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But during the Holocaust following that racist anti-Jewish law [see Law for the Protection of the Nation] [12] the authorities started gathering us in Jewish labor groups. And they forced us to work extremely hard. I had just recovered from a serious illness, pleurisy, and I was very weak. From 1941 to 1942 I was in a labor camp in the village of Tserovo [see forced labor camps in Bulgaria] [13]. There was a man who forced me to dig four cubic meters of soil every day. The pathetic thing was that after 1944 the same man came to cringe before me, because he found out that I was working in the police.
In these camps they made us work beyond our abilities - I was really at the end of my strength. This was a physical assault on the Jewish population. I realized that I wouldn't survive life in the camp and ran away. The labor camps were not like the concentration camps. In them the Jews had to do hard physical labor. Escape from such a camp was possible, but you could be sued. I was sentenced later by default. For my partisan activities I was also sentenced to death, again by default.
Shortly after that, in March 1942, I was caught and sent to the 'Enikioy' [Thrace, present-day Greece, near Ksanti] concentration camp where I was until November 1942. During that time my sister Dora was also in a camp, although she was married to a Bulgarian [Jews married to Bulgarians had some protection - they were not forced to wear the distinctive yellow star.] All the Jews who weren't in camps were interned - they were banished from Sofia and forced to live in misery.
But I was in such a poor state that I even lay in hospital in Gyumyurdzhina [a small town in Thrace, present-day Greece, now called Komotini]. I was sick, I was suffering and nobody gave me any medication. A nurse came every morning, opened the door to check if I was still alive... and no help, they only put a blanket over me. Elena [Kirilova Elazarova, nee Kehayova], my wife, even sent an appeal to the minister, but this didn't help. In fact, this was financially not acceptable for the police, because four people guarded me 24 hours a day. All the time I tried to explain to them that war was disastrous, that there would be grave consequences for the state. And little by little they started to trust me. They started taking me to the police station where they listened to BBC Radio - the news from the war front and how things were going. So my words were of some use after all.
The people from the village also realized that I wasn't a criminal and started bringing me food and fruit. So, I gradually recovered. Every other day I received a basket of fruit and that way I regained my strength.
In these camps they made us work beyond our abilities - I was really at the end of my strength. This was a physical assault on the Jewish population. I realized that I wouldn't survive life in the camp and ran away. The labor camps were not like the concentration camps. In them the Jews had to do hard physical labor. Escape from such a camp was possible, but you could be sued. I was sentenced later by default. For my partisan activities I was also sentenced to death, again by default.
Shortly after that, in March 1942, I was caught and sent to the 'Enikioy' [Thrace, present-day Greece, near Ksanti] concentration camp where I was until November 1942. During that time my sister Dora was also in a camp, although she was married to a Bulgarian [Jews married to Bulgarians had some protection - they were not forced to wear the distinctive yellow star.] All the Jews who weren't in camps were interned - they were banished from Sofia and forced to live in misery.
But I was in such a poor state that I even lay in hospital in Gyumyurdzhina [a small town in Thrace, present-day Greece, now called Komotini]. I was sick, I was suffering and nobody gave me any medication. A nurse came every morning, opened the door to check if I was still alive... and no help, they only put a blanket over me. Elena [Kirilova Elazarova, nee Kehayova], my wife, even sent an appeal to the minister, but this didn't help. In fact, this was financially not acceptable for the police, because four people guarded me 24 hours a day. All the time I tried to explain to them that war was disastrous, that there would be grave consequences for the state. And little by little they started to trust me. They started taking me to the police station where they listened to BBC Radio - the news from the war front and how things were going. So my words were of some use after all.
The people from the village also realized that I wasn't a criminal and started bringing me food and fruit. So, I gradually recovered. Every other day I received a basket of fruit and that way I regained my strength.
Period
Year
1942
Location
Komotini
Greece
Interview
David Elazarov