, we named them then after our mother. Malke’s husband’s parents come from Morocco. My other niece, Sara was a bank official, but since she married, she doesn’t work anymore. She lives with her two daughters in Tel Aviv. Hanna’s son is with Markus Eli wholesale hardware, and meanwhile is finishing his law studies. His wife’s parents went to Israel from Poland. Hana and her son’s family live today in Netanya. They keep Jewish traditions, and both keep a kosher household.

My other sister, Sarika, who we called Sara, was a very smart and pretty little girl. She was writing verses at the age of six. I don’t really remember Esztike [from Eszter] and Manci. Sandor, who was born Salamon, and whom we called Sauli, was born in the winter of 1935. He was a pretty child. He used to fetch the chulent from the baker for the well-to-do people. He always got a few filler [pennies] for it. He bought Mother a wooden spoon by mistake for her birthday, but started shouting from afar that he’d bought her a salt shaker. We made fun of that for a long time, to this day I still smile to think about it. I don’t have memories of Gizike and Miksa, unfortunately. My youngest brother, Miksa was just four years old when he and Mother, Sari, Manci, Eszter and Sandor were gassed.

We kept all the Jewish holidays in my childhood, the traditions. As many fasts as the Jews have, we kept them all, that is, us girls had to keep them. The men had to fast every week, but we didn’t have to do that. On Saturday mornings, as soon as we woke up, the brioche, the holiday breakfast was waiting for us. Father left for the temple, and came home at noon. We brought the chulent from the baker, and ate our holiday supper. The chulent was baked at two bakeries, at Schultz’s and at Lichtner’s. We made it at home, put meat in it, and everything which we had around. My mother filled it with water, tied it up, put the cover on it. She wrote her name on it, too. Friday afternoon Mother took it to the baker. We took ours to Schultz’s. they put it in the oven. If it ended up in a good place, then the chulent was good. Sometimes though, it was still half-raw, but sometimes it burned. They said that chulent was just like marriage. My parents rested in the afternoon, we went out to the walk in the castle. We played with young people. On Saturday, you could only read, or in the afternoon, when I was still young, in the Jewish girl’s school – I went to the Beys Jakov.

On the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur] and the new year [Rosh Hashanah] Mother went to temple. That’s when she always dressed up nicely. She had pretty dresses, my uncle sent them to her from America. Before she would step out of the house, she put her wig and hat on her head. The girls didn’t go with her to temple until they turned twelve years old. Us little girls only went on holidays to temple to see Mother, mostly we played downstairs in the prayer house courtyard. There were a lot of us in the courtyard. The boys were already sitting in the synagogue, and the men prayed, mainly if they had passed their thirteenth year [that is, they had already had their bar mitzvah].

On the Day of Atonement we fasted. From the age of twelve, we had to fast all day, we made it. On the tent holiday [Sukkot], we set up a tent, decorated it, put stars on it, and then just went to see the others, to see whose was the prettiest. Father usually set up the tent in the yard. If four Jewish families lived on one courtyard, all four families set up a separate tent. They spent the whole holiday there, they could only go inside to sleep, they had to eat in the tent. Even if it rained, they ate standing in the tent.

We went to synagogue every holiday, during Pesach, and Pentecost [Shavuot – sic]. On Pentecost [sic], they decorated the synagogue with flowers, it was a joyous celebration. On the Day of Atonement and the New Year were celebrated only in the synagogue, afterwards the holiday lunch and dinner followed at home. We prayed in the synagogue. My favorite Jewish holiday is Pentecost [sic], because then people could eat what they wanted and, of course, wherever they wanted. At Passover, we couldn’t eat whatever we wanted, and during the tent holiday, we couldn’t eat wherever we wanted. That’s why the best holiday is Pentecost.[Shavuot – sic]

My parents passed on nearly everything from the Jewish traditions and religion to us. We were a proper orthodox Jewish family. I always told my mother that if I get married, I wouldn’t wear a wig. She answered, ‘Your hair will fall out’. My father and my uncle wore ‘cicith all the way up until they were deported, in fact, I remember my older brother even took a couple with him to the lager. In our family, the men grew their payes, and my father had a beard. He cut his beard off in 1938, under the Hungarians, but my older brother kept wearing payes.

Around that time there were two orthodox communities, one led by Rabbi Buxbaum, the other by Rabbi Seidl. Both rabbis had separate courtyards. In both courtyards there was a synagogue and a mikveh. We belonged to Rabbi Buxbaum’s congregation, who my parents thought was more religious. In spite of that, my mother went to the other mikveh, in the Seidl courtyard. That was where shochter Vogel’s wife was the mikveh lady. The Vogels were also from Subcarpathia, we were closer to them. Mother also took us there to bathe, surely because we didn’t have to pay there. The mikveh was lined inside with white tiles. The ladies dressed in changing rooms. They bathed in the tubs and in the end they dunked themselves in the pool, which was in the center of the room. Before the war, all the Galanta Jewish ladies regularly went to the mikveh. The other mikveh was in the yard of Rabbi Buxbaum, where the holocaust memorial is today.

There was a temple, the yeshivah and the three-room apartment of the rabbi in the Buxbaum courtyard. In the yard there was a kitchen, then there were two places where the bocherim studied. On the other side of the temple was a ‘mensa’ and a cheder, where the younger children went. The bocherim and the poor ate in the ‘mensa’. There was a matzah oven in the courtyard and a butcher shop in front. The owner of the butcher shop was my husband’s uncle Hirschler. The shochet lived at the end of the courtyard, whose name was Weinstein and so did Rabbi Buxbaum’s son. When we ended up in Galanta, we lived there, too. Later, we had to leave there because they put in a Schlafstube [a room to sleep in] for the shnorrerim and the poor.

A lot of shnorrerim came to Galanta, most of them arriving from Subcarpathia, where the poverty was very bad. They didn’t come to our house. There was a married couple living not too far from our house, who were very poor. Mother brought a little flour and eggs over to them every Thursday, that’s how she helped people even poorer than we were. I don’t remember the couple’s name anymore. They were taken to Auschwitz during the war. They never came back.

The family called Muller lived in the front of Rabbi Seidl’s courtyard. Rabbi Seidl lived behind them in the house. Rabbi Seitl died when I was a little girl, still before the Second World War. I only knew his wife. They had two daughters. One of the girls taught me how to pray in the Bet Jakov. Shochet Vogel, who’s house was next to the mikveh, lived across the street from them. After the mikveh, came the synagogue. The younger Rabbi Seidl, who took the community over after his father,  lived in the building behind the synagogue. In the house after the rabbi’s house was Deutsch’s house, who was the cantor and teacher. He taught religion in the first two rooms and the Deutsch family lived in the rest. Then came the old people’s home. You could enter the courtyard from two sides. On one side was the court building, the other door opened on the main street.

I never encountered anti-Semitism, even under the Hungarians. Neither the relatives nor neighbors ever talked about it. In 1944, we lived separately, I was in contact almost exclusively with Jews. I had a few Christian girlfriends, of course, we were still children. I was seventeen years old when they took me away.

The so-called ‘Jewish Codex’ put out in 1941 fundamentally changed our lives [In as much as Galanta belonged again to Hungary from November of 1938, she clearly must be referring to the Hungarian anti-Jewish Laws 9, whereas the Jewish Codex 10 was passed in the Slovakian Republic in 1938] Honestly speaking, a person felt like they’d robbed you of everything. They robbed me of my entire childhood. We couldn’t go to the cinema, we had to stop going to school. In Galanta, they locked the Jews up in the ghetto in 1944. [According to the 1941 census, 29 percent of the 5100 residents in Galanta were of Jewish religion. In May of 1944, 1100 local and 600 Jews from neighboring villages were crammed into the ghetto, situated in and around the synagogue.] From there, were went out to work in the fields. We worked for one or two months, then they took us away again to the Galanta manor, where there was a renaissance castle. We lived there in the castle. Everything there was in ruins. We lived in horrible conditions, we couldn’t cook, couldn’t wash, there was no toilet. We hoed corn on the manor, and radishes, spinach, and picked poppies, and whatever there was. I don’t know who’s estate it was. The whole family was still together then, except for Father. He was assigned to work service [forced labor] in Mateszalka. I don’t remember how long we were on the manor, anymore.

From there we were dragged off to the new town brick factory [Ersekujvar Kurzweil brick factory], where we stayed for two weeks. In the brick factory, we slept where the bricks were stored. We didn’t work at all, just waited [to see] where and when they’d take us away. There were people from all over the area there. One day, they packed us into boxcars. Hungarian constables [Constable] 11, the ‘rooster feathers’ [for the feathers on their helmets] just hustled us into the boxcars, I don’t know how many of us there were [According to Braham, 4843 Jews were put into deportation transports on June 12, the last of which left the city on June 15.]. We didn’t think about what fate awaited us. Uncountable numbers of constables escorted us, and I’m not talking about Germans, I only remember the Hungarian constables, the rooster feathers. They stopped the train in Kassa because some among us died on the way. They put those people off, but didn’t let us out. Nobody died in our boxcar. There were Hungarian constables everywhere in Kassa. Then we departed and didn’t stop until we got to Auschwitz. I don’t remember how the constables behaved, if they’d hurt me I would know. I don’t know. I remember we threw little notes out of the cattle cars along the way with where they are taking us, and how they took us, and that kind of thing on them. The trip took a couple days. We constantly threw these messages out. I don’t know what good that was then, but we threw them out. There could have been forty or fifty of us in the boxcar. There were whole families there, the children crying, hungry, thirsty without water nor a toilet. Just one bucket for all those people, it stank horribly. The whole family was still together then except for Father. When Mother saw Auschwitz, she said, ‘There’s no way out, anymore’. She felt that we’d arrived in a bad place, she knew what was happening.

As we arrived in Auschwitz, the train stopped. A man, who they later said was Mengele, just waved: Right, Left. My mother and siblings left, me and my sister were sent right, or vice versa, doesn’t matter. My sister got lost among all the people in the meantime. I ran after Mother to help her with all the kids. Mother sent me away to ‘find Hana, because you’ve got more brains than her, the family should be together’. I don’t know about my older brother either, he also got mixed up in the crowds. They surely put him with the men, I don’t remember that. As I ran around looking for my sister, Mengele gave me slap, and shoved me over to the other side, which saved my life. I broke into tears because I couldn’t help my mother. We didn’t know right away, what was happening, we didn’t know.

They housed us in a barrack, where there were a lot of us. It was raining. There was standing water there, so we could only sleep sitting or standing. There were hundreds of us there in one place. You couldn’t get any rest there. Every night someone went insane, ran around or messed themselves. There was no water there. We had to go out to a latrine, but nobody dared go out at night because they were afraid they’d be shot. We woke at dawn. They counted us. We stood in lines of five, a lot of us suffered at night because of the cold. In the daytime, a person agonized through 35 degree [C.- 95 degrees F.] heat. Every dawn, we were practically frozen, just standing in line. They poured coffee into a ‘csajka’ [a tin or alimunium plate with high sides] for breakfast, towards evening we got a little piece of bread with some bit of meat. We were continuously hungry. There was no water, they brought that from the cistern. You had to stand in line for water. My sister Hanna and I, and three girlfriends from Galanta stood in line. Of course, everybody pushed near the water. The SS soldiers hit the women with the metal [buckle] on their waist belts, as they scuffled for the water. If someone was hit in the head, it could kill them. there were always a couple who died.

Once I got sick, I got typhus which causes a high fever. In the barrack, where we were, there was a place where they collected the sick. From there they took the sick along with the dead in a Red Cross car straight to the crematorium, we knew that. My sister, and girlfriends started crying, don’t give up. As they all hustled out an SS woman came and gave me two slaps so hard I’ll never forget them. I was seeing two candles burning in front of my eyes. My ear started bleeding, my mouth, everything, but I got better. I was able to go out, and I stood out there in line. The sickness went away, even though I didn’t go to a doctor. A seventeen year old person wanted to stay alive. The Slovak girls who were living in the camp already for three years [the first transport of Jewish girls and women aged 16 -30 arrived from East Slovakia in Spring of 1942], they were the ‘Lageralteste’ or ‘Stubendienst’[German – ‘Camp elders’ or ‘Room Duty’]. They always said, ‘Do you see that smoke? They’re burning. That’s where your mother and sisters went’.

I found out about the death of  Mother and my sisters still in Auschwitz, in July. We’d been there for two weeks, and we heard. We smelled it also, because it stank, the smell of burnt meat lingering constantly. New prisoners arrived daily. We were in barrack seven. I remember the gypsy [Roma] camp was on the other side, where there were German gypsies. One night we heard only that they were yelling, help, help, they’re taking us to the crematorium. In the morning, everything was quiet, none of the gypsies were left there. They were all young, we couldn’t get to them, there was an electrical fence separating us from them. We saw them. In their place came prisoners like us.

I met my mother’s younger brother, Uncle Alter in Auschwitz. He unpacked the trains. The old man asked, who’s with me. I said, ‘Hana’. - ‘Go to work, if they take you.’  I asked him, ’Where’s mother?’. He said, ‘Mother’s already in a good place.’ He worked in the crematorium, with clothes. We reported for work a couple days later when there was a ‘selection’. They took us to an area, there could have been thousands of us. They took a thousand for work. They put us on the night shift at the crematorium. In Silesia, the weather is terrible. It was so cold at night, we almost froze, while in the daytime, you can hardly stand the heat, it burned your skin. There was a woman from Pozsony [Bratislava]. It was cold, we were shivering, so she said she’d give us a little gas[heat], but we shouldn’t yell. When she turned on the gas, we thought we were being gassed. Of course, we started screaming. She shut everything quickly so the Germans wouldn’t hear. The next day they gave us water, to bathe, we got clothes, and headed towards Allendorf [One of the labor camps of the Buchenwald concentration camp]. We went for three days, they bombed Dresden horribly. They let us out there, so we could do a little ‘business’, at least. One German who happened to be passing, asked me, naturally in German, what are you? a boy or a girl? I said girl. He shook his head and said, ‘Gott, how you look!’ So you can’t say that every German was rotten.

From June to the middle of August, I was in Auschwitz. When we ended up in Allendorf, we laid down on the ground and kissed it. There were little flowers growing in the camp. Everybody got one bunk, the beds were three high. We got a little blanket, a sack of hay. It wasn’t like this in Auschwitz, where we had to sleep sitting on the ground. We couldn’t have even laid down. In Allendorf, life was more humane. There were a thousand of us. Seven hundred Hungarians from Hungary, there were about 300 of us from ‘Felvidek’ [‘oberland’ in German – literally ‘the upperlands’; today, an area in Slovakia on the Hungarian border that was annexed to the First Czechoslovakian Republic by the Trianon Treaty at Versailles, then re-annexed by Hungary in 1938 by the First Vienna Decision.] I always signed up to work everywhere, I ended up in the kitchen. Of course, my knowledge of German helped me. I worked in the kitchen to the end of our time in the lager.

One supervisor woman, Margaret, was especially cruel. We named her ‘pearl hen’. If she approached, we said pearl hen is coming, because we couldn’t say Margaret is coming. Once she heard it, and they told her what the word meant. We got our pearl hen. She really beat us with a rubber club and her hands, then locked us in the cellar for I don’t know how many days, of course, we got no food. They really beat me on two occasions there.

I didn’t have to work in the munitions factory. The factory was four or five kilometers [2-3 miles] from our quarters. I thought that everything was underground, since the big trees covered everything, they nearly barricaded the camp in along with the factory. I was in the factory one time, when my sister got sick. I saw what work they did there. In the Allendorf shell factory, they filled bombs. The work was very difficult. They left in the morning, got a half liter of milk. They drilled out the bombs, put in the wicks and the detonator. It looks like the work was very detrimental to your health, that’s why they gave you milk, too. We stayed in Allendorf until March. Allendorf belonged to Buchenwald. At the end of March, they evacuated us. We marched day and night, for I don’t know how many days. The Germans with us, but they didn’t shoot us. They were going to Berlin, we didn’t know where we were going. The locked us in a pen where there were sheep grazing. They wanted to burn us up with the pen. The SS who were with us in the camp didn’t do this. Adolf Hupka was his name, he didn’t burn us up. He was a decent person. Whatever he could, he did for us. He was a decent person. The female supervisors in the camp were very horrible. But he was decent, very decent. He said to us, ‘Tomorrow you will be free, but I don’t know what will happen to us.’ The next day we started off again, they took the death-head insignia off their caps and coats. Then we spread out in a forest, I think it was the Black Forest.

We just kept fleeing. A Pole took us in to his manor, and told us to be quiet. The manor was full of tanks and German soldiers. We thought we’d fallen into a nice little trap. There were probably twenty of us, the rest had fallen behind. That night he brought us milk, we calmed down a bit from that. All at once a black tank was stopped in front of us. They were blacks. Americans. Soldiers, officers, they even spoke Hungarian. They said, ‘Stay here. We’ll come back for you at night’. And they came back for us, took us into a village, and housed us in a school there. The Germans were all around us, there was hay and lice, fleas everywhere, but we were so glad. We left again a week later. We ate tinned food, that the Americans brought. The local Germans all hid. The mayor only came to us a week later. The American officer threatened to hang him if he didn’t find us places to stay. There were about thirty of us. He put fifteen in one group and fifteen in another place. After this the mayor personally came and wrote down what we needed. They gave us a lot too. They always filled a huge box with food, we didn’t suffer from hunger again, they took care of us.

After the war

Unfortunately, I got sick, too. I immediately ate my fill, when we were liberated. The first thing I did was make poppy seed dumplings. We’d found some poppy seeds and flour in the villa. I was on my back for a month in the American hospital. If there hadn’t been help, I wouldn’t have come home. My little sister and three girlfriends didn’t get sick, but I really ate my fill of poppy seed dumplings.

In 1987, they arranged a reunion for those who were in Allendorf. We stayed in a beautiful hotel. When we worked in Allendorf, we never got to see the village, because we were outside of it. It was a little village originally, while today it has become a city. The Germans awaited us with a smorgasbord. They served kosher and non-kosher dishes separately. There were cheeses, fried potatoes, all kinds of fish, that’s what the kosher people ate. For us, they served us whatever we wanted. About eight hundred of us gathered there, because everyone brought a partner. There were about four hundred of us and four hundred were kosher. They paid for the trip, and paid for everything. We went by car, and my daughter and son-in-law came, too. On the way there, we slept at the home of one of my girlfriend’s from Frankfurt, then we just went to Allendorf. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize my co-prisoners, because everybody was old. However, a few recognized me. They said, ‘You’re Rozi from the kitchen.’

I was together with our girlfriends the whole way. We went to Kassel, to the American military headquarters, so that we could get home. My girlfriends wanted to go to America since they had nothing to go back to. We still hoped that mother or our siblings would come back. We wanted to go home. There were a thousand of us, three hundred of which were North Hungarians, the others Hungarians. The Hungarians stayed, they took us, the North Hungarians home. We went by truck all the way to Pilsen. In Pilsen, they handed us over to the Russians. It was a horrible experience, what the Russians did to us, they took everything away, that we’d brought from there, and they raped some of us.

We got to Galanta, where they took us out to the Galanta road. A Kirghizstani was shooting there. We had gotten Italian boots from the Americans. The Kirghizstani put down his weapon, and I kicked him. As he fell, the others threw his rifle away, and we yelled for help. We were afraid that his partners would shoot us. He went away to the Castle, because that’s where the headquarters were then, and two Russians and a Galanta resident came. Who knows what he did, because there in front of us, they shot the Kirghizstani soldier. Then they took us to Ony road, about ten of us. My sister Hana, Edit Rozsa, Szidi, the three Adler girls and some others. Today there are only a few of us remaining, who came back. Now there are only seven of us here and there in the Galanta area.

My girlfriend, Szidi Stein, her father was already at home. Mister Stein had a room and we lived there, the four of us – Edit Rozsa, Hana, Szidi and I. When we got back to Galanta, we found out that our father was living in Pest. Hana stayed in Galanta by herself and only I went to Pest to find Father. I’d never been to a big city in my life, not even to Pozsony, but I made the trip anyway with the Galanta boys. They told us to watch out for the Russians, ‘Don’t let them do anything!’ That’s what they said when they dropped me off. I was lucky that I met two Galanta girls. I knew they lived in Pest. I asked them whether they’d seen my father or not. Just as they told me, he was living in Bab street. We went there, to that street, and Father had just moved away. They took me back to Nyar street, to a school where the prisoners who returned from the lagers were housed. In the evening, I saw my father come out of a building on the other side of the street. He started crying, so did I. He was going everyday to the train station to see who came home. He didn’t know anything about anyone [of us].

I went back to Galanta, for Hana. We didn’t want to stay in Pest in Father’s apartment because there were so many bedbugs there, and we couldn’t get used to Pest [Budapest] anyway. That’s how father got back to Galanta. We got a room next to the Steins, on Main street, where the Jednota department store is today. There was a furniture store out front, and we lived there. I don’t remember who we rented from. None of the family belongings were left, we don’t know who has them or where they are. We found a pair of prayer books in the attic that still have. The other Galantans didn’t get anything back either, just maybe those who went into hiding.

Very few [Galantans] survived the Holocaust. We were deported from Galanta in 1944. We didn’t have any relatives living in Galanta, anyway. There were nine of us altogether: the brothers and sisters, and Mother, and Father. Of the nine, three came home: Father, my younger sister and I. The others all remained there. The distant family relatives lived in Subcarpathia. The grandmothers, the cousins, the aunts, the uncles were all taken away from there. All we know is that a few cousins returned, but they left for Palestine. Two cousins from Dombo stayed, Malka and Franto Joskovits. Malka and Franto were also in the camps, in forced labor, but I don’t remember what they told us about it. My mother and theirs were sisters.

The non-Jewish neighbors took pity on us when we returned. You could write to them about [from] Auschwitz, but only that we were healthy. We could only write, ‘I’m fine and the whole family is fine’, those were the regulations. I wrote a letter to Felsoszeli, to one of our old neighbors. The neighbors got the letter, but I didn’t put it away, it got misplaced, though they gave it to me after the war. The neighbors believed what I wrote, since my name was signed on it.

In Galanta, we ate in a communal kitchen [cafeteria]. The cook, Elemer Eckstein left for Palestine. We went there to eat. They demolished the kitchen since then, it was also on Main street. They opened another kitchen later in the courtyard of Rabbi Buxbaum. Rabbi Buxbaum was a victim of the Holocaust. I worked as an assistant cook there. Two of us cooked, but we went to help the work brigade also. The kitchen was maintained by the Joint [Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee)]12, they funded it. We even got clothes there. The head cook, Mrs. Wollner, Sarika [from Sarolta], grabbed the goose liver and took it home, but I didn’t let her. One time, a five liter jar full of goose liver. She wanted to take it, but it fell and the jar broke. I said, ‘Thank god, we’re going to eat.’ I never took food home, I gave it all to the young men and women. Mrs. Wollner was jealous of me, because the boarders yelled that I should cook and serve, because I gave them more generous portions. They really loved me, since I gave everyone the same sized portions. I think it was rather, that I didn’t look anyone in the eye, so I couldn’t even make distinctions among them. Many came there to eat. The kitchen was still working in 1946. I think it closed in 1947.

Following the war, my father got married. Fina Messinger was the sadchen for Father and his new wife. Father’s new bride-to-be, Sara Schiffer, lived in Pest with her siblings. She was from an orthodox Jewish family in Satoraljaujhely. Since one of her older brothers had taken a non-Jewish wife before the war, they expelled him from the family.

I don’t even know where the wedding was held. I was with my father’s sister at the time, with Etel in Prague. I lived for a time with Father’s new family, up until I got married. I didn’t like them at first, so I didn’t call her Mother, but rather Aunt Sari. Later, my children also called her Aunt Sari and that was very painful for her. When my father died, my husband said, ‘Sarika you are a guest at our house every Saturday.’ She appreciated this very much and came every Saturday for lunch.

She had a sister, who didn’t have a family. She lived in Budapest, so Sari moved in with her. I often went to visit them on 4 Angyal Street. On every occasion, she was so glad. I brought a lot of presents with me. After her sister died, I cleaned house for her. While I was there, we would go down to the Pava Street Jewish kitchen to eat. In our free time, we usually took walks, went to the cinema or theater. I saw the play ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ for the first time in Budapest, and the film as well. Bessenyei played the lead role in the play, while on the screen, it was played by the American actor, Smulanski.

When I became a widow, I sometimes celebrated the holidays at Sarika’s. We went to the Dohany Street synagogue. I went on foot from Angyal Street all the way to Dohany Street, not by streetcar.

Sarika died about ten years ago. She spent the last days of her life in the hospital, as she had cancer. Sarika’s American niece and I were at her side. Sunday I had gone home to Galanta, but by that evening the telephone rang, Sarika was dead. That week I went back to Pest to one of my girlfriend’s house and we arranged the burial. The Neolog community [Neolog Jewry] 13 was based in Wesselenyi street. Rabbi Deutsch buried her, I paid him to recite the Kaddish for a year.

After the war there were two shochetim living in Galanta, Krakauer and Rabbi Katz. My father stopped eating kosher in 1958, that is, he had an argument with the rabbi. He lived with Rabbi Katz in one apartment at the time, the rabbi had to split up his apartment [share-renting] 14, and if my father hadn’t occupied it, they would have put a person there who raised pigs. There was no way the Galanta Jews would have liked to have pigs raised in the synagogue courtyard. So, my father ended up there. Katz didn’t have children, so he was left with only one room and a kitchen. My father and his second wife likewise got one room and a kitchen. Rabbi Katz was an irascible, earth-bound person, may he rest in peace. The misunderstandings intensified until the end when Rabbi Katz did something which, according to the spirit of Jewish law, he shouldn’t have. He refused to slaughter a duck my father had brought him to slaughter. My father grabbed the duck and slaughtered it in front of him. After that it was treyf. Five years later, when my father died, Rabbi Katz himself got over it, and he gave such a beautiful speech, as if nothing had ever happened between them.

My father was buried in Galanta in 1963 with Orthodox rites. Rabbi Katz said the funeral speech, but he didn’t go himself into the cemetery, he just stayed in the vestibule. Rabbi Katz was a kohen. Two Jews were buried that day in Galanta, this had only happened once since the war. The other person who died was Mr. Blum. My father was buried in the morning, Mr. Blum that afternoon. The weather was horribly hot.

To this day they still don’t allow women to step near the grave when they bury people in Galanta.[proscribed by the Galanta Jewish Orthodox community]. In the front of the vestibule, the deceased is washed, anointed with eggs and kosher wine, then dressed. The men do the men, and the women do the women. I only dressed the dead once, Mrs. Fleischmann. Sadly, there are almost no Jewish women in Galanta who would do this anymore. The grave is lined with planks, that way no nails are used. The deceased, wrapped in a white sheet is put in the ground. A man gets down in the grave, beside the dead person to wipe their face. Their eyes and mouth are covered with pieces of pottery and a palm frond is placed in their right hand. Finally, the boards are placed over top and are covered in dirt.

After my father’s funeral, we sat shivah for seven days straight. Many came over in the evening to pray with us. Even today, if it is Father’s Yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death, I light a candle. As I am a woman, I cannot pray a Kaddish for him. For Jews, women are queens only at home.

I married Hermann Deutsch in 1947. My husband was born on June 7, 1905 in Zsigard. His mother tongue is Hungarian. He finished four Civils [Civil School] 15. He went to a yeshivah also, here in Galanta, with Rabbi Buxbaum and Duschinski.

I met him in the Jewish kitchen, where I was working as an assistant cook. He also went there to eat. We got to know each other at that time, even though he was from Galanta, too. There was a twenty-four year age difference between us. Before the war, he went around on a beautiful bicycle. I always wanted to borrow it, so I asked him, ‘Mister, please loan me your bike!’. Of course, he never did. He was a bachelor.

He came home after the war, somehow we got together. He called me over many times, when he already had his own jewelry business and he had to leave on business with his partner Kalisch, to stay the night. In the morning, I opened the shop. He had a assistant watchmaker working there, but I also helped out. Sometimes he’d ask me to bake this or fry that. I did it. Slowly, we fell in love. We were married in Prague. The civil ceremony was here in Galanta on December 6, 1947, on St. Nicholas Day. The religious wedding we had in Prague, on December 28, 1947. My husband was Jewish, and that was very important to me. We had the wedding in Prague because my Aunt Etus and Uncle Nachman lived there then.

In Prague, my husband-to-be stayed in the Paris Hotel, and until our wedding, I stayed with my aunt. Directly before the wedding, I mean before the ceremony, my aunt took me to the mikveh. The mikveh wasn’t far from the Vltava. First I washed in a tub, then I had to dunk under the water. They told me how to do it. They didn’t cut off my hair, and I’ve never worn a wig. I covered my head, and still do when I go to the prayer house. I only went to a mikveh a couple times in Galanta. The mikveh was open here in Galanta until they tore it down in the 1960s.

My husband borrowed my wedding dress from an acquaintance of his. The veil and bouquet I got as a present. My aunt dressed me before the wedding. In that Prague synagogue, where there is a Jewish clock [Jewish Town Hall on Maiselova Street has a clock with Hebrew letters which moves counter-clockwise], that’s where the wedding was. The orthodox rabbi Rappaport married us. The groom was waiting already under the chuppah. My Aunt Ethel and my father’s wife, that is, my step-mother wrapped me in their arms and led me under the chuppah. My father and Uncle Nachman stood on either side of my husband.. At the end of the ceremony, my husband broke glasses. After the ceremony, we went to Aunt Etus’s house, where a wedding banquet followed. Quite a lot of people came. My best girlfriend, Szidi was there with her husband. They set seven tables. After the wedding, I stayed in the Paris Hotel with my husband. We were in Prague for a week. In the beginning, I called my husband Hermann, but when the children were born, then he became ‘Dad’. In front of the grandchildren, I called him ‘Papa’.

My husband worked in the munitions factory during the Holocaust which belonged to Buchenwald. After he got home, he stayed alone. None of his relatives came home for him, though he had two sisters, and they had children, too.

When I got married, like newlyweds we bought double of every kitchen utensil. My husband and I agreed to keep a kosher household, in spite of the fact that my husband had already eaten treyf, but I hadn’t. I kept kosher until 1960. I don’t remember on what occasion I ate treyf the first time. I was at work, I ate in the company kitchen, so it was impossible to follow the obligations of a kosher kitchen there. I don’t even have separate dishes for Pesach, anymore. On Pesach, I don’t consume leavened bread, flour and yeast either, I just eat matzah for eight days. My menu at that time usually consists of blintzes, various vegetables and meat. Nowadays in Galanta, I only know two people who keep kosher, Mrs. Muller and Mrs. Lowinger.

Almost all of our friends emigrated by 1948. Most of them went to Palestine. They went home. I’m not even sure there was a Palestine then. Everybody left. My husband and I also got ready to leave, but I stayed, pregnant. Pali was born in 1949. Since he had already started to sprout a little, we couldn’t leave. So we stayed here, but we really would have liked to leave. We even packed for it, I labeled the crates. In the end, we stayed anyway. That was really painful for me, I would have gone.

We were very glad about the formation of the Israeli state in 1948. We got together and talked about it, and were glad about it. Even today, if we sing the Israeli anthem [Hatikvah] 16, my tears start gushing. We also sing it, if there’s an occasion calls for it, for example in the prayer house, for the unveiling of memorials…etc.

My husband was the general manager of a pharmacy for thirty years. He worked in one place all the way to his retirement. I worked with him, but it wasn’t long before the regulation came out, that husband and wife couldn’t work together in the same place. So I looked for another position. I found one in the service industry, as a manager, then I worked in another business, likewise as a general manager. I retired to a reduced pension quite early for health reasons, because of my spine.

After we returned [from the war], it was hard to make heads nor tails of politics, in the new system.  Communism didn’t sit well with me. That’s probably why I kept my religion, because the Communist system didn’t appreciate such activities. The Communists took power in 1948 and by the early 1950s, we felt it. They searched our house more than once. They just came in with a paper, ‘Uh… we’re searching your house.’. My husband and Kalisch had a jewelry store, so they thought, I don’t know, we’re so rich. During these house searches, they would turn everything over starting with the cellar, and we had kids by then. They even searched the children’s beds so there wasn’t any gold or something hidden away.

It was very displeasing for my husband. He said, when the Slansky Trial [Slansky Trial] 17 was going on, that it wasn’t Slansky speaking, it was doll. It’s possible that Slansky just spit in some [Communist] party member’s face. They turned my husband in for saying those words. True, he was very lucky that his good friends overturned the letter reporting him. If they hadn’t, he would have sat [in jail] for a good couple years. They repeated the house searches a good couple more times. That’s when we felt there really is anti-Semitism. We heard on the radio about those Russian doctors, Jewish doctors [Doctor’s Plot] 18 , in Romania and Bulgaria also, it was just Jews who were persecuted. We were really sorry then that we didn’t leave for Israel.  We were really scared then, that they would put us in prison. I was scared that they would lock us up innocently, because they locked up a lot of people like that. It was enough to just say somebody was a Zionist, and they were locked up. Nobody among our immediate friends and relatives were locked up then. Jancsi [from Janos – John] Kalisch, however, was locked up, he was put away for five or six years. They imprisoned him because he wanted to go to Israel on an airplane.

I only took part in the Socialist holidays at work as much as I had to. I was a member of the union, it was obligatory, but I didn’t join the Communist Party. In 1968, we just worked.[Prague Spring] 19. We were glad about what happened, however both our children were in the hospital in Pozsony [Bratislava] at the time. We thought a lot about leaving [emigrating] then, but my husband was afraid. He didn’t want to depart for Germany, that is to say, he didn’t want to live with the Germans. We could have gone to America or Israel, but he said he was too old to start life over. I think we made a mistake then, that we stayed here. After 1968, a lot of people left Galanta.

We have three children, two sons and a daughter. Pali [diminutive of Pal –Paul] was born January 14, 1949 in the Lutheran hospital in Pozsony. I was sick, I spent almost a year in the hospital. My daughter Zsuzsi Deutsch, now Mrs. Schenk, likewise, was born in Pozsony on October 11, 1950 in the Jewish hospital. The last, my third child, Gyuri [from Gyorgy – George] here was born January 3, 1954 in Galanta. They all have Jewish names: Pali is Jehude – after his grandfather; Gyuri is Abraham; Zsuzsi is named Malka after my mother.

Pavol, whom we call just Pali at home, got married after his studies. It was a Jewish wedding. They lived in Ersekujvar. He was an employee of the Ogyalla Research Institute, and his wife was working in Szemerce as a teacher. They had a nice life. His wife died relatively young, and suddenly, at the age of fifty-one. They had two children, a daughter and a son. Renata, their daughter got married in 2000, her husband’s name is Steiner. The ceremony was held in the courtyard of the Gyor synagogue. They had two sons, David and Daniel. My granddaughter didn’t agree to have them circumcised, even though the Budapest rabbi came to do it. My grandson Peter married a girl of Russian origin, whose mother is supposedly Jewish. The wedding wasn’t held according to Jewish tradition. They recently had their first daughter, Alzbeta.

My daughter Zsuzsi’s husband, Ladislav Schenk is the descendent of a Jewish family from Dunaszerdahely. Their wedding was in 1969 or 1970. Rabbi Katz married them under the chuppah. My daughter didn’t go to a mikveh, since she was already pregnant at the time. My son-in-law’s mother and I escorted her under the chuppah. The groom was escorted by my husband and Grandpa Rujder, as his father was no longer living. The reception was arranged in the Dunaszerdahely prayerhouse courtyard. There were Gypsy musicians. The food was kosher, brought straight from Budapest. Every Jew in Dunaszerdahely was at the banquet. They had two daughters, Alica and Ingrid. The whole family emigrated to Israel later, to Netanya.

My son Juraj, nicknamed Gyuri, married a non-Jewish girl from Postyen. They had two families [children – sic], David and Estera. The marriage wasn’t fortunate, because they divorced. His wife and children consider themselves Jehovah’s witnesses. My grandchildren still come out to visit me. Estera has been married three years already, to a Kosovo Albanian boy, and David married not long ago. I asked him if his wife was aware that his grandmother is Jewish. He said yes. My grandchildren know I’m Jewish, they respect me and love me, like any other grandmother.

Concerning religion, my husband knew everything perfectly. He insisted on traditions. He insisted that my daughter marry a Jew and that my son take a Jewish wife. My third son didn’t take a Jewish wife, true his wife wanted to convert, but my husband was already sick, he said it wasn’t necessary.  When my son Pali had a child, that is, he didn’t allow his grandson to be circumcised, because his mother was a teacher who was scared when they put him in a nursery school, they would notice, and could kick him out. When the child turned sixteen years old, he had himself circumcised and had a bar mitzvah.

We went to the cinema and theater a lot, in Pest as well as in Pozsony. We didn’t take the children, but went together by ourselves or with friends. We travelled by train, we didn’t have a car. We went to cafes, too. Whether or not our friends were Jewish didn’t matter. Dr. Neumann, Rozenzweig the engineer, Jozsi Ferencz, Kohan…they were all really good friends of ours. Neither Jozsi Ferenc, nor Vrabec, nor Kohan were Jewish, but they were still really good friends. Every Saturday night and Sunday night we had card parties, every week we got together. If it was at our house, then we had black coffee, sandwiches and sweets. Everybody smoked, but they didn’t go to the pub, they only visited houses. My husband was a big soccer fan. He went to the Galanta matches and Pozsony matches, too. He took the boys with him.

In the summers, we vacationed in Luhacovice. While the children were small, my father also came with me. My husband came out on the weekends, so he was together with us on Saturday and Sunday. He rarely took a vacation. We took walks, had conversations. Every year we went on summer vacation. I’ve been to Karlovy Vary [Karlsbad] 20 for problems with my gall bladder, as well as Bartfa for treatments. My husband had a heart attack, so every year for more than ten years we went to the spa in Podebrady.

We also went to company and union resorts [resort hotels/hostels for employee or member use]. We went to Balaton, and I always got my entrance pass to Karlovy Vary from the union. We first were awarded an travel permit abroad in 1977. My husband got sick right then and died in that year. Originally, we had planned to go to Germany to visit our friends. Our old friends from Galanta, Dr. Fischer’s family and Jancsi Kalisch didn’t let me stay home. They’d left in 1968. The Fischers weren’t orthodox Jews. Jancsi was. I had gone to school with Kitti Fischer since childhood, she was a really good friend of mine. She said to me, ‘Rozsi, if you can arrange it, I’ll pay for the airline ticket, if you’d like to go to Israel, to visit Hana. At that time, I hadn’t seen my sister for thirty-two years. When I got back to Galanta, I started making the arrangements. They said, if someone pays for the ticket, then I’ll get my travel permit. And in 1978, I got it. I travelled to Israel in April and stayed there for six weeks. That was a big thing then, because they still weren’t allowing such visits. I had to submit the application to the President of the Republic [of Czechoslovakia], he gave me an exception for permission to travel. He wrote on it, that I had been in a lager and I hadn’t seen my sister in thirty-two years. It’s possible that he personally signed it, or someone from his office signed it in his name, but the fact is, I got the travel permit.

I remember the 1967 Israeli war very well. We were constantly sitting in front of the television, listening to the news. We were proud that they had such a army at their disposal, and that they were able to conquer so many Arabs. There were even Galantans who had close relatives who lost their lives in the war.

For myself, I had a few opportunities to go to Israel, first in 1978, then again only after the Velvet Revolution [Velvet Revolution] 21 did I get to go there. After that I went almost every year. I’ve been to Netanya, Jerusalem at my friends’, I went to Kirjat-Atta where one of my Romanian cousins lives. I went to a lot of places.

I find Israel to be a fascinating country. When I first went, it surprised me how small it is. A couple years later, I hardly recognized Netanya, it had been built up so much. There were a lot of Russians on the streets, everyone spoke Russian, if I was walking, I thought I was in Moscow.  I liked everything there, from a visitor’s point of view everything was pretty. Maybe if I would live there, I wouldn’t find everything so pretty.

After the political change in 1989, when they opened up the eastern block countries, there was no major change in my life. The only way the events affected me was that we could go to Vienna freely. Of course, I had already been to the west. I saw the jewelry stores there and everything that many were seeing for the first time. It wasn’t new to me, I had been to Germany and Israel, too.

My son, Gyuri escaped to Germany in the 1970s, and they had let me visit him. 1983, 1984, 1985… Every year I went out to see him, and even stayed for up to three months. My son is a masseur. I lived with him in Munich. I worked there too. I did needlework for a German seamstress, there who paid me very well for my work. I bought this and that, and sold it at home. This little side income worked out very well with my pension.

My life hardly changed after the Velvet Revolution. I’ve got quite a respectable pension. I get 400 Euros from the Germans quarterly, since I worked in the Allendorf munitions factory. I’m not reliant on anyone, my children either. I still take care of myself.

I’m an active member of the Jewish community. I’m part of the leadership, I take part in the meetings, we discuss everything. The president of the Galanta religious community at present is Bela Fahn. The present president, Fahn is a different kind of person than the last president, Adolf Schultz. He was much older than Fahn is. Bela Fahn informs us about everything, discusses things with us. Schultz in his time, just quickly rushed through what he had to say, and acted according to his own ideas.

I’m now going to the prayer house. There’s a reception room there, where we celebrate weddings and birthdays. Every year we celebrate the Zajin Adar holiday. We set the table, serve cakes and something to drink. In the evening, we have a fish dinner. The Pozsony rabbi, Baruch Myers is usually present at these times, he gives us a holiday speech. The Jewish families from the Galanta area get together.

I never hide my Jewish origins. Once I went to a bath, and someone wanted to tell a Jewish joke. First they said that they hoped there weren’t Jewish people among us. I said there weren’t any, just one, that would be me. I don’t hide that I’m Jewish.

In the last three years, the Slovakian Jewish Community Central Organization have taken over half my expenses for drug prescriptions. On the basis of a medical prescription, there’s a social worker, who is paid by the town. Through the Claims Conference, I received 4500 Euros for persecution during the Holocaust.

During the latest census, I considered myself of Slovakian Nationality. I live here, so I consider myself Slovakian. At the same time, I haven’t given up my Jewish religion. That’s one hundred percent.

Glossary
1 Subcarpathia (also known as Ruthenia, Zakarpatie): Region situated on the border of the Carpathian Mountains with the Middle Danube lowland. The regional capitals are Uzhhorod, Berehovo, Mukachevo, Khust. It belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until World War I; and the Saint-Germain convention declared its annexation to Czechoslovakia in 1919. It is impossible to give exact historical statistics of the language and ethnic groups living in this geographical unit: the largest groups in the interwar period were Hungarians, Rusyns, Russians, Ukrainians, Czech and Slovaks. In addition there was also a considerable Jewish and Gypsy population. In accordance with the first Vienna Decision of 1938, the area of Subcarpathia mainly inhabited by Hungarians was ceded to Hungary. The rest of the region was proclaimed a new state called Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, with Khust as its capital, but it only existed for four and a half months, and was occupied by Hungary in March 1939. Subcarpathia was taken over by Soviet troops and local guerrillas in 1944. In 1945, Czechoslovakia ceded the area to the USSR and it gained the name Carpatho-Ukraine. The region became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, the region became an administrative region under the name of Transcarpathia.

