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I spent nine and a half months in the camp - from January to October. This was a malaria area and many of us went down with malaria. Within a year and a couple of months I was ill with malaria three times. The doctor was also a Jew; his name was Dr. Jacques Behar. He explained to me that they didn't have the medicine usually given to patients with malaria - quinine. At that time all the quinine was sent to the German army and only its substitute called Atabrine, which gave the skin a yellow tint, could be found in Bulgaria. They gave us this substitute and our skin turned yellow.
One of my most vivid memories from the labor camp is the passage of the deported Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia through Bulgaria. Those territories were occupied by the Germans and annexed to Bulgaria during World War II. 11,382 Jews were deported irrespective of their age. Loaded into narrow wagons, they passed by us. We worked near the old narrow-gauge line and constructed the new railway line, which is used nowadays. We saw the tragedy of those people. They were transported to Gorna Djumaya, then transferred to wide wagons and deported to Poland, into the gas chambers. All that happened after the signature of King Boris III, which is his heavy sin.
While I was in the camp, my family - my wife, her parents and my child - were interned to Chirpan [a small town near Plovdiv]. There were around 48,000 Jews in Bulgaria and the plan was to send half of them to towns in Northern Bulgaria, and the other half to Southern Bulgaria. This was done in order to prepare the Bulgarian Jews for deportation to Poland or Germany. At first the order had been to send my wife's parents to Chirpan and my wife to Razgrad in Northern Bulgaria. With the help of the commissariat in Plovdiv, where we knew an employee, Nina's accommodation order for Razgrad was torn apart and a new one was written for Chirpan where her parents were. So, my wife received help from her parents.
One of my most vivid memories from the labor camp is the passage of the deported Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia through Bulgaria. Those territories were occupied by the Germans and annexed to Bulgaria during World War II. 11,382 Jews were deported irrespective of their age. Loaded into narrow wagons, they passed by us. We worked near the old narrow-gauge line and constructed the new railway line, which is used nowadays. We saw the tragedy of those people. They were transported to Gorna Djumaya, then transferred to wide wagons and deported to Poland, into the gas chambers. All that happened after the signature of King Boris III, which is his heavy sin.
While I was in the camp, my family - my wife, her parents and my child - were interned to Chirpan [a small town near Plovdiv]. There were around 48,000 Jews in Bulgaria and the plan was to send half of them to towns in Northern Bulgaria, and the other half to Southern Bulgaria. This was done in order to prepare the Bulgarian Jews for deportation to Poland or Germany. At first the order had been to send my wife's parents to Chirpan and my wife to Razgrad in Northern Bulgaria. With the help of the commissariat in Plovdiv, where we knew an employee, Nina's accommodation order for Razgrad was torn apart and a new one was written for Chirpan where her parents were. So, my wife received help from her parents.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
haim molhov