Travel

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov

Date of interview: June 2005 

Nissim Kohen views himself as a typical representative of the Jews from Iuchbunar   1. He spent his childhood and adolescent years there, surrounded by large families of relatives. He feels responsible to tell the events from his life precisely and in detail. He lives in a cozy, modern flat in a block, which was built on the site of the house he was born.

I am convinced that my ancestors came from Spain 2. I suppose that at first they settled on the territory of former Yugoslavia and later they came to Bulgaria. I do not have any concrete information on that, these are my conclusions. Unfortunately, there is no one to ask about that now.

I suppose my paternal grandparents Nissim and Amada Kohen were born in Sofia. It is interesting that they were first cousins. That was allowed by the Jewish tradition. They lived in the Jewish neighborhood in Sofia – Iuchbunar. Most of the Jews lived there. I also come from Iuchbunar.

My grandfather's house was on 12 Slivnitsa Street. Later the street was renamed to 7 Gyueshevo Street. Our house was made of adobe and at first it had only one room and an entrance hall. Later another room was added as well as another extension, which was the house of my uncle Rafael Kohen. My father's elder brother Eliya Kohen also lived in that yard. His house was the most solid one. My father Mihael Kohen took a half of one of my grandfather's rooms and enlarged it. He also built another room with a small entrance hall where he lived with his family. There were some inconveniences. The toilets were outside and we had no running water inside. There was a tap on the street, which we used. We had electricity. Later we had running water in the yard, but not in the house. The street, on which we lived, became all muddy when it rained. And so did most of the streets in the Jewish neighborhood.

My grandfather was a leather worker. He had a small workshop in the center. He made shoes of calf and horse hide called 'opintsi'. Those shoes were low and shallow. They were closed and were made of processed or unprocessed leather. They were pointed, the color of the leather and had shoelaces. Our grandfather's kin was called 'los konyos'. This is a combination of Bulgarian and Ladino 3. It means 'people who work with horses'. My grandfather and uncle Eliyah bought horse hide, tanned it and sold it. That's how their nickname appeared. My grandfather had a small beard and he wore a hat. He was fair-haired and a little stooped. He was a wise man and his word was respected in the family. We spoke to him in Ladino. My grandmother was always ill and rarely went out of the house. Sometimes she stood on the doorway in the yard or in front of the house. She was a wise woman with a very good memory. She knew a lot about many people, although she stayed mostly at home. My parents looked after my grandparents. My mother did all the housework.

My father had three brothers – Eliyah, Rafael and Azarya Kohen. The eldest one, Eliyah Kohen, was a cobbler. The next one, Rafael Kohen had a workshop for mending shoes in the center of the town. He took to drinking and lived very miserably. Before going home, he would stop in a pub and since he was in much debt, he had to get home using less traveled roads so that he would not meet any of the people whom he owed money.

Later he moved his workshop in our house. The third brother of my father Azarya worked as an adolescent for the Arie family 4 in Samokov 5. That was a rich family, whose house is now a museum. The Arie were in the leather and the banking business. My uncle was a leather worker. He worked for free, because my grandfather had taken money from them to build his house. There my uncle learned the craft and decided to start a leather business by himself. He also lived in the Jewish neighborhood on Shar Planina Street and Tri Ushi Street. I had a lot of cousins in Sofia. There were nine children in the families of my uncles who lived in our yard. Uncle Eliyah had four children – Mindusha, Moshe, Sofka and Hemda, and uncle Rafael – five – Buka, Simanto, Nissim, Elazar and Milka. Uncle Rafael married Buka-Miriam (nee Toledo) who was from Provadia 6. Uncle Azarya had a girl – Hemda, who lived and died in Sofia. His wife's name was Buka, nee Konfino and was born in Shumen 7. My father Mihael Kohen tried many things in life. He spent eight years in captivity during World War I 8. He was held captive by the French army near Salonika (Greece) as a soldier from the Bulgarian army. After that he worked as a tinsman. He took part in the construction of the roof of the first building of the Sofia University 9. He traded with second-hand products. Later, together with an uncle of my mother's Chelebi Haravon, and with the active help of my uncle Mois Haravon, he managed to set up a haberdashery on Lomska Street [present-day George Washington Street, near the central Sofia synagogue], but those were the years of the great crisis 10 in 1929-1932 and he was forced to close it down. Then he started work as a street vendor and walked around the neighborhood with a tray selling elastic cords, tights and haberdashery. Then he made a warehouse selling coal near our house. At that time people could not afford to buy a lot of coal and came to buy 5-10 kilos. In this way my father was able to support us and helped the people in the neighborhood. That continued until the passing of the anti-Jewish laws 11 when he was forbidden to work.

My mother's kin comes from Kyustendil. My mother's parents Yuda and Bohora Haravon lived there. I went there every summer when I was a student in the first grades of the Jewish school. My grandfather was a tinsman and my grandmother – a housewife. My mother's kin is very large. She had six brothers – Yosif, Rahamim, Shimon, Nissim, Chelebi and Mois Kohen. What is interesting about them is that my grandmother's parents left as early as the beginning of the 20th century, around 1906-1907 to the blessed land (Palestine at that time) to die there. They left their lands, their children and set off. My mother Sarina Kohen was 8-9 years old then. As far as I know my grandparents have graves in Jerusalem.

There were a lot of Jews in Kyustendil. They had their own synagogue and a community house. My grandparents lived in the Jewish neighborhood, which was around the synagogue. I remember that they lived in a small house, which had a ground floor and another floor. A relative of my grandfather's lived on the ground floor. His name was Manoah, and on the next floor lived my grandfather's family and my uncle Isak Haravon.

My maternal grandfather had two sisters Reyna Elazar and Sara Elazar, who had many children. They both adopted the family name Elazar after they married, but I do not remember if their husbands were relatives. Both sisters were very different. Sara was more talkative and funny and the other one was stricter and more aristocratic. My grandfather was the eldest. He was a silent, but a pleasant man.

My mother had four brothers – Buko-Aron, Chelebi, Mois and Isak Haravon and two sisters – Sofi Haravon and Victoria Eshkenazi. The eldest one, Buko-Aron Haravon was a shoe merchant. He lived in Sofia and died in 1951. His wife is from Sofia and her name is Matilda. They had two daughters – Liza and Bienvenida, who was killed in 1944 as a partisan. Chelebi Haravon was a tinsman and sold coal. He moved to Sofia, where he opened a warehouse for combustibles. His wife was born in Sofia and her name was Buka. He died from apendicitis in February 1938. They had three children – Leon Haravon, who was killed as a partisan, Sofi Mayer, who left illegally for Palestine in 1945 and Nissim Haravon, who died in Israel. He was a composer. Mois Haravon was also a merchant. He went to Sofia when he was young. In 1930 he married his wife Roza Katalan, who is from Sofia. They left for Israel during the big aliyah 12. They have two sons – Leon and Gavriel, who live in Israel. My mother's youngest brother Isak Haravon, was an electrical technician. He lived mostly in Kyustendil. He was a fan of Tolstoy 13 as regards moral and character. He did not drink and he was a vegetarian. His wife's name was Matilda, nee Benaroya, and she was born in Berkovitsa. They left for Israel. They have two children – Ida Levi, who was a housewife and Yeuda Haravon, who worked as an electrical engineer. Isak Haravon and his family lived in Ramat-Gan. One of my mother's sisters Sofi died very young while giving birth. About her I only know that she married a Jew from Botevgrad [a town in northwestern Bulgaria]. My mother's other sister Victoria Eshkenazi, married in Sofia. Her husband's name is Gershon Eshkenazi and he was born in Ruse. She was a housewife and her husband worked in the enamel factory [factory, producing dishes for Sofia]. They moved to Israel and she died there. She did not have any children.

My parents met in an interesting way. During World War I or probably at the end of the war, my uncle Azarya Koen was injured and was sent to the family of my mother in Kyustendil to be looked after. There he decided that my mother would be the perfect for wife for his brother, my father. After the war ended and my father returned from captivity, his brother Azarya told him that he had found a very nice girl from Kyustendil for him. My father retorted that he did not need a wife and Azarya should marry her if he liked her so much. But his brother was already married. There were other attempts to bring them together at that time. But in the end, they met by accident when my mother came from Kyustendil to visit her brother Buko Haravon. Later it turned out that she was the girl that uncle Azarya was talking about to my father. They liked each other and got married. Their wedding was in 1922 in Sofia. In my family my mother did all the housework and she helped my father who had a warehouse for coal near our house.

My mother had graduated primary school and started studying in a vocational school, which she did not finish due to lack of money. She kept her notebooks from the vocational school for many years. They contained sewing designs, which can be drawn only by a professional designer nowadays. My mother had a hard life. She had two more boys after me, but they died. My first brother Leon was born in 1927 but he died of diphtheria in 1933. In 1929 my second brother Albert was born. He died in 1934.

My mother got seriously sick of typhus. At that time Leon, my younger brother, and I were sent to my grandmother's house in Kyustendil and my father took care of my mother at home. When she was pregnant with my sister in 1937, my mother had a serious appendicitis crisis. A surgeon from the Jewish hospital in Sofia 14 came and ordered them to transport her to Sofia for an operation. My father made a stretcher out of blankets and with the help of the neighbors we transported her to the hospital, where she underwent an operation. Some months later my sister Sofi was born. In the beginning of 1938 a lot of people close to my mother died – firstly, her brother Chelebi and then her mother, who had come for the funeral of her son. Then in the summer of the same year her father died. The same year, 1938, I got very sick of acute typhus and was admitted to hospital. While I was in the hospital, there were the so called 'blockades'. Streets were blocked by soldiers and no one was allowed to go out. Those blockades were set up when governments were replaced and when there were serious changes in the power structures. They lasted for a couple of days. Blockades were also set up when illegal people were searched for. I do not remember the reason for the blockades when I was in hospital. Then my mother stood up to the soldiers and wanted to come and see me in the hospital but she was not allowed.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning my parents and especially my mother went to the synagogue. There was a midrash near us. [Editor’s note: There is no exact data on the number of midrash in Sofia. That midrash must be the Iuchbunar synagogue where rabbi Daniel Zion organized meetings.] My mother went to the meetings organized by the rabbi Daniel Zion 15 who had a very high reputation, encouraged charity and taught the Talmud.

My mother was clever and hard-working. She read books in Ladino. I think she got the books from acquaintances. At home we had Bulgarian literature, which we took from the community houses. There was a Jewish community house on Klementina Boulevard [present-day Stamboliiski Blvd] and on Lege Str. I also took books from the Bulgarian community house on the corner of Tsar Simeon Str. and Bregalnitsa Str. Its name was 'Hristo Botev'. Thanks to my mother I learned to read a little in Ladino in Rashi. She had a beautiful handwriting and expressed herself very well. Her Bulgarian was also very good. Uncle Mois Haravon also expressed himself very well. He wrote to us very good letters in Bulgarian from Israel.

Our neighbors in Sofia were mostly Jewish families. On our street 'Gyueshevo' there were Bulgarian families too. Most of the people were traveling salesmen and Bulgarian families. There were a number of grocery stores, some barber shops, cafes and pubs. Iuchbunar was like a hotel for many people. They came here only to spend the night and spent all the day working as salesmen, or workers in factories and tobacco warehouses. Almost none of the Jews in Iuchbunar worked as clerks on a state or municipal position. I do not remember knowing such Jews, except for a cousin of my father's who became a director in the Bulgarian Post. I started work as an electrical technician, but after an illness I experienced, I started work in a trade company. After the adoption of the anti-Jewish laws I went to work in the enamel factory producing dishes.

My father and his brothers were not members of any Zionist organizations but they had their political affiliations. My father voted for the left political formations – mostly for the socialists. I know that at some time the famous general Lazarov ran for a deputy. During the Balkan war and World War I the general was a commander of a regiment including many Jews. They worshiped him and he expected to receive wide support from the Jewish neighborhood. My father always spoke about him with pleasure and love. But the general did not manage to gather enough votes.

The Jewish rites were strictly observed. We did not mix milk and meat meals. At home we had separate cutlery for meat and for milk. We also had separate dishes for Pesach. Before the holiday we cleaned the house thoroughly and whitewashed the walls. The children received presents. Presents were also made on Purim and Rosh Hashanah. On Yom Ashekel there were marches and money was raised for the Jewish National Fund. On that day all Jewish organizations gathered on the streets around the Jewish school in Iuchbunar. I remember that there were arguments whose flags to be first during the march. It started from the Iuchbunar school, passed along Klementina Str and reached the center somewhere around Lege Str. All members of Jewish organizations were dressed in the respective uniforms. They sang songs in Ivrit and Maccabi had a brass orchestra and drums. A lot of Jews took part. One street was not enough for us all. After the march the children went to play sports games in the yard of the Jewish school and the adults went to a meeting in the Jewish People's Home. The Jewish National Fund was a structure of the World Zionist Organization of Chaim Weizmann, Max Nordau etc. In August 1937 I had my bar mitzvah. I made a promise with a speech towards my parents. While the other children had the speech made by a chazzan or a rabbi, my speech was written in Bulgarian by the Ivrit teacher in the Jewish school Mr. Benmair. The bar mitzvah was done at my uncle Azarya's place. A lot of guests with many presents came. My grandfather was still alive and was also present.

When my grandfather was still alive, on Pesach we gathered in his room together with my father's four brothers and their families. The table was long. On one of its sides there was a minder (a low and long bench) and on the other side there were chairs. 20 people could sit on that table. In the middle of the table we placed the three boyos [special unleavened bread without salt] and a plate with seven meals and the so-called ‘charoset’ [mixture of nuts, fruit, wine and other ingredients for the Pesach ritual, which represents the mortar used while in slavery in Egypt], which was made of apples, honey, walnuts and maybe dates. At first, we performed the ritual of washing the hands. The women presented a basin to my grandfather and to us all to wash our hands. Then we drank a glass of wine. My grandfather drank a little wine and read the prayer. We accompanied him. One of the boyos was broken in half and put in a towel, which the children carried on their backs to show that they were leaving to Israel. The food was festive. There was usually soup of matzah and boiled hen. The matzah was dipped in egg and placed in the soup to boil for a while. Another typical dish on that day was leaks balls.

In Sofia, especially for Pesach, one or two bakeries were hired and after they were meticulously cleaned, they were used to make matzah and boyos. Boyo was different from matzah. While matzah had a tiny crumb, boyo is round and looks like a thick bun. It does not rise, because it does not have yeast. There was a period, when only matzah was made in the bakeries and my mother tried to make boyos at home. Boyos were very hard and we called them 'brick'. What was left from the boyos after Pesach was used as rusk. It was delicious dipped in tea or eaten with cheese.

Hens were bought alive from the market and brought to the shochet to be slaughtered. There were two places where hens were taken. The first one was at the central synagogue and the other one – at the Iuchbunar synagogue. Later, after 9th September, when there was no longer a schochet, my parents asked a neighbor to slaughter the hen. Another typical dish for Pesach was burmolikos 16, which were made of matzah and eggs. They were sweet or salty. At home the sweet ones were dipped in sugar syrup or covered with powdered sugar. It was usual for Pesach to put lettuce on the table. We ate matzah or boyo for eight days.

On Purim the Jewish school organized a fancy dress ball. The Jewish school had a very good choir led and conducted by Mr. Aladgem. The famous opera singer Mati Pinkas started from this choir. I remember a school celebration of Tu bi-Shevat. The whole school gathered in the gym together with the children's parents. There were a lot of songs, the tables were covered with fruit, there were many people.

The so-called 'buying off' was typical for Jewish families. If a large family had only one boy and a lot of girls or vice versa, the boy could be bought by one of the relatives. That is 'el mercado' in Ladino, meaning 'bought'. That was done to save the life of the only one. The relatives who had bought the child, received presents on Purim. A nice tray with a small present was prepared – some sweets or masapan and it was presented to the one who had 'bought' you. And that person bought shoes and clothes for the child. I was bought by a relative – Hemda Kohen, who is daughter of uncle Azarya Kohen, and my mother had 'bought' a neighbor on our street.

There was a tradition among Jews, similar to fooling fate. When there was someone seriously sick, the chazzan went to him and if his name had been Avram, he received a new name, for example Nissim. The reason for the new name was that if the man was sentenced to death as Avram in the 'list', he would be saved with his new name. And sometimes it worked. An aunt of mine, wife of my uncle Buko Haravon, Matilda Haravon, had her name changed. Nevertheless, she did not recover, and died soon after that.

Jewish traditions were strictly observed in our family. On Sabbath my father did not go to work. My mother did not light a fire and prepared the meals on Thursday or Friday. According to the Jewish tradition you are not allowed to work and should not allow your cattle or your slave to work on Sabbath. Sabbath is for all. In the winter when it was very cold my mother cleaned the stove and filled it with coal. Then she asked a neighbor who was not a Jew or a passer-by to come and light the fire.

On Pesach we played with walnuts. The girls arranged two or three heaps of walnuts and aimed at them from a distance. They won the heap that they managed to hit. The boys also played a game with walnuts. We made a small hole in the ground next to a wall and we threw walnuts in the hole. The walnuts which landed in the hole were won by the boy throwing them. There was one more game with walnuts. Every boy received two-three walnuts. They formed a line and tried to hit other walnuts placed on the ground with theirs. If they managed to hit a walnut, they won it.

At home we never ate on [Yom] Kippur. While I was a child, that rule was more strictly observed. When I grew up and started learning things, it was not so strict. We had a saying that 'the Jewish child becomes worse when growing up'. On [Yom] Kippur we went to the Borisova Garden where we rowed boats. Mati Pinkas sang a very nice song 'Oh, Jerusalem nights' in the evenings there. During the day on [Yom] Kippur the children took a quince, sprinkled it with clove and smelled it all the time not to feel hungry.

On Purim children put on fancy dress clothes and went from house to house. They sang songs, told poems and received money. We used what we could to make masks. Some children turned the inside of their coats out, others wore their pajamas. There was a song sung in Ladino 'Last night I ate cheese pastry and my tooth fell. Give me money, to fix my tooth.' That was a joke song.

We celebrated Chanukkah. We did not have candlesticks. Then we used float lights. In a glass bowl filled with oil, we placed paper with a small hole in the middle. We pushed a wick made of cotton through the hole. One of the cotton ends was in the oil and the other end was lit. We made ten such bowls. Every day we lit one of them. We made the candles for Sabbath in the same way.

There were around 10 praying homes in Sofia. There were societies, which took care of the funerals. [In the 1930s there were a lot of Jewish charity societies such as 'Kupat Tsedaka and Bikur Holim', 'Moasim Tovili', 'Malbish Arumim'. There were also religious and funeral ones – 'Chevra Kaddisha', 'Oavim and Orhot Haim'.] They were at a synagogue which was on Bregalnitsa Str. There were the so-called midrashi next to our house. They were small praying homes for around 30-40 people. My father visited such a praying home on Odrin Str.

There were two Jewish schools in Sofia. One of them was in Iuchbunar on Bregalnitsa Str. and Pozitano Str and the other was in the center of the town. There was a synagogue next to the Jewish school in Iuchbunar. For a time while we were students, we went to the synagogue in the neighborhood on Saturdays to pray. The adults went from 9 to 10 am and we went after them. We were in junior high school then and prayed separately from the adults.

I studied in the Iuchbunar school. I also went to nursery school. We started studying Ivrit in the nursery school. We learned songs and fairy tales in Ivrit. In the first grade we had a teacher who taught us reading, writing and maths in Ivrit. We also studied Bulgarian. Until the fourth primary grade we studied all subjects, such as reading, writing, botanics, mathematics etc. in Ivrit. We studied in the mornings and the afternoons. The classes were mixed. Our classes were from 8 to 12 and from 14 to 17. We also had physical education. After the fourth primary grade, in the junior high school grades, all subjects, except the Jewish ones, were in Bulgarian. The Jewish subjects were learning the Torah, Jewish history and Jewish literature. We had both Bulgarian and Jewish teachers. We also had teachers from abroad. Those who taught Ivrit were mostly from Poland and Russia. Our teachers were very good, but they were not well paid. I remember that they were on strike once for not receiving their salaries. The salaries were provided by the Jewish municipality.

From first to fourth grade our Ivrit teacher was Ashrieli and our maths teacher – David Pilosof. Then, in the higher grades I remember Mr. Dembovich, teaching Ivrit, Torah and Jewish history, Benmair – in literature and grammar, Mr. Temkin – in Torah and Jewish history. Mr. Temkin also taught in the central Jewish school.

Jewish schools were the so-called 'private schools' and that is why after the third junior high school grade [present-day seventh grade] we had to sit for an exam in front of a commission formed by the Education Ministry. For a couple of months we had to revise and learn well everything we had learned in Ivrit from first to fourth primary grade so that we would be able to talk about it in Bulgarian in front of the commission. We were very well prepared in Bulgarian language and in maths. In our class 19 of the 30 students received excellent marks. I remember that even the newspapers wrote about our success. It was thanks to our teachers and to the fact that there was a natural selection among the students through the years. What was typical about Jewish schools was that in the first grade we were three or four classes and until the last junior high school grade only one remained. There were many reasons for that. Firstly, it was hard to study in the Jewish school because of the language. Secondly, education was all the day. All the other schools studied until one o'clock in the afternoon but we studied in the mornings and in the afternoons. Thirdly, many of the people in the Jewish neighborhood were poor and wanted their children to start working from an early age in order to help the family. So, some of them were sent to Bulgarian schools, and others were sent to work.

The Jewish school was between Osogovo Str, Bregalnitsa Str and Pozitano Str. There was a synagogue complex on a part of Pozitano Str. There were two yards. The Jewish school had two buildings – a new one and an old one. The nursery school, first and second primary grade were in the new one and the other classes were in the old one. The new building was opened in my time – approximately around 1930. I was among the first students who entered it. What was typical for the times was that the children living in the center of Sofia near Hristo Botev Blvd studied in the central Jewish school. The other children studied in the Iuchbunar school. The classes consisted of 35 to 37 children. But gradually that changed and children from Iuchbunar went to study in the central school, because the number of children there was declining. Some of my classmates had to move to the central school in the last grades. There were three classes in the nursery school, and there were 35 – 40 children in each one. There were at least three classes in the first grade. The number of students in the classes declined throughout the years and in the last junior high school grade there was only one class of 35 students.

A lot of the subjects in junior high school [three grades after the four primary grades] were in Bulgarian. Zoology, anthropology, physics, chemistry and maths were in Bulgarian and Jewish literature, Jewish history and the Torah were in Ivrit. We graduated junior high school in third grade, which is equivalent to present-day seventh grade. We had various teachers. Most of them were very talented. Our music teacher Aladgem later became famous as the conductor of the Army orchestra. He did his military service in the King's Symphony Orchestra and in the school he was replaced by the artist Yosif Yosifov, who also became famous later on. We had very good teachers. We had a maths teacher Nikola Shopov. Unfortunately, he did not teach me, but everyone spoke about him with veneration and they said that after he died, his brain would be given to research because he was extremely clever.

We had a lot of fun at school. Once a rabbi from Serbia came and wanted to organize a choir at the synagogue. But he did not know Ivrit. We were already members of Zionist organizations and we tried to talk in Ivrit. That man got into very funny situations with his bad Ivrit. Instead of asking us 'Are you in the choir?', he would ask 'Are you in a hole'. In Ivrit 'choir' means 'a hole'.

I learned Ivrit at school. We studied the Torah, Jewish literature and history. We were obliged, but also willing to talk in Ivrit. My parents knew only a few words in Ivrit. My mother knew more than my father because she had studied four grades in the Jewish school. She could read in Ladino in Rashi. She read books in Ladino.

I graduated high school in 1938. In 1937 the son of King Boris III 17 was born – Simeon II 18 and then all our marks at school were raised one point. No one was expelled for bad marks. There were also students who received the mark of 7 [6 is the highest mark in Bulgarian schools.]

The Jewish school was the focus point of all Zionist organizations. Those were Hashomer Hatzair 19, Betar 20 and Maccabi 21. Other organizations such as Akiva and Akara gathered in the Jewish People's Home. I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair. All organizations educated their members during meetings, marches, gymnastic exercises. In Hashomer Hatzair they focused on scouts education, cultural activities and preparation for leaving to Israel as pioneers in the new country. In Maccabi they focused on exercise and Betar – on military discipline. There were neverending disputes between the members of these organizations.

Before Hashomer Hatzair I was a member of Maccabi, when I was a student in third or fourth primary grade. Soon after that our whole group transferred to Hashomer Hatzair. We were there until 1941 when Jewish organizations were disbanded and then I became a member of the UYW 22. Hashomer Hatzair was a left scout’s organization. It was an educational organization characterized by a love of nature and freedom. Once or twice every week there were meetings of the boys' groups, the girls' groups and the mixed groups. There was a group uniting the members at a certain level of development. That level was defined by age – children, students and adults. During the meetings we discussed books and exchanged information on many topics. We discussed a famous book at the times 'Discussions with a philosophy teacher' by Trachtenberg. That is a German author, whose book was on Marxism. The discussions were in Bulgarian. We played Kuntsovi games – in quickness of wit and guessing. [Interviewer’s note: He says that they called the games 'kuntsovi'. He cannot explain the name. Would that be 'kunst' games? I suppose it might come from German – kunst meaning art in German. Also, there are some tests and theories in psychology – it might be one of them.] For example, we had to guess the object by its smell or its sound – for example, whose watch was ticking. We also played games in nature – searching for tracks and uncovering hidden objects. In the summer mountain camps were organized, the so-called 'mashabot', I went to Tsigov Chark area in the Rhodope Mountains. The Hashomer Hatzair members had a uniform. It was with a different tie depending on the level of development. The green tie was for the children, the blue one – for the adolescents and the black one for the adults. Each group had its flag. The organization in Maccabi was similar. But they put more focus on exercise. Their uniforms consisted of white blouses and black trousers. Betar and Hashomer Hatzair had different views on what kind of state Israel should be. We advocated for a mixed binational state, cultivation of the land, development of agriculture, while they advocated winning the land with a weapon in hand. They sang a song about the Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River.

Hashomer Hatzair considered itself a more leftist, younger-oriented and more vigorous organization than the others. The meetings took place in the building of the Jewish school after classes. There we also played people's ball and volleyball. It was a leftist organization and that is why it was close in ideas to the UYW. That is why, sometimes the Jewish municipality did not allow Hashomer Hatzair to stay in the yard of the school. Then we met in some park – usually the town's park. Later, around 1938 the organization opened its own club on Klementina Str (present-day Stamboliiski Blvd) at the streets Osogovo and Stara Planina. Now that location is changed and the old buildings do not exist any more.

Political issues were seriously discussed in Hashomer Hatszair. There was the so-called 'Court of War'. That was in the beginning of 1939. Each of us took the position of a certain party in a conflict, which was controversial at the time and we discussed the issues of war and peace. I represented China, others represented Germany or Russia, England, France. Everything was like a game. We invited all members of the organization and we sat on a table in front of them as judges, prosecutors and defenders. The idea was to defend peace and condemn war.

In Hashomer Hatzair we raised money for the Jewish National Fund 23. There were different ways to raise money. One of the ways was on Purim, another – in the synagogue during a wedding. A third one was on Yom Ashekel. On Purim a group of people went from house to house of Jewish families with blue and white money boxes to ask for donations, with which the Jewish National Fund bought land. Most of the people in Iuchbunar were not rich. We did not know where to go and knocked on three or four doors. It was harder with the blocks of flats outside Iuchbunar. But we looked at the family names on the doors and knocked only on those with Jewish names. In this way, we raised a little money. There were also funny moments. We made jokes with the expression 'The missis said she was not at home' – that is, there were cases when a maid opened the door, went to announce who was at the door and what we wanted and then returned to say that the missis was not at home.

Another way of raising money was at weddings. We usually placed a box labelled 'Keren Kayemet le Israel' (Jewish National Fund) at the entrance of the synagogue. So, everyone passing by, could throw something in the box. And the third way was on Yom Ashekel. That is the day, which was close to our holiday Lag ba-Omer. On that day Zionist organizations organized marches. Young and old gathered at the Jewish school, formed lines and started marching towards the center. I do not remember any special reaction of the society to our marches. On that day the children carrying money boxes raised money for the purchase of land.

In Hashomer Hatzair we prepared ourselves to become pioneers and leave for Palestine. With the announcement of World War II, the chances of leaving decreased. That is why, we, the members of Hashomer Hatzair, in our desire to fight fascism became close with UYW and many of us joined UYW. That merge happened in June – July 1941 when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The UYW were organized by the community houses in the neighborhoods. Our meetings also took place there. The structure was the following: there was a neighborhood leadership, below it a section leadership and below it UYW groups working in a specific sector. I was working in the crafts school in Sofia. The goal was to establish UYW groups there through meetings and propaganda. The meetings were done at houses, during an excursion or in a park. My parents knew about my activities, because some illegal UYW friends spent the night at home. My parents were sympathetic to us.

It was typical for Jews in Iuchbunar to say that their education ended after junior high school. In Ladino that was the expression 'skapado di shkola'. We had to look for work and we went from shop to shop and workshop to workshop to ask if they needed apprentices or workers. I started work as an electrical engineer for some Bulgarians. I installed chandeliers. I also went to electrical technical courses organized by the organization for professional development of Jews 'Ort' 24. That was from September 1938 until January – February 1939. Then I got sick of typhus and could not continue. Later, in 1942, I started work in a trade company. The anti-Jewish laws were adopted then and its owner, who was a Jew, had to close it down. Then I started work in the enamel factory. Its owner was Valentin Velyaots. The owner's wife was a Jew and he also had progressive [i.e. leftist] ideas. I did not have any problems with him for being a Jew. He also had an employee of Russian origin, who was the main decorator and did not like Jews. I also worked as a plumber – I helped a friend for 15 – 20 days, but we did not receive any money. Later I started working for a man named Nikolov, who produced metal boxes for cosmetic creams and tins. We worked very well together, but unfortunately, while working with the metal press I cut a part of my finger. That was the end of my work in that company. It also coincided with the worsening of the situation of Jews in 1943 when the internment started 25.

We were forced to wear badges [yellow stars] 26 soon after the adoption of the Law for Protection of the Nation. Then the troubles for the Jews started. Labor camps 27 and many limitations were set up. They placed boards on the companies, shops and houses of Jews as well as boards 'made by Jews'. We, for example, had a board 'Jewish house'. I could work but only during the day, because we were not allowed to go out after 6 pm. As for the general attitude of the Bulgarians towards the Jews I could say that there were nice and malicious people. Yet, most of the people sympathized with us. In our neighborhood a couple of demonstrations against the anti-Jewish laws took place. I took part in one of them and in the famous demonstration on 24th May 1943 28. I can say that the Bulgarians in our neighborhood defended us.

There are some things in history, about which it is difficult to say if they are true or not. Let's take for example the demonstration on 24th May 1943 – who organized it and who made it. It seems that there is more than one truth. I put aside the attempts to cover up the truth, to deny or extol the moment. In the end everyone has their own point of view and a moment they remember or have forgotten. What I saw was the following. When the message that the internment will start appeared, discontent rose among the Jews as well as calls for protest. On 24th May 1943 leaders of the Jewish community such as rabbi Daniel Zion and colonel Tadjer and some other representatives of the consistory tried to meet with the king and negotiate the cancellation of the internment. I think that while waiting for them to return and see what had happened, people started to gather in the synagogue in Iuchbunar. My friends, who were UYW members, played football in a nearby playground. I stayed with them for a while and when I was leaving I noticed that many people were gathering around the synagogue. I went back and told my friends that there were many people in front of the synagogue. We also went there. Someone shouted 'let's go forward' and we all started our demonstration along Osogovo Str and then Klementina Str carrying the Bulgarian flag in front of us. In my opinion that demonstration happened accidentally, but meanwhile there are people whom I trust and who say that the previous evening, on 23rd May, they were visited by communists who agitated them to take part in the protest.

I think the demonstration continued until Sredna Gora Str and Strandja Str. There were police cars there, who dispersed the people. A friend of mine and I took Strandja Str in the direction of the Central Station, we went round the neighborhood and went home without any problems. Throughout the day and the next day people were arrested. The rabbi Daniel Zion was sent to the prisoners' camp in Somovit.

Shortly before the internment some of my Bulgarian colleagues from the metal can factory came to see me. That was a while after I cut my finger. Later, a little after 9th September 1944 29 one of my colleagues from the same workplace came to see me. He said that a neighbor of his had taken our family chest, which we had left at home during the internment. We wrote a request to the police and managed to get it back. It is still with us and now it is in my daughter's flat. So, my colleagues and my acquaintances, who were Bulgarians were kind towards us.

Before the internment, but after we already knew that we had to leave our houses, the Jews from Iuchbunar tried to sell their belongings and something like a market was formed in the neighborhood. Everything was sold almost for free. Two women came to us and wanted to buy our wardrobe. They were very sympathetic and gave us their address so that when we came back, we could go and take our wardrobe back. But later we did not go to look for it.

My whole family – my parents, my sister and I, were interned to Dupnitsa. We had a manual sewing machine and my mother insisted to take it with us. My mother had made separate bags for everyone because we did not know what might happen – whether we would be together or not. Every family received an individual notice about the internment.

We travelled to Dupnitsa by train. A cordon of police, spread out up to the center of the town, met us at the station. My mother had a cousin there – Mati Shekerdjiiska. She lived in the center and had two rooms. Her family had four members. We stayed at her place from the first night. We were very thankful for her hospitality. There were limits imposed on our movement around the town and the places, where we could shop. There was a special Jewish bakery, which was the only place we were allowed to buy bread. Its bread was much worse than the one in the other places. Some people sympathized with us, others harassed us. There was a group of young men who chased us and beat us. I do not know if they were Branniks 30, they were more of vagabonds to me.

It was quite crowded in our house and we had to move to another flat near the Jewish neighborhood. As for work, we did all kind of work we could find. For example, we took part in the renovation of the high school, and in the construction of the water conduit in the town. I also worked in a brigade at the station. There were many warehouses in the station and a group of 7-8 people loaded and unloaded the wagons. They invited us to join them and took care of us. They had a lot of work they could not get done alone and what they couldn't, they passed to us, the Jews. They also protected us from people who harassed us. When there were sacks with grain or corn, we filled up our pockets as much as we could. We took off our coats, filled them up with corn and tied them like bags. In that way we managed to provide food for our families and the people living around us. Once there was some trouble at the station. Some cartons used for the production of cigarette boxes arrived. We started unloading the wagon but someone had stolen a few cartons. They were an exact number and the owner found out. A Jewish boy and I were blamed for that. The policemen took us to the police station and beat us. We were held there until late at night. We denied everything and they had to let us go. The moment we stepped out, another policeman arrested us for violating the curfew. After a couple of hours we were once again released.

We had to find another flat in Dupnitsa because other relatives of Mati Shekerdjiiska came and it got very crowded there. We shared our new flat with other interned families. My father did not work because he was sick. The eight years he served in the army during the Balkan War and World War I had affected his health.

In Dupnitsa I received a summons for the Jewish labor groups and in June 1944 I was sent to Lovech. We built the road Sofia – Lovech. From there we observed the American bombers, also called 'fortresses', which were flying to Romania and we hoped that they would bring us freedom. Once the camp was attacked by partisans with the goal to frighten the commandment and release some people. We filled a cart for them with walnuts and food. That took place in August 1944 when Prime Minister [Ivan] Bagryanov was replaced and we were allowed to take our Jewish badges off. Around 7-8th  September the same year we were already anticipating the coming of the Soviet army and the labor camps were disbanded. There were six labor groups around Lovech. We left the camps. No one could stop us any more. We traveled to Pleven. In the evening I took the train to Sofia together with the political prisoners from the Pleven prison, who had broken free. So, on 9th September 1944 I was in Sofia. There were soldiers everywhere. I traveled to Dupnitsa and arrived at noon. The people there were waiting for the Red Army and the men of Zhelyu Demirevski 31. When I left my baggage at my parents', I enrolled as a volunteer in 3rd Guard Regiment led by the legendary partisan commander Zhelyu Demirevski. There were a lot of other Jewish volunteers too. I think we were around 50 people. Overall, around 60-70 Jews from Dupnitsa took part in the Fatherland war [Bulgarian Army in World War II] 32. Some of them were mobilized and others were volunteers.

We fought in the area between 1st and 2nd Bulgarian Army. That was the region of the volunteers' division commanded by Slavcho Transki. Our task was to liberate the town of Boyanovats and intercept the Germans between Skopje and Belgrade. Many people died in the fightings, including the regiment commander Zhelyu Demirevski. I returned in the end of December 1944. Some of the soldiers - volunteers or the so-called 'guards' from 3rd Guards Regiment were discharged because they had already done their military service. Those who were younger were also discharged. And the others, like me, who had not done their military service yet, had to do it in the country.

My military service was in Sofia. We were accommodated in the school 'Vassil Drumev' and 134th School, which were close to our house. In the end of May 1945 we were moved to Botevgrad. Then an order was received that those who had already spent some time serving should be discharged. In August 1945 I completed my military service. I started working in a warehouse doing repairs, but I got sick and quit for some time. Then until 1949 I worked in the glass factory Stind in Orlandovtsi district as a sorter and worker. Later I started work in the co-operative 'Mashinostroene' [Machine Construction] and I was in charge of the supplies for the workers – I rented flats for them and arranged the food supplies. Then I started work as head of the personnel department in the machine construction company 'Orel' and worked there until 1950.

In 1950 the Bulgarian government decided to establish the so-called 'Workers' Candidate Student School'. It was similar to the Russian 'Rabfak' [Worker’s Academy] 33. It was for workers who wanted to prepare to study at university. The goal was to educate a group of specialists who would be loyal to the authorities. I entered the school in 1950. For an year and a half I took all the high school subjects. I studied maths, history, literature and natural sciences, but I did not study music and painting. Then I entered the Chemical Technological and Mineralogical Institute.

While I was studying at 'Rabfak', I met my wife Sofi. She was working as a printer and was also studying at 'Rabfak'. When we graduated, we became even closer friends. She entered the Higher Technological Institute and studied machine textile engineering. The studying was very hard for us because we were not prepared very well, but we focused our effort and managed to graduate. At that time, in 1952 we got married and went to live in the house of my parents. My degree is in selicate industry, although I was also working with the famous then inorganic technology. My fondness of glass directed me to selicate materials. When I graduated the institute, I started work in the Stind factory, where I had worked for a while before. By 1947 Stind had been a small factory in Orlandovtsi. There were other similar factories in Sofia – in Nadejda district, in Gorna Banya etc. After the nationalization in December 1947 all small factories were united under the name 'Stind'. I started work as an engineer in the factory in Gorna Banya. Later I also worked in the factory in Nadejda. Then I decided to apply for the post of a teacher in the technical high school on glass and fine ceramics. I taught analytical chemistry there for a year. In the end of 1959 I started work in 'Design Organization'. It changed its name and structures a lot through the years. It was also named 'Promproekt', 'Zavodproekt' etc. Nevertheless, from the beginning until my retirement in 1984 I worked on the design of glass factories.

I have two daughters – Rina Kohen and Jana Geron. Rina graduated the secondary polytechnical school in Sofia. She works in accounting. My other daughter Jana has a degree in statistics from the Economy Institute and works in the Statistics Institute. She is married to Mishel Geron and has two sons – Emil and Mihael.

Many changes took place in Jewish life from 1945 to 1950. People returned from the internments and faced many difficulties in finding places to live. Jews died in the war or as partisans. People had to start their lives anew. The Zionist organizations  abolished by the Law for Protection of the Nation appeared once again. Those were Maccabi and Ehalutz, which continued the traditions of Hashomer Hatzair. Some Jews wanted to immigrate. Ben Gurion came to Bulgaria. He negotiated with the Bulgarian government the immigration of Jews. Before that, in 1941 on the eve of the signing of the pact with Germany many young people left for Israel. So, now their parents wanted to go to their children. Many people left from 1948 to 1950 [the Mass Aliyah]. At one point I also wanted to live and applied. But I was much influenced by the ideas of a new life in Bulgaria and I believed that origin would not be of matter any more. We believed in the socialist ideas. I thought that in the future there would be no problems to travel wherever you liked. My parents were also old and sick I could not leave them. Probably many people left and stayed, it is hard to find the right number. There was Zionist propaganda but I do not know if that was what convinced the people to leave. Certainly, Zionists were the people who helped people to leave. They provided steam boats and took care of the people when they arrived in Israel.

All families on my father's side and most of those on my mother's side left for Israel. I do not have many close relatives here. We wrote to each other regularly when they left. But to my regret, I did not write much. My mother kept the contact with our relatives in Israel. I went to Israel for the first time in 1981. Then I got in touch with more people and wrote them more often. During the wars in Israel [Six-Day-War] 34 [Yom Kippur War] 35, I do not remember how we kept in touch with our relatives. The diplomatic ties between the two countries were broken at that time 36. We worried about our relatives. We did not receive much news about the situation there. During the war in the Persian Gulf when Iraq bombed Israel, we phoned regularly our relatives there.

In 1962-63 as employees of design organizations we were able to get a flat. We lived there until 1985 when blocks of flats were built on the site of the house where we were born and we received a flat in one of them. When my daughter Jana married, my wife and I went to live there.

My sister Sofi is much younger than me. She was born in 1937. She was interned to Dupnitsa with us. She studied in the Jewish school which after 1945 became a Bulgarian one. She graduated the Pedagogical Institute and was a teacher in a primary school in Sofia. She was a respected teacher in chemistry and maths. In the 1990s she left for Israel but she came back. She lived on the upper floor of our block until she died. She married Rahamim Komfort, who was born in Dupnitsa. He was a machine mechanic. They have two children – Mihaela, who left for Israel and Nissim who lives in Sofia.

After 9th September 1944 we did not stop celebrating the Jewish holidays. We have a tradition to gather with our children. We have always lit candles on Chanukkah. My mother went to the synagogue when she could. Even when she was not able to go there by herself, we drove her and then we took her back. I did not have any problems to accompany my mother to the synagogue. It could have had negative consequences, but I personally did not have any problems. During totalitarianism the religious followers were persecuted. Yet, I have not heard of any Jews arrested for visiting the synagogue. My mother died in 1991. She went regularly to the synagogue until 1990.