Juliet Yosif Saltiel (nee Fridman)

Sofia 

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova 

Date of interview: May - September 2004

Juliet Saltiel is a cordial and delicate woman. Her wisdom and hard family fate make her life story sound unique. It was only her family that took a serious view of the warnings for prospective internment of Bulgarian Jews to certain places that appeared in the press of 1942. One year before that she and the next of kin decided to move to a town that they knew and where they had relatives, ahead of the events to come. Thus, Fridman family gained the most important: the right to choose. This right and this choice set their mark on her later life that she lived under the lucky name Saltiel. Juliet Saltiel is a woman advanced in years, her movement being handicapped because of the stroke she once had. Her flat is small, humble, and tidy. The curious fact is that the old family Saltiel has recently come into possession of a computer (second-hand) and with the help of their grandchildren they are now learning how to operate with it, using it mainly as a typewriter.  

It is difficult for me to speak of my maternal and paternal grandparents because I have no information about them. However, I can tell interesting facts of my father Yosif Fridman’s life story, who was a Russian Jew as well as the story of my mother Blanche Fridman (nee Baruh) who was a Bulgarian Jew.

My father Yosif Fridman was born in the village of Luninets, Minsk Region [Luninets is in Brest region, Belarus] in 1897. Unfortunately, I know nothing of other possible children in my father’s parents; neither can I say if he had any siblings. As far as I know, my father was a soldier in the Russian army and took part in the October Revolution in 1917 1. He fled from Russia most probably in the period between 1920 and 1922. I can’t remember anything else about that. When he moved to Bulgaria, he received the so-called Nansen’s citizenship, which means he had an emigrant status in Bulgaria but did not have a citizenship [he was a Russian subject, but received certain civil rights in Bulgaria]. His Nansen’s citizenship, however, expired after 9th September 1944 2 and he was forced to move to Israel [Palestine], where he died in Yagur in 1961.

I should mention that this Nansen’s citizenship was helpful but at the same time, it was a handicap. Because my father was a cobbler, but he couldn’t practise his profession here, as he was not allowed to. That’s why my family led the poor life of nomads. Dad worked everything he could do – he used to make bars of soap and sell them. Furthermore, he was always on the go and we, a family with many members, travelled together with him.  We helped each other. For example, the bars of soap were made at home. We mixed the ingredients, boiled them and then we cut them in bars. I remember all of us, including my mother, taking part in this important activity. These days I was a second-grade student. Before that, when I was just born, my father had been a worker in the construction, he had carried stones and sand with horse and cart. But precisely on my birthday he fell over and broke his leg. He was also a trade intermediary in co-operation with my maternal uncle Israel Baruh. I remember that he loved going to a famous in its time café – ‘Phoenix’; it was in Dondoukov Blvd. He also worked there, but he never had any problems in his work because of his origin. 

Dad sometimes was very joyful, sometimes – extremely strict. Strict mainly with my mother and my half-brother whom he didn’t want. He thought of my half-brother’s ailment as a stain and he would always tell him off. However, as a whole, he was a just man and he didn’t have any problems in his communication with people. In certain cases, he loved singing – in Russian or in Yiddish. His favourite song was ‘Ei, uhnem!’ [Russian: Come on, altogether!]. I remember him also singing religious songs in Ivrit (I cannot reconstruct them in my memory now), because my father was very religious in contrast to my mother. For example, my mother used to prepare matzah for Pesach; but secretly from my father she also ate bread. He used to observe all the traditions and often went to the synagogue. He used to wear his tallit. And he filled us, his children, with strong respect.

I remember the following event. Once my younger brother Shraga [Shraga was his nick-name, used by his friends. His official name was Faivel.] and I went to school (we attended one and the same school). I was then in the forth grade while he was in the first. These days we were allotted snacks in the breaks at school and I still think it’s a good thing to do in the school breaks. All right, but it was Yom Kippur then. Faivel went to take his snack and I shouted at him ‘You mustn’t. How can you eat on Kippur?’ and I threw his breakfast away. Now I think what I did was very cruel to the small Faivel.  Now I remember that my father was very fond of going to the synagogue on Pesach.  Before that, however, he would buy a hen and send my mother and me to the shochet who would cut its throat in our presence. Then my mother would cook it deliciously. Of course, all this was possible before the Law for Protection of the Nation 3.     

My father had come to Bulgaria from Russia, coming to Sofia most probably through Vidin. In Sofia he met my mother Blanche Israel Baruh, who then worked as a clerk at a good position (but unfortunately I have no information where). After her second marriage (to my father) my mother stopped working. She was a housewife. But I know nothing about how my mother and my father had met. I know only that my mother was divorced then and had one kid. I can’t say anything for certain about her first husband, Yosif Levi. Once I saw him from the back in a street. He seemed to me dirty.

All I know about my mother’s relatives is that she is a descendant of a Jewish family from the Sephardim branch. Her father, Israel Samuel Baruh, was born in Vidin and his father, Samuel Baruh was an inn-keeper and had a total of four children. So my father had two sisters and a brother. Their names were Ester, Mazal, and Victor, but unfortunately I know nothing else about them. I know nothing at all about my paternal grandmother, Djamila Samuel Baruh, because she had died before I was born (that is before 1925) but I suppose she was also from Vidin and was most probably a housewife, staying at home and looking after her children, just like all the women of that time.

My mother’s brothers and sisters were Samuel (called also Bucco as first born son, since this was the tradition in the Jewish families then), Israel Baruh, Avram Israel Baruh, Isak Israel Baruh, Haim Israel Baruh, and Berta Baruh. Of course, the least information I have about my uncle Avram, who died of some illness as a child, that is - before the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced in Bulgaria [1941]. I remember that uncle Bucco was a cobbler, Isak worked together with my father as a trades intermediary, uncle Haim made paper packaging for seeds which he sold at the market, and auntie Berta was a housewife. Except for Avram, who died very young and Haim, who died also of an illness relatively young in 1948, all other relatives emigrated to Israel at one time or another (I don’t know exactly when, but it was most probably after 9th September 1944.) Avram and Haim died in Bulgaria, while all others – in Israel. The name of my uncle Haim’s wife was Margarita, but they didn’t have children and didn’t manage to go to Israel. The names of uncle Bucco’s and auntie Berta’s children are Isidor, Dora, Lora, Josef, Jana, and Albert. They left for Israel and I don’t know anything about them. Uncle Isak and auntie Rashel Baruh had children whose names were Tiko, Rozhe, and Jacque. I have no information about them and their families. Berta and Morits Bokumski’s children were called Frida, Ani and Zhori. I know nothing about them. However, as far as I know, Berta died in Israel in the early 1980s.

I remember that my half-brother Leon, whose pet name was Edi, lived with us until I started to go to school (that is about 1931-1932). After that my uncle Haim and auntie Margarita Baruh grew him up. My brother Leon Yosif Levi (born 1920) was undesired by my father and because of that I was often present to arguments between mum and dad at home; Leon was the reason for these arguments but he was not guilty.

The point was that Edi was different from other people because he was born without thumbs on his palms and what is more - he was my mother’s child from another man. All this was depressing to my father and thus a situation was provoked by which my uncle and aunt decided to take care of him. I should underline, however, that despite his defect, my brother was literate: he could read, he could write and he also had much talent for painting.

My elder brother’s name was Ruben. He was born in Sofia in 1923 and died in Israel in 1999. He was an electrician. From his wife Ester (nee Sachi), he had three children: Yosif, Sima and Dafna. They live in Haifa in Israel. His wife was a housewife and now she is a pensioner. As far as I know it was Ruben who took care of our mother until she died.

My younger brother Shraga (his name used in the family was Faivel, after our paternal grandfather, Faivel Fridman) was born in the village of Karamanovo, Svishtov region, in 1928. He also emigrated to Israel. He is a constructor. They have three children with his wife Shoshana: Pnina, Hanita and David. Their children also live in Israel. Before she retired, Shoshana worked as a host at the Bulgarian old people’s home in Rishon Lezion, while she was living in Yagur with her family, near to my mother.

I was born in the village of Slatina, near Sofia, on 17th December 1925. Our family was often forced to move from one place to another, because it was difficult for our father to find a permanent job. That is why my brothers and I were born in different places in Bulgaria. All this, however, didn’t mean that my childhood wasn’t good. But I should mention I never attended a Jewish school. All the schools I studied at were Bulgarian, except for the first one. I started my primary education in Ruse. There I studied up to first grade only. It was the local Catholic school, and I don’t know why my parents decided to choose exactly this one, but it was perhaps because of the better education it seemed to provide.  In my second grade I was already at the Sofia’s school ‘Father Paisii’. In fact, I studied there up to my fourth grade. After that the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced and I didn’t study during this period [1941-1944]. In 1946, however, I continued my education at a night school. At this point all my relatives had already emigrated to Israel. After the night school I attended the so-called Rabfac 4. My favorite subject in the workers’ faculty was Physics. I don’t remember who the teacher was. I remember only my teachers in Bulgarian and Mathematics – Mrs. Denkova and Mr. Radulov. I can’t remember any other details about my early childhood.

I remember that before and during the Law for Protection of the Nation my family lived at different addresses. We lived in a rented flat in Ruse, after that – in Sofia, where we changed our addresses very often. I remember that in my early childhood we lived in Beli Iskar Str. near the railway station. After that we moved to live in Tetevenska Str. Then we changed our address to a two-storey house in Skobelev Blvd. We lived in two rented rooms in the attic. We had electricity, running water and even a radio. I remember we loved listening to radio Sofia. After that we left for Asenovgrad where we changed two houses. After 9th September 1944 we came back to Sofia and we found a flat in Bacho Kiro Str. Actually, before that we lived for a while in Struma Str.. In 1946 my relatives emigrated to Israel (then Palestine) and I remained to live in a huge, half-empty room at Bacho Kiro Str. Except for me in the flat lived my aunt Haim and auntie Margarita Baruh with my half-brother Leon Yosif Levi. We lived everywhere in rented flats. It was not until I married in 1947 when I started to think of living in my own flat.

I remember the period of the Law for Protection of the Nation very well. When we went out we had to wear these disgraceful yellow stars; we got insulted and even humiliated by random people in the streets whom we even didn't know. We had an obligatory curfew hour; besides, Jews were banned from entering certain shops, restaurants, theaters and so on. There was an invariable sign at these places: ‘Forbidden for Jews’. But what is more - the Jews were not allowed to keep running their private pharmacies, most of them - situated in Sofia's center, so Bulgarians got an advantage of taking control over the pharmacies. Of course, there were restrictions for tradesmen of Jewish origin as well (and the Jews were then predominantly retailers). Students of Jewish origin could not continue their education at universities. There was also one-off tax, for example if one had a bank account of 100,000 leva 30 per cent or 40 per cent of that sum simply got confiscated. I remember very well a historic date - 24th May 1943 5, when in Sofia the Jews manifested against the decision for their internment out of the capital, as well as against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews. The people were marching from the Synagogue 6 to the school, starting from Stamboliiski Blvd. They wanted to reach the royal palace and ask King Boris III 7 for help. However, the police suddenly intercepted them on Vazrazhdane Square, where Bet Am 8 is situated today. They stuffed them into trucks and arrested many people. In fact, the action led by rabbi Daniel [Zion] was smashed. Rabbi Daniel managed to find refuge with bishop [i.e. Exarch] Stefan 9, who was then an active opposer to the idea for Jewish internment.

My family voluntarily moved to live in Asenovgrad one year before that. We decided to do it after we read the announcements that appeared in the daily newspapers and on the radio that warned of a forthcoming law for forced internment of all Jews living in Sofia to places in the country [Internment of the Jews in Bulgaria] 10. We moved our baggage to the house of the sister of my brother Ruben’s wife. Ruben had just married in Sofia. That happened in 1941. My brother was then at around 19 years of age. His wife’s name was Ester (nee Sachi) and her sister was called Lili Videva (nee Sachi). At the beginning we lived in Lili’s two-storey house, where also her family lived. They were three of them then (she had just given birth to his first son Vassil). And we were seven (together with my brother, his wife and my half-brother); that is – three different families that had to live together. Of course, this situation could not continue for ever, so Lili Videva and her husband found for us a separate rented house in another district, which was however close to their place. I remember there were a lot of Turks in our district, fewer Bulgarians and Jews (who already wore the disgraceful yellow stars); no Armenians lived there though. Despite the mixed origin of the residents we lived well together. Our house was small of course, with low ceilings – a typical Turkish house. There were two rooms and a kitchen. We used logs for heating. My brother Ruben once lost his wedding ring in the pile of logs in the yard.

Men were sent to forced labor camps 11 - to build roads in the mountains. Thank goodness, the men in our family remained in the ghetto together with us. The authorities in the country understood that they could not feed such a multitude of interned Jews and decided to use part of the confiscated Jewish money to establish public catering units for them. Thus, the Jews received every day hot food (mostly potatoes).

How did we earn our living during the Law for Protection of the Nation? My brother was an electrician and he often went to the nearby villages to practice his profession, although it was forbidden; he used to take off his yellow star before that. Of course, the villagers could give him away to the authorities, because his activity was against the law [Jews could work only in the field of manual labor, thanks to which they could earn something for their living.] But they didn’t do that. Moreover, my brother often brought home wires. In these cases, all the family gathered, including the children, enthusiastic for the work – we made of the wires elements (some kind of insulators) – that we painted after that. These wires were again for the villagers, when there was a place to be supplied with electric current. Sometimes my father made walnut oil. We all gathered for such cases again, opened the walnuts, then we milled them, heated them to a certain temperature in a big pot or a ‘paila’ [dialect Bulgarian word meaning big flat baking dish] we put the substance in a press and it was only after that that walnut oil was produced. My father used to sell this oil to Bulgarians. But not at the market (because the authorities would have immediately caught him) – he sold it directly to individuals. That is how we earned our living.    

After 9th September 1944 my family came back to Sofia convinced that we all must emigrate to Israel [Palestine] after two years – in 1946. My brother Faivel, however, emigrated ahead of all yet in 1945 together with some friends of his. In the meantime my relatives lodged their documents in the police so that their emigration might be legally organized. I ran away from home for everybody’s surprise. The reason for my flight was that I wanted to stay in Bulgaria. For a certain period I lived with a friend of mine who hid me. Eventually, I plucked up courage and decided to meet with the head of the police office to tell him in person I didn’t want to leave. I still remember him finding my passport in the file with all other ready documents of my family that were required for our departure, he opened the page with my picture and crossed it out. That meant he practically had nothing against my remaining in my country.  That is how I remained here despite my parents’ opinion. As it happens in life, my relatives found me several days later and I got a thrashing for what I did. But what’s done can’t be undone. They left and I stayed here.

As a matter of fact, my reason to stay here was a boy from Jewish origin, whom I had fallen in love with. His name was Sasho. He worked at a metal processing workshop located in Nish Str.. We knew each other well, because we were from one and the same Jewish crowd before 9th September 1944. Eventually we separated though. It was not before it that I discovered my future husband, Mois Solomon Saltiel, who was in fact from the same Jewish crowd.

I first met him when our family lived in a rented flat on the attic floor in Struma Str., just opposite to the home of my uncle Isak and auntie Rashel Baruh. Their sons’ names were Tiko, Rozhe and Jacque. After that they emigrated to Israel and I have no information about them (they must have died most probably). We lived so close to each other that we used to communicate from our windows. Well, Mois worked at his father’s cobbler workshop near there. I used to go there wearing a short dress, and, of course, he would gaze at me. Later, we met in the Jewish crowd I mentioned. One of the crowd was also my cousin Dori, who was interned to Kyustendil during the Law for Protection of the Nation. Afterwards, she married Rafael Kalev from Plovdiv, where she lives up to the present day (they have two sons: Izidor and Solomon). Our crowd included also Becca Koen (today her family name is Bidjerano and she lives in Israel) as well as other people.

There was also a violinist, Rudolf Benvenisti, (born in 1924) who got a 15-year sentence and was imprisoned together with my future husband Mois Saltiel from September 1942 to September 1944. He loved playing ‘A Little Night Music’ for us. Unfortunately, our crowd split at the point when the so called ‘progressive ideas’ started to increasingly creep into it [i.e. the communist ideas] and the Law for Protection of the Nation was the other thing that split us, obviously.

Of course, we knew each other with Mois yet from the period he went underground. I remember that one day when I was interned with my family in Asenovgrad I received a letter from him. Then he was imprisoned in the Skopje jail, but despite all this we had the possibility to be in relatively undisturbed correspondence. I knew they read his letters in the prison before I received them. And after I got the letters I had to show them to my mother (this was the way the things were these days – family matriarchate dominated in our family). But I didn’t find these details as something wrong.

 The main reason for his imprisoning was as comic as it was tragic. I will describe this important story in details. In 1942 on ‘Hristo Botev’ radio the platform of the Fatherland Front 12 was read. There was a series of requirements and tasks for the democratic development of the country set by the Fatherland Front in it, including certain points against the anti-Semitic legislation. Underground members of the Union of Young Workers (UYW) 13, among which was also Mois, decided that this platform has to be delivered to the broad public, because the government did not comment on it and the newspapers didn’t write anything about it. Mois was then the head of several UYW groups, one of which decided to multiply leaflets with this important platform. These days I kept myself away from the underground activity of my future husband, although I was informed about it. And because it was very labor consuming to write the platform by hand and there was no printing house to publish it, they decided that they could multiply it by photo typing separate parts of the platform. One of them, Sabat Melamed, worked at a photo studio and took materials as well as cassette for film copying. The whole group gathered in the flat of Mois Perets at the corner of Odrin Str. and Stamboliiski Blvd.. [Odrin Street is one of the oldest streets in Sofia. It is a crossing of Stamboliiski Blvd, relatively near to the Jewish Center.] It was in August 1942 between 23:00 and 24:00 p.m.. And they started to copy these pictures. There was a lot of noise coming from the opening and closing of the box where the copying was carried out. Even more, the house was all wattle and daub and on the storey below them lived unknown Bulgarians. Well, as they were producing this noise in the night the neighbors went up to see what happens. They wanted to open the door, but because Mois and the others had locked it and pulled down the curtains, the Bulgarians told them: ‘You are doing something wrong and we are going to call the police, if you don’t leave.’ Then one of the daredevils, Leon Levi, who lived at the opposite corner, took the box with all the materials in order to liquidate them. But when he went out it happened that a policeman was sitting in the nearby café who saw that a youngster in a hurry carried a dubious box at an unearthly hour. He started shouting at him; ‘Halt! Halt!’ and the boy started to run, they chased each other, and finally Leon Levi was arrested. In the meanwhile, Mois together with Sabat Melamed ran away on the roofs of the low buildings from Stamboliiski Blvd as far as Positano and Odrin Streets, where another friend of theirs lived, Daniel Albahari. There they rested for the night. But when the policemen started to beat Leon Levi, after dawn, he told them who lived in the house and they went and arrested Mois Perets. 

In fact, this was the beginning of Mois’s underground life. Meanwhile, police started to track him down. They took one of his pictures and started to seek for him. He hid at many different places, until the police, which was carrying out its investigations, arrested most of the young men who were in the UYW groups led by Mois. They initiated legal proceedings where his death sentence was asked. But because of the fact he was juvenile, he got a 15-year sentence. Mois wasn’t at the trial, so the sentence was a judgment by default. Later he eventually got to the police betrayed by one man (but I don’t know the details). Mois was thus sent to the Sofia jail first. After six months there he was sent to the prison in Skopje in the Idrizovo branch [Bulgarian Occupation of Macedonia in World War II] 14. That happened in 1943.  

As I have already mentioned after 1946 - the year when my parents emigrated – I remained to live alone in a half-empty rented room. There were five more people living in the same apartment. In the next room were my brother Ruben with his wife Ester. They earned their living making for example paper packaging for seeds out of newspapers; uncle Haim sold them at the market. My aunt was a housewife. In the kitchen lived my half-brother Leon Levi.

My room seemed to be big, because I lived alone. I mentioned it was half-empty because this was the simple truth. After my parents left, I had only a bed, a cupboard and a big case chest that served me as a wardrobe. I put my clothes in it.

Then I met Mois by chance. After 9th September 1944 I worked as an editor-in-chief of ‘Septemvriyche’ [a junior high school communist organization in Bulgaria, preparing the children to join the Komsomol; the name is derivative of September, allusion to the 9th September 1944] child’s magazine in Sofia. I was also in charge of a group of children then. I taught them to sing songs and to play games (the goal then was to reach a state of union and team spirit by playing). I was something like a primary teacher and child educator, as far as it was possible with my education. It was funny these days. The region leader was Venezia Mochiah (the future wife of Marko Isakov, the parents of the great opera singer Niko Isakov). There were only few such groups that worked with children then. It was Venezia that asked me to distribute some of ‘Septemvriyche’’s issues. There was also a big Jewish club on Klementina Square [even today the Jewish organization ‘Shalom’ is situated there]. One day, in this club, I was struggling to write something on a typewriter when Mois appeared next to me and gallantly offered me to write it for me. After this we more and more drew together. And eventually we got married in 1947.   

After we married with Mois, he came to live with me - in my poor, big, half-empty room in Bacho Kiro Str. We found a wardrobe and brought it in. But actually we had nothing interesting in this room. I was already pregnant. So we decided to ask urgently for a stove from the commissariat (it was practice to ask for help in cases such as ours). But it had to be not only a stove, but a cooking range, too – multifunctional, made in Bulgaria to serve us both for heating and for cooking.

As a matter of fact, I don’t remember any anti-Semitic reactions against me or my family before 1944 and after that. Gradually, my husband and I started leading a normal life (I mean in easy circumstances relatively). At the beginning Mois, who had just been employed with the People’s Militia Directorate helped me find a new job as a clerk at the Interior Ministry’s passport department. After that I was an Interior Ministry regional secretary. At that time I had already given birth to my first son, Solomon Mois Saltiel (1947) and he was already six months old. At that point I got fired from the passport department and I started work with Interior Ministry’s political committee. My dismissal was not provoked by my Jewish origin, there were simply huge job cuts then and they had to dismiss 100 people for six months. However, I worked as an Interior Ministry’s regional secretary long years after that. I was very pleased with my colleagues all of whom were Bulgarians. Mois then worked for the Youth Committee (a DCYU regional committee – Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union, which was later renamed to DUNY - Dimitrov’s Union of People’s Youth, which was incorporated in the Interior Ministry’s system; Mois was in fact DUNY chairman in the period between 1947-1950.)    

In 1951 I was suddenly dismissed by Kyosovski, who was my boss then (a regional leader). After that it was very difficult for me to find a job. My dismissal was something like a stain. I think the reason was his personal attitude towards me. 

At that time I gave birth to Yosif, my second son, and together with Mois and our first child Moni [Solomon] we already lived in Odrin Str., near Stamboliiski Blvd. We had our small garden with hens. However, we lived there only for one year. In 1953 we moved to a flat near the Fire brigade’s office. After a long job seek I found a job as a foodstuff inspector in restaurants. It was not before this point that I managed to lodge my documents for continuing my education in RabFac. The course there lasted for three years. I think it happened in the period between 1951 and 1954. When I graduated from the Rabfac I studied Physics at the university from 1955 to 1956 and simultaneously worked as a dressmaker at home. I sewed children’s clothes: trousers, blouses etc. But it was a very low-paid job. So I worked as a dressmaker until 1956 when my third child, Ani, turned one year of age. Then I stopped my studies at the university. Physics was my child’s dream. I still regret I had to quit then, but I didn’t have the choice. So I have an uncompleted level of higher education.

During our internment to Asenovgrad I suffered very badly from peritonitis. My parents took me as far as Plovdiv so that I might have an operation done. In order to go there we had to ask the police for permission. Before that I had suffered from pleurisy. That’s why doctors told me I could not have any children. So, before marrying Mois I was convinced I wouldn’t have children. Despite that we have three children with Mois: Solomon, Yosif, and Ani. They all were born in Sofia. As a matter of fact, I don’t know when they understood they were Jews. We used to celebrate all the Jewish holidays at home, although we didn’t always observe the tradition very strictly. My children graduated from Bulgarian schools. So I am not sure if they have an increased Jewish self-consciousness. What is for sure, no one can remember of anti-Semitic incident against a member of our family. I remember that Moni was a very good student at the Electricity Technical High School in Sofia. I used to help him with Mathematics very often. After that he continued his education at the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University 15 and then in Moscow at Lomonosov University where he completed his education in Physics. Later he was on a specialization assignment in America for two years at the Irvine University where he specialized in quant electronics. Jozhko [Yosif] chose to study electrotechnics. Ani on her turn became an architect. She completed her education at Sofia’s Institute of Architecture and Construction (VIAS).

Solomon is a professor today, Ph.D, and was accepted as a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the field of quant electronics in 2004. Moni was the last of my children to get married. He married after he completed his higher education and after he started work as a teacher at the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University. His wife, Veska Saltiel, is also a physicist (she was born in Sofia and her maiden name was Lyubenova, she works in the Sofia University’s administration). They married in 1977. Their children’s names are Juliet (1978) and Kalina (1982). At present, Juliet lives in Haifa, Israel, where she studies the same specialty as her aunt Ani – architecture. This year she completed her university education. Kalina lives in Bulgaria and studies economy (marketing) in the American University in Blagoevgrad.

Yosif is an automatics engineer and has his own company in Sofia. He married Nina (I don’t know what her maiden name was) in 1976. His wife is also an engineer in automatics. Now Nina works with the Defence Ministry, but not as a clerk. As far as I know, she is in charge of the computer network maintenance at the ministry. Jozhi [Yosif] and Nina live in Mladost district [a Sofia’s suburb] and have two children; Georgi (1979) and Monica (1987). Georgi is an IT specialist (he completed his university education in this field), while Monica is still a schoolgirl.

Ani is an architect, but she is not working at present. As a matter of fact she was the first to marry – yet as a schoolgirl in 1973. My husband and I even had to ask for permission for their wedding, because they hadn’t completed their high school education yet (Ani was then almost 18 years old). Her husband’s name is Mladen Mladenov, they were classmates. She was still a schoolgirl when she gave birth to her first child Nikolay (1973). Nikolay graduated from the Sofia’s High School of Mathematics, after which he married and went to Canada. At present he lives there together with his wife Stanislava, also a mathematician, and their two children Mladen (1996) and Anton (2001). Ani’s daughter is called Elena (1978). She graduated from the Construction University in Sofia and is a water conduit and sewerage engineer. Now she is practicing her profession with a company.

Frankly speaking, I didn’t like the changes that took place after 10th November 1989 16. The reason is that the people in Bulgaria got significantly poorer; there is nothing left from the economy and social security of the past, which we remember from the totalitarian period; and that is why people as a whole feel bad. Firstly, because they came suddenly and lasted for too long. Of course, it is wrong to deny everything that is new, but we cannot simply bury all that was created in the totalitarian period in Bulgaria.  People, despite their humble income, lived then much more calmly. I know a lot of people of my age who want the socialism back in power. This is a very understandable wish, given the increased level of crime in the country after 1989. My family is nostalgic about the time when we could afford to go to the sea-side or to the mountains every year, when we regularly bought books, newspapers, magazines. To put it in simple words: we lived very well then, without having big salaries. I will not even mention the medicines. Now we don't know how to save money to buy the medicines we need.

I have been to Israel three times (1974, 1982 and 1994) together with my husband and want to underline that the life there, even not so calm, is much better. I remember that when I first went there my father Yosif Faivel Fridman had already died. As I have already mentioned my elder brother, Ruben, took care of my mother in Israel, although my younger brother Shraga lived with his family nearer her, in the same street in Yagur actually. In 1974 Israel seemed to me a beautiful and calm country for the time. Later I began to worry because of the disorders there. Now I travel much less frequently due to my illness which makes me relatively sluggish. I go to visit our family friends (who are predominantly Jewish) more rarely, but I am well informed of everything that is going on in the Bulgarian Jewish community. It is because of my husband Mois Saltiel who was the chairman of the Jewish Library Club in Sofia for more than 10 years, and has been the chairman of the ‘Golden Age’ club at the Jewish Organization in Bulgaria ‘Shalom’ 17 for more than two years. The activity of the club consists of weekly gatherings on Saturday afternoons, when the old members of our community gather. The club organizes a multitude of meetings with artists of Jewish origin, more or less nearing the golden age, such as the actor Itzhak Fintzi, theater director professor Grisha Ostrovski, the writer Victor Baruh, etc. It is the arrangement and holding of these meetings, as well as the organized attendance to cinema and theater performances that my husband takes care of.

Translated by Alexander Manuiloff

Glossary

Matilda Levi

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interview: Violeta Kyurdyan

Date of interview: March 2002

When I entered her home for the very first time, I found myself in a wаrm and cozy apartment in the most beautiful part of the center of Sofia. Matilda gave me a friendly smile as she invited me to take a seat. I didn’t see any pictures on the wall, nor did I notice any precious objects around. No bright colors, nothing to grip the attention.  Everything in the room was clean, modest, and simple. Matilda was sharing that apartment with one of her sons at that time. Presently, after having badly broken her leg, she lives in the so-called Parents’ Home for elderly Jews. When I went to visit her there, I had the same impression of coziness that I had had at her home, as if she had brought the sprit of her home with her. She was joking and smiling again, but she couldn’t walk well enough yet and she was suffering of not being able to go down to the garden, but had to walk around with her support along the corridor instead. Though, she’s still the same charming and shining person I had met, despite the pain and the inconvenience, which the accident has brought to her life.

My maiden name is Behar. When I was small, we spoke Ladino 1 at home. I used to speak that language but now I’ve forgotten it a little, of course. My grandchildren don’t speak [Ladino]. Bulgarian culture surrounds us.

I come from Karnobat. My [paternal] grandfather Moisei Behar ran his own business. He had a little shop down at the square. He used to sell textile, haberdashery, fancy goods, etc. A lot of people used to come from the villages. There was a connection with the villages. Women weren’t allowed to go there; it was regarded indecent in those times. Sometimes I went there. When I was a child my grandfather wasn’t interested in the children at all and he even mixed up their names. My grandfather could read in Bulgarian. He read newspapers, but he couldn’t write. My paternal grandmother, Vida Hason, came from Bourgas; my grandfather brought her from there. She came from a notable family. My grandmother was a real housewife though she could write. I wondered why, when she started writing something, she wrote from right to left. She didn’t explain. I suppose it must have been a text in [old] Turkish; I don’t know even now what it was. She spoke fluent Turkish.

My grandmother had seven children and they all went to different places. All of my aunts and uncles received their education in Bourgas, and one of my aunts in a French boarding school in Rousse. Later, all of them except my father went to Israel. He remained here because his ideology didn’t allow him to leave. I don’t know what was better: to depart or not.

My other grandmother, my mother’s mother, Bohora Behar, came from Yambol and her father was a rabbi there. They called my other grandfather, Mordehai Behar, Bukorachi-the-drummer. He was bald headed and had a little beard. We had a big portrait of him and he looked just like Lenin, at least that’s what Lenin looked like in the photos I’ve seen of him. We hung this portrait [on the wall]. Later we had to hide it because he looked so much like Lenin. When he was going to work in the mornings, he passed by our house. He had a big cane with which he could reach the first floor window and he knocked to tell me good morning and then he went on to work.

My father, Yosif Behar, was born in Karnobat in 1888. He studied in Karnobat till the third grade [the seventh grade of elementary school at present]. Everything was just fine but where could he continue studying? In Plovdiv, of course. So, he was taken to Plovdiv. There’s a big and very famous secondary school there. Samodumov and Barutchiyski [eminent Bulgarian intellectuals] taught my father there: these are men who later became professors. He received a very solid education. He studied math really fundamentally, descriptive geometry, rhetoric and Old Bulgarian. He could recite Chernorizetz Hrabar and Cicero’s speeches by heart. [Hrabar was a Bulgarian writer from the end of the 9th century, the so-called Golden Age of the Bulgarian culture.] He was very keen on math but he could also draw very well and could write in calligraphy: they studied calligraphy at school. When we had to make chemistry tables in secondary school, he made them for me and they were always hung on the classroom wall. He sang lots of [Bulgarian] folk songs. He didn’t study Hebrew at all. But he knew some prayers by heart and also their translations.

After he graduated, he did some accounting courses. When he first went to Plovdiv he was 13. He wanted to go back home. He left school and walked from Plovdiv to Karnobat on foot, because he didn’t have any money. But after that he returned to Plovdiv and continued studying. My father often said, ‘We, our family, eat boza 2 and halva in Plovdiv.’ That was the cheapest food and the rest was expensive. He said, ‘We didn’t know what toothpaste was then. We baked bread until it became black, then we pounded it and brushed our teeth with this paste.’ And he died without a tooth pulled out.

After he finished his accounting courses, he came back to Karnobat. He was accepted as an erudite man. My father had been in a non-commissioned officers’ school. He didn’t take part in the war [WWI] although he was some sort of a commander. After he graduated from school, he was told that he had a valvular disease and wasn’t fit for active service. So, he was never sent to the front. He spent all his life with this disease. He had a wonderful handwriting, like a calligrapher. He became a clerk at the Dimitrov brothers’. They were businessmen. He had to go around the villages and market their goods. Then he bought a horse and rode around the villages; I don’t know if he had a cart. He was really in the circle of the Karnobat intellectuals because he had graduated from secondary school.

Life in Karnobat was rather patriarchal. We Jews were around 100 families or maybe fewer. All of us had to be religious. There was no way out, because your neighbor would immediately say, ‘Look, he isn’t religious!’ and so on. Even on Friday evenings my grandmother wasn’t supposed to switch the electricity on, or even touch the switches. Some Turkish woman used to come to turn the lights on. I remember that we used gas lamps. I was ten when electrification finished. I was living with my father, mother and my uncle, my father’s brother, in a one-storey house. Both my grandmothers lived in their old-Bulgarian houses, with a front square bay, just like the Koprivshtitza houses. [This is a small and picturesque Bulgarian town, famous for its houses built in the Bulgarian national revival tradition.]

We didn’t live in luxury. We had a hall and two or three rooms. When all of us, the grandchildren, gathered we used to all sleep downstairs. There were cupboards where, according to the Bulgarian tradition, we used to put the mattresses. And when it was time to go to bed we climbed up, it was a little bit high, and we rocked on the mattresses, which were really soft. It was very funny. Then we put the mattresses on the ground and slept there.

There was great poverty in Karnobat. We lived in the Jewish quarter. When holidays were close my mother used to prepare something that I carried to the poor: roasted chicken or something like that. Money was collected, too. It was something like a synagogue fee. Poor people were always given something. They were given some work. Sometimes Turks came to broom the yard or they went to the school fountain to bring some water. Otherwise, I used to bring the drinking water. Sometimes my father got up at 4am to go for water because there was no running water. The tap was leaking and there were great queues. My paternal grandmother had a well and a pump but the water wasn’t good for drinking. The pump was for irrigating. There were flowers in the front yard and in the back yard; there were tomatoes, peppers and parsley. They were irrigated because there was a lot of dry heat in the summer. I helped in irrigating and cleaning the garden.

Karnobat had its madmen. But the madmen were really harmless and there was Mad Sarah; she was a Gypsy. She wandered down the quarter, spreading gossip, but she was not ill tempered. Everybody loved her and she gave instructions everywhere. For example, I had a cousin whose mother had died during her birth. I don’t know how Mad Sarah had learned that Iveta would soon come but she pulled me aside and said, ‘Now listen, Mati, Iveta will soon come to your house. Tell Grandmother Vida to look after her carefully because it’s a sin; she’s an orphan. Look after her very carefully, right?’ Well, that was it – she was mad in a very special way. There was another madwoman but she was kind of grim. Sometimes she came to work in the yard and we had to give her food. But she was always grim.

After my father got married he moved to work with his father-in-law who traded with different foods. Many people came from the villages and bought goods: groceries, victuals. It was a small shop, not very beautiful, with a little office next to it. When my aunt graduated from the school in Bourgas, she became a clerk in this shop. My father worked there as a clerk, too. There was a store full of different packages and there was high grass in the yard; it was very pleasant to walk on. A big turtle used to live in it and my father told me that the turtle would live 300 years. I liked sitting on it very much and from time to time it showed its head off the carapace.

My father worked there; it seems he was doing well in business. He went to the villages; he had much communication with the villages. He had friends there, they used to come and visit us. Karnobat is situated in a wine-producing area. They used to bring him wine and grapes; they came with baskets from the villages. Sometimes he took me along. There were some rich villages: Sungurlare for example, which is a town nowadays. There were lovely houses there. People were living well. However, once he took me to the village of Seymen and I was shocked by the little huts there. They were made just of clay and the roofs of thatch. I was shocked by the poverty there.

My mother, Rashel Behar, was my father’s first cousin. She graduated from a French boarding school in Yambol. She has shown me what they had embroidered at school and it was incredible. It looked as if it wasn’t made by a human hand. She embroidered magnificently. She spoke French. She was a housewife.

I was born in 1919. When I was a baby she didn’t have any milk after some time, so the priest’s wife suckled me. I had a brother, Mois Behar, born in 1921, who died of dysentery when he was two. These were times when dysentery couldn’t be cured. So I grew up alone and the eggs and milk were all around me. We had milk for breakfast and my father, since there were hens in our yard, would come and say, ‘I’ve got it from the hen’s butt, eat your egg.’ But I began drinking milk only when I got pregnant because I had to. Otherwise I didn’t even taste milk. My father ran after me in the yard, but I didn’t want to drink. However, I ate yogurt. If it wasn’t ready or it hadn’t ripened in the evening, and it was sheep’s milk, it ripened perfectly, if it wasn’t ready, I was sent to buy some. And they cut some for me; it could be cut with a knife, in a large baking dish. The dairyman cut some and the milk was so thick that it didn’t seep water. So I brought home some milk from the main square and it was our dinner. Butter was harder to find. We had salami [sausages] when we made some for ourselves but it was hard work. We used to make different kinds of jam: we did that in the yard, in a large copper baking dish slaking the mixture with a big stick. I helped a little: cleaning the plums, looking after the hens in the yard and so on.

[In the morning] the greengrocers and the cheese-sellers passed by. They were Albanian; we used to call them arnauts [inhabitants of Albania and neighboring mountainous regions]. So, my mother would take something like a plank, or a stick, long and flat, on which you sign what you have taken, we called it a ‘rabosh’. It was like a credit card. We signed a notch on the ‘rabosh’ and we were able to take cheese. Neither the man nor we would ever lie to each other. One couldn’t lie just like that. It would have been so absurd.

My mother had a housemaid, a Turkish girl, from time to time. Our house wasn’t large so the housemaid came and went. We spent most of the time in the yard. It was really nice there; I played with the hens. It was interesting: there was a big plum tree. We put swings on it and so my cousins and Jewish friends and I rocked on it. In fact, it was a really close community. When it was winter and the snow was thick my father made a little path. Sometimes, probably because we were so poor and we were always in the yard, our legs suffered, they just froze, and became red. Then my grandmother said, ‘Now I’m going to heal you.’ And she let us go barefoot in the snow. We walked barefoot in the snow, our legs reddened and then we sat right next to the stove. That’s how our feet were healed.

There was a Turkish girl at my grandmother’s who spoke Hebrew, Bulgarian, and Turkish. All she had to do was to play with us; we were three or four cousins and she was a little older and we respected her. This girl, Hayriye, was a very alert Turkish girl, an orphan. Her grandmother was a friend of my grandmother’s. When she [the girl’s grandmother] came, we all stood up. That’s because she had authority. She predicted my fortune by throwing hot lead. When she came, my grandmother said, ‘Be quiet, don’t move and don’t shout.’ So she came, she sat on the couch and she was given some coffee. She said, ‘Come here so that I tell your fortune by lead.’ She had a veil that she put on my head and started mumbling something and I got very scared. At some point I heard something hissing. The lead was put in boiling water and started sputtering. Then she took the veil off my head, she took the lead out of the water and began telling my fortune. She gave instructions to my grandmother who answered her in Turkish, so I didn’t understand. At some point she said, ‘Don’t be afraid’ and I understood she was curing me of fear. Then she left and we started playing our games with relief. Her granddaughter, Hayriye, was the leader.

Then Hayriye grew up. When she became 16, my grandmother Vida sewed a veil for her. Although I already understood that Ataturk 3 had come to power and veils could be taken off, no Turkish woman from our town took her veil off and Hayriye had to be given a veil. She was opposed to that, ‘I don’t want a veil, I want to be like Mati [short for Matilda], like the other children…’ ‘You can’t’, my grandmother said, ‘put it on, when you’re going to the fountain, and after that take it off.’ So, she went to the fountain with a veil on and when she returned she removed it and stayed without it at home. But it was a great burden for her. Then she liked going to the fountain and flirting. I sometimes noticed her flirting with some Turks.

I spent all of my childhood at my father’s mother’s. She took care of me all day long and combed my hair. When I woke up my hair was always messy, curly somewhat. My mother didn’t have enough patience to comb my hair. She used to start combing me but it hurt me a lot. I sometimes even ran in my nightgown to my grandmother’s who lived on the same street. And my grandmother asked me, ‘Your mother pulled your hair again, didn’t she? Come here.’ And she put me on a little chair with a mirror and said, ‘Take a look at yourself and tell me how you want me to style your hair.’ She started to form a curl here, a circle there, I was really glad because she didn’t pull my hair.

I wasn’t sociable as a child. I was a child with my own concepts and didn’t like others imposing their will on me. I always ran to my grandmothers. My grandmothers’ houses and our house were very close but I didn’t communicate a lot with my mother’s parents; they were much more reticent people. My [maternal] grandmother was a fantastic cook. She made really tasty dishes: the meat-and-vegetable hash and the sweets she made were fantastic. For example, she took almonds, pounded them, mixed them with eggs and other things and the result was great almond cakes. She had a room where she stored lots of nuts and almonds and sacks of apples for the whole winter. She was a good woman and had a very white face. She was rather bumptious with her complicated meals. Despite that I went to Grandmother Vida’s, who cooked simply: baked beans and pickled vegetables. I ate them and I liked them very much. At Grandmother Vida’s, there was a big basement where the pickled vegetables were stored. My grandmother made fine pickled vegetables. She took those round fleshy peppers and filled them with parsley, carrots, cabbage and so on. There was sauerkraut, too. I really liked the pickled vegetables and the beans she baked. Grandmother Vida cooked it in an earthenware pot. She used to put it under the stove, it was a very primitive stove, and it stayed there until noon in the heat and formed a crust.

