Victoria Behar

This is me in 1941 as a student in the French College in Sofia before our internment to Dupnitza. As a child I went to a Jewish nursery school where I studied Hebrew. My sisters didn't go to kindergarten. We studied in a Bulgarian school in Sofia. Afterwards, I entered the 1st grade of the French College. My favorite subject was chemistry. I didn't have a favorite among the teachers because they were all very considerate and exceptionally tolerant. I only visited the religious classes in the Old Testament. All Jewish students in the college were exempt from the New Testament classes. If someone wanted to, they could go to those classes, but we didn't. We were friends with everybody, regardless of nationality. As for my spare time and friends, the times then were more patriarchal and my father was a strict man, so I mainly stayed at home. I didn't take part in the events of the Jewish youth organizations of the time. Although I was in the French College, I very much wanted to continue to study Hebrew and I enrolled in classes at the Jewish school, which were for people who didn't study there. But I only went a few times because the Defense of the Nation Act was passed. The rights of the Jewish population were limited and my parents forbade me to go there, as they were afraid that something bad might happen to me. Soon after that, the Jewish school was closed and all Hebrew lessons were stopped. I could only go to the regular school.