Leon Pinkas

This is my father, Leon Avram Pinkas, as an officer in the Bulgarian army, photographed in Serbia, in 1917. He sent this photo as a remembrance to his parents from his military service. My father was born in Svishtov in 1893. As far as I know he finished his secondary trade education in Svishtov, then he was a merchant in Vidin, where he rented a shop and sold groceries. My father took part only in World War I and had the rank of lieutenant. He met my mother in Serbia during World War I. My mother Lenka David Pinkas [nee Beraha], was born in Pirot [today Serbia], but she lived in Skopje [today Macedonia] with her family. They were Serbian Jews, but they lived later in Macedonia. My parents married in Vienna in 1920. I know no details of their wedding, because they never talked about it. During World War II like most Jewish men my father was sent to labor camps, but he didn't work as a labor service man, because of his military rank during World War I. He was sent to Svoge, which was close to Sofia.

The Centropa Collection at USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". 

Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).