First, I had to go to an infant school. [The last year in the kindergarten, where children are prepared for school.] This was before the Jewish school. I even have a photo from the infant school. We had a very nice teacher; she just recruited the children. She recruited me too. In order to go to my grandmother’s I had to pass by the school. Once I was walking towards my grandmother’s and the teacher stopped me and said, ‘Come on, Mati, come study in our school!’ ‘No, I can’t. I’m going to see my grandmother.’ And so I passed by the school, I didn’t want to go there. But eventually the teacher recruited me. And I liked it so much that I even became ‘the boss’ of the infant school. There were around twenty children. We weren’t taught reading and writing. We were led to the nearby hill to play games. There were two hills near Karnobat: Dedo Dimcho’s hill and Kakkazan hill that means ‘Hill of the 40 cauldrons.’ There was a myth that a big bey [Turkish title] had buried his gold there. Then they tried, but with no success, to plant a forest on it. It’s a lilac garden now. We made great efforts in the past: we had brigades that went there, digging and planting trees. We didn’t plant lilac but something else then.

I went to the Jewish school. There were only two rooms in the Jewish school: the first and second grade studied in the same room. The result was that when I was studying in the first grade I listened to the second grade lessons as well. So officially we finished the first grade but in fact we ‘finished’ the second as well.

My first teacher in the Jewish school was very good: a Bulgarian, but I believe she was of Greek origin. In Karnobat there were Greeks, but they didn’t recognize themselves as Greeks, but as Bulgarians. She was a little plump; she was very nice and was married. When somebody couldn’t answer some question, I answered and then she sent me out of the classroom. It happened often and one day I felt cold and went back home.

I loved all the subjects but I was especially biased towards literature. I didn’t carry my textbooks back home; I knew everything by heart, so I left them at school. I just didn’t know what it was like to study at home. When at the end of the year they gave the certificates to us they even said I had the best results: ‘Here you are, Mati, it’s six [the highest grade]. But if there was a mark ten, I would give it to you.’ In the third and fourth grades, we began studying history and biology. We learned Hebrew. It was hard, the language was difficult. I coped with that too, but without any pleasure because it was difficult and it had nothing in common with Ladino. Ladino is a European language as it has some things in common with Spanish. I knew the [Hebrew] alphabet a little from Ladino; I could read but not easily. There was no one who could help me.

There were very good and nice teachers in the Jewish school. They came from Kazanlak: one taught us in Hebrew and the other in Bulgarian. At the end of the course, we had to have an exam. A commission from the Bulgarian school came to see what our preparation was and whether we were able to move to the junior high school. Some of us didn’t succeed; there were some really dumb pupils. There was a girl called Roza. The teachers asked me to help her but she didn’t even learn the alphabet. We finished the fourth grade with this exam and moved to the Bulgarian junior high school. So I studied Hebrew until the fourth grade, and it wasn’t very systematic. We had a teacher from Yambol; I always laughed at him and told at home what funny pompous words he had said in class. He always sent me out of the room, only for hinting.

My father [usually] came back from work late and it was a very pleasant moment for me. He was very loving, he immediately took me on his lap and began telling me what had happened at the ‘charshia’ [a word of Turkish origin, which means ‘marketplace’] how a stammering man there had carried around chickpeas and hadn’t been able to say ‘chick-peas.’ ‘When he finally manages to say ‘chick-peas’ the time for closing the shops comes.’ He was telling me about Uncle Milan from Sungurlare, how he had come and what they had been talking about. There was a businessman next to him at the ‘charshia.’ His name was Nikolay. So, this Nikolay had planted strawberries. In those times, we had seen wild strawberries only on the hills. Nikolay had planted them and he even brought a plate full of strawberries once.

My father didn’t have any specific political views; he had been a right-wing socialist [social democrat] in his youth. Even when he got married my mother laughed at him because he wore a red tie. She was reactionary. [She didn’t support the socialists and the revolutionists.] She had nothing to do with the socialists. But later, when my father became more sedate and started his business, he became a radical. My father said about Stoyan Kosturkov, who was the leader of the radicals, ‘He’s the leader of the artisans and retailers.’ And he redirected to them. When he was a right-wing socialist, I remember him going somewhere in a cinema’s little room where they met but it wasn’t illegal. It always happens like that: when you are young, you are a socialist. Later you become a reactionary.

We didn’t go to the seaside. When I was a child, we used to often go to Bankya. [This was a small resort place in the past; today it is part of Sofia.] They say that when I was a child we went during the holidays to Tryavna, but I only dimly recall it. The air was better there. We went to Zheravna: there was a young shepherd there. I liked him and he liked me, too. He gave serenades for me. In the mornings, he passed by with his goats. He had a flute and played it and I stood at the window and watched him. I remember that once we went to Hisarya. [This is a Bulgarian mountain resort, famous for its healing mineral waters.] My mother took therapy there; she had high blood pressure.

Actors from different companies used to come to Karnobat. I remember Gendov; he had a traveling troupe. We often used to go to the old cinema, and then the community center was built. My father took me to the cinema where the silent films still existed then. Gendov used to come often with his wife and the troupe. They were very poor. People said that Gendov’s troupe used to rob the central shops when they came and always left debts behind, which they never paid off. But people weren’t very impressed; they knew it would be that way. We went to the theater regularly, but after the performance we hardly went back home along the dark streets. We couldn’t even think of transport then. I hadn’t seen a car in Karnobat. There were no cars. There were only carriages and some covered cabs. I think they were called ‘lando.’ We ordered a carriage in the evening when we had to travel because the railway station was a few kilometers away. We went to the cinema on foot. Sometimes I went to the confectioner’s with my parents. We sat at the table and were offered cakes and tarts from a big dish and everybody took what he or she liked. That’s how the tables were served.

I remember that we bought a radio around 1930. There was no radio in Karnobat and a man came to the cinema to show us what a radio set was. Until then, we heard the news only from the public crier. He came, beat the drum and said, ‘Tonight a man will come to the cinema who will show you a radio.’ So we all went to the cinema that evening. We bought tickets, the man entered, a table was brought in and he said, ‘Now I’ll tune in to a radio program from wherever you want: from Sofia, from Bucharest, from Istanbul.’ And he started turning a button. The radio started crackling, it crackled and crackled, but it wouldn’t transmit anything. The man went on turning the button but it still crackled and we became sick of it. My grandmother was the first to say, ‘I can make these popcorn cracks at home as well.’

She had a special pan for making popcorn. It was like a little drum with handles: she put the popcorn in the drum and put the drum on the brazier; it was made of iron and with four legs. She put charcoal in the middle and a grate upon it, and so she made popcorn. The man looked around and said, ‘If you leave, I’ll give back your money.’ So we didn’t see what a radio was but my father got interested in it and decided to buy one. He went to Sofia and brought home a radio. It was something unique for the whole neighborhood. They all came to us to listen to the radio and the old women asked if there was someone inside. When I told them there was no one they wondered, ‘How is it possible that it’s singing without anyone inside it?’ It was almost as big as a television. My father was very keen on it; he always searched for stations and listened to music from Istanbul. A Sofia station could be heard, too, but the signal was weaker. When different people came by, they asked, ‘Mati, is that you singing?’ I replied, ‘No, I can’t sing.’

There were balls at different occasions. The rabbi lived in a big house with a big hall where soirées took place. People danced quadrille, ‘Ladies change,’ and we, children took part only in the preparations. Then we, two or three girls, went to bed. There was, if I might say, an elite part of the Jewish quarter, which used to gather.

We went to the synagogue regularly. Mothers didn’t do it as often as the children. It was interesting. The rabbi sang and in a moment, the sexton would say, ‘Rise!’ and we stood up. Then he would say, ‘Sit down!’ and we sat down. We found that interesting. We didn’t know what happened but we were told what to do. We, the children, used to sit on some marble seats. There was a separate section for women. The men were in the lower part and sang from time to time; people used to collect money for the poor and for the synagogue in a very discrete way, the richer ones gave money too. Grass grew all over the churchyard and a mulberry tree stood there. We climbed on it and gathered mulberries during the day. We did it every time when we visited the synagogue. My father didn’t like going there too often; he wasn’t especially religious.

I vaguely remember my two aunts’ weddings. They married men from other cities: one was from Kyustendil and the other from Sofia. I was a bridesmaid. I remember we went to the synagogue where they stood under something like an arch. I held the trains at my aunts’ weddings. They weren’t big weddings.

I started studying in the junior high school in 1931. My first friends were from the junior high school’s first grade. We had a teacher for every single subject. I became very keen on literature because I had a very good teacher: Mrs. Todorova. She was a war widow, she had two sons and she helped them graduate as a lawyer and an engineer only with her teacher’s salary. She held firmly to Bulgarian and to orthography; I knew the old orthography perfectly. We had spoken before in the Eastern Bulgarian dialect, but at that time we started speaking in Western Bulgarian. In fact, Eastern Bulgarian is the correct Bulgarian.

We were taught in Bulgarian both in elementary school and high school. The geography and biology teachers were good and all the teachers’ staff was good. I didn’t like gymnastics. We were two ‘anti-sport’ girls in my class; the other girl had excellent marks [grade 6, which was the highest] in all subjects and was in the first position. I had excellent marks in all the subjects but I had a four in gymnastics, so I was in the second position. I couldn’t do well in gymnastics, that’s all. I was plump and slow and that spoiled my marks. Sometimes in the mornings my father used to test me, ‘What have you got today? Tell me the lesson immediately!’ I told him the lesson and he said, ‘Come on, you’re going to have a four and that’s all.’ I went to school and thought, ‘Fine, a good mark.’ I was examined and received a six. So I said to him, ‘You always underestimate me. Look what marks I receive at school.’ There was a library [in Karnobat] I had read all the books. I liked reading. My father read, and my mother read romance novels.

I graduated from junior high school in Sofia. When I was in the second grade, we moved to Sofia. Instead of sending me to Sofia on my own, my father found a job here so the whole family moved. We: my mother, my father and I, came to live in this apartment in 1932. My grandmothers wouldn’t leave their gardens. My father’s brother lived in an apartment next door. At first, my father worked with his brother, but later he opened a perfume shop on Lege Street with his sister’s husband and another man. They sold perfumes and crystals. In the meantime he was a ‘painkiller’ in a textile factory, which was at that time in a suburban area that’s now part of Sofia. He was an accountant, an organizer, and a work mover. The owners, I believe one of them was a Czech, relied on him a lot because they couldn’t do without his work. He walked there every day; there was transport only to ‘Orlov most’ Square then. He said that sometimes Prince Kiril’s driver took him in the car.

Of course, I felt pity when we moved to Sofia. I felt nervous that there were no hills in Sofia and there was no place where I could walk around. And the hills [in Karnobat] were all covered with almond trees. In the spring, the trees bloomed wonderfully. Sofia children weren’t better than I was, especially in literature. They all used a pompous style; a fact that made me anxious and I couldn’t understand why they spoke like that. I spoke in a different style. They didn’t laugh at me for speaking in a different manner because they knew it was the correct way. The Bulgarian teacher always emphasized my good style.

At some point I contacted a Jewish organization that was something like a leftist scout organization. Its name would translate as ‘The Young Guardian’ [This is the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist youth organization 4]. I became friends with some Jewish girls. I also became friends with Bulgarian girls in the high school. There was a Jewish junior high school in Sofia but I wasn’t ready for it, since there were only three grades in the Jewish school in Karnobat, and I went to a Bulgarian school. It was in October 1932. Some boys asked me, ‘Girl, what are you looking for? ‘I would like to enroll.’ ‘Well, go to the headmaster.’ So I was enrolled in the class E. And there I graduated from the junior high school.

After I graduated, I left for Paris. My mother laughed because I didn’t know French. I spoke only German; I had studied it in high school. I began learning French in Paris. There was a three-month course called ‘Pantheon’ where I began learning French. I studied really hard; I had really good written French. When I came back, the fact that I could speak French didn’t help me at all.

I liked medicine very much. My mother was never healthy, she used to take a lot of medicines and I became keen on medicine but when I was told that I would have to see dead men, I gave up. My father advised me, ‘Well, then enroll into French philology. What will happen then? You know that a Jew won’t be accepted as a teacher.’ There were no Jewish teachers indeed. My mother wanted me to study chemistry. I have never had a mark lower than excellent but I wasn’t especially keen on it. Well, I enrolled into chemistry but when my mother left for Bulgaria several months later, I moved to the Sorbonne and enrolled into Archeology and History of Arts. I had just returned for my holidays when the war began.

I spent a year in Paris and it was the best year of my life. The landlady was very strict; I lived at her place just for a while and later I took a separate room. It was very interesting there. I used to go out on the street at sunset and I watched Paris life; it was wonderful. I was a beautiful girl and people were very tolerant and accepted everything; I was from the Orient. However, I immediately turned towards the Bulgarians there. I was in the subway and two men, standing behind me, were talking, ‘Shall we try talking to her or not?’ And I turned, and said in Bulgarian, ‘No, you won’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you!’ So, they told me where the Bulgarians met. They were a great company. It included Iliya Beshkov, and Nenko Balkanski, an artist called Popov. [These are all eminent Bulgarian artists.] There was a little restaurant, which worked as a canteen also. Popov had painted it all. Stefan Sarchadjiev [a distinguished Bulgarian theater director] was there on a specialization. The great director, Krastyu Mirski, was studying there too. There were more modest people as well who had left Bulgaria because of their leftist political orientation. The company was really nice and we got together every evening.

In Sofia I had a good company of girls, friends of mine. They were all Jews. All of them were university graduates: engineers, dentists, etc., and we had all been friends since our high school years. I met my husband, Nisim Levi, in that company. He was the only one in that circle who had graduated in medicine, and who was sent to different villages all the time. We used to write to each other regularly. It was like that for three or four years; we were always separated, up and down the country. He was a Komsomol 5 worker in the villages of Kesarevo, Kilifarevo, and Dobromirka. He was enthusiastic about the Komsomol work. He continued his work in the villages after 9th September 1944 6 and then he was sent to Sofia. He started working here. We got married in 1945. Civil marriages before the registrar were introduced then.

I didn’t get married according to the Jewish tradition and my husband and I even decided to have a wedding without any ceremonies. There were no clothes, nothing. There are Jewish women who know the Jewish rituals but I’m not acquainted with it. Our wedding was very simple. I borrowed a dress of my mother, which was red and a little bit nicer than the others I had, and we went to the registrar. We couldn’t even do it on Sunday; it was Monday then. We went to a pastry shop with two friends, and then in the evening my mother killed a couple of chickens and cooked them and some people helped with the cooking. There was no other meat in those days. We ate chicken with rice and some cake; it was a very simple party. We gathered right here in this apartment but there was a door and the space was turned into a big hall.

In the beginning, we lived with my parents, then they died and then we lived with our children. We lived in Sofia during the Holocaust. There was another block of apartments opposite ours where a woman called Michkuevska lived. She was a tailor and lived with her parents. She had a fine apartment but she decided she wanted to have our apartment and we had to leave. That was before the Jews were interned in masses 7 and there was no [yellow] star 8 yet. She decided this and she made us leave. One day a man came here and said, ‘You’ll have to leave, because a lady from the palace wants to live here.’

We were among the first people who were driven away. We went to my uncle’s place. When restrictions for Jews to live in the center of the city were accepted, we were sent to live beyond Hristo Botev Boulevard; that was the boundary. Our family was ordered to leave for Pazardjik. We were about to be interned there when an order from my father’s bosses came stating that the factory couldn’t function without him and he had to be mobilized to return here, so we came back, but in the other quarter. Probably we could have taken some steps to get back to Karnobat, as we would have been allowed.

Air raids here were really horrible. I believe the first bombing was on 31st January 1944. Then there was another on 30th March and several smaller ones between these two. We lived at my uncle’s place and he was very curious. When an air raid was about to begin, he called me, ‘Mati, come to the roof and see how the entire Sofia is lit up.’ Sofia looked really beautiful. Then we walked in the ruins and jumped over the ditches.

We came back here after 9th September 1944, but my father couldn’t cope with many things. We came back to our old apartment. We were told that nothing could be done because she [the neighbor who had taken their apartment] was a worker. She was also a king’s woman; she was indeed a king’s woman, because her mother had been Ferdinand’s lover. She was a very refined lady, with a small hat with a veil on it, always on high heels. Her husband was an army officer. She used to say, ‘I’m a worker.’ She sewed complicated things. We did nothing bad to her, but she was very unpleasant. She left a great mess in the apartment but in the end she left it.

I couldn’t graduate from Law. I finished all the semesters because I had friends who signed my student’s book for me but I couldn’t go in for the examinations because I was a Jew, but I passed most of the exams. I enrolled into a course in Russian, sometime after World War II, and then I taught in different institutions. I know French. I spoke German because I studied it in high school.

At some point, I cannot remember the year, I moved to accounting. After I retired I worked for another ten years. First, I became a guide of Russian tourist groups. I traveled all over Bulgaria with the Russian groups and it was very interesting for me. I have seen unbelievable drinking-parties. Russians drink remarkably! On the next day the person in charge used to collect them and scolded them and they were so quiet. Then, for some time, I looked after my grandchildren but I was still working.

My elder son, Roni Levi, became an associate professor in mathematical analysis. I think he has inherited his talent from my kin. He had the best results when he graduated from high school. He was the most competent student in mathematics in the school. He was always absent, he always wandered somewhere. He should have been expelled because of the high number of absences but how could they do without their best student! My other son, Yosif Levi, works in the Bulgarian Academy of Science. He learned English in high school and started working as an interpreter. Now he’s engaged in it. He translates books. My two sons have two children each. One of the grandsons went to America. The second went to Israel and the third studies in Japan. One of my daughters-in-law, Mila Kozhuharova, is a doctor: an epidemiologist. The other one is already a pensioner.

Glossary:

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova

Date of interview: June 2003

Mois Saltiel is an energetic, sociable, good-mannered and dedicated man. He is responsible and devoted to his work for the Jewish community and Bulgarian society. He lives in a cozy two-room apartment in the suburbs of Sofia. He is an introvert, but talkative, emotional and an easily impressed person.

My ancestors came from Spain in the 16th century. They settled in the Ottoman Empire and some of them went to live in Bosnia. Later they moved to the town of Pirot in present-day Serbia and shortly before my elder uncle was born, my grandfather Avram Saltiel moved to live in Sofia. The reason was that his wife Tamara died in Pirot and he married her friend Mazal, which was the tradition at that time. [Editor’s note: Actually the tradition is that if somebody’s wife or husband dies he/she must remarry one of his spouse’s single siblings.] Mazal looked after his children after the death of his wife. Mazal was from Pirot.

I do not remember my grandfather because I was born in 1923 and he moved to Jerusalem in 1926. I also do not remember my grandmother for the same reasons. What I know about them, I have heard from other people who knew them. So, it is difficult for me to talk about them, because I have no personal impressions of them.

What I know is that my grandfather was a glass-maker and at one point he was a gabai of the synagogue in Pirot. He spoke mainly Ladino, his family talked in Ladino 1 at home. I do not know how they dressed; I do not have any photos of them. As far as I have heard, they were religious people. They observed the Jewish tradition.

I do not know what my father [Solomon Saltiel] did before he married. As for his sister, Tamara, she was married to Avram Ashkenazi, who was a teacher. He taught geography in the Jewish school in the capital. They married in Sofia and lived at the corner of Sredna Gora Street and Stamboliiski Street. They had a bookstore under their apartment.

They had two sons and one daughter: Shlomo, David and Yodita. Shlomo died in Israel. David also lived in Israel, but later immigrated to the USA where he founded his own company for vinyl records. I don’t know when they immigrated. Yodita died in Israel where she moved around 1948. I do not know to what extent they were religious. But I think that in principle Bulgarian Jews are not very religious.

My father had four brothers and one sister. As I said before, his sister was Tamara and the brothers were called Meshulam, Yosif, Benjamin and Mois. None of them is alive any longer. Mois died in 1921 in Sofia; he did not have a family.

Benjamin and Yosif were merchants. They had a shop on Nishka Street where they sold materials for cobblers. They had secondary education and many heirs, who now live in Israel.

We kept in touch with most of our relatives, but we met most often with my aunt Tamara and uncle Benjamin. They did not come to our house often, because we were poorer. They were all better off financially and we were the ones to contact them. My aunt Tamara gave a plot near the entrance to her house on Stamboliiski Street to my brother Haim so that he would build a shed and start repairing shoes there.

I do not have any information about my mother’s life before her marriage, but I know where she lived before that. The family house was on 10 Bregalnitsa Street in Sofia.

My parents were Solomon Avram Saltiel and Rebecca Eliya-Kyoso, which is her father’s family name. They were born in 1892 and had secondary education. They spoke Bulgarian and Ladino. My mother was a housewife and my father was a cobbler. He had a workshop where he repaired shoes. I do not know how they met or if the marriage was arranged or not, because I was not born yet. They had a religious wedding in Sofia. They dressed in accordance with the tradition at those times.

We were not doing very well financially. We were not extremely poor, but we were not rich either. We lived in my maternal grandparents’ house so that we would not have to pay money for rent. Our home had two rooms, where the six of us lived. My parents slept in one of the rooms and my three brothers and I slept in the other. At first we did not have a kitchen or closet so we made a small kitchen in the corridor. We used coal-burning stoves for heating. We did not have a garden or animals.

In the beginning there was a maid, who helped our mother, but my mother looked after us mostly – we did not have a nanny or a governess. I did not go to a kindergarten. I spent my childhood at home with my mother and playing games with the children.

We had mostly secular books and a few religious ones. My parents read books, but only when they had some free time. My father’s obligation was to earn money to support us, and my mother’s – to cook and buy food. They also helped us in our education – advised us what to read and how to study.

My parents were not very religious, but they observed the Jewish traditions – mostly on the high holidays Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Sukkot. They were not members of any political parties or cultural organizations. They got along well with our neighbors, most of whom were Jews, but there were also Bulgarians who were very tolerant.

I had three brothers. The eldest was Albert, who was born in 1916. Haim was born in 1918 and the youngest, Yako, in 1928. They all spoke Bulgarian and Ladino, had a secondary education and studied in the same Jewish school as I did. Albert was a dental mechanic. Haim was a cobbler, but later in Israel he worked in the El-Al [Israeli national airways] company, and Yako, who was the first to move to Israel as a young man, worked as a salesman in a shop in Yaffo.

My brothers lived in Bulgaria until 1948 and then moved to Israel. Albert had two children – Solomon and Pnina; Haim also has two children – Rivka and Tali [affectionate forNaftali], and Yako’s children are Rivka and Shlomo.

My brothers Albert and Haim Saltiel married in Sofia in 1943 and 1945, respectively, in accordance with the religious ritual. Yako also had a religious wedding, but in Israel in the 1950s. They were not very religious, but they observed the traditions.

I was born in Sofia on 30th November 1923. This is the capital of Bulgaria – a city surrounded by a mountain range, in the middle of which is the beautiful Vitosha Mountain. I was born at the corner of Boris I Street and Tsar Simeon Street where I lived for four or five years. This was in Iuchbunar 2, the poor Jewish quarter in Sofia. Then a big fire broke out in our house and spread into many of the rooms, where other families lived. We moved to live in the family house of my mother on 10 Bregalnitsa Street in Sofia.

In contrast to our previous home, which was close to the town’s center and closer to the central Jewish synagogue, 10 Bregalnitsa Street was at the heart of the Jewish quarter [Iuchbunar]. Of course, there were Bulgarians there too, but most of the people were Jews, who were very united. At that time there were around 20,000 Jews in Sofia.

There were a number of synagogues: the central one, the Iuchbunar one, the Ashkenazi one and maybe some more, which I did not know. There was a rabbi, a shochet, a chazzan – I cannot say how many they were. This is what I remember.

The [Iuchbunar] Jewish school where I had my elementary and junior high school education was close to our house. I finished my secondary education as a student in the evening high school in Sofia on Stara Planina Street. There we studied all subjects, which were taught in the other schools in Bulgarian and Ivrit. I cannot remember who taught us Ivrit then but one of the teachers there, who is still alive today, was Mati Albuhaire. My favorite subjects were literature, maths and French. I did not take private lessons.

Most of the Jews in Sofia were craftsmen or street vendors. For example, my father had a small shoemaker’s workshop. It was located on Serdika Street and occasionally the Jewish school used to organize an auction for the manufacturing of the students’ shoes. During the times when my father won the auction, our economic situation improved, because we had more money. Then we could afford to buy some new clothes or shoes for the joy of the children in the family.

We had electricity in the house, but no running water in the kitchen. We had a faucet in the yard, where we had to go in the winters and in the summers to pour water, although we lived on the first floor. A little later, we made another faucet in the corridor on the first floor and used it instead of the one in the yard.

On the whole, the Bulgarian people treated the Jews with tolerance. As a child I was a typical Jew, so to say, with red hair and a freckled face. So, the Branniks 3 and Legionaries 4 vented their anger on me; that is, they beat me up and insulted me for being a Jew, but I cannot say that I suffered much strong anti-Semite attitude directed towards me when I was young.

On the contrary, I remember occasions showing quite the opposite. For example, every vacation I went to work in a shop close to my father’s workshop. It was owned by the Bulgarian Nesho Draganov and sold electrical appliances. He was always very understanding, gave me work and he saved us from being banished from the country, on which I will return later. We had other neighbors, too –Hristo, a knife-grinder, close to my father. My father and I got along very well with him.

As for the way we were brought up at home, naturally, we, as all the other children, celebrated the Bulgarian holidays. If there was a parade, we went to watch, but I do not have any concrete memories. When Simeoncho 5 was born, we went to the palace to celebrate the birth of the heir to the throne.

We, the children, learned patriotic poems and songs. But I cannot sing them to you, because I cannot sing well. We observed the Jewish traditions at home, but no one was deeply religious to such an extent as to observe every minute detail of the holiday ritual.

Besides the vegetable markets, which were not as many as today, what is interesting is that there was also a market for servants. It was situated in a park close to the place where the present-day Tsentralni Hali [central covered market in Sofia] is located now. When the season for hiring servants and maids came, all girls from the villages were brought by their parents and a kind of bargaining began – if you needed a maid, you went there and started bargaining for this or that girl – you asked the father, the neighbors and then hired a maid.

We went shopping to the neighboring shops, which were mostly owned by Bulgarians, with whom we got along well. There was a grocery on the corner of Bregalnitsa Street and Positano Street where we went when we had no money – the shop assistant gave us the food we wanted for free and wrote down in a notebook the amount of money we owed. When we had money, we went there and paid our debts.

I had many friends, most of whom were Jews and classmates of mine. I can name Professor Shimon Ninyo, Тiko Israel, Solomon Haimov and many others. I spent my free time in the Jewish organizations. I met my future wife, Juliet Fridman, there, because we went out with the same friends from the Jewish community center.

At that time there was an association named ‘Tоshavim,’ which means ‘Natives’ [nonpolitical Zionist association whose members gathered regularly to discuss contemporary issues related to Israel]. Its head office was at Stamboliiski Blvd. opposite the Bet Am 6. It had a small library and young people went there to borrow books and read various papers. Different youth groups formed there. The leader of our group was Albert Kohen – a future writer, who is no longer alive. Other members were David Elazar, Zacho [Isak] Benvenisti and others.

In fact, my journalist career started there in 1941, when I made the first ‘live’ newspaper in the form of a notebook, including articles, short stories and poems. The newspaper had only one issue – a notebook, which was handed from one person to the other between the members of the association. Unfortunately, the police banned it. Everything was done with educational purposes, but they said we were engaged in anti-fascist activities.

As a student I was also a member of Hashomer Hatzair 7. As scouts we learned the history of the Jewish people, prepared for our departure for our own land there, and on the whole did everything that the present members of Hashomer Hatzair do.

I got on a car for the first time quite late, but I traveled by train, with a steam engine, for the first time in 1934 when I went to Kjustendil. I had surgery on my appendicitis and I went to my aunt in Kjustendil to recover. My favorite place to spend the vacations was the seacoast. I saw the sea for the first time after 9th September 1944 8 – in 1947 or 1948.

I had various jobs. I started as a worker in the workshop owned by Nersez Shirinyan, and later, between 1941 and 1942, I worked as a clerk in the lawyer’s office of Yosef Moshev. I did not have any trouble at work for being a Jew. My first boss was an Armenian and the second one a Jew, so there were no problems.

In 1941 the government ordered that all Jews, who had foreign citizenship and who were not protected by the relevant country should leave Bulgaria. Since my father was a Serbian subject, we had to leave for Varna. Our whole family, that is, my parents, my younger brother and I – because we still did not have Bulgarian passports and were regarded as Serbian nationals – were ordered to go to Varna and wait for transport to Israel.

So we went to Varna, but before that we took pictures with our friends, relatives, and of our house. We settled in a village near Varna waiting for the ship. Meanwhile, some Bulgarian friends of ours started looking for ways to cancel our deportation order. One of them was Nesho Draganov, former officer of the reserve, who had connections with the police. While we were there, he managed to arrange an order allowing us to remain in Bulgaria and return home. One of the ships, which we probably would have boarded, sank at sea and all passengers drowned.

When the Toshavim association was forbidden in 1941/42, I became a member of the Jewish state community center, which had a library on the corner of Stamboliiski Blvd and Opalchenska Street. Various groups formed there and some of them became members of the UYW 9. We read a lot, we presented various papers, went on excursions etc. At that time the anti-Jewish legislation was adopted – the Law for the Protection of the Nation 10, together with the fascist legislation – and we became involved in anti-fascist activities.

One of our activities, for which I was sent to prison, was as much comic as tragic. In 1942 the platform of the Fatherland Front 11 was read on Hristo Botev radio from Moscow. It had some demands and tasks set by the Fatherland Front for the democratic development of the country, including some against the anti-Jewish legislation. We decided to popularize this platform, because the government and the newspapers said nothing.

I was the leader of a number of [UYW] groups. In one of them we decided to make copies of the platform. Writing by hand would have taken a lot of time and we had no printing house. Then we decided to make copies of some passages in a photo studio. One of the members, Sabat Melamed, worked in one. He took the necessary materials and a cassette for film copying and we gathered in the apartment of Mois Perets on the corner of Odrin Street and Stamboliiski Blvd. at around 11-12 o’clock at night in August.

We started working. But the opening and closing of the box, in which we took the pictures was very noisy. The house was run-down and some Bulgarians lived on the floor below. We had put blankets on the doors and windows so that the room would look dark from the outside.

But we made a lot of noise and when it was midnight the neighbors came upstairs to see what was happening. They tried to open the door, but we locked it. They said, ‘You are doing something illegal, we will call the police if you don’t leave’. They went downstairs and we decided it would be best to stop working and leave.

One of us, who lived nearby, Leon Levi, took the box with all the materials to hide it at home. But there was a policeman in the café on the opposite street who noticed a young man carrying a box at night. He started shouting at him, ‘Stop! Stop!’ Leon started running. We heard everything from the room. Leon was caught and arrested.

Meanwhile, Sabat Melamed and I climbed over the roof and walking on the roofs of the small buildings reached the corner of Positano Street and Odrin Street where another friend of ours, Daniel Albahari, lived. We entered the house, waking the people up, but they let us spend the night there.

Meanwhile, when Leon Levi was beaten up, he confessed who lived in that house and Mois Perets was also arrested. That was when our illegal life started. The police started searching for me. They took a photo of mine from home and sent it everywhere. I hid at various places, but the police arrested many of the people who were members of my [UYW] groups, they organized a trial and sentenced me to death. But since I was under age, I was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. The sentence was by default because I was not present at the trial.

Later on, still living illegally, despite my efforts the police caught me because of the betrayal of one man and because I was not shrewd enough to evade them. It happened in 1942. Since I already had a sentence, I was sent to Sofia prison. After half a year I was sent to Skopje prison in Idrizovo.

During that period, 1942-1943, the anti-Jewish legislation was fully in force, and in 1943 my parents as all Jews in Bulgaria received orders for internment to Razgrad 12. My younger brother and my parents went there, while my two brothers were sent to labor camps. My mother’s health deteriorated, because while still in Sofia my family was often beaten by the police who were searching the house for me.

The life of my family in Razgrad was very hard. My mother died in 1943 while I was still in prison. I was not allowed to go to her funeral. I know that her funeral took place in accordance with the Jewish traditions. Of course, all that reflected on my education, and although I had finished my secondary education, I could not go to study at university. My father also suffered, because he had to close the workshop, sell some of the property and give the rest to friends to keep. So, my family led a very difficult life.

The conditions in the prison were very bad. It was a two-story building situated in the center of a farming field, surrounded by a tall stonewall, and there was a faucet in the yard. We lived in big rooms, which at first had had spring beds, but when we arrived these beds were taken away and wooden bunk beds with hay mattresses full of dust and bugs were made for us. We were 19 Jews there. To name but some of them: David Shabbat, Samuil Nisimov, Isak Samuilov, Solomon Haimov, David Solomonov, Rudolf Levi, Rudolf Benvenisti, Isak Alvas and others. We were allocated in eight cells.

Let me tell you about the death of one of the Jews – David Shabbat. By coincidence, he was sent to prison for a reason similar to mine. He had decided to spread the platform of the Fatherland Front. His friends and he had bought a lot of sticking labels for notebooks from bookstores. They wrote some passages from the platform on them and stuck them to post boxes, fences etc. He was arrested and beaten by the police. They deliberately kicked him in the kidneys and damaged them badly. The police arranged a trial and sentenced him to many years of imprisonment.

At first he was in the prison in Sofia and then in the one in Skopje. From the beating he continued to suffer strong pain and swelling of the kidneys. So David turned to the management and asked them to send him to hospital for treatment. They ignored him completely. He turned to the prosecutor and asked him to help him. The prosecutor said to him, ‘You should be sent to Hitler to help you.’ The political prisoners went on a hunger strike demanding that David be treated.

After that his condition worsened – he fainted and then he was taken to the Skopje prison, seemingly to treat him in hospital. In the evening they locked him in the moist lock-up room where he shouted in pain and asked for a doctor or to be sent to hospital, but no one of the guards came to help. The prisoners from the neighboring cells also banged and shouted, but no one went to help David the whole night. In the morning when the guard opened the door of the lock-up room, David was already dead. So, a nineteen-year-old young man died only because he wanted to make the [Fatherland Front] platform more popular.

Most of the other Jews were in that prison for similar reasons. I must say that we, the Jews in the prison, were under even greater stress, especially at the beginning of 1944. German officers came to the prison in Idrizovo, and one of the guards told us that they asked him if there were political prisoners and Jews there. He said that they were only criminals.

So, we found out that the deportation of the Jews to Germany was being organized. Meanwhile, in 1943 all Jews from Macedonia were sent to Auschwitz. The leadership of the political prisoners organized our escape from prison and on 28thAugust 1944 we escaped with the help of some soldiers from the guard, and with the support of the Third Macedonian Youth Partisan Brigade we reached Bulgaria. Let me tell you how that happened.

We were often sent outside on the field to do hard physical labor – harvesting and other things. We organized the escape of four people – two local Macedonians and two Bulgarians. They contacted the partisans in Macedonia and together with them arranged for some progressive soldiers to be sent as guards to the prison.

One of the organizers was Metodi Stoev, who kept in touch with the soldiers and was allowed to sleep outside prison – in the rooms where the guards slept. Vasil Ivanovski, who managed to escape, contacted the partisans and organized the contact with the partisans.

We realized the escape in the following way. After we, the political prisoners, were taken out to do our everyday work on the field, the older one of the guards was distracted by a political prisoner with some stories. When he was no longer paying attention to the other four prisoners, they managed to escape.

They had a preliminary arrangement to meet some people from Macedonia. Through these people from the Bulgarian army our people contacted the Macedonian partisans. In this way the guard at the prison was replaced with progressive soldiers who kept our connection with Metodi Stoev. That is why, after the escape the guards were on our side.

After the escape while we were on our way to Bulgaria with the Macedonian brigade a big army unit came from one of the villages to accompany us, because they saw that the situation in Macedonia was not good for the Bulgarian army. We dressed in army uniforms and reached Bulgaria on 15th September 1944.

I went to Kjustendil and from there to Razgrad to look for my family. I arrived in Shumen and found out that one of our political prisoners, Metodi Stoev, was already director of the police there. I worked as a policeman for some time to help maintain the people’s authority in Shumen.

Later, seeing that my family wanted to leave Razgrad, I went there, found them – of course, without my mother who had passed away – and returned to Sofia. Our house had been preserved. My father had given most of the household stuff to friends to keep so we settled in our old home although it was much more humbly furnished than before.

At the end of 1944 our neighbors and friends were very happy to see that we were alive and well. Although our property had dwindled significantly, we still had our home – a place to sleep and start our lives anew. Each of us started work – my father reopened his workshop, I started work in the Head Office of the People’s Police.

Yako, my younger brother, was the first to move to Israel. In 1948 my other relatives also decided to go there. We all gathered and discussed what we wanted to do. I did not want to move to Israel, because I had devoted my youth and my health to create a new authority. I thought that it was my duty to work for its strengthening in Bulgaria, for the realization of our dreams. So, I remained here to work, while my family, even my father, left. They reached Yaffo by ship.

Juliet Fridman did the same even before we decided to get married. When her parents decided to leave, they prepared to get passports including for all their children. But Juliet went to the police and said that she did not want to leave.

Juliet was born on 17th December 1925 in Sofia. Her mother tongue is Bulgarian, she had a secondary education, and she worked as a sales assistant. Her parents were Yosif and Blanche Fridman, they both moved to Israel and are no longer alive.

My wife’s parents were relatively religious, which means that they observed the Jewish traditions, but not every single detail of them. Juliet’s father was of Ashkenazi origin, that is, a Russian Jew, and her mother Blanche Israel was of the Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria 13. After they left for Israel, they lived in the town of Yazur.

Juliet’s brother, Shrata Fridman, still lives in Israel. He worked as a construction technician, and now he is a pensioner. The only information I have about his family is that he has two daughters and a son: Hanita, Pnina and David. They have a lot of grandchildren. He was relatively religious.

When I went to prison, Juliet was interned to Asenovgrad and occasionally she would send me postcards secretly from her parents. When I returned from prison we renewed our friendship. She started work, we became close, and we got married in 1947. We married before the registrar, that is, we did not wed in the synagogue in accordance with the Jewish ritual.

She had a bed and a chest and I had another bed, quite different. But we put them one close to the other and made a double bed out of them. But we had no stove for heating. There was nothing in the shops to buy, everything was distributed in rations. To buy a stove, we had to get a special note from the Supply Commissariat. Since my wife got pregnant, we went there and asked them for such a note. They gave it to us to keep the baby warm. We bought a cooking stove to use it for various purposes.

We have three children: Solomon, Yosif and Ani. They were born in Sofia where they live now. Solomon is professor, doctor of sciences, working in the area of quantum electronics. Yosif is automation engineer, has a private company. Ani is an architect and is not working at the moment.

They have families and each of them has two children. I even have two great-grandchildren from Ani. Ani’s children are Nikolay and Elena Mladenovi. Nikolay works in Canada as a computer specialist, and Elena is an engineer in the Water Supply and Drainage company.

Yosif’s children are Georgi and Monica Saltiel. Georgi graduated in chemistry from the Chemical Technical Institute, but he also works with computer technology. Monica is a student in the tenth grade in the Sofia Natural and Mathematical High School. Before that she studied in the Jewish school on Pirotska Street near the synagogue in Sofia.

Solomon’s children are Juliet and Kalina Saltiel. Juliet is a third-year student in architecture management at the American University in Blagoevgrad. My great-grandchildren – Mladen and Anton Mladenovi – seven and two years old, are the sons of my grandson Nikolay and grandsons of my daughter Ani.

We did not educate our children in the Jewish traditions. Maybe this was a mistake. They know what had happened to my family and me during the war, but they do not talk much about it. They know that they are Jews, but I do not think they feel Jewish. We celebrate the Jewish holidays very rarely, we started doing it only recently and we invite them here, but they are not used to that. They do not go to the synagogue.

All my children are married to Bulgarians, so they celebrate both Pesach and Christmas, but they do not celebrate Christmas in a religious way, they just mark the holiday. My wife prepares some Jewish dishes, she also taught her Bulgarian daughters-in-law to prepare matzah, make a soup with matzah balls, make pastel for Pesach, agristada 14, anjinara 15. My wife Juliet learned the recipes for these dishes from a special collection of recipes published by the Shalom publishing house at the Shalom Organization of Jews in Bulgaria 16.

I was a member of the Communist Workers’ Party and I still have the same beliefs and think that they are the most adequate. I became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1946 17. I have not changed my views. I do not feel I have to give an explanation why I still find them relevant today.

I remember, of course, all friends who left for Israel. I went there on excursions a couple of times and met them. I have been to Israel three times: the first time in 1974 when my father was still alive. Then I saw all the sights, met all my relatives and I was very impressed. My other two visits were in the 1980s. Now we still write to each other, they come to visit, we go there – so we still keep in touch with our friends and relatives in Israel.

I have a lot of friends today. They are mostly Jews, with some exceptions. We do not meet often with our relatives in Israel, but we respect each other. One of my hobbies is to make a complete family tree of my father’s family, my mother’s and my wife’s. I have made much progress in collecting factual data.

Thanks to the family tree made by me I got in touch through the Internet with cousins of mine living in Jerusalem – ancestors of Meshulam. He was a brother of my father, adopted by an Israeli citizen when he was eight years old. His ancestors sent me their own family tree and I combined the two into one.

My family tree is the only one of the Saltiel family in Bulgaria and other family trees were sent to the management of the international meeting of the Saltiel families in Thessaloniki, where all saw it. For more information about the meeting, one could read the electronic edition of the Saltiel magazine and of the Bulgarian newspaper ‘Evreiski Vesti’ [Jewish News], which is published by the Shalom Organization of Jews in Bulgaria.

For 16 years I worked as an editor of the ‘Protivopojarna Ohrana’ [Fire Prevention Service] magazine, I contributed to many Bulgarian dailies, radio and television in the area of fire prevention.

I want to tell some anecdotes of how my Jewish origin influenced the attitude towards me at my work place. After 9th September 1944 I had a responsible job at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But there was an order at that time, which started in the Soviet Union and came to Bulgaria, which said that people who keep in touch with relatives abroad cannot work for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

My colleagues respected me very much and wanted me to keep my job, but the management pressed them to fire me, because I was a Jew and had relatives in Israel. So, a friend of mine told me, ‘Listen, you will not survive long here in State Security around such people. Let me transfer you to another job, where you will survive. I can appoint you as a deputy director of the Fire Prevention Service Bureau. Do you want to go there?’ I agreed, because I was tired of fighting.

In 1953 I started working in the Fire Prevention Service. I worked there for 26 years and a half. I worked in the system of the ministry more than 36 years. I had one more conflict when I worked in the Fire Prevention Service. In 1957 during the war between Egypt and Israel 18 the attitudes towards Israel here were very negative and strong.

I said to a neighbor ironically, ‘These ‘brothers’ the Arabs, who you Bulgarians regard as brothers, will play a bad trick on you. You should be careful about them…’ He wrote a report to the ministry and they started questioning people trying to prove that I was a Zionist – I have never been a Zionist –, that I was saying bad things about our friends, the Arabs.

