Tag #125892 - Interview #98885 (Bitoush Behar)

A couple of days before 9th September 1944 my father came home and said ‘They’re liberating the political prisoners.’ And we all ran to the prison. Somebody there said: ‘Don’t go home, all of us will manifest together.’ We separated into two columns – one of the columns went over the bridge of Gherdzhika, the other one – over the old Karlovsky Bridge and the two columns met here in front of Dzhumayata and the speeches started. Then we went to the Police Inspectorate, which was functioning as a town-hall at the same time, and they started pushing the policemen and making them go outside. They didn’t surrender that easily; they even tried to shoot several times and injured one of our Jewish boys in the leg. And after that we went to the monument in ‘Hristo Botev’ Street. There was a symbol in front of it – the Latin letter V – for victory. Then somebody said: ‘This shameful sign cannot be left before the chief and the teacher of the communist movement in Bulgaria! Smash it!’ And we tore the flowers to pieces in seconds. On 9th September we first met and greeted the partisans from Sredna Gora Mountain and later the partisans from the Rhodopi Mountains – the first at one exit of the town, the others – at another. At that time the song ‘A Partisan is Preparing for Battle’ was extremely popular.


My brother was released from prison and the family was whole again.