I did not have any problems for being a Jew at my workplace. There were some minor incidents on work issues, but nothing out of the ordinary. In the 1950 some Jews on high positions were fired, but I was never on such a position.

The entering of the Soviet forces in Hungary in 1956 37 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 38 was supported by Bulgaria. People thought that socialism was threatened. Those were the times then. Now Bulgaria supports the USA in the war in Iraq. But I was strongly opposed to the Revival Process 39. I do not think such measures should be taken towards gypsies, or Turks, or anyone in Bulgaria.

We had a neighbor near our old house, who was among the people I trusted the most. During the internment he strongly defended the Jews. I was curious what his opinion was on the Revival Process. To my regret, he was against the Turks. I see things from the human side. Everyone has their right to speak their mother tongue and believe in their own religion, if they do not disturb the others. But interstate relations between Turkey and Bulgaria were also involved here and the problem was more complex. I do not know if I am right, but my opinion on that issue was very firm.

In 1981 a colleague of mine invited me on a visit to Leningrad [present-day Saint Petersburg]. He was a Russian Jew in a design organization and we made a project together on the glass factory in Razgrad. His name was Ilya Faintich. In Razgrad glass production with Soviet machines was introduced and the project was mostly a Soviet one. We met a couple of times and I wanted to visit the Soviet Union. So he invited me. In Leningrad I had an embarrassing situation. An officer in the police station interrogated me about who I was and what I was doing there in order to fill in an address card. All that was because of my Jewish origin. That cast a gloom on my stay in the city. What's more, there were anti-Jewish posters on the walls in the police station. I think that the negative attitude towards the Jews after 1944 was not an ideology, but introduced by people who wanted to preserve their positions in the power structures and were malicious in nature. That is, it is all up to the individual person. Now Ilya Faintich and I exchange postcards for our birthdays. Sometimes we phone each other. We speak in Russian. Ilya Faintich and his wife Irina Solomonova now live in Germany.

My wife and I were not rich, but we were both engineers and we managed to lead a comfortable life and go on holidays. We received vouchers for tourist holidays homes allocated to the design organizations, in which we worked. Every summer we brought our children to the seaside resort of Kiten.

Now I visit the Jewish home [Bet Am] 40 regularly. I lead a group of 18 people speaking Ivrit. We meet once every two weeks. We read in Ivrit and visit each other. I also visit the meetings of the 'Golden Age' club every Saturday ['Golden Age' club is established in 1999, where 30-40 Jews gather every Saturday. They have guests who are famous personalities, musicians, artists, economists, politicians. That is one of the most active and interesting clubs in the Jewish Home in Sofia.]

As for the trips to Israel – sometimes they allowed us, sometimes not. I do not know on what they based their decision. Once some friends of mine from Sofia – the Ninyo family came to me after a trip to Israel. They brought me an invitation from a friend – Marcel Lidgi and I applied to the police station for a permission to leave. Then I was sent on a business trip for a week and when I got back, I received my permission. Then I applied for visas and I had to decide if I wanted to travel by plane or by ship. I also applied for a Greek visa in case I decided to travel by ship, but I did not use it, because I used a charter flight. I spent five weeks in Israel. Marcel Lidgi is one of my friends from Sofia. He is the husband of a classmate of mine from the Jewish school – Mati Amar. We were together in Hashomer Hatzair and in the UYW. Now we still keep in touch. They left for Israel in 1950. They live in Tivon, near Haifa. They also visited us in Sofia. I still keep in touch with my UYW friends. They were mostly Jews. About 90% of my friends now are Jews. I also had Bulgarian friends. Now I mostly meet with the people from the Bet Am.

It is difficult for me to evaluate the changes in Bulgaria after 1989 41. There were definitely many imperfections during communism. But I am convinced that the situation got worse after 1989. I do not know if we would live better after we enter Europe. On the one hand, it is nice to lift the borders between countries, but on the other hand, we could lose our Bulgarian culture and identity in this world globalization. Yet, the world is heading towards that.

Translated by Ivelina Karcheva

Glossary

Ruzena Deutschova
nee Rozalia Eilander
Galanta
Slovakia
Interviewed by: Martin Korcok
Date of Interview: September-October 2004

Ruzena Deutschova lives in a house with a garden in Galanta. This lively elderly lady wasn’t always without emotions during our meetings when she told us of the extraordinary events of her life. The interview was completed in five conversations. Ruzena Deutschova is one of those few to whom the lifestyle of Jews before the war is not unknown. In Galanta, aside from her, there are only five people whose memories we could rely on, and from whose testimony we could collect a verifiable picture of the previous period.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My father’s great grandparents were from Dombo, for sure, they came from Subcarpathia 1, from Ungvar [Uzhhorod]. Dombo belonged to Tecso county during the First Czechoslovakian Republic2. It was close to Huszt [Khust], Beregszasz [Berehevo] and Maramarossziget. The people from the area went there, when they needed something, or had to go to the hospital. I don’t remember now if there was a hospital in Beregszasz or Huszt [Hospital was in Beregszasz]. But it wasn’t far.

The residents of Dombo were Jews and Ruthenians [sometimes called Rusyns]. There were two schools in the village, the Ruthenian and the Czech one. Most of the Jews went to the state Czech school., There were mostly Jews living in the village, and richer Ruthenians like the tavern owner and the teachers. The Ruthenians lived in the hills outside of the village, I remember that.

There were a lot of Jews living in the village. As I was very small, I only vaguely remember these things, but I know that the locals went to two prayer houses [bet midrash]. All the Jewish families were very religious. There was great poverty there. My great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents all were very poor. They lived from one day to the next. And we ate corn bread, my mother made brioche only on the Sabbath, and barkhes. We didn’t even know about white or black bread, you only got cornbread in Dombo. I don’t remember a thing about my great grandparents, so I couldn’t know what they did.

It’s difficult to remember my grandparents, since I saw them last when I was seven years old. [They moved to Felsoszeli]. I also couldn’t have known my maternal grandfather, since he died before I came into the world. All I know about him, was that his first name was Lax. One time, still in Dombo, they took me out to the cemetery, and said, this is where your grandfather is lying. I never went to his grave again.

My mother’s mother lived with us. She was called Jechevet. Mother’s brother, Uncle Lax Wolf, who lived in America, helped us build a house. Mother had to support Grandma, that’s why Uncle built us a three-room house with a little kitchen. There was a stove in the kitchen, we baked and cooked there. Grandma was a midwife.

I turned six, and I remember that Grandma slept in a separate room. Grandma was very deaf. If they knocked on her window at night, it woke me up, I went in to her, and shook her. I told her in Yiddish that they’re knocking. I also remember as a child, that Grandma’s gravestone was bought, I don’t know how many years earlier, and was put next to the house in the garden. She really loved to work in the garden – crimson rambler roses bloomed there – she collected their petals and cooked syrup from them. She collected many kinds of herbs, if a cure was needed, she found one for almost every malady. If the family was poor, she would cure them for free. She didn’t accept money from the poor, my mother always talked about that.

My father’s parents lived across from us on the other side of the street. They heated with wood, and since there wasn’t electricity, they lit with [mineral spirit] lamps. Grandpa Izsak Eilander was a tailor. We called Grandpa, ‘Zaidi’. I remember him sitting at a machine with a black kippah on his head. He wore a big beard. I remember a funny story connected with him. When I went to their house, he took me on his knee and said, ‘Gib mir ain kis’ [give me a kiss - Yiddish]. I didn’t want to give him a kiss, since he stunk of garlic. Grandpa laughed, but I always got a piece of candy for it.

Grandma Rachel, my father’s mother was a fat lady. She lived with Grandpa in a two-room house. They kept a cow. The stable was in the courtyard. Aunt Hindi, who was my father’s uncle’s wife – unfortunately, I don’t remember her name anymore – she and I went to feed the cow in the stable. She sent me up to the loft, and I threw down the hay from there. Aunt Hindi was fat, she didn’t fit up the ladder, that’s why she sent me.

Grandma wore a black skirt, blue apron, black headscarf and ‘pruszliks’ [Hungarian style bodices]. On her feet, she wore high-legged lace-up shoes of fine zsevro leather [Sevro leather – finely worked goatskin used for shoe uppers]. Grandma also wore a scarf over her wig. Grandpa went in trousers, a vest and shirtsleeves. He grew his payes, as did all the Jewish men of Dombo. My father had a beard, too, and payes. On his head, he wore a kippah. He didn’t wear a hat at home. The majority of Jewish men wore kaftans [It is likely that the community in Dombo were Hasidim], and they also wore streimels, but that was only what Father usually told us.

I don’t know anything about the siblings of my grandparents. Mother never spoke about them. My grandparents never talked about their childhood, either. I was seven years old when we moved away from Dombo. Yet, I never saw my grandparents again after that.

I’m sure my father, Lajos Eilander was born in Dombo in 1902. In the town of his birth, everyone called him by his Jewish name, Arje. I remember, that from morning to evening, he sat by the sewing machine, he pedaled it, and just sewed and sewed. It wasn’t easy supporting eight children. Every morning, he tied on the straps, the tefillin and prayed in the kitchen or the big room. In Dombo he still prayed alone, because Benci was still very small then. He was a quiet man, he lived only for his work.

My mother was called Malke. She was born in 1901, so she was a year older than my father. At home, she always wore a headscarf, but if she went out on the street, she put her wig on. In Galanta, if she was going to temple, she put her hat on her wig, but she didn’t in Subcarpathia. My mother wore long-sleeved dresses, even in the summer.

She always cooked well, she was a very good housewife, always knew how to economize. She worked a lot, washed a lot and ironed. Despite that we were poor. She made warm dinners so we would get our fill. The meal varied. Although Mother never had help with anything, she always made time for us. She combed our hair with her own hands when we came from school, and she made sure there wasn’t a chance we’d get one louse, she especially watched out for that.

I don’t know how my parents got to know each other, unfortunately. I don’t even know when they were married [1924 – determined later from the photos]. They were married in Dombo, in the synagogue. The marriage certificate was written in Russian. My parents spoke Yiddish between themselves. When they didn’t want us kids to understand what they were talking about they switched over to Romanian, Ruthenian or Hungarian.

My parents were strongly orthodox Jews. They kept a kosher household. Everything at home was kosher. They kept all the holidays. For example, when it was Rosh Hashanah and then the Day of Atonement came a week later, Yom Kippur, we always fasted from evening to the next evening. We held every fast, us children, too. There was the fast of Ester [Purim]. There wasn’t a fast that I didn’t keep from the time I was twelve years old. My mother often visited the mikveh in Dombo. It was in a building at the bottom of the hill. I remember as a child, Mother often took us with her as well to bathe. In the baths, there were big wooden tubs. First Mother would dunk herself, then she would wash us. I’m sure she paid something for the warm water, we took soap with us. My father also went to the mikveh, because he was very religious. At the coming of the Sabbath, the men would go into the bet midrash dressed in a black kaftan, with a streimel on their heads.

In Dombo, we heated our house with wood, and lit with [mineral spirit] lamps - one by my father’s sewing machine, and one hung by the table. We didn’t have electricity. We lived in a house with a garden, whatever we needed, grew there. We had a lot of apples, we raised poultry, geese for ourselves. The furnishings were humble. There were two beds in the bedroom, with two standing chests of drawers. Below, in the drawers, we usually kept fresh-baked biscuits, crescent rolls. Nobody helped with the household chores, we never had a maid, anyway, we never had the money for one. We were very poor in Dombo.

In Dombo, we only had Jewish neighbors, as little children we played together with them. Dad would sew rag dolls, make little tables of wood. He even sewed clothes for us, while we were small. We went to a river, I don’t know the name anymore, to swim. Dombo was in a mountainous area, full of forests. We drove the geese up to the top of the mountain to mind them, and we played a lot then. The ground was clay, I remember, we made all kinds of biscuits out of it. We decorated them with little flowers, that’s how we played. Sometimes the geese would swim out on the water, straight to the nearby watermill wheel, from where they couldn’t get back, we lost them that way. We cried, that’s for sure. I don’t know which river it was, but it was a big river. They floated rafts of cut trees down the river to the sawmill.

I remember that Mother had an uncle in America. He lived in New York and when he came back in the 1930s, he took me in his arms, and put an earring in my ear. He also brought a pretty pink dress, with a cape and little patent-leather shoes. This American uncle was a tailor himself, he worked in his own tailor shop. He sent grandma a picture, with him, his wife and his daughter. He was missing the kippah on his head. Grandma sent the picture back, saying: ‘This isn’t my son, my son had a head [brain], but this guy doesn’t have a head’.

Among the siblings of my mother, the oldest was called Aunt Jente Joszkovits. They lived in Dombo one street over. I remember that on Saturday I always ran over to their house, because I got pumpkin seeds from them. Uncle had one eye tied with a piece of leather, because they shot out his eye in the First World War [Military in the Austro-Hungarian Empire] 3. I felt good at their house, because they had a daughter with whom I made friends. Sadly, I don’t remember her name.

My mother’s other sister, Rabbi Nuszn’s wife, lived in Romania. I was told they were really religious. The lady died young from cancer. I know that because Grandma wrote that in a letter to us. That’s all we got to know about her death.  Dad hid the letter away from Mother for a long time, but he finally told her what happened, anyway. We were already living in Felsoszeli then. I don’t know how many children they had, I think, there were six. During the Second World War, they were in an area in Romania where they didn’t deport the Jews. My uncle ended up there with his children. Immediately after the war, as soon as Romania was liberated, he left for Palestine with the children. In 1978, when I was in Israel for the first time, I met with my cousins. Two among them are still living in Tel Aviv, the others have died.

My father had an uncle, who lived in Antwerp, Belgium, but he didn’t have a family. He helped the other family members also, but predominantly us. He always wrote to my mother to have us girls learn some trade, he’ll find us husbands, just make sure everyone has a trade. The Second World War obviously wrecked those plans. They deported the Jews from Belgium also, that’s how he never returned.

The only sibling of my father’s that I knew personally was Aunt Etus. Her husband was called Nachman Tevlovits. They lived in Prague. Directly before the war, they had a daughter, Jindricka. I never visited them before the war, so I can’t say anything about them. They were taken away to the Theresienstadt 4 concentration camp. They were lucky because my uncle was a very clever man, he wove baskets from willow branches, and chairs and baby carriages. The Germans spared his life because of it, since they always needed something. He went down to the river to collect the willow branches. He set traps for the ravens, which my aunt made soup from. This is how the whole family escaped. They spent three or four years in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

When they were liberated, Aunt Etus told me, they went back to Prague in a horse-drawn carriage. They lived in a family home on the outskirts. In 1947, I married in Prague, and the reception feast was held in their house. After the war, until I married, I often stayed at their house. My aunt really loved me, I even resembled her. When her daughter was born, Evike, I washed diapers for her, and cooked for them. I helped them a lot. In February of 1948 5, before the Communists took complete control in Czechoslovakia, they emigrated to America. My uncle also had a friend living there, who sent a letter of invitation [required for US visa] and ship’s passage. Father went to say goodbye. They never saw each other again. Why they left, I don’t know. Maybe, they would have locked up my uncle, for having a broom factory.

At first, they lived in America in New York, from there in Michigan, then they moved to Detroit, where they belonged to an orthodox religious community. Their only son was born in Detroit, Ervin, who got the Jewish name Jichak. Aunt Etus spoke Yiddish with her children. After the political changes [1989]6, I visited them once in Detroit. I met my Aunt, Jindricka and Jichak. We spoke in Yiddish because my aunt couldn’t speak a word of Hungarian anymore. She only knew enough to write in Hungarian in her letters, ‘csokol Etus’[‘kisses Etus’]. She could write that still. My aunt died at the age of ninety-three. She’s buried in the Jewish cemetery in Detroit.

Jindricka remembered my wedding, and how she always asked her mother, ‘Mami, kdy budu ja takova slezna jako Ruzenka?’ [Mommy, when will I be a big girl like Rozika?] They called me Ruzenka in Prague. She remembered that. That made me very happy. When I was in America, Jindricka was about 64-65 years old. Jindricka was divorced from her husband, she has two families, both chose Jewish spouses. Today Jindricka is a retired teacher, her son is a pharmacist. Her daughter worked with computers, but she’s also retired now. The children are not religious, anymore. The son still goes to temple, but he’s not so religious. The girls [Jindricka and Evicka] don’t go to temple anymore either. Jindricka’s children live in Chicago, I didn’t meet them. I saw one of the daughters and the son of my other cousin, Jichak. The girl was a university student. His other daughter was living in Caracas then, I didn’t meet her.

Growing up

I was born in 1927 in Dombo. Everyone spoke Yiddish in Dombo. My mother-tongue was also Yiddish. I have no memories at all from my early childhood. I didn’t go to a nursery school, I was with my mother all the way until I was of schooling age. In first grade, I went to a Czech state school, there I learned a little Czech. Aside from Yiddish, my parents spoke Romanian, Ruthenian and Hungarian.

There was great poverty in Subcarpathia. In 1933 and 1934, we moved to Felsoszeli. My uncle, my father’s uncle, was employed with the Singer company as a traveling salesman. He travelled the whole of Czechoslovakia. He found out there was a Jewish school in Felsoszeli, but it didn’t have the required number of children to receive state support. By the time we stumbled over there, they had the required number, because there were six of us kids, and three of us were already in school. That’s how the Felsoszeli Jewish school got state support.

Father came to [Felso-] Szeli to live. We didn’t have any relatives there. He lived there for about a year alone, collected his pay and sent it home. Then we also wandered over. In Szeli there wasn’t a tailor, that’s how he became the Jewish tailor.

In Felsoszeli, only the wealthier people had electricity, but they didn’t have indoor plumbing, either. They brought water from the well. There wasn’t a sidewalk. If you had to go to Galanta for medicine, then I ran on foot into the city from Felsoszeli. I took off my shoes, so the soles wouldn’t wear out. Mother put a wet rag in the bag. On the Galanta bridge, first I wiped off my dusty feet, and only then did I put my shoes on, because we were obedient children. That’s how I came to Galanta to the pharmacy. On the way home, I took my shoes off again on the bridge, and put them in the bag, so they wouldn’t wear down. Lowinger, the village doctor, had an automobile, and probably the local factory owners, Eisler and Szold, did too. The majority of the peasants had horse-wagons.

The lifestyles of Dombo and Felsoszeli were very different. We still spoke Yiddish at home, but the Felsoszeli kids didn’t understand what we said anymore, only a couple old Jews still knew Yiddish. In Felsoszeli, our life was easier, a lot easier. In Dombo, there was a cobbler and tailor in almost every home. The Ruthenians had their dress and work clothes sewn from thick felt, they worked outside. They paid him, not with money, but with milk and sheep cheese. In Felsoszeli, Father was the only tailor. They respected him and liked him a lot, everybody went to ‘the Jewish tailor’ to get their clothes made. He got money for his work, just those who didn’t have money, they brought chickens, flour or eggs. The Jews also supported us, the religious community, also. There was a liquor factory on the edge of the village, Eisler and Szold were the owners. Mr. Szold kept us stocked full with potatoes and firewood. The community covered the cost of a doctor when someone got sick.

There wasn’t a typical occupation for Jews in Felsoszeli. They were chicken farmers, goose farmers, and merchants. Some worked for Szold in the liquor factory, and some in agriculture. In Dombo, the typical occupation for Jews was tailor and cobbler. Each opened a shop in their own homes. There were sawmills in Dombo, where they employed mostly Jews. The Jews of Dombo had hard lives, very poor lives. Many of them emigrated to America, like my mother’s older brother, Uncle Wolf did.

There was no rabbi in Felsoszeli, just two shochetim. The closest rabbis lived in Galanta, where there were two orthodox communities. One of them was led by Buxbaum, the other by Rabbi Seidl. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of our cantor or the president of the community. The shochetim, Krakauer and Ehlbaum usually led the prayers. The bet midrash in Felsoszeli stood in the street where the Catholic church is. There was a large courtyard attached to it, the Jewish school building was there, too. They went to religious class in the building behind the Jewish school. Next, there was the apartment of one of the shochetim, then the other shochet. We went to both shochetim, but mostly to Krakauer. Both were orthodox, but just part of the Szeli community was drawn here, the other part went to Ehlbaum. The Krakauers had a big family, they naturally went to Krakauer. The Mullers lived in Szeli, the Schwartzes too, they went to Ehlbaum. The Krakauers originally came from Dunaszerdahely, I don’t remember where the Ehlbaums came from. The mikveh was in the last building.

We only kept Hebrew books at home, among them was the complete Mahzor, so they were prayer books, for example, the Day of Atonement prayers, Kol Nidre, the five books of Moses. My parents read these books daily, and prayed regularly, morning and evening, too.

My parents kept every tradition, they were strictly religious. My mother kept a kosher household. There were special meat plates, and special milk plates. After eating meat, I couldn’t eat milk for six hours. Before meals we always washed our hands, we had to say prayers for everything, for the water, for everything. We kept these [traditions] also, from childhood. I remember when I first fasted, it was the fast of Ester. In the temple, they read about the life of Ester. As soon as the holiday ended, Mother was waiting for us in front of the bet midrash. She brought one slice of bread in her bag for everyone, so that we could make the trip home.

At the Sabbath, as soon as Father came out of temple with the boys, he blessed us. He came home, the holiday dinner had been made by then, Mother baked the barkhes. It was meager, but we had it. During the week, she always collected the ingredients. On winter days, everyone got an apple or pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin seeds they poured out into glasses for us, so we wouldn’t fight about them, and everyone would get the same. In the village, the Jews got dressed up in holiday clothes for Sabbath, but nobody wore kaftans and streimels.

Father also went often to the mikveh in Felsoszeli, then he was still very religious. My mom went there monthly with the children the same as in Dombo. Aside from that, we had to wash every morning behind a ‘Spanish wall’. There was a washbasin and water in it. It took a while for all the children to get washed up. We washed one after the other. Once a week we bathed in a wooden tub. Mother warmed the water outside, of course not everybody got fresh water, just warm water poured on them. In summer, on Friday afternoon we bathed, in winter it was on Thursday since the Sabbath comes earlier in the winter.

I vaguely remember my older brother’s bar mitzvah. His was in Felsoszeli, my mother had the cake baked at the Lowinger confectioners in Galanta. I was about ten years old when my mother sent me on foot from Felsoszeli to Galanta. The distance between the two places is about twelve kilometers (7.4 miles). The Lowingers had already put the cake into two large boxes beforehand. On the way back, I was lucky because a railway hand-car picked me up. I don’t remember the bar mitzvah really, as I didn’t go to the bet midrash, I only knew that all the Jewish men came to visit us that afternoon.

In Dombo, as I mentioned, I went to a Czech school, in Felsoszeli I went to a Jewish school. I went to that school for six years, from first grade to sixth grade. The teacher lady, Helena Bergerova, I believe, was from Nagyszombat. She only taught me for a short time. Then came Zoltan Reisner, a teacher from Bazin. I was in the same class with Hasi Muller, for example. In September of 2004, they buried him in the Galanta Jewish cemetery. He was the last from Galanta, who was a Galanta yeshivah student, where they continued their studies under the direction of Rabbi Duschinski and later, Rabbi Buxbaum. My later husband also went there, Herman Deutsch.

My favorite subject was history. I love it to this day. There was a teacher in Galanta whom I particularly didn’t like, because she always made exceptions for the children with wealthier parents. She always called me ‘Eilander’. ‘Hold out your hand’, and she gave us the cane rod. Zoltan Reisner was my favorite teacher. He came back here after the war, to Galanta, and wanted to marry me. I would have married him for sure, if I hadn’t become the woman of Herman Deutsch in the meantime.

I never encountered anti-Semitism in school, nor with my teachers, even though I went to an exclusively Jewish school, and the teachers themselves were Jewish. I didn’t take any extra music classes or language classes, there wouldn’t have been money for it anyway. I made friends in school, with some exceptions, Jews lived in my direct surroundings.

We lived in a common courtyard with an old woman in Felsoszeli, Miss Paula and a Lutheran family, the Kozaks. Miss Paula had a small textile business. If she needed something, she would send one of us kids to run along after it. Mr. Kozak was a carpenter. He had three families, two girls and one boy. Despite that my parents were on good terms with them, they rarely visited each other. They mutually respected one another’s religion. The Kozaks, for example, when they slaughtered, they put flour, eggs and a live duck in the breadbasket. That’s what they brought from ‘the slaughter’. At Christmas and Easter, they always gave us fruits and walnuts. They never brought brioche, because they knew we couldn’t eat it, since it wasn’t kosher. I remember that they respected our religion. The courtyard was wide. We had a garden, which we worked. My mother raised poultry and ducks. Beyond the courtyard, the Dudvag [river] meandered.

My parents only went to the bet midrash, they never made time to visit friends, they simply had no time. They worked hard, Father sewed, Mother was occupied with the kids. Sometimes washing clothes, sometimes ironing, there wasn’t time for that kind of thing [visiting friends].

We didn’t know what summer vacation meant, there was no such thing. Mother went for two or three months to visit her mother in Dombo. She usually took the smallest of my siblings with her, since the smallest still needed her anyway. They would pick all kinds of fruits and mushrooms in the Dombo forests. They dried those and sent them home. Those of us who were already a bit bigger, stayed home, because school started in September. Mother only got home later for the fall holidays. The last time she went home to Dombo was in the summer of 1940 or 1941. That’s when she saw her mother last, too.

There wasn’t a market in Felsoszeli, in Dombo, either. Only in Galanta. Everything that we needed was grown in Felsoszeli. I remember, there were market days, but how often, I don’t know. They came from Dunaszerdahely and elsewhere to the market day. When I was a little girl, at about ten or eleven years old, I already watched out so they didn’t steal. I always got a piece of material, which I then had a skirt or dress made from. The family didn’t have a regular merchant who they could have ordered anything from.

In Felsoszeli, where we lived, a big Communist was living there, and he had a son. His name was Bela Katyo. As we left the village, there was a bridge, the Rakottyasi bridge. We always teased Bela, ‘Hey look, Hitler’s coming across the Rakottyasi bridge, to take away the Communists.’ That happened in about 1934-35, there wasn’t any anti-Jewish atmosphere, yet. I was never made aware in my childhood that I was Jewish. No, not ever.

During the war

In 1938, when the Hungarians came in [First Vienna Decision]7, the very next week, they expelled us from the village, [saying] that Father was a ‘Bolshevik’. We didn’t even know what that word meant at the time. We’d been really okay in Felsoszeli, till then we’d had no problems with anyone. They wanted to send us back to Subcarpathia, because we didn’t have our Hungarian citizenship arranged. With the coming of winter, they only expelled us to the edge of the village, to Barakony. In December, it was already freezing, my parents were railroaded out into the cold, under the open sky with six children. The Jews in Galanta immediately intervened as well as they could. They sent a car and took us in it to Galanta. That was the first time I ever rode in an automobile. Right away we got a furnished room with beds. The Jewish community arranged these things, I don’t remember concrete people, sadly. They even when so far as to get us a residence permit, but my father had to report to the border police every day. Meanwhile, Hungary re-annexed Subcarpathia. My uncle in Belgium sent money, that’s how we got our citizenship. After this happened, Mother didn’t want to go back to Felsoszeli, so we stayed in Galanta.

I had eight siblings. Between my oldest brother Beno and the littlest, Miksa, there was a difference of fifteen years. Beno, Hana, Sari [from Sarolta], Manci [from Maria] and Eszti [from Eszter] were born in Dombo. Sandor, Gizike[from Gizella] were born in Felsoszeli, and Miksa was born in Galanta. I only vaguely remember my youngest siblings, since I was with them a relatively short time. My mother took the littlest ones with her in the summer break to Grandma in Dombo, so I didn’t see them for three months.

Beno, my oldest brother was a very hard-working kid. He learned the tailoring trade in Szenc. When my father was conscripted into work service [forced labor]8, then he supported the family, by that time already working in Pest [Budapest] in a tailor shop. He passed away during the Second World War. Mother adored him.

I spent the most time with my little sister, Hana. In Felsoszeli, the Dudvag flowed behind our house. In the winter, we skated on the frozen water, and sledded. Father made the skates out of wood. In the summertime, we picked corn ears, because our mother raised chickens. We worked the whole summer vacation.

I was together with Hanna in the Allendorf labor camp [a sub-camp of Buchenwald]. When we were liberated, we went home together. Hana stayed a while in Galanta, but in spring of 1946, she went to Kassa, and left from there with her later husband for Palestine. They captured the boat, the passengers were forced to debark in Cyprus. I wrote letters to her, and she sent pictures from there. They went by boat from Cyprus on to Israel. There she was conscripted as a soldier.

Hana’s husband fell during some kind of construction very young, and died. He was a Kassa boy. They had three families[children – sic]. I can’t speak with them. If I go visit them, they say, ‘Dada neni, shalom’, give me a kiss, then leave again, when I go home, they say shalom again and another kiss and that’s all. One of Hana’s daughter’s is a teacher, her name is Malke. My daughter also has this Jewish name, we named them then after our mother. Malke’s husband’s parents come from Morocco. My other niece, Sara was a bank official, but since she married, she doesn’t work anymore. She lives with her two daughters in Tel Aviv. Hanna’s son is with Markus Eli wholesale hardware, and meanwhile is finishing his law studies. His wife’s parents went to Israel from Poland. Hana and her son’s family live today in Netanya. They keep Jewish traditions, and both keep a kosher household.

My other sister, Sarika, who we called Sara, was a very smart and pretty little girl. She was writing verses at the age of six. I don’t really remember Esztike [from Eszter] and Manci. Sandor, who was born Salamon, and whom we called Sauli, was born in the winter of 1935. He was a pretty child. He used to fetch the chulent from the baker for the well-to-do people. He always got a few filler [pennies] for it. He bought Mother a wooden spoon by mistake for her birthday, but started shouting from afar that he’d bought her a salt shaker. We made fun of that for a long time, to this day I still smile to think about it. I don’t have memories of Gizike and Miksa, unfortunately. My youngest brother, Miksa was just four years old when he and Mother, Sari, Manci, Eszter and Sandor were gassed.

We kept all the Jewish holidays in my childhood, the traditions. As many fasts as the Jews have, we kept them all, that is, us girls had to keep them. The men had to fast every week, but we didn’t have to do that. On Saturday mornings, as soon as we woke up, the brioche, the holiday breakfast was waiting for us. Father left for the temple, and came home at noon. We brought the chulent from the baker, and ate our holiday supper. The chulent was baked at two bakeries, at Schultz’s and at Lichtner’s. We made it at home, put meat in it, and everything which we had around. My mother filled it with water, tied it up, put the cover on it. She wrote her name on it, too. Friday afternoon Mother took it to the baker. We took ours to Schultz’s. they put it in the oven. If it ended up in a good place, then the chulent was good. Sometimes though, it was still half-raw, but sometimes it burned. They said that chulent was just like marriage. My parents rested in the afternoon, we went out to the walk in the castle. We played with young people. On Saturday, you could only read, or in the afternoon, when I was still young, in the Jewish girl’s school – I went to the Beys Jakov.

On the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur] and the new year [Rosh Hashanah] Mother went to temple. That’s when she always dressed up nicely. She had pretty dresses, my uncle sent them to her from America. Before she would step out of the house, she put her wig and hat on her head. The girls didn’t go with her to temple until they turned twelve years old. Us little girls only went on holidays to temple to see Mother, mostly we played downstairs in the prayer house courtyard. There were a lot of us in the courtyard. The boys were already sitting in the synagogue, and the men prayed, mainly if they had passed their thirteenth year [that is, they had already had their bar mitzvah].

On the Day of Atonement we fasted. From the age of twelve, we had to fast all day, we made it. On the tent holiday [Sukkot], we set up a tent, decorated it, put stars on it, and then just went to see the others, to see whose was the prettiest. Father usually set up the tent in the yard. If four Jewish families lived on one courtyard, all four families set up a separate tent. They spent the whole holiday there, they could only go inside to sleep, they had to eat in the tent. Even if it rained, they ate standing in the tent.

We went to synagogue every holiday, during Pesach, and Pentecost [Shavuot – sic]. On Pentecost [sic], they decorated the synagogue with flowers, it was a joyous celebration. On the Day of Atonement and the New Year were celebrated only in the synagogue, afterwards the holiday lunch and dinner followed at home. We prayed in the synagogue. My favorite Jewish holiday is Pentecost [sic], because then people could eat what they wanted and, of course, wherever they wanted. At Passover, we couldn’t eat whatever we wanted, and during the tent holiday, we couldn’t eat wherever we wanted. That’s why the best holiday is Pentecost.[Shavuot – sic]

My parents passed on nearly everything from the Jewish traditions and religion to us. We were a proper orthodox Jewish family. I always told my mother that if I get married, I wouldn’t wear a wig. She answered, ‘Your hair will fall out’. My father and my uncle wore ‘cicith all the way up until they were deported, in fact, I remember my older brother even took a couple with him to the lager. In our family, the men grew their payes, and my father had a beard. He cut his beard off in 1938, under the Hungarians, but my older brother kept wearing payes.

Around that time there were two orthodox communities, one led by Rabbi Buxbaum, the other by Rabbi Seidl. Both rabbis had separate courtyards. In both courtyards there was a synagogue and a mikveh. We belonged to Rabbi Buxbaum’s congregation, who my parents thought was more religious. In spite of that, my mother went to the other mikveh, in the Seidl courtyard. That was where shochter Vogel’s wife was the mikveh lady. The Vogels were also from Subcarpathia, we were closer to them. Mother also took us there to bathe, surely because we didn’t have to pay there. The mikveh was lined inside with white tiles. The ladies dressed in changing rooms. They bathed in the tubs and in the end they dunked themselves in the pool, which was in the center of the room. Before the war, all the Galanta Jewish ladies regularly went to the mikveh. The other mikveh was in the yard of Rabbi Buxbaum, where the holocaust memorial is today.

There was a temple, the yeshivah and the three-room apartment of the rabbi in the Buxbaum courtyard. In the yard there was a kitchen, then there were two places where the bocherim studied. On the other side of the temple was a ‘mensa’ and a cheder, where the younger children went. The bocherim and the poor ate in the ‘mensa’. There was a matzah oven in the courtyard and a butcher shop in front. The owner of the butcher shop was my husband’s uncle Hirschler. The shochet lived at the end of the courtyard, whose name was Weinstein and so did Rabbi Buxbaum’s son. When we ended up in Galanta, we lived there, too. Later, we had to leave there because they put in a Schlafstube [a room to sleep in] for the shnorrerim and the poor.

A lot of shnorrerim came to Galanta, most of them arriving from Subcarpathia, where the poverty was very bad. They didn’t come to our house. There was a married couple living not too far from our house, who were very poor. Mother brought a little flour and eggs over to them every Thursday, that’s how she helped people even poorer than we were. I don’t remember the couple’s name anymore. They were taken to Auschwitz during the war. They never came back.

The family called Muller lived in the front of Rabbi Seidl’s courtyard. Rabbi Seidl lived behind them in the house. Rabbi Seitl died when I was a little girl, still before the Second World War. I only knew his wife. They had two daughters. One of the girls taught me how to pray in the Bet Jakov. Shochet Vogel, who’s house was next to the mikveh, lived across the street from them. After the mikveh, came the synagogue. The younger Rabbi Seidl, who took the community over after his father,  lived in the building behind the synagogue. In the house after the rabbi’s house was Deutsch’s house, who was the cantor and teacher. He taught religion in the first two rooms and the Deutsch family lived in the rest. Then came the old people’s home. You could enter the courtyard from two sides. On one side was the court building, the other door opened on the main street.

I never encountered anti-Semitism, even under the Hungarians. Neither the relatives nor neighbors ever talked about it. In 1944, we lived separately, I was in contact almost exclusively with Jews. I had a few Christian girlfriends, of course, we were still children. I was seventeen years old when they took me away.

The so-called ‘Jewish Codex’ put out in 1941 fundamentally changed our lives [In as much as Galanta belonged again to Hungary from November of 1938, she clearly must be referring to the Hungarian anti-Jewish Laws 9, whereas the Jewish Codex 10 was passed in the Slovakian Republic in 1938] Honestly speaking, a person felt like they’d robbed you of everything. They robbed me of my entire childhood. We couldn’t go to the cinema, we had to stop going to school. In Galanta, they locked the Jews up in the ghetto in 1944. [According to the 1941 census, 29 percent of the 5100 residents in Galanta were of Jewish religion. In May of 1944, 1100 local and 600 Jews from neighboring villages were crammed into the ghetto, situated in and around the synagogue.] From there, were went out to work in the fields. We worked for one or two months, then they took us away again to the Galanta manor, where there was a renaissance castle. We lived there in the castle. Everything there was in ruins. We lived in horrible conditions, we couldn’t cook, couldn’t wash, there was no toilet. We hoed corn on the manor, and radishes, spinach, and picked poppies, and whatever there was. I don’t know who’s estate it was. The whole family was still together then, except for Father. He was assigned to work service [forced labor] in Mateszalka. I don’t remember how long we were on the manor, anymore.

From there we were dragged off to the new town brick factory [Ersekujvar Kurzweil brick factory], where we stayed for two weeks. In the brick factory, we slept where the bricks were stored. We didn’t work at all, just waited [to see] where and when they’d take us away. There were people from all over the area there. One day, they packed us into boxcars. Hungarian constables [Constable] 11, the ‘rooster feathers’ [for the feathers on their helmets] just hustled us into the boxcars, I don’t know how many of us there were [According to Braham, 4843 Jews were put into deportation transports on June 12, the last of which left the city on June 15.]. We didn’t think about what fate awaited us. Uncountable numbers of constables escorted us, and I’m not talking about Germans, I only remember the Hungarian constables, the rooster feathers. They stopped the train in Kassa because some among us died on the way. They put those people off, but didn’t let us out. Nobody died in our boxcar. There were Hungarian constables everywhere in Kassa. Then we departed and didn’t stop until we got to Auschwitz. I don’t remember how the constables behaved, if they’d hurt me I would know. I don’t know. I remember we threw little notes out of the cattle cars along the way with where they are taking us, and how they took us, and that kind of thing on them. The trip took a couple days. We constantly threw these messages out. I don’t know what good that was then, but we threw them out. There could have been forty or fifty of us in the boxcar. There were whole families there, the children crying, hungry, thirsty without water nor a toilet. Just one bucket for all those people, it stank horribly. The whole family was still together then except for Father. When Mother saw Auschwitz, she said, ‘There’s no way out, anymore’. She felt that we’d arrived in a bad place, she knew what was happening.

As we arrived in Auschwitz, the train stopped. A man, who they later said was Mengele, just waved: Right, Left. My mother and siblings left, me and my sister were sent right, or vice versa, doesn’t matter. My sister got lost among all the people in the meantime. I ran after Mother to help her with all the kids. Mother sent me away to ‘find Hana, because you’ve got more brains than her, the family should be together’. I don’t know about my older brother either, he also got mixed up in the crowds. They surely put him with the men, I don’t remember that. As I ran around looking for my sister, Mengele gave me slap, and shoved me over to the other side, which saved my life. I broke into tears because I couldn’t help my mother. We didn’t know right away, what was happening, we didn’t know.

They housed us in a barrack, where there were a lot of us. It was raining. There was standing water there, so we could only sleep sitting or standing. There were hundreds of us there in one place. You couldn’t get any rest there. Every night someone went insane, ran around or messed themselves. There was no water there. We had to go out to a latrine, but nobody dared go out at night because they were afraid they’d be shot. We woke at dawn. They counted us. We stood in lines of five, a lot of us suffered at night because of the cold. In the daytime, a person agonized through 35 degree [C.- 95 degrees F.] heat. Every dawn, we were practically frozen, just standing in line. They poured coffee into a ‘csajka’ [a tin or alimunium plate with high sides] for breakfast, towards evening we got a little piece of bread with some bit of meat. We were continuously hungry. There was no water, they brought that from the cistern. You had to stand in line for water. My sister Hanna and I, and three girlfriends from Galanta stood in line. Of course, everybody pushed near the water. The SS soldiers hit the women with the metal [buckle] on their waist belts, as they scuffled for the water. If someone was hit in the head, it could kill them. there were always a couple who died.

Once I got sick, I got typhus which causes a high fever. In the barrack, where we were, there was a place where they collected the sick. From there they took the sick along with the dead in a Red Cross car straight to the crematorium, we knew that. My sister, and girlfriends started crying, don’t give up. As they all hustled out an SS woman came and gave me two slaps so hard I’ll never forget them. I was seeing two candles burning in front of my eyes. My ear started bleeding, my mouth, everything, but I got better. I was able to go out, and I stood out there in line. The sickness went away, even though I didn’t go to a doctor. A seventeen year old person wanted to stay alive. The Slovak girls who were living in the camp already for three years [the first transport of Jewish girls and women aged 16 -30 arrived from East Slovakia in Spring of 1942], they were the ‘Lageralteste’ or ‘Stubendienst’[German – ‘Camp elders’ or ‘Room Duty’]. They always said, ‘Do you see that smoke? They’re burning. That’s where your mother and sisters went’.

I found out about the death of  Mother and my sisters still in Auschwitz, in July. We’d been there for two weeks, and we heard. We smelled it also, because it stank, the smell of burnt meat lingering constantly. New prisoners arrived daily. We were in barrack seven. I remember the gypsy [Roma] camp was on the other side, where there were German gypsies. One night we heard only that they were yelling, help, help, they’re taking us to the crematorium. In the morning, everything was quiet, none of the gypsies were left there. They were all young, we couldn’t get to them, there was an electrical fence separating us from them. We saw them. In their place came prisoners like us.