At that time the Interior Minister was a man who had been a prisoner in the Skopje prison with me, Angel Solakov. The deputy minister was Vladimir Borachev. They told me that I was doing a very good job, but I must not remain there. They sent me to a lower position, although I was paid the same salary. That was the second case. Although I retired in that system, I was continuously appointed to more and more insignificant positions, although I received the same money.

After 10th November 1989 19 the dictatorship fell. There is freedom of speech, but the economic instability is greater than before. There is political freedom, but the economic freedom is weak, because people are not well financially. This is especially true of retired people like us, because I receive the maximum pension, which is now 200 levs, less than 100 dollars, with which it is hard to make a living. My wife receives a pension of 100 levs.

After 1989 my contacts with the Jewish community changed. Firstly, the activity of the Jewish organizations increased, because the new conditions allowed it. Many institutions were created within the framework of the Shalom organization in 1990. The Organization of Jews in Bulgaria has existed for decades. Until the changes on 10th November 1989 it was chaired for many years by Yosif Asparuhov, who was a deputy of the Bulgarian Communist Party and represented Jews in the Bulgarian Parliament.

In the second half of 1990 the organization’s name was changed to OJB ‘Shalom’ [Organization of Jews in Bulgaria]. It was chaired by the theatre director and art critic Eddi Schwarz. He was a chairman for two mandates and then he was replaced by Emil Kalo, who is doctor of philosophy sciences and has lead the organization ever since.

I was a chairman of the Jewish State Community Center ‘Emil Shekerdjiiski’ for four years and member of its management for eight or ten years. For two years now I have been a member of the ‘Golden Age’ club uniting the efforts of 100-150 retired Jews living in Sofia. Every Saturday there are some programs and birthday parties organized, we mark the contributions of various people from our community to different areas of culture – music, art.

The Jews in our town live in the same way as those around the world – everybody has some problems, but the good thing is that we can get together at events organized by the Jewish community.

I, personally, do not receive aid, but many people from the community receive aid from Joint 20 and other organizations. My wife and I received money from Switzerland; I do not have precise information. Germany rejected our request for compensation, because they do not regard our pain and suffering as a sufficient reason for compensation.

Glossary

Lilia Levi

Bulgaria

Violeta Kyurdyan 

2001

I know both my grandfathers. My maternal grandmother died very early and I didn’t know her. My grandfather married a second time.

My mother, Lora Baruh is from Kiustendil. My maternal grandfather, Moshe Baruh, was a very religious man and assisted with the services at the synagogue. He had become a widower with two children – girls -fairly early and married a second time to a woman who didn’t have any children. My two uncles were born afterwards. His second wife Ventura hadn’t been married before. Honestly, I found out very late that my grandma wasn’t my mother’s real mother. When I grew up Mum told me the story about her mother who had died having a miscarriage. Their stepmother Lili’s grandpa’s second wife raised all the kids in fact.

My mother wanted to continue her studies after she finished school, but her stepmother Ventura told her that it was not necessary for a woman to study anymore and that she had already been educated enough. She had a great desire to become an obstetrician, but she never managed to. My Mum got married very young. On the day when they [the in-laws] had to take her from Kiustendil, they my Mum and her relatives got to a certain place on the road, somewhere in the middle and my father and his relatives took my mother from that place with carriages to Dupnitza. Weddings used to take place in the synagogues according the Jewish tradition then.

How did my parents meet each other? There used to be traditional meetings between the Jews from Kiustendil and Dupnitza on various occasions. There was a Jewish chitalishte community center in both towns. “Suznanie” the word means Consciousness in Bulgarian –was the name of it in Dupnitsa, and “Dobro budeshte” Nice Future in Kiustendil. Amateur artists from each of the two centers made regular tours from one town to the other. That is how my parents met each other.

We used to go to Kiustendil on most of our holidays. That was an opportunity to see each other. I had an aunt and uncles there. It was a tradition to visit all our relatives when we went on holidays like Rosh Ha shannah there. My grandma had a neighbor who lived downstairs. This woman would have been really cross with us if we hadn’t visited her as well. That is how we grew up, in a fairly Jewish environment.

My father’s parents were both from Dupnitza. I was born there too. My paternal grandparents Isac and Linda Levi, used to live together with us and I spent my childhood with them. My grandfather died in 1942 and my grandmother survived the war. I learned much about our Jewish traditions from them.

My grandfather Isac was a deeply religious man and he used to observe all our traditions. I know our holidays thanks to him. In the Jewish school, we used to give performances on our holidays. I have nice memories of all the holidays from those years, because we used to meet all those people in our family we were close to then. We, children, liked Rosh Hashanah very much, because then we received new clothes, shoes, etc. We liked Purim as well. On that day, we used to put on different masks, and, gathered in small groups, we visited our relatives. Our parents usually made some small bags in which they put money. I cannot explain why they did that. Relatives, whom we visited, also put money in our bags.

For Hanukkah, at the Jewish school they usually gave us small loafs with bun and halvah – a traditional food on that holiday. For Pesach, of course we had a traditional seder. We used to sing traditional songs till late in the night. In those evenings, neighbors without relatives came to celebrate with us. Quite often, people took the table and the dishes and thus they went to their neighbors. Nobody was alone, or only with his own family, on that night.

Grandpa attended synagogue regularly. We used to celebrate all our holidays. He even got out of his sick bed to read the prayer at the table on Pesach. My grandfather had his own set of religious books at home and my father also had his own set. They both had a tallith [prayer shawl]. I don’t remember anyone wearing a tipi [skullcap]. Men would put on a hat when they went to the synagogue. That is definitely how I remember it.

My grandfather didn’t like to go out very much. He was a reserved person and he could hardly stand us – a bunch of children, bothering him with the noise we used to make. Apart from that, he was a good man. I remember that poor people used to come to him and he usually gave them some things from the shop. There were people in our community who were really starving – disabled, lonely people… He was compassionate, but not sociable, in contrast with my grandmother who was a very sociable person. She used to contact many people. She was in touch with her sisters all the time; some of them [her sisters] lived in Dupnitza and one - in Sofia. She had some brothers as well. Their families have always been in contact with each other. We also became close with their parents and their children.

On holidays, especially on Pesach, the whole family used to get together. Usually all the relatives came to our house because there was more space. We were several families and everyone used to bring some food. While my grandfather was alive, he performed the whole ritual. The houses were thoroughly cleaned before Pesach as well as everything inside. The dishes were not simply washed up but even “boiled.” We used copper baking dishes, so if there had been some tin fallen from them, my mother used to send for a tinsmith – usually a Gypsy man – and he would come with his blowing device and would tin all the containers. All the cleaned containers and dishes had to be kept for the Pesach, they had to be paschal, which means cleaned and sanctified especially for the holiday. It is not allowed to eat bread on that holiday, only matzah. The matzah should be put into water first, then squeezed, squashed, and mixed with eggs. After that we make balls from that mixture and fried them. We call these balls burmulikus. They are usually dipped in syrup. Some part of the pastry may be made salty. We also used to make some small loafs of bread from matzah that are called boio in Ladino. Those breads were made of water, flour and salt only and they were extremely hard. We used to eat only that during all the 8 days of Pesach.

My parents and grandparents only ate kosher meat. But the young people changed that. We couldn’t make my grandmother eat pork or anything prepared with fat even during the war, when it was hard to find absolutely anything to eat. Anyway, my mother usually mixed fat with vegetable oil when she was cooking. All the old traditions just faded away after the war. Or the families that really wanted to keep them left Bulgaria.

When I was young families often gathered together for every holiday. For example when a boy was born, all the relatives gathered on the day of its circumcision;,then again for the Bar-mitzvah. If there were weddings, or deaths, my grandmother’s relatives always gathered together.

As far as wedding go, there was such a tradition in the past – if the wedding was supposed to take place on Sunday, all the women together with the future bride went to the baths on Friday. And after that everybody went outside the baths, which were of Turkish type, there was some room for sitting outside, and they had a small party. Afterwards they went to the bride’s house. And the very wedding procedure was taking place at the synagogue. Nowadays young people are restoring this tradition little by little. Recently I went to a wedding only to refresh my memory about how it used to be in the past.

When my grandmother got married, there were a number of things that had to present in the trousseau – among them some coverings, a little bit of Turkish type, made of velvet with gold-thread embroidery, it was called bindali. Some women used to wear dresses made of bindali on their wedding. But it was obligatory to prepare such coverings for cushions and whatnot made of the same material [to have them in the trousseau]. Later it was not necessary that they were made of that material, but still there had to be a personal coverlet, pillow etc., because women used to give birth to their children at home, with the help of a midwife, and in rare cases - of a physician. Hospitals were mainly private at that time. And not only this – it just wasn’t accepted to go to a hospital for the delivery. We were also brought into the world at home. There had to be some clothes for the baby [in the trousseau] as well. Before the wedding, the trousseau was put before the relatives, so that they could see what would the bride bring. Women [usually the bride and her mother] did their best to work out a perfect trousseau. I have seen some underwear with lace and embroidery, a slip, a nightgown, also embroidered from my mother’s trousseau. Sometimes they put a sheet of colored paper under the embroidery in order to make it more contrast and visible. Once I created a splendid blouse from one of mum’s nightgowns. I was a student in the first year at the university and my colleagues were very impressed by that blouse.

Our [Jewish] religious funeral rites require that the deceased person be fully purified, i.e. thoroughly bathed, even internally. There were groups of old people, specialized in that, men for men, women for women, they were called ruhisim. I remember when my grandfather died they came to our house with special plates, large enough to put the whole body on them. According to our Jewish rituals, deceased are buried naked, only covered with a shroud. Before the funeral the closest relatives made kria: they cut away a small piece of the dead person’s clothes that would remind them about him/her in the future. In the past, women didn’t go to the cemetery. Only men did. Women gathered together at home. And after the funeral the family stood “in siete” – the closest relatives (brothers and sisters) sat on cushions on the floor for seven days. Nobody was cooking. Close relatives were coming every day bringing food. These rituals are no longer observed. Even my parent’s generation didn’t observe them.

My grandfather owned a small-ware shop for vegetables and other goods. He had served as a soldier in the Balkan War. My grandmother was a housewife. She used to assist him in his work. Grandpa sold foodstuffs in his shop, and fruit and vegetables as well. He was a retailer. He always stuck firmly to the quality of the goods. I remember that they used to divide nice fruits from fruits with lower quality, and they set a lower price for the latter. I also remember that in the winter they were selling fish as well. I remember a funny incident in this connection. They had just bought some fresh fish and had to pickle it in brine. My two uncles and my father used to assist my grandfather with the work in the shop, for he couldn’t cope with everything alone. The three of them [Lili’s grandfather and her two uncles] went to prepare the brine. And my father was just coming back from school. He was wearing a soft hat. And he decided to help, too. And his hat fell into the brine. It was funny.

The shop wasn’t big, but they had lots of customers. The shop was closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Saturday was a market day in our town. People from the nearby villages brought fruit with their horses or asses that day. My parents usually went there to buy some fruit, although it was not accepted to work on Saturday. My grandfather didn’t go, because he was very strict as far as it concerned religious issues, but my grandmother did. After all, there had to be fruits for selling during the week. In wintertime they worked hard to preserve the fruits, they put them into hay when it was extremely cold. There was a small room in the other house (there were two houses in our yard). They used to put the fruit there and light large braziers with charcoal in the room to prevent the fruits from freezing. They had to work really hard to survive, my grandparents.

My father had two brothers, Leon and Albert. He was the only one from the three of them who succeeded to get a good education. The others had been short of money so they had to start work very early. My father was the oldest and after finishing school, they his parents managed to send him to the university with the help of some relatives. My father was a physician. He had the possibility to go abroad and specialize after graduating from university. Unfortunately, the family had already been deeply in debt so my father had to start work in order to pay off the family debt. My father didn’t serve as a soldier; he was a student at the university at that time. I remember they used to call him to the reserves on a regular basis together with other physicians. My uncles Leon and Albert started work immediately after finishing school. They both worked in the shop, one of them constantly. The other went to a tailor to learn the trade, but he used to assist with the work in the shop in his free time. [After World War II] one of my uncles fell seriously ill and retired on a pension. The other continued his work at a state shop, again as a seller – it was forbidden to have private shops. They had both been soldiers. They are both deceased now, but they have families – one of them has a daughter, she is a physician, too, she is married and has two girls. They all live in Israel now. The girls are married as well. My other uncle has three sons who also live in Israel. They moved there after his death. Their mother stayed here for a while and later she also went there.

My grandparents Isak and Linda Levi had contacts with other Jewish people. Many of them The Jews in Dupnitza lived in the Jewish quarter. Our house was in the center of the town on the main street. We had lived in another house before - a smaller and an older one, which was situated in the rear part of the same yard – that’s where I was born and where we all had lived together in our childhood years – my paternal grandparents, my two uncles and my father’s family. Afterwards we moved to the new house. My father did some reconstruction after he bought it from some friends. He bought it on the investment plan. It was a two-floor house. On the first floor, there were only stores. We had three rooms, a kitchen, and a hall in the middle. The original kitchen was facing south and happened to be the sunniest room in the house. So, my father reorganized one of the north rooms and made it a kitchen. It was a fairly large room and usually it was the best-heated room and my brother and I used to stay there. The other rooms were heated late in the afternoon, before we went to bed. We couldn’t afford to heat the whole house, because it was big and with very high ceilings. There was a toilet in the house, but there wasn’t a bathroom. We used to go to the public baths. There were some baths very close to our house; they called them the Jewish baths, because they were in the Jewish quarter. They were granted on lease to different families that were managing them. Even when my daughter was born, these baths still existed and her grandmother used to take her there. It was not until my brother graduated from the university and came back home that he made some reconstruction work and then a bathroom was made in our house. We used a coal burning stove for heating. Later on my two uncles got married and left the house. My grandparents stayed to live with us. When my grandpa died in 1942 grandma went on living with us.

My grandparents spent most of their time working at the shop. In the past, they used to make vermicelli at home and the so-called tarana, something like couscous [a kind of paste in the form of tiny little balls]. It was a really hard work, which had to be done in a single day. First, they kneaded the dough. Then, after it dried up a little, they rubbed part of it between their palms to make the couscous. They rolled out the other part forming thin sheets, then folded it many times and cut them with a knife, making thus the vermicelli. Every family prepared some winter supplies, because only few things could be found in the stores. We used to make plum jam, treacle. We used to make different sauces – tomato sauce, for example, and other different things from peppers. We didn’t sterilize [as we usually do nowadays]. We regularly used to dry the peppers. That is why women from the neighborhood used to gather and work together.

The atmosphere at home wasn’t always calm, especially when my uncles were there, but… One of my uncles was a little bit strange. When my mother’s relatives visited us, he was irritated and was trying to cause some little troubles. Apart from that, there weren’t conflicts at home, despite the fact we were a big family. Nowadays children want to have separate rooms for themselves; everyone wants to have his own desk to write on, etc. My brother and I used to study in the kitchen, because there was no heating in the other rooms. That was the kind of life we lived until we graduated. Thanks God we both did it well and became physicians.

There were some girls coming from the nearby villages to take care of us when we were children. My parents had to hire these girls because our house was really big. My father had a consulting office in the house, my grandfather’s shop was downstairs and there was a lot of housework as well. These girls used to come and work for food and clothes. Many of them wore their traditional dresses, as you’ll see in the pictures. When my brother was born, there was a maid who was extremely clean and tidy. Her dress was always shining white as the snow. People were turning round to look at her on the street. Later she got married but she stayed close to my parents. Her daughter came to Dupnitza to study years after that and she stayed at my mother’s. She kept on visiting them. She was like a member of our family. There was always a girl helping with the housework. And we used to hire a woman for the bigger cleansing. It was impossible for a single person to maintain such a big house. At present, my daughter-in-law [who lives in the same house] hires a woman when she wants to do a big cleansing.

My mother was a housewife, so it was mainly her that was doing the cooking, but my grandmother also took part for some dishes. She [Lili’s grandma] was very good in preparing pastry. I hadn’t prepared any winter supplies until Mum died. She used to say that I won’t need to prepare it as soon as she could do this and that I would have to decide whether I would go on doing that or not. She was extremely dedicated. And she was very skillful – knitting, needlework, fancywork, everything. She was very good in fillet work. I still keep many things made by her. Women used to gather together for handiwork in those days. I remember Mum sewed the underwear for the whole family for many years.

My father loved to read. He was always with a book in his hands. Even at the end of his life when he couldn’t walk any more he was constantly reading and was aware of all the novelties concerning his job. My mother also loved to read very much. And she was also a very sociable person. After the War [World War II] she started with social activities.

I have one brother who is younger than me. He was a child when the War [World War II] broke out. He was only 10. He also went to the Jewish school first. Then the bombardments started and we left for Sv.Vrach. He was a lively child. He was playing with all the other kids in the neighborhood. But he was a very good student. He finished high school and then became a medical graduate. He went to work in a village as a physician and then started work in our town [Dupnitsa]. His wife is from Blagoevgrad. She is an assistant pharmacist. She wanted to become a pharmacist graduate, but she got pregnant. I even remember that she came here [in Sofia] to pass her first exam and caught flu. Then my brother decided she had studied enough. They have a son who is also a physician, as well as his wife – we are a big medical family. Their son is now in the first class at the Jewish school. He has lived with his grandmother in Dupnitsa till now and he came here recently but he still cannot adapt himself. He hadn’t spent a lot of time with his parents. My brother is a very sociable person. It doesn’t take him a long time to establish contacts with people. He had to work in Varna for several years. He worked as ship-doctor as well. Thus, he visited many countries. In fact, that was the main reason to accept that job. Otherwise, it was impossible to travel. He is retired now. He lives in Dupnitsa. Recently they called him to Belogradchik, as they needed a surgeon there. They asked him again to go there about a month ago. His son is here [in Sofia].

We spoke in Ladino at home. That was the language we knew best My daughter speaks a little Ladino also, because her grandmother raised her while her brother attended kindergarten.

I graduated from a Jewish school. It was only till 4th grade. We studied everything there, including Hebrew language, exactly the same way as they do at my granddaughter’s school now. We went to synagogue every Friday evening when I was a student at the Jewish school. There were some parts of the service in which we took part in. My grandmother was very proud that I sang in the temple. After the Jewish school, we went to schools for primary education

There was a choir at “Saznanie” institution the Jewish community center and many young people used to sing there. I have many sweet memories of that time. I learnt many songs there, not only Jewish. The conductor was very good and he became famous later. I have heard his name many times after that.

My parents used to sing in the choir and got together with friends. There was a place - they called it “The Casino,” I don’t know why, for it wasn’t a casino at all. It was something like a café. My parents used to go there in the evenings to meet some friends. Sometimes they would let us go with them, and we used to get a piece of Turkish delight there. When they went without us, they always promised to bring us a piece of cake if we behaved as “good children.”

Mum wasn’t a vain woman. She demonstrated a refined taste in her clothing. Before the War [World War II] women didn’t walk around without hats, and her hat was always chosen according to the season and to the case. My parents liked music very much, so I was a little child when they started to take me to concerts and operas. The “Ivan Vazov” State Theatre [it usually performs in the capital now] used to tour throughout the country in those years, so I have seen their performances in Dupnitsa, on the stage of the chitalishte [community center]. Later, when we came to Sofia, we used to go to the opera. And people were very elegant when they went to the opera. And if it was wintertime, there they put on the so-called shushon [kind of waterproof boots] over their shoes and took them off before going into the hall. In the past, especially in my student years, it was a real event to go to the theater or to the opera, because it was very hard to buy tickets. Theater halls were always full.

I am a sociable person by the way. I used to have many friends, most of them were Jewish girls, but there were others also. My first unpleasant experience with the Law for Defense of the Nation was when I graduated from high school. There was a tradition in our town that the best students, who finished junior high school, received their certificates at a special ceremony at the community center. I was one of those students, so we all got dressed and headed for the school. The school director called us in his room and told my father that he was very sorry but he had received an order that I shouldn’t be given my certificate at the ceremony. That was in 1942-1943. Of course, that was a real tragedy for me and I kept crying the whole day, my parents would do anything to console me – they even brought me to a confectionery!

Then it was time to enter a high school. There were certain quotas for us - the Jews. Practically the only students with very high grades managed to enter high school. There were other Jews in our class. Classes at school were formed according to the foreign language that we wanted to study. And, as we [Jews] were ill disposed towards German because of all the sufferings we had borne, we were all inscribed in a French parallel [a class for students studying French as a foreign language]. We were all girls at the same age. And we are still friends. I even meet those who are still here from time to time. There were Bulgarian girls who were our friends as well. We entered high school in the years of the War [World War II]. There were different youth organizations then – Brannik, etc. Our classes took place in the afternoon. And sometimes electricity cut off and [as it was too dark to see] our teacher used to make us sing. Usually girls who were members of Brannik insisted that we sing their songs [songs of their organization]. But we didn’t. I remember one day a girl stood up and said: “Madam, Jews and communists don’t sing.” There was a classmate of mine who was a little pushy and she was brave enough to answer “Let’s sing some song that we all want and can sing.” Out of school most of my friends were Jews, maybe because we lived close to each other. As far as it concerns the subjects we studied, from the very beginning I liked mathematics. Our math teacher was a very nice person. Sometimes you like the subject because you like the teacher. And I had another teacher who was teaching Geography. He wanted to rate my work with a lower mark. I don’t remember why. There was a school-leaving examination for students with lower marks. So, I was forced to pass that final exam because I needed high scores to have better chances when applying to the university.

Not far from Dupnitza is Separeva Bania, a town where there are mineral springs. All the adults enjoyed going there very much. We – the children – often went there to play. We didn’t go anywhere else on vacation, because my father was always busy and he couldn’t leave his patients. There are still people who tell me that my father had been their mother’s doctor and their own doctor also. He usually used to take care of the whole family. He was something like a GP.

Both my parents loved mountaineering. We climbed mountains regularly, mostly the Rila Mountain. My father even organized groups who went to the mountain together. We have gone to the Rhodope Mountains together with a group. My mother used to complain a lot that she couldn’t find any time for herself, a time for a real vacation. There was a time when my father worked at the Social Insurance Fund. They used to send groups of employees to a holiday house in Samoranovo village in Rila Mountain. The doctors who went together with those groups had the right to take their families together with them. So for 2 or 3 consecutive years we went there on vacation. We liked it very much to do marches in the mountain. I saw the sea for the first time in my life after the 9th of September 1944.

There was a train passing through our town, and there were cars as well. There were buses traveling from Dupnitza and Kiustendil. During the war [World War II], on their way back from the bombings on Sofia, the planes dropped several bombs on my town. Fortunately, I wasn’t in there at that moment. I was at my aunt’s in Kiustendil together with a close friend of hers. We wanted to go back to Dupnitza, but there were no buses, nothing. I remember a private driver agreed to drive us with his car and as there were many other people traveling in the same car I had to sit in this woman’s [her aunt’s friend] lap. The bombs ruined a lot in a short time. Many people died, there were our compatriots among them as well.

Repression against us [Jews] began in 1943. We started wearing badges – every Jew at the age over 14 had to wear the yellow star; we couldn’t go out after 9 o’clock in the evening. Later, when the deportations began, the military trains with Jewish people from Macedonia passed through our town. They put these people in tobacco warehouses for a day or two. It was announced that clothes and blankets had to be gathered for them. Many of our compatriots responded to that request. Carriages full of clothes and blankets were gathered, but nothing was given to them in fact. People told us that they went closer and threw some food to these people over the fence for they were starving.

Soon after that, an order came that we should be kept inside our homes for an indefinite period of time. My father was sent to Radomir. There he and another Jewish physician organized a meeting place for all the people who were supposed to leave for the camps. That was the first time that I saw my Dad crying. He was a really tough man. He warned us that we might never see each other again. So he left and we stayed alone with our mother. My grandmother was with us too. She and my mother sewed bags for us to carry things in. They didn’t know where we were going to be sent. We all thought that we were going to be sent to the labor camps. We had no idea of the truth.

There was a man, an old friend of my father’s - a pastry-cook. He had come to Dupnitza from the Aegean region with his family. He was a very good man. I remember that our house could be accessed from the narrow street in the back and he came and spoke to my mother. Later she retold us what he had already told her. He said that the place where we were about to be sent wasn't a good one. He proposed that we - the children stay with him and promised to find a place to hide us.

Only children under the age of 14 had the right to go out to buy bread. And one day - my 14th anniversary had already passed, but really not long before - I decided to go to the Jewish bakery, which was nearby. Grandma told me to buy a loaf of bread for her sister too and bring it to her because she had no children. She lived some 100 meters away from our house. The bread was already in my hands when a group of brannik soldiers stopped me. There was a classmate of mine among them. One of them asked me rudely where I was going. I answered that I was out to buy some bread. He said that I was obviously not 14 years old. I turned to my classmate and said that she knew my age exactly because we had been classmates. Then in the same rude manner they told me to go with them straight away. They took me to their headquarters. Their chief wasn’t there. I had been waiting for him until noon when he received me. He started to swear and warned me that if I went out again nothing good awaited me. Meanwhile my poor mother was having a horrible time not knowing where I was. About a week later we got the message that our deportation was canceled.

My father got to come back, but the chief of his camp kept them in the camp for an two extra days, just to abuse them. After that he was sent as a doctor in the Jewish labor groups who worked on the railway line – a wide gauge track was under construction on the place of the narrow gauge one. Some time after that he was moved to Sveti Vrach near the town of Lom. We also went there and stayed till the 9th of September 1944.

The truth is that ordinary people weren’t bad to us. Most of our classmates at high school didn’t make a difference between them and us. And we never thought of ourselves as different from the others. We only observed our traditions. We knew that on New Year’s Eve, for example, we received new shoes, new clothes or something like that. My mother had many Bulgarian friends. My father kept contacts with many Bulgarian colleagues.

We lived in rather miserable conditions in Sveti Vrach. The place was half a town, half a village. We hardly managed to find a place to live and practically we lived four people in a single room, which was big enough for two beds only – one for my parents and one for my brother and me.

There were only one or two Jewish families there. Our first contacts were with them. Later on many of our compatriots came to work on the railway as laborers and technicians. We used to gather at one of the Jewish families, especially on Jewish holidays. We celebrated according to our means. Once, I remember they weren’t sure about the exact date of a certain holiday so we arrived at a compromise [about the date to celebrate].

Nobody treated us in a different manner. We didn’t have to wear badges there. The only thing was that we couldn’t do was to leave the town without a special permission from the police. It had been like that since the Law for Defense of the Nation was accepted. Only once, when my grandma got her eyes operated on [for she had a cataract], my mother accompanied her. Nobody else left the town till the 9th of September 1944 when we all went back home in Dupnitza.

My mother has always told us that we should have our own profession and be independent. She said she had never been deprived of anything, but every time she had needed something she had to ask my father and tell him about it. There was another thing that she kept on telling - and that was because she had always lived in a big family – first with my father’s parents, then when my brother got married she lived with his family. She used to say that I had to consider these words of hers as a testament to me. She told me never to live with my children when they are already married. She told me always to do my best to help them but live separately. My father was strict and tough, but he had never raised his hand to beat me. We have always taken his opinion into consideration, but he was smart and he has never tried to work his will. For example, he has never meddled when we had to choose profession, although both of us [Lili and her brother] became physicians. There was a time when my brother, who has a good taste for music, declared he was going to study music. My father only told him that a musician cannot take care of a family, but my brother gave up the idea all by himself.

I graduated high school in 1946. I applied to the university in 1947, but I wasn’t admitted. I managed to enroll in 1948. I became a student in medicine in Sofia. [As a student] I lived together with another girl in lodgings. It was a tough period for me - there was a problem with heating, we could use only a limited amount of wood, coal etc. Moreover, there was a rationing system. If our parents hadn’t sent us some food, we would have been lost. The rationing was canceled in 1952. When I was a third year student, my brother enrolled in the university too and from then on we lived together. My father kept sending money to us and we did our best to survive with it, while Mum used to send us some food.

As my father hadn’t succeeded to take a specialty before the War, he signed up for a course after the War. I was a student in the 4th year then, and he had enrolled a course in internal diseases and was sitting in our classes. My colleagues would tease us that “father and daughter were studying together.” He passed the exam and became a chief of the internal department and then head physician at the hospital in Dupnitza.

I graduated in 1952 and I got married the same year. My husband Mois Rahamim is from Sofia. I had a colleague at the university who got married before me. Her husband had some friends. We started to go out together, most often for a walk in Vitosha Mountain. That is how I met Mois. Practically almost every boy from that group got married to a friend of mine. And we kept our contacts afterwards. Our children became friends too. Unfortunately some of them are now dead. But I still meet their wives. When our children were little we were inseparable, our children grew up together and they are still friends. And now the “Zdrave” club in the Jewish cultural house provides us a wonderful opportunity to see each other more often.

My husband worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He got discharged right after Stalin’s death. Many compatriots there at the Ministry had the same destiny. My husband was really very embarrassed, but later he was employed at NarMag short for Public store, state trade institution. He had started work very early, because my father-in-law had been ill [he had raised cows] and they hadn’t had enough money. My husband had a brother and two sisters – the three of them were twins. His brother was killed as a partisan together with his wife. His sisters are younger than he is. They all started work very early and they finished night school.

We have two children – a daughter and a son. Zelma Mois Levi and Yosif Mois Levi My daughter is a physicist, she works in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and my son is an engineer; he works in the Telecommunication Company.

Before the War [World War II], there were many religious obstacles for mixed marriages. If a Jew decided to marry a Christian, he had to convert. And I know people who have become Christians in order to get married. But later mixed marriages between Bulgarians and Jews have become something usual. It became more and more rare to see couples that are entirely Jewish. There are many people now who are not Jews who feel like Jews no less than their husband or wife.

My father was rather opposed to the idea of moving to Israel. When the emigration process began in 1948 he told us that we should not even mention it and that he would never agree to go there. At that time there were two groups – the Zionists and the others. The relations between these groups, at least in our town, were hostile. They the “others” thought the Zionists were nationalists. And my father was a member of the Comsomol Young Communist League, then a member of the Communist Party. He told us that even if we went to live in Israel we should not expect that my mother and he would go with us. That is why we stayed. We made our life here, found a job and we were no longer thinking of emigration. But honestly I am a little sorry that we didn’t go when our children were little, it would be different, but… Thank God, they graduated successfully and set up.

I have a bad memory – they ruined the synagogue in our town, and it was a very beautiful synagogue, with a nice interior design, but most of all, with marvelous acoustics. The War finished and they decided to make a store out of it, and afterwards they decided to destroy it. While they were destroying it, as my nephew told me, they found some clay pots built in the walls from which that splendid acoustic must have been coming from. I am deeply sorry that they did that stupid thing to the synagogue, it was a great monument.           

Translated by Violeta Kyurdyan

Aron Nissim Alkalai

Dupnitsa

Bulgaria

Date of interview: July 2005

Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov

Aron Alkalai is one of the few Jews from the older generation remaining in Dupnitsa. He managed to save his Jewish identity, although he denies that. He thinks that the observation of Jewish laws was truer of his ancestors. He lives in a modestly furnished, but cosy flat in the center of the town. He is sociable and likes spending time outside talking with neighbors and friends. He is a very good cook and makes an amazing rose hip wine. He lives with his wife Ida, and they both miss their children, who recently immigrated to Israel.

I know that my family name Alkalai is a geographical name. It comes from the Alkala Mountain in Spain. It seems my ancestors had that family name and it remained when they moved to the Balkans. 1 The families of my parents are from Kyustendil. My paternal grandparents married in Kyustendil and all their children were born there. Then they moved to live in Dupnitsa [a town in Western Bulgaria]. I do not know when they decided to move. That happened before I was born. The reason to move was work, I suppose. Probably there were more opportunities for trade in Dupnitsa. I have heard that my paternal grandfather Avram Alkalai while living in Kyustendil came to Dupnitsa to sell whole carts full of sea-salt. He bought it from the wholesalers and resold it. He also sold other goods. At that time, merchants sold a lot of things – gas, oil, wool, cotton, paints. My paternal grandfather also had an oven, in which he used to bake prunes, which he sold. My father also did the same. My paternal grandmother Rivka Alkalai was a housewife. I know that she gave birth eleven times. Two of her children died and nine remained. My father was the oldest of them.

I know almost nothing about my mother's parents. I remember that they lived in Kyustendil, where I went in the summer during my vacations. My maternal grandfather Rafael Lazar had a small goatee. I do not know what he worked. I do not remember my grandmother Vinucha Lazar. She was a housewife.

In Kyustendil I visited my mother's relatives and my father's brother who lived there. Once my parents decided to go to Kyustendil. I was not allowed to go with them then. I was very young. But I had decided that I should definitely go. I got on a truck, which was on its way to Kyustendil and so I arrived in the town. I sat on the sidewalk there and waited. My parents saw me and were absolutely surprised. They had to leave me at one of my uncle's for some time.

I do not know how my parents met. When they married, my father was living in Dupnitsa. After they married, they lived in various rented flats in the center of the town. My parents spoke Bulgarian, but their parents spoke Ladino 2. After they married, I was born in 1921, my brother Rafael in 1923 and my sister Riri in 1928. The house where I was born had two rooms and was very humbly furnished. When I was young, we did not have electricity, we used gas lamps.

My mother's name is Regina Alkalai and she had two brothers and two sisters. Her eldest brother's name is Yosif Lazar. He was a lawyer and lived in Plovdiv. Her other brother's name is David Lazar. He was a merchant and lived in Kyustendil. One of my mother's sisters was Buka and she married in Sofia. Her other sister was Matilda and she lived in Dupnitsa. Her husband's name was Konorti and he was a tailor. Unfortunately, that is all I know about them.

My mother was a teacher in the Jewish school in Kyustendil. Probably she also worked as a teacher in Dupnitsa but for a short time. After she married, she stopped working under the influence of my father. He wished that she would only be a housewife. My mother knew French very well. She also played the guitar and knew songs in Ladino and in Bulgarian. I have seen her singing a melody and playing on the guitar to herself. In the evenings she would go on the balcony and hum a song for 'good night'. Times were more peaceful then and people were less demanding. We did not buy many clothes, did not rely on material things so much and people lived more peacefully than they do now.

My father Nissim Alkalai had a lot of jobs. He had a hard life. At one point he was even a bartender and a cafe owner. When the water-conduit for Sofia was being constructed, he had a small canteen in the Rila Mountain. He cooked for the workers, who were around 150 people. But my father was a very good man and often gave them food on credit. That is why, he did not get rich from that job. There were some Italians who owed him a lot of money. At that time our house was mortgaged. My father had taken a loan from the Jewish bank 'Bratstvo' [Brotherhood] 3 to buy the house, in which we lived. My mother told me that once my father threw in the stove some papers issued to him by a judge and with which he had to collect the money he was owed. He had won a trial against the people who owed him money, but at the last minute he reconsidered. My mother asked him why he was throwing those papers in the fire. He answered that the people had no money to pay him back. For example, one of them had only one cow. If he took it, what would the man have to eat? So, my father was very considerate about the others. The fact that there were five of us and our house was mortgaged was in the background. Because of that nobility and kindness my father was much respected man. He had a lot of friends among the Bulgarians too.

My father was a cashier in the Jewish bank 'Bratstvo' in the years around World War II. It was a local bank governed by the Jewish municipality in Dupnitsa. In 1941 under the Law for Protection of the Nation 4 the bank was closed and my father was left unemployed. I was in the labor camps 5 then, but when I was at home I tried to do some work to help them – as a cobbler or in the tobacco warehouses.

When I was a child, my father could not afford to take us on vacation. We went on excursions in the mountain (Dupnitsa is in the foot of the Rila Mountain). Once I remember that we went to the Rila Monastery with four other Jewish families. Every family had three or four children. There was a special tent for cooking and a tent for sleeping. There was a Bulgarian Aleksander Pilev who transported beer from Samokov and bottled it in Dupnitsa. He had a pub in the town. The beer was left in a well to get cold. A boy, Kole the Blacksmith and I were sent to get them. But we decided to drink secretly and fill up the bottles with water. But the people found that out and criticized the pub owner. He could not say what had happened. In the end the people found out the truth. Another time, once again during an excursion in Rila, we had taken a keg of wine. We sat in a meadow above a river. There were trees around the river. The keg slid, fell down and crashed. My parents went on excursions in the mountain every summer for about 10-15 days. My father was much respected and had a lot of friends among the Bulgarians. We went on those excursions both with Jewish and Bulgarian families. I do not remember if we sang songs. They were more of daily excursions in the open.

There was a cinema in Dupnitsa where I regularly went. It was a private one and was known as 'Doncho's cinema'. Probably its owner's name was Doncho and that's why it was called that way. I went to buy tickets early in the morning to get cheaper seats. Unfortunately, I do not remember the names of the movies, but when we were young, we were much influenced by them and tried to copy the behavior of the characters in them.

My father had four sisters and four brothers. After him his sister Kalina (Leonova, by husband) was born. She married in Dupnitsa. Then Rashel was born. She lived in Kyustendil and she did not marry. After her is Sara, now Hazdai, who lived in Dupnitsa and Vita, now Isakova, who also lived in Dupnitsa. All my father's sisters were housewives. My father's brothers are Mois, Leon, Solomon and Azarya.

One of my father's brothers – Leon – remained to live in Kyustendil. He sewed ladies' clothes. He had a family with two children. His son Aron later became a painter in Israel. Another brother of my father's – uncle Mois – was a teacher and headmaster of the Jewish school in Dupnitsa. Before that he had worked as a trainmaster. He could speak very well in public. He gave lectures in the Jewish school and was well-known in town both before and after 9th September 1944 6. His first wife [the interviewee does not know her name] was a midwife, but she died early. Then he remarried. He married Sofi from Sofia. He has two daughters - Bela, who was married to the famous Bulgarian historian Ilcho Dimitrov 7. Kalina, my father's sister, went to live in Sofia. She sang very well. When there were operettas in town, she took part as a singer, and so did my aunt Vita, another sister of my father's.

My father had a brother, who had anarchist beliefs. His name is Solomon Alkalai. He took part in the civil war in Spain. 8 He wrote a letter from Spain saying that his dream had come true. I suppose that his dream was related to the ideas of the civil war in Spain. Firstly he went to France, because probably he had been persecuted in Bulgaria. He had said officially that he would study to become a dentist there. He was a very well-read man. He was also a healer and helped people with natural remedies. So, he went to France and in the 1930s when the civil war broke out in Spain he took part in it. Then he went back to France but he was sent to a Nazi camp. He managed to break away and joined the resistance [the interviewee means the French resistance during World War II]. In the camp he shared his food with the others and they all loved him. He wrote about that in his letters. I also know that he was a vegetarian. The daughter of uncle Mois, Bela, visited him in France. She noticed that the collar of his shirt was slightly torn. He sensed her surprise and showed her how many shirts he had at home but he explained to her that he gave them away to poor Spanish people.

Rashel did not marry. She had problems with her eyes. At first she lived with her parents in the old house and then we rented a room for her, which was close to us. I know that they took her to Vienna to treat her when she was young, but unsuccessfully. Now I have a blanket, which I received as a gift from her.

Sara lived in Dupnitsa. She married a cobbler and she had three boys – Leon Hazdai, Aron Hazdai and Hertsel Hazdai. Leon and Aron left for Israel and as far as I know they died. Only Hertsel is still alive and lives in a villa near Dupnitsa. There are beehives, rabbits and a goat there. He was a constructor in a factory for prints and pressforms. He was a very skilled specialist.

Vita had one daughter – Lida Isakova, who became a doctor. Her husband Leon Isakov was mentally ill. His father had a grocery and he worked there. Then he married my aunt. They moved to Israel.

Azarya was a watchmaker. He lived in Sofia. When we were in labor camps, we were close to one another and I often visited him. He had made an improvised underground stove in the ground to keep warm. We were in the camps during the winter. He was very inventive and so, he decided to make that stove. And it was working very well. He was also a very sociable man. He is still alive and is living in Israel. His son Avram is also a watchmaker and brings him some watches with bigger parts to repair because he has problems with eyesight. Uncle Azarya loved his profession and was addicted to it. He was a very kind man and always treated us very well. He lived on Pirotska Str. in Sofia.

I had friends in Sofia. Once my uncle Azarya went out so that we would all gather in his flat and have a party. My friends in Sofia were both Jews and Bulgarians. I met them when they visited the family of uncle Azarya. When I was 17 years old, I went to Sofia on foot. The distance to Sofia is 52 km. I started late in the evening and arrived in Kniazhevo [a district in Sofia] at 8 o'clock in the morning the next day.

The population in Dupnitsa was around 16 000 people and the Jewish community was around 1 800, I think. There was a synagogue, which was built in 1599. The Jewish municipality had its own building and bank. There was a chazzan and a shochet in the synagogue. As far as I remember the name of the chazzan was Haim. I do not remember the name of the shochet. He was in a separate building. The chazzan went to slaughterhouses to look at the meat and said which meat was kosher and stamped it so that the Jews would know which meat to buy. I know an interesting story in a slaughterhouse. Once the chazzan went to the slaughterhouse and the people offered him an anesthetized and nice-looking lamb. But when the chazzan saw him, he told them that that animal was not for our people. The Bulgarians who worked there were shocked. They thought that they had chosen a very nice animal. After they slaughtered it and opened its skull, it turned out that the animal was not well and that the chazzan was right.

There were a lot of tobacco warehouses in Dupnitsa. The tobacco industry was very well developed. A lot of Jews from town earned their living thanks to those warehouses – they worked there. Before the tobacco was sent to the warehouses, while fresh, it was strung in strings of two meters, which were hung into frames to dry. I also went to string tobacco leaves when I was a child to earn some money. When the leaves were dry enough, they were made into bales. Those bales were transported to the warehouse and there they were processed and sorted depending on their quality. Many of our Jews worked in those warehouses – both men and women. The other Jews in Dupnitsa were craftsmen and a small part of them merchants.

The famous tobacco dealer Zhak Aseov had a number of tobacco warehouses in Dupnitsa. I know a story about him. He studied law in Germany. He was very funny and sociable man. Once while he was in Germany, he had an evening walk in some town. There was a ball on the first floor of a building. He went inside and since he was very sociable and knowledgeable, he impressed the people there. There was a tobacco dealer at the ball. When he found out that Zhak was from Bulgaria, he offered him to buy tobacco as his middle-man and export it abroad. So, they got rich. They had tobacco warehouses throughout the Balkan Peninsula. Everyone who had worked for him said that he was a very kind man. He gave money to Jews in need. He also gave money for the construction of a waterfall in the Rila Mountain. It was very beautiful and close to the village of Samoranovo. Zhak also supported gifted students to graduate high school. In Israel he built a senior home for Bulgarian Jews. I have visited it. It was in a small town whose name I do not remember. I was driven by car then and I did not pay attention to its name. All books in his library had leather covers. He had a very nice restaurant and a garden. He helped people much and was involved in charity.

