Selected text
Rumors were circulating that we would be sent to Germany to work there. My mother supposed that since I was young, I would be sent to work somewhere without them. I remember that we had some gold family jewels. She divided them into three parts – for her, for my father and for me and sewed them into the hems of our clothes.
In my winter coat she sewed a gold bracelet, a pair of earrings and a ring and told me, 'Sell these things only if you have nothing to eat.' Those jewels were not found during the arrests and searches later on and I had completely forgotten about them. But when I got home on 9th September, all my clothes had to be boiled in a big cauldron. My mother remembered the jewels and took them out.
We also had silver coins with the image of Boris I from 1942. My father also had a number of them. He took out the threshold board between the kitchen and the room, dug a hole in the ground and buried them in a metal box. After 9th September we found them there and by selling them we survived the first days after the Holocaust.
In my winter coat she sewed a gold bracelet, a pair of earrings and a ring and told me, 'Sell these things only if you have nothing to eat.' Those jewels were not found during the arrests and searches later on and I had completely forgotten about them. But when I got home on 9th September, all my clothes had to be boiled in a big cauldron. My mother remembered the jewels and took them out.
We also had silver coins with the image of Boris I from 1942. My father also had a number of them. He took out the threshold board between the kitchen and the room, dug a hole in the ground and buried them in a metal box. After 9th September we found them there and by selling them we survived the first days after the Holocaust.
Period
Year
1943
Location
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interview
Stela Astrukova