I met my mother’s younger brother, Uncle Alter in Auschwitz. He unpacked the trains. The old man asked, who’s with me. I said, ‘Hana’. - ‘Go to work, if they take you.’  I asked him, ’Where’s mother?’. He said, ‘Mother’s already in a good place.’ He worked in the crematorium, with clothes. We reported for work a couple days later when there was a ‘selection’. They took us to an area, there could have been thousands of us. They took a thousand for work. They put us on the night shift at the crematorium. In Silesia, the weather is terrible. It was so cold at night, we almost froze, while in the daytime, you can hardly stand the heat, it burned your skin. There was a woman from Pozsony [Bratislava]. It was cold, we were shivering, so she said she’d give us a little gas[heat], but we shouldn’t yell. When she turned on the gas, we thought we were being gassed. Of course, we started screaming. She shut everything quickly so the Germans wouldn’t hear. The next day they gave us water, to bathe, we got clothes, and headed towards Allendorf [One of the labor camps of the Buchenwald concentration camp]. We went for three days, they bombed Dresden horribly. They let us out there, so we could do a little ‘business’, at least. One German who happened to be passing, asked me, naturally in German, what are you? a boy or a girl? I said girl. He shook his head and said, ‘Gott, how you look!’ So you can’t say that every German was rotten.

From June to the middle of August, I was in Auschwitz. When we ended up in Allendorf, we laid down on the ground and kissed it. There were little flowers growing in the camp. Everybody got one bunk, the beds were three high. We got a little blanket, a sack of hay. It wasn’t like this in Auschwitz, where we had to sleep sitting on the ground. We couldn’t have even laid down. In Allendorf, life was more humane. There were a thousand of us. Seven hundred Hungarians from Hungary, there were about 300 of us from ‘Felvidek’ [‘oberland’ in German – literally ‘the upperlands’; today, an area in Slovakia on the Hungarian border that was annexed to the First Czechoslovakian Republic by the Trianon Treaty at Versailles, then re-annexed by Hungary in 1938 by the First Vienna Decision.] I always signed up to work everywhere, I ended up in the kitchen. Of course, my knowledge of German helped me. I worked in the kitchen to the end of our time in the lager.

One supervisor woman, Margaret, was especially cruel. We named her ‘pearl hen’. If she approached, we said pearl hen is coming, because we couldn’t say Margaret is coming. Once she heard it, and they told her what the word meant. We got our pearl hen. She really beat us with a rubber club and her hands, then locked us in the cellar for I don’t know how many days, of course, we got no food. They really beat me on two occasions there.

I didn’t have to work in the munitions factory. The factory was four or five kilometers [2-3 miles] from our quarters. I thought that everything was underground, since the big trees covered everything, they nearly barricaded the camp in along with the factory. I was in the factory one time, when my sister got sick. I saw what work they did there. In the Allendorf shell factory, they filled bombs. The work was very difficult. They left in the morning, got a half liter of milk. They drilled out the bombs, put in the wicks and the detonator. It looks like the work was very detrimental to your health, that’s why they gave you milk, too. We stayed in Allendorf until March. Allendorf belonged to Buchenwald. At the end of March, they evacuated us. We marched day and night, for I don’t know how many days. The Germans with us, but they didn’t shoot us. They were going to Berlin, we didn’t know where we were going. The locked us in a pen where there were sheep grazing. They wanted to burn us up with the pen. The SS who were with us in the camp didn’t do this. Adolf Hupka was his name, he didn’t burn us up. He was a decent person. Whatever he could, he did for us. He was a decent person. The female supervisors in the camp were very horrible. But he was decent, very decent. He said to us, ‘Tomorrow you will be free, but I don’t know what will happen to us.’ The next day we started off again, they took the death-head insignia off their caps and coats. Then we spread out in a forest, I think it was the Black Forest.

We just kept fleeing. A Pole took us in to his manor, and told us to be quiet. The manor was full of tanks and German soldiers. We thought we’d fallen into a nice little trap. There were probably twenty of us, the rest had fallen behind. That night he brought us milk, we calmed down a bit from that. All at once a black tank was stopped in front of us. They were blacks. Americans. Soldiers, officers, they even spoke Hungarian. They said, ‘Stay here. We’ll come back for you at night’. And they came back for us, took us into a village, and housed us in a school there. The Germans were all around us, there was hay and lice, fleas everywhere, but we were so glad. We left again a week later. We ate tinned food, that the Americans brought. The local Germans all hid. The mayor only came to us a week later. The American officer threatened to hang him if he didn’t find us places to stay. There were about thirty of us. He put fifteen in one group and fifteen in another place. After this the mayor personally came and wrote down what we needed. They gave us a lot too. They always filled a huge box with food, we didn’t suffer from hunger again, they took care of us.

After the war

Unfortunately, I got sick, too. I immediately ate my fill, when we were liberated. The first thing I did was make poppy seed dumplings. We’d found some poppy seeds and flour in the villa. I was on my back for a month in the American hospital. If there hadn’t been help, I wouldn’t have come home. My little sister and three girlfriends didn’t get sick, but I really ate my fill of poppy seed dumplings.

In 1987, they arranged a reunion for those who were in Allendorf. We stayed in a beautiful hotel. When we worked in Allendorf, we never got to see the village, because we were outside of it. It was a little village originally, while today it has become a city. The Germans awaited us with a smorgasbord. They served kosher and non-kosher dishes separately. There were cheeses, fried potatoes, all kinds of fish, that’s what the kosher people ate. For us, they served us whatever we wanted. About eight hundred of us gathered there, because everyone brought a partner. There were about four hundred of us and four hundred were kosher. They paid for the trip, and paid for everything. We went by car, and my daughter and son-in-law came, too. On the way there, we slept at the home of one of my girlfriend’s from Frankfurt, then we just went to Allendorf. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize my co-prisoners, because everybody was old. However, a few recognized me. They said, ‘You’re Rozi from the kitchen.’

I was together with our girlfriends the whole way. We went to Kassel, to the American military headquarters, so that we could get home. My girlfriends wanted to go to America since they had nothing to go back to. We still hoped that mother or our siblings would come back. We wanted to go home. There were a thousand of us, three hundred of which were North Hungarians, the others Hungarians. The Hungarians stayed, they took us, the North Hungarians home. We went by truck all the way to Pilsen. In Pilsen, they handed us over to the Russians. It was a horrible experience, what the Russians did to us, they took everything away, that we’d brought from there, and they raped some of us.

We got to Galanta, where they took us out to the Galanta road. A Kirghizstani was shooting there. We had gotten Italian boots from the Americans. The Kirghizstani put down his weapon, and I kicked him. As he fell, the others threw his rifle away, and we yelled for help. We were afraid that his partners would shoot us. He went away to the Castle, because that’s where the headquarters were then, and two Russians and a Galanta resident came. Who knows what he did, because there in front of us, they shot the Kirghizstani soldier. Then they took us to Ony road, about ten of us. My sister Hana, Edit Rozsa, Szidi, the three Adler girls and some others. Today there are only a few of us remaining, who came back. Now there are only seven of us here and there in the Galanta area.

My girlfriend, Szidi Stein, her father was already at home. Mister Stein had a room and we lived there, the four of us – Edit Rozsa, Hana, Szidi and I. When we got back to Galanta, we found out that our father was living in Pest. Hana stayed in Galanta by herself and only I went to Pest to find Father. I’d never been to a big city in my life, not even to Pozsony, but I made the trip anyway with the Galanta boys. They told us to watch out for the Russians, ‘Don’t let them do anything!’ That’s what they said when they dropped me off. I was lucky that I met two Galanta girls. I knew they lived in Pest. I asked them whether they’d seen my father or not. Just as they told me, he was living in Bab street. We went there, to that street, and Father had just moved away. They took me back to Nyar street, to a school where the prisoners who returned from the lagers were housed. In the evening, I saw my father come out of a building on the other side of the street. He started crying, so did I. He was going everyday to the train station to see who came home. He didn’t know anything about anyone [of us].

I went back to Galanta, for Hana. We didn’t want to stay in Pest in Father’s apartment because there were so many bedbugs there, and we couldn’t get used to Pest [Budapest] anyway. That’s how father got back to Galanta. We got a room next to the Steins, on Main street, where the Jednota department store is today. There was a furniture store out front, and we lived there. I don’t remember who we rented from. None of the family belongings were left, we don’t know who has them or where they are. We found a pair of prayer books in the attic that still have. The other Galantans didn’t get anything back either, just maybe those who went into hiding.

Very few [Galantans] survived the Holocaust. We were deported from Galanta in 1944. We didn’t have any relatives living in Galanta, anyway. There were nine of us altogether: the brothers and sisters, and Mother, and Father. Of the nine, three came home: Father, my younger sister and I. The others all remained there. The distant family relatives lived in Subcarpathia. The grandmothers, the cousins, the aunts, the uncles were all taken away from there. All we know is that a few cousins returned, but they left for Palestine. Two cousins from Dombo stayed, Malka and Franto Joskovits. Malka and Franto were also in the camps, in forced labor, but I don’t remember what they told us about it. My mother and theirs were sisters.

The non-Jewish neighbors took pity on us when we returned. You could write to them about [from] Auschwitz, but only that we were healthy. We could only write, ‘I’m fine and the whole family is fine’, those were the regulations. I wrote a letter to Felsoszeli, to one of our old neighbors. The neighbors got the letter, but I didn’t put it away, it got misplaced, though they gave it to me after the war. The neighbors believed what I wrote, since my name was signed on it.

In Galanta, we ate in a communal kitchen [cafeteria]. The cook, Elemer Eckstein left for Palestine. We went there to eat. They demolished the kitchen since then, it was also on Main street. They opened another kitchen later in the courtyard of Rabbi Buxbaum. Rabbi Buxbaum was a victim of the Holocaust. I worked as an assistant cook there. Two of us cooked, but we went to help the work brigade also. The kitchen was maintained by the Joint [Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee)]12, they funded it. We even got clothes there. The head cook, Mrs. Wollner, Sarika [from Sarolta], grabbed the goose liver and took it home, but I didn’t let her. One time, a five liter jar full of goose liver. She wanted to take it, but it fell and the jar broke. I said, ‘Thank god, we’re going to eat.’ I never took food home, I gave it all to the young men and women. Mrs. Wollner was jealous of me, because the boarders yelled that I should cook and serve, because I gave them more generous portions. They really loved me, since I gave everyone the same sized portions. I think it was rather, that I didn’t look anyone in the eye, so I couldn’t even make distinctions among them. Many came there to eat. The kitchen was still working in 1946. I think it closed in 1947.

Following the war, my father got married. Fina Messinger was the sadchen for Father and his new wife. Father’s new bride-to-be, Sara Schiffer, lived in Pest with her siblings. She was from an orthodox Jewish family in Satoraljaujhely. Since one of her older brothers had taken a non-Jewish wife before the war, they expelled him from the family.

I don’t even know where the wedding was held. I was with my father’s sister at the time, with Etel in Prague. I lived for a time with Father’s new family, up until I got married. I didn’t like them at first, so I didn’t call her Mother, but rather Aunt Sari. Later, my children also called her Aunt Sari and that was very painful for her. When my father died, my husband said, ‘Sarika you are a guest at our house every Saturday.’ She appreciated this very much and came every Saturday for lunch.

She had a sister, who didn’t have a family. She lived in Budapest, so Sari moved in with her. I often went to visit them on 4 Angyal Street. On every occasion, she was so glad. I brought a lot of presents with me. After her sister died, I cleaned house for her. While I was there, we would go down to the Pava Street Jewish kitchen to eat. In our free time, we usually took walks, went to the cinema or theater. I saw the play ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ for the first time in Budapest, and the film as well. Bessenyei played the lead role in the play, while on the screen, it was played by the American actor, Smulanski.

When I became a widow, I sometimes celebrated the holidays at Sarika’s. We went to the Dohany Street synagogue. I went on foot from Angyal Street all the way to Dohany Street, not by streetcar.

Sarika died about ten years ago. She spent the last days of her life in the hospital, as she had cancer. Sarika’s American niece and I were at her side. Sunday I had gone home to Galanta, but by that evening the telephone rang, Sarika was dead. That week I went back to Pest to one of my girlfriend’s house and we arranged the burial. The Neolog community [Neolog Jewry] 13 was based in Wesselenyi street. Rabbi Deutsch buried her, I paid him to recite the Kaddish for a year.

After the war there were two shochetim living in Galanta, Krakauer and Rabbi Katz. My father stopped eating kosher in 1958, that is, he had an argument with the rabbi. He lived with Rabbi Katz in one apartment at the time, the rabbi had to split up his apartment [share-renting] 14, and if my father hadn’t occupied it, they would have put a person there who raised pigs. There was no way the Galanta Jews would have liked to have pigs raised in the synagogue courtyard. So, my father ended up there. Katz didn’t have children, so he was left with only one room and a kitchen. My father and his second wife likewise got one room and a kitchen. Rabbi Katz was an irascible, earth-bound person, may he rest in peace. The misunderstandings intensified until the end when Rabbi Katz did something which, according to the spirit of Jewish law, he shouldn’t have. He refused to slaughter a duck my father had brought him to slaughter. My father grabbed the duck and slaughtered it in front of him. After that it was treyf. Five years later, when my father died, Rabbi Katz himself got over it, and he gave such a beautiful speech, as if nothing had ever happened between them.

My father was buried in Galanta in 1963 with Orthodox rites. Rabbi Katz said the funeral speech, but he didn’t go himself into the cemetery, he just stayed in the vestibule. Rabbi Katz was a kohen. Two Jews were buried that day in Galanta, this had only happened once since the war. The other person who died was Mr. Blum. My father was buried in the morning, Mr. Blum that afternoon. The weather was horribly hot.

To this day they still don’t allow women to step near the grave when they bury people in Galanta.[proscribed by the Galanta Jewish Orthodox community]. In the front of the vestibule, the deceased is washed, anointed with eggs and kosher wine, then dressed. The men do the men, and the women do the women. I only dressed the dead once, Mrs. Fleischmann. Sadly, there are almost no Jewish women in Galanta who would do this anymore. The grave is lined with planks, that way no nails are used. The deceased, wrapped in a white sheet is put in the ground. A man gets down in the grave, beside the dead person to wipe their face. Their eyes and mouth are covered with pieces of pottery and a palm frond is placed in their right hand. Finally, the boards are placed over top and are covered in dirt.

After my father’s funeral, we sat shivah for seven days straight. Many came over in the evening to pray with us. Even today, if it is Father’s Yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death, I light a candle. As I am a woman, I cannot pray a Kaddish for him. For Jews, women are queens only at home.

I married Hermann Deutsch in 1947. My husband was born on June 7, 1905 in Zsigard. His mother tongue is Hungarian. He finished four Civils [Civil School] 15. He went to a yeshivah also, here in Galanta, with Rabbi Buxbaum and Duschinski.

I met him in the Jewish kitchen, where I was working as an assistant cook. He also went there to eat. We got to know each other at that time, even though he was from Galanta, too. There was a twenty-four year age difference between us. Before the war, he went around on a beautiful bicycle. I always wanted to borrow it, so I asked him, ‘Mister, please loan me your bike!’. Of course, he never did. He was a bachelor.

He came home after the war, somehow we got together. He called me over many times, when he already had his own jewelry business and he had to leave on business with his partner Kalisch, to stay the night. In the morning, I opened the shop. He had a assistant watchmaker working there, but I also helped out. Sometimes he’d ask me to bake this or fry that. I did it. Slowly, we fell in love. We were married in Prague. The civil ceremony was here in Galanta on December 6, 1947, on St. Nicholas Day. The religious wedding we had in Prague, on December 28, 1947. My husband was Jewish, and that was very important to me. We had the wedding in Prague because my Aunt Etus and Uncle Nachman lived there then.

In Prague, my husband-to-be stayed in the Paris Hotel, and until our wedding, I stayed with my aunt. Directly before the wedding, I mean before the ceremony, my aunt took me to the mikveh. The mikveh wasn’t far from the Vltava. First I washed in a tub, then I had to dunk under the water. They told me how to do it. They didn’t cut off my hair, and I’ve never worn a wig. I covered my head, and still do when I go to the prayer house. I only went to a mikveh a couple times in Galanta. The mikveh was open here in Galanta until they tore it down in the 1960s.

My husband borrowed my wedding dress from an acquaintance of his. The veil and bouquet I got as a present. My aunt dressed me before the wedding. In that Prague synagogue, where there is a Jewish clock [Jewish Town Hall on Maiselova Street has a clock with Hebrew letters which moves counter-clockwise], that’s where the wedding was. The orthodox rabbi Rappaport married us. The groom was waiting already under the chuppah. My Aunt Ethel and my father’s wife, that is, my step-mother wrapped me in their arms and led me under the chuppah. My father and Uncle Nachman stood on either side of my husband.. At the end of the ceremony, my husband broke glasses. After the ceremony, we went to Aunt Etus’s house, where a wedding banquet followed. Quite a lot of people came. My best girlfriend, Szidi was there with her husband. They set seven tables. After the wedding, I stayed in the Paris Hotel with my husband. We were in Prague for a week. In the beginning, I called my husband Hermann, but when the children were born, then he became ‘Dad’. In front of the grandchildren, I called him ‘Papa’.

My husband worked in the munitions factory during the Holocaust which belonged to Buchenwald. After he got home, he stayed alone. None of his relatives came home for him, though he had two sisters, and they had children, too.

When I got married, like newlyweds we bought double of every kitchen utensil. My husband and I agreed to keep a kosher household, in spite of the fact that my husband had already eaten treyf, but I hadn’t. I kept kosher until 1960. I don’t remember on what occasion I ate treyf the first time. I was at work, I ate in the company kitchen, so it was impossible to follow the obligations of a kosher kitchen there. I don’t even have separate dishes for Pesach, anymore. On Pesach, I don’t consume leavened bread, flour and yeast either, I just eat matzah for eight days. My menu at that time usually consists of blintzes, various vegetables and meat. Nowadays in Galanta, I only know two people who keep kosher, Mrs. Muller and Mrs. Lowinger.

Almost all of our friends emigrated by 1948. Most of them went to Palestine. They went home. I’m not even sure there was a Palestine then. Everybody left. My husband and I also got ready to leave, but I stayed, pregnant. Pali was born in 1949. Since he had already started to sprout a little, we couldn’t leave. So we stayed here, but we really would have liked to leave. We even packed for it, I labeled the crates. In the end, we stayed anyway. That was really painful for me, I would have gone.

We were very glad about the formation of the Israeli state in 1948. We got together and talked about it, and were glad about it. Even today, if we sing the Israeli anthem [Hatikvah] 16, my tears start gushing. We also sing it, if there’s an occasion calls for it, for example in the prayer house, for the unveiling of memorials…etc.

My husband was the general manager of a pharmacy for thirty years. He worked in one place all the way to his retirement. I worked with him, but it wasn’t long before the regulation came out, that husband and wife couldn’t work together in the same place. So I looked for another position. I found one in the service industry, as a manager, then I worked in another business, likewise as a general manager. I retired to a reduced pension quite early for health reasons, because of my spine.

After we returned [from the war], it was hard to make heads nor tails of politics, in the new system.  Communism didn’t sit well with me. That’s probably why I kept my religion, because the Communist system didn’t appreciate such activities. The Communists took power in 1948 and by the early 1950s, we felt it. They searched our house more than once. They just came in with a paper, ‘Uh… we’re searching your house.’. My husband and Kalisch had a jewelry store, so they thought, I don’t know, we’re so rich. During these house searches, they would turn everything over starting with the cellar, and we had kids by then. They even searched the children’s beds so there wasn’t any gold or something hidden away.

It was very displeasing for my husband. He said, when the Slansky Trial [Slansky Trial] 17 was going on, that it wasn’t Slansky speaking, it was doll. It’s possible that Slansky just spit in some [Communist] party member’s face. They turned my husband in for saying those words. True, he was very lucky that his good friends overturned the letter reporting him. If they hadn’t, he would have sat [in jail] for a good couple years. They repeated the house searches a good couple more times. That’s when we felt there really is anti-Semitism. We heard on the radio about those Russian doctors, Jewish doctors [Doctor’s Plot] 18 , in Romania and Bulgaria also, it was just Jews who were persecuted. We were really sorry then that we didn’t leave for Israel.  We were really scared then, that they would put us in prison. I was scared that they would lock us up innocently, because they locked up a lot of people like that. It was enough to just say somebody was a Zionist, and they were locked up. Nobody among our immediate friends and relatives were locked up then. Jancsi [from Janos – John] Kalisch, however, was locked up, he was put away for five or six years. They imprisoned him because he wanted to go to Israel on an airplane.

I only took part in the Socialist holidays at work as much as I had to. I was a member of the union, it was obligatory, but I didn’t join the Communist Party. In 1968, we just worked.[Prague Spring] 19. We were glad about what happened, however both our children were in the hospital in Pozsony [Bratislava] at the time. We thought a lot about leaving [emigrating] then, but my husband was afraid. He didn’t want to depart for Germany, that is to say, he didn’t want to live with the Germans. We could have gone to America or Israel, but he said he was too old to start life over. I think we made a mistake then, that we stayed here. After 1968, a lot of people left Galanta.

We have three children, two sons and a daughter. Pali [diminutive of Pal –Paul] was born January 14, 1949 in the Lutheran hospital in Pozsony. I was sick, I spent almost a year in the hospital. My daughter Zsuzsi Deutsch, now Mrs. Schenk, likewise, was born in Pozsony on October 11, 1950 in the Jewish hospital. The last, my third child, Gyuri [from Gyorgy – George] here was born January 3, 1954 in Galanta. They all have Jewish names: Pali is Jehude – after his grandfather; Gyuri is Abraham; Zsuzsi is named Malka after my mother.

Pavol, whom we call just Pali at home, got married after his studies. It was a Jewish wedding. They lived in Ersekujvar. He was an employee of the Ogyalla Research Institute, and his wife was working in Szemerce as a teacher. They had a nice life. His wife died relatively young, and suddenly, at the age of fifty-one. They had two children, a daughter and a son. Renata, their daughter got married in 2000, her husband’s name is Steiner. The ceremony was held in the courtyard of the Gyor synagogue. They had two sons, David and Daniel. My granddaughter didn’t agree to have them circumcised, even though the Budapest rabbi came to do it. My grandson Peter married a girl of Russian origin, whose mother is supposedly Jewish. The wedding wasn’t held according to Jewish tradition. They recently had their first daughter, Alzbeta.

My daughter Zsuzsi’s husband, Ladislav Schenk is the descendent of a Jewish family from Dunaszerdahely. Their wedding was in 1969 or 1970. Rabbi Katz married them under the chuppah. My daughter didn’t go to a mikveh, since she was already pregnant at the time. My son-in-law’s mother and I escorted her under the chuppah. The groom was escorted by my husband and Grandpa Rujder, as his father was no longer living. The reception was arranged in the Dunaszerdahely prayerhouse courtyard. There were Gypsy musicians. The food was kosher, brought straight from Budapest. Every Jew in Dunaszerdahely was at the banquet. They had two daughters, Alica and Ingrid. The whole family emigrated to Israel later, to Netanya.

My son Juraj, nicknamed Gyuri, married a non-Jewish girl from Postyen. They had two families [children – sic], David and Estera. The marriage wasn’t fortunate, because they divorced. His wife and children consider themselves Jehovah’s witnesses. My grandchildren still come out to visit me. Estera has been married three years already, to a Kosovo Albanian boy, and David married not long ago. I asked him if his wife was aware that his grandmother is Jewish. He said yes. My grandchildren know I’m Jewish, they respect me and love me, like any other grandmother.

Concerning religion, my husband knew everything perfectly. He insisted on traditions. He insisted that my daughter marry a Jew and that my son take a Jewish wife. My third son didn’t take a Jewish wife, true his wife wanted to convert, but my husband was already sick, he said it wasn’t necessary.  When my son Pali had a child, that is, he didn’t allow his grandson to be circumcised, because his mother was a teacher who was scared when they put him in a nursery school, they would notice, and could kick him out. When the child turned sixteen years old, he had himself circumcised and had a bar mitzvah.

We went to the cinema and theater a lot, in Pest as well as in Pozsony. We didn’t take the children, but went together by ourselves or with friends. We travelled by train, we didn’t have a car. We went to cafes, too. Whether or not our friends were Jewish didn’t matter. Dr. Neumann, Rozenzweig the engineer, Jozsi Ferencz, Kohan…they were all really good friends of ours. Neither Jozsi Ferenc, nor Vrabec, nor Kohan were Jewish, but they were still really good friends. Every Saturday night and Sunday night we had card parties, every week we got together. If it was at our house, then we had black coffee, sandwiches and sweets. Everybody smoked, but they didn’t go to the pub, they only visited houses. My husband was a big soccer fan. He went to the Galanta matches and Pozsony matches, too. He took the boys with him.

In the summers, we vacationed in Luhacovice. While the children were small, my father also came with me. My husband came out on the weekends, so he was together with us on Saturday and Sunday. He rarely took a vacation. We took walks, had conversations. Every year we went on summer vacation. I’ve been to Karlovy Vary [Karlsbad] 20 for problems with my gall bladder, as well as Bartfa for treatments. My husband had a heart attack, so every year for more than ten years we went to the spa in Podebrady.

We also went to company and union resorts [resort hotels/hostels for employee or member use]. We went to Balaton, and I always got my entrance pass to Karlovy Vary from the union. We first were awarded an travel permit abroad in 1977. My husband got sick right then and died in that year. Originally, we had planned to go to Germany to visit our friends. Our old friends from Galanta, Dr. Fischer’s family and Jancsi Kalisch didn’t let me stay home. They’d left in 1968. The Fischers weren’t orthodox Jews. Jancsi was. I had gone to school with Kitti Fischer since childhood, she was a really good friend of mine. She said to me, ‘Rozsi, if you can arrange it, I’ll pay for the airline ticket, if you’d like to go to Israel, to visit Hana. At that time, I hadn’t seen my sister for thirty-two years. When I got back to Galanta, I started making the arrangements. They said, if someone pays for the ticket, then I’ll get my travel permit. And in 1978, I got it. I travelled to Israel in April and stayed there for six weeks. That was a big thing then, because they still weren’t allowing such visits. I had to submit the application to the President of the Republic [of Czechoslovakia], he gave me an exception for permission to travel. He wrote on it, that I had been in a lager and I hadn’t seen my sister in thirty-two years. It’s possible that he personally signed it, or someone from his office signed it in his name, but the fact is, I got the travel permit.

I remember the 1967 Israeli war very well. We were constantly sitting in front of the television, listening to the news. We were proud that they had such a army at their disposal, and that they were able to conquer so many Arabs. There were even Galantans who had close relatives who lost their lives in the war.

For myself, I had a few opportunities to go to Israel, first in 1978, then again only after the Velvet Revolution [Velvet Revolution] 21 did I get to go there. After that I went almost every year. I’ve been to Netanya, Jerusalem at my friends’, I went to Kirjat-Atta where one of my Romanian cousins lives. I went to a lot of places.

I find Israel to be a fascinating country. When I first went, it surprised me how small it is. A couple years later, I hardly recognized Netanya, it had been built up so much. There were a lot of Russians on the streets, everyone spoke Russian, if I was walking, I thought I was in Moscow.  I liked everything there, from a visitor’s point of view everything was pretty. Maybe if I would live there, I wouldn’t find everything so pretty.

After the political change in 1989, when they opened up the eastern block countries, there was no major change in my life. The only way the events affected me was that we could go to Vienna freely. Of course, I had already been to the west. I saw the jewelry stores there and everything that many were seeing for the first time. It wasn’t new to me, I had been to Germany and Israel, too.

My son, Gyuri escaped to Germany in the 1970s, and they had let me visit him. 1983, 1984, 1985… Every year I went out to see him, and even stayed for up to three months. My son is a masseur. I lived with him in Munich. I worked there too. I did needlework for a German seamstress, there who paid me very well for my work. I bought this and that, and sold it at home. This little side income worked out very well with my pension.

My life hardly changed after the Velvet Revolution. I’ve got quite a respectable pension. I get 400 Euros from the Germans quarterly, since I worked in the Allendorf munitions factory. I’m not reliant on anyone, my children either. I still take care of myself.

I’m an active member of the Jewish community. I’m part of the leadership, I take part in the meetings, we discuss everything. The president of the Galanta religious community at present is Bela Fahn. The present president, Fahn is a different kind of person than the last president, Adolf Schultz. He was much older than Fahn is. Bela Fahn informs us about everything, discusses things with us. Schultz in his time, just quickly rushed through what he had to say, and acted according to his own ideas.

I’m now going to the prayer house. There’s a reception room there, where we celebrate weddings and birthdays. Every year we celebrate the Zajin Adar holiday. We set the table, serve cakes and something to drink. In the evening, we have a fish dinner. The Pozsony rabbi, Baruch Myers is usually present at these times, he gives us a holiday speech. The Jewish families from the Galanta area get together.

I never hide my Jewish origins. Once I went to a bath, and someone wanted to tell a Jewish joke. First they said that they hoped there weren’t Jewish people among us. I said there weren’t any, just one, that would be me. I don’t hide that I’m Jewish.

In the last three years, the Slovakian Jewish Community Central Organization have taken over half my expenses for drug prescriptions. On the basis of a medical prescription, there’s a social worker, who is paid by the town. Through the Claims Conference, I received 4500 Euros for persecution during the Holocaust.

During the latest census, I considered myself of Slovakian Nationality. I live here, so I consider myself Slovakian. At the same time, I haven’t given up my Jewish religion. That’s one hundred percent.

Glossary
1 Subcarpathia (also known as Ruthenia, Zakarpatie): Region situated on the border of the Carpathian Mountains with the Middle Danube lowland. The regional capitals are Uzhhorod, Berehovo, Mukachevo, Khust. It belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until World War I; and the Saint-Germain convention declared its annexation to Czechoslovakia in 1919. It is impossible to give exact historical statistics of the language and ethnic groups living in this geographical unit: the largest groups in the interwar period were Hungarians, Rusyns, Russians, Ukrainians, Czech and Slovaks. In addition there was also a considerable Jewish and Gypsy population. In accordance with the first Vienna Decision of 1938, the area of Subcarpathia mainly inhabited by Hungarians was ceded to Hungary. The rest of the region was proclaimed a new state called Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, with Khust as its capital, but it only existed for four and a half months, and was occupied by Hungary in March 1939. Subcarpathia was taken over by Soviet troops and local guerrillas in 1944. In 1945, Czechoslovakia ceded the area to the USSR and it gained the name Carpatho-Ukraine. The region became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, the region became an administrative region under the name of Transcarpathia.

Jan Hanak
Zilina
Slovak Republic
Interviewer: Martin Korcok
Date of interview: August 2007

Dr. Hanak was interviewed in his home town of Zilina, where he was born as Jan Herz. The uniqueness of this story rests in the fact that until the deportations started, he had no idea of his Jewish origins. Despite the fact that both his parents were Jews, they were completely indifferent to religion. As a result, Mr. Hanak had automatically attended Roman Catholic religion classes in school since he was very small, because his friends also attended these classes. Alas, even in this case anti-Jewish legislation made no exceptions, and their entire family was deported. From his life story, we find out how one can come to terms with such a complicated situation in life. In this interview, Mr. Hanak also speaks of the loves of his life: his family and sports.

My family background and growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background and growing up

My father's family was from Horna Marikova in the Povazska Bystrica district. My grandfather's name was Gabriel Herz, and he was born in 1864. He owned a butcher's shop. But I don't think he sold kosher meat 1. As far as I know, our family wasn't at all religious. We never paid any attention to religion and rituals. I never knew my grandfather. He died before I was born, in 1930 in Horna Marikova. My grandmother's name was Berta Herz, nee Spitz. She was born on 25 December 1866 in Kliestina in the Povazska Bystrica district. I don't remember her very much. All I know is that in 1944, when things began getting "hot", she came to Zilina to stay with us. But she stayed for only two weeks. Then she left to stay with her daughter Maria Goldberger in Trencin. The Germans rounded them all up. Grandma Berta was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

My father was born in Horna Marikova as Armin Herz in 1900. After the war our entire family changed their name to Hanak. My father had three siblings, a brother and two sisters. His older brother's name was Dezider Herz. Dezider died of typhus that he caught as a soldier during World War I. One of his sisters was Regina Herz. She married a textile merchant in Povazska Bystrica by the name of Valdapfel. They had a son, Paul. During the Holocaust she was transported away and murdered. My father's other sister was Maria Goldberger, nee Herz. Maria married a widower by the name of Goldberger in Trencin. Her husband had two sons from his first marriage. Their names were Hans and Tomi [Tomas]. Maria and her husband perished in a concentration camp. Hans joined the partisans. Alas, he didn't survive the war. The younger one, Tomi, ended up in Terezin 2 from where the Red Cross took him to Sweden to recuperate 3.

Around two years before my father died [he died in 1986], I proposed to him that we drive to Horna Marikova, where he was born. I didn't even know exactly were the town was located. I said to him: "Let's go to Marikova. Show me where you were born, where you lived." We went there to have a look. Their family home had been torn down. We stopped an older woman in the street. She was of my father's generation. She remembered that there had been some sort of a Jewish butcher in the village. But she no longer remembered any names, nothing.

My mother's family was from the eastern part of the first Czechoslovak Republic 4. My grandfather, Emil Lanyi, was born in Porostov, today in the Sobrance district. He was born on 17 September 1877. His family name was Lipovics, which on 20 September he changed to Lanyi. He worked as a teacher in Kosice. He died very young, on April 1923. His father's name was Izak Lipkovics. He as born in 1837 in Porostov and died in 1907 in Tibava in the Sobrance district. Izak's wife was named Hani Lipkovics, nee Friedmann. She was born in 1843 in Vilmany. This town is located in what is today Hungary. She died in 1893 in Tibava.

My grandmother's name was Etel Lanyi, nee Salomon. She was born on 19 January 1879 in Kosice. My mother's parents were married on 11 August 1980. My mother's father's name was Moric Salamon. He was born on 3 October 1828 in Secovce, today in the Trebisov district. He died on 4 January 1913 in Kosice. His wife's name was Hani Salamon, nee Müller. She was born on 26 December 1850 in the town of Barca; today it's a part of Kosice. He died on 21 February 1931 in Kosice.

The parents of my great-grandfater Moric Salamon were named Jozef Salamon and Gizela Salamon, nee Spiegel. Jozef Salamon was born in 1797 in Cecejovce, today in the Kosice-okolie district [the district surrounding, but not including the city of Kosice], and died in 1885 in Kosice. The parents of my great-grandmother Hani Müller were named Izrael Müller and Xenia Müller, nee Silberstein. Izrael was born in 1809 in Barca and died in the same town in 1852. Xenia was born in 1808 in Poland and died in 1894 in Kosice.

After they were married, my grandparents had three daughters. All three in Kosice. The oldest was named Erzsebet Lipkovics. She was born on 28 June 1909. A year after she was born, they changed her surname to Lanyi. Erzsebet graduated from law school and married a lawyer in Budapest named Dr. Aladar Kelemen. They had son, Istvan. Pista, as we used to call him, who died tragically. When he was about 18, he drowned in the Danube. My aunt then got divorced and remarried. Her second husband was named Tessenyi. Erzsebet died on 15 July 1947 in Budapest. She died of gas poisoning in her apartment. To this day we don't know if it was suicide or an accident.

My mother's other sister was named Elvira Littna, nee Lanyi. Elvira was born on 24 September 1914 and died in around 1995 in Brighton, Great Britain. Elivra and her husband met in Prague, where he was studying law. Littna was a diplomat working for Great Britain. During World War II they were in London, where Elvira joined the British army. After the war she worked in Germany and Prague for a certain time. She was a liaison officer for UNRRA [UNRRA: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration – Editor's note]. The Allies were distributing material and food relief via UNRRA to people afflicted by the war. They had two daughters, Eva and Marina. Marina died of acute leukemia. Eva lives in England.

I probably didn't even meet Grandma Etel Lanyi before the war. When she reached retirement age, she moved to Budapest to be with her younger sister. Her sister was also a widow. I don't know what her name was. Everyone in the family called her Krema. Krema had heavy asthma, and her sister took care of her. They survived the war in hiding in Budapest. Luckily they didn't deport them. Grandma Etel lived until about the age of 95 in Budapest, and then moved to a Jewish retirement home in the city of Szeged. There she died in 2002 at the age of 101. She's buried at the local Jewish cemetery. My grandmother was probably the most religious person in our family. She prayed every day. As far as the other members of our family go, by this I mean my parents' generation, they didn't even really know what religion was. Neither on my mother's nor on my father's side. They didn't attend church [synagogue] and didn't observe customs. Absolutely nothing. Everyone took religion absolutely "sportingly". They didn't have any prayer books at home. For us, the Jewish religion was something like "volleyball".

My mother was born as Edita Lanyi. She graduated from academic high school in Kosice. She and my father were married on 5 September 1932 in Kosice. After the wedding she took my father's surname and was named Herz. After the war they changed their surname to Hanak, and so my mother's name was Edita Hanakova. My father attended business academy. After graduation he started working for a power plant in Zilina. Right at that time, a branch of the power plant was being built in Zilina. Back then electricity wasn't such a matter of course as it is today. There were only two hydro stations. One was in Bratislava and the other was in Zilina. Another one was being built in Kosice. Back then, my father was given the task of, among other things, setting up the Kosice power plant. He was renting a room from his future wife's mother. That's how they met. After his job there ended in 1933, my parents moved to Zilina. My father worked at the power plant as a manager. Back then only large cities had electricity, and it was gradually being introduced into the countryside. It was also necessary to deliver materials like power poles, wire, insulators, transformers, basically everything. My father' was in charge of the supply department. Later they relocated him from Zilina to Bratislava. He used to work weeks there, meaning that during the work week he was in Bratislava, and for the weekend he'd return home.

In 1934, my older brother Milan Herz, later Hanak, was born in Zilina. A year later [1935] I was born [Jan Hanak, born Herz]. Our address was Moyzesova Street, Zilina. I can't talk about the mischief that we used to get into as children; if I did we'd be here for a week. Beside our street there was a vacant lot, basically a large field. There were about fifteen boys around the same age as my brother and I on Moyzeska St. Every afternoon, because back then school was only in the morning, all the boys from Moyzeska would meet up in that field. None of us did any schoolwork. Despite that, some of us ended up as university professors. Hantala, for example. During the 1960s he was the dean of the Faculty of Law at Comenius University. In that field we played according to the time of year. In the winter we'd make a skating rink. The first snowfall would usually be already around [St.] Martin [November 11th]. During the summer we'd have foot races. The track was Moyzesova and Stefanikova Streets. We were enthusiastic athletes, and that's stayed with me to this day. That's how we lived until the summer of 1944.

During the war

I'd just like to say that my father was a very wise man. When the visible persecution of Jews began in the world, in 1938 5 6, he had our entire family christened. I was only three at the time. They converted us to Roman Catholicism. My father had never studied any religion, and didn't devote himself to philosophy either. He didn't care if it was Judaism or the Roman Catholic religion. The main thing was how to protect us form danger. All he devoted himself to was his work at the hydro station, sports, wrestling, and he was also a sports official. Naively, he thought that conversion would make "a black man white". The evolution of the political situation back then was the only reason for the conversion. During school we automatically attended Roman Catholic catechism classes. Back then they used to sell postcards with a religious theme. On the other side of the postcard you'd paste stamps. Also with a religious theme. The postcards were like lottery tickets, and would be sent to Trnava, to the St. Vojtech Association [The St. Vojtech (in English St. Adalbert) Association: a Roman Catholic association carrying out cultural and publishing activities. Today it is known mainly for the publishing of religious literature. It was founded in 1870 – Editor's note]. You could win all sorts of things with them. In each class, some pupil would be entrusted with this task. Usually only the most trusted and most responsible. The irony was that in our class it was I. This mission, as we used to call it, was my responsibility. We didn't have the least problem with anti-Semitism or anything similar. In 1942 they began concentrating Jews from all over Slovakia in Zilina. A collection camp was created there. At the time I saw people wearing yellow stars 7. I asked at home, why are they wearing them? Because they're Jews. It never occurred to me at all that I had anything in common with them. At that time it had nothing to do with me.

We didn't know anything at all about it. We didn't know that it concerned us as well. I think that my age excused it. Back then I very much liked my Roman Catholic religion. Our entire school would go to church. On Sunday we'd meet up around 9:00 a.m. in front of the school, and we'd go to church. Both teachers and students, together. I even had my first communion, along with the others. During catechism class back then, they taught us that Jews had crucified our Jesus. I liked baby Jesus very much, after all, at Christmastime he'd bring us presents! I was absolutely scandalized by the fact that the Jews had crucified our baby Jesus! I was eight years old at the time.

That's how it was until the summer of 1944. We didn't have any problems at all. My brother and I also didn't have any clue about any sort of Jewishness. In July 1944 our mother told us that we had to leave the city and that we'd be going to a nearby village by the name of Peklina. Back then it was normal. The cities were being bombed, and people were hiding in villages. At that time my father was working in Bratislava. He'd be there during the week, and on weekends he'd be home. In Pekina we were living with a farmer by the name of Hudec. There, one day in August behind their house, I heard a conversation between the wife of the gamekeeper and some farmer's wife. She said: "The Germans are coming here, and those Jews are living at Hudec's place. Not only he but the entire village will have problems because of it." Right away I told my mother what I'd heard. That was around lunchtime. In the early afternoon, we left. My brother and I didn't ask our mother about anything. We returned to Zilina, but our apartment was sealed. So we continued on, to Bratislava. My mother intended to find our father. In Bratislava we took a room at a hotel near the main train station.

In the morning our mother went to find our father. She returned, weeping. She said that we couldn't stay there, that we had to leave. She also said that our father was on a business trip and that we had to leave the hotel and that we'd be going to our father's sublet in Patronka with the Vrabec family. Back then all we found out from her was that our father had been sent on a business trip, and that he wasn't in the city.

In reality something else had happened. My brother and I didn't find this out until after the war. My mother had gone to our father's work. Our father wasn't there right then, so she waited for him. He returned around lunchtime and took my mother for lunch. They were walking along the street, and were stopped by a patrol of the Hlinka Guard 8 and the SS. They asked for their papers. While my father was looking for his ID papers, my mother kept on walking. They didn't pay any attention to her. A couple of dozen meters further on, she turned around, and saw them leading our father away. She quickly returned to the hotel, where we were waiting for her. Later we found out from our father that they collected them in Bratislava, and later he ended up in the Mauthausen concentration camp 9. He also recalled that he'd been in the Gusen camp 10 in Austrial. In Gusen he worked in some arms factory. There some Russian made him a cigarette case from aluminum. I found the cigarette case in his things after he died, and have it to this day. From Gusen he went to Mauthausen. My father was big athlete, a wrestler. When they took him away, he weighed about 115 kg. He returned in very poor health and weighed only 49 kg.