There were only Bulgarians in the neighborhood where I was born and grew up. While I was a child, we always got on very well with them. We played together, we made pools in the Dupnitsa River and bathed in them in the summer. When the Law for Protection of the Nation was passed, our neighbors did not change their attitude towards us. They always treated us very well. We did not feel any animosity or disdain. People treated us the same way as they did before the war. We greeted each other in the street and talked as neighbors do.

My paternal grandparents lived in a small house in the Jewish neighborhood. I visited them for the holidays. On Purim we went to their place with a purse so that they would give us some money. Also, in the evening, some of the children put on masks and we went to the houses reciting poems and the people gave us some small change. On Las Frutas 9 we roasted peanuts, almonds, walnuts and put them on the table. I do not remember if they prepared purses for us. On Chanukkah we did not light candles.

On Pesach I went to the Jewish neighborhood. I played walnuts there with the other children. We placed the walnuts in small heaps and aimed at them. We did not eat bread on Pesach. My mother made boykos. These were very hard small flat loaves. Mu mother did not have separate dishes for Pesach, but she boiled her old ones for the holiday. She used wood ash and put it in the boiling water. In this way they got cleaned better. I do not remember if we observed kosher every day. But I remember that I brought the hens to the shochet to slaughter them. The shochet slaughtered the hen without removing its head and waited for some time, then I brought it home. We gathered at my grandfather's place for Pesach but I do not remember what ritual we observed. I do not remember having a bar mitzvah. But I was circumcised. My sons are also circumcised. Each circumcision was accompanied by a celebration.

My parents loved reading. My mother did not have much time to read because of the housework, but my father read all the time. They observed the Jewish traditions more strictly than we did. My father had books in Ivrit and in ancient Jewish, which I have now, but unfortunately I cannot read them because I do not understand the language.

We did not observe kosher at home, because we did not have enough money to be choosy about our food. There were times when there was hardly anything to eat. During the war [World War II] we used coupons to buy food.

Our synagogue was not big. There was a separate building for midrash in the yard. There were benches inside. Jewish weddings were made in the synagogue. I remember that the newly-weds broke glasses. The interesting thing was that there were amphorae built into the walls for better acoustics in the synagogue. It was destroyed at the end of the 1970s. Then my uncle Mois Alkalai, who was secretary of the Jewish municipality was accused that he and some other Jews had agreed to the destruction of the synagogue. But the truth was that nobody asked them about that. Someone in Sofia decided on that and it was destroyed. [There is no further information on this fact]. There is a Home of the Technics in its place now. Then some people took a brick as a remembrance of it. There was great resonance inside. There was also a choir and a special place for the people. Men always wore a tallit when entering. Hats were not taken off in the synagogue and the chazzan wore a special hat. There were not kippahs then. The Jews in Dupnitsa did not have payes.

I studied four years in the Jewish school. We studied half a day. We studied everything in Bulgarian except our classes in Ivrit. I cannot say that we learned the language. We had a strict teacher in Ivrit – Monsieur Revakh. Monsieur Revakh made us stand in the corner of the room when we did not know our lesson. I remember that the teachers took us to the synagogue. We had a big gym and a stage in the school. That was the only school in town where there was a stage. We performed theater plays there. We placed chairs in the gym. Our parents came and we performed in front of them. I do not remember the names of the plays.

There were two Jewish organizations in Dupnitsa. One of them was the Zionist's one 10 and the other was bigger and its name was 'Saznanie' [Conscience] 11. It was a cultural and educational organization with left ideas. It organized operettas and drama plays. The cultural life of Jews was rich. My father's sisters Kalina and Vita took part in the choral groups at 'Saznanie'. They also had a table for ping-pong for the young people. It was a very good organization. There was a fight for the leadership of the bank and the Jewish municipality between the Zionists and 'Saznanie'. People organized debates and made discussions. The organization had a community house and a big library. As far as I remember they did not have ideological discussions. I was a member of 'Saznanie'. We gathered there as youths and took books from the library. The Zionists appeared to be the richer Jews in town. 'Saznanie' was considered more of a left organization, that is, closer to the socialist ideas. That is why my father, who had left beliefs, was a sympathizer of 'Saznanie'.

After the Jewish school I went to study in junior high school – in the district school 'Evlogi Georgiev' 12. Then I went to study for a cobbler. My father told me that if I did not study, he would send me to work as an ironmonger which was very had work. I enrolled in evening classes in the vocational school. We studied four hours a day - from 6 to 10 pm. They gave us some food – tea with cheese and bread. We studied the anatomy of the human leg, Bulgarian language, literature and calculation of materials. I graduated the school, but I had to repeat one of the years. When I was told that I had to repeat the grade, I went to my practice teacher to ask him if there was some mistake. His name was Mr Peshev. He opened the teacher's book where he had made a note that I had refused to complete the tasks he gave to me. That is why he made me repeat the grade. Then I went to my father and told him that I was made to repeat the grade unfairly and that we should call for a commission from Sofia to review my case. I would work in front of the commission and if they decided that I should repeat the grade, I would. My father talked to the director of the school. When the director heard his story, he advised him not to call for a commission from Sofia because they would probably respect the teacher's decision and he would have to pay for their expenses. So, I repeated the last year of the vocational school. I worked silently the whole year and the teacher gave me as an example to the others. At the end of the year I received my certificate with a prize. I went for a master's exam in front of a commission, who had come from Sofia. At that time there were no materials and everyone brought their own. At the start of the exam, I started working right away. The members of the commission told me that I should draw a ticket first. I answered that I had materials only for ladies' shoes. But they said that if my ticket said men's shoes, I would change my materials with someone else. I answered that I did not want to give my materials to someone who would ruin them. Yet, fortunately, my ticket said ladies' shoes. I had chosen a simple but nice model for shoes made of suede. I designed and sewed them in the first day. The deadline was in three days. I presented them to the commission and received a master's certificate.

When I graduated vocational school, my father sent me to Sofia to work in a confectionery on 52 Iskar Str. owned by a cousin of his. I could not get used to the life there and went back home. Later in 1941 my father sent me to Sofia again to work for a cobbler. At that time the war had already started and there were Germans in Sofia. I lived at the place of aunt Kalina. I once again did not like life there and wrote by myself a letter addressed to me, in which my father was asking me to go home to Dupnitsa. I showed it to my master and he was surprised at first but let me go. There was no work in Dupnitsa but we managed to make ends meet. I went to work as a cobbler in various workshops. I also worked at home.

We started wearing [yellow] stars in 1942 13. There was a curfew and we were not allowed to go out in the evenings. We could only walk along the river in the Jewish neighborhood. There were special shops for the Jews. There were shops with the notice 'entrance forbidden for Jews'. But there were some very kind Bulgarians who helped us. My uncle Azarya and his family came to Dupnitsa. He was interned from Sofia 14. Relatives of his wife Sara also came. In every Jewish house there were interned people from Sofia.

All Jews who had not done their military service were sent to labor groups, created especially for us. In 1942 I was sent to the Tran gorge to construct roads and in 1943 I was in St. Vrach (present-day Sandanski), where a railroad was being constructed. We had a production quota of 4 cubic meters of soil to dig out and throw away at some distance. We remained working at the site until we fulfilled our quota. There was no mercy. We slept in sheds, there was no bathroom, we all had lice. Sometimes a special car came, in which we put our clothes to be boiled in steam against the parasites. In winter I put my socks over the fire and heard the lice creaking. Some people burned their clothes because they could not clean them. We dug manually crevices 2 meters deep in the rocks. I had to carry on my back three bags of cement, when we had to unload wagons. In 1943 the Aegean Jews deported to concentration camps in Germany passed by the labor camp in St. Vrach. [Editor’s note: They were deported to the eastern parts not of Germany, but of the Third Reich. Poland was called that way then. The Aegean and the Macedonian Jews were deported to the Treblinka camp, not far from Osviencim (or Auschwitz). The Treblinka camp was set up and started ‘functioning’ in 1942. From 1942 to 1944, 77 000 French, 26 500 Belgian and 50 000 Greek Jews were killed there.] 15 It was a narrow-gauge line with small wagons. We stood on the railway and stopped the train. There were people among us connected to partisans and supporters of them working as railway workers. It seems that the people in the train knew that they would be stopped, because they stopped quickly. The train was full of Aegean Jews, among whom sick and old people. We gathered food and clothes and gave them to them. And instead of us encouraging them, they shouted at us, 'Courage, hermanos [Ladino: brothers and sisters]!' and they went on. Now people say that the Jews in Bulgaria were saved because of the deportation of those Jews. It is hard to prove that.

While I was in a labor camp in 1943 the Jews in Dupnitsa were detained at their homes for a couple of days – they were not allowed to go out for some days in order to be ready to be deported. Then the Bulgarian politicians, church officials and intellectuals intervened and the deportation was not started. 16

Our Bulgarian neighbors also helped us. There were Bulgarians who brought us bread from the shops forbidden for Jews. They bought what we needed and brought it home. Life for Jews was not easy then. We had to stay at home and could not travel anywhere.

On 9th September 1944 I was in Dupnitsa. Before that other Jewish craftsmen and I were ordered to go to the barracks in the town to sew soldiers' boots. In Dupnitsa there were soldiers from 7th Rila Division [a unit of the Bulgarian army before 9th September 1944]. On 8th September we left the barracks because we could see the turn of events. On 9th September 1944 the partisans came down from the mountain and took over the town. I enrolled as a volunteer in the Bulgarian army. The Bulgarian army turned on the side of the Red Army. 17 We, the Jews, valued what the communists had done for us and sympathized with them. I have heard that there were 50 volunteers to serve in the army from Dupnitsa only. I was a soldier in 3rd Guard Regiment at elevation 711 near Boyanobats in south Serbia. Elevation 711 was controlled by the Germans who did not have many soldiers. They had a good elevated position. One day our aviation and artillery attacked that elevation and the next day the Germans withdrew. Then we headed for Skopje but we did not manage to get there and we returned to Bulgaria. There were Albanians shooting at us from the forests. The commander of the partisans from Dupnitsa was Zhelyu Demirevski 18. He died during an attack at the front.

After 9th September 1944 the rights of the Jews were restored. Then my father became a supervisor of a warehouse in 'Grain Foods'. 19 After that he worked in the Oil Factory and then he was a cashier at the Industry Works 20 and he retired at that position. He died in Dupnitsa in 1967.

I married in 1945. My wife Ida Shekerdjiiska is from Dupnitsa. We married only before the registrar. We knew each other well because when we were young we went out with the same friends. In 1946 our first son Nissim was born and in 1951 – our second son Zhak. In 1948 the big aliyah began 21

Many of our friends decided to leave. I was not determined enough to immigrate to Israel. My parents did not want to leave and influenced me. So, we stayed in Bulgaria. My wife was a housewife and also worked in the Galenov factory producing medicine. When the children were very young, we went to seaside resorts. After 9th September 1944 we could afford to go on vacations.

My brother Rafael Alkalai graduated high school in Dupnitsa and a technical secondary school in optics in Sofia. After 9th September 1944 he enrolled in courses for technical professions organized by the Joint Foundation 22 [One of the main tasks of the American distribution committee Joint was the funding of the association 'ORT' in Bulgaria. It was officially registered in the country on 1st January 1935 and its goal was to disseminate the industrial and agricultural labor among Jews in Bulgaria. The 'ORT' association was directly subordinate to its headquarters in Geneva.] In Sofia Jewish co-operative societies were established with machines from the USA so that the Jews would have opportunities to work. My brother started studying some technical discipline but he did not finish it because his courses were postponed for some reason. So he started working as an optician. He has a family and a child. My sister Riri also lives in Sofia. She graduated the Pedagogical Institute in Dupnitsa and was a high school teacher. Now she is retired. She lives with her husband Yosif Kalo who was a pharmacist before he retired.

I opened a cobbler's workshop in 1945. It was in the center of the town behind the military club. At the beginning I worked with an older cobbler from the 'Saedinenie' [Unity] workshop. He gave me advice. One day the director of the vocational school came to my workshop to make him shoes. He even brought his own material. I charged him a bit more than I should have which I regretted later on.

In 1948 we established a cobblers' co-operative. I am one of its founders. We entered it with our stock and received 20 000 levs so that we would have capital with which to buy materials. After that we established the so-called 'Zancoop' – a co-operative of all crafts organizations. I was a member of a commission sent to north Bulgaria to see how those 'zancoops' functioned there. Most of the people were not very happy because an enterprise functioned better when it was independent. But they said that if we did not unite, nobody would give us materials. You could not buy materials from the store then, they were provided by centralized institutions in Sofia. So we were forced to become a 'zancoop'. After that all craftsmen became part of the Industry Works. Later a shoe factory was established in which 1200 people worked. Everything was owned by the state and we were given working clothes and shoes. We had a permanent market for our products. Everything was planned. I was a worker there until I retired. As a pensioner I worked in the orders department. That was in the 1980s. But then I had a quarrel with the deputy director and I quit. I suggested to the director to create a department in the factory in which to make shoes from left-over materials – mostly sandals and slippers. I worked there for a couple more years and then a colleague of mine, who was a teacher in shoe making approached me. He asked me how much money I received in the factory and he offered me a higher salary if I worked for him. I agreed and left right away. That took place in 1991. I made a small workshop in our neighborhood near my house. I was very happy because I did not depend on anybody. I communicated with many people. But one morning when I woke up I felt something wrong with my hand. It seems that I had had a light heart attack during the night. I could work no longer and I closed the workshop.

Later I tried working from home for pleasure. I made a hundred pairs of ladies' sandals, 30 pairs of which I presented as a gift to the Home for Children and Adolescents in Dupnitsa [an orphanage]. First I asked the director about the shoe size of the children and then I made the sandals. I also gave as gifts 30 pairs of warm boots to poor families. I helped in campaigns raising money for the refugees from Macedonia during the war in Kosovo. There was an announcement at the Jewish club for the money raising. I also take part in charity work for SOS Children's Villages. [SOS Children's Villages is an international child welfare organisation providing long term care for orphans and children in need.] They send me a magazine with a form, which I have to fill in order to send them some money.

My wife and I went to Israel a couple of times. I bought a mezuzah from there and now we have one. During the totalitarian times it was more difficult to go to Israel than it is now. My wife and I went there twice after 1989. 23 We applied for passports and visited our elder son Nissim.

I have a special attitude towards mezuzot. It is nice to be a pious person but every pious person should observe God's laws. There is a poem by Nikola Vaptsarov 24, which I always give as an example about religiousness: 'He slew his father with the ax/ He washed himself, went to church and felt better'. Can such a man be considered a good man – a pious man, but a murderer? He believes in God, goes to church, but he is a murderer. As for mezuzot – we might kiss them on entering and leaving our flats and yet we might not be good people. That's why it is more important to me to be a good person and to do good than to kiss the mezuzah regularly. That is why I do not kiss it.

After 9th September 1944 there were no bad attitudes towards Jews. I do not remember the Jews in Dupnitsa being treated badly. I know that during the wars with the Arabs 25 26 and sometimes before that, some Jews in Bulgaria who were in high positions were replaced. I think that the authorities in Bulgaria suspected the Jews of having links with Israel. Otherwise, on a local level in the neighborhood we did not have any problems.

After 9th September 1944 we managed to pay and build another floor on our house. My parents lived with us on the upper floor. After one of our sons Zhakie married, we went to live on our parent's floor. We worked very hard to renovate the house. My younger son had decided not to do carpentry and took some machines but he did not have much success and he gave up.

We did not have any problems observing the Jewish holidays at home before or after 9th September 1944. We always celebrated Pesach at home. We had a festive dinner with matzah and boyos. On Pesach we always slaughtered a hen. That was a tradition especially when my parents were still alive. Now we also observe Pesach. My wife prepares traditional Jewish meals such as pastel, masapan, burmolikos 27 [typical dishes in the Sephardi cuisine] and leaks balls. In the past we prepared the matzah at home. It was also sold at a Jewish bakery. A Bulgarian worked in that bakery whose name was Eftim. Later, after 1944 we received matzah from Sofia.

My wife Ida and I always fasted on [Yom] Kippur. Traditions should be observed so that a people would be preserved through the times. The fact that we preserved ourselves as a people for 2 000 years is due mainly to our faith and traditions. My father had a book from which he read the Haggadah. Uncle Mois came to our place. First kaddish was said. Then some celery or something sour was put in a small cup – it symbolized the bitterness that Jews experienced in the desert.

My children were raised in the spirit of the Jewish traditions thanks to the holidays. We did not place special attention on our origin. But from an early age they knew about Pesach, Purim and the other higher holidays. We did not distance ourselves from the Bulgarians and neither did they. Our Bulgarian friends were not interested in details about our origin and did not pay attention to that. I was told once that during the Jewish labor camps local villagers came out to see what Jews were like because they did not know what we looked like and they had not heard about us. Now there are not many Jews in Dupnitsa and our friends are mostly Bulgarians. I meet people from the neighborhood when I go for a walk and we discuss the news in our town.

We had a grandson in 1978. Then we were not allowed to give him a Jewish name. We wanted to name him Aron, but that name was not included in the name lists. Those were lists with names, which could be found in every municipality and from which you could choose a name. Yet, the parents of my daughter-in-law managed to receive permission for our son to carry my name. [There is no official regulation on names but at the same time until 1989 there was a name list with all names allowed in every maternity hospital. The list included typical Bulgarian names. Permission had to be obtained from the citizen's department at the municipalities for the more unusual names.] I remember that when I graduated the third grade in the vocational school they had put Bulgarian endings to my name in my Bulgarian certificate – Aron Nissimov Alkalaev. After the Law for Protection of the Nation was passed my name was changed to Aron Nissim Alkalai in order to emphasize my Jewish origin. I was not bothered by that. Now there are Jews who adopted Bulgarian endings for their names voluntarily.

Our younger son Zhak married a Bulgarian, whose name is Zhechka and our older son Nissim – a Jewess. I cannot say that we raised them to find a wife of Jewish origin. My older son was in Sofia and he met his wife there. Her name is Roza and she is a Jewess. My son Nissim started work in telephone shafts and was promoted to director of a regional office in the telephone company. Here in Bulgaria during those times in the beginning of the 1990s he had founded a construction company and was its director, but he left everything and immigrated to Israel. It was his wife's decision. She wanted that. Now he has problems there because when they left he was 40 years old and he could not find job in his sphere. Now he works in the maintenance of a shopping mall. His two children grew up and married there and have their own flats. My other son Zhak graduated the Pedagogical Institute in Dupnitsa and was sent to work as a teacher in north Bulgaria – in the town of Dalgopol. There he met his wife who is a very nice girl. They have one boy. They also left due to economic reasons. My younger son now works as a cleaner in two places. My son's wives are housewives in Israel.

Now my wife and I are worried about our future because our children are in Israel. They often call us and ask us to go to live with them but we think that we are better off here. We are too old to learn a new language and get used to a new way of life. We often think about that.

After 1989 most of the people here live a worse life than before. According to statistical data of the government we live a better life. But there is corruption now, a lot of factories were plundered. Politics is a dirty business. A lot of plants were sold at extremely low prices and a lot of people were laid off.

My wife and I live a normal life. The Jewish municipality helps us with food coupons. That is a great help. Sometimes they also give us medicines. We manage to cover our expenses. The women from the Jewish organization 'WIZO' 28 gather every day in the Jewish municipality. Sometimes we, the men, also meet there. Now there are very few of us and we meet more rarely. Now we live well although our life is very expensive.

Translated by Ivelina Karcheva

Glossary

Jan Hanak
Zilina
Slovak Republic
Interviewer: Martin Korcok
Date of interview: August 2007

Dr. Hanak was interviewed in his home town of Zilina, where he was born as Jan Herz. The uniqueness of this story rests in the fact that until the deportations started, he had no idea of his Jewish origins. Despite the fact that both his parents were Jews, they were completely indifferent to religion. As a result, Mr. Hanak had automatically attended Roman Catholic religion classes in school since he was very small, because his friends also attended these classes. Alas, even in this case anti-Jewish legislation made no exceptions, and their entire family was deported. From his life story, we find out how one can come to terms with such a complicated situation in life. In this interview, Mr. Hanak also speaks of the loves of his life: his family and sports.

My family background and growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background and growing up

My father's family was from Horna Marikova in the Povazska Bystrica district. My grandfather's name was Gabriel Herz, and he was born in 1864. He owned a butcher's shop. But I don't think he sold kosher meat 1. As far as I know, our family wasn't at all religious. We never paid any attention to religion and rituals. I never knew my grandfather. He died before I was born, in 1930 in Horna Marikova. My grandmother's name was Berta Herz, nee Spitz. She was born on 25 December 1866 in Kliestina in the Povazska Bystrica district. I don't remember her very much. All I know is that in 1944, when things began getting "hot", she came to Zilina to stay with us. But she stayed for only two weeks. Then she left to stay with her daughter Maria Goldberger in Trencin. The Germans rounded them all up. Grandma Berta was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

My father was born in Horna Marikova as Armin Herz in 1900. After the war our entire family changed their name to Hanak. My father had three siblings, a brother and two sisters. His older brother's name was Dezider Herz. Dezider died of typhus that he caught as a soldier during World War I. One of his sisters was Regina Herz. She married a textile merchant in Povazska Bystrica by the name of Valdapfel. They had a son, Paul. During the Holocaust she was transported away and murdered. My father's other sister was Maria Goldberger, nee Herz. Maria married a widower by the name of Goldberger in Trencin. Her husband had two sons from his first marriage. Their names were Hans and Tomi [Tomas]. Maria and her husband perished in a concentration camp. Hans joined the partisans. Alas, he didn't survive the war. The younger one, Tomi, ended up in Terezin 2 from where the Red Cross took him to Sweden to recuperate 3.

Around two years before my father died [he died in 1986], I proposed to him that we drive to Horna Marikova, where he was born. I didn't even know exactly were the town was located. I said to him: "Let's go to Marikova. Show me where you were born, where you lived." We went there to have a look. Their family home had been torn down. We stopped an older woman in the street. She was of my father's generation. She remembered that there had been some sort of a Jewish butcher in the village. But she no longer remembered any names, nothing.

My mother's family was from the eastern part of the first Czechoslovak Republic 4. My grandfather, Emil Lanyi, was born in Porostov, today in the Sobrance district. He was born on 17 September 1877. His family name was Lipovics, which on 20 September he changed to Lanyi. He worked as a teacher in Kosice. He died very young, on April 1923. His father's name was Izak Lipkovics. He as born in 1837 in Porostov and died in 1907 in Tibava in the Sobrance district. Izak's wife was named Hani Lipkovics, nee Friedmann. She was born in 1843 in Vilmany. This town is located in what is today Hungary. She died in 1893 in Tibava.

My grandmother's name was Etel Lanyi, nee Salomon. She was born on 19 January 1879 in Kosice. My mother's parents were married on 11 August 1980. My mother's father's name was Moric Salamon. He was born on 3 October 1828 in Secovce, today in the Trebisov district. He died on 4 January 1913 in Kosice. His wife's name was Hani Salamon, nee Müller. She was born on 26 December 1850 in the town of Barca; today it's a part of Kosice. He died on 21 February 1931 in Kosice.

The parents of my great-grandfater Moric Salamon were named Jozef Salamon and Gizela Salamon, nee Spiegel. Jozef Salamon was born in 1797 in Cecejovce, today in the Kosice-okolie district [the district surrounding, but not including the city of Kosice], and died in 1885 in Kosice. The parents of my great-grandmother Hani Müller were named Izrael Müller and Xenia Müller, nee Silberstein. Izrael was born in 1809 in Barca and died in the same town in 1852. Xenia was born in 1808 in Poland and died in 1894 in Kosice.

After they were married, my grandparents had three daughters. All three in Kosice. The oldest was named Erzsebet Lipkovics. She was born on 28 June 1909. A year after she was born, they changed her surname to Lanyi. Erzsebet graduated from law school and married a lawyer in Budapest named Dr. Aladar Kelemen. They had son, Istvan. Pista, as we used to call him, who died tragically. When he was about 18, he drowned in the Danube. My aunt then got divorced and remarried. Her second husband was named Tessenyi. Erzsebet died on 15 July 1947 in Budapest. She died of gas poisoning in her apartment. To this day we don't know if it was suicide or an accident.

My mother's other sister was named Elvira Littna, nee Lanyi. Elvira was born on 24 September 1914 and died in around 1995 in Brighton, Great Britain. Elivra and her husband met in Prague, where he was studying law. Littna was a diplomat working for Great Britain. During World War II they were in London, where Elvira joined the British army. After the war she worked in Germany and Prague for a certain time. She was a liaison officer for UNRRA [UNRRA: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration – Editor's note]. The Allies were distributing material and food relief via UNRRA to people afflicted by the war. They had two daughters, Eva and Marina. Marina died of acute leukemia. Eva lives in England.

I probably didn't even meet Grandma Etel Lanyi before the war. When she reached retirement age, she moved to Budapest to be with her younger sister. Her sister was also a widow. I don't know what her name was. Everyone in the family called her Krema. Krema had heavy asthma, and her sister took care of her. They survived the war in hiding in Budapest. Luckily they didn't deport them. Grandma Etel lived until about the age of 95 in Budapest, and then moved to a Jewish retirement home in the city of Szeged. There she died in 2002 at the age of 101. She's buried at the local Jewish cemetery. My grandmother was probably the most religious person in our family. She prayed every day. As far as the other members of our family go, by this I mean my parents' generation, they didn't even really know what religion was. Neither on my mother's nor on my father's side. They didn't attend church [synagogue] and didn't observe customs. Absolutely nothing. Everyone took religion absolutely "sportingly". They didn't have any prayer books at home. For us, the Jewish religion was something like "volleyball".

My mother was born as Edita Lanyi. She graduated from academic high school in Kosice. She and my father were married on 5 September 1932 in Kosice. After the wedding she took my father's surname and was named Herz. After the war they changed their surname to Hanak, and so my mother's name was Edita Hanakova. My father attended business academy. After graduation he started working for a power plant in Zilina. Right at that time, a branch of the power plant was being built in Zilina. Back then electricity wasn't such a matter of course as it is today. There were only two hydro stations. One was in Bratislava and the other was in Zilina. Another one was being built in Kosice. Back then, my father was given the task of, among other things, setting up the Kosice power plant. He was renting a room from his future wife's mother. That's how they met. After his job there ended in 1933, my parents moved to Zilina. My father worked at the power plant as a manager. Back then only large cities had electricity, and it was gradually being introduced into the countryside. It was also necessary to deliver materials like power poles, wire, insulators, transformers, basically everything. My father' was in charge of the supply department. Later they relocated him from Zilina to Bratislava. He used to work weeks there, meaning that during the work week he was in Bratislava, and for the weekend he'd return home.

In 1934, my older brother Milan Herz, later Hanak, was born in Zilina. A year later [1935] I was born [Jan Hanak, born Herz]. Our address was Moyzesova Street, Zilina. I can't talk about the mischief that we used to get into as children; if I did we'd be here for a week. Beside our street there was a vacant lot, basically a large field. There were about fifteen boys around the same age as my brother and I on Moyzeska St. Every afternoon, because back then school was only in the morning, all the boys from Moyzeska would meet up in that field. None of us did any schoolwork. Despite that, some of us ended up as university professors. Hantala, for example. During the 1960s he was the dean of the Faculty of Law at Comenius University. In that field we played according to the time of year. In the winter we'd make a skating rink. The first snowfall would usually be already around [St.] Martin [November 11th]. During the summer we'd have foot races. The track was Moyzesova and Stefanikova Streets. We were enthusiastic athletes, and that's stayed with me to this day. That's how we lived until the summer of 1944.

During the war

I'd just like to say that my father was a very wise man. When the visible persecution of Jews began in the world, in 1938 5 6, he had our entire family christened. I was only three at the time. They converted us to Roman Catholicism. My father had never studied any religion, and didn't devote himself to philosophy either. He didn't care if it was Judaism or the Roman Catholic religion. The main thing was how to protect us form danger. All he devoted himself to was his work at the hydro station, sports, wrestling, and he was also a sports official. Naively, he thought that conversion would make "a black man white". The evolution of the political situation back then was the only reason for the conversion. During school we automatically attended Roman Catholic catechism classes. Back then they used to sell postcards with a religious theme. On the other side of the postcard you'd paste stamps. Also with a religious theme. The postcards were like lottery tickets, and would be sent to Trnava, to the St. Vojtech Association [The St. Vojtech (in English St. Adalbert) Association: a Roman Catholic association carrying out cultural and publishing activities. Today it is known mainly for the publishing of religious literature. It was founded in 1870 – Editor's note]. You could win all sorts of things with them. In each class, some pupil would be entrusted with this task. Usually only the most trusted and most responsible. The irony was that in our class it was I. This mission, as we used to call it, was my responsibility. We didn't have the least problem with anti-Semitism or anything similar. In 1942 they began concentrating Jews from all over Slovakia in Zilina. A collection camp was created there. At the time I saw people wearing yellow stars 7. I asked at home, why are they wearing them? Because they're Jews. It never occurred to me at all that I had anything in common with them. At that time it had nothing to do with me.

We didn't know anything at all about it. We didn't know that it concerned us as well. I think that my age excused it. Back then I very much liked my Roman Catholic religion. Our entire school would go to church. On Sunday we'd meet up around 9:00 a.m. in front of the school, and we'd go to church. Both teachers and students, together. I even had my first communion, along with the others. During catechism class back then, they taught us that Jews had crucified our Jesus. I liked baby Jesus very much, after all, at Christmastime he'd bring us presents! I was absolutely scandalized by the fact that the Jews had crucified our baby Jesus! I was eight years old at the time.

That's how it was until the summer of 1944. We didn't have any problems at all. My brother and I also didn't have any clue about any sort of Jewishness. In July 1944 our mother told us that we had to leave the city and that we'd be going to a nearby village by the name of Peklina. Back then it was normal. The cities were being bombed, and people were hiding in villages. At that time my father was working in Bratislava. He'd be there during the week, and on weekends he'd be home. In Pekina we were living with a farmer by the name of Hudec. There, one day in August behind their house, I heard a conversation between the wife of the gamekeeper and some farmer's wife. She said: "The Germans are coming here, and those Jews are living at Hudec's place. Not only he but the entire village will have problems because of it." Right away I told my mother what I'd heard. That was around lunchtime. In the early afternoon, we left. My brother and I didn't ask our mother about anything. We returned to Zilina, but our apartment was sealed. So we continued on, to Bratislava. My mother intended to find our father. In Bratislava we took a room at a hotel near the main train station.

In the morning our mother went to find our father. She returned, weeping. She said that we couldn't stay there, that we had to leave. She also said that our father was on a business trip and that we had to leave the hotel and that we'd be going to our father's sublet in Patronka with the Vrabec family. Back then all we found out from her was that our father had been sent on a business trip, and that he wasn't in the city.

In reality something else had happened. My brother and I didn't find this out until after the war. My mother had gone to our father's work. Our father wasn't there right then, so she waited for him. He returned around lunchtime and took my mother for lunch. They were walking along the street, and were stopped by a patrol of the Hlinka Guard 8 and the SS. They asked for their papers. While my father was looking for his ID papers, my mother kept on walking. They didn't pay any attention to her. A couple of dozen meters further on, she turned around, and saw them leading our father away. She quickly returned to the hotel, where we were waiting for her. Later we found out from our father that they collected them in Bratislava, and later he ended up in the Mauthausen concentration camp 9. He also recalled that he'd been in the Gusen camp 10 in Austrial. In Gusen he worked in some arms factory. There some Russian made him a cigarette case from aluminum. I found the cigarette case in his things after he died, and have it to this day. From Gusen he went to Mauthausen. My father was big athlete, a wrestler. When they took him away, he weighed about 115 kg. He returned in very poor health and weighed only 49 kg.

We stayed with the Vrabec family in Patronka for one night. Then we had to leave. In the city, across from the Manderlak: [Manderlak or Manderla Tower: considered to be the first so-called skyscraper in Bratislava, and in Slovakia. It was built in 1935 according to the designs of Rudolf Manderla, after whom it is named. It has 11 floors and for a long time was the tallest residential building in Bratislava – Editor’s note] there was a cinema. We hid in this cinema's furnace room for four nights. My mother slept on a stool, and my brother and I on the ground. We had to leave there as well, because the person who was hiding us there was changing shifts with someone else, and was afraid that his colleague would turn us in. He arranged us another hiding place in an apartment. It was this relay. My mother had some money, and that's what we paid with. We hid out for another few nights in that apartment. Once I heard some yelling in the street. I looked out the window, and a horrible scene played out in front of me. The Guardists and Germans were chasing someone, and then they shot him on the sidewalk under our windows. We had to leave that apartment as well. We moved to Vinohrady [Vineyards] by Bratislava. There we lived in a shed where they stored shovels and other tools for people that worked in the vineyards.

A family by the name of Vasut lived on Moyzesova St. in Zilina along with us. They had two daughters who had just graduated from high school. The older one was named Olga. She was 19. She came to see us in Bratislava and took my brother and I to an orphanage in Trnava. There some nuns took care of us. Our mother remained in Bratislava. As we later found out, she'd found a sublet and was looking for work using false papers. But someone reported her and she ended up in the Spandau work camp near Berlin [Spandau: the westernmost part of Berlin. During 1944 – 45, thousands of women at the camp in Spandau did forced labor for the German company Deutschen Industrie-Werke AG. The camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on 24 April 1945 – Editor's note]. From there they took her to Ravensbruck 11, where she was until liberation.

My brother and I were at the Trnava orphanage from the second half of September 1944 until Christmas. We attended school. Each morning they took us to church services, as the orphanage was part of the church. In the morning there would be Mass, and after lunch we had to say Hail Marys. There were twelve of us in the room, and we had bunk beds. With some exaggeration I can say that it was training for the concentration camp. I had no idea how many Jews were in hiding there. During the Christmas holidays, on the first day of Christmas, the Guardists came. The Mother Superior had us summoned. My brother and I went there along with two other boys. Their names were Borsky and Rosenberg, or Rosenzweig. I don't remember the name exactly. They escorted all four of us off to the labor camp in Sered 12. This camp was both a labor and a collection camp. There they filled out the prisoner's records. They also had a section for religion. There weren't only Jews in Sered. Political prisoners and criminals ended up there as well. In the religion section my brother and I filled in Roman Catholic. Several days later they called us in for a medical checkup. I think that the head doctor's name was Frisch. He had us take off our clothes and they checked whether we were circumcised. They were speaking German. My brother they automatically called "Jude". With me he thought for a while. Finally he looked at my face and said: "Das ist einer typischen Jude." [German: That is a typical Jew – Editor's note]. Now I had tangible proof that we were Jews. We spent a few weeks in Sered, and at the end of March or beginning of February 1945 they loaded us into cattle rail cars.

We passed through Malacky, Kuty and Brno, through Prague to Terezin [In 1945 there were three transports dispatched from the Sered collection camp to Terezin: January 16, March 9 and March 31 – Editor's note]. There was straw on the floor of the cattle cars. There might have been around fifty of us there. Men and women together. Higher up there were small, barred windows. In the corner there was a pail as a toilet. The bucket would be emptied at station stops. Several people died during the trip. They were also offloaded at the stations. I don't remember how long we traveled for. When we were passing through Prague, my brother and I took turns standing on each other's shoulders and looked through the barred window. We saw Hradcany [Hradcany: a city quarter of Prague. A large part of the quarter is occupied by the Prague Castle – Editor's note]. At that time I said to myself whether I would ever in my lifetime see it other than through those bars. After many years, when I was in the army and saw Hradcany, I returned in my thoughts to my wish in the cattle car. Finally we arrived in Terezin.

From my point of view, Sered and Terezin were equally bad. First of all, I missed my parents, I missed school, I missed playing. A kid needs something else than being in jail. Secondly, I was always cold, terribly cold. In Sered there were several dozen of us in a room, and we had only one small stove. People used to call it a "Vincko". We were also very hungry. The Germans had a kitchen, and my brother and I used to go pick through their garbage cans. We used to pick potato peels out of the guards' garbage cans. We'd then roast them on that small stove and eat them.

In Terezin they for some incomprehensible reason put us with the men. That saved our lives. The rest of the children remained with their mothers, and they deported them onwards to extermination camps. We lived in the men's quarters. I left a piece of bread sitting there, which they stole. There was some sort of quarry outside of Terezin. Up front someone would dig something up, and we'd pass the bucket he'd filled along. We stood in a long row and handed the bucket from hand to hand. Originally there had been a lot of children in Terezin. They even put on their own plays. One of them was named Brundibar 13. But they gradually transported all the children away. Further transport was practically a death sentence. Most of them perished [Of the 7590 littlest prisoners deported eastward from Terezin, only 142 lived to be liberated. Only those children that remained in Terezin for the entire time had a chance to be saved. On the day of liberation, there were around 1600 children up to the age of 15 in Terezin (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note].

I tried to escape from Terezin. There was a section that was guarded by Czech guards, and so my brother and I decided to try to leave that way. Czech guards were more benevolent than German ones. A guard was walking around there, and when he was far enough away, I walked around the Small Fortress 14. They called it the Kleine Festung. That's where they tortured people. You could hear the screams from there from far and wide. I waited for my brother. My brother didn't come. Several tens of minutes later I again saw an opportunity when the exit wasn't guarded, and slipped back in. I asked my brother, why he didn't come. He told me: "Where would we go, anyways? They'll turn us in right away, after all, no one will let themselves be killed. They'll catch us at the first house, give us to the Germans, who will kill us."

After the war

A few days before the liberation of Terezin, a Red Cross commission arrived [On 4 May 1945 members of the Czech Aid Project commenced a rescue effort in the Little Fortress, and at the same time made contact with representatives of the International Red Cross, which on May 2 had already put the police jail and ghetto under its protection. On the evening of May 8 the first units of the Red Army passed through Terezin on the way to Prague (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note]. At that time they relocated my brother and me to the Kinderheim [children's home in German – Editor's note]. We had Czech-speaking teachers taking care of us. They also taught us songs. One of them has stuck in my memory: "Spring will come, will come, soon it will be May. The meadows will bloom, the woods will bloom." As a child, I projected it onto our situation. At that time it was the end of April 1945. Spring will come, will come, soon it will be May. That was the time of year we were in right then. The meadows will bloom, the woods will bloom. I imagined our street, Moyzeska [Moyzesova Street – Editor's note] and children's games in Zilina. All this would come again with spring. At that time some children even ended up in Sweden. One of them was my cousin Tomi Goldberger, the stepson of my mother's sister Marie, who'd gotten married and moved to Trencin. We didn't find out about his stay in Terezin until after the war.

Terezin was suddenly without any leadership. Transports from various concentration camps began arriving, from which they were unloading human derelicts onto the ground in front of the wagons. It was sunny May weather. Nurses with Red Cross bands on their sleeves were going back and forth. Concentration camp survivors were lying helplessly on stretchers. They were skin and bones. Others were trying to feed them. A doctor was walking around and shouting at people: "Don't give them food! Don't give them water! Only slowly, by the spoonful! Otherwise you'll kill them!" These were the appalling scenes we witnessed even after the war.

Trucks began leaving Terezin, each with a banner with the name of some town. For example Pardubice, Usti nad Labem, and so on. The name Zilina of course didn't appear. My brother didn't know what would be next. We had no one to take care of us. Suddenly we saw a truck with a sign saying Brno. We said to ourselves that because we'd gone to Terezin via Brno, let's get on that truck. What was interesting was that in Czech towns and villages there were tables set up at the side of the road, and on them loaves of bread cut into slices. People probably knew that prisoners would be returning that way, and so prepared some food for them. We arrived in Brno. We had no idea what to do next. We didn't have even one crown, nothing. So we set off for the station, and waited for the first train that would be going to Slovakia. We took the train to the Kuty border crossing. From there we continued on foot. In Slovakia we got on some freight car. We got to Leopoldov that way. Then we continued on foot again to Zilina. Here and there some soldiers gave us a ride. We ate what we came across on the way. For example in Trnava we saw some beets, so we picked some apples growing on trees at the side of the road. Finally we ended up in Zilina.

My brother and I set out for our apartment on Moyzesova Street. There was already someone else living in the apartment, and when they saw us they slammed the door. We remained out on the street. What now? We remembered that when we had converted from Judaism to Christianity, we had to have godparents. Our godfather was Mr. Simora, an engineer. My father had been the supply manager at the power plant, and Mr. Simora had a wholesale electrical parts business. He'd been very glad that our father was purchasing many parts for the hydro plant from him. That's how they gradually became friends. Ironically, his wife was also a Jewess that had converted. They were our godparents. Mrs Simorova had a dog. Before the war, she'd always give me a crown [in 1929 the Czech crown was decreed by law to be equal in value to 44.58 mg of gold – Editor's note] for taking him for a walk around town. Often she'd give me five crowns to buy the dog horsemeat sausages. But I liked them so much that I'd eat some of them too. We'd share. When we arrived they told us that our parents hadn't returned yet, and that they didn't know what had become of them. They took us to an orphanage in Zilina. We remained there until the fall of 1945, until our mother returned. She learned from the Simoras that we were at the orphanage, and came to get us. She'd also found out that our father had survived. He was in the dermatology ward in Trencin. He'd gotten ulcers all over his body from malnutrition. All four of us had managed to survive, but we didn't have anywhere to live. A Roman Catholic family had taken over our apartment. Their name was Galbavi.

The management of the North Slovak Power Company for whom our father worked behaved very respectably towards us. They emptied an office on the top floor of the power station building and made it into an apartment for us. We got only the bare necessities, but nevertheless we had a place to live. We had a roof over our heads. Back then the general manager was Mr. Reich. He wasn't a Jew. His son Frantisek Reich competed on the Czechoslovak rowing team at the 1948 Olympics in London. Later the power company built three residential buildings on Stefanikova Street in Zilina. They then allocated us an apartment in one of them. So our father got his job back right away. At first our mother was at home. She'd graduated from Hungarian academic high school in Kosice. After the war she got a job in the school system. She did minor office work. After work she took part-time business courses, so she then got a better job at the Regional Union Council in Zilina.

I'd like to return to the prewar era and my later stay in Terezin, and the practice of religion. You know, at that age I didn't much understand religion as the worshipping of God. I liked Roman Catholic rites. Before the war I'd been an altar-boy. My friend Alino Trgo from Moyzeska St. got me involved in it. Alino was from a very devout family and was also an altar-boy.  Once he asked me if I didn't want to try it. I said yes, and learned how to do it. To this day I can do almost the entire Mass in Latin. I know all the prayers. Here I can't but help make one remark. I misbehaved quite a bit in school. Back then teachers were allowed to use corporal punishment. Either they'd bend us over a desk and whip our behinds with a cane, or we'd get on our hands. Because I misbehaved a lot, I was punished a lot. But back then I said just wait, come Sunday you'll beg for forgiveness. On Sunday we'd all go to church from the school, along with the teachers. In the Roman Catholic rite when they perform the offertory and the changing of the blood of Christ into wine, the altar-boy rings a bell and everyone else in the church kneels. The priest raises the hosts and cup and people kneel. Before this, I would always look at all the teachers, especially the ones I'd gotten it from that week, and said to myself silently: "Now you'll beg for forgiveness." I'd ring the bell, and watch with delight as they'd kneel. I'd imagine that they weren't kneeling because of the offertory, but were begging for forgiveness for what they'd done to me.

