Tag #125619 - Interview #78561 (Sofi Eshua Danon-Moshe)

The Gypsy [Roma] children in Pazardzhik had found out that the Germans were persecuting Jews. They had shoe-cream boxes and the Germans went there to have their boots polished. In order to show that the time for paying had come the Gypsy child would tap its brush on the box which was the signal for ‘Come on, it’s time to pay.’ The German would often show that he didn’t have any intention to pay. And do you know what the Gypsy would reply, ‘Come on, man, do I look like a Jew?’ The fact that the Jews were unwanted and persecuted was well known. Those words meant, ‘I’m not a Jew whom you don’t pay, who you torture, who you persecute…’

There were Armenians, Jews, and Gypsies in Pazardzhik. Some Armenians, but not a lot, the wealthier ones who owned shoe and watchmaker’s shops in the main street, ingratiated themselves with the Germans and tried to show their solidarity. They tried very hard because Armenia was part of the USSR and they had to show that they had nothing to do with the Soviet Union.