We stayed with the Vrabec family in Patronka for one night. Then we had to leave. In the city, across from the Manderlak: [Manderlak or Manderla Tower: considered to be the first so-called skyscraper in Bratislava, and in Slovakia. It was built in 1935 according to the designs of Rudolf Manderla, after whom it is named. It has 11 floors and for a long time was the tallest residential building in Bratislava – Editor’s note] there was a cinema. We hid in this cinema's furnace room for four nights. My mother slept on a stool, and my brother and I on the ground. We had to leave there as well, because the person who was hiding us there was changing shifts with someone else, and was afraid that his colleague would turn us in. He arranged us another hiding place in an apartment. It was this relay. My mother had some money, and that's what we paid with. We hid out for another few nights in that apartment. Once I heard some yelling in the street. I looked out the window, and a horrible scene played out in front of me. The Guardists and Germans were chasing someone, and then they shot him on the sidewalk under our windows. We had to leave that apartment as well. We moved to Vinohrady [Vineyards] by Bratislava. There we lived in a shed where they stored shovels and other tools for people that worked in the vineyards.

A family by the name of Vasut lived on Moyzesova St. in Zilina along with us. They had two daughters who had just graduated from high school. The older one was named Olga. She was 19. She came to see us in Bratislava and took my brother and I to an orphanage in Trnava. There some nuns took care of us. Our mother remained in Bratislava. As we later found out, she'd found a sublet and was looking for work using false papers. But someone reported her and she ended up in the Spandau work camp near Berlin [Spandau: the westernmost part of Berlin. During 1944 – 45, thousands of women at the camp in Spandau did forced labor for the German company Deutschen Industrie-Werke AG. The camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on 24 April 1945 – Editor's note]. From there they took her to Ravensbruck 11, where she was until liberation.

My brother and I were at the Trnava orphanage from the second half of September 1944 until Christmas. We attended school. Each morning they took us to church services, as the orphanage was part of the church. In the morning there would be Mass, and after lunch we had to say Hail Marys. There were twelve of us in the room, and we had bunk beds. With some exaggeration I can say that it was training for the concentration camp. I had no idea how many Jews were in hiding there. During the Christmas holidays, on the first day of Christmas, the Guardists came. The Mother Superior had us summoned. My brother and I went there along with two other boys. Their names were Borsky and Rosenberg, or Rosenzweig. I don't remember the name exactly. They escorted all four of us off to the labor camp in Sered 12. This camp was both a labor and a collection camp. There they filled out the prisoner's records. They also had a section for religion. There weren't only Jews in Sered. Political prisoners and criminals ended up there as well. In the religion section my brother and I filled in Roman Catholic. Several days later they called us in for a medical checkup. I think that the head doctor's name was Frisch. He had us take off our clothes and they checked whether we were circumcised. They were speaking German. My brother they automatically called "Jude". With me he thought for a while. Finally he looked at my face and said: "Das ist einer typischen Jude." [German: That is a typical Jew – Editor's note]. Now I had tangible proof that we were Jews. We spent a few weeks in Sered, and at the end of March or beginning of February 1945 they loaded us into cattle rail cars.

We passed through Malacky, Kuty and Brno, through Prague to Terezin [In 1945 there were three transports dispatched from the Sered collection camp to Terezin: January 16, March 9 and March 31 – Editor's note]. There was straw on the floor of the cattle cars. There might have been around fifty of us there. Men and women together. Higher up there were small, barred windows. In the corner there was a pail as a toilet. The bucket would be emptied at station stops. Several people died during the trip. They were also offloaded at the stations. I don't remember how long we traveled for. When we were passing through Prague, my brother and I took turns standing on each other's shoulders and looked through the barred window. We saw Hradcany [Hradcany: a city quarter of Prague. A large part of the quarter is occupied by the Prague Castle – Editor's note]. At that time I said to myself whether I would ever in my lifetime see it other than through those bars. After many years, when I was in the army and saw Hradcany, I returned in my thoughts to my wish in the cattle car. Finally we arrived in Terezin.

From my point of view, Sered and Terezin were equally bad. First of all, I missed my parents, I missed school, I missed playing. A kid needs something else than being in jail. Secondly, I was always cold, terribly cold. In Sered there were several dozen of us in a room, and we had only one small stove. People used to call it a "Vincko". We were also very hungry. The Germans had a kitchen, and my brother and I used to go pick through their garbage cans. We used to pick potato peels out of the guards' garbage cans. We'd then roast them on that small stove and eat them.

In Terezin they for some incomprehensible reason put us with the men. That saved our lives. The rest of the children remained with their mothers, and they deported them onwards to extermination camps. We lived in the men's quarters. I left a piece of bread sitting there, which they stole. There was some sort of quarry outside of Terezin. Up front someone would dig something up, and we'd pass the bucket he'd filled along. We stood in a long row and handed the bucket from hand to hand. Originally there had been a lot of children in Terezin. They even put on their own plays. One of them was named Brundibar 13. But they gradually transported all the children away. Further transport was practically a death sentence. Most of them perished [Of the 7590 littlest prisoners deported eastward from Terezin, only 142 lived to be liberated. Only those children that remained in Terezin for the entire time had a chance to be saved. On the day of liberation, there were around 1600 children up to the age of 15 in Terezin (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note].

I tried to escape from Terezin. There was a section that was guarded by Czech guards, and so my brother and I decided to try to leave that way. Czech guards were more benevolent than German ones. A guard was walking around there, and when he was far enough away, I walked around the Small Fortress 14. They called it the Kleine Festung. That's where they tortured people. You could hear the screams from there from far and wide. I waited for my brother. My brother didn't come. Several tens of minutes later I again saw an opportunity when the exit wasn't guarded, and slipped back in. I asked my brother, why he didn't come. He told me: "Where would we go, anyways? They'll turn us in right away, after all, no one will let themselves be killed. They'll catch us at the first house, give us to the Germans, who will kill us."

After the war

A few days before the liberation of Terezin, a Red Cross commission arrived [On 4 May 1945 members of the Czech Aid Project commenced a rescue effort in the Little Fortress, and at the same time made contact with representatives of the International Red Cross, which on May 2 had already put the police jail and ghetto under its protection. On the evening of May 8 the first units of the Red Army passed through Terezin on the way to Prague (source: www.pamatnik-terezin.cz) – Editor's note]. At that time they relocated my brother and me to the Kinderheim [children's home in German – Editor's note]. We had Czech-speaking teachers taking care of us. They also taught us songs. One of them has stuck in my memory: "Spring will come, will come, soon it will be May. The meadows will bloom, the woods will bloom." As a child, I projected it onto our situation. At that time it was the end of April 1945. Spring will come, will come, soon it will be May. That was the time of year we were in right then. The meadows will bloom, the woods will bloom. I imagined our street, Moyzeska [Moyzesova Street – Editor's note] and children's games in Zilina. All this would come again with spring. At that time some children even ended up in Sweden. One of them was my cousin Tomi Goldberger, the stepson of my mother's sister Marie, who'd gotten married and moved to Trencin. We didn't find out about his stay in Terezin until after the war.

Terezin was suddenly without any leadership. Transports from various concentration camps began arriving, from which they were unloading human derelicts onto the ground in front of the wagons. It was sunny May weather. Nurses with Red Cross bands on their sleeves were going back and forth. Concentration camp survivors were lying helplessly on stretchers. They were skin and bones. Others were trying to feed them. A doctor was walking around and shouting at people: "Don't give them food! Don't give them water! Only slowly, by the spoonful! Otherwise you'll kill them!" These were the appalling scenes we witnessed even after the war.

Trucks began leaving Terezin, each with a banner with the name of some town. For example Pardubice, Usti nad Labem, and so on. The name Zilina of course didn't appear. My brother didn't know what would be next. We had no one to take care of us. Suddenly we saw a truck with a sign saying Brno. We said to ourselves that because we'd gone to Terezin via Brno, let's get on that truck. What was interesting was that in Czech towns and villages there were tables set up at the side of the road, and on them loaves of bread cut into slices. People probably knew that prisoners would be returning that way, and so prepared some food for them. We arrived in Brno. We had no idea what to do next. We didn't have even one crown, nothing. So we set off for the station, and waited for the first train that would be going to Slovakia. We took the train to the Kuty border crossing. From there we continued on foot. In Slovakia we got on some freight car. We got to Leopoldov that way. Then we continued on foot again to Zilina. Here and there some soldiers gave us a ride. We ate what we came across on the way. For example in Trnava we saw some beets, so we picked some apples growing on trees at the side of the road. Finally we ended up in Zilina.

My brother and I set out for our apartment on Moyzesova Street. There was already someone else living in the apartment, and when they saw us they slammed the door. We remained out on the street. What now? We remembered that when we had converted from Judaism to Christianity, we had to have godparents. Our godfather was Mr. Simora, an engineer. My father had been the supply manager at the power plant, and Mr. Simora had a wholesale electrical parts business. He'd been very glad that our father was purchasing many parts for the hydro plant from him. That's how they gradually became friends. Ironically, his wife was also a Jewess that had converted. They were our godparents. Mrs Simorova had a dog. Before the war, she'd always give me a crown [in 1929 the Czech crown was decreed by law to be equal in value to 44.58 mg of gold – Editor's note] for taking him for a walk around town. Often she'd give me five crowns to buy the dog horsemeat sausages. But I liked them so much that I'd eat some of them too. We'd share. When we arrived they told us that our parents hadn't returned yet, and that they didn't know what had become of them. They took us to an orphanage in Zilina. We remained there until the fall of 1945, until our mother returned. She learned from the Simoras that we were at the orphanage, and came to get us. She'd also found out that our father had survived. He was in the dermatology ward in Trencin. He'd gotten ulcers all over his body from malnutrition. All four of us had managed to survive, but we didn't have anywhere to live. A Roman Catholic family had taken over our apartment. Their name was Galbavi.

The management of the North Slovak Power Company for whom our father worked behaved very respectably towards us. They emptied an office on the top floor of the power station building and made it into an apartment for us. We got only the bare necessities, but nevertheless we had a place to live. We had a roof over our heads. Back then the general manager was Mr. Reich. He wasn't a Jew. His son Frantisek Reich competed on the Czechoslovak rowing team at the 1948 Olympics in London. Later the power company built three residential buildings on Stefanikova Street in Zilina. They then allocated us an apartment in one of them. So our father got his job back right away. At first our mother was at home. She'd graduated from Hungarian academic high school in Kosice. After the war she got a job in the school system. She did minor office work. After work she took part-time business courses, so she then got a better job at the Regional Union Council in Zilina.

I'd like to return to the prewar era and my later stay in Terezin, and the practice of religion. You know, at that age I didn't much understand religion as the worshipping of God. I liked Roman Catholic rites. Before the war I'd been an altar-boy. My friend Alino Trgo from Moyzeska St. got me involved in it. Alino was from a very devout family and was also an altar-boy.  Once he asked me if I didn't want to try it. I said yes, and learned how to do it. To this day I can do almost the entire Mass in Latin. I know all the prayers. Here I can't but help make one remark. I misbehaved quite a bit in school. Back then teachers were allowed to use corporal punishment. Either they'd bend us over a desk and whip our behinds with a cane, or we'd get on our hands. Because I misbehaved a lot, I was punished a lot. But back then I said just wait, come Sunday you'll beg for forgiveness. On Sunday we'd all go to church from the school, along with the teachers. In the Roman Catholic rite when they perform the offertory and the changing of the blood of Christ into wine, the altar-boy rings a bell and everyone else in the church kneels. The priest raises the hosts and cup and people kneel. Before this, I would always look at all the teachers, especially the ones I'd gotten it from that week, and said to myself silently: "Now you'll beg for forgiveness." I'd ring the bell, and watch with delight as they'd kneel. I'd imagine that they weren't kneeling because of the offertory, but were begging for forgiveness for what they'd done to me.

I even served as an alter-boy in Terezin. There masses took place in a room. They weren't done by a priest, but by some very religious person. The way even a layman can give the last rites to a dying person in an emergency, so can he in an extreme situation lead services. They used me for Jewish services as well. I worked as a sort of shammash [shammash: translates as "attendant", and designates a paid general employee, especially one that takes care of overall maintenance of a synagogue – Editor's note]. My brother wasn't interested. He wasn't inclined towards religion. I was also fascinated by religious songs that were sung during they holidays. When the organ and singing started, I'd feel shivers run up and down my spine. The organ's sound was so powerful and the words of the songs so beautiful that it fascinated me. You know, it was amazing. I lived for it. I liked the service, and I liked the music. So I wanted to continue in it after the war as well. When I returned to the church in Zilina after the war, the sexton, Mr. Pozak, asked me: "Where in hell were you all year?!" I answered: "You guessed it, in hell." I also served during funerals and weddings. To this day I still meet people in the street whom I'd ministered to at weddings.

The entire time we were imprisoned I thought that it was one huge mistake. That I wasn't supposed to be there. It had nothing to do with me. That one day they'd find out and apologize and let us go. That our family will once again be together and will live like before. I lived in the hope, in the illusion, that it was all a mistake. I saw people dying of typhus, of hunger. Every little while a dead body would be carried out. Women and children went somewhere else than my brother and I. We were with the adult men in these barracks. All this convinced me that my prospects for the future weren't so bad...

At the end of the war our family decided to change its name. German names were too obvious to everyone 15. From today's perspective, decades after the war, it's perhaps naive. But back then that psychosis, that anti-Semitism, that fear, drove you to eliminate everything that could endanger you in some way. Even things like a name change could appear as important. It was sometime around the end of 1945 or start of 1946. We were sitting down at supper, and thinking of a suitable surname. My mother for example suggested Horak, or various surnames that people we knew had. Then my brother and I noted that during the war we'd been in hiding at an orphanage in Trnava, where there'd been about fifteen of us to a room. Three of them had been terrible hoodlums. They ended up in a reform institution. Their names were Duris, Filo and Hanak. I recalled these names, and my brother said that we should be Hanak. So that's how we got our name.

My brother, Milan Hanak, was an excellent pupil. At that time the school system was such that you had to attend five grades of people's school, and then could transfer to council school 16, and the better students to "gymnazium" [academic high school]. Under exceptional circumstances you could go for your entrance interview for high school after Grade 4 of people's school. My brother managed it. When he graduated, he left for Prague to study architecture. There he met a nurse who was originally from Hradec Kralove. They got married and had three children. Two daughters, Zuzana and Lucie, and a son, Filip. Zuzana is a well-known Czech actress [Drizhalova, Zuzana (b. 1975): a Czech actress – Editor's note]. She was for example in serials like Hospital on the Edge of Town or Family Ties. As far as I know, my brother maintains no contact with the Jewish community in Prague.

As opposed to my brother, I'm registered with the Jewish religious community in Zilina. After the Velvet Revolution 17 friends from the community approached me and asked whether I wouldn't be interested in joining. From a religious perspective I don't feel myself to be a Jew, but I am a Jew by race. When memorial events for victims of the Holocaust take place, I also participate in them. After all, many members of my family were murdered during the Holocaust. It's my responsibility to honor their memory. But I don't participate in the religious life of the community at all. I was a Roman Catholic since the age of three, and currently I'm an atheist. A person has to confront all his opinions with reality. In my opinion, religion is a lot of humbug. The turning point came when I started my basic army service. As a soldier I had a lot of time to think about the meaning of life, existence and my future. Eventually a person has to pose himself such fundamental questions. The main thing is for us to meaningfully fill the time that we have here on Earth. Because at the close of life, everyone will take stock of whether or not he used his time meaningfully. During that time I also more or less decided for my future occupation.

I decided for my future employment right before I entered the army. I was studying at a mechanical technology high school, and in my free time I devoted myself to parachuting. During one jump I ruptured the meniscus in my knee, and I had to go to the hospital for an operation. I had a doctor friend there with whom I'd played hockey in Zilina. He told me that the hospital had a library, and that I could borrow something to read. I asked him to bring me some book in which I could find out in detail what they had actually operated on. I got an interesting book called Forensic Medicine. Back then I realized that this was much more interesting to me than some mechanical engineering. That was during the time I was entering the army.

I entered the army in Trencin, where they had signal corps. Right during the entrance procedures they announced that everyone who'd played first and second league hockey should report. In Bohemia the army team was Dukla Litomerice, and the second army team was composed of players from Moravia and Slovakia. That one was based in Presov. The main army hockey team was Dukla Jihlava. So I reported. About 30 of us got into Presov. The did a selection for the team there, and I got onto it as well. Besides this, I was a member of the paratrooper brigade. I lifked that a lot. Back then I was very physically fit. Paratroopers undergo very tough training. The value of food for soldiers was determined according to calories expended during training. For example gunners, tank crews and the infantry got 14 crowns a day. Paratroopers got 30 crowns. So you can imagine what the training was like. Parachute jumps aren't the main part of paratrooper training. The jump itself is only a way of getting somewhere quickly. But once there you have to perform tasks that are extremely physically as well as mentally demanding. Besides this, we had hockey practice and on the weekends hockey games. First we played on the regional level. From there we battled our way to the second league. Finally we got into the first league, but by then I was already leaving for civilian life.

A person has a lot of humorous experiences in the army. My army entrance took place in Trencin. Each barracks had a room that was called the "hlaska" [reporting station]. Each evening all the barracks in Slovakia had to contact Trencin, where the district command the central reporting station were. Women soldiers, professionals, worked there. You had to report. This was done in Morse code. There were acronyms for everything, called Q codes. For example QRS meant "repeat text" and QST "transmit more quickly". So if something wasn't understandable, they'd write QRS from the central station. My roommates struggled with Morse code, and those at the central station would make fun of them. They kept on sending them the Q code for "transmit more quickly". The soldiers at the receiver would be in a sweat, but couldn't send any quicker. They were unhappy because of it, and were also talking about it in the mess during lunch. They were thinking about how to get their revenge on the women at the central station. At that time the reservists had also entered the army. One of the reservists was a Czech who offered to come in the evening and help them. The soldiers gave him the text he was supposed to send. He began incredibly quickly. From the central reporting station they however sent the Q code "transmit more quickly". But despite the fact that he was transmitting awfully fast, the women were still capable of receiving it. Suddenly he pulled out some sort of device. It was an apparatus that had a lever. When he move the lever to the left, it sent dots. When it was moved to the left, it sent dashes. You see, he was an electrical engineer, who'd participated in nationwide and international Morse code races. He began transmitting using this device. Suddenly the Q code "repeat text" came. He repeated. The code "transmit more slowly" came. He was sending so fast that they weren't capable of registering it. Then he let the soldier back in his place to transmit. They then investigated from the central station who'd been sending so fast, and found it out too. But they never repeated their jokes.

Another anecdote is a bit disgusting, but for a soldier, humorous. During one hockey game the meniscus on my other knee ruptured. They operated on me at the military hospital in Kosice. There were also a few civilian patients at the military hospital. There were eight of us in our room. Four on one side, four on the other. Lying under the window was one old guy. A homeless type, you could say. He had a venous ulcer, and so every winter they'd admit him to the hospital. He was called Jozsi bacsi [Uncle Jozsi in Hungarian]. He pestered everyone around, especially the nurses. They didn't like him. Do you know how he washed? Under the bed he had a bottle of mineral water. In the morning a nurse would come and bring him a washbasin. Jozsi bacsi would take the bottle from underneath this bed, and stand above the basin. Then he'd fill his mouth from the bottle. His cheeks were completely stretched. I'd guess that a half liter of water fit in there. He'd spit the water out into his hands and wash his face with it. It made our stomachs churn. Lying in the bed beside me was a soldier from the air force. When Jozsi bacsi was sleeping, we took his bottle and peed in it. In the morning we were waiting for him to wash. None of us went into the washroom. We were all watching. He repeated his ritual. He took a mouthful, spit it into his hands, and washed himself. We began to roar with laughter. He sniffed the bottle, and realized what was up. He begun to yell at us in a mixture of eastern dialect and Hungarian: "The visit will come, the colonel will come. I gonna tell him everything, and you gonna go to the prosecutor's office." We knew that he'd tell, but we didn't know how the head doctor would react, who was at the same time a colonel. The visit came, ten doctors. They came over to Jozsi bacsi: "So, Jozsi bacsi, how are you?"
"Mr. Colonel, you got to arrest those ones over there!"
"What for?"
"They pissed in my bottle."
"Good for them. What's preventing you from going to wash normally? You're always putting on the same act here." Luckily it ended up all right.

During my basic army service in Presov I thought about what would be once I return to civilian life. I didn't like mechanical engineering very much. I wasn't an inventor. So I thought about going to study medicine. I however had to prepare for it, because they have admittance interviews on things that I'd never before come into contact with. For example, I'd never taken biology or organic chemistry. In mechanical engineering we'd taken inorganic chemistry. In 1958 I left the army and really did prepare for medicine. In 1959 I successfully passed the admittance interview for the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Bratislava. I studied medicine from 1959 until 1965. I had two phenomenal roommates at our residence.  Today they're both university professors. One was named Viktor Bauer and the other Ciampor. Bauer worked for the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Ciampor was the director of a virology institute. After I graduated from medicine, I started work for a surgery clinic in Zilina. I worked there for 21 years. Then I became a medical examiner, and last year [2006] I retired.

After finishing school I married my classmate, Ludmila Vtakova. We'd attended school in Martin. Back then the Faculty of Medicine in Bratislava opened a branch in Martin. For us it was closer, so we ended up there. Currently it's named the Jessenius Faculty of Medicine of the University of Comenius in Martin. Our wedding ceremony was on the day of her graduation. Our wedding was a strange one, because her parents came to the graduation and didn't know about the wedding. The graduation was supposed to be at 1:00 p.m. Her parents were at the residence when my bride announced at 11:30 a.m.: "You should get ready. We've got to go soon."
"What for, it's only 11:30 and the graduation isn't until 1:00?"
"The graduation is at 1:00, but the wedding is at 12:00."
"What wedding, whose wedding?"
"Mine!" By the time her parents came to, they were already at the National Committee. From there we went to a theatre, where the graduation ceremony was taking place. My in-laws were angry at us. Especially my father-in-law. They were from a village, and there it had been the custom that they'd announce to everyone that their daughter was getting married. That their relatives are really going to be upset, that their daughter had a wedding and they hadn't been invited.

My wife was from the village of Visnova. The Cachtice Castle rises high above the village. She studied academic high school in Nove Mesto nad Vahom, and then at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Martin. My father-in-law was truly angry at us. He said that the entire village would stone him to death. We persuaded him to tell them that he hadn't known anything about it. Later it came out that people in the village had been waiting as to who'd start with this sort of wedding. After that many continued in this fashion. You know, in villages there are various customs and to-dos around weddings. Wedding preparations already begin two weeks beforehand. They invite several hundreds of people... The best thing is when you pay a hotel, and they arrange everything. Back then the entire wedding cost us about a thousand crowns [in 1953 the equivalent gold content of the Czechoslovak crown was decreed by law to be 0.123 grams, which remained in place until the end of the 1980s – Editor's note]. All told, there were ten of us. So our wedding was in June 1965. We had two daughters. Marcela in 1966 and Michaela in 1969.

After the wedding we moved in with my parents in Zilina. My wife worked for some time at a Zilina hospital, but we weren't very well off financially. I had no money, she had no money. We needed to become independent. We wanted to live on our own. One company in Zilina was building an apartment building. They had this condition, that if a company doctor came to work for them, they'd assign him an apartment. My wife took the job. Thanks to that, we got a three-room apartment. She worked there until she reached retirement age. Luckily her health is good, and she's still working, as an audit doctor for a health insurance company.

My parents lived in Zilina for the rest of their lives. My father died in 1986, and my mother in 2002. Both are buried in the local Roman Catholic cemetery. My grandmother Etel Lanyi lived the last years of her life in the Hungarian town of Szeged. She died at the age of 101, and is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Szeged.

My wife's parents didn't know about my Jewish origins. My wife of course did. She even knows more about Judaism than I do. She read a lot about it, and was in Israel as well. She knows a lot about this area too. Ludmila is Slovak in the best sense of the word. She's very insulted when she hears Slovaks say that Jews used to use the blood of Christian girls to make matzot, and similar nonsense. She was also saddened by the fact that the nation that she'd like to be proud of is capable of such atrocities as what took place during World War II. After all, many Jews from Slovakia were leading figures in culture and sport. Jews founded many sports committees and organizations. Her mother used to work for Jews as a maid, and said that she'd never had it so good as with them. They were decent to her. Jews usually always dealt with everyone in an upstanding fashion. Everyone knew this. But during the time of the Slovak state 18 they saw how they could easily get to their stores, workshops, apartments, property... People were capable of joining the Hlinka Guard. They were capable of collecting and deporting Jews to Poland. Up until 1944, everything in Slovakia was done by Slovaks 19. They liquidated Jews using the most fantastic justifications, that they're vermin. The Jewish Codex 20 and all that cause her great chagrin.

When I was working, I wanted to realize my long-ago dream, to be a great athlete. Alas, I didn't succeed. I was basically an anti-talent, but I loved sports. In some sports I was even a member of the Zilina team. I played hockey, handball, athletics, soccer and tennis. My greatest successes were in tennis. I became regional champion. Aside from tennis, I was more or less a benchwarmer. In athletics I did long-distance running. To this day I don't know a more beautiful aroma than that of a sweaty hockey dressing room. As former soldiers, paratroopers, we also have our own club and we get together. We put on various events, including jumps, shooting and trips. I'm also a member of the Zilina Old Boys hockey and soccer team. We get together with the guys once a year to sit around and reminisce about old times.

I was usually a substitute; when someone dropped out of the main lineup I'd fill in for him. But I wanted to advance. When our older daughter was born, I said to myself that I'd try it with her. I began to study tennis coaching. I took many courses, both theory and practice. We turned the living room into a gym, and I began to teach her techniques with a ping-pong paddle. How to stand, posture, swing technique. You can teach all this with a ping-pong paddle. We gradually moved on to larger rackets. In time we achieved results. Marcela several times became the Slovak champion in tennis. In Czechoslovakia she was second. She was at the center of elite sports with current top Slovak coaches, at the same time coaches of the national team, Mecir [Mecir, Miroslav (b. 1964): former Slovak tennis player. Olympic champion at Seoul (1988). Currently captain of the men's Davis Cup national team – Editor's note], Stankovic [Stankovic, Branislav (b. 1965): former Slovak tennis player and coach. Currently the director of tennis tournaments in Slovakia – Editor's note], and Vajda [Vajda, Marian (b. 1965): former Slovak tennis player. I currently the coach of one of the best tennis players in the world, the Serb Novak Djokovic – Editor's note].

Our daughter made it among the top players in Czechoslovakia, and there was a real hope that she could make it into the top 20 in the world. I knew that she wouldn't be in the top ten, because she's got slow legs. She compensated for it with fantastic technique. She was a very sharp thinker, and was also good at the net. With a good partner, they could have been among the best doubles teams in the world. We were already putting her together with another top Czechoslovak player, Zrubakova [Zrubakova, Radka (b. 1970): former Slovak tennis player and currently a tennis coach. She was a member of the Czechoslovak national team that won the Fed Cup in 1988 – Editor's note] from Bratislava. Her father was vice dean at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of the University of Comenius in Bratislava. Also a tennis fanatic. His daughter was a good runner, she'd have played in the back and Marcela would have been up at the net.

At that time I was fully focused on her career. My boss at the time, the surgeon Cerny, wanted to specialize us in various fields, and wanted to make a plastic surgeon out of me. In those days Cerny was a big name. Later he transferred to Bratislava, where he became the head of the Kramare Hospital. I liked his idea about the plastic surgery, but I'd have had to leave for three years to Bratislava, to study. I told him that I wasn't going. Instead of thinking up some excuse, like for example that my mother was ill, I told him the truth. I can't go. Who will coach my daughter? As a result of this, he wrote me off. He was of the opinion that a surgeon should be a fanatic for whom everything else takes a back seat. No mother, no daughter, not even tennis! Later, when I wanted to do further attestations, he didn't let me. He looked for various pretexts. That's why I worked at the outpatient clinic all my life. My daughter was my hobby. During this I had to keep in shape. I began running long distances and marathons.

Alas, my daughter's career ended prematurely. While training in a gym, she fell and suffered a compound fracture of her forearm. She had to hang up tennis. She recuperated for a long time, and at last applied at the Faculty of Medicine at Comenius University in Martin. She did her attestation in anesthesiology. Several years ago she went to the USA for a study stay. When she returned home, she told us that they have an amazing top-quality facility there, incomparable to the ones in Slovakia. Something like that won't be here even in a hundred years. That she'd like to work and live there. So she found out everything necessary to be able to work in the USA. Today she works as an anesthesiologist for cardiac surgery in the city of Albany, the capital city of the state of New York. At the same time she does part-time work teaching medical graduates who want to pursue anesthesiology. She has no family yet; she's single.

Our younger daughter is named Michaela. She's also single. She graduated from nursing high school. She then applied at the Faculty of Philosophy of Comenius University in Bratislava. She graduated from the Department of Education and Nursing. School seemed easy to her. She arranged an individual study plan for herself. She worked in London, where she took care of children. At the same time she was taking exams at school. After graduating from university she decided to leave. She moved to Canada. She lives in the city of Vancouver. In Canada they didn't recognize either her nursing high school diploma nor her university degree. The Canadian Association of Nurses didn't give their agreement.  It's very strange, because Canada has a shortage of nurses. In order to be able to stay there, she took work that's very unattractive by Canadian standards. She took care of children. She did that for almost four years, until they finally recognized her diploma. Now she works as a nurse in cardio surgery. In the meantime she also got Canadian citizenship. While she's working she's also attending university. When she finishes, she'll be this sort of connection between doctors and the hospital. Let's say a doctor sends someone to the hospital for a gall bladder, stomach or heart operation; that person has to undergo a pre-surgery examination. Basically he has to be prepared for the surgery. This is done by nurses who are qualified for it.

We see our daughters very seldom. The younger one has been abroad for eleven years, and the older one seven. Even the two of them don't visit each other. Albany and Vancouver are very far away from each other. They're very busy with school and work. Work abroad can be compared to sport. When our athlete starts with a foreign team, he's got to be better than the local players in order to stay. It's the same with work. It's not enough to be like the locals. You've got to be better. They have to be better, and that doesn't happen by itself. My wish for my 70th birthday was for all of us to be at home together again. They'd been here several times, but never together. For my 70th birthday it finally happened. It was a great present for me. Otherwise we're constantly in contact. We phone and email each other.

In my daily life, I was a fervent anti-Communist. At the surgery, I had an operating day once a week. It was on Thursday. I'd enter the operating theater and greet the staff with Heil Hitler. Once they asked me why? I answered: "Same regime, same greeting." I didn't see any difference between Fascism and Communism. One was wore black and the other red. I think that I also hold the record for the shortest membership time in the Communist Partty 21. I never attended any club meetings or gatherings. Nothing like that. During my studies they commented on it a couple of times, but I always made some excuse. I was an athletics coordinator, and did a whole lot more than the other "party members". Once, when I'd gone to play tennis, my classmates had a meeting. Upon my return everyone was smirking at me. They said that every club had the task of pushing someone into joining the Communist Party. The way it was back then was that in order to be promoted to a higher position, you had to have a certain amount of Party members below you. It was the same in medicine. If someone wanted to be a chief physician, a certain percent of his staff had to be in the Party. It didn't matter if they were cleaning women, nurses or doctors. They told me to join too, to improve the percentage. I filled in the application in the hopes that they wouldn't take me. As a reason I filled in something in the spirit of that I'd been nominated, and the fact that I wanted to join should be an honor for the Communist Party. I remember that the party chairman at the Faculty of Medicine, a gynecologist, was enraged. He read my application at the regional meeting of party chairmen. How could such an application have made it to the regional committee for approval? In the end they accepted me. Before the end of sixth year, the gynecologist, Dr. Zvarik, summoned me. By the way, he was the older brother of the actor Frantisek Zvarik. He told me: "You know, we needed to create some party members, so we approved  you at the membership meeting." He handed me an envelope with my registration, which I was supposed to hand in at my new place of employment. I of course didn't hand anything in. Alas, the regional committee in Martin sent a copy of my application form to my workplace. Everyone had an ID booklet, into which you had to paste a membership stamp once a month. At our work, a man that worked in the plaster room was in charge of the stamps. He'd always call me in to the plaster room. I'd give him ten crowns. That's how much a stamp cost. But I wouldn't glue it into the ID booklet, but onto the tiles in the plaster room. In 1968, the screening of all party members began. Whether they agreed with the entry of the allied troops 22, and so on. They never even summoned me to the screening. I got a piece of paper, which I have put away to this day. It says: "Due to the fact that you did not fulfill your responsibilities – though I don't know which ones – your membership in the Communist Party of Slovakia has been revoked." According to the dates on the document, a total of seven days had passed from my acceptance to my expulsion.

I was of the opinion that it was my responsibility to not only complain about the regime, but also to act. In 1989 the possibility of change began to be felt. But change don't come on its own. It depends on people. At that time I was working as an assessment physician at the Regional National Committee, Department of Social Affairs. At one meeting, at which the entire executive was present, the chairman and sixteen department heads, I spoke up about the need for change. The VPN 23 had been created in Slovakia, which was promoting democratic elections, the cancellation of the leading role of the Party, freedom of religion and so on. I proclaimed that I was founding the Zilina branch of the VPN, and that I was asking for their cooperation. Whoever was interested in the making these changes could join. Alas, even the VPN was only composed of people, with all their characteristics.  Many began to take advantage of it for their own ends.

It was similar to when during the time of the Slovak state they'd wanted to push the Jews out. The difference was in that back then they wanted Jewish property. The VPN was basically the same. They wanted to get rid of all the top Communists. Alas, not because they were Communists. They wanted their positions. I can become a director there, or there. They were pushing people aside just because they had a Party membership. In the meantime, there could have been those among them who'd been sticking their stamps on tiles somewhere. But no one looked into that. They also got rid of first-class experts who'd helped wherever they could. I took a stand against these methods. That's how I got into a conflict with the executive of the VPN and the governing coalition at the time. At that time the governing coalition was composed of the VPN, DS 24 and KDH 25. They all wanted posts for themselves and their relatives. I didn't agree with this, and asked that they say what concretely the person they were letting go was guilty of. Many of them had families to support. They had years of courageous work behind them. Now we're to send them out on the street? Just because they had some sort of piece of red paper? Alas, one of those being installed also ended up in charge of the directorate for my profession, and I had my work cut out for me in order for me to not be kicked out either.

But I can't say that after the war I was ever persecuted for my Jewish origins. A lot of people didn't know about my origins, and still don't know. But I do meet up with rude remarks regarding Jews. For example, once at the hospital we admitted a patient, let's say Mrs. Grünova. The hospital staff would make comments like: "We admitted that Yiddo." It was: "...that Yiddo in number six." [The Jew in room number six – Editor's note], or: "The kike in number sixteen." That hurt you at the time. But I personally never met up with discrimination. When I did have some problems in life, it was due to my own shortcomings, and not because of my origin.

Glossary
1 Kashrut in eating habits: kashrut means ritual behavior. A term indicating the religious validity of some object or article according to Jewish law, mainly in the case of foodstuffs. Biblical law dictates which living creatures are allowed to be eaten. The use of blood is strictly forbidden. The method of slaughter is prescribed, the so-called shechitah. The main rule of kashrut is the prohibition of eating dairy and meat products at the same time, even when they weren’t cooked together. The time interval between eating foods differs. On the territory of Slovakia six hours must pass between the eating of a meat and dairy product. In the opposite case, when a dairy product is eaten first and then a meat product, the time interval is different. In some Jewish communities it is sufficient to wash out one’s mouth with water. The longest time interval was three hours – for example in Orthodox communities in Southwestern Slovakia.
2 Terezin/Theresienstadt: A ghetto in the Czech Republic, run by the SS. Jews were transferred from there to various extermination camps. It was used to camouflage the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, who presented Theresienstadt as a ‘model Jewish settlement’. Czech gendarmes served as ghetto guards, and with their help the Jews were able to maintain contact with the outside world. Although education was prohibited, regular classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number of artists, writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was an intensive program of cultural activities. At the end of 1943, when word spread of what was happening in the Nazi camps, the Germans decided to allow an International Red Cross investigation committee to visit Theresienstadt. In preparation, more prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, in order to reduce congestion in the ghetto. Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school, and flower gardens were put up to deceive the committee.

Sima Libman

Tallinn

Estonia

Interviewer: Emma Gofman

Date of interview: March 2004

I first met Sima Libman in her small cozy two-room apartment. I saw a small old woman with bright eyes. I found her to be a friendly and talkative person with a good sense of humor. While Sima and I were talking her granddaughters called several times to discuss their problems with her. Later, I saw Sima among the people who attended the general assembly of the Estonian Jewish Community. From the outside I could see that she walked with difficulty but I never heard her complaining about her health, and the conversation we had was a pleasant and interesting one.

My family background

Growing up

The soviet invasion of the Balkans

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

I heard from my father, Elhanon Rogovski that my paternal great-grandfather had come from Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. My great-grandfather’s name was Zelik Rogovski. When he was twelve years old he became a Cantonist 1, and served in the tsarist army at the age of 18. After 25 years of service my great-grandfather had the status of Nikolayevsky soldier 2 and could therefore settle anywhere within the Russian Empire. He chose Estonia, which was outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement 3, as the place of his residence and in the early 1860s he settled in the small Estonian town of Rakvere. His children were born there. I don’t know how many children Zelik Rogovski had: I can only tell you about two of his sons. There was Meier Rogovski who was born in 1867. He lived in Tallinn and was a highly respected person. For many years he was the chief rabbi of the Tallinn Synagogue. 

Besides that, between the 1920s and 1940s, Meier Rogovski was a stock holder of the Jewish Bank in Estonia. I remember what he looked like: a tall grey-haired interesting-looking man. He always wore a top hat and carried a walking stick. When World War II began his two daughters and their families moved to the back areas, but Meier Rogovski, his wife Chase, and their son Aron remained in Tallinn. The fascists killed them in September 1941.The second son in my great-grandfather’s family was my paternal grandfather, Benyamin Rogovski. He was born in the mid-1860s. Unfortunately, I know very little about my grandfather as he died a few years after I was born: I don’t remember him at all. He was an artisan, perhaps, a shoemaker and lived in Rakvere his whole life. From his first marriage he had five children: three sons and two daughters. My father was the youngest in the family. My paternal grandmother’s name was Leah [nee Pats].

In the 19thcentury the large Pats family lived in Pskov [today Russia], then some of them moved to St. Petersburg [today Russia], and some to Estonia. My grandmother’s sister, Beile Chapkovski, lived in Tallinn with her husband. Her brother, Abram Pats, first lived in Rakvere and then in Tartu. He had three children: Yakov, Zelda, and Pesach. Their descendants now live in Estonia and Israel.

In 1903, Grandmother Leah fell ill, she was treated in a hospital in Tallinn, but the doctors couldn’t help her and she died. She was buried in Tallinn at the Jewish cemetery. My father was only five years old then and my grandmother’s sister, Beile Chapkovski, adopted him. She didn’t have any children of her own and her family brought up my father as their own son. After his wife’s death, Grandfather Benyamin still lived in Rakvere with the rest of his children. The family was poor and my grandfather couldn’t pay for his children to be well-educated. Yiddish was the language spoken in that family.

My father’s eldest sister’s name was Anna. She studied in a Russian gymnasium in Rakvere and finished eight or nine grades. Anna married Faivel Migdal, who was a real estate agent. They lived in Tallinn and were well-off. Aunt Anna considered herself an urban lady: she never spoke Yiddish, mainly Russian. Their son’s name was Gedalye Migdal. He went to a German school, but in 1933 when the fascists came to power in Germany, all Jewish students had to leave the school. Gedalye spent his last school year in a Jewish gymnasium. After that, he graduated from the Department of Chemistry of the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute. When World War II began, Gedalye worked as an engineer at a chemical factory in a small Estonian town called Kivioli [130 km east of Tallinn]. 

At the beginning of July 1941 it was rumored that German troops had landed in the woods somewhere near Kivioli. Local authorities quickly assembled a self-defense group and sent it to the woods to capture the invaders. Gedalye was in this group. He always dressed well and on that day he wore a leather coat and a pair of box calf boots. So the Red Army soldiers mistook him for a German spy and shot him dead. His parents found out about their son’s death only after the war as they had evacuated in early July 1941. After the war, Aunt Anna and her husband lived in Tallinn and died in the 1960s.

Sheina Mitzevendler [nee Rogovski] was my father’s second sister. She acquired little education; I believe she only finished elementary school. Her husband was a hat-maker, he had a workshop in Tallinn and made good money. He was particularly good at making uniform caps and galloons on army epaulettes. Aunt Sheina was a housewife. They had two daughters. One of the daughters, Ezia, married a Latvian in the 1930s and went to live somewhere in Europe. Later, she moved to the USA and lived there for a long time and died there. The other daughter, Zelda, now lives in the USA with her son’s family. Aunt Sheina died before World War II. My father also had a brother, Aro-Benye Rogovski. He didn’t have much education either: in fact, he didn’t have a vocation. He lived in Tallinn with his family, did various odd jobs and owned a trade business for some time. He had a wife, Esther, two daughters, Rachel and Sarah, and a son, Zelik. 

During the war, Uncle Aro-Benye was enlisted in the Labor Army 4 and died there. Zelik, his son, fought in the Estonian Rifle Corps 5 and died in combat action. Esther, Rachel, and Sarah were in evacuation in the Ural region [today Russia] and returned to Tallinn after the war. Sarah was one year older than me and we were close friends, she was a wonderful person. Unfortunately, she died at the age of 65 after a very serious illness. Rachel died at the beginning of 2004. She lived in Finland with her daughter’s family. 