I even served as an alter-boy in Terezin. There masses took place in a room. They weren't done by a priest, but by some very religious person. The way even a layman can give the last rites to a dying person in an emergency, so can he in an extreme situation lead services. They used me for Jewish services as well. I worked as a sort of shammash [shammash: translates as "attendant", and designates a paid general employee, especially one that takes care of overall maintenance of a synagogue – Editor's note]. My brother wasn't interested. He wasn't inclined towards religion. I was also fascinated by religious songs that were sung during they holidays. When the organ and singing started, I'd feel shivers run up and down my spine. The organ's sound was so powerful and the words of the songs so beautiful that it fascinated me. You know, it was amazing. I lived for it. I liked the service, and I liked the music. So I wanted to continue in it after the war as well. When I returned to the church in Zilina after the war, the sexton, Mr. Pozak, asked me: "Where in hell were you all year?!" I answered: "You guessed it, in hell." I also served during funerals and weddings. To this day I still meet people in the street whom I'd ministered to at weddings.

The entire time we were imprisoned I thought that it was one huge mistake. That I wasn't supposed to be there. It had nothing to do with me. That one day they'd find out and apologize and let us go. That our family will once again be together and will live like before. I lived in the hope, in the illusion, that it was all a mistake. I saw people dying of typhus, of hunger. Every little while a dead body would be carried out. Women and children went somewhere else than my brother and I. We were with the adult men in these barracks. All this convinced me that my prospects for the future weren't so bad...

At the end of the war our family decided to change its name. German names were too obvious to everyone 15. From today's perspective, decades after the war, it's perhaps naive. But back then that psychosis, that anti-Semitism, that fear, drove you to eliminate everything that could endanger you in some way. Even things like a name change could appear as important. It was sometime around the end of 1945 or start of 1946. We were sitting down at supper, and thinking of a suitable surname. My mother for example suggested Horak, or various surnames that people we knew had. Then my brother and I noted that during the war we'd been in hiding at an orphanage in Trnava, where there'd been about fifteen of us to a room. Three of them had been terrible hoodlums. They ended up in a reform institution. Their names were Duris, Filo and Hanak. I recalled these names, and my brother said that we should be Hanak. So that's how we got our name.

My brother, Milan Hanak, was an excellent pupil. At that time the school system was such that you had to attend five grades of people's school, and then could transfer to council school 16, and the better students to "gymnazium" [academic high school]. Under exceptional circumstances you could go for your entrance interview for high school after Grade 4 of people's school. My brother managed it. When he graduated, he left for Prague to study architecture. There he met a nurse who was originally from Hradec Kralove. They got married and had three children. Two daughters, Zuzana and Lucie, and a son, Filip. Zuzana is a well-known Czech actress [Drizhalova, Zuzana (b. 1975): a Czech actress – Editor's note]. She was for example in serials like Hospital on the Edge of Town or Family Ties. As far as I know, my brother maintains no contact with the Jewish community in Prague.

As opposed to my brother, I'm registered with the Jewish religious community in Zilina. After the Velvet Revolution 17 friends from the community approached me and asked whether I wouldn't be interested in joining. From a religious perspective I don't feel myself to be a Jew, but I am a Jew by race. When memorial events for victims of the Holocaust take place, I also participate in them. After all, many members of my family were murdered during the Holocaust. It's my responsibility to honor their memory. But I don't participate in the religious life of the community at all. I was a Roman Catholic since the age of three, and currently I'm an atheist. A person has to confront all his opinions with reality. In my opinion, religion is a lot of humbug. The turning point came when I started my basic army service. As a soldier I had a lot of time to think about the meaning of life, existence and my future. Eventually a person has to pose himself such fundamental questions. The main thing is for us to meaningfully fill the time that we have here on Earth. Because at the close of life, everyone will take stock of whether or not he used his time meaningfully. During that time I also more or less decided for my future occupation.

I decided for my future employment right before I entered the army. I was studying at a mechanical technology high school, and in my free time I devoted myself to parachuting. During one jump I ruptured the meniscus in my knee, and I had to go to the hospital for an operation. I had a doctor friend there with whom I'd played hockey in Zilina. He told me that the hospital had a library, and that I could borrow something to read. I asked him to bring me some book in which I could find out in detail what they had actually operated on. I got an interesting book called Forensic Medicine. Back then I realized that this was much more interesting to me than some mechanical engineering. That was during the time I was entering the army.

I entered the army in Trencin, where they had signal corps. Right during the entrance procedures they announced that everyone who'd played first and second league hockey should report. In Bohemia the army team was Dukla Litomerice, and the second army team was composed of players from Moravia and Slovakia. That one was based in Presov. The main army hockey team was Dukla Jihlava. So I reported. About 30 of us got into Presov. The did a selection for the team there, and I got onto it as well. Besides this, I was a member of the paratrooper brigade. I lifked that a lot. Back then I was very physically fit. Paratroopers undergo very tough training. The value of food for soldiers was determined according to calories expended during training. For example gunners, tank crews and the infantry got 14 crowns a day. Paratroopers got 30 crowns. So you can imagine what the training was like. Parachute jumps aren't the main part of paratrooper training. The jump itself is only a way of getting somewhere quickly. But once there you have to perform tasks that are extremely physically as well as mentally demanding. Besides this, we had hockey practice and on the weekends hockey games. First we played on the regional level. From there we battled our way to the second league. Finally we got into the first league, but by then I was already leaving for civilian life.

A person has a lot of humorous experiences in the army. My army entrance took place in Trencin. Each barracks had a room that was called the "hlaska" [reporting station]. Each evening all the barracks in Slovakia had to contact Trencin, where the district command the central reporting station were. Women soldiers, professionals, worked there. You had to report. This was done in Morse code. There were acronyms for everything, called Q codes. For example QRS meant "repeat text" and QST "transmit more quickly". So if something wasn't understandable, they'd write QRS from the central station. My roommates struggled with Morse code, and those at the central station would make fun of them. They kept on sending them the Q code for "transmit more quickly". The soldiers at the receiver would be in a sweat, but couldn't send any quicker. They were unhappy because of it, and were also talking about it in the mess during lunch. They were thinking about how to get their revenge on the women at the central station. At that time the reservists had also entered the army. One of the reservists was a Czech who offered to come in the evening and help them. The soldiers gave him the text he was supposed to send. He began incredibly quickly. From the central reporting station they however sent the Q code "transmit more quickly". But despite the fact that he was transmitting awfully fast, the women were still capable of receiving it. Suddenly he pulled out some sort of device. It was an apparatus that had a lever. When he move the lever to the left, it sent dots. When it was moved to the left, it sent dashes. You see, he was an electrical engineer, who'd participated in nationwide and international Morse code races. He began transmitting using this device. Suddenly the Q code "repeat text" came. He repeated. The code "transmit more slowly" came. He was sending so fast that they weren't capable of registering it. Then he let the soldier back in his place to transmit. They then investigated from the central station who'd been sending so fast, and found it out too. But they never repeated their jokes.

Another anecdote is a bit disgusting, but for a soldier, humorous. During one hockey game the meniscus on my other knee ruptured. They operated on me at the military hospital in Kosice. There were also a few civilian patients at the military hospital. There were eight of us in our room. Four on one side, four on the other. Lying under the window was one old guy. A homeless type, you could say. He had a venous ulcer, and so every winter they'd admit him to the hospital. He was called Jozsi bacsi [Uncle Jozsi in Hungarian]. He pestered everyone around, especially the nurses. They didn't like him. Do you know how he washed? Under the bed he had a bottle of mineral water. In the morning a nurse would come and bring him a washbasin. Jozsi bacsi would take the bottle from underneath this bed, and stand above the basin. Then he'd fill his mouth from the bottle. His cheeks were completely stretched. I'd guess that a half liter of water fit in there. He'd spit the water out into his hands and wash his face with it. It made our stomachs churn. Lying in the bed beside me was a soldier from the air force. When Jozsi bacsi was sleeping, we took his bottle and peed in it. In the morning we were waiting for him to wash. None of us went into the washroom. We were all watching. He repeated his ritual. He took a mouthful, spit it into his hands, and washed himself. We began to roar with laughter. He sniffed the bottle, and realized what was up. He begun to yell at us in a mixture of eastern dialect and Hungarian: "The visit will come, the colonel will come. I gonna tell him everything, and you gonna go to the prosecutor's office." We knew that he'd tell, but we didn't know how the head doctor would react, who was at the same time a colonel. The visit came, ten doctors. They came over to Jozsi bacsi: "So, Jozsi bacsi, how are you?"
"Mr. Colonel, you got to arrest those ones over there!"
"What for?"
"They pissed in my bottle."
"Good for them. What's preventing you from going to wash normally? You're always putting on the same act here." Luckily it ended up all right.

During my basic army service in Presov I thought about what would be once I return to civilian life. I didn't like mechanical engineering very much. I wasn't an inventor. So I thought about going to study medicine. I however had to prepare for it, because they have admittance interviews on things that I'd never before come into contact with. For example, I'd never taken biology or organic chemistry. In mechanical engineering we'd taken inorganic chemistry. In 1958 I left the army and really did prepare for medicine. In 1959 I successfully passed the admittance interview for the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Bratislava. I studied medicine from 1959 until 1965. I had two phenomenal roommates at our residence.  Today they're both university professors. One was named Viktor Bauer and the other Ciampor. Bauer worked for the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Ciampor was the director of a virology institute. After I graduated from medicine, I started work for a surgery clinic in Zilina. I worked there for 21 years. Then I became a medical examiner, and last year [2006] I retired.

After finishing school I married my classmate, Ludmila Vtakova. We'd attended school in Martin. Back then the Faculty of Medicine in Bratislava opened a branch in Martin. For us it was closer, so we ended up there. Currently it's named the Jessenius Faculty of Medicine of the University of Comenius in Martin. Our wedding ceremony was on the day of her graduation. Our wedding was a strange one, because her parents came to the graduation and didn't know about the wedding. The graduation was supposed to be at 1:00 p.m. Her parents were at the residence when my bride announced at 11:30 a.m.: "You should get ready. We've got to go soon."
"What for, it's only 11:30 and the graduation isn't until 1:00?"
"The graduation is at 1:00, but the wedding is at 12:00."
"What wedding, whose wedding?"
"Mine!" By the time her parents came to, they were already at the National Committee. From there we went to a theatre, where the graduation ceremony was taking place. My in-laws were angry at us. Especially my father-in-law. They were from a village, and there it had been the custom that they'd announce to everyone that their daughter was getting married. That their relatives are really going to be upset, that their daughter had a wedding and they hadn't been invited.

My wife was from the village of Visnova. The Cachtice Castle rises high above the village. She studied academic high school in Nove Mesto nad Vahom, and then at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Martin. My father-in-law was truly angry at us. He said that the entire village would stone him to death. We persuaded him to tell them that he hadn't known anything about it. Later it came out that people in the village had been waiting as to who'd start with this sort of wedding. After that many continued in this fashion. You know, in villages there are various customs and to-dos around weddings. Wedding preparations already begin two weeks beforehand. They invite several hundreds of people... The best thing is when you pay a hotel, and they arrange everything. Back then the entire wedding cost us about a thousand crowns [in 1953 the equivalent gold content of the Czechoslovak crown was decreed by law to be 0.123 grams, which remained in place until the end of the 1980s – Editor's note]. All told, there were ten of us. So our wedding was in June 1965. We had two daughters. Marcela in 1966 and Michaela in 1969.

After the wedding we moved in with my parents in Zilina. My wife worked for some time at a Zilina hospital, but we weren't very well off financially. I had no money, she had no money. We needed to become independent. We wanted to live on our own. One company in Zilina was building an apartment building. They had this condition, that if a company doctor came to work for them, they'd assign him an apartment. My wife took the job. Thanks to that, we got a three-room apartment. She worked there until she reached retirement age. Luckily her health is good, and she's still working, as an audit doctor for a health insurance company.

My parents lived in Zilina for the rest of their lives. My father died in 1986, and my mother in 2002. Both are buried in the local Roman Catholic cemetery. My grandmother Etel Lanyi lived the last years of her life in the Hungarian town of Szeged. She died at the age of 101, and is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Szeged.

My wife's parents didn't know about my Jewish origins. My wife of course did. She even knows more about Judaism than I do. She read a lot about it, and was in Israel as well. She knows a lot about this area too. Ludmila is Slovak in the best sense of the word. She's very insulted when she hears Slovaks say that Jews used to use the blood of Christian girls to make matzot, and similar nonsense. She was also saddened by the fact that the nation that she'd like to be proud of is capable of such atrocities as what took place during World War II. After all, many Jews from Slovakia were leading figures in culture and sport. Jews founded many sports committees and organizations. Her mother used to work for Jews as a maid, and said that she'd never had it so good as with them. They were decent to her. Jews usually always dealt with everyone in an upstanding fashion. Everyone knew this. But during the time of the Slovak state 18 they saw how they could easily get to their stores, workshops, apartments, property... People were capable of joining the Hlinka Guard. They were capable of collecting and deporting Jews to Poland. Up until 1944, everything in Slovakia was done by Slovaks 19. They liquidated Jews using the most fantastic justifications, that they're vermin. The Jewish Codex 20 and all that cause her great chagrin.

When I was working, I wanted to realize my long-ago dream, to be a great athlete. Alas, I didn't succeed. I was basically an anti-talent, but I loved sports. In some sports I was even a member of the Zilina team. I played hockey, handball, athletics, soccer and tennis. My greatest successes were in tennis. I became regional champion. Aside from tennis, I was more or less a benchwarmer. In athletics I did long-distance running. To this day I don't know a more beautiful aroma than that of a sweaty hockey dressing room. As former soldiers, paratroopers, we also have our own club and we get together. We put on various events, including jumps, shooting and trips. I'm also a member of the Zilina Old Boys hockey and soccer team. We get together with the guys once a year to sit around and reminisce about old times.

I was usually a substitute; when someone dropped out of the main lineup I'd fill in for him. But I wanted to advance. When our older daughter was born, I said to myself that I'd try it with her. I began to study tennis coaching. I took many courses, both theory and practice. We turned the living room into a gym, and I began to teach her techniques with a ping-pong paddle. How to stand, posture, swing technique. You can teach all this with a ping-pong paddle. We gradually moved on to larger rackets. In time we achieved results. Marcela several times became the Slovak champion in tennis. In Czechoslovakia she was second. She was at the center of elite sports with current top Slovak coaches, at the same time coaches of the national team, Mecir [Mecir, Miroslav (b. 1964): former Slovak tennis player. Olympic champion at Seoul (1988). Currently captain of the men's Davis Cup national team – Editor's note], Stankovic [Stankovic, Branislav (b. 1965): former Slovak tennis player and coach. Currently the director of tennis tournaments in Slovakia – Editor's note], and Vajda [Vajda, Marian (b. 1965): former Slovak tennis player. I currently the coach of one of the best tennis players in the world, the Serb Novak Djokovic – Editor's note].

Our daughter made it among the top players in Czechoslovakia, and there was a real hope that she could make it into the top 20 in the world. I knew that she wouldn't be in the top ten, because she's got slow legs. She compensated for it with fantastic technique. She was a very sharp thinker, and was also good at the net. With a good partner, they could have been among the best doubles teams in the world. We were already putting her together with another top Czechoslovak player, Zrubakova [Zrubakova, Radka (b. 1970): former Slovak tennis player and currently a tennis coach. She was a member of the Czechoslovak national team that won the Fed Cup in 1988 – Editor's note] from Bratislava. Her father was vice dean at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of the University of Comenius in Bratislava. Also a tennis fanatic. His daughter was a good runner, she'd have played in the back and Marcela would have been up at the net.

At that time I was fully focused on her career. My boss at the time, the surgeon Cerny, wanted to specialize us in various fields, and wanted to make a plastic surgeon out of me. In those days Cerny was a big name. Later he transferred to Bratislava, where he became the head of the Kramare Hospital. I liked his idea about the plastic surgery, but I'd have had to leave for three years to Bratislava, to study. I told him that I wasn't going. Instead of thinking up some excuse, like for example that my mother was ill, I told him the truth. I can't go. Who will coach my daughter? As a result of this, he wrote me off. He was of the opinion that a surgeon should be a fanatic for whom everything else takes a back seat. No mother, no daughter, not even tennis! Later, when I wanted to do further attestations, he didn't let me. He looked for various pretexts. That's why I worked at the outpatient clinic all my life. My daughter was my hobby. During this I had to keep in shape. I began running long distances and marathons.

Alas, my daughter's career ended prematurely. While training in a gym, she fell and suffered a compound fracture of her forearm. She had to hang up tennis. She recuperated for a long time, and at last applied at the Faculty of Medicine at Comenius University in Martin. She did her attestation in anesthesiology. Several years ago she went to the USA for a study stay. When she returned home, she told us that they have an amazing top-quality facility there, incomparable to the ones in Slovakia. Something like that won't be here even in a hundred years. That she'd like to work and live there. So she found out everything necessary to be able to work in the USA. Today she works as an anesthesiologist for cardiac surgery in the city of Albany, the capital city of the state of New York. At the same time she does part-time work teaching medical graduates who want to pursue anesthesiology. She has no family yet; she's single.

Our younger daughter is named Michaela. She's also single. She graduated from nursing high school. She then applied at the Faculty of Philosophy of Comenius University in Bratislava. She graduated from the Department of Education and Nursing. School seemed easy to her. She arranged an individual study plan for herself. She worked in London, where she took care of children. At the same time she was taking exams at school. After graduating from university she decided to leave. She moved to Canada. She lives in the city of Vancouver. In Canada they didn't recognize either her nursing high school diploma nor her university degree. The Canadian Association of Nurses didn't give their agreement.  It's very strange, because Canada has a shortage of nurses. In order to be able to stay there, she took work that's very unattractive by Canadian standards. She took care of children. She did that for almost four years, until they finally recognized her diploma. Now she works as a nurse in cardio surgery. In the meantime she also got Canadian citizenship. While she's working she's also attending university. When she finishes, she'll be this sort of connection between doctors and the hospital. Let's say a doctor sends someone to the hospital for a gall bladder, stomach or heart operation; that person has to undergo a pre-surgery examination. Basically he has to be prepared for the surgery. This is done by nurses who are qualified for it.

We see our daughters very seldom. The younger one has been abroad for eleven years, and the older one seven. Even the two of them don't visit each other. Albany and Vancouver are very far away from each other. They're very busy with school and work. Work abroad can be compared to sport. When our athlete starts with a foreign team, he's got to be better than the local players in order to stay. It's the same with work. It's not enough to be like the locals. You've got to be better. They have to be better, and that doesn't happen by itself. My wish for my 70th birthday was for all of us to be at home together again. They'd been here several times, but never together. For my 70th birthday it finally happened. It was a great present for me. Otherwise we're constantly in contact. We phone and email each other.

In my daily life, I was a fervent anti-Communist. At the surgery, I had an operating day once a week. It was on Thursday. I'd enter the operating theater and greet the staff with Heil Hitler. Once they asked me why? I answered: "Same regime, same greeting." I didn't see any difference between Fascism and Communism. One was wore black and the other red. I think that I also hold the record for the shortest membership time in the Communist Partty 21. I never attended any club meetings or gatherings. Nothing like that. During my studies they commented on it a couple of times, but I always made some excuse. I was an athletics coordinator, and did a whole lot more than the other "party members". Once, when I'd gone to play tennis, my classmates had a meeting. Upon my return everyone was smirking at me. They said that every club had the task of pushing someone into joining the Communist Party. The way it was back then was that in order to be promoted to a higher position, you had to have a certain amount of Party members below you. It was the same in medicine. If someone wanted to be a chief physician, a certain percent of his staff had to be in the Party. It didn't matter if they were cleaning women, nurses or doctors. They told me to join too, to improve the percentage. I filled in the application in the hopes that they wouldn't take me. As a reason I filled in something in the spirit of that I'd been nominated, and the fact that I wanted to join should be an honor for the Communist Party. I remember that the party chairman at the Faculty of Medicine, a gynecologist, was enraged. He read my application at the regional meeting of party chairmen. How could such an application have made it to the regional committee for approval? In the end they accepted me. Before the end of sixth year, the gynecologist, Dr. Zvarik, summoned me. By the way, he was the older brother of the actor Frantisek Zvarik. He told me: "You know, we needed to create some party members, so we approved  you at the membership meeting." He handed me an envelope with my registration, which I was supposed to hand in at my new place of employment. I of course didn't hand anything in. Alas, the regional committee in Martin sent a copy of my application form to my workplace. Everyone had an ID booklet, into which you had to paste a membership stamp once a month. At our work, a man that worked in the plaster room was in charge of the stamps. He'd always call me in to the plaster room. I'd give him ten crowns. That's how much a stamp cost. But I wouldn't glue it into the ID booklet, but onto the tiles in the plaster room. In 1968, the screening of all party members began. Whether they agreed with the entry of the allied troops 22, and so on. They never even summoned me to the screening. I got a piece of paper, which I have put away to this day. It says: "Due to the fact that you did not fulfill your responsibilities – though I don't know which ones – your membership in the Communist Party of Slovakia has been revoked." According to the dates on the document, a total of seven days had passed from my acceptance to my expulsion.

I was of the opinion that it was my responsibility to not only complain about the regime, but also to act. In 1989 the possibility of change began to be felt. But change don't come on its own. It depends on people. At that time I was working as an assessment physician at the Regional National Committee, Department of Social Affairs. At one meeting, at which the entire executive was present, the chairman and sixteen department heads, I spoke up about the need for change. The VPN 23 had been created in Slovakia, which was promoting democratic elections, the cancellation of the leading role of the Party, freedom of religion and so on. I proclaimed that I was founding the Zilina branch of the VPN, and that I was asking for their cooperation. Whoever was interested in the making these changes could join. Alas, even the VPN was only composed of people, with all their characteristics.  Many began to take advantage of it for their own ends.

It was similar to when during the time of the Slovak state they'd wanted to push the Jews out. The difference was in that back then they wanted Jewish property. The VPN was basically the same. They wanted to get rid of all the top Communists. Alas, not because they were Communists. They wanted their positions. I can become a director there, or there. They were pushing people aside just because they had a Party membership. In the meantime, there could have been those among them who'd been sticking their stamps on tiles somewhere. But no one looked into that. They also got rid of first-class experts who'd helped wherever they could. I took a stand against these methods. That's how I got into a conflict with the executive of the VPN and the governing coalition at the time. At that time the governing coalition was composed of the VPN, DS 24 and KDH 25. They all wanted posts for themselves and their relatives. I didn't agree with this, and asked that they say what concretely the person they were letting go was guilty of. Many of them had families to support. They had years of courageous work behind them. Now we're to send them out on the street? Just because they had some sort of piece of red paper? Alas, one of those being installed also ended up in charge of the directorate for my profession, and I had my work cut out for me in order for me to not be kicked out either.

But I can't say that after the war I was ever persecuted for my Jewish origins. A lot of people didn't know about my origins, and still don't know. But I do meet up with rude remarks regarding Jews. For example, once at the hospital we admitted a patient, let's say Mrs. Grünova. The hospital staff would make comments like: "We admitted that Yiddo." It was: "...that Yiddo in number six." [The Jew in room number six – Editor's note], or: "The kike in number sixteen." That hurt you at the time. But I personally never met up with discrimination. When I did have some problems in life, it was due to my own shortcomings, and not because of my origin.

Glossary
1 Kashrut in eating habits: kashrut means ritual behavior. A term indicating the religious validity of some object or article according to Jewish law, mainly in the case of foodstuffs. Biblical law dictates which living creatures are allowed to be eaten. The use of blood is strictly forbidden. The method of slaughter is prescribed, the so-called shechitah. The main rule of kashrut is the prohibition of eating dairy and meat products at the same time, even when they weren’t cooked together. The time interval between eating foods differs. On the territory of Slovakia six hours must pass between the eating of a meat and dairy product. In the opposite case, when a dairy product is eaten first and then a meat product, the time interval is different. In some Jewish communities it is sufficient to wash out one’s mouth with water. The longest time interval was three hours – for example in Orthodox communities in Southwestern Slovakia.
2 Terezin/Theresienstadt: A ghetto in the Czech Republic, run by the SS. Jews were transferred from there to various extermination camps. It was used to camouflage the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, who presented Theresienstadt as a ‘model Jewish settlement’. Czech gendarmes served as ghetto guards, and with their help the Jews were able to maintain contact with the outside world. Although education was prohibited, regular classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number of artists, writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was an intensive program of cultural activities. At the end of 1943, when word spread of what was happening in the Nazi camps, the Germans decided to allow an International Red Cross investigation committee to visit Theresienstadt. In preparation, more prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, in order to reduce congestion in the ghetto. Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school, and flower gardens were put up to deceive the committee.

Judita Schvalbova
Presov
Slovak Republic
Interviewer: Barbora Pokreis
Date of interview: February 2005

Mrs. Judita Schvalbova lives with her husband in a cozily furnished apartment near the outskirts of Presov. Mrs. Schvalbova was born in the year 1936, which is why she wasn’t able to give us information about pre-war Jews in the town of her birth, Zilina. Despite being very small at the time, she remembers in relative detail the suffering connected with hiding during the Holocaust. Mrs. Schvalbova is a very kind and vigorous lady, these days already in retirement. Her joys in life are her grandchildren and the winged residents of her balcony, who she with love calls ‘my poultry!’

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My paternal great-grandparents were the Donaths. He was named Gabriel and she Roza. The only thing that I know about them is that they lived in Varin. I don’t know how they made a living, because no one at home ever spoke about it. They are buried in Zilina at the Jewish cemetery. I didn’t know at all that they are buried in Zilina, because when a person is younger, he’s not interested in these things. Neither did I speak about such things with my parents. I found out about their grave completely by chance. The cemetery caretaker told me that there were some other Donaths buried there as well. I had originally assumed that their graves have to be in Varin. I had always wanted to stop at the cemetery to look for the graves of my grandparents, but I never got around to it. And so I found out that these are the great-grandparents who they had talked about at home.

The Donaths had about eight children, some of whose names I know, but others I have no clue about. My grandfather was named Zigmund. His older brother Emanuel was a veterinarian in Nitra. Of the boys I still remember Bartolomej, who everyone called Berci. There were also several sisters. Two set out for America and also married there. One of them was named Hana. And I remember one more sister, who lived in Zilina, but unfortunately I don’t remember her name any more.

My maternal great-grandparents were named Yisrael Pick and Roza Pickova. By coincidence this great-grandmother was also named Roza. My great-granddad lived from the year 1829 until 1911. Great-grandma Roza was born in 1830 and died in 1904. Both are buried in Zilina. Great-granddad was likely a Talmudist, because my mom used to say that he was a ‘Bibelforscher’ [German, one who studies the Bible, in this case the Five Books of Moses]. The Picks had eight children. I know their names, because my uncle in Los Angeles put together a small family tree. They had three sons: Simon, Moric – my grandpa, and Jakob. The girls were named Eva [Joseph] Pick, Maria Hoffmann, Hermina Vogel, Julia Lowy and Kati Spitzer.

There was one interesting thing in the Pick family. There was hereditary diabetes in the female lineage. That means that all the boys were healthy, all the girls that I’ve named had diabetes. On the other hand, in the next generation the girls were healthy and the boys suffered from diabetes. My great-grandfather’s sister Julia married a man by the name of Lowy. Her grandson is still alive, my second cousin Dan Auerbach. He’s got three children: two daughters, Karin and Maya, and a son, Avi.

About Simon Pick I can’t tell you much. He had two children, a son, Laszlo Pick, and a daughter, Elsa. Grandpa’s brother Jakob died before the war, but I don’t know what caused his death. He had five sons: Geza, Arthur, Gustav, William and Eugen. Eugen Pick lives in Los Angeles, and it’s he who put together our family tree. He’s 87 years old. He has one daughter, Nava Earley, and one granddaughter, Ronit Attlesey. William moved to Palestine, where he also died. He had a son, Tomas, who lives in Los Angeles, and Jurko, who is currently settled in Prague. Jurko owns Zlatnictvo Michal [Michal Jewelry] in Prague. William had one more daughter, Vera Waldmann, who lives in Israel. Arthur died in a concentration camp. He didn’t have any children. Gustav was also in a concentration camp, but he returned. He died shortly after the war. Jakob’s daughter, Irena Kalus, died in a concentration camp. She had two sons, Ivan and Gregor. One of the uncles, Geza Pick, died after the war in Bratislava.

There’s one more interesting thing in our family. It’s got to do with Hermina Vogel [sister of grandfather Moric Pick]. She had three sons, Laci, Bandi and Zoli. Laci died in Zilina shortly after the war, he didn’t have children. Zoli died in a concentration camp. Bandi was like a ‘white crow’ in the family, because after the war [World War II] he joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He settled in Bratislava, I don’t know if he has any children. I don’t even know if he’s still alive, but if he is, he must be very old by now.

As for my grandparents, Moric Pick and Jozefina Pickova [nee Kraut], they originally had six children. Only three of them remained alive. One boy died at six, one girl at the age of three, and one was stillborn. My mother Melania had two more brothers, Oskar and Gejza. Mom was the youngest of the three.

Uncle Gejza picked an interesting wife. So many nationalities have mixed in our family...her mother came from Berlin, while her father was a Turkish Jew, a goldsmith. They were married in Berlin. I don’t know how exactly they ended up in Zilina. My uncle’s wife [Herta Pickova] worked as a clerk in a textile factory, and that’s where they met. They had one son, Albert Yisrael Pick. Albert is named after the great-grandfather whose grave I found. Uncle Gejza moved to Israel in 1948. His son lives there to this day, he’s got three children. Albert has three children: Ariela, Daphne and Merav. These days he’s already got several grandchildren, but I don’t know their names. My mother’s second brother, Oskar, married a non-Jewish woman, who you could say saved our lives during the war. They lived in Zilina. They had no children, because his wife was ill and had to undergo three gynecological operations. Oskar died in 1983, the year after my son’s graduation.

The Picks originally lived in Horni Hricov near Zilina. My grandfather owned a distillery there, which was burnt down during a pogrom during World War I. He had to leave there, because they had no way of making a living. I don’t know anything more about the pogrom, only what was talked about at home. In Zilina they had to start over. My grandfather opened a pub and soda shop in Zilina. When he got it together a bit, he took out a mortgage and bought a house on the main street. I know that my mother, her brothers, my uncles, used to reminisce that my grandfather worried horribly, because he didn’t think that he’d be able to pay the mortgage. He was afraid that he’d put his family in the poorhouse, but in the end everything turned out fine and he paid that mortgage off. That house belongs to us to this day, I inherited it. My grandmother was at home, as was the custom. The house stood on the main square in Zilina. There was a bathroom with running water, electricity, everything. We heated with a stove, as was the custom in those days. My grandparents had only a cleaning-woman. I don’t remember there being a cook.

My grandparents on my mother’s side dressed in a modern way. In the photographs I have, they’re dressed normally. I don’t remember at all how my grandparents observed holidays. I don’t know what political opinions they had or what political party the Picks preferred. I don’t remember it, because they died when I was very small. My mom didn’t talk much about her parents with me. I only know a story about my mom’s little six-year-old brother, who died as a result of a dog bite. Apparently he got blood poisoning and subsequently meningitis.

Here I’d like to recall one more interesting thing, how my grandma Pickova’s sisters got married. My grandmother was named Jozefina, and had a younger sister, Berta. Berta’s daughter married someone in Vienna. She also survived the Holocaust. After the war she brought her mother, my aunt Berta, to live with her in Vienna. During the war Aunt Berta hid with her other daughter, Zita. After Berta’s death her daughter, whom she had lived with in Vienna, moved to America, where she also died.

Another sister, Regina, married this one big landowner in Velky Kolacin [today Nova Dubnica, Ilava county]. Velky Kolacin is located over the hill from Trencianske Teplice, in the direction of Nova Dubnice. She and her husband together took care of a large farm. They had two sons. The younger one helped in farming the fields. The older one was an army officer during World War I, they were terribly proud of him. During the war he was wounded and wasn’t well off health-wise. Still before the war he fell in love with the daughter of Count Andahazy. The Andahazys owned a manor in a nearby village. They had two daughters and my mother’s cousin fell in love with one of them. The parents on both sides were very much against their relationship. The Andahazys didn’t want a Jewish son-in-law, and the other side didn’t want a count’s daughter as a bride. In the end they married anyways.

Three children came of that marriage. The oldest son was called Laci – Laszlo. The middle daughter was named Ildiko, the youngest Eniko. Their father, my mother’s cousin, fell ill as a result of his wounding in World War I. Apparently he suffered from Parkinson’s disease. He suffered for a relatively long time, he even survived the Holocaust. After the war one aunt took care of him until the end. After the coming of Communism his wife tried to escape the country across the Morava River. His wife and the middle daughter Ildiko were on a different boat than the son with the youngest daughter, Eniko. Ildiko and her mother ended up in jail, because they caught them. The son Laci with the youngest daughter Eniko were on another boat. They managed to escape and got to the other side. When they released the countess and Ildiko from jail, they again tried to escape. This time they also succeeded.

Today the entire family lives in America. I don’t have any contact with them, I know only very little about them. My cousin, Albert Yisrael Pick has some sort of connection with Laci. When my son needed an immunology textbook, it was Laci who found it for him. He had our address from Albert Yisrael. I thanked him for it, and thought that we’d stay in contact, but that was the end of it. He didn’t show any interest. I know that Laci married a Slovak woman from Povazska Bystrica. In America he worked his way up to being a professor of mathematics, he developed one very unusual mathematical theory, so he did very well there. His wife is a painter, she’s quite respected. The middle daughter, Ildiko, had already started to study chemistry in Czechoslovakia. She married very well; her husband was the European representative of one large company. The youngest, Eniko, supposedly got married in Mexico and has these little Mexican children with narrow eyes. This much I know about them, and nothing more. In the meantime, their mother died. After 1989 she stayed here for a time.

There’s an interesting story tied to her time here. After the revolution she wanted to reclaim two portraits of her parents. Likely they were from a known artist and probably also had interesting frames. During Communism the pictures were confiscated, and I don’t know whether they maybe belonged to the collection of some gallery. She submitted a request for their return, but she didn’t manage to get them back.

I was two years old when my grandmother died, and four when my grandfather died. I don’t remember my grandma at all and my grandpa only foggily. Thank god that they both avoided the suffering that was soon to come. My grandmother died in 1938 of liver cancer at the age of 63. My grandfather died in 1940 of angina pectoris, he apparently had a heart attack, in those days it was all called angina pectoris. Both are buried in Zilina, to this day I take care of their graves. I faintly remember my grandpa’s funeral. In 1940 you could still have a funeral according to Jewish traditions, that was still possible. They created a museum in one part of a small Orthodox synagogue in Zilina. In one display case in the museum I came upon a Chevra Kaddisha register. The register was opened on precisely the page where my grandfather’s name was written, among others.

My paternal grandparents, the Donaths, that is Maria Donathova, nee Polacsek and Zigmund Donath, they lived in Zilina. My grandfather was a master electrician in the Ganz factory in Budapest. He found a wife in Budapest, my grandma, who he brought back to Zilina. Grandma came from a family of eleven children. Her family lived in very, very modest circumstances. This I can judge, because grandma even worked as a servant for one family in Budapest. About her siblings I only know that one of her brothers was a ‘kalauz’ [conductor] on a streetcar. They were very proud of him, that he had made it that far.

Both of my grandparents were born in the same year, 1873. Grandma came from Pokafa, a village near Zalaegerszeg in Hungary, and my grandpa from Varin, a village near Zilina. My father, Jozef Donath, was born in 1901, still in Budapest, but his younger brother Ludovit was born in Tatranska Kotlina. My grandfather came there as an electrician. At that time electricity was being brought to the Tatras. So at first they lived in Tatranska Kotlina, and after a time they decided that they would live in Zilina. In Zilina they founded a dispatch service named the United Dispatch Company. We had it until the war [World War II]. Later my father and his younger brother also began to work for the family business. Though Ludovit did begin studies as an electrical engineer in Prague, he didn’t finish school because he was, how would I describe it...well, he liked to enjoy life. My father had to work hard on his account, so that’s why my grandfather called Ludovit back home.

The United Dispatch Company was a family business. Besides my grandfather, my father and uncle, and a secretary, Jolanka Vatolikova, also worked there. She wasn’t Jewish, but was a very decent woman. She took care of administrative matters. We also had horses, these cold-blooded haulage horses. They were very necessary for us, because they pulled a moving wagon. We employed one coachman, and one man that slept with those horses. We didn’t have any other employees. The company also owned a large warehouse right by the railway tracks in Zilina. The warehouse still stood until recently, but now, when the Zilina railway station was being enlarged, there were new tracks being built in that direction and the warehouse had to be demolished. Our company ceased to exist when the nationalization [in Czechoslovakia] 1 started. The dispatch company mainly dealt with the distribution of goods to companies in Zilina. The goods were unloaded from wagons and stored in the warehouse, from where they were distributed to various businesses. Of course, goods were sent both in and out.

The beginnings of my grandma’s life in Zilina were very hard for her, because she didn’t know even a word of Slovak. My grandfather tried to help her learn Slovak as best he could, but somehow it didn’t go very well for her. He also brought in a young maid from Liptov, so she could learn Slovak from her, but the opposite happened and very soon the maid spoke better Hungarian than my grandma Slovak. There was one cute story about my grandmother that was told in Zilina. When my grandmother could already get by with her Slovak, she went out to the market. In those days, fowl pest was common in the Zilina region. It used to be a custom to bring live poultry to the market. Well, and she saw some farmwoman selling a goose that had already been killed and cleaned. She became suspicious, whether that goose hadn’t died of the pest. She tried to find out with her broken Slovak, and began to ask the farmwoman, ‘Lady, does that goose kick?’ Meaning did it kick the bucket [die of disease], that’s how she meant it. And the woman answered, ‘Well, my lady, I’m old, gray, but I’ve never seen a goose kicking!’ So this was a story they told about my grandma in Zilina.

My father’s parents at first lived in one house in Zilina. During the time of the Slovak State 2 they moved into the building owned by my other grandparents, the Picks. The building stood on the main square. In the courtyard there were several small houses, and in one of them there was a nice two-room apartment with a bathroom and everything. So that’s where my grandparents moved with my father’s younger brother. What did their first apartment look like? It’s very difficult for me to describe it in detail. I don’t remember their first apartment at all. I only remember how my grandma [Donathova] brought her mother Cecilia Polacsek from Hungary. She died in Zilina at the age of 92. I could have been maybe three or four at that time, I remember that she had terribly thick lenses in her eyeglasses. I was terribly afraid of her. She sat me on her lap, but I would pull away from her. I have only this memory from their first apartment. She also has a grave in Zilina, which I take care of. Well, and then the next apartment, where they moved during the time of the Slovak State, that one I remember. It had typical furniture for the times, mainly I remember the carved furniture that was in the dining room.

I don’t remember my grandparents’ neighbors in their first house. When they moved to the second house, the owners of the surrounding houses were also Jews. There were also several Jewish families in our building. During the time of the Slovak State we had to move from the main street to those small houses that we had in the courtyard. At the Donaths’ they spoke Hungarian, and at the Picks’, German. My grandparents dressed normally, not at all like religious Jews. My grandfather didn’t wear a kippah or a hat. They were completely modern, I never saw them dressed like people that strictly follow their religion.

The Donaths promoted more of a Neolog 3 tendency, we didn’t concern ourselves with religion very much. From the pre-war period I remember only one seder led by my father. And even that I don’t remember in detail, just this one little thing has remained in my memory. There’s a seder custom that the door is opened and one waits for the prophet Eliahu [Elijah]. At that time we did it, according to tradition, and suddenly our dog came in. For me, as a child, that was very amusing, so that’s why it’s stuck in my memory. And I also remember, that I said the mah nishtanah. My grandparents went to the synagogue on only the major holidays. I was an eight-year-old child when in 1944 they went to Sered 4 and from there to a concentration camp. I don’t remember them very much.

I have no way of knowing if my grandfather was a member of a political party or what political opinions he had, because during the war we didn’t concern ourselves with politics. We concerned ourselves with saving our lives. Unfortunately, this effort didn’t work out for the larger part of our family.

Growing up

During my childhood Zilina had maybe 18,000 people. As a child it didn’t overly interest me, but for sure it didn’t have more than 20,000 [according to the 1921 census, Zilina had 12,255 inhabitants]. Just recently I read that in the pre-war period there might have been about 3,600 Jews living in the town [in 1942 there were around 3,500 Jews living in Zilina]. From my childhood I don’t remember a mikveh, yeshivah and similar Jewish institutions, because as a six-year-old it didn’t interest me very much and my parents absolutely didn’t practice this. Now that I’m retired, I read that there really was a mikveh here. There were two communities in Zilina. There was a Neolog community. Its members built one large, modern synagogue which stands to this day, but now is used for cultural purposes. And then there was another, smaller group of Orthodox 5 Jews, who had a tiny little synagogue. Even after the war there were services held in the Orthodox synagogue, up until the time of the two waves of emigration to Israel. Up until then it was relatively full. I don’t remember the names of the rabbis that were in Zilina in the pre-war period. During the war religious life didn’t exist, I was very small at that time. After the war, cantor Halpert served there for a time, he later left for Ireland. Mr. Halpert married us, so that’s why I remember him.

We used to attend the large Neolog synagogue. I don’t remember the details of what the interior looked like. A faint memory of Purim from the year 1941 has remained with me. I remember walking in a procession, and people up in the gallery showering us with candies. I know that the Purim celebration was held for us children. As a small girl I sang very well, so I performed there. I had on a pink knitted dress that was embroidered with small flowers.

There used to be a big market held in Zilina before the war. They sold poultry and vegetables there. Usually my mother and grandmother used to go to the market. I don’t remember if our servants also went with them.

When we lived in the modern house, in 1939 there was this procession with torches that passed under our windows. I was only three years old at the time, but those torches have remained in my memory. My mom later told me that they were singing: ‘Cut and hack that Czech head ‘till it bleeds!’ [see Czechs in Slovakia from 1938–1945] 6 It was the time of the creation of the Slovak State.

My mother Melania Donathova, nee Pickova, was born on 17th January 1910 in Horni Hricov near Zilina. She attended high school in Zilina, so she had a high school education. Before the war my mother didn’t work anywhere, because she married relatively early and devoted herself to running the household. My father, Jozef Donath, was born in 1901 in Budapest. First he attended high school in Zilina. In 1919 he was among the first graduates that graduated in Slovak. My father and mother attended Slovak schools. After graduation my father completed training as a customs declarer and then began to work for the family business. The job of customs declarer was very important in a dispatch company, because goods being shipped out of the country had to go through customs. My father was a very good-natured man. He never laid a hand on me, I don’t at all remember ever getting a spanking. My mother was the stricter one, she would sometimes even smack me.

