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The first time I got on a train was when the Law for the Protection of the Nation was passed and I was fired from my work as a merchant. Some months later I was sent to a labor camp. My first labor camp was near the village of Chepino in Kara Tepe [‘black hill’ in Turkish] village. We made an illegal UYW organization in the camp. Then I was in a labor camp in Tryavna. In 1942, a week after I returned from the camp in Tryavna, two policemen and three guards came to our house and started taking all our possessions outside. The table was laid for dinner, the burning stove was still on. It was a cold November day. But the house was not ours, we had rented it. During the Law for the Protection of the Nation it was given to the driver of the German consul. But our possessions were untouched. We managed to keep some of it in the basement, leaving other possessions at our neighbors'.
We were given two rooms to live in at my uncle Moreno Atias' Can Factory. We put the rest of our luggage there. We had a folding table, we put a mattress on it and used it as a bed in the evening. The rooms had been used to store cans before that and smelled very bad. When the interned Jews from Sofia came my parents brought four people to live with us: my aunt Flora, my uncle Isak and their two daughters, Matilda and Beya. We lived in the factory until 1949 when my relatives left for Israel.
In 1943 I was sent to a third camp. I continued the illegal activities there. But we failed, because of a very good friend of mine, who made me escape from the camp. Marko Behar and the doctor, whose name I don't remember, gave me the address of Angel Vagenshtain [23] in Blagoevgrad. We went to their place. His mother didn't know why we were looking for him and told us that he was not at home and he would not come back.
We were given two rooms to live in at my uncle Moreno Atias' Can Factory. We put the rest of our luggage there. We had a folding table, we put a mattress on it and used it as a bed in the evening. The rooms had been used to store cans before that and smelled very bad. When the interned Jews from Sofia came my parents brought four people to live with us: my aunt Flora, my uncle Isak and their two daughters, Matilda and Beya. We lived in the factory until 1949 when my relatives left for Israel.
In 1943 I was sent to a third camp. I continued the illegal activities there. But we failed, because of a very good friend of mine, who made me escape from the camp. Marko Behar and the doctor, whose name I don't remember, gave me the address of Angel Vagenshtain [23] in Blagoevgrad. We went to their place. His mother didn't know why we were looking for him and told us that he was not at home and he would not come back.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Yako Yakov
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