Tag #126533 - Interview #78468 (Shimon Danon)

The Jewish community in Pazardzhik numbered some 900-1,000 people. There were about 350 families with 3-4 persons on average. There were streets known as Jewish streets. There were only two Armenian families in our street and one Bulgarian in the next one. It is not true that there wasn’t any anti-Semitism in the Bulgarian circles. There was fear of Jews, as well as envy for the support that we gave each other. The notion that Jews are ‘blood-drinkers’ was constantly imposed on Bulgarian children. [The interviewee refers to the century-old blood libel accusations.] Fights between Jewish and Bulgarian children from close neighborhoods happened quite often. There was always someone who shouted, ‘Why do you drink Christian blood? Why do you slaughter Christians?’ and so on.