Out of all of my father’s relatives, his brother Joseph Rogovski was my favorite person. He was very talented. When he was young he strove to get as much education as he could. My grandfather couldn’t afford to help him so Uncle Joseph had to make his own way. He studied, and worked, and then studied again. During the [Estonian] War of Liberation 6, Uncle Joseph volunteered to the Estonian Army, and wounded his leg. He limped for the rest of his life. In the late 1920s, he graduated from Tartu University and became a certified pharmacist. After that, he and his wife, Pesya, lived on the small Estonian island of Vormsi for two years where Uncle Joseph worked as a pharmacist. Later, they went back to Rakvere, and Uncle Joseph opened his own drugstore with Pesya’s father’s help. In 1931, they had a daughter, Leah, and in 1935, a son, Benyamin. In 1940, the drugstore was nationalized, and Uncle Joseph was appointed the sanitary inspector for Narva. During the war, Uncle Joseph was evacuated to Chuvashia [a region in central Russia, in the middle of Volga valley]. After the war they returned to Estonia and lived in Parnu where Uncle Joseph worked as a sanitary inspector until he retired. He died in the late 1970s. His son, Benyamin, now lives in Israel with his family, and his daughter, Leah, lives in Tallinn. She worked as an engineer at a large factory for many years and is now retired. Unfortunately, she is very ill now.

When all his children became independent, Grandfather Benyamin married a widow with a young child and they had a daughter, Rebecca, in 1917. She was a beautiful girl, adored by all the relatives and especially by my father. Rebecca graduated from a German gymnasium in Rakvere and went to live in Tallinn. By that time Grandfather Benyamin had died, but his brother, Meier Rogovski, helped Rebecca to get a job at the Jewish Bank. Since then, she has always worked in finances and was a very good accountant. Rebecca married in 1939 and had a daughter, Sheina, in April 1941. During the war, Rebecca and her daughter were evacuated to the Urals, and her husband fought in the Estonian Rifle Corps. After the war, they all returned to Tallinn, and in fall 1945, when Rebecca gave birth to another daughter, Yana, her husband suddenly died of meningitis. Later, she remarried and had a son, Boris Khalupovich. In 1987, Boris went to live in the USA and Rebecca, Sheina and Yana followed later with their families. Rebecca is still alive. I sometimes talk to her on the phone and write letters.

My father always recalled his aunt, Beile Chapkovski, and her husband who took the place of his parents with gratitude. They were deeply religious people: often attended the synagogue, didn’t work on Sabbath, and strictly ate only kosher food. They also celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays according to the traditions of Judaism. The Chapkovski family spoke only Yiddish. Aunt Beile could speak little Russian and Estonian. Her husband was a kind person, but his life ended tragically. There was a small square in front of the Tallinn Synagogue 7 with several stalls which sold sweets, lemonade, and various trinkets. The Chapkovskis owned one of these stalls. One evening, just before closing time, two thieves entered the booth, killed Aunt Beile’s husband with an axe, and took the little money he had. This happened in 1925. Prior to that, everything was fine. The Chapkovskis helped my father to acquire a good vocation. Upon finishing nine years at a Russian gymnasium he studied under Rokhlin, an excellent old Tallinn dental mechanic. After he finished his studies, my father was tested by a special examining board and received a document which enabled him to work as a dental mechanic. Later, he worked with several dentists who treated patients in their offices and passed their orders to my father. He completed the orders at home where he had a small lab.

When my father was still a schoolboy he went to visit his mother’s relatives in St. Petersburg during his summer vacation. He had a lot of relatives in St. Petersburg, all of them members of the Pats family. While he was visiting a family of some of his distant relatives my father met a girl named Sofia Beilis. My father was 14 then and Sofia was just twelve. That’s when they fell in love. Every year my father went to spend at least a week in St. Petersburg in order to see Sofia. The last time he visited was in the summer of 1917. At that time they finally agreed to marry when my father started working independently, but due to circumstances they had to wait a further six years.

My mother, Sofia Beilis, was born in 1900 in Yamburg, Petersburg province [today Kingisepp, Leningrad region in Russia]. Her father, Joseph Beilis, was a good military tailor. He made uniforms and overcoats for top officials in the Russian army. In the mid-1900s, in regard to Joseph’s high qualification as a tailor and, therefore, his usefulness, he was given permission to settle in St. Petersburg along with his family. My grandfather rented a basement near the city center, engaged several workers, and opened a workshop. His family lived next to the workshop. My grandfather could have come from Ukraine because Mendel Beilis, whose name stirred entire Russia from 1911 to 1913 [see Beilis case] 8, was his distant relative. My mother recalled that they had a large photograph in their room with Mendel’s portrait in the center and his lawyers’ portraits on the sides.

My mother’s mother, Lyuba Beilis [nee Pats], was born in Pskov [today Russia], in 1880. After she married Joseph Beilis she lived in Yamburg. My grandmother had five children: my mother was the eldest. Next was another daughter, Panya [1902], then a son, Semyon [1905], and then Emma [1909] and Eugenia [1911]. They were all born in St. Petersburg. My grandparents spoke good Russian and Yiddish, but since their children went to a Russian school they used Russian in their family. However, my grandparents spoke only Yiddish to each other. Their family always observed the kashrut, Sabbath, and all Jewish holidays. My grandmother was a good housewife. She was good at preparing Jewish cuisine: she could cook traditional Jewish meals, and taught her daughters to do the same. She always made her own clothes: her children were always dressed well, and after my grandfather died, she earned a living by making clothes.

My grandmother was a determined person. When World War II began, Uncle Semyon and Aunt Emma’s husband went to the front, but the women and children stayed in Leningrad and didn’t know what to do. It was my grandmother who made the right decision then: she took all her children and grandchildren from Leningrad to Urzhum, Kirov region [today Russia], where her youngest daughter, Eugenia, lived. All of them returned to Leningrad after the war except my grandmother who died in Urzhum in 1943. Aunt Eugenia married twice before the war. From her first marriage she has a son, Joseph Turevski. He lives in Moldova now. Eugenia’s second husband, whose last name was Rosanov, was a professional army officer. Before the war he was appointed chief of the military school in Urzhum, but when the war began he went to the front and was killed. Eugenia and her children remained in Urzhum after the war. From her second marriage she has two children: her son, Mikhail Rosanov, who now lives in Israel, and her daughter, Tamara, who lives in Urzhum. 

Semyon, my mother’s brother, was a very interesting person. He was good-looking, cheerful, and very sociable: he could play the guitar and sing well. He always worked in sales: as a store clerk at first, and then as a manager. During the war, Uncle Semyon was in the army and fought at the Leningrad front. After the war, he returned to Leningrad to his family. Uncle Semyon used to say jokingly that his wife, Leah, gave him an expensive present every ten years: a new daughter. Two of his daughters, Inessa [born in 1928] and Lyubov [born in 1948], now live in St. Petersburg, and the third, Renata [born in 1938] died in 2003. Uncle Semyon was a very caring father. It so happened that his wife died when his youngest daughter was only seven years old. Uncle Semyon didn’t remarry. He brought up his daughter by himself and later lived with her family until his death. Their family was very hospitable: I loved staying with them when visiting Leningrad. Uncle Semyon died in the late 1960s.

Aunt Emma’s husband died in combat action. After the war she lived in Leningrad with her son and worked at a Leningrad chess club as a secretary. Aunt Emma died in the early 1980s: her son and his family moved to Israel in the early 1990s.

My mother’s third sister, Panya, lived in Leningrad, worked in a shop, and died in 1964.

In summer 1917, when my parents’ engagement took place, a number of very important events happened: The October Revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] 9 and the Civil War 10 in Russia, the Estonian War of Liberation, and Estonian Independence 11. My parents found themselves at opposite sides of the border. They wrote letters to each other and eagerly waited for a chance to meet. My mother forwarded several petitions to be allowed to visit her fiancé in Estonia but every request was denied. It was only in spring 1923 that she was permitted to visit her relatives in Estonia for a short period. My mother traveled to Tallinn and, naturally, didn’t return to the USSR. Later, in the 1930s, she really wanted to see her relatives in Leningrad but wasn’t allowed in. She did see her brother and sister after World War II, but her parents weren’t alive then. 

Growing up

My parents got married on 28thJune 1923. The wedding ceremony took place in the synagogue in Rakvere, where Grandfather Benyamin lived. At that time my father lived in Tallinn with Aunt Beile and her husband in a small apartment near the synagogue. It was the area where many Jewish families rented cheap apartments. The streets were narrow with mostly one-storied wooden buildings which were heated by stoves and had only electricity and running water facilities. Now these streets aren’t there any more: everything has been rebuilt. In 1923, my father brought his newlywed wife into Aunt Beile’s small apartment. I was born there in 1924. After my uncle died, we moved into a more spacious apartment in a different building, two-storied this time. We occupied the entire first floor, and our Estonian landlord lived on the second one. We had a large front room, a kitchen, a dining-room, a bedroom, and Aunt Beile’s room. She lived with us all the time, and I called her ‘grandma.’

When my mother arrived in Estonia she could only speak Russian. So Russian was my first language. As my mother talked to Grandmother Beile while at home, she was soon able to speak Yiddish: she had heard it spoken in her family from a young age. Later, she could understand and speak Estonian to servants and shop-keepers. I laughed when I heard her Estonian.

When I was four and a half years old, my parents hired a German governess for me so that I could learn German. This was the trend in Estonia at that time. She would come around noon and take me for a walk: we read books and played while speaking German only. At night she put me to bed and left. I forgot my Russian and started speaking German well: it’s always easier when you’re a child. Later, I studied German in school, and I can still speak, read, and write German. When I was five years old, I was sent to a Jewish kindergarten. I was there from 9am to 2pm when my governess would pick me up. During breakfast the children took turns helping in the dining-room by setting out the dishes and cleaning up afterwards. Our teacher, Madame Dubovski, who my parents became friends with later, used to recall how I would refuse to do the dining room duty and explained to everyone in German that I would have servants do this for me when I grew up. 

Yiddish was the language spoken in my kindergarten. There were Hebrew kindergartens as well, but my father acknowledged only Yiddish: he was a hard-line Yiddishist 12, but Joseph, his brother, held on to Zionist views. Whenever Uncle Joseph visited Tallinn he stayed at our place, and then my father and he would argue loudly discussing Jewish issues. They would chase each other around our large round table and shout. When my mother heard these shouts in the kitchen, she ran in, stamped her little foot, shook her ladle at them, and said sternly, ‘Enough!’ Then they would calm down. Fortunately, neither my father nor Uncle Joseph was a part of any political organization so they weren’t subsequently subjected to repressions.

I started going to school early, at the age of six and a half years: this was what I wanted. It happened in 1930. The Jewish school I went to was nearby. My class was small: we were taught all the subjects in Yiddish. Classes where subjects were taught in Hebrew were much more numerous. Base Schneeberg was the name of the teacher who taught us from first to fourth grade. From fifth grade onwards we studied languages: Estonian, German, and Hebrew. We were not too serious about Hebrew. We had a few lessons and we had no great desire to study it anyway. Influenced by our Yiddishist parents we considered Yiddish the true Jewish language. Students who were taught in Hebrew didn’t want to study Yiddish. Of course, there were families where both Russian and German were spoken. The school used a unified national curriculum, but our textbooks were in Yiddish. They were printed in Vilno in Poland [today Vilnius, Lithuania].

From a very young age, since my kindergarten years, I loved performing: I recited poems, sang, and acted in plays. There were plenty of chances to perform in school: end of school year, special parent nights, and various celebrations. The Jewish holidays which our school always celebrated were Purim and Chanukkah. For Purim we had fancy-dress balls, and for Chanukkah we did concerts, where I always performed. Other holidays were celebrated at home. Our school was secular. We knew all religious traditions, but there was no religious trend. The Hebrew classes had Tannakh lessons, but we didn’t. There was a cheder at the school. Some boys, who wanted to study the Torah, remained in school after lessons, and a rabbi conducted their lessons. There was no yeshivah in Estonia.

My parents weren’t too religious but they believed that Jewish families had to observe Jewish traditions. While Grandmother Beile was alive, our household observed the kashrut strictly: we bought only kosher meat, we had separate dishes for meat and dairy, even the towels which we used to wipe the dishes were separate. After Grandmother Beile died in 1936, a strict kosher household was no longer observed. My mother didn’t want to mess with the separate plates and towels, but still she never bought any pork. We always spent Sabbath at home. On Fridays, my mother thoroughly cleaned our apartment and cooked special meals for the next day, and Grandmother Beile baked challot. At night, when the entire family gathered at the table, my grandmother lit the candles and said the prayers. After my grandmother died, my mother carried on the tradition.

My father never prayed at home and never attended the synagogue on Saturdays. Only on holidays our whole family went to the synagogue together. Before the war we had a beautiful synagogue: just about all the Jews in Tallinn would go there for the festive prayers. In the synagogue there was an excellent male choir conducted by cantor Jossel Gurevitsch. Of all the holidays we celebrated at home, I do remember Pesach and seder. A special plate set, which was kept packed away in a box for the rest of the year, was finally put on the table. During seder, my father sat reclining among the cushions, posing as a free man. Aunt Anna and her family always came to our house for this celebration. Her family was secular: they didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays at home.

My parents were very sociable people: especially my father. He was a very witty and cheerful person. They both loved being around people, visited friends often, and their friends visited us. Our home was open to people. My father was a kind and caring person. He adored me and my sister. It was he, not our mother, who woke us up in the morning and sent us to school. If my sister and I had problems at school or out in the yard we ran to our father for help. My mother was much more severe. I remember one incident which occurred when I was seven or eight. My mother and I were invited to some friend’s house and it turned out that I had grown out of all my pretty summer dresses. So my mother took one of her dresses, which was beautiful but a bit old, and made it into a very pretty dress for me overnight. My father didn’t earn much in those days, and my mother had to make my dresses herself although she didn’t like doing it. The next morning, while my mother was getting dressed, I went outside in my nice new dress, climbed a fence, and tore it. I ran back to my mother crying. She didn’t say a word, but got hold of the collar and ripped the dress apart from top to bottom. She must have been very upset.

My mother knew how to dress inexpensively but fashionably and elegantly. She invented her own designs for dresses and suits. Sometimes she used her old clothes, combining them with new material. As a result she obtained some very elegant clothes, and her lady friends thought that she had bought them from an expensive tailor.

My mother was an energetic person, she loved being around people and participated in all kinds of events. While I was still in elementary school, my mother was always elected for the school’s governing committee where she worked very hard. In our school we had a small lunchroom, and during lunch break we could buy things like pastries, biscuits, or lemonade there. There was a long table in the hallway on the second floor where tea was sold from a samovar. Some ladies from the governing committee were always on duty in the lunchroom and kept order. My mother was often on duty. Both my parents were active members of the Byalik 13 Society: a Tallinn Jewish Society for Culture and Education. It was a secular organization: a kind of club. My father was a board member there.

The society rented a section of a large building, which isn’t in existence now. There were a number of hobby groups there: a drama group, a sports club, a choir, a youth group, etc. When my father was young he could act on stage. He was said to have been a talented actor. While still in secondary school and after his graduation, my father performed for the local Russian drama society and later for a Russian amateur theatre. He was part of the drama group in the Byalik Society and performed plays in Yiddish. One of the rooms rented by the Society was a large auditorium with a stage which was used for performances, concerts, and celebrations. The society had a good, nearly professional, large choir that sang at various events: it had actually been invited to sing for the Estonian Radio. Soloists from the Estonia Opera Theater would often visit the concerts to sing with the choir. The songs were either in Yiddish, Russian, or Estonian. Perhaps, they also sang in Ivrit, I don’t remember exactly. On one occasion my parents traveled to Riga [today Latvia] accompanying the choir on its concert tour: they were the choir’s constant admirers but didn’t sing themselves. There was also a Society library which contained many books in Yiddish, Russian, and Estonian. My parents read a lot, mainly in Russian. I borrowed Yiddish books from the library. We didn’t have a library of our own at home, and the papers my father subscribed to were in Russian and Estonian.

During holidays, the Byalik Society held dance parties. We had fancy-dress balls for Purim, there were always balls for Rosh Hashanah and for the general New Year. My mother prepared and organized these parties. Before the event she and some other lady members would visit owners of factories or workshops and ask them for donations to have a lottery or an auction. My mother was acquainted with the Jewish owners and they never said no to her. For instance, one of them, Ginovker, a chocolate factory owner, always donated boxes and packs of chocolates free of charge. Ratner, a fur workshop owner, donated some inexpensive fur items. Then my mother organized lotteries and auctions at the holiday events. Once she won a prize herself: a beautiful cushion made of fur and satin strips.

I didn’t participate in hobby groups at school, but I was a member of the Byalik Society youth group since I was twelve. I was part of the drama group where we staged children’s plays. I did gymnastics and played ping-pong. Once a week we would get together to have a discussion. The subjects were mostly cultural: on Jewish authors, artists, or musicians. We also discussed political events. I remember we discussed the Reichstag fire, persecution of Jews in Germany, fascism, and the invasion of Poland 14. We also discussed these things within our family: my parents, especially my father, were very worried. This is why later on, when the war began, we went into evacuation without any hesitation.

In 1929, my father spent a month in Austria going through an advanced training course for dental mechanics. Naturally, he paid all the expenses from his own funds. Our entire family went to the port to see him off and later to meet him: it was a big event for us. My father took a boat from Tallinn to Germany and then a train to Vienna. Later, in the mid 1930s, my parents spent several days in Helsinki [today Finland]. Apart from these trips, my parents never went abroad as they couldn’t afford it.

My younger sister was born in 1933. She was named Leah in memory of our father’s mother. According to Jewish tradition, the first daughter is named after her maternal grandmother, and the second one after her paternal grandmother. When I was born, my mother’s mother was still alive, and a child can’t be named after a living relative, so I was named after my mother’s grandmother. Her name was Simhe, but my name was recorded in a more modern manner: Sima. Leah was a happy and obedient child, and everyone in the family adored her. As an infant she had poor health, she had pneumonia several times and the doctors recommended that she spent summers away from the sea. So we rented a summer house in Hiiu, near Tallinn, for several summers. The house was in the middle of a pine forest: it was supposed to be good for her lungs. My sister, my mother, and I lived there, and my father came there every evening. Before that period, my mother and I went to the countryside every summer. 

To make it more fun, several Jewish families would get together, pick a nice spot at the seaside or lake shore, rent an inexpensive place and have a good time. My mother and I would usually spend two months there, and my father would manage a two or three week holiday and join us. Grandmother Beile remained in Tallinn to have her rest away from us. Our whole family spent two wonderful summers on Vormsi island when Uncle Joseph worked there as a pharmacist. That was in 1929 and 1930. There was a Swedish hotel on the island where we lived, but we visited Uncle Joseph and Aunt Pesya every day. There were amazing surroundings untouched by civilization, and beautiful forests full of mushrooms and berries.

My parents didn’t discuss the family’s financial matters in front me, but I think our economic situation began to improve from the mid-1930s. In 1938, we moved into a new comfortable apartment. It had central heating, an electric stove, and parquet flooring in every room. There were three rooms: a dining room, a bedroom, and a nursery. In the process of construction, the owner altered the apartment layout at my parents’ request, discarding the servant’s room and part of the kitchen to make space for my father’s study. We already had a servant at that time, but she came in the morning, helped my mother around the kitchen, and then left in the afternoon. We didn’t spend our summers in the country any more, but went to local resorts instead. We spent the summers of 1938 and 1939 in Haapsalu where my mother took mud-bath treatment for her legs, and in 1940 we went to Parnu. 

The soviet invasion of the Balkans

A few days after my sister was born, my mother and I went to Parnu. We received a telephone call from my father who sounded very anxious. ‘Come at once! We are being turned out of our apartment.’ We returned to Tallinn immediately and learned that Soviet troops had entered Estonia and our house would be occupied by the families of Soviet officers [see Estonia in 1939-1940] 15. We had three days to vacate our apartment. In panic, my parents searched for another apartment and found what we had always had before: a three-room apartment in a wooden building with stove heating. However, soon we were told that three rooms was too much space for us and a young couple was accommodated in one of the rooms. The man wore a civil suit, but the woman rarely came out of the room, which surprised my mother a lot. My father continued working. Our Jewish gymnasium was renamed ‘Secondary School #13.’ I was in my last year of school and intended to go on to study at the medical department of the University of Tartu. Classes which were taught in Yiddish and Ivrit were combined. The classes were taught only in Yiddish as Ivrit was outlawed. The Byalik Society and other Jewish organizations were closed.

During the war

The one year that we lived under Soviet government went by fast. On 7thJune 1941, I received my secondary school graduation diploma. The day before was my father’s birthday, so we had a double celebration at home. Two weeks later, I was going to submit my application to Tartu University but then the war began. German forces were quickly approaching Estonia’s southern borders and we realized that we had to go into Soviet back areas. When my father was young he had pulmonary tuberculosis, and although it was cured his lungs remained weak. That’s why my father wasn’t subject to military service. Still, it took him a lot of effort to obtain a permit to evacuate. We started packing up and I realized that my parents were very unpractical. I was just 17 years old but I knew better than my mother what things we had to take with us. If I hadn’t argued with my mother and had my own way we would have found ourselves in evacuation without bare necessities and with a bunch of useless things. Besides, everybody thought that the war wouldn’t last long and we would return in two or three months to find our apartments just as we had left them. That’s why my father didn’t take his dental tools and materials, my mother also left her sewing machine behind. After three years, when we returned to Tallinn, we couldn’t find any of our belongings. 

On 4thJuly 1941, our family left Tallinn and traveled east. We had been assigned to Ulyanovsk [today Russia]. We traveled in a goods wagon with other Jewish, Russian, and Estonian families. There were about 30 people in our wagon. We were lucky because a military store was being evacuated on the same train and we could buy our food from it. We never got to Ulyanovsk because our train was rerouted to go over the Urals. On one occasion I was almost left behind though at the last minute I managed to hop on the footboard of the last wagon. I had to stand there holding tight for hours until the train stopped again. That was when we were crossing the Urals range and the view was spectacular: the night, mountains, and extremely bright stars. The impression was so strong that years later when I was anesthetized and operated on I saw those mountains and stars again. 

We traveled for 15 days and finally arrived at the station of Dalmatovo [today Russia]. This is a small town in Kurgan region, 160 kilometers east of Sverdlovsk [today Yekaterinburg]. The food which was still left in the military store was given away to the evacuees. My mother got a large chunk of pickled lard. She didn’t know what to do with it, because we didn’t eat pork. For some reason, my mother didn’t dare to just give it to anyone but left it at the station, shoving it underneath some lumber. All who had been evacuated were assigned to kolkhozes 16. We went to the village of Ashurkovo [today Russia] and were given a vacant house. Apart from our family, two teachers from our Jewish school lived in this house. We all worked in the kolkhoz, out in the hayfields. Lunch was taken for everyone to the fields.

In September, I went to Sverdlovsk to study in a medical institute. I was accepted and given accommodation in the dorm. But my Russian wasn’t good enough and I understood very little at the lectures, especially in anatomy. I tried translating the lectures into Yiddish and Estonian: my anatomy teacher gave me a textbook in German. Still, I didn’t do well and was hopelessly behind in my class. Then we were sent to the country to help out with potato harvesting. I had no warm clothes and caught a bad cold. I wrote to my father telling him how miserable I was and he came for me at once. I returned to Ashurkovo but there was no work and no food. When cattle were butchered at the kolkhoz, kolkhozniks and evacuees were given the entrails and everyone was very happy with this. Nobody thought about kosher any more. I persuaded my parents to move to Dalmatovo. We rented a room there and survived by exchanging our things for food. Soon Israel Dubovski, a friend of our family who had arrived in Dalmatovo with his wife before us, introduced my father to his neighbor. His neighbor turned out to be a dental mechanic, too. He was an old Jew from Moscow [today Russia] who, unlike my father, had brought all his tools along with him. 

My father and he went to the local hospital and offered to open a dental surgery there using their own tools and materials. The hospital’s head physician liked the proposal and the surgery was soon opened. In this way, my father got work, a small salary, and most importantly, a worker’s ration card. Using it, he could get 400 grams of bread daily for himself and 250 grams more for each of us, non-workers. The hospital also provided us with a plot of land outside the town where we grew potatoes. Then I found a job. In Chelyabinsk [today Russia] there was a representation office of the Estonian Soviet Republic [see Estonian Government in Evacuation] 17 which dealt with affairs of evacuated Estonian residents. One of its representatives, an Estonian whose last name was Ilmatalu, worked in Dalmatovo. I was his secretary. I didn’t receive any salary, but I had a worker’s ration card. In fall 1942, Ilmatalu sent me to the village of Novoseltsevo, 40 kilometers away from Dalmatovo. A number of evacuated Estonian families lived in Novoseltsevo and the representation office opened an Estonian elementary school there. For the first three months an Estonian girl and I taught all the subjects in this school. 

Later, when the real teachers arrived, I returned to Dalmatovo. I walked 40 kilometers each way because there was no transportation. In Dalmatovo I had two friends of the same age as I: Jette Gleser and Sarah Rogovski, my cousin. We were young and tried to live interesting lives regardless of the hardships and disorder. All three of us often went to dance at a former monastery where officers’ refresher courses took place. There was no electricity in Dalmatovo: a homemade oil lamp was used to light the large monastery hall where we danced with young lieutenants to accordion music. Madame Dubovski, my former kindergarten teacher, and Israel Dubovski, her husband, were active people and spoke good Russian. They set up a drama club in Dalmatovo School, where Israel Dubovski taught mathematics. My sister Leah played the lead part in one of the club’s best productions, a fairy tale titled ‘Alenki tsvetochek’ [Scarlet Flower]. The club took this production to a festival of amateur theatricals in Kurgan [today Russia]. Jette Gleser and I also went to the festival with a beautiful dance, which we had prepared based on artistic gymnastics. Before the war, Jette and I did gymnastics for many years at the Maccabi 18 club. Both the fairy tale production and our dance were awarded festival diplomas.

In the middle of 1943, the Estonian representation sent me to Uglich [200 km from Moscow] to take a bankers’ training course. They were training specialists to work in the Baltic Soviet republics after the war. I was 19 then and I could speak much better Russian so I wasn’t scared of the 1,500 kilometer journey. After taking the course I returned to Dalmatovo and worked at a local branch of the State Bank. At the beginning of 1944, I received a call from the evacuated Estonian government. I was summoned to Moscow and sent to the offices of the USSR State Bank for a probation period. I stayed in a hotel, spent my days studying manuals and other financial documents, and in the evenings visited theaters and receptions at the Estonian representation office. A relative of mine, Zelda Pats, who worked for the Party, lived in Moscow at that time and we often met.

After the war

In May I was summoned to Leningrad. At that time, the Soviet Army had already entered Estonia, so the government of the Estonian Soviet Republic had been stationed nearby, in Leningrad. It occupied the large Oktyabrskaya hotel, where specialists for various government institutions of the future Soviet Estonia were staying. I was assigned to the Ministry of Finance, given a hotel room, and provided with food coupons and a scholarship. Until Tallinn was liberated I was to work in one of the branches of the Leningrad Bank. After I had some time to look around I went to a representative of the Ministry of Health and obtained an invitation letter for my father.

My parents were going through a very hard period at that time. My father didn’t have a job any more because his colleague had gone back to Moscow, taking his tools with him. In order to get a ration card, my mother went to work at a sewing cartel. My father’s lungs got worse. With great difficulty, having sold all they had, my mother managed to nurse him back to health.

In late August 1944, he came to Leningrad. Leah and my mother arrived a few weeks later. At my request they received a good room in our hotel and stayed there for a week. As soon as Tallinn was free, my parents and Leah went there. At that time, I had a job of putting archived documents in order, so I didn’t go to Tallinn until 4thNovember 1944. We had two rooms in a large apartment which was shared by two other families. My father began work as a dental mechanic in a state-owned dental laboratory, and I obtained the post of a credit inspector in the State Bank. Leah started her sixth year in the Russian school #19 19, and our mother stayed at home. My parents’ friends, the Dubovski family, also returned to Tallinn and lived in a communal apartment 20.

One of the families sharing their apartment was the Jewish Bahmat family. The head of the house, Isaac Bahmat, used to be an inspector in our Jewish gymnasium before the war, and prior to that he had been a school administrator in Valga. In fall 1945, the Dubovskis invited our family to their home. During our visit, Madame Bahmat peeked in and invited everyone to have some tea and home-made pie. Visiting them just at the same time was a very good-looking young man. He was Simon Libman, their friend from pre-war Valga. Later, I realized that this meeting didn’t happen by accident: it had been set up by Madame Dubovski and Madame Bahmat. Simon and I started seeing each other. It turned out he lived just across the street from us. Simon was twelve years older than me and I liked it. I didn’t like men of my own age, they all seemed too childish. Simon was born in Valga into a large and once very prosperous Jewish family. He finished a German elementary school in Valga, then an Estonian secondary school, and then he entered Tartu University in 1932 to study economics. Simon’s father used to own several houses and large shops in Valga but went bankrupt in the mid-1930s.

Simon’s two elder sisters, Rasse and Sofia, were already married by then, and his youngest sister, Martha, still lived with her parents. Simon and his younger brother, Abi, went to university at the same time. Abi studied Judaics. Being the elder brother, Simon decided to abandon his studies and started working so that his younger brother would have a chance to complete his education. Simon joined a lumber-trading company and worked as a manager until 1941. During this period, Abi Libman, who was a very clever person, graduated from university with a master’s degree.

The advent of Soviet power in 1940 went smoothly for the Libman family because they had nothing which could be taken away from them. As the war began, they managed to leave and go into evacuation but as they were traveling their father died. The train approached Yaroslavl [today Russia] and they all got off, found a Jewish cemetery and buried him according to Jewish traditions. Simon’s mother and sisters lived in Tajikistan during the war while Simon and Abi fought in the Estonian Rifle Corps participating in action near Velikiye Luki [today Russia]. Both of them were officers and they both joined the Communist Party when on the battle-front. After the war, Abi Libman taught the history of the Communist Party in the Party School 21 in Tallinn.

In 1952, when the anti-Semitic campaign was under way in the Soviet Union [see campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 22, Abi Libman was said to be a master of Judaics in bourgeois Estonia. Because of this he was expelled from the Party and discharged from work. For the next several years he worked at a furniture factory. Then Abi was reinstated in the Party and he continued teaching Party history and Marxist philosophy in colleges for many years. Abi Libman had the status of a professor and a doctorate in history.

My husband, Simon Libman, could speak Russian, German, and Estonian fluently and they often used him as an interpreter in the Estonian Rifle Corps. When the war was about to end he was assigned to work as a translator at an Army Prosecutor’s Office in Leningrad. After the war Simon served one more year in the Estonian Corps in Tallinn. In 1946, he was demobilized and assigned to the Department of Visas and Registration in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When we met he was just getting his discharge from the Army. I dated Simon for several months, and then he went to my parents to ask for my hand. On my birthday party on 29thMarch 1946, with our relatives and friends present, I remember my father stood up and said, ‘I’d like to introduce my daughter Sima’s fiancé.’ Our wedding was to take place on 29thJune 1946, because my parents got married on the same day in 1923. At the beginning of May Simon and I went to Valga for a few days: he wanted to introduce me to his family. Living in Valga at that time were his mother and sister Sofia with her family. When we returned to Tallinn, we found out that my father had had a heart attack. He was lying in bed at home and Markovich, a very good physician, visited him daily. My father and he had been good friends since their youth. My father already began getting up again but then had two more heart attacks and died at the end of May. Naturally, Simon and I had no wedding. On 2ndJuly 1946, we simply had our marriage registered and I went to live with my husband.

My father’s death was a great loss to our whole family but especially for my mother. She became a widow at 46 with a young daughter in her care. Leah was just 13 then. My mother was a person completely unaccustomed to independent life. She had no work experience, apart from a few occasions she never had a job in her life. Naturally, Simon and I supported my mother and Leah. We helped her by purchasing a sewing machine and she started making clothes at home. She made blouses, bath robes, children’s clothes and sold them at the market. Later, she got a job at a sewing workshop. 

In November 1947, I had a son. At first we wanted to name him Elhanon, after my father, but it sounded outdated, and my mother thought of a beautiful name for our baby boy: Elkond. After a year I was going to send our son into daycare and return to work, just like all other Soviet women, but my husband protested. He believed that the child had to be brought up by his mother at home. We could afford this because Simon made good money. He kept on working at the Ministry of Internal Affairs where he was appreciated and given a raise regularly. Our housing was improved as well. In 1948, instead of a small room in a communal apartment, we were offered two nice big rooms in a comfortable six-room apartment. In this new apartment we had only one family sharing it with us, and they were very good and respectable people. A few years later, we redesigned the apartment where we separated two rooms and lived there until 1977.

When Elkond was three I decided that I had stayed home long enough and that I had to go to work. I didn’t want to work in a bank again. I was fed up with all those numbers. This wasn’t my type of job.

I took my son every summer to Parnu. This place has the warmest sea water along the Estonian coast. I always rented a room from the same landlady. Simon’s annual leave was always in winter so he could visit us only on Sundays. Just when I began to give serious thoughts to my returning to work I met Mirjam Kolomoitsev at the Parnu beach: she was a former student of our school.

She had a university degree, worked as a lawyer, and taught at the Tallinn School of Law. When she heard about my problem, Mirjam said, ‘You definitely have to study. You have a bright mind! You have to get good qualifications, or you will always get a small pay. Come and study at our School of Law. In two years you will get specialized secondary education and a lawyer’s diploma. You will get a monthly scholarship of 500 rubles.’ My salary at the bank had been 600 rubles. She also said, ‘You will have a two-month holiday every summer. And after you finish the school and start working, you will be able to study for a university degree by correspondence.’ I considered her suggestion carefully because a lawyer was my second profession after a doctor. I decided that it wasn’t a bad idea at all, but my husband didn’t like it. He told me, ‘Study in a medical school instead. You will be a nurse and it’s a great job for a woman. Didn’t you want to work in the area of medicine?’ But I wanted to be a doctor, not a nurse! I gave medicine up, which I regretted later. 

I submitted my application to the School of Law and was accepted. I managed to place my son in an Estonian kindergarten but it turned out that he wasn’t ready for it. Elkond was four at the time but he was too attached to home. At the kindergarten he never cried but stood by the window all day waiting to be taken home. We had to hire a babysitter so he could stay home for one more year. At the age of five he went to the same kindergarten with great pleasure. He actually went to school later than other children, almost at the age of eight, because my husband couldn’t bring himself to pull him out of the kindergarten. I proceeded with my studies at the School of Law, finished my first year and half of my second year. What was left was to do a course of practical work and pass the state examinations.

This was the beginning of 1953. Just before I had to start practical work, I was summoned by the school director and told that I wouldn’t be allowed to do it because I had hidden the fact that my husband’s brother had been expelled from the Party. I couldn’t understand what that had to do with me. My husband was fine: he had never been expelled from the Party. The application forms which I had filled didn’t contain any questions about my husband’s siblings. It was explained to me that the school wasn’t just any kind of school but a political and ideological one, and I had displayed my political immaturity. I wasn’t allowed to do any practical work and was expelled from the School of Law in February 1953. Later, I gained my end and was permitted to take state examinations. So I received my diploma without doing any practical work. But I couldn’t get any employment without an assignment from the School of Law.

One of the teachers who taught at the school was the Minister of Justice at that time. He knew me as a diligent student. I went to his office, explained the situation, and asked him to help me find a job. He refused to help me. I still have my lawyer’s diploma, but I have never worked as a lawyer. Two months after I was expelled from the School of Law, my husband was dismissed from office, which was totally unexpected. By then, Stalin had already died, but anti-Semitic policies in the country lived on, perhaps, mechanically. However, my husband was dismissed fairly: he was discharged from the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the grounds of staff reduction and was paid a large settlement.

In spring 1953 we were both unemployed. Soon after, some friends of mine helped me get a job as a translation secretary at the Ministry of Motor Transport because of my knowledge of Estonian, German, and Russian. I remember how long it took me to translate instructions on road construction from German to Russian, as the text was very difficult with a lot of technical terms. Then it turned out that nobody needed those instructions anyway. I stayed there for one year, then moved to a different organization and worked as a translation secretary again, then switched jobs one more time. I wanted to earn money but in every place I worked I was paid very little. In 1955 I decided to learn a trade and took a job at a hat-making establishment. I learned to make hats and worked as a hat-maker for 20 years.

The city’s Party organization directed my husband to work at the committee on measures and weights. Although he didn’t have any special qualifications he worked as a lab engineer. The people he worked with were young, happy, and friendly. Simon enjoyed his new job but his pay was very little: four times less than at his former job. We couldn’t survive on this kind of income. Simon spent six years working in the lab. During this time he took a half-year extension course in Leningrad and became a senior engineer but his pay changed very little. Finally, in 1960, Simon was transferred into the area of vocational education and was offered the position of director at a sewing vocational school. It took Simon some time to finally dare such a change in his career, as he didn’t have any qualifications in education. But he was told, ‘You have a wealth of experience in life, and you can certainly manage it!’ Indeed, Simon was able to fulfill his job. He was the director of this vocational school for some years and put things in good order there. He was then transferred to the State Committee on Vocational Education to work as the chief of the Supply and Construction Department. He worked in this position until he was 75 and then retired.

I worked as a hat-maker at a Lembitu consumer services center and retired at 55. But just one and a half years later, on my good friend’s reference, I got employment at a credit department of a large electronics store. This friend of mine and I worked together preparing paperwork for credit purchases. This work was easy and well-paid. After the Estonian independence was re-established in 1991, the entire commercial system was changed and when the credit department in our store was abolished, I retired for good.

Leah’s life didn’t turn out easy either. Her early childhood was happy. Leah was a pretty, happy, and kind girl, the youngest in the family. We all adored her, of course. When she was four years old, she went to the same kindergarten that I had gone to. In the kindergarten they spoke Yiddish, outside our house Leah played with Estonian children, and our mother spoke Russian to her at home. So, as a little girl Leah could speak Yiddish, Russian, and Estonian equally well. In 1939, she went to a Jewish gymnasium and studied in a Yiddish-language class. Leah had finished two years of school when the war began. That was when her happy childhood came to an end. The three hungry evacuation years followed.

In Dalmatovo, when our mother brought home bread which our family received from ration cards and started splitting it between us, Leah always sat opposite me. I remember her hungry eyes which she couldn’t pull away from the bread. She was still growing up and must have suffered from hunger more than we, adults, did. While in evacuation, Leah went to a Russian school and did her third, fourth, and fifth grades. She was a good student: just like me, she loved acting, reciting poems, and performing on stage. After our return to Tallinn, Leah went to the Russian secondary school #19 and graduated in 1950 with a silver medal. She was brought up in Russian culture, so after her graduation she went to Leningrad hoping to enter the university there and study history. Of course, she wasn’t successful. Because of large competition, she was offered a chance to take all the entrance exams and take part in the general competition, although, being a silver medalist, she was supposed to be accepted without any exams. Leah took offence and applied to the bibliography department of the Leningrad Institute of Culture instead and was accepted immediately. She studied there for four years.

In 1954, Leah called us from Leningrad. She was in tears and I struggled to understand what it was that had happened to her. It turned out that upon her graduation from the Institute she was being assigned to work [see mandatory job assignment in the USSR] 23 in Altai [today Russia], 4,000 kilometers from Tallinn. Simon managed to help her: he had many friends in Tallinn and Leah’s assignment was changed to Estonia. She returned to Tallinn and lived with our mother and worked as a bibliographer in the Central Library. Later, she taught at a college for librarians. After the college had been moved to the outskirts, Leah was appointed manager of the technical library. Her last work place in Tallinn was the library of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Leah was an attractive girl: many young men were attracted to her but she didn’t like any of them. 

In 1964, she met Mr. Right. He was from Moscow, a qualified physicist holding a degree in Physics and Mathematics, and a convinced Zionist. His name was Ephraim Ulanovski. They loved each other intensely, but Ephraim was a married man with a ten-year-old son. He believed he had no moral right to leave his son fatherless. Thus, Leah and he agreed that they would get married and go to Israel after Ephraim’s son finished secondary school. They had to wait for eight years. During this entire time, Leah and Ephraim met frequently, exchanged telephone calls, went to visit each other, and always spent their holidays together somewhere at the Black Sea. My mother considered this situation not quite normal and was very concerned about Leah.

Leah and Ephraim got married in 1972. Leah went to live in Moscow and immediately they filed their paperwork for a permit to move to Israel. In spring 1973, their application was denied, and in July 1973, Leah had a son, Nahum. In October 1973, when the Yom Kippur War 24 was in progress in Israel, they suddenly received the permit on the condition that they leave within two weeks. Consequently, when the fact that they had a small baby was taken into account, this period was extended to one month. They flew to Israel on 15thNovember 1973. Leah and Ephraim lived 30 happy years together. They lived in Rehovot, where Ephraim worked at a military factory. Leah didn’t work but stayed at home with their son. He grew up to be a handsome young man. Nahum is a qualified physicist just like his father. He graduated from a university with a Doctor’s degree. Nahum served for several years in the Israeli Army. Hagit, his wife, is a third generation Israelite: her grandmother came to Palestine from Romania. Hagit is a biologist. She graduated from university and, according to Israeli laws, served in the army. Nahum and Hagit have a little daughter, Shahav. Ephraim died of a heart attack in 2002. Leah still lives in Rehovot. Nahum and his family went to the USA for three years where he is involved in an interesting scientific research project.

After kindergarten, in 1955, Elkond went to Russian school #32. He did very well in elementary school, then a little poorer, but he never had serious problems. Early on, Elkond loved sports: he did rowing and cycling. At the age of 13, he was part of a group of teenagers who did a cycling tour around Estonia.

