Tag #123049 - Interview #95883 (Gitli Alhalel)

When the Law for Protection of the Nation was adopted in 1942 we were not allowed to leave Kale, nor go to school or leave home very often. At that time the advantage was that we could easily enter the neighbor’s yard through doors in the fences. So, all of us, the children, passed from house to house all the time, without going out on the street and spent all the time together. In fact, that helped us much to go through that period. Thanks to those small doors between the yards, we even saved people who were sought to be arrested. For example, the famous anti-fascist Asen Balkanski [The only thing the interviewee knows is that his origin is Bulgarian. He was born in the village of Chuplene, Belogradchik region and around World War II he escaped to Yugoslavia. There is no further information about him.] - commander of a Yugoslav partisan squad hid in the basement of my friend and neighbor Mimi Pizanti for a long time. In the end, a phaeton was arranged for him to leave the town, but he was caught at the border with Yugoslavia and shot as a political prisoner.