Tag #124627 - Interview #78517 (Leon Yako Anzhel)

Granny Olga didn’t let Roza go away with anything. Granny Olga was even trying to find her suitors. But she wanted suitors with proper jobs, money, and social status. Not someone like me, who worked hard and was a hired laborer like her, and nobody knew who I was and why I was like that. That was what I heard from friends. That was the way our relationship began.

Before Roza met me, Granny Olga was extremely strict with her. She didn’t let her out. There was even one case on 22nd June [23] when World War II was beginning. It was Sunday and I had an arrangement with her to go and see a friend who had been called to the Jewish labor groups in 1941 along the Iskar River. His name was Zhak Benbasat. We had to meet at the corner, in front of her place. I was waiting for her to come, but she didn’t show up. Suddenly her sister came out. She said, ‘Larry, she can’t, mum will not let her out, go alone.’ I went alone, took the train to Svoge [South-West Bulgaria, 32km from Sofia] or some other place, to Bov Station and they announced on the radio that the German forces had invaded the Soviet Union. And that was one reason why they didn’t allow her to come. It was as early as 1941.