Our family wasn’t religious, but we tried to observe Jewish traditions. At home we celebrated every Jewish holiday, and I often cooked Jewish food, not just on holidays. So our son was aware of his Jewish identity early on, and he never had a complex in this respect. Since my husband and I could both speak Yiddish, Russian, Estonian, and German, at home we used a bit of each language. As a result, Elkond can speak Russian and Estonian fluently and can also understand Yiddish. Elkond was interested in journalism, but Tartu University only educated Estonian journalists, so, upon his graduation from secondary school, he entered the university to study the Russian Language and Literature. His studies were interesting: at that time, a number of prominent scholars, such as Yuri Lotman and others, taught there.

Elkond did well in his studies but was suddenly expelled in his third year. It turned out that he had told the teacher of Marxism and Leninism that he could pass this key university subject without attending the seminars. In response the teacher refused to permit him to take the examination in order to prove the importance of Marxism and Leninism seminars. Immediately after his dismissal, he was drafted into the army. He served in missile forces in Siberia, and came back with much of his hair missing. He still believes he was right and has no regrets of the years lost in the army. After he came back from the army, he returned to university and finished his third year. He was 25 years old and it was time to think about getting a job. At that time, there was a new Russian-language newspaper in Tallinn entitled Vecherni Tallinn [The Evening Tallinn] and Elkond found employment as one of the editorial staff. He continued his university studies by correspondence and worked for this newspaper for quite a long time. He went through every step of the editorial ladder. Later, Elkond worked as a reporter for other Estonian papers and information agencies. At the moment, he is a reporter for the Delovye Vedomosti [Business News] newspaper.

He has been working in the area of journalism for over 30 years now. Elkond also does a lot of translation work, mainly from Estonian into Russian. Our son married late, at 38. He went on a business trip to Tver [today Russia] and met Elena, his future wife, there. She worked in an organization for the protection of ancient monuments and studied history part-time at university. They got married in 1985, had a daughter, Sofia, in 1986, and another daughter, Elizaveta, a year later. Elena never finished her university studies: she works as a proof-reader for a Russian-language newspaper.

My granddaughters spent their first school years at the Tallinn Jewish school. It is a secular school, and the language of instruction is Russian, but Jewish history and traditions are studied extensively and Jewish holidays are celebrated. So the girls know all these things. When Sofia was in her fourth and Elizaveta in her third year, Elkond put them in a Russian school where, he believed, the core subjects were taught better. They have kept many of their friends from the Jewish school and seen them often, and Sofia returned to the Jewish school in her eleventh year. She is going there now in her twelfth year, but Elizaveta still goes to the Russian school. Elena is a Russian Orthodox. Naturally, she wants her children to know Christian traditions, too. So their family celebrates both Jewish and Christian holidays. They all visit me for the Jewish holidays and celebrate the Christian ones at home.

During the Soviet times we had no Jewish social life in Estonia. The only thing was a synagogue which operated in a small old house on the outskirts of Tallinn. Mostly, elderly people attended it. My mother went there often after my father’s death. In the early 1960s, during Khrushchev’s 25 rule, there was a rumor circulating among Jews in Tallinn that Jewish amateur drama and vocal groups were already active in Moscow and authorities didn’t oppose to this. Then, a small enthusiastic group got together in Tallinn and decided that it was time to revive Jewish cultural life. Some of those enthusiasts were Meishe Sher, Boris Pasov, and Jakov Pats. They were all raised in a Jewish cultural environment and had taken active parts in Jewish cultural life before the war. I was invited, too, because I knew Yiddish and had taken part in Jewish drama before the war. To begin with, we decided to set up a drama club and produce performances in Yiddish. At that time, many Jewish families in Tallinn still spoke Yiddish and even the children knew it well. 

Meishe Sher handled all the organizational and legal part of the job. He was a lawyer and knew exactly which official channels had to be addressed in order to obtain a permit for a Jewish drama club to operate. The principal thing was to get the approval of the city’s Communist Party committee. I have no idea how Meishe Sher managed to do this but a few months later, we had an official permit for our activities and a room for rehearsals in the furniture factory club. We asked all our friends and relatives, and found people willing to be a part of our amateur theater. Some of them were Fanny Halbreich, Tsezar Malkin, and Beilinson. They came and were happy to help. For our first production we picked Sholem Aleichem’s 26 ‘Mazl Tov,’ a one-act play, and assigned the parts. However, after it barely started it all fell apart because Halbreich broke her leg, Beilinson got sick, and Malkin changed his mind. 

We needed a director urgently and found him. He was a young Jewish man from Tartu who had graduated from a drama college in Moscow and worked as a director and actor in the Estonian Drama Theater in Tallinn. His name was Ben Drui, he was a talented man with a true Jewish soul, and this may have been the reason why he agreed to help us immediately. Soon came the opening night of ‘Mazl Tov.’ I played the part of Beile the cook, and Joseph Shaikevich was my partner. He was born in Ukraine and spoke lovely Yiddish. In the production, he had the part of Rabbi Alter who was in love with Beile the cook. Berta Danzig had the part of the mistress, Avigal Fainstein was her housemaid, and Isaak Beilinson was the clerk who courted the housemaid. The small auditorium where we performed was full of people who wouldn’t let us leave the stage afterwards. Those who couldn’t be there on the first night demanded a second run. We had singers and musicians who joined us and soon they formed a Jewish women’s singing band. So, our second performance, which took place in the Russian Drama Theater of Tallinn, was made up of two parts: the ‘Mazl Tov’ production in the first part and the singing band in the second. The show was sold out.

Our performances awakened the Estonian Jews. Both young people and adults joined us: some wanted to perform and some just to help out. David Shur, a ballet dancer, set up a Jewish dancing group and Sima Shkop, an artist, drew the stage sets for performances. Everyone worked without pay but with incredible enthusiasm. Whenever we had problems with rooms we rehearsed at somebody’s home. And everyone still had their jobs or studies and families to attend to. My family understood what I was doing: my husband and son submitted to the idea that I was busy at the rehearsals in the evenings and on weekends. My mother helped me by making costumes and always cried when watching the performances, as she remembered my father performing in a Jewish theater.

Our theater was in existence for ten years, until 1972. The last several years we rehearsed and performed at the Jaan Toomp Club. We produced ‘Der Det’ [Divorce], Sholem Aleichem’s ‘A Doctor,’ and Gordin’s 27 two-act ‘Kreuzer Sonata or Across the Ocean’. Our most triumphal work was ‘Anne Frank’s Diary.’ We had to write our own scripts and translate it into Yiddish. The parts were played by both adults and children. Anne Frank’s part was played by Inna Gelb and Peter’s by Mark Shagal. They were just 14 or 15 years old. Tevje Majotes and I were the Dutch people who were hiding the Frank family. Some other people involved in the production were Lev Hasak, Isaak Beilinson, Julia Beilinson, Enn Krotschek, and Avigal Fainstein. Our theater took this production to Vilnius and Kaunas [today Lithuania]. We had very friendly connections with Jewish amateur groups in Lithuania: we often exchanged concerts and performances. I believe it was because of the work our theater group was doing that many Jews got acquainted with their culture and actually felt Jewish. Young people met each other and even married. In the early 1970s, during the big aliyah most of our actors moved to Israel. Many of our steady viewers left, too. Those actors who remained in Tallinn got together and talked and decided that our task had been completed and the theater should be closed. This decision must have made the Soviet security services very happy. Although we never felt much attention from their side I’m sure our activities were always closely monitored.

The revival of Jewish life in Estonia began in 1988 when the Jewish community was re-established. My mother wasn’t alive then: she had died in 1977, but my husband and I became active community members from the start. We attended all the events, meetings, and participated in holiday celebrations. However, soon after this Simon fell seriously ill and died in 1992. Now I still make every effort to attend interesting celebrations and events held by the community. Unfortunately, my health sometimes makes it impossible. Once every month, I always go to our Jewish school where we, former students of the pre-war Jewish gymnasium, have our re-unions. After such meetings I feel both happy and sad.

When my husband was still alive our son’s family and we switched apartments because ours was bigger. Now I live alone in a two-room apartment. My son, granddaughters, and daughter-in-law often visit or call me. I know they are always there to help.

Glossary

Irene Shein
Tallinn
Estonia
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of the interview: June 2005

Irene Shein lives with her husband in a two-room apartment in a new district of Tallinn. Irene is of average height, plump, but agile. She is quick and I think she does everything very easily. She has bright and vivacious eyes. Her gray hair is cropped. Irene and her husband lived in Tashkent and its influence is noticeable in the style of the apartment. There are a lot knick-knacks, typical for Uzbekistan - bowls, pots with Uzbekistani pattern etc. Irene and her husband Efim are very hospitable and open for communication. I could feel that they are a friendly couple. Both of them had a hard living, but they still rejoice in every coming day, kindness and open-heartedness.

My family background

Growing up

The Soviet Invasion of the Baltics

The deportation of Estonian citizens

The Second World War

After the war

After the fall of the Iron Curtain

Glossary

My family background

Probably in the life of any human being there is a moment, when a person starts taking interest in his roots. In Parnu [120 km from Tallinn] archive a member of the local Jewish religious community named Efroim Shein was mentioned. The entry was made in 1872. He was a great-grandfather of my father. His full name was Haftole-Hertz Efroim. Haftole-Hertz Efroim Shein was buried in Tallinn’s Jewish cemetery. I put down the inscription from his tombstone and a rabbi translated it. The inscription in Ivrit says, word for word: ‘Here a great and wise man, a Torah-follower, is buried.’ He died on the 17th Adar, year 5657, i.e. in 1897 in common chronology. These are just scraps of information.

I know about my father’s family from my grandfather Sholom-Iosif Shein, who was born on 10th May 1866 in the Estonian town of Parnu, which belonged to the Russian empire at that time. I know that my grandfather had a brother named Hari-Moishe and a sister, Tsvirl [Tsviya]. Unfortunately there is hardly anything I know about that family.

My paternal grandmother; Khaya-Leya Shein, nee Teiman, was born on 15th October 1873 in the town of Panevezhis, Lithuania. My great-grandfather’s name was David Teiman. That is all I know about him. My grandparents got married on 2nd September 1892 and their marriage was registered by the rabbi of the town of Parnu. They apparently left the town as all their children were born in the Estonian town of Valga, on the border with Latvia [200 km from Tallinn].

There were six sons and three daughters. The eldest child, Rohe-Gitl, was born in 1893. She was called by the Russian name of Rosa 1. My father’s elder brother was called Efroim, and he was born in 1896. He was named after Great-grandfather. My father was born in 1898, shortly after his grandfather Naftole-Hertz Efroim Shein died. So Father was named Naftole-Hertz. In 1900 Ester was born and Ella followed in 1902. The next son, Leib, was born in 1903 and Abram in 1904. Then came Isroel in 1906 and the youngest, Pesach, was born in 1911.

When Grandfather Sholom-Iosif got married, he made a living on cattle breeding. Then he was involved in timbering. The elder sons, Efroim, my father and Leib did not get secular education, they went only to cheder. They were elder sons and had to work to help their father. They were hard-working. Our family was rather well-heeled, but it was gained by hard labor. The daughters and younger sons got both Jewish and secular education. Though father did not manage to go to lyceum, he knew how to count well, was knowledgeable about timber, graders of wood, measuring timber. He was well up in everything related to work.

The family was very religious. There was a synagogue and a prayer house in Valga. The prayer house was at my grandfather’s place. The kashrut was observed at home. The family followed Jewish traditions. All members of the family went to the synagogue on Sabbath and on Jewish holidays. Yiddish was spoken at home. Everybody spoke good German and Estonian.

At that time there was no anti-Semitism in Estonia. People were appraised by their moral traits and character. Other religions and traditions were respected. Even in the period when Estonia belonged to the Russian empire, there were no pogroms, which were customary for the entire territory of Russia.

All my father’s siblings were very different in their character, but all of them were decent and well-bred. There was no noise, no arguments. All of them grew up loving and respecting their parents, whose word was the law, even when the children reached adulthood. I think that all my aunts and uncles had pre-arranged marriages, which was customary for the Jews.

My father’s eldest sister, Rohe-Gitl, was married to a doctor, Moses Levitin. They had an only son Grigoriy, or Gersh. Rohe-Gitl died at a young age, in 1919. After the time of evacuation her husband moved to Leningrad and died there when he was as old as the hills. Rohe-Gitl’s son was also a doctor and was conferred the title of ‘honored doctor.’ He was single. We didn’t keep in touch with him, and I don’t know about his fate.

Efroim’s wife Roza, or Reize, was a dentist. They had an only daughter, Ronya, who was four years younger than me. Ester married Max Gladkovskiy, a doctor. Ester had two daughters. She and my father were the only ones in the entire family who survived the war. She died in 1985. Her daughters are still alive. Leib had a son, who was approximately of my age. I don’t remember the wives and children of my father’s other brothers. Having got married Father’s sisters were housewives, taking care of the household and children. Three brothers - my father, Efroim and Leib - worked with Grandfather, the rest of the brothers had their own business.

My maternal grandfather, Ilia Goldberg, was from Vitebsk 2. His Jewish name was Ele. My great-grandfather Meyer Goldberg was a Hasid 3. They say he was very handsome. Great-grandmother was petite. She had a strong Belarusian accent. I know about them only from my mother. Grandfather died a long time ago, in the 1910s. It was likely that great-grandmother moved to Riga to her son, my grandfather. She only spoke Yiddish. She knew neither Russian nor German. Her house was at Elizavetinskaya Street in Riga. She was a housekeeper. Mother said that she recognized all bills and receipts by color. Great-grandmother died in the early 1930s, before I was born.

My maternal grandfather was a merchant. He was educated. My maternal grandmother was from Sebezh [Pskov oblast, Russia, on the border of Latvia and Belarus, 500 km from Tallinn]. Her name was Rosa, Jewish name Tsipe-Roha. I don’t know her maiden name. Grandmother came from a rich family. Her father Yankle was a merchant of the 1st Guild 4. My mother’s family lived in Riga.

Grandfather had to take frequent business trips abroad and Grandmother always accompanied him. At customs the officers checked their passports, when they were crossing the border. They often were confused as two names were written in Grandfather’s passport - his secular and his Jewish one: Ilia Mironovich Goldberg, alias Ele Meerovich. His wife’s name also was written in his passport: Rosa Yakovlevna, alias Tsipe-Roha Yankelevna. Grandfather was irritated with that nagging and gave his children only secular names. The eldest daughter was Tatiana, the second son was Solomon. My mother Evgeniya was born in 1903.

Before the Revolution of 1917 5 the family was well-off. Mother and her siblings finished a Russian lyceum. Mother was fluent in Russian and German. She was also pretty good at English and read French books in the original.

Though my mother’s family was secular, Jewish traditions were strictly followed. The food was kosher, Sabbath and Jewish holidays were marked, and my grandparents went to the synagogue on holidays.

During the revolution they lost everything, though the Soviet regime was in Latvia only for a couple of months. The sequestrated property was not returned to the family. Mother’s elder sister Tatiana was a good milliner. After the revolution she left for Berlin and ran a fashion house there. When Hitler came to power 6, Tatiana came back to Riga and started living with Grandmother. She was single.

Mother’s brother Solomon also left for Berlin. He worked as an orderly in the hospital and studied at the medical department of Berlin University. My mother and her parents stayed in Riga. Solomon graduated from university and became a doctor. When the fascists came to power in Germany in 1933, Jews were persecuted and Solomon immigrated to Palestine. There he became a famous gynecologist. He got married to an immigrant from Moscow. Her parents immigrated from Russia after the revolution. She spent her adolescence in Paris. She learned how to play the grand piano. When the fascist dictatorship commenced she left for Israel.

Uncle Solomon’s wife is much younger than he. She was born in 1915. They had one son. When Solomon was alive, she corresponded with him and after his death she kept in touch with his wife. The correspondence was in English. Solomon’s wife is still alive. When her husband was in Israel in the 1990s, he found my aunt. Solomon died in Israel in the middle of the 1980s.

My maternal grandmother Rosa was an educated woman. Grandmother finished lyceum. She was taught French by a French governess. My mother also had a governess, but she was Lett. She raised my mother. When Mother got married, her governess, an elderly lady, stayed in their house with Grandmother.

Mother entered Riga conservatoire, the grand piano department. Of course, it was hard for the family, as they had become much poorer. I don’t know exactly when Grandfather passed away, but he was no longer alive by then. Mother was considerably assisted by Grandmother. She came from a rich family and had some valuable things. Grandmother sold them and paid for my mother’s tuition. Mother also tried to earn some money. She embroidered custom-made linen.

I never asked my parents how they met each other. All I know is that all father’s siblings had pre-arranged marriages. I think my parents also had a pre-arranged marriage. They got married on 2nd February 1930. I don’t know where their wedding took place.

Mother left Riga for the small town of Valga. My paternal grandfather gave them a house as a birthday present. It was located on the same street, where my grandparents’ house was. I spent my childhood in that house. Of course, the mode of life in a small town was different. There were patriarchal rules in the family, according to which the parents were revered. Mother had to call on her mother-in-law just to greet her and ask how she felt. Father was the bread-winner. He worked very hard to maintain the family. Mother was a housewife and practiced playing the piano.

Growing up

I was born on 17th August 1932. I was named Irene. I barely saw Father in my childhood. He left early in the morning and came back late at night, when I was sleeping. He didn’t have a car. He took the horse cart. Village roads were earthed roads and after rain they turned into bog. It was hard to ride on those roads. Father came home worn out. I remember there was a gadget to take off our boots. Rarely did Father have a day off and if so he was just lying on the couch almost all day long, trying to recoup.

He always visited his parents on days-off. Grandmother gave us a ring and asked how all of us were doing. When Father said that everything was OK, she asked him to come over. No matter how exhausted Father was, he went to his parents right away.

Before the wedding my mother had a recess in her studies at the conservatoire. She finished it when she lived in Valga. There was no grand piano at home, but there was a grand piano in a window case in a store. Mother went to that store and asked the owner if she could play that piano. Later, Father bought her a piano.

Though we were rather well-heeled, my parents raised me rather rigidly. I couldn’t choose dishes at the table. I was supposed to eat what was laid on the table. If I didn’t like it, I could choose not to eat and stay hungry. I remember when I was about two years old, I said that I ‘wanted’ some dish and Father told me to leave the table. I was supposed to say ‘I would like.’ I was not allowed to be finical.

Later, when I was in exile, I was grateful to my parents for raising me strictly and teaching me to eat what I was given. Rotten potatoes and soup from grass were a good meal for me in exile. Father had trouble with his stomach as he was often on the road and ate dry food. After getting married Mother always cooked oat gruel and made sure that he followed a diet.

My parents paid a lot of attention to my education. First, I had a baby-sitter, then they hired a governess. During my childhood, my parents and governess spoke only German with me. I easily learned German and Estonian, which was spoken by our maid, who was Estonian. That good woman was very kind and let me away with all kinds of pranks, which I wouldn’t have with my mother.

Later, Mother started speaking Russian with me for me to learn that language. I spoke broken Russian. It was hard for me to pronounce certain sounds. I had a Russian tutor who came to our house. Finally I had a good command of Russian. When I turned five, there was a ballet stand made and I was taught ballet dancing. Before I went to school, Mother took me to a French teacher.

I started reading pretty early. I enjoyed lying down on the couch and read a book. When my parents noticed that I was not merely looking at the pictures, they started buying me books. They ordered Russian books in the USSR. I was so anxious to get a new parcel with books. I could easily read in any of the languages I was taught.

I liked visiting my grandmother in Riga with my mother. When Grandmother left the house on Elizavetinskaya Street, it looked too spacious. They moved to another house and all books were taken. Grandmother had a large library. In Riga, Mother and Tatiana went out while I stayed with Grandmother. She took out her bands and ostrich feathers from the dancing parties of her youth and let me play with those things. I remember that Grandmother had a large table set of dishes with monograms. When we came over, it was on the table all the time.

Grandmother’s sister Sofia lived in Riga. Her husband was a military doctor and took part in World War I. Their son lived in Israel. Aunt Sofia had a fashionable house. She arranged receptions there and invited writers and actors. They were rich. They had a carriage with harnessed horses. I remember the cabman helped Aunt Sofia get off the carriage. Mother sometimes took me to Aunt Sofia’s place.

My parents went to the grandparents on all Jewish holidays. All siblings, who lived in Valga, got together there. It was a rule. They came to pray in the prayer house, which was also located in grandfather’s place. I still keep my father’s prayer book. Grandfather died in 1939. He was buried in accordance with the Jewish rite in the Jewish cemetery of Valga. After his death the holidays were marked in the house of Father’s elder brother Efroim. Grandmother died a year later, i.e., in 1940. She was buried next to Grandfather. They didn’t know at that time that in about a year there would be no serenity in the family.

The Soviet Invasion of the Baltics

Mother told me a story of her visit to a milliner in Riga before she got married. Mother’s dress was not ready to try on and the milliner suggested that my mother should go to the fortune-teller, who lived nearby, and meanwhile she would finish her work. Mother went there. The fortune-teller told her that she would be married soon, but would live with her husband only for ten years. Mother had been waiting for that term and finally it happened – the Soviet regime came to power.

My parents were strongly against the annexation of Estonia to the USSR [ 7. How could they perceive it differently? Mother said that either in 1917 or 1918 when the Soviet regime was established in Riga, products vanished from the stores – there was frozen cabbage instead. When the Soviets left, things changed. Mother remembered that and we had some products stored in our house. Then searches commenced. They came to us as well as and took all excess products that we had. We could have even been arrested. At that time God had mercy on us.

First they had some people move in our house. Then we were evicted and given another place to live. The house we moved into was in front of our former place. Families of NKVD officers 8 and the commandant of the town lived there. My parents didn’t communicate with them. The NKVD office was in our former house. There was a large basement for food storage, and the NKVD kept the people they arrested in that basement.

My father was also arrested. It was a real extortion: they put a pistol to my father’s head and had him write a note to Mother. The text of the note was dictated by NKVD officers. It was written there that my mother had to give them all the money and precious things we had. Mother didn’t have anything really precious. She had a wedding and an engagement ring, a mascot given to her by her parents and a small gold watch. There was sterling silverware - knives and forks. Mother gave all that to the NKVD, but father was not released.

Then Mother was arrested as well. One of my mother’s pals was in the house, when she was being arrested. That lady took me with her. I was really worried for my parents. I had boils all over my body as a result of all the stress. My skin was peeling off. I stayed with my mother’s pal for a while. Then my parents were released from prison.

In 1940 I entered a Russian school. I went to the 2nd grade right away. I vaguely remember that period of time. I only studied there for a year.

The deportation of Estonian citizens

I vividly remember the day of 13th June 1941. Mother went to the bathhouse with her friend. On their way they were passing our former house, where the premises of the NKVD were located at that time. NKVD officers in blue caps were crowding by the entrance. I remember Mother said that they would be really busy that night. Unfortunately she was right. The day of 14th June 1941 is remembered by all Estonians as the night of deportation of Estonian citizens 9.

They came to us early in the morning. NKVD officers informed us that our family was to be deported. We were blamed of being rich, ‘socially dangerous elements.’ We were given half an hour to pack our things. We were allowed to take only one suitcase and a blanket. Mother was at a loss and even forgot to take money with her. Father was taken away at once and we were not allowed to see him again.

Mother and I were told to get in the car with some people and we were taken to the train station. There were cattle trains. There were guards by the cars. We were squeezed in the car. There were double-tiered bunks along the walls of the car. There was no wash basin and toilet. There were only women with children and elderly people. Men were to take other cars, headed for the Gulag 10.

We met Rosa, Uncle Efroim’s wife, and her daughter Ronya. They told us about Uncle Efroim’s arrest. Then we found out that another one of my father’s brother, Isroel, was also sent to the Gulag. On our way we also met Father’s cousin, who was to go to the Gulag, too. There was a train car in front of us and we saw him. We were not allowed to leave the train. There was a convoy between the trains. Uncle asked the soldiers to give us some money. He stuck some banknotes on the bayonet and the soldier pushed them through our window.

There were Estonians, Jews and Russians among those people heading into exile. People were not selected by nationality, but by social origin and income. The lists were compiled beforehand by local communists. It was obvious that some people were included in the list for merely being in the black book of the people who made the lists.

It is hard for me to say how long we were on the road. It seemed forever. Then we got off the train and took a barge. We went down the river in an unknown direction. Deported Lithuanians were on the barge as well. Next to us there was a large family of Lithuanian Jews - husband, wife and their children, who were of different age. Father suggested to Mother and Aunt Rosa to stick together in exile as it would be easier for us. My mother and aunt refused hoping that their exile area would not be far from their husbands.

We arrived at a tiny settlement called Vavilovka, in Bakhchar district of Tomsk oblast [3300 km from Moscow]. It was the place of our exile. Aunt Rosa and her daughter were not far from us, in the adjacent settlement. We were housed with a family. We were given a small, unfurnished room. We slept on our suitcase. Mother was sent to work in the field. Back at home Mother had never been involved in any physical work. She was a pianist and she took good care of her hands. Here she had to work from dawn till night. Mother’s hands were chafed and grazed.

We were terribly starving. We barely ate bread in the first years of exile. Mother sold those few things that we had taken with us. When we had nothing left to sell, she sold half of her coat. She had a long coarse coat. She made a jacket out of it and sold the remainder to a peasant lady, who made a skirt from it. I could not go to school as I had nothing to put on and I had to stay in. I didn’t have any overcoat.

It was a settlement in Taiga. Vavilovka had existed for only ten years. It was mostly populated with Russians, exiled from the USSR during that time [the time of the Great Terror] 11. After 1941 a few Estonian families came there as well. Mother and I were the only Jews in the settlement. First, we were helped by one exiled Estonian lady. She gave me a chunk of bread a couple of times.

Then Mother and I gradually managed to settle. We followed the example of others exiled – we planted vegetables on a small plot of land. When I grew older I went to people to dig their kitchen gardens. I was fed for work and given a bucket of potatoes and a bowl of sauerkraut. Local people planted flax and span threads from that.

Mother and I learned how to knit jackets from those flaxen threads and took orders. We were paid for that. But still, we lived from hand to mouth. Mother didn’t throw away potato peelings. We ate them. In the summer she collected ‘orach,’ a type of grass. We boiled it, made gruel out of it and added it to one potato. Then we used the cooker and made fritters from that ‘orach.’

A commandant was in charge of the exiled in the settlement. Exiled Estonians didn’t know how to address him. Then they decided that if he was from the USSR, they should call him comrade. So some of the guys said ‘comrade commandant’ and he replied, ‘We are not comrades to you. Your comrades are the wolves in the forest.’

The work in the field was seasonal and when it was over, Mother and other Estonian ladies were sent to saw logs. Now tractors have diesel fuel, but at that time instead of fuel tanks there were tanks where small birch pieces were put. They burned and produced the heat which made the tractor work. There was a daily ration. Each woman was supposed to saw a certain number of boxes of birch pieces.

There were severe winters in Tomsk oblast and all women were in thin footwear, as they had left their homes in the summer, on 14th June. In another winter women dug wells. There were few men in the settlement. It was the time of the Great Patriotic War 12 and all of them were in the lines. Only the wounded or crippled came back from the front. One of these men dug wells in the settlement. He put dug clay in a bale, suspended to a winch. Women were rotating that winch, took out heave bale, emptied it and put it down. They were lucky if it was blue clay. It was used as soap, for washing, bleaching the walls.

Then I started working. From spring till fall I worked in the fields during the harvest season. When the season was over, I worked as a mailwoman. I had to collect the mail in the regional center of Bakhchar and distribute it to the houses in Vavilovka.

There were cases when Estonians escaped from exile. I was called to the commandant and he demanded that I should report on those who were on the point of escaping. I never reported on anything or anybody.

I didn’t go to school. Those who didn’t work, weren’t given bread and that meant – dying from hunger. Mother studied with me in accordance with school syllabus. Even when both of us worked, we didn’t have enough food to eat. We were rescued by Uncle Solomon. Mother remembered the address of her brother in Israel and wrote him a letter. She started getting parcels from him. Uncle could not send us parcels in his name. Nobody would ever have given them to us. There was some Jewish organization, which collected and distributed parcels. I don’t remember what it was called. We managed to survive only owing to those parcels.

There were boxes with power soup, grains, soap, threads, needles. Of course, those parcels were opened up and checked. I don’t know if it was done on purpose but the packages with soup were open and mixed with soap. We ate it all the same and it tasted good to us. We sold threads and needles and exchanged them for products.

There were even clothes in the last parcel. Some of the clothes had been stolen, but still we got something. Probably Mother was told by Solomon where Father was. She started corresponding with Dad. The letters were rare and short, but still we knew he was alive. It meant a lot to us. He served his term in the camp, located in Sos’va, Sverdlovsk oblast.

The Second World War

We knew about the war. We followed the events. There was a loud-speaker in the settlement. People clustered around it to listen to round-ups. There was even a local paper. We were looking forward to victory. All of us thought that we would be released from exile after the war was over, but nothing changed for us when the victory came on 9th May 1945 13.

Uncle told us about many of our family members who perished. My father’s brothers Leib, Abram and Pesach, their wives and children were shot in Estonia. Only Father’s sister Ester, who was in evacuation with her family, survived. The family of my father’s sister Ella was exterminated in Riga. Grandmother Rosa and Mother’s sister Tatiana and many relatives of Grandmother who lived in Riga, were also murdered. Who knows whether they were shot by Germans, or by Estonians and Letts who started exterminating Jews before the arrival of the Germans… Estonia was one the first among the occupied countries, reporting to Hitler that no Jews were left on its territory [cf. Judenfrei] 14.

I am sure if we hadn’t been deported on 14th June 1941, Estonians wouldn’t have helped the Germans and wouldn’t have accepted them as the liberators from the Soviet oppression. Many Estonians suffered during deportation and blindly hated the Soviets, being ready to fulfill any orders just to get rid of the Soviet regime. We should not forget about that either. And Jews probably wouldn’t have been appalled by the Soviet regime more than by fascists, and many of them would have left and survived. Things would have been vastly different … What can I say about that. Things happened the way they did.

After the war

My father’s other two brothers died in the Gulag. We only know the date when the eldest brother, Efroim died –14th June 1942. The circumstances are not known – emaciation, disease, accident or murder. We do not know anything about Isroel. All we know is that he didn’t survive the Gulag.

Men were sentenced for a certain term. Father was sentenced to six years of Gulag, without trial, and in 1947 his term was over. He was released from the Gulag camp and went to Estonia. In 1948 there was a decree of the Soviet government to exempt from exile those who were exiled being minors. I was also given an exemption. Only mother stayed in Siberia. She was on permanent exile and could only hope for a miracle.

I and another Estonian girl, Leya, who was six years older than I, went to Tomsk. We walked to Tomsk in deep snow, covering a distance of 250 kilometers. There was Taiga along the way. There was an old man with a sleigh in front of us. A wooden case with our clothes was on that sleigh. We couldn’t go on the sleigh all the time, as the horse was lean and it wouldn’t have been able to bear the extra load. From time to time, when we were too weary, he let us go on the sleigh.

Liya is still alive. We keep in touch via the phone. Her acquaintances lived in Tomsk. We stayed at their place for a couple of days and then went to Novosibirsk. It was easier to get home from there. When we were leaving, we left some money on the table for accommodation. But they found us at the train station and returned the money. So we reached Novosibirsk. The train station was huge, but there were throngs of people, and there was no space. Many people were coming back from evacuation. There were no tickets, but my fellow traveler managed to get some for us somehow. We reached Moscow by train and from there we went to Tallinn. This happened on 4th February 1948.

Father wasn’t allowed to live in Valga. He settled in the small town of Johvi. I knew the address and found him. He worked as a procurer of agricultural products. Estonians received him very well and helped him a lot. Estonian neighbors  from Valga gave Father a lot of family pictures. When we were liberated, the new hosts of our apartment threw our pictures on the garbage heap in the yard. Neighbors collected them and gave them to Father when he came back home.

I went to school, Father worked. Our distant relative Maria Sorkina, who lived in Tallinn, helped us a lot. She was not our consanguine; she was a relative of Rosa, the wife of Father’s elder brother Efroim. Maria and her husband didn’t have children and she was very attached to her niece Ronya and to me. When I was in exile, Aunt Maria sent letters to me and supported us the best way she could, though it could have done harm to her and her husband. We corresponded with Mother and sent her parcels. She wrote in her letters that she was an accounting clerk at dairy farm. We did not see an end to her exile.

In 1948 the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’ started in the USSR 15. People were fired, arrested, exiled and sent to the Gulag. There were rumors that those who had come back from the Gulag, would be sent there once again. Once I went to Tallinn to see Aunt Maria. She told me that at night apartments would be searched and told me to spend the night in the place of pals of hers. Then we found out for sure: that night many apartments were searched by NKVD officers.

There was a Jewish family from Pervomaysk [Ukraine, 500 km south of Kiev], which lived in Johvi. Both spouses had lost families during the war and they got married. I don’t know how they came to Johvi. Of course, it was hard for them to live in a strange town, and Father helped them. He wasn’t a local, but he came from Estonia. They gave Father the address of their pals in Tashkent and he decided to go there to avoid further repressions. I think that decision saved us from another exile as many people were exiled again.

For a while we stayed at the place recommended by these people from Johvi. Then we had our own lodging. Father found a job at a timber storage facility. The person in charge of the timber storage facility was not knowledgeable about timber, but Father had practical knowledge, though he was not educated. He knew what he was doing. Father was very consistent and accurate.

Fortunately, Father had a common passport, without restrictions [cf. Passport 24] 16. I got my first passport in Tashkent. We didn’t tell even our closest friends about our past, our time in exile. We understood that it would be safer for us. My bosom friend told me many years later that she had guessed what kind of past I had, but asked me no questions. We kept writing to Mother, but we didn’t send the letters directly to her, but to some of the acquaintances, so as not to attract attention.

We lived with the family of a cashier in Tashkent. She told me that I could try working as an accountant assistant. Gradually I was well up in book-keeping and started working independently. Then I entered the evening department of Tashkent Financial College. Of course, it was hard to combine my studies with work. When I was going to enter the college, I was told at work that my studies should not interfere with my work. There was a lot of work and often I came home with a large case of documents in order to work at night.

I was too pressed for time and didn’t communicate with Father much. Sometimes I tried to ask him about the camp, but he didn’t tell me anything, avoiding the subject. That is why there is hardly anything I know about that period of his life. My cousin Ronya came over to us and often asked him about the camp. My father was the only uncle, who survived. She didn’t remember her father.

Ronya and her mother remained in exile. She was too small to leave the exile. Their life was very hard, but in spite of that she entered Tomsk Polytechnic Institute. She graduated from it and became a construction engineer. At that time Ronya didn’t return to Estonia, but stayed in Tomsk. She got married there, gave birth to a daughter, worked.

She didn’t know anything about her father and often asked about him when she came to us. Father was at a loss for words, but still told her something at times. Ronya asked if she could find her father’s tomb and my dad said that it was impossible.

I know that a doctor from Chernovtsi, Rozental, worked in Sos’evo as a nurse. That lady saved my father’s life. He had problems with his stomach. When he came to the camp, where even healthy people died of hunger and beriberi, he started getting sick. He was sent to the aid station, when he was in the severest condition. Rozental did her best for Father to convalesce. She even managed to get cod-liver oil for him. Father was lucky to get better.

I am still grateful to that wonderful lady. I still keep her in my heart. I understand that most likely she is not alive any longer, taking into account her age, but I would be happy if some of her kin or friends would write to me. I would be happy if that happened.

Stalin died in 1953. Many people cried at that time, mourned over him as if he was a relative. Both Father and I understood what a dreadful person he was. Stalin knew and approved of all things happening in the USSR. Of course, all things were done as per his order. Stalin’s death was not a sorrow for us. We didn’t think that Mother would be released after his death. We didn’t believe in a miracle.

In 1955 I went to see Mother. She lived in the district center Bakhchar, 250 kilometers away. I went there by plane. There was an old lady next to me who was constantly telling me how scared she was. I had to go to the regional prosecution office and get the permit to visit my mother. I remember entering through the thick metallic doors of that office. Suddenly I was frightened – I was not sure whether they would let me out again.

In the end, I was permitted to stay with Mother. She felt unwell, but tried not to show it. I went to see the commandant, who remembered me working there as a girl and carrying heavy bales of mail from Bakhchar. I said that Mother was alone, sick, and asked him to release her before her term was over. Mother was to go through medical examination and in 1956 she was declared as disabled and released from exile. Mother came to us in Tashkent. She lived with us and worked in a kindergarten.

Rehabilitations commenced 17 after the Twentieth Party Congress 18, when Nikita Khrushchev 19 held his speech. People found out about Stalin’ s trespassing and crimes, committed as per his order. Those who had been innocently convicted were exonerated. But at that time none of our family felt that. The pandemonium machine of the KGB 20 worked very well and all archives were kept.

Only in 1993 Mother and I received rehabilitation certificates. It was written in my certificate that I, Irene Shein, was exiled from the town of Valga, Estonia, without trial and was in special exile in Bakhchar district of Tomsk oblast in the period from 14th June 1941 till 25th January 1948. In accordance with the law of the Estonian SSR as of 7th December 1988 on extrajudicial mass repressions in the Soviet Union in the period of 1940 – 1950 I was fully exonerated.

The years in exile were considered in my labor experience – one year in exile was recognized as three years of experience. But nobody could return me the years of my childhood and adolescence…

I worked as a chief accountant for many years. My work was appreciated. I worked in the Central Design and Construction Bureau of the Fish Industry of the Uzbek SSR. Everybody treated me very well there. I was awarded with prizes and given bonuses. I felt no anti-Semitism, neither at work nor at home. Nobody paid attention to nationality. In general, the population of Tashkent treated Jews very well. They didn’t care what kind of nationality the person was, it was really important whether the person deserved to be respected. People were addressed like: sister, brother, father… There were all kinds of things at work, but nobody ever mentioned my nationality.

I had a pre-arranged marriage with my first husband, Moses Melamed. Moses was from the Moldavian town of Dubossary. He was born in 1927. We had a true Jewish wedding – with a rabbi and under the chuppah. People stuck to Jewish traditions in Tashkent. Synagogues were open. Boys were circumcised. There was a Jewish orchestra playing at Jewish weddings. The musicians were very good.

In 1960 our daughter Elena was born. My husband and I didn’t stay together for a long time. He had a hard character. He worked at the plant and was too fond of the bottle. After we got divorced, my daughter and I lived with my parents. I know that my first husband immigrated to Israel in the 1970s and died there.

My second husband was Efim Brener. We met at work. Efim was a very good person. Life was hard on him, but it did not make him embittered. Efim was born in the village of Zagnitkov, Vinnitsa oblast, in 1926. His father was called Semion Brener and his mother’s name was Elka. Efim was the eldest child. He had three younger sisters –Dora, Sarah and Raya.

Efim didn’t even manage to finish the 7th grade. When the war was unleashed, the Germans captured Vinnitsa oblast and then the military enlistment office told all the young guys who had not reached drafting age to get together and leave the place in order for them not to be captured by the Germans. They walked for 700 kilometers. They were trying to keep away from the Germans, outrunning German columns. They reached some station, where they were supposed to be taken to Middle Asia. Their train was bombed. Many guys perished and the team leaders couldn’t find them. They remained without documents as those had been taken by team leaders. Finally somebody told them to be on their own as their rescue was up them. Some of the guys came back home, others were killed by the Germans.

Efim decided to go to Kazakhstan, where his countrymen lived. In 1943, when he was 17, he left for the army as a volunteer. When Efim was to leave his village, his father saw him off and walked for 40 kilometers with him. The father wanted to get evacuated with the family. They agreed to meet in Tashkent at the place of their acquaintances. The family didn’t manage to get evacuated. It is not clear who killed them – Germans, Romanians or local people. All of Efim’s relatives perished.

Efim served in the army until 1948. He finished military school. He wanted to go on with his studies, but he was supposed to go to town for that. He didn’t have the opportunity to do that and so he requested to be demobilized from the army. He already knew that his family had perished. Efim was overwhelmed with grief and didn’t want to go back to the place, where his loved ones were killed. He left for Tashkent.

He didn’t have a place to live. He didn’t acquire any profession, so he was on odd jobs – apprentice in a shop of headwear production. Later he became the foreman and finally he was in charge of the shop. Then Efim was in the trade business as a supplier. Later he was in charge of the warehouse. He worked there for six years. It was hard for him to work in that field as there were a lot of abuses, so he went to work at a bakery plant. He worked there for 23 years and also retired from that job.

Efim got married after he had been in Tashkent for a year. He has two sons. Semion was born in 1949 and Edward in 1952. His elder son graduated from Tashkent University, the younger one from the Railroad Institute. Then they were drafted for compulsory service in the army and left for Israel afterwards. Efim’s wife died and he remained by himself. We got married in 1977. We are still together. My husband is a very close person to me. He is kind and reliable.

When people started immigrating to Israel, I was happy for those who were leaving, but I could not leave. My parents were old and unwell. I couldn’t leave them and they couldn’t go with me.

Having finished school my daughter entered Tashkent University, the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics. During holidays Elena went to Tomsk to see my cousin Ronya, with whom we had kept in touch for many years. Ronya introduced Elena to her future husband, Boris Swarzman. Boris’s father had also been in exile. Boris was born in Tomsk in 1950. He graduated from the Faculty of Applied mathematics and Mechanics of Tomsk University. They got married after Elena graduated from the university, in 1983. Elena moved to her husband in Tomsk. In 1985 their daughter Irina, or Inna, was born.

When Father was alive, we observed all Jewish traditions and marked Jewish holidays. Each Pesach my father led the seder. When Efim and I got married, his sons with their families and our little grandson Efim joined us for seder. He remembers how my father was reading from an ancient book. After Father died we did not hold seder any longer. We always bought matzah, cooked Jewish dishes. Efim went to the synagogue.

My parents probably had a chance to come back to Estonia earlier, but Father didn’t even want to hear of it. He said that he had to leave his house twice in Estonia and he was not willing to do that again. When he was dying and losing his memory he said, ‘I want to go home.’ And where was that home? Maybe it was in Estonia. Father died on 12th May 1985. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Tashkent in accordance with the Jewish rite. An old sophisticated man carried out the ritual and he knew how things were to be done.

