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This is a picture of Mordo Iakov, one of my father’s brothers and his wife Estreya Iakova in Pleven in 1943 when Jews were obliged to wear yellow stars.
My father, Mois Iakov Moyseev, had two sisters and two brothers. The sisters were called Bohora and Rica. His brothers were Haim and Mordo. Mordo lived in Pleven and later in Israel, and had two children.
I don’t remember Mordo and his wife very well, because they lived in Pleven, and I lived in Sofia. As for the yellow stars - the Jews wore them for identification. The Law for the Protection of the Nation was brought into force in 1941. Section 2 of this law focused on the persons of Jewish origin. The Jews were obliged to show their origin with the relevant documents and wear the yellow stars by which they were identified. The law also limited the recruitment of Jews in state companies, the amount of property they were allowed to have and the cities they could live in. The Jews were obliged to remove the -ov, -ev and -ich endings from their family names, which were typical for the Bulgarians.