It’s hard for me to recall details of how my parents met. Young Jewish people used to meet in Zilina, and somewhere there they met. They were married in 1931, but I don’t know the exact date. I wasn’t born until five years later. Our family’s financial situation was very good. I think that we lived well. We had nice furniture, my mother liked nice things. She liked buying china, part of which I have in my collection and the rest is from my grandma Pickova. My parents dressed in a modern way, always according to the fashion of the day.

There were three languages spoken in our family. The Picks spoke German. I don’t know why they spoke German, but in that part of Zilina German was prevalent. For sure they also knew how to speak Slovak, but among themselves they spoke German. That was the custom at one time. My grandparents spoke only Slovak with me. The Donaths spoke only Hungarian. My grandfather spoke Slovak very well, but my grandmother’s Slovak was very poor. My parents spoke to each other mainly in Slovak, but sometimes also in Hungarian. With me everyone spoke only Slovak.

In the beginning we lived in this one relatively modern apartment building. On the ground floor there was a large bookstore, owned by the Travnicka family. Above the bookstore there were apartments. The building also had a winter-garden. I remember my parents having a nice bedroom. My father had a den with a sofa and chair. Of course, there was also a dining room. We had these three rooms. The apartment had high ceilings and tall double doors. When I grew up a bit, my parents allocated me one of the couches in the dining room to sleep on. I had my own wardrobe. The apartment also had a large front hall, a kitchen and balcony. I was maybe five when we moved in with my grandparents, the Picks.

Before the war we had a large library at home. Long after the war, my mother still subscribed to books published by SPKK [The Friends of Beautiful Books Society]. Our greatest pride and joy was a large set of Brockhaus dictionaries. To this day I can see before me those beautifully bound books. After the war, when my parents had financial problems, it was after the currency reform, they took the dictionaries to a used book shop. To this day I regret that this happened.

My grandparents used to go to spas and my mother accompanied them, mainly my grandmother. But otherwise I don’t remember vacations before the war. After the war I remember more: they used to go to Trencianske Teplice, to Sliac, Karlovy Vary 7 and Teplice nad Becvou. The only foreign places they visited before the war were Budapest and for their honeymoon, Salzburg.

I was born on 22nd March 1936 in Zilina. My name is Judita Schvalbova, nee Donathova. I know my Jewish name from my mother, it’s Jitl. I didn’t attend nursery school, as my mother was at home. I’m an only child. Before the war we had this one Fraulein [German for ‘governess’], who spoke German with me. She was named Irma and was from Bratislava. My mom stayed in contact with her for quite a long time after the war, and even with her son as well. I know that Irma suffered seriously from diabetes and they had to amputate her leg. When she died, her son let us know.

During the war

In 1942 they sent the first transport of young girls from Zilina. The Guardists [Hlinka-Guards] 8 appeared at our place too, and wanted to take me with them. At the Hlinka Guard headquarters I was mistakenly registered as having been born in 1926 instead of 1936, so according to them I was 16 years old. My parents had to prove at the Hlinka Guard headquarters via various documents that they only had the one six-year-old child. In hiding with us was this one girl, Ilonka Steinova. Ilonka was from Ruzomberok or Liptovsky Mikulas, I don’t exactly know any more. She was staying with us, to take care of me, as if she was my nanny. Ilonka suffered from epilepsy. On that occasion, when they came for me, they saw her and counted her in, that is, took her to the camp instead of me. During the transport, or right after her arrival at the camp, she must have had an epileptic seizure, because they sent her to the other side right away. She went straight to the gas chambers.

I don’t remember any exceptional tomfoolery from my childhood. I was a very good child. Most of my memories are from the post-war period, because I was nine when the war ended. I only remember fragments from before the war. At my grandparents’, the Donaths’ place I had a little dog. At home I played with a midget rooster. At that time there was a fowl pest in Zilina, and he got it too. He died. We children buried him in a shoebox.

I spent part of my childhood in Zilina. In 1942 my parents had themselves baptized in order to protect us. We knew this one priest in Kysucke Nove Mesto, who baptized us. At that time I was already of school age, so my parents registered me at a school run by nuns, a so-called ‘sirotar.’ There were many other Jewish children hiding out with the nuns, and they were very nice to me. Many Jewish girls attended school there. I can’t tell you what the ratio of Jews to non-Jews was. In my class there were three other Jewish girls. One was named Martuska Witenbergerova, who never returned from the camps. Because I was attending a Catholic school, I also had to go to First Communion, because according to documentation I had been baptized. The biggest paradox of my school attendance during the Holocaust was that I, a Jewess, had to be a member of the Hlinka Youth. [Editor’s note: Slovak youth organization operating in Slovakia during World War II, similar to the ‘Hitlerjugend.’] All children were, so I also had to be. My entire membership consisted of the fact that they registered me. I didn’t have a uniform. During meetings we would read the magazine Sunshine. I remember an article about President Tiso 9. I parroted these things automatically as a child, at that age one didn’t think about it.

Gradually they Aryanized our dispatch company. The Aryanizer, though, didn’t at all understand how to run the company, so he needed my father and uncle, and that’s why they received an exception called ‘economically important Jew’. Up until the [Slovak] Uprising 10 we more or less still kept our heads above the water. The uprising broke out the summer that I was on summer vacation at our relatives’ in Sucany. Our relative came from Zilina. They sent him to Sucany to practice as a doctor. After the uprising broke out, my parents sent this one boy of about 20 to bring me back home. We barely managed to leave, because the front ran through that region. Only with great difficulties did I manage to return to my parents. We then immediately left Zilina. We set out to some relatives’ place in Zlate Moravce. My parents guessed that the Germans wouldn’t be there yet. During the train trip we found out that they were already there. We got off the train in Piestany. In Piestany I lived through the time from the beginning of the uprising in 1944 until liberation.

In Piestany we moved into the Hotel Pro Patria. We wanted to stay there as guests of the spa, but someone warned us that there was going to be a raid there. So we quickly packed our things and moved to the Hotel Eden. Later my mother told me about the raid at the Hotel Pro Patria, that people were jumping out of windows to save themselves. There were a lot of Jews there. We were in the Eden only temporarily and my parents looked for other alternatives.

My mother’s brother Oskar was married to an Aryan woman. In a mixed marriage my uncle Oskar was protected. His wife was our guardian angel. She always brought us some money, because wherever a person hid, it was necessary to pay well. They found us a contact, a person that had at one time had a bicycle shop in Zilina. In Piestany he lived in an old house. We only stayed with them for a couple of weeks, because the conditions there were horrible. His wife regularly went to Bratislava to a German officers’ club. She was a prostitute. They had one child at home that had been born as a result of these activities of hers. It was only a couple of months old, and she didn’t take care of it at all. She also had a daughter who was a bit older. My mother took care of the household and of those children.

Everything was working relatively well, up until one day when his wife unexpectedly brought over a German officer. He was obviously her lover. He came over to their place for a visit. We stayed shut up in the room in which we lived. We stayed there for 24 hours with nothing to eat or drink. We couldn’t even go to the bathroom. I still remember how we were peeing into a vase. My father quietly removed a pipe from the chimney and poured the contents of the vase into the chimney. Then the Germans announced that whoever was hiding Jews would be punished. People were frightened, and without any advance notice the man told us, ‘Clear out of here!’ And so in the evening, even though there was a curfew, we took off on a wagon to where my grandparents and uncle were living [the Donaths].

We moved into an apartment building located where today there is a large market. The owner was named Mrs. Adamcova, and rented rooms to spa guests. We lived next door to my grandparents. Our rooms had a connecting door that was always open. In the meantime we got fake papers in the names Dobos and Dudas. I remember it, because I had to memorize everything in detail. One was from Dobsina and the second from I don’t know where. I had to know everything: where I had gone to school, who was named what and so on. My name was changed, my parents’ name, and I, a child, had to memorize everything.

My grandparents were still waiting for fake papers, which were supposed to be brought by my uncle from Zilina. They were supposed to get them shortly after us. My uncle worked in a group that manufactured false documents. When we were there for some time already, we thought that it was going to be fine and that we’d probably survive. It was the end of October. Every day my grandfather would go to buy milk for me. On 1st November, All Souls’ Day [in Slovakia this day is a national holiday; people light candles in cemeteries in memory of their deceased relatives] he set out as usual with a canteen, to go buy milk for me. Everyone was trying to convince him to not go, that it was 1st November, and someone from Zilina who’d be there to visit the cemetery could recognize him in the street. They didn’t want to let him go. He said all right, he wouldn’t go.

But after a while my grandpa, a stubborn old man, grabbed the canteen and disappeared. We only heard the door slam. In a little while he returned. I know this from my mother, because as a child I didn’t notice things like that. Suddenly he was sitting there, depressed and strange. Not even a half hour went by, and suddenly the Guardists were banging on the door: ‘Identify yourselves!’ They hadn’t even had time to scald the milk. It used to be that lamps had this outlet on the side, and you could plug an electrical cord into them. This was at my grandparents’ place. The cord from the hotplate led through that door to a lamp. In our room, on a cupboard, there was a hotplate on which we used to boil milk. When the Guardists banged on the door, my father quick-wittedly unplugged the cord and pulled it into our room. We closed the door and moved the cupboard, so that we were separated.

Through the wall we could hear everything that was going on in the other room. ‘Get dressed and come with us.’ After a while they came into our room as well. My mother stuck me into a big bed that we had there and piled all of the duvets on top of me. One of the Guardists looked at me. We had false papers. The Guardist thanked us and the door closed. We all just watched, to this day it’s fixed in my memory, my grandparents and uncle walking, being led away across the long courtyard that was in front of the building. My grandma had sore and swollen legs, she walked with difficulty. My father was utterly devastated. In fact he suffered such a shock, which I only found out about when I was an adult, that as a result of that stress he became impotent. After the war he didn’t want to go for treatment. He was a young man, 43 years old, it was a minor family tragedy.

The superintendent’s wife came and said to us, ‘You’ll have to leave here, I’ll find you another place.’ One of the Guardists warned us, he was a more decent type, and said to us, ‘Mrs. Adamcova, tell those others to disappear from there as soon as possible. I could see very well what they are. It’s only that the child in the bed, which was so upset – because I was shaking and my teeth were chattering – I felt so sorry for it, that I didn’t say anything. I can vouch for myself, but I can’t vouch for my colleague.’ Mrs. Adamcova was a very decent woman.

There was one building in a street around the corner, which is still there, at least it was in May of last year, when I took a picture of it. It’s still there, but it’s only a ruin now. I don’t know if it’s ready for demolition, or reconstruction. It was a large rooming house with many tenants. The owner was named Mrs. Burzikova, a very decent lady. Mrs. Burzikova rented us a room from which I could see out into the street. I suffered terribly there, because we were shut up there for days on end, and I could see children walking to school, while I was constantly inside. As soon as we arrived she greeted us with a nice dinner. I remember that we had roast goose, but we didn’t even have a chance to eat it and already there was a raid, and again they were checking our papers. After the Guardists left, ‘Auntie’ Burzikova came over, she was very kind, and said in Hungarian, ‘My dears, I prayed one long Lord’s Prayer for you, that nothing would happen to you.’

We stayed there almost up until the liberation. My mother and I counted that in Piestany we had to move 13 times in all. Mrs. Burzikova’s building had a very unusual cast of characters living in it. One lady tenant worked as a waitress in the Hotel Europa and got along very well with the Germans. There was this one man, named Axel Lambert. He was a loud, tall man, who spoke German and took himself very seriously. After the liberation we found out that he had used the opposite tactics as we had. He was also Jewish, and pretended to be a German, this was how he intended to save himself. The house had one room that to me, a child, seemed to be an enchanted chamber. It was locked, sealed. Aunt Burzikova said that two Jewish sisters had lived there, someone had informed on them and they had dragged them away. One day the door was opened. I remember a beautiful pink umbrella and a mountain of knick-knacks, photographs. They liquidated it all without mercy. They had no feeling for it.

We spent only a certain amount of time in Mrs. Burzikova’s building, because when my uncle from Zilina came to see us and brought us money to pay the rent, on the train he had met a person who confided in him that he was harboring a Jewish family. My uncle asked him to take us in as well. So we moved there, so as not to be in the same place too long. These people had a grown-up son. The lady of the house had a very nasty, domineering nature. It’s stayed in my memory, that when they brought us rolls for breakfast, she had picked everything over. She picked out the soft or crispy rolls for herself, her son or husband. We ate the leftovers. My father and their son tried to dig a bunker underneath their house. Because they began to excavate it, I think that they finished it, too. The wife of that man, his name was Tonko Bartovic, was terribly against us living with them. She was constantly arguing with him.

In the meantime we were again in danger. Their son wanted to join the partisans. There were a lot of partisans in the region around Piestany. Apparently there were provocateurs among the partisans, their son found out about it, but only later, because he brought them there, where we lived. So we once again ended up in Mrs. Burzikova’s lap. In time there was also some sort of a problem at Mrs. Burzikova’s place, so we had to return to Mr. Bartovic. Mrs. Bartovicova, Nana they called her, was terribly dissatisfied, as I’ve already mentioned, and was constantly provoking her husband. Once they were cooking together, because they were cooks by trade and had at one time lived and worked in Paris.

Mrs. Bartovicova was constantly harassing him. He told her, ‘If you’re going to be constantly nagging and annoying me, I’ll take this knife – that he was using to cut meat – I’ll stab myself with it.’ And she said, ‘Well, that I’d like to see! That I’d like to see!’ Mr. Bartovic really did it. The house had a garden in front, she ran out for help. By coincidence some garbage men were passing by and loaded him on their garbage truck. The hospital was in the center of Piestany, and we lived on the bank of the Vah River, which was about 100 meters from the hospital. They loaded him onto the truck and quickly drove him to the hospital. They operated on him, luckily he had only pierced his pericardium. The operation was a success, but he died of blood poisoning. We didn’t find out the details, but by chance someone from our family had a young nurse in hiding there, who had assisted during the operation. Before they anesthetized him, Mr. Bartovic had constantly repeated, ‘What have I done! I wanted to save the lives of two families and now I’ve abandoned them!’ We didn’t find this out until after the war.

And so we again returned to ‘Aunt’ Burzikova. In the meantime the German front command had taken up residence in her building. The commander picked out our room, we went into the cellar. My mother heard them speaking in German, ‘Hey, that woman seems kind of dark to me, don’t you think she’s a Jew?’ And the other said, ‘What’re you talking about, we’re close to Hungary, there all women are dark.’ So we seemed suspicious to them. My mother cooked for them, she helped Aunt Burzikova. The commander had an injured finger, which had become infected, and my mother used to go treat it. This is how we existed until about the beginning of April.

One day, I remember that a messenger came on a horse and ran upstairs to the commander. My mother saw that there was something going on up there. We heard a lot of stomping and running around. My mother asked one of them what had happened. ‘Well, tomorrow you’re already going to have the Russians here, we’re taking off.’ I was lying in the cellar with plaster falling on my head, as the Germans had blown up a bridge. The next day the Russians were already in Piestany. It was on the 3rd to the 4th of April. So we were saved. Actually, first the Romanian army arrived, and then the Russians. One day they rang at our door, and asked for some buckets. Everyone was afraid of the Russians, because they were doing all sorts of things – they didn’t know what a flush toilet was, drank water from it, they raped some women, and so on.

They took the buckets. Everyone was afraid of what it was they wanted to do. Then it came out that they had a herd of cows by the Vah, and needed to milk them. Well, suddenly a soldier arrived at our place with two big pails full of milk. And we weren’t afraid any more. But then there was this incident: someone told the Russians that there had been a German command post in Mrs. Burzikova’s house. The Russians came, stood there and shouted, ‘Where Germans!’ well, and auntie said that there weren’t any Germans. ‘Here Germans!’ And they pressed her terribly, and she got so horribly upset that she had a heart attack and died. We had this back luck, that everyone who helped us during the war, went to the next world after the war.

After the war

The second day after the liberation, some people unloaded these large crates in front of the Mazac bookstore in Piestany, and handed out small Czechoslovak, American, English and Russian paper flags. They must have had them very well hidden. Towards the end of April, when they also liberated Zilina [30th April 1945], my father set out for Zilina on a bicycle to find out the situation there and whether we could return. The trip took four days, because all the bridges were destroyed and he had to go with the army across pontoon bridges. Later the trains also started to run, and so we made it home.

After my father’s brother returned from the camps we found out what had happened the day they had dragged him away with my grandparents. They led them away to the Hlinka Guard headquarters, and called in the man that had informed on them, to confront them, whether it was really them. At that time he had the opportunity to say that it wasn’t them. But: ‘yes, that’s them.’ The person that informed on my grandfather was this one builder that sometimes lived in Zilina. He was of Italian origin and was named Cicutto. His family lives in Piestany to this day. My grandparents went to Sered. My grandfather met his older brother Emanuel from Nitra there, along with his daughter as well. Together they left in one transport for Sachsenhausen. After arrival in Sachsenhausen there was a selection and my grandfather and his brother were sent to the undesirable side. At first my uncle was in Sachsenhausen, for a while in Dachau plus what other camps I don’t know. They liberated him in Dachau. He returned home very ill, and died at the age of 62. He couldn’t hold out any longer than that. My grandfather didn’t return, and all I know about my grandmother is that she got to Ravensbruck 11. She was 72, and so she couldn’t handle the suffering. When I visited the Jewish Museum in Bratislava, I found my grandmother’s name in a memorial section that had been devoted to women in Ravensbruck. My lady friend who visited Ravensbruck every year found out my grandmother’s prison number and date of death. She died on 12th January 1945. They took her to Sered on 1st November.

As far as Mr. Cicutto goes, the man who informed on us, my uncle pressed charges against him after the war. Nothing was ever done in the matter, because someone always buried it. I’ve met up with the name Cicutto, when my sons used to go to tennis tournaments and played with a Cicutto from Piestany. He must have been a grandson of his. One is named Remo Cicutto and is the mayor of Piestany. I met Mr. Shaimovich from Piestany, and told him the story of how I had been hiding in Piestany. He was completely horrified, and said that he had never met such a decent family as the Cicuttos, and that he doesn’t even want to believe that their grandfather did this.

The worst thing for me during the Holocaust was that I was shut up inside for days on end, and on top of it I got a salivary gland infection. My father also fell ill. We had high fevers, up to 40 degrees, we barely lived through them. Aunt Burzikova was very considerate. She brought a doctor to see us, he worked for the underground movement, and so there wasn’t any danger of him doing us harm. I remember the terrible anxiety and constant fear when we were in hiding, the horrible fear of the Guardists and the Germans. After I returned to Zilina I returned to Judaism, because as they say, blood is thicker than water. The synagogue didn’t entice me whatsoever, but I went straight to Maccabi 12, to my peers that had survived.

There’s one more sad memory that’s tied to wartime. My uncle, Oskar, who lived in a mixed marriage, had contacts in the Guard. There was a reception camp in Zilina. One day he went there, because he wanted to help someone. One distant relative in the camp had approached him. She was named Mrs. Feuermanova and came from Cadca. She asked him, because she and her entire family had already been in the camp a long time, whether he could take her eight-year-old daughter home with him so she could take a bath. The next day he would bring her back. My uncle arranged it and took the girl, Evicka [Eva], with him. He brought Evicka home to us, so my mother could clean her up. The next day he wanted to take her back to her parents, which he also did. In the meantime, during the night, a transport had left the camp, with her parents and brother. So he took Eva and brought her back to us. She stayed with us and went to school with me in Zilina.

Eva had an aunt who lived in Turany. She was her mother’s sister. I’ve mentioned that I was in Sucany during the uprising. Eva was in the next village, in Turany, on holidays. During the uprising that boy came for me and was supposed to pick up Eva as well. But the front line had advanced so much that he didn’t know how to get to Turany. Eva stayed with her uncle and aunt in the mountains during the war. They survived in bunkers. After the war, when they returned to Turany, her aunt brought her to my mother. She said, ‘Here you go, Mela, I’ve brought you Eva back.’ My mother was beside herself. Childless, she had no children, it was her sister’s child, and she brings her to strangers! My mother took her: ‘if you don’t want her!’ After the war Eva began to attend school with me. She was so terribly afflicted by the fact that she didn’t have parents. She spent entire days sitting on the front steps. We lived on the main street, and she sat on the front steps of the building and she approached everyone on whom you could see that they were returning from the camps, and asked if they had seen her parents. Her entire family died, no one returned. She remained with us. My mother brought her up, dressed her. We used to get clothing. They helped however they could. My mother didn’t want to adopt her, but would have given her anything, as if she was her own.

In 1947 one of my uncles came and wanted to take Eva on a trip. My mother let her go. My uncle took her to Trencin. In Trencin there lived a husband and wife who had lost their only son in the war. He was named Dr. Polak and they wanted to adopt her. They didn’t even let Eva return to us. Eva cried there, she was completely beside herself. My uncle told her that she’ll be happy there and that she should stay. My mother was crying; it was a complete circus. In the end Eva had to stay there. They were very, very good to her. They let her study, and she graduated as a pharmacist. The lady [Dr. Polak’s wife] was a very strict, grumpy person and Eva suffered a lot there. In the end we made peace with them. I used to go visit them during summer vacation and Eva would come visit us.

Eva married a doctor who, just like her, had lost his entire family. For a time they lived in Prague. Her husband got to Chicago on a study visit in medicine. In the meantime they had two children. She had two boys, Ivo and Petr. After the arrival of the Russians in 1968 she picked up and left with the two small children to join her husband in Chicago. We stayed in touch only by mail. Once in a while she sent my mother some small gift from America. It wasn’t until 1997, when I was in Los Angeles visiting relatives, that Eva came on a visit from Chicago. In Los Angeles we met after many years. At that time she told me why her aunt had brought her back to my mother. Her uncle, her aunt’s husband, had been molesting her. It began in the forest in that bunker. Her aunt noticed it, and after they returned home it continued. Her aunt wanted to prevent a family tragedy. So she rather took upon herself the burden of my mother condemning her. We talked about it all, and from that time on we’ve stayed in close contact. Last year we met at the spa in Piestany. Upon her return home, Eva felt terribly tired and went for a medical checkup, where it was found that she was suffering from acute leukemia. On 1st February [2005] Eva turned 70, and on 5th February she died. I’m an only child. For a time Eva and I grew up as sisters, together we were members of children’s organizations.

During the war we managed to save a large part of our furnishings, mainly pictures, china and carpets. My mother’s sister-in-law locked up our furnishings in a room in her apartment. So that’s how our furnishings were saved. After the war people used to come over to look, as if at a miracle, because everyone had everything lost and stolen. I remember this one episode from my childhood. My mother used to have one old lady sew dresses for me. She knew how to sew beautiful children’s clothing. She was the grandmother of Mirek Prochazka [a writer], the husband of Marie Kralovicova. She made me a beautiful dress from blue taffeta, decorated with various flowers, with a white collar and lace. After the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising we had to leave the apartment in a hurry, and in that hurry we forgot the dress there. When we returned after the war, we found only a looted apartment. Nothing was left. We only had those things that my aunt had hidden away for us. One day I was walking along the street with my mother, and suddenly towards us is walking this man with a little girl, about as big as I was, and she was wearing my dress that had been made for me by that lady. I was utterly shocked. My mother went to buy similar material and had the same dress made for me, so I wouldn’t be so heartbroken.

After the war the Aryanizer returned our dispatch company, which we then ran until they nationalized it in 1948 or 1949. After the war the company was modernized, of course, and a few trucks were added, but we also had horses with which we delivered goods around town. After the company was nationalized it was put under CSAD [Czechoslovak Bus Lines] and my father and uncle were employed there. After the war my mother worked part-time in the Okrasa cooperative. She did light manual labor there, I think that she worked in the packing department.

My parents considered leaving for Israel, and everything was even prepared. They assessed my father with a millionaire’s tax and he had to pay the state a certain amount of money. We had no money left. My mother’s brother, Gejza, left with his family in the first wave. My father helped him. People were renting moving wagons onto which they loaded their belongings. Things were packed under the eyes of customs officials. We also had a moving wagon prepared, and suddenly they assessed us with the millionaire’s tax. And so we stayed.

After the war no one cared that we’d been baptized. It was taken as something important for our survival. Nobody in our family was a member of a Zionist organization, only I attended Maccabi. We didn’t do a lot of sports in Maccabi, I would almost say that after the war it became a cultural organization. We sang songs in Ivrit and religion was taught in a haphazard way. Occasionally we went on bicycle tours, but that’s all as far as sports go. I attended Maccabi only until 1949, as after that there weren’t enough of us children around.

After the war we celebrated the high holidays only symbolically. We also went to the synagogue only on those occasions. For Passover we ate matzot and various traditional foods prepared from matzah such as for example matzah dumplings. I also had a Jewish wedding. My father attended the synagogue occasionally, or when they needed a minyan. In time it all ceased, because there was no one to attend. My parents celebrated Christmas because of me, because as a child I didn’t want to have anything that was different from my classmates. We also exchanged gifts. Why can’t a person practice that which is nice? There’s nothing wrong with that. Up to the age of six I didn’t attend religion classes, and then the Slovak State was created and everything else that followed. The only place I learned anything was in Maccabi. It’s only now, in adulthood, that I sometimes read something about Jewish history and various events.

After the war I associated mainly with Jewish children in Maccabi. In 1949 the Aliyah came and everyone moved away to Israel. In Zilina there was no one of my age left, maybe three of us. At school I had many girlfriends, I was friends with practically all the children. It’s like that to this day.

We were a relatively large family, and met regularly with those that had survived. Mainly we stayed in contact with my mother’s brothers and their families, until Gejza left for Israel. Uncle Oskar lived beside us. Gradually everyone died, only my mother and her brother Oskar remained. That was our social circle. My parents had mainly Jewish friends, but also met with non-Jews. I can say with certainty that Jews made up the majority. As much as it was possible, we went on vacations outside of the country. I know that my mother was with my aunt in Vienna and they also used to visit Budapest. We younger ones were used to going to the seaside; my parents were no longer of an age where they could have come with us.

At first I attended a school called sirotar in Zilina. After the war, because I had been in hiding for a year and hadn’t attended school, I had to write make-up exams so I could start attending public school. After the end of public school I started attending the Girls’ Gymnazium [high school] in Zilina. I was in precisely the grade where they were making various changes and were trying to form a unified school system. By the time I graduated, I hadn’t absolved eight years of high school, but eleven. Among my favorite subjects were biology and geography. I didn’t like math and physics at all. My favorite teacher was our home room teacher. Now, in the fall [2004] we had a 50-year high school reunion, and I met him there. To this day I keep in touch with my former classmates from Zilina. Besides school I attended piano lessons for seven years. Today I don’t play any more, and I don’t know if I’d be able to play anything either. We studied German in school, which I looked forward to very much, as from home I spoke it only conversationally, while in school we improved not only our conversational skills, but also grammar. In my free time I took French lessons.

I can’t judge whether I felt any anti-Semitism in the prewar period. After 1945 there might have been some moments in school, but all in all, nothing. I didn’t feel it. I can say the same about at work. During socialism, people somehow didn’t show their anti-Semitic feelings. I would say that I meet up with it more nowadays. There are various things, like written slogans and vandalized cemeteries. We hear about it in the news, but also from our friends in Kosice, and from Presov, where they spray-painted their houses with anti-Semitic slogans.

I didn’t go to university, as I got married right after I graduated from high school. I always say that if I had to live it over again, I wouldn’t get married so early. Not because of my husband, but because your youth is gone; I got married at the age of 18. I wanted to study medicine, but as a former capitalist my father had a very bad political profile, so I also didn’t get a profile that was good enough. My entry interview was in Kosice. I could feel that due to my origins they didn’t even want to let me go on to the oral portion of the exam. I was inclined towards medicine, so that’s why I took a job in a laboratory here in Presov. I had to study nursing in another city so that I would have at least some sort of qualification. There was no school of medicine in Presov, and so I used to commute to Kosice. When my children were grown up, I finished one additional degree in my field. I’ll always regret that I didn’t go study at the Faculty of Philosophy or Pedagogy in Presov. I could have chosen a combination of language and biology, in that time I did three high school degrees. I could have also finished university.

My husband is named Otto Schvalb; he was born on 1st April 1925. There’s an age difference of eleven years between us. He was born in Presov. His father was a doctor and his mother a housewife. His mother came from Trstena na Orave. His father was a native of Presov. My husband graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Prague, in dentistry. For some time he worked at a clinic in Kosice, but he eventually returned to his parents. He specialized in periodontology. He worked his way up to senior periodontological consultant.

My husband and I met thanks to my aunt and his mother. My mother-in-law was at a spa with my aunt, and after some time my mother in law and her son came to visit my aunt. While they were chatting my aunt remembered that they had a girl in the family and so on. We were married in 1954 in Zilina. We had the first Jewish wedding in Zilina since the war. The ceremony was held under a chuppah. I didn’t go to a mikveh before the wedding, as observance of Jewish rituals was never a hundred percent. My mother missed me very much when I left home at eighteen.

After the wedding we lived in a room at my husband’s parents’ place. The building was on the main square. In time one of the tenants moved away and we moved into the empty apartment. So that was our first apartment. One day they announced to my husband and my mother-in-law that the building was going to give way to urban renewal. They demolished the old building and we tenants got replacement apartments. That’s where we live to this day. My mother in law used to live across from us.

In 1957 my first son, Ivan Schvalb, was born. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, specializing in allergology. He has a private practice here in Presov. His wife Ludmila is a high school teacher. They have two sons. Michal is 21 and is a student of political science at the local university. The younger, Martin, is 14 and is currently attending high school in Presov. Our younger son, Peter Schvalb, was born in 1960. He graduated from the Faculty of Food Hygiene at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Kosice. For many years now, he has been working for a company named Imuna in Sarisske Michalany as director of sales. His wife Maria graduated from medicine, and has a private allergology practice. She’s half Jewish. Her father is Jewish. According to halakhah she’s not Jewish, but otherwise she takes after her father. My grandchildren say that they’re three-quarters Jewish. They also have two sons, both of them are in high school. The older, Tomas, is 15, and the younger, who’s named Alexander after my husband’s father, is 13.

My sons weren’t circumcised. After the war circumcisions weren’t performed very often, and we weren’t that religious of a family to consider it to be absolutely necessary. In fact, my husband’s father also refused to have him circumcised, because during the war many people lost their lives when it was discovered that they were circumcised. We brought our sons up so that they knew that they were Jews. We didn’t emphasize the religious aspects. They used to observe seder with my husband’s mother, but when she died it all departed along with her. My husband and I only symbolically observe holidays. Once I took my sons and grandsons to a Chanukkah supper in Kosice. I thought that they’d like it, but as luck would have it, the rabbi in Kosice, who didn’t yet speak Slovak very well, led an endlessly long sermon. He didn’t give them what I wanted, I would almost say that he put them off with that endless sermon.

My grandsons don’t concern themselves with religion at all. Even their parents avoid religion. As far as Jewish history goes, they know everything. They’re immensely interested in the events of World War II, the Holocaust. When a movie on this theme comes out, they analyze it in detail. They know about Israel, they know where we belong, where their grandparents belong, they know all that. My older son Ivan and his wife agreed amongst themselves that as far as religion goes, they would bring up their children neither as Jews nor as Christians. Ludmila isn’t a devout Catholic, she doesn’t observe anything besides Christmas. But I’ve taken them with me to the occasional Purim gathering in Kosice. Neither my sons nor my grandsons are registered at the [Jewish] community. My older son regularly attends the synagogue with us at Yom Kippur, but otherwise not.

Since they’ve started attending high school, I see my grandchildren once a week, on the weekend. When my one son’s boys were in elementary school, I used to see them every day. Their school was close, and so they would come over ever day. They would have something to eat, and after dinner their parents would pick them up. I saw the other grandsons only once a week, on the weekend, as they lived on the other side of town. I didn’t have such a close relationship with them. We see our sons, Ivan and Peter, practically every day.

My husband and I have so many books that we don’t know where to put them all. Whenever my husband goes downtown, he always drags some more home with him. He’s got an amazing hobby, the ‘factography’ [factual history] of World War II. Whenever a book comes out, or someone’s biography of important wartime personages, we’ve got to have it at home. We have one large bookcase in the cellar, and there we’ve mothballed fiction that we don’t read any more. In his room my husband has one large bookcase, but we can’t even fit books in there any more. After my mother died we had to get rid of her books – at least those that were in Hungarian or German. There was no one in our house to read it. My daughter-in-law, who teaches Slovak and German in high school, and thus needs literature, always asks us whether we don’t by chance have it at home. Usually we find for her the more well-known authors, like for example Feuchtwanger 13.

In Presov my husband had his circle of friends and acquaintances, with whom we associated and still do to this day. I have very good girlfriends from work. Today we’re all retired and meet regularly. I didn’t have any hobbies, so I devoted all of my free time to the children.

To this day I still cook traditional Jewish foods, mainly matzah dumplings. I know which foods should be served during which holidays. At the Passover table, besides matzot, we’re used to serving ground nuts with apples. We also have a pitcher of salty water, and wine on the table. At the seder table we have at the most one glass of wine and a wrapped matzah. I don’t have a separate set of Passover dishes, we don’t observe holidays in such detail. Everything is done only symbolically. I have a Chanukkah candle holder [menorah] at home, but have to admit that I don’t light candles. When my husband and I were younger, we used to fast during Yom Kippur. We haven’t done it for some time now, as we’re both on medication. At our age a person has a certain collection of illnesses. When we were young we fasted, but also not completely strictly. My husband sometimes had to have a cigarette, in those days he smoked on the sly, as it would make his mother upset.

My father died in November 1975 in Zilina, and my mother died here, in Presov, in March 1991. Both of them are buried in Zilina in the Jewish cemetery. I had my mother cremated, because she wanted it. I did something that isn’t according to Jewish custom and put her ashes into my father’s grave. People know and don’t know about it, it’s this public secret that isn’t talked about.

I didn’t register the onset of Communism in any unusual fashion. I was only a child. I knew that they had nationalized our business. As a child I took it that that’s how it should be. I didn’t feel that anything was wrong. In the 1950s during the Slansky trial 14 I began to think more seriously, and came to the conclusion that something wasn’t right. In school I was a pioneer [see All-Union pioneer organization] 15 and also in the Socialist Youth Union 16. I was even a leader of our pioneer troop. My father, mother and uncle were in the Communist Party [of Czechoslovakia] 17. They didn’t become members due to their convictions. After the liberation it was fashionable to join the Communist Party. Later, during screenings everyone was thrown out. Due to this I had one plus in my dossier, but that didn’t help me get into university. I never joined the Party. My husband was a member, but during the purges in the 1970s they threw him out. Since then we haven’t concerned ourselves with it, we don’t follow any political party.

During Communist times I wasn’t afraid that we’d be persecuted. Our professions weren’t in any sphere in which we could have been a threat to someone. Both of us worked in medicine. We never had any conflicts with the authorities. My husband had patients all over, and when he needed something, he always managed to get it. In 1978 he even traveled to Australia. They let him go visit his relatives. His mother also got permission to go. Now that they’ve opened the Nation’s Memory Institute 18 website, my children found his name, that he was among those that had been vetted. It was logical, as they had let him go abroad, they must have been watching him. Relatives from abroad also came here to visit us, which was a very rare thing. I never had problems at work due to my Jewish origins, for a time I was even a divisional secretary of the ROH 19.

In 1968 [see Prague Spring] 20 I was on vacation with my children in Zilina. There were horrible things happening in Zilina, I suffered a mild shock from it. Not far from where we were staying, a tank ran someone over. I was frightened, because I didn’t know how the children and I would get back to my husband. When the tension eased a bit, we managed to get to Presov. In general everyone was railing against the Russians, that they had come. People forgot that they had also liberated us, that was already history, people judged only the present. It was definitely a shock, but we got used to it. During those years they had trained us to listen and as the Germans say: Keep your mouth shut and toe the line. We did everything that was necessary. We didn’t belong among those that were in the dissident movement or engaged in similar activities. We went to work and kept on working.

We read Samizdat literature [in Czechoslovakia] 21, to this day I still have some magazines from 1968 stored in the cellar. In those days it wasn’t a problem to get them, you could do it. I have them stored away as a memento. The year 1989 [see Velvet Revolution] 22 made us very happy. It was truly unreal, we didn’t imagine that everything would collapse like a house of cards in such a short time. We experienced it with great joy. My mother was still aware of it, at that time she had already had two strokes. She was aware of it, it made her very happy that they returned our house in Zilina in 1991. They returned our building during the first restitutions. By utter chance I had documents about its nationalization at home. My mother, when she came from Zilina to live with us, brought piles of documents with her. One day my husband and I sat down and sorted them out. I threw out many unnecessary documents and papers, but by complete chance I kept the nationalization document. So I didn’t need to run around on its account.

Our building was the second in Zilina to be returned in the restitutions. I had inherited one half and my mother the other. After my mother died the building fell to me. The building stands on the main street. The apartments that were in it don’t exist any more, as even before it was nationalized, the building was being rented out by Modex. [Editor’s note: Modex is a company that manufactures women’s wear. The company has long years of experience in this field. Its history began in 1950, when it was created from a workshop of small Zilina entrepreneurs.] They set up workshops in it, they removed all interior partitions and rebuilt the entire interior. There’s a cafeteria from those days. The building also has two commercial storefronts. One of them is occupied by Dracik [a toy store] and the other by a store with high-end fashions from Trencin. We rent out the space in the building, and that’s how we make a living. Every year we divide up the rent money with our children as well. Of what use would all of it be to just us? I sold the house in the courtyard, where we used to live during the time of the Slovak State. Its interior looks completely different now. What it looked like before the war is something that exists only in my memories.

The creation of Israel is something that made me very happy, as my relatives were living there. My parents and uncle, while they were still alive, listened to news from Israel every evening. And when the wars in Israel came, we all followed it closely, really, we lived and suffered with them. I have a close relationship with Israel, and consider it to be the homeland of all Jews that live in the Diaspora. I only hope that it will all end well there, because they’re surrounded by Arabs like a grain of sand in the desert. Nothing but enemies around them. During Communism I didn’t keep in touch with my relatives in the West. It was detrimental to us. My parents, as older people, were allowed to keep in touch with close relatives. My mother corresponded with her brother and sisters in America. We used to get nice packages of clothing from them, which I ended up wearing for long years. My mother’s brother Gejza came and visited in 1962. In 1982 my mother and Uncle Oskar wanted to go visit Israel, but they didn’t get permission. They were horribly hurt that they couldn’t go see their brother.

My parents were never in Israel, they died before it was possible to travel freely. In March 1991 my mother was already very ill, so we couldn’t go anywhere. When my mother died and before then my husband’s mother as well, we were free, as before that we had had to take care of them. In the fall of 1991 we traveled to Israel. The second time we managed to get over there, with our son as well, was in the year 2000. We were in Israel in the spring and at that time everything was still fine. Then in the fall the intifada began, and the bad times have continued up to the present day.

Visiting Israel gave me a good feeling. I felt great joy that I could meet relatives and childhood friends. I felt good, because there were Jews all around me and I didn’t have the feeling that I’m unique and that someone could say to me that I’m different. I liked everything there, except for one thing. I couldn’t read the store signs. That bothered me a lot. I recalled some Ivrit songs that we had learned in Maccabi as children. So that language has remained close to me, and to this day I know what some words mean, but reading, that’s a catastrophe. I asked my cousin why they don’t write it in the Western alphabet as well. And he replied to me so rudely that it really upset me, ‘And why don’t stores have signs in Ivrit where you live?’ I didn’t like those signs. After all, there were many foreigners there as well, and not everyone necessarily knows Ivrit. When you see pictures from Asia, though they also have different writing there, they also write it in the Western alphabet so that foreigners can understand it. I think that it’s better in Israel now, because in the year 2000 it wasn’t like that any more.

Before 1989 we used to go on the customary vacations to Bulgaria, to [Lake] Balaton and to Romania. I took part in a company vacation, we went via Vienna, Graz, and Belgrade and on the way back to Budapest. In those days making that circuit was quite something. In 1969 my husband and I went on a train trip. We slept and ate on the train. We traveled through all of Italy, from top to bottom. We saw Naples, Capri and all the important cities. And in 1991 my husband and I were in Israel, and in 1992 in Sydney to see relatives. We spent at least two months everywhere we went. In 1997 – 1998 we spent two months in Los Angeles with my uncle and his daughter. Plus we were in Israel in 2000. We spent one more vacation in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. In 2001 my husband fell ill and now we only travel to Piestany and back. We’ve seen a fair bit of the world. On the way back from Sydney we stopped in Singapore for several days. Now when I look at various documentaries on TV I can say, ‘I’ve been there too.’

I saw the opening of the Western borders as a positive thing. I could freely contact my relatives, and not only that they could visit us, but we could go and visit them. Our life changed mainly with regards to finances, as they gave me back our family’s property that my grandfather had so fretted over, worrying that he would drive his family to the poorhouse. They say that Jewish property won’t survive two generations, but I’m the third generation and we’ve got it back.

My relationship to Judaism hasn’t really changed. During holidays we go to the synagogue and I make traditional foods. Nothing more than that, it’s all just symbolic. My husband and I belong to the Presov [Jewish] community. I participate in the Hidden Child Foundation in Kosice and regularly attend their events. Besides this I’m also a member of the Ester organization. We have regular meetings in Kosice and Presov. During holidays or relatives’ Yahrzeit they call my husband to the prayer hall to make a minyan. He goes as necessary. We both receive reparations for our suffering during the Holocaust from the Claims Conference.
 

Glossary

Ema Panovova
Slovakia

My family background and growing up

During the war

Glossary

My family background and growing up

I am from Holic, a little town with a population of about 7 or 8,000 people. There was a castle, Maria Theresa used to go to. Lancers used to have their regiments there and there were also many Jews in Holic. Jews spread all over the world and my relatives lived in Vienna and Budapest. I remember the time when they all came to Holic in summer and we had great fun together. We were a big family; there was a lot of laughter and joy.

The house of my grandfather, Julius Bondy, was located on the main square of Holic. He produced soda water; but it was rather his wife who ran the company. My grandfather died in our family; he was a widower. My grandmother Maria Bondyova, nee Buchwaldova, died quite early, I don’t remember her death or funeral. So my grandfather lived with us. He had three or four sisters. One of them lived in Budapest; she married a musical composer called Karol Stefanides. He wasn’t a Jew and that part of the family probably survived the Holocaust. The other two or three sisters were in Vienna and either them or their daughters were killed in the Holocaust. I don’t remember but I can find out from the family tree. My grandmother had two brothers who became Catholic priests and lived on the borderland. The family had no contact with them; they were probably resentful of them, I don’t know anything about their later fate.

