Tag #122918 - Interview #78508 (Mayer Rafael Alhalel)

I remember 23rd August 1944 clearly, because it was just before my escape from the last labor camp. On that day partisans from the Lovech squad ‘Vasil Levski’ [25] came to our camp. I knew some of them, who were from Lovech, like my cousin Albert Vaida. He died in the first stage [of the Bulgarian participation] of World War II, in Stracin [today Macedonia], as a political dissident. We met the partisans and gave them our food. We had a very evil and cruel supervisor, whom we complained about to the partisans. They sentenced him to death immediately. At that time the partisan squad had its own jury. They shot him. But 9th September 1944 was approaching and our stay in the camp was becoming just a formality. So, all the people from the camp and the partisans held a meeting, at which some of us decided to escape.