Mother survived Father by 14 years. Until the last moment of her life she had a clear mind and wonderful memory. Mother died on 12th February 1999. She was buried next to Father. She died on Friday evening, on Sabbath. It was hard to find Jews who would do everything in accordance with the ritual on that day. But still, she was buried according to the Jewish rite. They had a common tombstone.

After my parents’ death my husband went to the synagogue for a year and ordered Kaddish for them. My husband and I went to the synagogue on the day of the death of our parents. We brought vodka and honey cake for people to have a drink and commemorate the deceased after prayer. We marked holidays the way we did when they were alive.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain

After the breakup of the USSR [in 1991] our live in Tashkent was harder. We always had so many friends, but later there were less and less. Factories and plants were broke, the production was idle and people started leaving the place. We started losing friends and feared that we would be lonely. and the older you get, the harder it is to make new friends. It was hard physically and materially. It wasn’t an easy decision for us to move.

In 1999 our daughter and her family moved to Tallinn. In spite of the fact that she was born in Tashkent, she was the daughter of an exiled and was entitled to Estonian citizenship. My daughter and son-in-law work in Russian schools. They don’t know Estonian, and I don’t think it is right. Of course, it is hard, but you can’t succeed, if you don’t try.

My granddaughter had finished nine grades before they moved to Estonia. She had to go to the 8th grade in Tallinn, as she didn’t know Estonian, and final exams in school were in Estonian. She studied Estonian for a year, her score was good enough and she was transferred to the 9th grade. The 9th grade is the final one in Estonia. By the time she had finished school her score in Estonian was about 100, which was the highest. Of course she has an accent, as it is hard to get rid of it. Inna finished school with distinction and entered the IT department of Tallinn Polytechnic University. That year she was transferred to the second course as she did well.

My husband and I moved to Tallinn in 2000. We sold our house in Tashkent and bought an apartment in a new district of Tallinn. Of course, it was easier for us. The district, where we are living, has very good infrastructure. Everything is close by: the polyclinic, pharmacy, post-office and stores. We feel independent.

Life in Estonia is well organized. The Estonian government is very benevolent to my husband, who went to the motherland of his exiled wife. My husband had a high pension, but Estonia and Uzbekistan didn’t have any agreements, so his pension wasn’t considered here. But he was given a pension here, even a card for free medical treatment and discounts for medicine. It is really important at our age. My husband and I had to go through difficult operations here. Efim has a permanent residential permit, which is difficult to get here. The state is supporting us. None of us regrets leaving Tashkent.

Twice a week Efim goes to the synagogue, to the religious Jewish community 21. He prays and communicates with people. I rarely leave home and it is pretty hard for me. I always go to the synagogue on the commemoration day of my parents, it is sacred for me. Of course, it is hard for both of us that the graves of our loved ones remained in Tashkent. We will probably never have a chance to go there again. There is a memorable plaque in the synagogue. People can order a block there, where parents’ and relatives’ names are written. It is pretty expensive, 1000 krones [about USD80], but I put one for my parents and grandparents there. It is memorable. Efim put one for his parents there, too.

We always attend meetings held annually on 14th June, the day of deportation. We also mark Jewish holidays. We keep in touch with the Uzbek community. It is rather small in Tallinn. There are very few Uzbeks there. Many people go there because they used to live in Uzbekistan. We also follow traditions of  Uzbekistan, as it has become a second motherland for both of us. Uzbeks saved me – gave me lodging, work and skills. I lived in Tashkent for 50 years. It was a long and happy life.

The chairman of the community, a pure Uzbek, preserves all Uzbek traditions and one of them is to treat elderly people with respect. We are always invited there and we feel the warmth. The community is not funded to hand out treats. We have a potluck party, that means that everybody brings what he has. We sit at the table and talk. We are grateful to the fate for being alive, having good children and grandchildren, being together. That is really a lot.

Glossary:

Lora Benjamin Melamed

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova

Date of interview: September 2004

Lora Beniamin Melamed is a considerate and kind person to talk to. Her delicacy and intelligence blend into a strong selflessness towards the interlocutor – a rare quality. Her appearance reminds of a beautiful fragile porcelain figure from the XIX century. Lora is a very affectionate, delicate and interesting woman.

My ancestors came to Spain more than five hundred years ago. [Expulsion of the Jews from Spain] 1 After the Jews were persecuted from Spain, a big part of them settled on the Balkan Peninsula. Some of the Jews were killed by the Inquisition and another part adopted Christianity, but most of them left Spain and moved to the Balkans. The Jews in Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Bulgaria, a part of former Yugoslavia and a part of Romania spoke a Spanish language from the Middle Ages. It was called Ladino or ‘Spaniolit’ as Bulgarian Jews often call it. My ancestors are Sephardi Jews like most Jews in Bulgaria 2, although some of them are a mixture of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. So, my ancestor’s traditions and rites are Sephardi and they spoke Ladino. 

My paternal and maternal grandparents were born in the beautiful Bulgarian town of Samokov. They were quiet and kind people with a great sense of humor. They dressed in cheap, but clean clothes. They did hard physical labor all day. They were religious, especially grandmother Orucha (the mother of my mother Iafa Beniamin Kohen), who was very lively and talkative. I knew from an early age that Grandma Orucha lost her husband early and that was why she constantly prayed to God to join him as soon as possible.

Grandma Orucha was something like a hakham for the family. She loved gathering all the families of her children on the high religious holidays. She did all the preparations by herself and she also found some free time for us – her grandchildren. I still remember how she taught us a game with walnuts and what songs to sing on the various holidays. She had interesting conversations with the adults and the children. And she had a lovely sense of humor. She could tell us a lot of interesting, important or funny stories. She dressed in cheap, but very clean clothes. She did not stop working for one minute – cooking, cleaning, going to the synagogue where she always sang. She insisted that the families of her children observe both at home and in the synagogue the Jewish traditions on erev Sabbath and during the holidays.

I remember that my maternal grandfather Rahamim Yuda Levi wore simple, but clean suits and a hat, while my grandmother wore a kerchief. They were not educated. My maternal grandparents were not members of a party, although my grandfather adopted the communist ideas before 9th September 1944 3. That is, he believed in social justice and kindness to people regardless of their nationality or culture. About my paternal grandmother Mazal Shemtov Kohen and grandfather Nissim Shemtov Kohen I know only that he was a merchant and she was a housewife. They were both from Samokov, as was my mother’s family. They were both religious, observed kashrut on Pesach, fasted on [Yom] Kippur, celebrated erev Sabbath and all high religious holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Chanukkah, Sukkot, Lag ba-Omer, Tu bi-Shevat, Simchat Torah.

We lived in a small house in Samokov. We were about 10 people: my parents with their four children, my maternal grandparents, uncle and aunt, and their children. Our house had two rooms and a kitchen. We did not have a bathroom. We did not have electricity, nor running water. We used an ordinary wood-burning stove to warm the house. We got water from the faucet outside, even in the winter. The faucet was quite far from our house. So, my parents decided to build a faucet in our yard. I remember that we, the children, helped a lot to make it. And we did not have to go so far away for water. Besides, my mother wanted us to grow up healthy and strong. She made us wash ourselves with cold water. They made us a special place in the house where we did gymnastic exercises.

We had a small garden, in which my mother sowed vegetables, fruit and flowers. We did not have any domestic animals, nor any maids. But our neighbors – the Bulgarians and the Jews were very kind people. We got along with them very well. They cheered with us if someone from our family managed to sell something in a nearby village, or went to have medical treatment at a bath, which was the practice at that time.

My mother's name is Iafa Beniamin Kohen, nee Levi, and my father's name – Beniamin Shemtov Kohen. They were both born and raised in Samokov. My mother had primary education and my father - secondary high school education. He knew French, because his parents wanted him to go to study in France, which did not happen, because my father was the first born child and his duty was to stay and support the family, who was not very well-off. My father believed in communist ideas, but I did not remember if he was a member of the party or if he was involved in illegal party activities. In this sense my father was more of an idealist and communist in beliefs than an active party member. My mother was apolitical.

My parents spoke in Ladino to each other. Of course, since we had to go to a Bulgarian school and when we were among Bulgarians, we spoke Bulgarian and learned Bulgarian very well. So, we spoke Ladino and Bulgarian equally well, though our Bulgarian vocabulary was richer. My parents did not know Ivrit, though they both were very religious, observed kashrut on Pesach, fasted on Kippur, celebrated erev Sabbath and all other high religious holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Chanukkah, Sukkot, Lag ba-Omer, Tu bi-Shevat, Simchat Torah. 

I do not know how my parents met. But I know for sure that their wedding took place in 1919, when my father was 37 years old and my mother – 29 years old. My parents' brothers and sisters were kind people. My parents kept in constant touch with them. They met on holidays, weddings, celebrated holidays together, visited the ill relatives. My father's sisters are Ester Beniamin Kohen [her maiden family name] and Victoria Beniamin Kohen, but I do not remember anything else about their families or about them. My mother's sister's name was Rashel Rahamim Levi [her maiden family name] and her brothers' names were Mordehay Rahamim Levi, Leon Rahamim Levi and Ruben Rahamim Levi. I have no information about them.

I remember that my father worked in a small shop owned by him, but did not earn much money. I also remember that we were constantly short of money and my father had to carry goods on his horse to the nearby villages on Sundays. He carried the villagers' hats, which my mother sowed and knitted at home, as well as cotton, or other things they needed. The Bulgarians bought them and provided us with an income. At first my mother sowed clothes for my father's shop. My father often worked as a travelling salesman to the nearby villages so that his children would have enough food and clothes. My parents also insisted that we further our education. When my parents wanted to go for a walk, they asked us to draw or write something interesting, made up a variety of artistic activities, then they came back and pointed out our best works.

There was not a Jewish school in Samokov. But there was a Bet Am [i.e. a Jewish home], where there was a Sunday school. A special teacher from Israel [then Palestine] was invited there and he taught us to read and speak in Ivrit. We learned a lot then, but we could not practice it anywhere so we soon forgot it. I remember that there was only one synagogue with one rabbi, who was also a chazzan. Unfortunately I do not remember his name. Since my father had the Kohen family name, he had to sing in the synagogue as a kohen. When he was not in the shop, he was in the synagogue. He loved singing and he had a great voice.

I was born on 11th November 1924 in Samokov. My sister and my brothers are Milka Beniamin Revah [nee Kohen], born in 1921, Sinto Beniamin Kohen [1923] and Miko Beniamin Kohen [1926]. We have always been best friends. The four of us were born in Samokov where we studied in the same school (there was no other high school). I remember that we all loved going to school and to the Sunday school. Besides, we always had a lot of books at home, on secular or religious topics. We, the children, loved reading aloud sitting together with our parents, which did not happen very often because my parents were very busy.

My sister Milka was the first to start learning to play the violin. She had private lessons, which also affected our family budget. In order to pay the teacher my mother prepared a large table cover, which she gave to her instead of money. My brother Sinto played a mouth the mouthorgan, and later – an accordion. My little brother Miko had inherited my father's talent and sang very well. I also played the violin when I was in high school. So, we made some merry concerts at home, in which everybody took part. 

On the whole, our family was part of the Jewish community in the town of Samokov, which was not big. The high Jewish holidays such as [Yom] Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Pesach, Purim, Sukkot, Lag ba-Omer, Tu bi-Shevat we always celebrated at home and at the synagogue. Of course, we had the best time when we celebrated them at home. Like all Jewish children, we also loved Purim most. It was most fun then. Usually our parents prepared some cheap things, because they did not have money to buy us expensive gifts. But every time my mother made some nice and colorful purses, in which we put sweets, candies and other sweet things. Then we made a contest who would remain with most sweets in their purse. And whoever won, was considered the most important child.

I studied philosophy in Sofia University ‘St Kliment Ohridski’ 4, but I did not graduate. When I was a student I helped my parents a lot. I went shopping with my mother who was always busy, I helped her in the sewing, cooking, cleaning. I also helped my father who had a hard time earning money from the shop and I sold instead of him the clothes sewn by my mother. Besides the miserable conditions we lived in, I also have other unpleasant memories. I was still a high school student, when I felt anti-Semitism for the first time. On some Bulgarian holiday lots of people gathered in the center of the town, folk music was playing and a beautiful folk ring dance was winding around the central square. We, the three Jewish girls who studied in the Bulgarian school, also joined the dance. Suddenly a tall student came, stood between us and with a strong hit accompanied with dirty and insulting words drove us out of the dance. The three of us also sang in the school choir. We sang patriotic, Bulgarian songs, which I liked very much. Soon after that incident our music teacher, whom I respected very much, summoned us and told us that a higher authority forbade us to sing in the choir. That happened before the Law for Protection of the Nation 5 was adopted in 1942 [Editor’s note: the law was promulgated in 1941].

We had a Jewish youth group in Samokov, we met often and had a great time. At first we gathered in the Sunday school, where we sang and studied Ivrit. My favorite song at that time was ‘Adio kerida’ [Goodbye darling]. We also tried to improvise short plays and theater performances, whose plots we made up by ourselves. My friends then were Stela, Bella, Panka and others (unfortunately I cannot remember their family names). When the Law for Protection of the Nation was adopted, our group disintegrated. We stayed at our homes in Samokov, but it was like living in a ghetto.  We wore the shameful yellow stars, we were humiliated and had to observe a number of limitations, such as the curfew and the ban on Jews to go to social places such as theaters, cafeterias, shops and restaurants in front of which there were the degrading notices ‘Entrance Forbidden for Jews’ or ‘Sale for Jews only’.

In the worst time during the Law for Protection of the Nation, we, the young Jews, had a small Jewish orchestra, including a violin, accordion and other instruments. We gathered, sang and had fun. But suddenly, in 1943, my family learned that we would no longer live in Samokov, because we would have to be sent somewhere else, no one knew where. [Internment of Jews in Bulgaria] 6 At that time some of the interned Jews from Sofia had already been living in Samokov. We had to think about what to pack. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the violin. The rest of the orchestra also packed their instruments. We thought that we were sent to somewhere only temporarily, to some place like Samokov. Gradually my parents learned that something was not right, that things were not as we thought. I remember that my father’s Bulgarian friends supported us a lot, so did the people from the villages to which my father went and sold bread during the Law for Protection of the Nation. They would bring us a little butter, a little yogurt, a little bread. And they would tell us, ‘Don’t worry, we will help you, everything will be okay.’ In the end, they did not send us anywhere, although we never fully realized how nightmarish our journey would have been.

When the scary days came, other friends of my father’s, and some classmates of mine also came to console us, although we were afraid for our lives all the time. We were really very afraid. Germans walked around the town all the time, people shouted at us and threatened us with murder, that they would cleanse Bulgaria from the Jews and horrible things like that. The scariest thing was when a classmate of my sister’s tried to kill her once. She was returning home one evening, when he ran after her with a gun and tried to catch her and kill her. I remember very well how horrified she was when we came home. Then we realized that something very frightening awaited us. And our friends came secretly and told us, ‘We will stand beside you, we will not let those horrible people hurt you.’ The people consoling us were Bulgarians again.

From the articles that I read in the papers at that time (‘Utro’ [Morning] and ‘Zarya’ [Dawn]) I remember that the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced after the fateful meeting between the monarch at that time King Boris III 7 and Hitler in November 1940 and with the signing of the Trilateral Pact by the Prime Minister Bogdan Filov in Vienna on 1st March 1941. Very few people know that in a strange concurrence of consequences the Hitler forces entered Bulgaria on 3rd March – 63 years after the Russian forces liberated us from Turkish rule 8. In fact, the meeting between Hitler and Boris III introduced a lot of the Nazi ideology and practice to Bulgaria.

In the days before and after the meeting between the king and Hitler in Bulgaria a very energetic anti-Semitic campaign was started, which my Jewish friends and I found very strange for our peaceful country. It was started by a number of Bulgarian pseudo scholars led by Filov and the Interior Minister Petar Gabrovski 9. To our surprise they were fascinated by the Nurnberg laws. And they openly declared that the Bulgarian, was of a pure Aryan type, which had nothing to do with the Slavs. And we, the Jews, were the main enemy of that so perfect Bulgarian. Those speeches supporting Hitler’s ideology led to a kind of a Kristallnacht in Bulgaria. Thanks God that I am not a witness, but we all knew from witness reports that groups of youths in uniforms armed with knives broke down the windows of the Jewish shops. And despite the resistance of the citizens, they stormed the poor Jewish neighborhood Konyovitsa, broke down flats, molested old people and women, painted swastikas on the walls, as well as anti-Jewish and anticommunist slogans.

I remember that all people from Sofia and the country were shocked. But then came a strange lull – no one commented on what happened, probably the people were afraid of the authorities, I do not know. Maybe thinking that the silence of the people was a kind of agreement, the Interior Minister suddenly declared that he was introducing to Parliament a bill called ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’. We had no idea then that this law would be like the Nuremberg laws. In fact, the only difference between the two laws was that the Law for Protection of the Nation did not say anything about blood or blood differences, but about religion and religious differences. It would have been stupid and laughable if its creators had put in it terms like an ‘Aryan’ and ‘purity of the Aryan race’. But this small difference provided some Jews with the chance to adopt the Christian faith quickly. I do not know such Jews personally, but I have heard about them. My Jewish friends and I did not approve of their hasty act. But then the authorities noticed that omission in the law and hurried to add in a consequent regulation that relationships between Jews and people of Bulgarian origin are forbidden.

There were also some cases of superstitions related to Jews. For example, I remember that during the Law for Protection of the Nation a rumor was introduced that on the Jewish holiday of Pesach Jews would steal a child in order to imprison it in a barrel with nails, can you imagine that, and in this way they would drain its blood, which was necessary for the holiday…. I remember that there were some simple mothers who really believed in these things. And when Pesach approached they were very afraid about their children and told them to run if they see a Jew on the street, run, so that they would not be caught and their blood drained. I have even heard such a pseudo threat used by some women to scare their children when they did some mischief – threatening to leave the child to the Jews, to the ‘blood-drinkers’. There were also cases when a child would disappear and the first thought of those people would be that the Jews had stolen it to drink its blood. For me that was an obvious form of anti-Semitism, but thanks God, it was not very common in the Bulgarian society. I speak only of individual cases, but although they were rare, they did happen.

To be honest, I think that King Boris III carries a political responsibility and he was not the true savior of the Bulgarian Jews. The truth is that at those trouble times, we could really rely on our Bulgarian neighbors. The anti-Semites, with all their cruelty, were only a number of crazy individuals. I remember that both before and after 9th September 1944 opinions were heard throughout the country that the former king Boris III was a democratic monarch. Yet, I think that is not true as far as democracy is concerned, because at that time tens of thousands of people (including many Jews) were sent to prison in the name of ‘His Highness’ and underage girls and boys were executed in the name of ‘His Highness’ with his signature on their sentences.

All of us in Samokov were very happy about the big protest organized by the Jews in Sofia on 24th May 1943 10 against the internment of the Jews from Sofia and the deportation of all Bulgarian Jews. The protest started from the Jewish school, moved past the [Great] Synagogue 11, along Stamboliiski Blvd, where the Jewish Cultural Home [Bet Am] 12 is still located today, and stopped at the Klementina Square. Some of the protesters wanted to go to the palace and ask King Boris III, called by Hitler ‘the fox’ to help them. The Sofia Jews interned to Samokov told us that the police met them with trucks and wagons somewhere along Opalchenska Str. between Stamboliiski Blvd and Vazrazhdane Square. They arrested a lot of the protesting Jews, led by rabbi Daniel 13. It was good that he managed to hide at the place of bishop Stefan [Exarch Stefan] 14, who remained in history as one of the greatest supporters of the Jews in Bulgaria. His protests against the deportation of our Jews played a major role and are still remembered with gratitude by the community.

But in the end of 1943 Italy had already left the war by breaking the alliance with the Germans. The Americans and the English had entered Italy. They started bombing Bulgaria from Italy but not so intensely as Romania, for example. The situation changed fast and contrary to the expectations of the Bulgarian government after October 1943 the Americans started bombing Sofia for real. The reason was that their way to Romania passed through Bulgaria, that was why they bombed Sofia and some other towns. In Samokov we only heard about the bombings, but it was more than enough to increase the fear, which we felt all the time.

My hometown Samokov like most of the big towns in the countryside accommodated a part of the interned Sofia Jews during the Law for Protection of the Nation. I think that introduced some optimistic vigor in us, the young Jews from the country, despite the tragic times. We often gathered together, discussed our situation and always tried to view things from a positive angle. We organized progressively oriented groups (an illegal youth party organization). All the time Jewish chamber orchestras were being formed, in which the accordionists were the center of the company. We read a lot. We exchanged the so-called ‘progressive’ books (books by Gorky, Lenin, Marx etc.) which we were eager to discuss. I found that fascinating! When radio sets were officially banned, we gathered in a small ‘bozadjiinitsa’ [a shop selling boza] 15 on the market street, in which the radio was always on.

It was a great pleasure for us, the Jewish youth, to spend the Sunday mornings there, drinking boza and listening in a daze to the traditional holiday concerts. I do not know if even real musicians could be so impressed by the overture ‘Koriolan’ or ‘year 812’, ‘9th Symphony’ or ‘Pathetic’, Beethoven and Chaikovsky… We would gather around a small table and listen in a trance, lost in a world, which was unreal, and yet belonging only to us, a world, which lifted us above the horrifying present. What we heard, filled us with revolutionary emotions, we were ready to fight so that there would be ‘An Ode to Joy’ for everyone in the world.

The exultation at our unreal world continued until the fateful day. The rumor spread with the speed of lightning: we are going to be interned. Where? Why? Nobody knew. Our parents felt the enormous danger, but tried to save us the worry. The appointed day was coming close with all its terror. Still optimistic, we, the young Jews, went to farewell meetings with our favorite friends, promised that we would write to each other from the new place… At home we packed violins and accordions, my mother cried all the time, while my father, seemingly angry, scolded her. And then came our Bulgarian friends. Everyone brought us something: some fresh butter, bread, yogurt. And they would tell us, ‘Don’t worry! Do not believe that something bad will happen!… Look at us, if necessary, we will protect you! If they touch you, it is as if they touch us. Do you hear, do not be afraid! You will come back, and everything will be like old times...’ It was as if the little butter eased our tense nerves. Well, we were lucky then. After a couple of years, we realized what would have been our fate. Our friend Dr. Buko Isakov (a Jew from Samokov) who had accompanied the echelons of the Aegean Jews to the death camps and had experienced the horror of the doomed people, could not recover from the shock for a long time. [Annexation of Aegean Thrace to Bulgaria in WWII] 16 We did not need any words, his state was significant enough.

9th September 1944 brought my family and me the calmness and the hopes for a completely new and secure life. Then the Soviet army entered Bulgaria not as a conqueror, but as a liberator (except to the fascists). Let’s not forget that at that time there was a strong partisan movement in Bulgaria, which opposed the fascist regime imposed by the Bulgarian government. Naturally the government searched for and killed the partisans, burned their houses, terrorized their families. Many young people died between 1943 and 1944, including a lot of Jews – mostly young people from Plovdiv and Sofia. For example, my future husband, who is from Plovdiv, had been involved in antifascist activities and his life had been in real danger. Unfortunately, I do not know any details about that period of his life, because I met him after 1944.

In 1947 I married Avram Melamed. We met through a group of Jewish friends from Plovdiv. I was in Plovdiv visiting my sister who had just married Rofat Revah from Plovdiv. Friends of his decided that I and Avram Melamed were perfect for each other and made everything possible to convince us in that. The main person ‘to blame’ for our marriage was Morits Assa, the former chairman of the Organization of Sofia Jews ‘Shalom’ 17, who lived in Plovdiv at that time. The story is quite unusual. I was introduced to Avram the day before he left for the USSR, where he was about to spend 5 years at a university (he graduated as an engineer there). At first, I thought I was only one of the many friends who came to see him off. But they had something else in mind, which, after all, I did not mind. While we were talking to each other, I suddenly heard Morits Assa saying ‘Lora and Avram are getting married tonight.’ And everyone started taking out some treats – potatoes, meat. ‘Congratulations! Happy wedding! Have a nice journey, Avram! And Lora will be here, working and waiting.’ At that time I was helping Morits with the administrative work, I was something like his secretary.

The next day Avram told me: ‘I am leaving.’ We left for Sofia where he had to take the plane to Moscow. There we went to marry before the registrar. But we had no witnesses. We went out on the street, looking for people to become our witnesses. We asked one stranger, and we found another acquaintance who agreed. And so, my husband left. But before that he said, ‘We will organize the wedding when I come back. And remember, no going out with other men.’ But a year passed, then a second, a third, a fifth... and we still had no wedding. Meanwhile my elder son Sheni  [Shinto] was born in 1948.

At first I lived with my sister and my brother-in-law in Plovdiv. My sister’s husband advised me not to go to the relatives of my husband, because I did not know them, but I thought the right thing was to go and live with them. So, I went to live together with my parents-in-law in Plovdiv. My husband's sister and brother also lived with them. His brother's name was Samuel Melamed, but I do not remember her name. At that time I was working as a weaver. I gave all my money to them. In fact, everything was for them, even the food. The situation grew unbearable especially in 1948 when they understood that I was pregnant and I was going to have a baby.

Before Shinto was born my husband's relatives moved me from Plovdiv to Sofia. And there, while I was pregnant in the last month, they showed me where I would live. I went upstairs to the third floor and I nearly fell downstairs with the baby.... My husband's mother and brother were coming behind me. When my son was born, I wrote a letter to my husband and his answer was: ‘A boy, something to be proud of!’ He neither asked me how the delivery went, nor how the child was. Very often the money for the baby went for the needs of my husband's relatives. Then my brother Sinto came, took my child and gave him to my parents who had still not emigrated to Israel. They looked after young Shinto. At that time I was working as a weaver in the Slatina factory in Samokov.

I remember very well an unpleasant incident from my work as a weaver. Once a woman got hit (I can't say if it was an accident or done on purpose) and I went to help her, because her hand looked very bad. My decision was spontaneous, I wanted to help her and accompany her to a doctor. Then some boy came, a Bulgarian, and told me, ‘This is none of your business. You are a Jew...’ His words hurt me a lot. That was a very ugly case, which I want to forget, but I can't.

My family dispersed in 1948 when all my relatives except for me emigrated to Israel. 18 In fact, the decision was taken by my brothers and sister and my parents decided that they should follow their children. At that time I was already married. My sister Milka became a social worker in Israel (she had a university education in Bulgaria), my brother Sinto, who was studying medicine in Bulgaria became a famous doctor and my brother Miko (he is the only one of us with secondary education) became a lab chemist. They still live in Israel today and have good families, children and grandchildren. My sister has two boys, my brother Sinto – a son and a daughter, and my brother Miko – a son. All I know about their families is that Milka married before she left – to Rofat Revah in 1940, who was from Plovdiv and I lived with them in Samokov for a while.

My husband returned from the USSR in 1951 as an engineer. He was also a communist so he found a job very fast. In that period I worked a lot, I was a member of the [communist] party, shared their ideas, read a lot. After 9th September 1944 when I went to Plovdiv to live with my sister. I worked as a typist in the propaganda department in the regional committee of the Fatherland Front 19, and later in the Regional Inspectorate on Information and Arts – Plovdiv where I was in charge of cultural information.

So, I was weaver in the 'Slatina' factory in Samokov. After 9th September 1944 – typist in the propaganda department at the regional committee of the Fatherland Front; later in charge of cultural information at the Regional Inspectorate on Information and Arts in Plovdiv. 1947-1998 - headed the personnel department of the City Committee of the Fatherland Front; instructor in the 'Propaganda' department of the BCP City Committee until 1952 ; head of the cultural department of the regional committee of the BCP (Bulgarian Communist Party) after my return to Samokov. 1952-1954 - instructor in lecture propaganda in the 'Propaganda' department of the Central Committee of the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union. 1954-1958 - Ministry of Culture in Sofia, department 'Community, headed the 'Propaganda' sector until 1958, when my department was renamed into 'Cultural and Educational Institutes'. Later I became an assistant in the sector 'Library Control' until 1960. June 1960 - head of the sector 'International Relations' in the Institute for Amateur Art Activities and after I returned from Spain I was once again head of the 'Propaganda' sector. In 1946 I became a head of department in ‘Septemvriiche’ and in charge of propaganda information of the UYW association 20 in the residential district. The same year I became member of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) and head of the Regional Inspectorate on Information and Arts. In 1947 I became a party secretary of the same organisation. I was also in charge of party affairs in the Centеr for Children’s Folklore Art, chaired the trade union committee there, I was a member of the committee on institutions at the Ministry of Education and Culture, member of the party committee at the Culture and Arts Committee, deputy party secretary of the Institute of Amateur Art Activities.

My son Shinto Avram Melamed and my daughter Iafa have an age difference of four years. Iafa was also born in Sofia in 1952. Shinto Avram Melamed has a university education in computer systems at the Higher Mechanical and Electrical Technical Institute in Sofia. My son graduated as a computer engineer (1960-65) and between 1965-71 he worked as an engineer in the Center on Applied Mathematics in the Higher Mathematics Institute; between 1972 and 1974 he was research associate in the Main Information Computer Center of the Ministry of Health; between 1974 and 1979 he headed that center, took part in the research of a national computer system for the health sector. Between 1979 and 1985 he was a director of a computer center, automobile plant 'Sofia' where he designed a control system with five innovations – certificates from the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations (IFIA); from 1985 to 1989 he was chief specialist in the Ministry of Transport in charge of the computerization of transport; from 1989 to 1991 he was deputy director of 'Mikrokom' (a state company) in charge of the computerization of the national post office system; from 1992 to 1994 he was adviser to thе chairman of First East International Bank; from 1993 to 1994 he was a representative of Bulgaria in the English-American Banktrust. From 1996 to 2001 Shinto was president of Geula Fund, and since 1991 he has been a president of the private consultant company 'Annex', in charge of foreign investment, interbank relations, financial and investment projects, their relations with the Bulgarian authorities and financial institutions.

My daughter Iafa Avram (nee Melamed) also has a university education in sociology from the Sofia University. After 9th November 1989 she worked in Bulgaria as a sociologist in the Sociology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, as a translator, spokeswoman for the Bulgarian National Radio, and in the Embassy of Portugal to Bulgaria. For a while she lived in Madrid, before 10th November 1989 21. Iafa knows French and Spanish.

My children are raised Jewish, so they feel Jews from an early age. My husband and I lived in Sofia and there were suitable Jewish youth groups for both Iafa and Sheni [Shinto] here. They gathered in the Jewish Cultural Home, the so-called Bet Am. They are proud of being Jews. So are their children.

Our family friends during the totalitarian regime were Jews, Bulgarians and Spanish –from our short stay in Spain. We gathered together on all religious Jewish holidays, mostly on Pesach. We had a great time. Now my friends are mostly from the Jewish community in Sofia. We gather often, talking, singing, laughing and dancing. We do not meet only on holidays. We gather daily at the Jewish Cultural Home, housing the administrative department of the Organization of Jews in Bulgaria 'Shalom', the Jewish community house 'Emil Shekerdjiiski', the editors' offices of 'Evreiski Vestnik' ['Jewish newspaper'] newspaper, and the magazine in Bulgarian and English 'Evreiski Godishnik' ['Jewish Year Book'], the Sunday children's school, the rehabilitation center for elderly people, the repatriation service 'Sochnut 22 ', which is the connection of the Bulgarian Jews to Israel, as well as the offices of the ‘Lauder' 23 and 'Joint' 24 foundations. To be honest, I must say that at the start of the democratic changes I received for a while aid from Switzerland and Germany, which helped us a lot.

I have been to Israel three times. I visited my relatives, friends and acquaintances. I remember that when I first arrived in Israel, I was welcomed by a sequence of sunny, bight, fresh and hot days. I was most fascinated by the thriving greenery in Israel, which was everywhere – in the cities, kibbutzim, flats, on the roofs, roads, in the synagogues and parks. I also noticed that the beautiful magnolias, rubber plants, jasmine, hedges, grass and all flowers were looked after with love not only by the common people, but also by municipal employees.

If someone dared to tear a flower from a bush, he would be scolded right away by a child or a passer-by. The terraces and gardens in Rishon le Zion, Rehovot and in the kibbutzim Hazorea, Shvaim, Nevo Betar fascinated me with the wonderful greenery in the midst of the desert where Israel is located. I found the Mediterranean Sea very warm, even in the end of the year. The scenery of Tel Aviv’s seaside is magnificent and inspiring, especially now. One visit of a stranger like me is enough to make him feel at home. The warm ‘boker tov’ [‘good morning’ in Hebrew] used to greet everyone you meet, the cordial ‘shalom’ when parting, the common ‘you’ melt the ice and make you a part of Israeli society. To be honest, I did not find it dangerous there and did not feel afraid of the threat of terrorism. Young children would play tennis, ride bicycles, go swimming, eat and drink and have fun under the watchful monitoring of planes and ships. I remember that one day the sea was a little bit dirty. I was walking along the shore with my husband, when looking at our feet we heard a voice from the loudspeakers saying to us, ‘Don’t worry, sir and madam, next to the changing rooms there is a device, which will wash away the bitumen. The device turned out to be a simple cylindrical brush soaked in petrol.

And the people in Israel really managed to have fun! We were in Tel Aviv during the visit of Luciano Pavarotti. He had to perform together with the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the famous Zubin Meta. The tickets were 400 shekels each, which was quite expensive. But many Israeli were interested in music and the interest in the famous singer was even greater, so the sponsoring companies decided to place an enormous screen on the square, and benches in front of it. Naturally a multitude of music lovers filled the square, there were many people standing or sitting on the ground, all of them clapping and cheering and shouting with joy. I also witnessed the Sukkot celebrations in Israel. The same square was once again overfilled with people dancing, everyone singing, it was really spectacular. Both the young and the old had a really great time.

In the kosher restaurant of 'Shalom' we, the pensioners from Jewish origin, eat together every lunchtime, and on some weekdays some of us do exercises in the 'Health' club. We also meet on Saturdays in the 'Golden Age' club chaired by the former chairman of the Jewish community house Mois Saltiel. We meet various Jews from the area of art and science. I am also a member of the international women's organization 'WIZO' 25, whose meetings are both entertaining and educational.

If 9th September 1944 made my husband and me stay in Bulgaria (because we were communists), then 10th November 1989 made us think whether or not we should emigrate to Israel. Life in Bulgaria became hard, the conditions unacceptable, the country fell into a social crisis, inflation soared, unemployment became widespread. So, firstly Shinto and then Iafa decided to leave for Israel and see how life was there. They went to visit our relatives, stayed for a while and returned. My husband Avram and I had already prepared our documents to emigrate to Israel. But we decided to stay. Our children realized that our life in Israel would not be easy. We had already forgotten Ivrit, the social situation there was different, and Iafa decided that there was no point in emigrating if her child and her work are in Bulgaria. So, we all decided to stay in Bulgaria and I don't think we made a mistake.

Translated by Ivelina Karcheva 

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov

Date of interview: October 2004

Professor David Kohen is among the most respected Jews in Bulgaria. His long years of work in the State Central Archive are internationally recognized. He inspires with respect with his clear and objective point of views on the events his life made him a witness to during the whole 20th century. He thinks of himself as a happy man, because of his relatives, friends, as well as the opportunity to have a profession and vocation that gives sense to his life even at present. 

My ancestors came from the Sephardic 1 branch of Jews who were expelled from Spain 2 in 1492 by King Fernando and Queen Isabela because they didn’t want to be baptized. Jews crossed the Mediterranean by boats to reach Northern Africa; many of them, however, by land through Southern France and Italy, went to the Balkan Peninsula, where the Ottoman dynasty ruled. [Editor’s note: The Sephardim mainly settled in Ottoman maritime cities, first of all Salonika, today Greece. They probably went there by sea and less typically by land.]. The Jews were warmly received there. The Ottoman rulers then needed their knowledge in the field of medicine and handicrafts. [A typical occupation of the Balkan Sephardim was textile production and trade.] According to some reports, there were even advisors to the sultan who were Jews. The Jewish people were granted the right of freedom of religion, which was very important to them. [According to the Sharia (Islam religious code), the Muslim state was to tolerate all people of monotheistic faiths. As a result Muslims, Jews and Christians coexisted relatively peacefully within the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years.]. So they remained within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

Jews who came to live in the Bulgarian territory 3 came chiefly from Salonika, Adrianople and Istanbul [both today Turkey]. There a compact mass of Jewish people lived, and as far as I know my paternal and maternal grandparents came from Adrianople. In Bulgaria they found a place granting them full religious freedom, which they needed very much, as well as the right to practice their professions. [The territory of Bulgaria was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire up until 1878.] Here, as it was in Spain, they were detached from land and didn’t occupy themselves with agriculture. Their professions were connected with the city life; they were into handicrafts and small trade. Since they had relations with many of their coreligionists throughout Europe, part of them managed to establish profitable connections with large Jewish centers such as Rome, Vienna, and Paris.

My paternal grandmother and grandfather, Luna Kohen and Yuda Kohen, were grocers in Plovdiv. My maternal grandfather, Aron Mori, was engaged in production of confectionery in Nova Zagora. I have heard my father, Bucco Kohen, bantering with my mother, Klara Kohen, that her family promised to give him a wagon of sugar in dowry, but he never caught a glimpse of that wagon. Of course, there was no such wagon at all. It was just that my father had a very good sense of humor.

My father told me that in the mornings, before he went to school, he used to put a tray full of snacks on his head, which had been prepared by my grandfather. He would go to the market to sell them, and it wasn’t before it that he would go to school. Thus he helped his family, which wasn’t small at all. They were four brothers and one sister. My father was born in 1888, most probably in Samokov. He died in 1982. He was the eldest son in the family. One of my father’s brothers, David Yuda Kohen, died during World War I 4 in French captivity. According to my father, he was killed by Bulgarian soldiers who envied him for allegedly being in a privileged position before the Frenchmen since he spoke French very well. We can’t be sure if that was exactly the case. I don’t know where my father got this information from. Another brother of his, Israel Kohen, immigrated to France at the beginning of the century and was captured with his wife during the fascist years. His daughter and my cousin Jacqueline happened not to be at home by chance; she was with a friend. Her parents were taken to Auschwitz where they were gassed.  

My father’s last brother, Samuil Kohen, ran a grocery store in Haskovo, next to Boff railway station. I don’t now when exactly Uncle Israel immigrated to France, but it was at the beginning of the 20th century. He left in search of a better job. He was a white-collar worker. My cousin Jacqueline, his daughter, showed me the recommendation letters he had when he changed jobs with different companies. He had been recommended as a clerk who worked consciously. I have seen a picture of him on a beach in Marseilles where they first lived. He changed his name in France from Israel Kohen to Jacques Kohen. His wife’s name was Victoria Kohen. They both died on 16th September 1942. He was only 39 years old. His daughter, Jacqueline, managed to move to Algeria during the war to stay with a maternal uncle, who was an industrialist there. She worked as a blue-collar laborer there for a while and returned to France after the war ended. There she married a Frenchman: Henry Chevalier. They have a very nice family with three children: two boys and a girl.   

My father grew up in Plovdiv, where he studied at the Alliance Israelite Universelle 5 up to the seventh grade. He studied accountancy on his own and started working as a white-collar worker with various companies. His work required him to move to Nova Zagora, where he met my mother and married her. I was born in Nova Zagora, while my two brothers, Aron Kohen and Leon Kohen were born in Haskovo.

My father married my mother, Klara Kohen, nee Aron Mori, in Nova Zagora in 1915. My mother was born in 1889 and died in 1958. At one of the annual meetings of Balkan Sephardi Jews [The ‘Esperanza’ festival of culture and creative work of Balkan Sephardi Jews was set up in Sofia in 1998. It’s held every two years under the auspices of Joint. Up to now, it has taken place thrice in Sofia and once in Belgrade with participants from Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Croatia and Turkey.], I mentioned this family name and one of the participants exclaimed that there was a family carrying the same name in Adrianople. I can’t say where my mother was born for sure. Maybe she was born in Nova Zagora, where she lived with her parents and where she met my father, but it’s also possible that she was born in Adrianople, where her parents had moved from. 

I hardly remember my maternal grandfather, Aron Mori, but I can recall my grandmother, Mazaltov Mori, very well. She was a very religious woman. There was an interesting incident that took place in Haskovo shortly before Pesach. The whole house was to be cleaned up perfectly, of course. There shouldn’t have remained even a single crumb of bread or speck of dust. She carried out a special inspection of the house lest a crumb of bread had remained. A special check up of the whole house was conducted. All the dishes were washed and polished to brilliance with boiling water, soap and sand, and then they were put into a special cupboard so that nobody could touch or pollute them. Once it happened that the dishes were put into the cupboard, but there was a pot of jam in it. I liked jam and I took a spoon and had a bite. My mother saw this and she told my grandmother who had all the dishes brushed anew, washed and dried, because of my touching the cupboard where the dishes for Pesach were put.

My grandmother used to visit us often for long hours and on Saturdays as well. My mother was also very religious and she didn’t work on Saturdays, she also wouldn’t touch money nor would she kindle a fire on Saturdays. When she was with us on Saturdays, she hired a Turkish girl of our neighbors to switch on the light at night. I used to ask her if it was a great sin to switch on an electric light. She would confess it was, and I would then ask her why she always made this girl commit a sin. She couldn’t answer. This and some other events made me start alienating from her, in contrast to my other grandmother whom I loved very much.

We lived in Nova Zagora only for a couple of years after I was born; I have only one memory of this time. We used to live in a rented apartment in the building of a vet doctor, Vitanov. This name was often repeated in my family. Our kitchen was exactly above theirs, and there was a hole in the floor so my family could directly speak with the Vitanovs. They didn’t have children and often had rows. But in my presence they would always cool down. They wanted to have children very much, that was all. My mother told me she had often sent me to them and this settled down the disagreements between them every time.

There was no Jewish neighborhood in Nova Zagora. In Haskovo the Jewish neighborhood had between 600 and 800 inhabitants. There was a self-contained Jewish community and no Jews lived outside the neighborhood.