It’s interesting that my grandparents used to sit on a bench in front of their house together with a future supporter of Nazism, a hairdresser, who lived opposite. My grandparents weren’t rich; they were middle class businessmen. My mother Olga Neuwirthova, nee Bondyova, their daughter, got tuberculosis and that ruined them. Though they weren’t rich they used to go to the spa in Karlsbad 1 or Marienbad 2 or Luhacovice; there were always many Jews there. This cost them all their fortune, however, she recovered in Switzerland and at Semmering, Austria. My uncle, my mother’s brother Max Bondy, was a forced laborer during the war.

My mother’s first husband was Doctor Emil Neuwirth, my father. He comes from Zilina. His father, my grandfather Moriz Neuwirth, had three or four sisters, who lived in Vienna. They were married, had children and grandchildren. One of them was Lieselotte, she emigrated to America in the last moment. My grandmother on the Neuwirth, Paula Neuwirthova, side was in an old people’s home in Nove Mesto nad Vahom during the Holocaust and died there.

Grandfather Neuwirth was a doctor. People remember him as a very good person and a very good doctor. He was from Zilina. Etelka, one of his daughters, who married in Vienna, died during the Holocaust. Her husband was a doctor, too. One of the three brothers, called Vojtech or Bela, was a captive in World War I. He was in Austria, a student then and was taken captive there along with his Hungarian colleagues, who were all internees during World War I.

My mother’s first marriage didn’t last long. Her husband caught typhus and later he became mentally ill; he was treated in a psychiatric clinic. My mother stayed alone with me, later she got divorced and married to a Russian immigrant. He wasn’t a Jew. His name was Doctor Sergej Panov and he was a doctor, too. My grandparents didn’t like him, but when the political situation got worse, my grandfather asked him to protect the family. My grandfather lived quite long and died a natural death; he wasn’t deported.

Doctor Panov adopted me and brought me up. He saved my life because with the help of his colleague doctors he proved at court that I was his daughter and that I was the child of a Jewish mother and a Christian father. He bought the house of my real father in Holic and we lived there. It was a traditional house of a doctor. He had a car and we used to go on trips. We also went to Bohemia.

During the war

In 1943 I got the documents which said I was a half-Jewish child. My foster-father, with the help of his friend Kotvan, who worked at the Ministry, could arrange on the basis of the documents, that I was allowed to continue my studies at a secondary school. In 1944 I was accepted to the final year and in the same year I passed my final exams. This was the result of the long struggle of my father: he probably just wanted for me to have a normal life, but actually it was a fight for my life.

My father took part in the underground fight, he helped the refugees to cross the border river Moravia and he sent parcels to partisans.

In 1944 it was obvious that we should either leave or hide. My father provided for us false documents and we left for Slatina nad Bebravou, or Slatinka, I can’t remember exactly. I stayed there with my mother; my father went to fight in the Slovak National Uprising 3. At the end of October the Germans attacked the region, fighter-bombers flew over our place, the valley Slatinka was surrounded by Germans. It became rather wild. We lived in a peasant’s house with false documents. Once partisans came and took away the local guard.

Later soldiers of the Vlasov brigade came and one never knew who was who. The Vlasovs also had red uniforms and looked like partisans. My mother lost her nerves, we didn’t know what had happened to our father. So I went to the German commandeer and asked for permission to travel to Bratislava. It was a very bad idea. They could have caught us already during the journey. On the journey we talked with a woman; it was clear she was fed up with the fascist regime, so I trusted her and told her about our situation. It was a lucky chance because Germans and Slovak police were patrolling at the station. Her husband, who was a policeman, met her at the station. He also hugged both my mother and me and with the words, ‘Welcome, our family, we were already waiting for you’, he took us out of the station and gave us shelter in his home.

In the end, my father found us and joined us. Once a German from Holic came and he recognized us in a roundup. We were all caught. They first took us to Vlckova Street, to a Secret Police station. My father was kept there, whereas my mother and me were brought to Sered and on 6th December we were transported to Ravensbruck. The transport was originally routed to Auschwitz, but, fortunately, Auschwitz didn’t accept us.

From the distance we saw houses which were similar to the houses built in our neighborhood. I couldn’t believe everything I heard before and at first I was happy that the rumors weren’t right. I said to my mother, that we would live and work there. On the gate there was the inscription ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’, so I thought I was right. In this camp [Ravensbruck] with its jungle law, under horrible conditions, where only few could keep their human face, even there I found some solidarity and help.

When we were still in the Waschraum, something like a bathroom, we didn’t know what would come out of the showers, if it was gas or water, because we already understood the seriousness of the situation. So I asked a French prisoner, who was there to keep order, if I could drink the water. And she answered, ‘It’s all the same, whether you die now or later’. This was such an introduction to the reality. It was water, not gas, that came out of the shower heads. Most of the girls had their heads shaved; I was somehow lucky, I wasn’t shaved. We were wet, it was December, Ravensbruck is located in the north, and we had to stand outside… I don’t know what to say about the concentration camp, it was horrible. It was really horrible…

I survived half a year there, but it marked me for the rest of my life. I caught kidney tuberculosis and I wouldn’t have survived four or five years in a concentration camp, as some girls have.

Glossary

Otto Schvalb
Presov
Slovak Republic
Interviewer: Martin Korcok
Date of interview: February 2005

Mr. Otto Schvalb lives with his wife on the outskirts of the town of Presov, in a beautiful apartment furnished with antiques. He and his wife are immensely kind and hospitable people with a sense of humor. Mr. Schvalb worked as a dentist and university professor for a long time. He fell under nature’s spell while still young, and has returned to it with affection, time and again throughout his whole life. He has had to give up this passion of his in the last year due to health problems.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

I don’t remember my great-grandparents, because they died almost as soon as I was born. I only remember my grandparents. My grandparents on my father’s side were the Schvalbs. Grandfather’s name was Moric Schvalb, and was born in 1859. He worked as a merchant in the town of Presov. He owned a mixed-goods store. He sold flour, sugar and similar things. My grandfather on my father’s side was an Orthodox Jew. During the time of my youth, Presov had both a Neolog 1 and Orthodox community 2. This basically meant that the Orthodox Jews were stricter than the Neologs. In everyday life, the difference between the two communities manifested itself mainly in the fact that Orthodox Jews attended their synagogue every Friday and Saturday, and of course during all holidays.

My father’s mother was named Hermina Schvalbova, nee Frankl. In her birth certificate it says that she was born in Stiavnicka, but her family lived in Vychodna. She was born in 1863. My grandmother kept a kosher household. She had separate utensils for meat and milk. The wife of their building superintendent used to help her out at home. For example, she would wash my grandparents’ dishes. Because they kept Sabbath, they weren’t allowed to work on Friday evening and on Saturday. They wouldn’t even turn on the lights; usually I did that. I wasn’t as religious as my grandparents.

My father’s parents lived right in the center of Presov, on Main Street. They lived in a spacious house. My parents and I lived in the front part of the house, facing Main Street. My father was a doctor, and also had his office there. My grandparents lived in the back part of the tract, where they had their own house. It was actually an extension to the main house. That’s where they lived. There, they had two rooms, a kitchen, pantry and washroom. My grandfather’s store was beside my father’s clinic. In the time of my youth the building already had electricity, and we also had running water. In the back there was a courtyard that was completely paved with stone tiles. In the time of my father’s youth my grandparents had a doggie, but they had the poor thing shot. We later also had a dog.

My grandfather had another house built in the courtyard. He had it as insurance, that when he would be old and not able to work, he could live from renting it out. Two Jewish families lived in it. Downstairs there was the family of a teacher, and upstairs the family of some merchant. Both families were Orthodox. I was friends with their children, but otherwise I have to say that most of my friends were from the Neolog community. Of course, during Sabbath we couldn’t play in the courtyard, because my grandfather would yell at us. So we went to play elsewhere. Despite the fact that I belonged to the Orthodox community, I believed teachings that were less strict. Our Orthodox synagogue in Presov was one of the most beautiful in Central Europe. Even the Neolog one was nice. It had a choir, so we used to go sing there, because in the Orthodox one it wasn’t allowed. Otherwise, as I say, my father was Orthodox, his father was also Orthodox, I was also Orthodox, but I was already a modern Orthodox.

My grandfather wore clothing normal for the times. Because in those days he lived in the modern world, so he also dressed like every other person. If he had lived 300 years ago, he would have dressed according to the times. He would have had a yellow belt and dressed like all Jews. I can’t remember very well whether he wore tallit under his clothing, but I think so. He never forgot his hat before leaving the house. My grandmother also dressed according to the times. Despite being Orthodox, she never wore a wig. My father’s parents never visited the mikveh in town.

Before the war, the Orthodox rabbi in Presov was Mr. Lau. After him came a rabbi from Stropkov. I don’t remember his name any more, despite the fact that he was a famous rabbi. He was a very interesting and wise person. People in the town ranked him among the miraculous rabbis. A number of interesting stories from my life are connected with him. Because my father was a doctor, when the rabbi had health problems, he got used to calling my father. On one such occasion he asked my father how big his family was. My father said that he had a son. At that time I was about three months old. The rabbi gave my father an orange and told him to have my mother cut it in half, to eat one half and put the other half away. My mother put the second half away at the back of a cupboard and completely forgot about it. After about ten years that half of the orange was found, and imagine that it hadn’t rotted!

The rabbi used to visit graves in Poland. During one such trip, as he was walking among the graves, he cut his leg on a wire. When he returned to Presov, his leg was already swollen. He called my father, who said to him, ‘Mr. Rabbi, you have to go to the hospital, because it needs more serious medical treatment, otherwise you’re in danger of blood poisoning.’ Upon hearing this, the rabbi called a shammash and gave him a prayer book, into which he had placed a piece of paper, and refused to go to the hospital. My father asked him what was written on the piece of paper. The rabbi answered, ‘I wrote down when I’m going to die.’ And it also happened that way. He knew the date of his own death in advance!

The main thing I remember about my grandfather is that I used to annoy him quite often. We used to play soccer in the courtyard and he didn’t like that. We damaged the walls with a shovel, broke a window, but otherwise everything was all right. I remember my grandmother better. She was a very beautiful woman. She more or less buzzed about the household, and when visitors came, she would attend to them. That was what was required by the times. She went about dressed in dark clothing; in those days that was the fashion.

My grandfather on my mother’s side was named Gustav Kempler. He owned a textile shop. He was born in 1870 in the town of Nowy Targ, which today belongs to Poland. He came to what is today Slovakia during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He settled in Trstena na Orave. He opened a store there and prospered. He was a well-positioned man. As far as Jewishness goes, Grandpa went to the synagogue. The town had a Jewish community and a cantor. However, my maternal grandfather was more modern than my father’s father. He died in 1935. They took him to the hospital in Ruzomberk, and there they declared that he had cancer.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was named Jana Kemplerova, nee Reisz. She was born in 1880. She came from Liptovska Sielnica. Today the town is partly flooded by the Liptovska Mara water reservoir. Sielnica was a big village. My grandmother’s father was a farmer; he had horses and such.

My mother’s parents lived in Trstena na Orave. Grandpa owned a store and family house, which had three rooms, a pantry and washroom. In the courtyard in the back they had a smaller house where the helpers who worked in grandpa’s store lived. There were no farm animals in the courtyard, only a large garden. My mother’s brothers, that is, my uncles, used to take care of the garden. My mother’s youngest brother, Martin Kempler, was only eleven years older than me. So he and I used to hike around the surrounding mountains. So he took care of the garden along with my grandmother. While my mother was still single, she lived with her parents, four brothers and a sister. Her sister died in 1921 at the age of 16. I don’t remember her name.

I had a few funny experiences with my grandparents. My grandfather once had an elegant suit made. He came home, carefully laid it out and left. I saw long pants, took some scissors, and nicely cut some of it off. I made them into shorts. Grandpa was angry, but didn’t beat me. If his sons had done it, they would have for sure gotten walloped. I could have been all of six at the time. But I used to do similar things at home as well. My father’s younger brother, Eugen Schvalb, who was a lawyer, used to very much like soups: chicken, beef, it didn’t matter. When my mother would prepare them for him, I was used to ‘nicely’ seasoning those soups. He wouldn’t scold me, but only ask for a different soup.

The difference between life in Presov and Trstena was big. In Trstena, that was different fun, different friends. In Presov they were burgher’s boys, in Trstena farmer’s boys. They would go about on horses, take them to water and so on. I don’t know how many Jews lived in Trstena. I’m assuming that there were a bit over a hundred, maybe 120. They had their own synagogue and school. But when I stayed with my grandparents in Trstena, I didn’t go to the synagogue. During Sabbath we mainly played cards. My grandfather’s store was of course closed during Sabbath; no business was done during that time. I would say that my grandfather wasn’t religious, but kept that Jewish ‘form.’

Trstena didn’t even have any non-Jewish shops; all the merchants in the town were Jews. My grandfather Kempler had a large textile shop. He sold textiles and shoes. Then there was a hardware store in town. The hardware store belonged to Baumann. His son was a doctor, he was named Otto Baumann. He disappeared during the Slovak National Uprising 3; they killed him. Then there was a mixed-goods store. The owner was named Strauss. He also sold sweets. The soda shop was owned by Sajn. There was a hotel in town; the owner was named Stoter.

In my own way I liked all of my grandparents, in that child’s way. Despite this, I had a better relationship with the ones in Trstena. Maybe also because I saw them less often. I would go there for summer holidays, and at Christmas, so once, twice a year. I would go there together with my parents. I was together with my father’s parents constantly, so I was more used to them. My mother’s mother treated me more affectionately, or how shall I put it. It’s hard to define. My mother’s mother baked excellent goodies.

Whenever we came by train to visit them during winter, a horse-drawn sleigh would be waiting for us. The train station was about a kilometer from town. There was a lot of snow. A roast goose would be waiting for us on the table as the first meal. Grandma also made excellent ‘Koszut crescents.’ It was this delicious fine pastry made of vanilla dough, brushed with egg and sprinkled with sugar. Very good. In those days they didn’t make cakes, as far as I remember. People liked different sweets. One always ate and drank well at my grandparents’ in Trstena. In one word, everything there was good.

Grandma and Grandpa Kempler spoke several languages. Between themselves and with me they spoke Slovak and Hungarian. They had already studied in Slovak schools. However, with my father my grandmother spoke German. Grandma and Grandpa Schvalb from Presov spoke exclusively German. One can’t say, though, that only German was spoken among the Jews in Presov. People also spoke Hungarian, and because my mother was, as they say a Slovak ‘from the floor,’ she spoke excellent Slovak. However my mother also communicated very well in the Hungarian language. Otherwise, in the Saris region, during the time of my youth, Slovak predominated. However, a Saris dialect was spoken, and Hungarian words were inserted. [Editor’s note: Saris is a historic land in the northern part of Eastern Slovakia and named after Saris Castle. It is made up, essentially, of the districts of Presov, Bardejov, Svidnik and Stropkov, the first of these being the regional cultural and economic centre. Among Saris’ popular leisure resorts are the Domasa Dam, and the winter centers of Drienica-Lysa and Buce. Evidence of the region’s culture and history is abundant, including distinct popular tradition and surviving folk architecture, the pride of the region being, its wooden churches, and more numerous here than in any other part of Slovakia. Totaling no fewer than twenty-six, they are together classified as a National Cultural Site.]

In Bratislava they didn’t understand this language very much. Hungarian and German dominated in intellectual circles; they spoke Slovak, but not as well. I think that until the year 1918, when the [First Czechoslovak] Republic 4 was created, they spoke Hungarian. But after as well, because Slovakia didn’t have teachers that knew how to teach Slovak, so Czechs used to come here and teach it. That wasn’t Slovak, though, but Czechoslovak. Civil servants, however, had to start to learn Slovak; it would have been hard to replace them all at once. But beginnings were hard, and Hungarian was used, up until for example the courts were completely Slovak.

My father, Alexander Schvalb, was one of two children. His brother, Eugen Schvalb, was a lawyer. My father got along very well with his brother. In those days it just didn’t happen that two Jewish siblings would argue. And it didn’t happen! Our entire family in Presov lived in a large house on Main Street, where everyone, that is, my father’s parents, my father’s brother Eugen, and my father, had their own separate apartment. Our former President Havel 5, called a house inhabited in this way a ‘rabbit hutch.’ Eugen was single. His apartment was made up of two rooms and a washroom. He also had an office in his apartment. Despite the fact that all the families lived in the same house, everyone led his own household. For example, when dinner was being made, my grandmother would cook her own at her place, and so would my mother. Only my father’s brother didn’t cook. He ate mainly at his parents’. My mother would of course also invite him over.

My father’s brother devoted himself to his law practice. During his free time he would go to a coffee house, where he would meet with friends. It was an exclusively Jewish group. Today it’s not like that any more. When I go to the coffee house, my friends are mostly non-Jews. In those days things were different. There were 20 Jewish doctors in the town, 20 Jewish lawyers, and they had their families, so it was a large community. Of course among them were also businessmen, farmers, engineers – a large community.

My father was born in 1887 in Presov. First he studied at a well-known evangelical college in town, where he got his high school diploma. After the end of his studies at this school, he left for Budapest. There he studied at the medical faculty of the University of Lorant Eotvos. From Budapest he returned to Presov. In time he opened his own office and worked as a general practitioner. His patients came from a mixed society, meaning both Jews and non-Jews. Similarly, there were people from higher circles, but also workers.

In the time of the First Republic there was a so-called medical fund. It’s something like today’s health insurance. The medical fund, that was more expensive insurance, that’s why it had as its clients, let’s say only better-situated people. Then there was a so-called worker’s insurance company, where my father would always go and see patients for two hours. You know, with doctors it was never the case that at 3pm their workday would be over. Doctors had to be available 24 hours a day; they could be called upon at any time.

If I had to think about my father’s interests, I would say that his hobby was listening to folk songs. Always, when he returned home, he would put on a record. He listened to nice, sentimental melodies. He liked this very much. Of course he and my mother also attended balls. However, his work didn’t allow him to have much fun. Often it would happen that he’d be called away from a ball, or the movie theater, to a patient, and he’d have to go. That’s the difference between then and now. Now, when a doctor finishes his eight hours at work, and isn’t on call, he’s a free man. At one time it wasn’t like that. Poor Father, how many times he had to go. I remember these things very well. Often people would arrive at 2 or 3am, ring and call my father to come see someone who was sick. They didn’t come only from the town itself, but also the surrounding quarters. For example, there was a workers’ quarter here, called Argentina. Father would get dressed and go.

Our apartment was made up of five rooms. There was a bedroom, den, salon, and dining room. Of course we had a kitchen, bathroom and a veranda too. My father also had a separate office. We had a servant who cleaned and helped my mother with the cooking. She kept house and did the work connected with that. When we had guests, she served them. We had guests quite often. Mostly they were Jews, but non-Jews also visited us regularly. When my mother’s girlfriends came to visit, they would play cards. Male visitors would go to the den, and sit and debate. In those days people entertained themselves differently; today it’s not like that any more.

Various groups of people would come to visit my parents. One was solely a card group. These were men from Christian and Jewish society mixed together, and they played cards together. This didn’t happen any more in the post-war period. In essence they did it only for fun. They only played for halers [smallest unit of currency, 100 halers = 1 crown]. A person could win at most 10 crowns. That wasn’t a huge sum. I think that the change was there only to give the game some purpose. In Presov there were a lot of balls held. There was for example a Jewish Ball, the Matica Ball, the Tennis Ball...Life was very social. [Editor’s note: The Slovak Matica was founded at its founding Majority Assembly on 4th August 1863 at St. Martin in Turciany. Its mission is the development and strengthening of Slovak patriotism, to deepen the relationship of citizens to Slovak nationality.]

My father didn’t belong to any political party. He was without party affiliation, but people in the town liked him. For example, after World War II they would often invite him over, even the Communists, to social gatherings. In the post-war years my father became an honorary citizen of the town of Presov, which brought him significant privileges.

In my parents’ home there was a large bookcase, built into the wall. Imagine how many books it held. It would be hard for me to say what my parents read; I didn’t prepare for this interview and didn’t think about it. For sure my father also had professional literature, that is not only some light tomfoolery. We also used to subscribe to newspapers – during the First Republic to Kassai Ujsag [a newspaper from Kosice].

My mother, Maria Schvalbova, nee Kemplerova, was born in 1900 in Trstena na Orave. Trstena was a typical Slovak town. What this means is that my mother’s native tongue was also Slovak. But she also spoke Hungarian well. My mother had four siblings: Jozef, Mikulas, Bartolomej and Martin. Besides she had a sister, who died at a young age of the Spanish Flu.

Jozef was a doctor in a Moravian spa town, Roznov nad Radhostem. The town was about 20 kilometers from the Slovak border. Uncle Jozef and his wife Margareta, who was also Jewish, had a daughter named Vera. During World War II he and his wife stayed in the Protectorate. They deported him to Terezin, from where we found out that after four days they sent him to Maly Trostinec in Belarus. I had never heard of that place before. The town is between Minsk and Mogolewo. Later the Russians put out a small brochure about that camp, but they only talk about their captured soldiers in it. Nothing about the Jews is written in it. I thought about visiting the place, but in the end I never did. Jozef was the only one of my mother’s siblings to not survive the war. He died together with his wife and seven-year-old daughter in the Holocaust.

Another of my mother’s brothers was named Martin. He had a master’s degree in Pharmacy. He worked as a pharmacist. Mikulas took over the family store from his father, and Bartolomej was a lawyer. What can I tell you about them, they all lived well, liked girls, and liked to eat. Before the war all of my mother’s brothers were single. They didn’t get married until after World War II.

Growing up

My name is Otto Schvalb and I was born in Presov, in the year 1925. I was my parents’ only child. Despite being an only child, my mother didn’t spoil me at all. My mother believed in a good upbringing, which means – how would I say it – she didn’t tolerate all the foolishness that I got up to. I always had to be home exactly when she said. Before I reached the age of six, I had a nanny. I liked her, she was a kind girl. She came from around Gelnica. She belonged to the Mantaks, Spis Germans, so we talked mainly German with each other. [Editor’s note: More or less tolerated form of German, in the regional dialect called ‘mantak’, microculture in the quite isolated small town of Medzev (German Metzenseifen) with about 4,000 inhabitants in the valley of the Bodva River in Eastern Slovakia. It deals with the actively spoken Mantak language and with the use or even abuse of mantak elements of folklore (songs, dances, traditional costumes etc.). The original Mantak population, that had been living there since the Middle Ages and that managed to stay during the cruel times of the compulsory transfer under President Benes in 1946/1947, was strongly discriminated against.] At the age of six I began to attend a school where the subjects were taught in Slovak, and maybe also for this reason my parents decided that I don’t need a German nanny.

Before the war we observed all the high holidays at home, but for example during Sukkot we didn’t put up a tent any more. There were, however, families that did. I can’t say that as a child I had a favorite Jewish holiday. I didn’t even go to the synagogue very much, only when my grandfather on my father’s side took me along with him. Even before the war a little Christmas tree would appear in our household, of course without any sort of cross, only decorated with candy and chocolate. It was mainly for the girls that worked in our household. In the beginning my grandfather was against it, to decorate even a small Christmas tree in our house, but then he let himself be convinced that it wasn’t anything important. So we didn’t celebrate Christmas at all, only Chanukkah. We would pray and Chanukkah supper would be prepared. We got gifts. After World War II, in the beginning I observed mainly Yom Kippur. But I only fasted until dinnertime, no later than that.

I attended elementary school for four years, and then I transferred to an Evangelical [Protestant] high school in Presov. Of course we also had catechism classes there. The Protestants went to Protestant classes, the Catholics to theirs, and we Jews also had ours. We were taught by a teacher who also worked at the Jewish school. Once a week he would come to our high school and we had religious education. My favorite subject at school was summer holidays. But if I really had to think about it, I preferred the humanistic subjects, for example history and geography. I liked to travel and my interest in world events has held on to this day. So it’s stayed with me. Math and Latin, which I had to learn entirely by memory, I liked less. I liked almost all of the teachers at school, because there weren’t any nasty teachers there. Not one of my teachers, with the exception of the catechism teacher, was a Jew. Among my classmates there were a few Jews here and there. But you couldn’t say that I was friends only with Jews. I was friends with these, and with those. It was a mixed bunch.

After school my friends and I used to go to the swimming pool. We also boxed. In the winter we used to go skating and skiing at the Calvary [a place where the stations of the cross were]. We also liked to go cycling. We did everything. Often we played Indians. Today children sit in front of the TV until their eyes go baggy. I was also a member of the local Maccabi 6 and Slavia sports clubs. In Maccabi I swam, and I played soccer for Slavia. In those days it was amazing. We had four soccer teams. There was ETVE, the Hungarian Torekves, Slavia, and Maccabi. [Editor’s note: the evolution of soccer in Slovakia dates from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century, when the ETVE Presov (1896) and PTE Bratislava soccer clubs came into being.] There was a healthy, sporting rivalry between the clubs. As I already said, I didn’t play soccer for Maccabi, but for Slavia. The Maccabi team roster was fully occupied by good players, and well, so I got into Slavia. I just played for the junior team. They called us ‘patkani’ [rats].

The Maccabi in Presov was composed of only Jewish athletes. There were many excellent athletes, who excelled for example in swimming. The Olympic swimming champion Cik was at a competition here, and lost a race. I think that Viktor Mandel beat him. The Olympic champion almost died of shame. But there were also other good swimmers. Poor souls, almost all of them died during the Holocaust; soccer players too, for example Miki Harmann, an excellent forward, renowned for his looks – when he walked onto the field, women went crazy.

During the war

In the pre-war period, no-one took the fact that I was a Jew negatively. I never had an anti-Jewish incident. When the Slovak state [see Slovakia] 7 was being created, they walked and shouted: ‘Slovakia for the Slovaks, Palestine for the Jews.’ Slogans like that against the Jews. Then we of course could no longer go to school and they threw us out of high school. The anti-Jewish laws of course affected me very much. In the end 270 anti-Jewish laws were passed, the so-called Jewish Codex 8. Besides being allowed to breathe, everything was forbidden. It was forbidden to go to the park, it was forbidden to go to the movie theater, it was forbidden to go visit the swimming pool, skating was forbidden, everything was forbidden. Of course I didn’t pay attention to all the prohibitions. For example, I didn’t wear a yellow star [see Yellow Star in Slovakia] 9, that didn’t even occur to me. I wasn’t afraid that I wasn’t wearing it. Of course, my parents didn’t approve, but I didn’t ask them. I simply said that I wasn’t going to wear it. It would have been different, if I had looked like a Jew. Those that knew me didn’t inform on me, and strangers didn’t even notice it. Of course I had to stop hanging out with my non-Jewish friends. Boys who I had played soccer with for Slavia were still my friends, but it wasn’t like before. There were even some among them that told the others: ‘Leave that Jewish boy, that Jew, be.’

I think that the first transport of Jews from Presov left on 22nd March 1942. On it were boys between the ages of 16 and 18. Then they also sent a girls’ transport out of town, but that one was turned back at Poprad. When my father found out that family transports were due to start, we hid. My father’s brother was already deceased at that time. He died in 1935 of pneumonia. I hid with my mother and father. Someone informed on us though, the guardsmen [Hlinka-Guards] 10 came and took us away. We were gathered in one schoolyard in town. The next day guardsmen came and announced to us that the Germans would ‘shine a light’ on all of us. They took us to the train station where we were supposed to be put on transports. There were 700 people there, and we were waiting for another 300 from Bardejov who were supposed to arrive by train. However, the train didn’t arrive, and because they hadn’t gathered together 1,000 people, which was how many were needed to make up a transport, they only sent us to Zilina.

In Zilina they separated us and we went to the local reception camp. From here my mother sent a note to her brothers. One of them had an Aryan fiancee, and she knew the commander of the Zilina reception camp. She was a former classmate of his. They let me and my mother go, and my father stayed in the camp as a doctor. In the end the Minister of Health put out a decree saying that the state had a shortage of doctors, and so no more doctors of Jewish origin would be let onto transports headed outside of Slovak borders. Aryan doctors were at the front, and many towns were without doctors. So that’s how we got to Hrinova. At that point very good times began for me. It was likely sometime at the beginning of August 1942.

In Hrinova there were no Jews or anti-Jewish sentiments. Once again I could run around outside with other boys. We played soccer and volleyball together. In the winter we skied. These new friends of mine took me everywhere with them. The boys and I hiked in the mountains. There was beautiful nature all around us, and that made up for everything for me. I’m a nature lover to this day. I had it relatively good. Despite this it wasn’t freedom, because we were still Jews.

Then when the Germans arrived, that was worse. We had to escape to Polana. We left Hrinova together with the army and police, heading towards Banska Bystrica. Luckily, on the way we met a group of soldiers somewhere near Banska Bystrica. They said, ‘Don’t go there, the Germans were already there.’ From the time we left Hrinova, we had to hide out. In Polana, at first the mayor himself hid us. People found out about it though; they also found out that my father was a doctor. People started going to the mayor, as he had a doctor there, and it started to get dangerous. So the mayor found us a hiding place with a local farmer, who he rented land to, he gave him a cow, and said, ‘You’ll get this, but you have to hide these people.’ Maybe we were also lucky because people always liked my father very much. They hid us in the mountains, here and there, because there were German patrols. Once we were in a place where only one single wall separated us from the Germans. I was sleeping on one side of the wall and the Germans on the other. When they coughed, I took advantage of it and coughed as well. If the Germans had found out that we were there, God save us...We were liberated in February 1945.

Grandma Schvalbova also hid with us in Hrinova. When we left there for Polana, grandma stayed. Imagine that when the Russians were liberating the village from German occupation, they threw a grenade into the house where my grandmother was hiding. They covered her with a blanket, and left her there, wounded. She was lying there like that for several days. She held on until we arrived. She saw me, kissed me, wept and died.

In the meantime my parents had returned to Presov. At home they found almost nothing. Our windows were broken, because Presov had been bombed. We didn’t find our furniture. During the war, some family from Kosice had been living in our house, from when the Hungarians had occupied Presov. After the war they moved out of our house. We got our house back without any problems, but later, when the Communists came to power, they took it from us. In the year 1948 they won the elections, and that was that. After the war, my father worked as a doctor for a hospital insurance company. My mother stayed at home. My father died in 1968 and is buried in Presov, in the local Jewish cemetery. I think that the Presov cantor Lowy buried him. Each year since, I recite the Kaddish. In the synagogue they announce that it’s the anniversary of his death.

Before the war, there were two Jewish religious communities in Presov, Orthodox and Neolog. After the war there remained only one community. Both communities had their own synagogue. The Germans turned the main, Orthodox one, into a stall for horses. In the other, the Neolog synagogue, the Jews who were still in the town during the war were taken care of. They fed them there, and they could also sleep there.

After the war

Right after the liberation I went to Banska Bystrica to study. Because I had been thrown out of school in Presov in ‘kvinta’ [fifth year], I did sexta and septima [sixth and seventh years] in Bystrica. I finished my education at university in Prague. I started my studies there in 1946, and finished in 1952. Right at that time, the Slansky trials 11 began, which also affected me. I think they must have affected everyone. Certainly it left a certain mark in every Jew. After all, there were rants of Slansky, that Jew, Zionist and so on. They knew about me too, that I was of Jewish descent. I didn’t announce it to everyone, but it was known. But there were also those that came to tell me that they didn’t agree with what was going on. No one knew, however, what was going to be. In the end they convicted 13 people, eleven of them to death. Almost all of them were Jews. It wasn’t a good period. Things eased around the year 1953, when Gottwald [Klement Gottwald (1896-1953): President of Czechoslovakia from 1948-1953] and then Stalin died. Then people started to talk about the beastly things that they had done.

I was also a member of the Communist Party 12. I joined the Party in 1945-46 and left it in 1970. That is, I left it, but didn’t leave it. They got rid of me, I was thrown out. After the war, I joined because I was enthused by the idea of communism. When you read the statutes and program of the Party, it was very humane. There, they talked about rights, about responsibilities, that we are all equal, that there are no differences, and so on and so forth. There was a big pile of these things, so people that were arriving, and had been in the camps [concentration and work camps] and had been persecuted – to them it seemed to be sensible. Then, to top it off, there were additional anti-Jewish sentiments in Slovakia, for example pogroms against Jews in Topolcany. So I saw salvation in the Communists. The Communists were supposed to be people that would protect us, but the opposite happened. Already in 1948, when they won the elections, I noticed that it wasn’t going to be the way we had thought. I realized that the Communists were an organization that ‘preached water but drank wine.’ In the 1950s, that was only its culmination. So even back then it didn’t sit well with me.

After I finished my dentistry studies at Charles University in Prague, I got a job at a clinic in Kosice, on Rastislavova Street. There I did three post-graduate certificates, in periodontology. Basically it was my specialization. I worked as a dentist in Kosice for two years, and then moved to Presov. I worked as a dentist from 1952 to 1991, when I went into retirement. I liked my work very much. I devoted myself solely to dentistry, concretely periodontology. I wrote one paper that was accepted at a diabetology congress in Madrid. I worked on it with one colleague, but he wasn’t a dentist, but an internist. We concerned ourselves with the influence of saliva on the gums of diabetics. My friend whom I worked on it with left for America, and in 1989 came to see me, saying that I should go there with him. I told him that I didn’t want to go any more.

In 1968 [see Prague Spring] 13 I was still young and full of hope. It was, after all, a little less restrictive regime. At that time the thing wasn’t that the Communists should step down. The thing was that certain things should be made accessible for people. That is, so that people wouldn’t be so limited, that they could travel. Then what happened, happened, and for the next 20 years we had it worse than before the year 1968.

During the time of the Communist regime, we took vacations everywhere where it was possible. Often we went to Bulgaria, twice we went to Yugoslavia, once to Italy, and of course to Hungary. Because I’ve been through a few Communist countries, I can compare it to the situation in Czechoslovakia. I think that our country was a showcase of Socialism. We really had everything here. The Germans were maybe a bit better off, but not in everything. Germans had to wait for a car for eight years, ten years, and then got a Trabant. So there were also positives here. It wasn’t all bad. But as far as the level of cultural development, freedom of speech and similar things goes, that was bad. During the time of totality we had family in many parts of the world, for example in Australia, Germany and the USA. We didn’t have any problems that we had family members living in the ‘West.’ Starting in the 1970s they visited us regularly.

I did my army service as a dentist in an army hospital in Kosice. So, one can’t say that I was in the army as such. Later I was even on army exercises. We also had exercises in the army hospital. When I was on call, ambulances had to report to me what calls they had had, and so on. Then I had to report this to the hospital commander. I had the rank of second lieutenant, and so I had it good.

There are of course many experiences connected with my army service. Once I was on duty in the army hospital in Kosice. I had my own room there, and signed leave papers for the soldiers. One older man from Kosice, who was on army exercises, came to me and asked me for a permit. He told me that he wanted to be with his wife in the evening, could I make it until midnight. Midnight came, and he was nowhere to be seen. At 1am someone pounded on my door. I opened it. Before me stood two guards with the soldier that I had lost. ‘Please sir, we caught him in a cafe, what should we do with him?’ The man was afraid of what was going to happen to him. But he was very lucky; they punished him by forbidding him further leaves. Then I asked him why he hadn’t asked for a permit until 2 or 3am, that I would have signed it for him, and why hadn’t he returned? He told me that he had gotten into a fight at home with his wife...Those were the kinds of laughs we had in the army. It was good army service. The soldiers liked to go out with me, because I didn’t need a permit. In the coffee house they would sit down with me, because when soldiers would go around and check permits, they wouldn’t ask anyone sitting with me, because I was a second lieutenant. It was a gas.

I met my wife in an interesting way. Even before we had met for the first time, I had heard about her from one young Jewish guy in Prague. He told me that he knew this one young 17-19-year-old girl in Zilina. I didn’t know whom he was talking about, and wasn’t even interested. By coincidence my mother was at some spa with a family lady friend. She asked my mother about her family. She said that she had a son who was a doctor, aged 28. And this lady friend said, ‘is he single? Because, you know, I have a friend, she’s got a daughter, she’s about to graduate, she’s also single, and we’d like for her to have a Jewish boy.’ The women arranged it, as if all that was left for me to do was simply get married.

My mother told me about it, that she had met a lady who had a friend in Zilina, and that that friend had a daughter...In short my mother told me about it when she came back from the spa. The first time my wife and I met was in Zilina. I said to myself, ‘buddy, you’re already an old goat, it’s time to maybe settle down.’ Twenty-nine years gone, it’s time to get married. So it was arranged and we came to Zilina. An uncle of hers, whose place we were meeting at, was waiting for us at the train station. We sat down at his place, drank coffee, and then she arrived, my future wife, and we started to talk. I said to myself, ‘nice-looking girl,’ which is of course very important. You know, I have to blow my own trumpet a bit: I was going out with a girl in Prague, who was so pretty that everyone, almost everyone turned around to look at her; she was a very nice-looking woman. Of course she left me; that’s the danger with pretty women.

In Zilina we agreed that at Christmas I would go skiing to the Krkonose Mountains, and would stop by on the way back home. I was returning home from Krkonose, but we were an hour late. The train was supposed to arrive at 10pm, but arrived at 11. I was traveling with a friend, and I said to him, ‘Listen, I need to make a phone call to that family.’ And he said, ‘If you call now, you’ll wake them. They’re sleeping, it’s almost 11:30.’ So I let it be, I didn’t call. I got home, where she called me. It was good manners, to not say anything.

After some time she had an interview in Kosice. Her parents called me, asking whether I could find a hotel for her. My mother heard this, and said, ‘No hotel, she’ll stay at our place, I’ll be responsible for her.’ And she really did come to Kosice, we went to a cafe together, then dancing, and then home to Presov to my parents’ place. We got to know each other a little better, I knew what her opinions were, and I knew that she was a very smart girl. Though she had a lot of suitors, they gradually fell away. In the summer I traveled to Zilina, and we used to go to Strecno. I had an old Opel in which we would drive there. We took in the beautiful countryside, and everything else, and decided to get engaged.

We had a Jewish wedding in Zilina. Cantor Halpert from Zilina married us. For our honeymoon we went to Prague. This was in the year 1954. I remember our honeymoon very well. We had reserved a sleeping car on the train from Zilina to Prague. However, the train that arrived from Banska Bystrica had no sleeping car, as it had been disconnected at Vrutky due to a malfunction. The wedding guests were very entertained by this incident. In the end my wife and I, Judit Schvalbova, nee Donathova, settled in Presov.

I don’t know how religious of a family my wife came from, you know, I didn’t go to the synagogue with them. But I think that they were reasonably religious. My wife’s uncle was the ‘minyanman’ [a person that fills in the number of Jews, so that a minyan is reached, the minimum of ten men necessary for public prayers] in Zilina, so he went to the synagogue on both Friday and Saturday. If he would have been missing, theoretically they couldn’t even have had a service. After our wedding, our entire family went to the synagogue, including my parents. My wife even observed the fasts, but not I. For the bigger holidays I even took time off.

As far as the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 is concerned, for me as a Jew it has little significance. The state was a guarantee that the status of Jews in the world will be different, that’s one thing, and the second is that if some problems arise again, people will have someplace to go. Today Israel has the opportunity to come forward, whether in the UN or wherever, and express its opinion. During the Israeli wars I was very angry, because the Communists presented the entire situation the wrong way around. They branded Israel as the aggressor, while the opposite is true. You know, there are recordings that show the Arab leaders talking about how they’ll drive all Jews into the sea. The Communists twisted it around and people believed it. When something is repeated many times, it’s said that even a lie becomes the truth. However, I don’t recall anti-Jewish sentiments from that time. Only in television and radio, they accused Israel of aggression.

I visited Israel for the first time in 1992. The entire country surprised me, in the positive sense of the word: the housing developments, how they were able to turn the desert into fields, their whole irrigation systems. How, with such a lack of water, they were able to ensure a developed state that was able to compete with any other country in the world. That means that Israel is viable. Today it’s a developed country, that is agriculturally industrial, that has such economic successes that others learn from it, mainly those that go there to work. That is something incredible. And then the cities that they built, people see that. As opposed to the Arab side: an Arab has a beautiful house built, but around it there’s nothing, a wasteland. A Jewish village isn’t built as luxuriously, but houses have gardens, greenery, trees and so on. Those are the differences.

Because of course not everything is positive, just like in every person, so in Israel, too, you can find something negative. The thing that made the most negative impression on me were Orthodox Jews. We were in one neighborhood, and right away you recognize that something’s not right. These are the jarring elements, but otherwise Israel is a very nice country.

After the year 1989 [see Velvet Revolution] 14 big changes took place in Czechoslovakia. These also affected the Jewish religious community in Presov. Before, it was a community only on paper. There was one chairman, who did what he was told. After the war the community didn’t get any property back, so we had nothing. People were afraid to go to the synagogue. Such were the times, but despite this some people attended secretly. I myself went on only the major holidays. I wasn’t religiously inclined and also I didn’t want to risk anything. After all, it was a small state, and it wasn’t good when they designated you as unreliable. Today people don’t go to the synagogue very much, just during the major holidays, but now it’s a completely different situation. Now there just aren’t enough people. In the last few years those of us that were persecuted during World War II have begun to get money from the Claims Conference.

Currently I am the vice-chairman of the Jewish religious community in Presov, but it’s only an honorary function, I’d say. As far as synagogues are concerned, that’s a little worse: a person would have to see them to know what state they’re in. Look, it’s fair to say that once there was a synagogue in every town in Slovakia. Wherever there were 50 Jews, they built a synagogue. These synagogues disappeared after the war. But the rest prosper, some less, some more. Now these things are being exposed to the wider public, even TV sometimes broadcasts something. Back then [before 1989] no one rather said anything. It was a different situation.

Certain changes took place in my personal life as well. I could for example travel freely. I was in the USA, Switzerland – there where before I couldn’t go. I didn’t have to worry about any informants, and that someone was watching me. I wasn’t afraid before either, but in this political system a person is conscious of freedom. Well, and of course exceptions of the type ‘you’re a Party member, you’re not,’ stopped being made. You can, you can’t. There was a lot of negativity in that. In fact it was mostly negative. But larger changes didn’t happen in my life; after all, I did have my years and was in retirement.

The separation of Czechoslovakia was also something that could be expected. You know, there were always such tendencies. Maybe it’s also because according to me it’s not good to always listen to a certain refrain that was sung by certain nationalistic parties. For my part, I was never in favor of it being divided. After all, during those decades something had been mutually created. When a person looks at it from my viewpoint, the viewpoint of a person that isn’t considered to be a born and bred Slovak, separation was a mistake. But when you ask people here, most of them will tell you the same thing. However, you can also find a few of those that will say that it’s better this way. In politics it was all caused by Klaus 15 and Meciar 16. Everyone was sick of it, and in the end we split up. After all, now we’re in the European Union, and it doesn’t matter any more. Currently the political party that’s closest to my views is the SDKU [Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, leader Mikulas Dzurinda]. Lately though, Dzurinda’s 17 statements aren’t the best.

Glossary