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As I said, my sister, Rene Isak Gershon, was seven years older than me. But before I was born she had another brother, whom I don’t remember much, because he died early. His name was Albert Efraim Levi. He was named after our paternal grandfather. My sister was a very gifted woman. She wasn’t only charming and beautiful, but also smart, artistic and musical. She also spoke many languages. But she was unfortunate, because when our whole family moved from Salonica to Sofia in 1939, she hadn’t completed her secondary education yet. She had been studying in a private French school in Salonica, which was very distinguished. She wanted to become an aero-engineer. When we were banished from Greece for being Bulgarian nationals and went to Bulgaria, she already had a boyfriend: Eliyau Shlomina, a Jew, whom she knew from school. Unfortunately, he stayed in Greece. He joined an illegal partisan group who saved themselves from the Germans by escaping to the Balkans. But they failed: we learned that after 9th September 1944 [7], the authorities in Greece caught and executed them. They were all Jews from Salonica.
I remember when in the fall of the fateful year of 1939 my family had just got on the train to Bulgaria, my father noticed a ring on my sister’s finger. ‘Eli gave it to me,’ she said. My father said, ‘Do you know what that means?’ ‘If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have taken it,’ she said. It was later that she learned that her boyfriend had been shot. At that time a distinguished Sofia bachelor became close to her. His name was Isak Gershon. Being an 18-year-old Jew, he was mobilized to labor camps [see Forced labor camps in Bulgaria] [8]. He escaped twice from his camp, to go to Pazardzhik where my family was interned [see Interment of Jews in Bulgaria] [9] and meet his beloved.
I remember when in the fall of the fateful year of 1939 my family had just got on the train to Bulgaria, my father noticed a ring on my sister’s finger. ‘Eli gave it to me,’ she said. My father said, ‘Do you know what that means?’ ‘If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have taken it,’ she said. It was later that she learned that her boyfriend had been shot. At that time a distinguished Sofia bachelor became close to her. His name was Isak Gershon. Being an 18-year-old Jew, he was mobilized to labor camps [see Forced labor camps in Bulgaria] [8]. He escaped twice from his camp, to go to Pazardzhik where my family was interned [see Interment of Jews in Bulgaria] [9] and meet his beloved.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Jul Efraim Levi