My father was the deputy mayor of Nova Zagora in 1919, because the legally elected mayor had been arrested in the barracks. The party of the narrow socialists supported him and he was elected mayor of Nova Zagora. Bulgaria’s socialist party 6 had split into narrow and broad socialists. The narrow ones were with Dimitar Blagoev 7, while the broad ones were with Yanko Sakazov [Sakazov, Yanko (1860-1934): socialist leader, elected Member of Parliament eleven times from 1894 to 1934, participant in the Socialist International. In 1918 he became Minister of Trade, Industry and Labor and introduced the eight-hour working day. Sakazov started the construction of the first state workers’ home for miners in Pernik, and initiated projects for developing measures for the protection of children and women workers]. After he became the mayor, a woman assistant told him that representatives of the municipal administration didn’t work. My father was surprised and asked about the reason. She told him that up to that day it was routine for every new mayor from any party to fire all the employees of the administration and to appoint new people from his own party for their positions. Then he gathered the salaried staff and told them he would assess them only by their work, nothing else mattered, so that they could calmly continue doing their work. The people calmed down and took on their tasks.

My family moved to Haskovo in the early 1920s and I lived there until 1945. I have unforgettable memories from my childhood years and I’ll keep them for the rest of my life. Those two events: the one with the repeated dish cleaning for Pesach, and that with the Turkish girl, who was hired to switch on the light, as well as another one, which took place when I was in the first or second grade, determined me as a life-long atheist. The third one was as follows: A wooden box for pens, pencils and rubbers was stolen in my classroom. The box belonged to a girl whose father was the wealthiest Jew in Haskovo. He was a patron of the Jewish community and the synagogue. Our teacher panicked that the girl’s father may learn about the theft. He started persuading us to give back the box, with no success. And as a last resort he told us he would bring us to the synagogue, which was in the Jewish school’s schoolyard, he would make us stand in front of the bimah, and every one of us would have to swear that he or she hadn’t stolen the box. God would punish the liar by sending him an immediate thunderbolt. We were curious to see how the thunder was to fall from the skies. Then, in front of the synagogue, we had to form a queue and our teacher asked for the last time who had stolen the box. Nobody answered and he changed his mind and scattered us to go home. He didn’t have the guts to make us stand in front of the bimah. Thus into my childish mind crept the question why he didn’t have us enter the synagogue and ask in front of the bimah who had stolen the box. My childish conclusion was then that there was no God at all.

My father was an atheist, but tolerant to religious people. He never mocked at the religiosity of my mother or my grandmother. He was a broad-minded person. He was the chairman of the Jewish community in Haskovo. He would always put on a praying shawl for the high Jewish holidays. He also had a prayer book. We used to wear hats in those days, regardless whether there were caps or bowler hats; the important thing was that the head was to be covered. We didn’t have kippot then. It wasn’t a part of the Bulgarian Jews’ everyday life then. Kippot were introduced here after 9th September 1944 8 as an instance of influence from Israel. I recently saw a Bulgarian movie called ‘Journey to Jerusalem,’ directed by Ivan Nichev, it was about the rescue of a Jewish girl during the war [WWII], and the Jews were wearing kippot there, which was simply not in line with the lifestyle in those years.

My parents didn’t know Ivrit and we didn’t speak Ivrit at home. We usually communicated in Bulgarian, but when my parents wanted to hide something from us they spoke with each other in Ladino. I didn’t like that because my mother could start a sentence in Ladino and finish it in Bulgarian; we used to think those days it was Spanish. I wasn’t pleased to hear her putting Bulgarian, Turkish and Ladino words in one sentence.

I have always spoken Bulgarian in my family. I didn’t want to speak the language of my mother intentionally [the mixture of Bulgarian and Ladino], because in my views it was broken Bulgarian. It was just the language of Sephardi Jews that passed through many countries and every one of them imprinted on it part of its own linguistic culture. People passed through Italy and borrowed some Italian words, from Africa they took certain Arabic expressions, others were borrowed from Turkish, and that is how the present-day Ladino was formed. This was the way Ladino became a steady communicational tool between Jews in Bulgarian territories, but not only here. I remember that my father could write in Ladino using a strange alphabet called Solitreo. I begged him to teach me the alphabet, since I thought it might turn useful one day, but he said there were different versions of letters [sic] for designating separate sounds and he couldn’t teach me Solitreo, because he found it too difficult.

In Haskovo we lived in rented apartments. We moved to different places every year or so. My mother was a great housekeeper and cleanliness loving person. When we were to move to a new place she would always stay to the end to brush the wooden floors with hard brush, sand and soap until they literally started shining [Some special stuff called ‘Ikonomia’ with solid quartz granules was used for polishing solid surfaces], so that the people who were to come and live in the place after us might say that a civilized family had lived there before them. I remembered this as one of the burdens of our endless moving from place to place. After that we lived in a house owned by an Austrian company for production of tobacco, ‘Nikotea,’ for which my father worked as chief accountant. It was in the town’s suburbs near the tobacco warehouse. My father was well paid at this company and he also received bonuses. When the Austrian officials came to carry out an inspection, the whole enterprise was alarmed. My father always made a good impression because he kept the books very precisely. The plant’s director was a Jew and his name was Pinkas. His son was my classmate in the Jewish school.

While working as a chief accountant, my father figured out that we needed a house of our own. He decided to become a self-dependant tradesman. Of course, he couldn’t compete with the large companies and their capitals. One day he told my mother about his idea of owning a house. But he didn’t have enough money to carry out his plans. Then my mother went to the sleeping room, turned something over in a chest, found some money and put it on the table in front of him. All this happened in the presence of my second brother, Aron Kohen. My father’s eyes opened wide and he asked her where she had gotten this money from. She said she had saved it from the sums he had given her in order to keep the household. That’s how my father bought a house in Haskovo.

My mother was a really thrifty person. She kept the household alone, and she used to patch our trousers. When we tore our socks, she didn’t buy us new ones immediately. She taught us how to mend them and she checked if we did it the right way. My second brother was the best at mending. We used to wear mended clothes: a ragged spot was mended by a thick patch of threads. We used to sew our collars alone. She had taught us to be well groomed. Once a week each of us had the obligation to clean and polish the shoes of the whole family. There was a special place under the staircase where I gathered all the boots, shoe-creamed them and then polished them. My two brothers also did it. We had to keep the house very clean and every day we brushed the floor covers, because we lived next to the street and there was a lot of dust. My mother didn’t let us throw out any food. There was a sentence she always repeated in such cases: instead of throwing food into the washbasin, throw it into your mouth. 

It was I who started accompanying my mother when shopping and after me, my brothers did as well. There was a ‘village’ market on Saturdays when villagers from the nearby settlements came to sell their goods. My mother would always walk around the whole market to see where the best product was sold at the lowest price. One day a village woman cheated her nicely. My mother had bought a bar of butter, which looked very nice, but when she put it in the water, this was the way we used to keep butter then, she found a small head of cabbage in it. I should confess that I gloated over it a bit, because her pretensions at selecting the right product for a long time tormented me.

We also used to go shopping in the trade street of manufacturers where pupils’ clothes were sold. Sometimes my mother would select something from the top shelf and the shopkeeper had to mount a chair to reach it. My mother looked at the clothes for a long time and we often went out of the shop without having bought anything if she didn’t like the clothes. That she did again and again in several shops, so that I started worrying about the sellers who had a hard time with her. However, they would always see her politely to the front door and invite her to come again.

In Haskovo we were surrounded by Bulgarians, Turks, Armenians, Gypsies, but I never heard a bad word about them at home. We shared the same yard with an Armenian family in Haskovo, and they were good neighbors, I should say. Turkish was widely spoken in Haskovo, because many Turkish people lived there then. My father spoke Turkish very well, I knew a little bit, too. As a whole, Haskovo was an international [multi-ethnic] town and there was no separation between the people.

In Haskovo there was a Jewish school that consisted of four classes and a prep-class. There were as many as 20 pupils in a class. The school building had one storey only: a high ground floor. Once, I remember, I was punished not to go home for lunch for misbehaving. We, the kids then had the so-called gangs: a small group of friends with whom we played and walked around with. The boys from my gang then came and the ‘captain’ of the group put his back under the window so that I stepped on it and managed to escape. I ran home, had lunch and they helped me enter the classroom through the window again. The teachers didn’t realize that I had escaped. Usually we had only half-day classes and I don’t remember why on this day we had classes after lunch, too. 

We had two teachers in Ivrit. The first one, Saul Levi, was a good teacher, but a bad pedagogue. He used to punish us for the least misbehavior. He beat my palms with a steel ruler. We didn’t like him and had our revenges in our own ways. We had slings and our pockets were always full of pebbles. There was a garden near the Jewish school where a local inhabitant, Aunt Vanya, grew vegetables. The garden was at a lower level than the street and was irrigated by this old-fashioned mechanism driven by a donkey. Saul Levi was used to walking along the garden on the street, reading a newspaper. We used to wait for him to pass by, his attention wholly occupied by the newspaper. Then we ordered ‘Fire!’ and shot five or six pebbles onto his back after which we hid. We had some other teachers who used to punish us, but they had milder ways of doing so. 

The Jewish school was a four-year one. After that I attended a Bulgarian three-year junior high school and a Bulgarian five-year high school. In high school the Jews were free not to attend religion lessons. Our rabbi in Haskovo launched a course called ‘Shar Hatorah’ – Gate of the Torah [in Hebrew], where we studied texts from the Bible, and I still remember almost the entire text of the first book in the Bible, which I had then learnt by heart. However, I was curious and used to attend the lectures in Christian religion. I learned by heart all their prayers only from hearing them. Once just before Easter, the teacher wanted to examine one of my classmates in prayers and he, alas, didn’t know them. I whispered it to him, but the teacher heard me. She made me stand up and say not only this prayer, but some others, too. Then she scolded him for not knowing the prayers, as he was a Christian, and I, who was a Jew, knew them perfectly. Christian pupils were on special duties to attend the religious services in the churches on Sundays, and I didn’t have to go. But I always went with the others. I didn’t want to differ from them. 

Zionist ideas were spreading in Haskovo then. I was a member of one of the Zionist organizations, Maccabi 9 until I became a university student. Other organizations were Betar 10, our opponents, and Hashomer Hatzair 11 with which we were on friendly terms. There were organizations of the General Zionists 12 in the town, as well as of the Revisionists, and Betar was the youth revisionist organization. They had one common goal: to set up Israel. General Zionists tolerated Maccabi, which wasn’t very connected with political parties. On high Jewish holidays [on Passover only] we greeted each other with the phrase ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ We wanted to incorporate our language in the Jewish organizations: we used to sing songs in Ivrit, danced Jewish dances, spoke Ivrit as much as we could.

My religious coming of age [bar mitzvah] was when I became 13. I had to learn my speech that I had to make at the tevah, in the synagogue. There the Torah scrolls are kept [read]. I had a text in Ladino, of which I remember only the salutation now, and I studied it for long hours. On my birthday, or on Saturdays, I had to read something from the Torah using a sliver pointer, since one must not touch the scrolls with fingers, after which I made my speech. That happened in the synagogue in the presence of my parents. So I came of age and could form and be part of a minyan: the quorum required for reading prayers [the Torah]. The synagogue in Haskovo was in the schoolyard of the Jewish school. The offices of the Jewish municipality were next to the school, but they looked down the street. Nothing remains now from these buildings, since they were destroyed, most probably because new city plans were developed.

Except for my brothers, I had a sister, too, Mazaltov, who died at the age of two from diphtheria. The doctor didn’t pay attention to her festering coatings in the throat that suffocated her. My mother had a great desire to have a daughter. The most pampered of us was my brother Leon Kohen. There is an expression in Ladino for that: ‘the child of the old age.’ In Ladino it sounds like this: ‘еl ijiko de la chikes’.

My second brother Aron became a doctor. He became a chief inspector in Haskovo’s regional healthcare department, after which he was appointed head of the healthcare department in Kardzhali. My third brother Leon was an examining magistrate on criminal cases and he was promoted to the rank of major at the Ministry of the Interior. We all had the opportunity to study at university, which wasn’t easy in those days. I remember that one day, it was after 9th September 1944, my mother expressed her wish to change the curtains in our house. I asked, ‘Why don’t we buy new ones.’ This happened in the presence of my father and his answer made me feel sorry for having asked at all. He answered that if they had bought everything they wanted to, the three of us wouldn’t have finished our university education. We used to lead a modest life and we never denied ourselves food. 

I enrolled in Varna’s Finance University in fall 1938. My father accompanied me to the town to help me find lodgings. I had a meeting with the rector of the university and I went there in my high school uniform. My father asked him if I could become a student in my school uniform. He said I could, but it would be good if he bought me a red hat for my personal self-confidence. This was my first non-school clothing and it was much later that I had a suit made. So I became a university student in my school uniform. 

In Varna I was a very good student. I found my place in the circle of people attending the Poor Student Canteen. This was an organization of anti-fascist students, while legionaries 13, who attended a different canteen, were supporters of fascism. On 24th May 14, when we were out on manifestation and we were formed in different lines, I realized that we outnumbered them four to five-fold. Representatives of the police came to persuade us to unite the two manifestations. We refused and the police scattered us, but we went in front of Varna’s cathedral on our own.

The university offered four-year courses, but meanwhile Sofia Open University was formed and ours was closed, so many of us found it convenient to complete our education in Sofia. In the third year of our studies we were already in Sofia. Many of the subjects were comparable and we had most of our exams acknowledged there. 

I took all my exams in 1942. I had an ambitious Jewish girl for a colleague. She was from Pleven and her name was Regina Pinkas. We used to revise for our exams together. She had to pass all the exams that semester, because Jews were then no longer allowed to study at universities. It was also possible for us not to be allowed to sit for the exams at all. I also sat for all the remaining exams and passed them all, ten of them. They were really difficult. I stayed with one of my aunts on Dunav Street and in order to go to the university I had to go uphill and I staggered with exhaustion. 

In Sofia I found myself in the circle of the Union of Young Workers 15 at [now called] Emil Shekerdjijski chitalishte 16, which was also known as the Jewish chitalishte. I was there for two years and I did relatively well at university. It was only once that I postponed a June exam for the fall one. I graduated in 1942 and I had just come back to Haskovo when I received the message that I had been mobilized into a [forced] labor 17 group for correction of the river flow of the Haskovska River.

I have written an article on the Jewish forced labor groups. I explained there that the legal basis for the formation of such groups was embodied chiefly in the Law for the Protection of the Nation 18 where there was a strict passage clarifying the status of the Jews as people who couldn’t be summoned to service in the army, but had to serve their time as soldiers in the labor corps. They were set up in January 1942. However, this happened after insistence from the part of the German Labor Front [The National Socialist Party created the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront-DAF) in 1933. The purpose of the German Labor Front was to ensure the political stability of the German labor unions by converting them into a centrally controlled organization lead by National Socialists.], which declared it would cancel all its contacts with Bulgarian labor troops [Construction corps, formed in 1920 by the statesman Alexander Stamboliiski, in order to ensure the rebuilding of infrastructure after the devastation of World War I. Labor troops became an alternative form of the military service, being part of Bulgaria’s armed forces and were created as a subdivision of the Ministry of Public Buildings, Roads and Regional Development. Construction corps existed until 2003, after which they were transformed into a state-owned enterprise.], if Jews were accepted as servants there, Jews weren’t sent to serve in the labor corps, but to separate labor groups set up by a verdict of the Council of Ministers and attached to the Ministry of Public Buildings, Roads and Public Works.

These groups were given separate projects for fulfillment such as corrections of river flows and drying of swamps. The Jewish labor groups were formed only of Jews. Until 1941 Jews weren’t separated in special labor units and took part in the construction corps with everybody else. After their separation in special labor corps they expended hard physical work without any payment in severe field conditions. The main difference between the Bulgarian labor troops and the Jewish ones was that we used to go there in our own clothes and shoes and our work wasn’t considered a military service. These groups were operating throughout the country and each of them was between 200 and 400-men strong. I was first mobilized to make correction on the river flow of the Haskovska River, and after that to Svilengrad to carry out correction on the Kanaliyska River. I also worked for the factory of Georgi Chonev near Haskovo, we dug the bomb shelter under Yamasha [a hill near Haskovo] and we worked there only in the evenings. In 1942 I was with my brothers after which I was sent to Smyadovo while they were in Haskovo.      

The work was hard and most of the guys hadn’t done hard manual labor before. We used picks, spades and wheelbarrows for our work. We had a target of four cubic meters of soil but it was hard to fulfill it every day. As a result of the hard work my hand got infected and I was likely to lose it. The infection was caused by the excessive exercising of pressure on my hand in the area of the wrist. In the evenings I had to visit a surgeon, but he didn’t have the instruments to help me. He froze my hand and he made a section with ordinary scissors. After that I had to go to the hospital to disinfect it for two weeks. Haskovo’s hospital was near the railway station and about one or two kilometers away from the city center. In order to go there I had to ask for permission from the police commander. My father also had to ask permission from this institution so that he could take me there. I was bandaged for a month, but when I got well I had to return to the digging again.

In 1944 I got mobilized in Smyadovo for the construction of the Smyadovo-Veselinovo road. I was in the fourth group of workers out of nine that were building the section. We were accommodated in bungalows and the food was very bad. Our supervisor was an extremely wicked man and he didn’t allow anybody to get detached from work. There were people with malaria among us. A friend of mine suffered from malaria tertiana. The supervisor knew very well when my friend was expected to lose consciousness. Once he asked me to see him to the toilet because he was about to faint. And in fact, we hadn’t taken fifteen steps when he lost consciousness. Even these sick people didn’t get released from work. The situation was similar in all other work groups. There were a lot of Jewish forced labor groups working on the bank of the Danube. Malaria was raging there. Three thirds of the people there were ill. Only few of them, however, were released. For example, around five ill men were released out of 100; the others had to continue working despite the cruel conditions. In my group there was an engineer named Gesharov, who was a tormentor. He used to drag a gun and threaten to shoot us because we couldn’t fulfill the daily target. He worked us until late in the evening and left us without food, so that we could possibly fulfill those four cubic meters of soil.

On 8th September 1944 we heard that the Russian army was nearing. Meanwhile I was sent to work at the office of the water management construction department in Smyadovo. I got an order to prepare a poster for the welcoming of the Russian troops. [On 8th September 1944 there were changes in the Bulgarian government.] I had no political training and I wrote the first thing I thought of. So it read: ‘Welcome, dear guests!’ A man argued that they weren’t guests, but liberators. However, what I wrote was hung as a slogan above the street. First came a reconnaissance automobile with machine-guns fixed to it to see if there were any troops nearby. A crowd of villagers flocked to the car. One of them mounted to one of its footboards and made a speech. There was also a group of women in black head-cloths, who were standing near a well crying. A Soviet officer asked why they cried and he was answered that in the well the bodies of dead anti-fascists had been thrown. We were quite excited on this day.

Motorized infantries came with trucks after that, I managed to mount onto a truck and I went thus to my fourth forced labor group. The guys from these groups were hitch-hiking the trucks; they were jumping into them and singing with joy. It was this way that the forced labor groups were disbanded. I got onto a truck and reached the ninth forced labor group where the guys from Sofia were. The Jews there were playing instruments and dancing ring dances around the Soviet soldiers, who begged to make space for them to move ahead. All of us were enchanted with joy. When I got back to my forced labor group I saw one of the workmen with a knife, who was ready to tear the canvas off our tent. I took his hand and stopped him. He wanted to have his revenge, but I told him it was our property now and didn’t belong to the previous government any more. The people were ready to work off their bad temper on the belongings.

From there I took a cargo train and reached Targovishte, where the family of my girlfriend had been interned. I had met her while studying in Varna. She was from Varna. I stayed there for one day and returned to Haskovo by a cargo train again. At the railway station in Haskovo there were armed guards, who checked us because it was rumored that Colonel Marinov [commander of the Second Rhodopean division of the Bulgarian Army supporting the pro-Nazi government in Bulgaria.], the head of the Second Rhodopean Army was approaching the town. They recognized me and let me in. So, 9th September 1944 found me on my way to my town.

I have always regarded Bulgaria as my fatherland, even when the day came to decide whether to stay or to immigrate to Israel. My wife was then in Varna with our older daughter. I had received a letter from her where she said we should go to build our fatherland. I can still remember what I told her. I said she was free to go whenever she wanted, but I would remain here. She didn’t go, so we made our choice. Years after that it happened that my older daughter, Klara, went to live in Israel. My granddaughter [Viktoria] has a family there and I now have a great-grandson.

After 9th September 1944, my parents lived in Haskovo. My second brother lived in Kardzhali and Dimitrovgrad. He was an anatomy pathologist. My younger brother was a criminal examining magistrate in Haskovo. He was a good expert.

I had had a long correspondence with my girlfriend from Varna and after 9th September 1944 we decided to make a family. We went to Varna, but her father was ill then. In Haskovo my parents weren’t ready for celebrating a wedding, either. So we decided to go to Sliven, where both of us had relatives. We had our wedding there. Meanwhile I joined the Guards Regiment [a military subdivision acting as police] in Haskovo and I was wearing a uniform, but without epaulettes. We couldn’t afford suits and my wife borrowed a bride’s veil, while I wore the uniform. We didn’t have civil marriages then and we called the chazzan to come home, because I had got the flu and had a fever. This was the first Jewish wedding after 9th September 1944 that was carried out in line with all the rituals. We married at a relatives’ house on 20th January 1945. I can’t tell any details because at a certain point I lost consciousness due to the high temperature. 

The Guards’ Regiment scattered the military brigade in Haskovo and started operating at its place [In those days the brigade was a part of the army.] It included the ex-partisan squad ‘Asen Zlatarоv’ [Zlatarov, Asen (1885 – 1936), well-known Bulgarian scientist and public figure. Studied in Geneva, Grenoble and Munich, taught in Plovdiv and later in Sofia. He was an editor of several scientific magazines and the author of studies on literary criticism.] Its commander was Ivan Arakliev. The Guards’ Regiment was a subdivision of both the Defense Ministry and the political administration. Its goal was to strengthen people’s power, as we used to say then. Police headquarters in many parts of the country were captured and there were volunteers among the members of the Union of Young Workers, communists, socialists, representatives of the Agrarian Union 19, that is all representatives of the Fatherland Front 20.  

In February they proposed that I get sent to Varna Military Academy, so that I might receive military education. I declined because I didn’t see my future in the army. My superior said to me that I had to leave.

I came to Sofia and started looking for a job. My wife and I stayed with relatives. An acquaintance recommended me as an administrative director in a plant in the ‘Hadzhi Dimitar’ neighborhood, where they produced combs and buttons. I worked there for two months but I realized that the owners wanted to use me against the workers. The workers insisted on pay raises and improvement of the work conditions and I took their side. Then I got appointed as the director of supplies, but they didn’t give me any previous supplies information. We had hard post-war years and supplies with raw materials were a really difficult thing. I couldn’t handle it and we reached an agreement with the owners to let me leave. 

I wanted to study medicine very much. Once during our Biology lessons at the junior high school we had to dissect black beetles, as big as the biggest plums. The beetles had been intoxicated with chloroform before and had been pinned to small boards. We had manicure scissors. Our task was to take out the digestive tract of the beetle without tearing it to pieces. My dissection was the best in the class. It was then that I decided to become a doctor, and mind you, not an ordinary doctor, but a surgeon. Dreaming of this I applied for medicine in 1942 but one tenth of the average grade in my high school academic record left me out of the list of successful candidates. We competed then for places at the universities only by our records from the high school certificate. [At that time universities didn’t organize exams for admission of students, they selected candidates only according to their grade point average from the high school.]

In 1945, when I had already completed my financial education, I decided to apply for medicine. I have a stubborn character and I don’t just let things go. I asked my wife who was studying at the faculty of Roman philology in Sofia and was working as an assistant pharmacist. In fact she studied Roman philology for one year, and then she quit and graduated from the pharmacy department at the Medical Academy in Sofia. She encouraged me and promised to work during my years in university. I just sent my documents and, as a university graduate, I was automatically accepted and I just had to pass a medical check-up. Well, there I went and got a notebook with a test for color-blindness. And they detected my color-blindness. This news came very unexpectedly. I was mentally prepared to study medicine. The associate professor, who was testing me, then even invited students to see what color-blindness was. One of the students then asked why one should believe that what I saw wasn’t right and what they saw was right. That was how my dream fell through. 

When I got unemployed again, I prepared identical applications and I sent them here and there. One morning at six o’clock there was a ring on the doorbell. My wife and I went to open the door, she in her nightgown and I in my pajamas. A warrant officer asked me if I was David Kohen and invited me to accompany him to the commandant-ship. My wife started shivering with fear, but I remembered that it could be possibly in connection with an application, which I lodged there, too. Lieutenant-colonel Milenkov received me and he was the chairperson of the civil staff at the Interior Ministry. We had a short conversation and he offered me a job as a chief accountant. I accepted and when I was leaving he stopped me at the door and said we hadn’t talked about the salary. I told him we would talk when he saw how I worked. Later I learnt that I had found favor with him because of this attitude.   

The situation with the books at the commandant-ship was awful. There wasn’t an accounting staff. I was the first in this department. They had started working without thinking of organizing the documents in a certain order. I managed to finish the first annual financial report in April or in May, while the requirement was to present it in a month and a half after the year-end. We worked extremely hard in order to compensate the previous delay. After that they took me in the financial department of the Interior Ministry. I worked there for several years. After a year there were job cuts and I was moved to the State Archive.  

I started working in the State Archive with great unwillingness. I felt disoriented because I had been fired from my previous job after having proven that I work well. My new director was once my teacher, who was a good pedagogue, and understood my situation very well. He didn’t give me any concrete tasks, but only an archivist’s guide written by some Russian author. My director told me there were no economists employed in the State Archive; there were only historians and pedagogues. So I was the only economist and he offered to take me up to where the documents of the joint-stock company ‘Granituit’ were, which was the largest public company in Bulgaria.

State archivists then had to collect documents whose ten-year validity period had expired, to put aside more valuable papers, that were worthy from a historical point of view, as well as to prepare a protocol, based on which experts had to issue their stance. Day by day I found this documentation very interesting. I started thinking how schematically we were taking the things from our social and political life. When someone was called ‘rich,’ we were thinking of him as a bloodsucker and extortionist. My job helped me see an absolutely different image of a capitalist. I saw an image of a man who defended the national interests of Bulgaria, a person who set himself against German representatives in the enterprise, defending not his interests, but the country’s interests. I was captivated by this documentation, which determined my remaining in the position at the State Archive. All papers to do with the country’s economy came to my sector. I was the head of the economy department in the State Archive, which was let me say the largest one.

After a while we started publishing a magazine of the State Archive and I started researching a topic, which was very warmly received by the scientific circles. The magazine’s editorial staff then included an Associate Professor in Economy, Hadjinikolov, who later became a professor and academician in economy history. I was attached to him as a PhD candidate. My thesis was called: ‘The Financing of German Troops in Bulgaria from 1941 to 1944.’ I have found very expressive documents that hadn’t been studied in our economy literature. Each month Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers had voted a sum for financing the German troops in the country. The thesis got published and this was my dearest child as far as my research was concerned. This publication was followed by another one focused on the German ransacking of the tobacco sector in Bulgaria during World War II.

Hadjinikolov then invited me and proposed to write a dissertation on the ransacking of Bulgarian economy during World War II. I became very enthusiastic and ambitious about it and for two years every day after work I would take my bicycle and ride to the Archive of History Department, where I would read until the library closed. I wrote some 120 pages and gave them to him to review. One day I went to hear his opinion. He started with remarks about many oversights. I went out very unsatisfied with my manuscript. When I calmed down I continued working for another year, after which I managed to defend my dissertation on Bulgaria’s economy during World War II.  

The chairman of the State Archive, Michail Alexiev, insisted that we all speak one major European language, so he invited paid teachers for us. I took up French. A teacher from the Bulgarian News Agency, Miss Alkalay, came to teach us. She was a very good pedagogue. With her help I learnt French very well. At my examination, I immediately began a conversation in French and I received the maximum possible grade. I tried to do the same on my exam in Russian, but it was more difficult. The main test was, however, the most difficult. My examiners were Professor Hadjinikolov and his assistant, Lyuben Berov, who became Prime Minister in 1990 [Editor’s note: actually from 1992 until 1994]. Hadjinikolov understood my uneasiness and with Lyuben Berov he went to the opposite part of the hall, so that they could leave me alone in peace and quiet. After an hour and a half, I found myself and managed to elaborate on the question. After that, they examined me on the whole material and assigned me a five out of a maximum of six. Many years later I met my scientific supervisor and we talked about the exam. He was a man, who managed to hearten young people. His students became professors and PhDs.

During the period I worked as an archivist, I visited Auschwitz and particularly the museum of belongings that remained from the deported Jews who had been killed. I had an ambition to find out more about my uncle and his wife who were burnt there. The museum shows a horrifying picture of the life in the camp. There are belongings of old people, women, men, children, even babies. They have a sickening collection of baby’s shoes and socks. There I had the chance to take hold of a bar of soap, where the letters RIF were engraved: Rein jüdisches Fett, which means [in German] ‘pure Jewish fat’. [Editor’s note: In the Polish ghettos the German occupants distributed bars of soap with the inscription ‘Rif.’ The Jews in the ghetto interpreted it as ‘Rein jüdisches Fett’, that is, ‘pure Jewish fat,’ and that is why the belief that the Germans made soap out of Jewish bodies spread. In reality RIF stands for ‘Reichstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung’.] I kept this bar of soap in a small case next to the yellow star 21 that the then-government had decorated me with. With the years this bar just fell into pieces and turned into dust. In that museum I saw a lampshade made of human skin. I had another experience: while I was examining the museum, a very noisy group of Bulgarians passed by. And this is a holy place for both the Jewish and Polish people. They step into that place in reverence as if they enter a synagogue or a church. These people, however, were rather noisy and I reproved them. They understood immediately and got out of the museum.

One of my co-workers remained there to search for information and I have received a book from her, published by the museum of Auschwitz. There she states the date when the Trancy’s echelon near Paris, where the Jews from France were deported from, reached the concentration camp in Poland. This was an important date, because based on it they found the lists of people who were there, so I learnt that my uncle and aunt were sent to the gas chambers, where they were suffocated and [later] burnt. My father would often sigh that Bulgaria seemed too narrow to my uncle and he went to try his luck far away abroad. 

After 9th September 1944, in my family we celebrated the high Jewish holidays, such as Pesach, Sukkot, Purim, and Chanukkah. We celebrated mainly those holidays that were somehow related to our history. Up to the time my mother was alive, we celebrated them at home, but after that we used to go to the synagogue. My father had leftist socialist views and was not religious. I asked him how he managed to match his political orientation with attending the synagogue, and he answered me very wisely that he was where the people were. 

I have two daughters. The elder one’s name is Klara David Yosifov. She married a Jew in Bulgaria and went to live in Israel several years ago. She works as a [computer] programmer. The other one is called Shelly Palikarieva. She married a Bulgarian and lives in Sofia. She also studied informatics and is a [computer] programmer, too. I have also three grandsons and a great-grandson.

I wasn’t brought up to specifically marry a woman of Jewish origin. My youngest brother, for example, married a Bulgarian. My second daughter married a Bulgarian. We didn’t differentiate between Jews and Bulgarians in our family.

Although I didn’t speak Ladino when I was a child, a lot of Ladino words and sayings remained from my childhood memories. I heard my mother saying them. Two years ago, when the Ladino Club at the Jewish community center was set up, I went to listen to this speech, and I was astonished to learn that I still understood everything. Before that I had an interesting experience at an international archivists’ conference in Copenhagen. Next to me the chairman of the Spanish State Archive was speaking in Spanish with a Russian colleague, who was in the chair of the Spanish section at UNESCO, and I understood the whole conversation. Without any practice I asked if I could join their talk. The director of the Spanish State Archive was extremely amazed. He started patting me on the shoulder, congratulating me that I was allegedly speaking the language of Cervantes. [Although the Sephardim were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula hundred years earlier, Ladino probably reminded him of the Spanish Cervantes wrote in.] He was simply not able to understand how I could speak that way. He had read documents of this period, but he had never heard the sounds of this speech. This incident encouraged me and once when I was in America on a business trip I used Ladino again to help my poor English. I was in California and whenever I used Spanish, they answered me. Many Spanish people had immigrated there.    

I remember the publishing of documentation of the Central Co-operative Union. Their old archive was situated in a basement on Slaveykov Square [a central square in Sofia]. My colleague and I went there as representatives of the State Archive. The air inside was soaked with steam from a cracked pipe from the central heating utility. Our feet were slapping in the mud on the floor. The committee that was to process these materials on the part of the Central Co-operative Union consisted of six or seven people. We worked with them. The moisture and steam had formed a mould layer of twelve centimeters on the files. We inhaled this poisonous air every day and began to run a temperature. This was one of the hardest situations in my work as an archivist. There were no such things at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. We were encouraged to make science and I had a lot more opportunities to work.

From the State Archive I moved to the archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences [BAS]. I had already received my scientific degree ‘Candidate of Historical Sciences’ and a career opportunity was open for me at BAS. I became a senior research fellow. I retired from BAS in 1982. The whole atmosphere there was academic. I felt morally encouraged, because I was making science, as opposed to the situation in the State Archive, where the work prevailed.

No members of my family immigrated to Israel during the Great Aliyah 22. I thought that it would be a good thing for my family to live in the country where I was born. However, I continued supporting the young Jewish State.

Once the director of the Institute of History told me, we, the Jews, were great. It was sometime during the [Israeli] wars with the Arabs 23. I told him it was a matter of nationality only. In Israel [meaning the wars between Israel and its neighboring countries] there was a clash between the high culture and the lack of civilization; yesterday’s shepherds without education were opposed to people who came from the towns of the high-civilized Europe. Brains and culture were behind every gun there. He said I was right.

I can say that 9th September 1944 was one of the greatest events in my life, because it put an end to that anxiety and awful situation in which we, the Jews, were forced to live. We started working for the new regime with all our strength. It was a new beginning for us, and a new life, too. In every field we worked selflessly with our compatriots. We believed in very high ideals. The idea for social equality was our goal. The fact that sometimes there were mercenary motives is another question. But as a whole our expectations were realized.

In 1948, when the state of Israel was founded, the Bulgarian Jews with communist orientation were hardliners and said that no support should be offered to a state, which doesn’t accept the socialist ideas. Jacques Nathan was the leader of the Jewish commission at the Bulgarian Communist Party’s Central Committee; he was also the chair of the Jewish Fatherland Front. We lodged a written proposal for Jews in Bulgaria not to be allowed to immigrate to Israel. Then Georgi Dimitrov 24 called him and said that the first time in their history Jews were fighting bravely for the restoration of their fatherland and Bulgarian Jews shouldn’t obstruct them. Whoever wanted to had to be allowed to freely emigrate. It was this position of Georgi Dimitrov that opened the gates for Jewish people. No other socialist state in those years let its Jews freely emigrate. The Soviet delegate to the United Nation, Andrey Gromiko was the man who lodged the proposal in the United Nations for the establishment of a Jewish state, but the Jews from the USSR weren’t allowed to emigrate. 

Before [10th November] 1989 25 I was well off, I could afford a car and a normal place to live. My wife graduated in pharmacy from the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Institute. She was in charge of the analytical laboratory there. We both had good salaries for that time. We brought up our children with the help of my wife’s mother, because the two of us were working.

The events of 1989 in Bulgaria were regression. We now have a certain bringing to life of capitalism in its most cruel forms, which I hadn’t seen before 9th September 1944. The people who were rich then, had achieved this gradually; they had collected their wealth for decades. We are now witnesses to how a monstrous opulence can be gathered for a short period. It’s obvious that we have organized crime now, which wasn’t a common thing then. I don’t know Italian Mafia in details, but I think it has its match in the Bulgarian one. Since we know that Bulgarian people were workmen and white-collars for 45 years [i.e. the communist period in Bulgaria, 1944-1989], it becomes difficult to explain from where some people have all this wealth. I think that governments after 1989 opened a wide space for crime and corruption, as well as for misappropriation and thefts from the state treasury, so that a small group of people may live a rich life sponging on the whole nation.

Bulgaria has never had such a massive emigration of young people who now earn their living abroad. I think the figure of such emigrants has already reached some 800,000 or 900,000. Years ago foreigners came here to earn their living, chiefly workmen in construction, and gardeners. Now, our young people receive their education here, in order to sell their work abroad. What’s the profit for Bulgaria then? Nothing good awaits Bulgaria if no sound people come into power, who should find a way out of this situation.

I have a scientific interest in several areas. First of all, it’s the history of economy. I have also worked on the history of Bulgarian Jews, mainly during the period of World War II, because this is the most expressive period, filled with disagreements and clashes. I also have some articles concerning local Jews during the period of Bulgaria’s liberation from the Ottoman yoke 26. I have worked in the field of historical metrology, too – I’m speaking of the old Bulgarian measuring system.

I’m thankful for my fate as a workman in the field of archives, because this opened for me the gates of science. I still do some scientific research. I write and publish articles. Perhaps not so intensively, as in previous years, but you see, I have a book at the printer’s now, which will be something like a supplement to Moskona’s ‘Lifestyle and Mentality of the Bulgarian Jews’ [Moskona I. 1970. Lifestyle and Mentality of the Bulgarian Jews. In: Yearbook '70 - year V. Sofia: Organization of Jews in Bulgaria.].

I found by chance a book from the ex-Jewish Institute [Institute of Balkan Studies in Sofia, where both Hebrew and Ladino as well as the culture of Sephardi Jews were also studied.] written by Eli Eshkenazi [lawyer, founder of the Institute of Balkan Studies in Sofia] and the chief rabbi Hananel [Hananel, Asher (1895-1964): rabbi of Sofia, later Bulgaria’s chief rabbi]. After the institute stopped its activities its archives were brought to the State Archive and there I found a very interesting collection of Jewish sentences and proverbs. I included in my new book what Moskona hadn’t published. It’s also hardly likely that the Jewish organization Shalom’s yearbook will come out without my article in it. I was the editor-in-chief of the publication for many years.

Berta Ezra Pando (nee Dzhaldeti)
Plovdiv
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Svetlana Avdala
Date of inteview: May 1996

‘I have been living in Plovdiv for such a long a time but I will always feel like a citizen of the town of Yambol!’ says Berta at our first meeting. She used to always arrive on time. Her body seemed slightly bent; it was as if she was diffident all the time. She was always with her husband who was already ill at the time. She didn’t show any signs of impatience or irritation towards him, not even at a single occasion. She had accepted things as they were. When you are with Berta you can feel the cozy atmosphere of the little town. It is a pleasure to be with her because she is an ordinary, modest, helpful person, without unnecessary whims. The conversations were going well. It was easy for me to lead it and to foresee what was going to come next. The facts were presented in a traditional, normal way. Nothing special. And all of a sudden a little end of the curtain was lifted and God made a manifestation of himself…I keep on wondering whether I became religious because of these interviews and my meetings with all these people. Because things seem so logical, even predestined, especially from the point of a view of a life that is almost over.

My name is Berta Ezra nee Dzhaldeti, Pando by marriage. I was born on 10th September 1935. I have a sister – Rika Dzhaldeti (1943 – 1994). I am married to Haim Mois Pando (1923). I have a daughter whose name is Stela and who is married to Isak Benaroy. I also have two grandchildren – Mois and Alberta.

We are Ladino Jews [1]. My paternal grandfather, whose name was Israel Dzhaldeti (? – 1933), was born in Yambol, he was a dairyman and he married twice. His first wife’s name was Rebeka, his second wife’s – Berta. We are from Berta’s offspring. My grandpa was born in Yambol [in Southeast Bulgaria, 261 km from Sofia] and was living there. He got married in Yambol. Grandpa had five children from his first wife Rebeka – Albert (who died during World War I), Estrea, Yeashua, Ester, Fortunae and he had five children from his second wife Berta – Rebeka, David, Soultana, my father – Ezra, Matilda. I don’t have any memories of granny Berta because I was three months old when she died of asthma in 1935 in Yambol.

My maternal grandfather’s name was Yako. I don’t know when and where he was born. I don’t have memories of him because he died in 1914 during the war, a long time before my parents got married. My maternal grandmother’s name was Rika Azis. She was born in Odrin. She had two marriages – her first husband’s name was Yako Levi – a Turkish Jew, who was my mother’s father. Granny’s second husband was David Azis. Each of her marriages lasted for three years because both her husbands died. I remember her well and I think that she used to be a very pretty old lady. That was what I was thinking as a child because I loved her very much. I was her first grandchild and she was looking after me till I started junior high school. I used to sleep and live at her place during the week and went to mum and dad at the weekend because my parents used to work a lot and were extremely busy. Granny Rika wasn’t very old, she was fifty-something. Her hair was absolutely white; she used to make a little bun at the back of her head. She only had two or three teeth in her mouth. She was of medium height, slender and very lively and active.

Granny talked to me in Ladino and I replied in Bulgarian. That was the way we were speaking with her. In fact we were very close. I felt her like my closest confidante and shared what had happened to me with her. She didn’t have much time to tell me fairy tales and to sing songs to me but our communication was rather intense. I remember she was telling me not to lie and never to touch anything that didn’t belong to me.

My granny was leading a life of poverty. Her house was tiny. They had started building it together with grandpa but when he died the house remained unfinished – one of the rooms was grouted with mud and on the floor of the corridor hall there were boards. There was one more room and a tiny hall where uncle Albert used to live. The kitchen was outside, in the little yard. There was a hearth and chimney, as well as a hob – the so-called ‘mangal’ on coal, on which we used to cook. There used to be only fruit-trees in the garden – plum-trees, quinces, an apple-tree. There was also a vine-arbor. There wasn’t a fence around the garden but a real hedge. We didn’t have any domestic animals but I recall that we had a lamb one year. There was neither fountain in the garden, nor running water. I used to walk for two blocks to fetch water and we weren’t the only ones to do so – all the people from the neighborhood used to fetch water from that fountain. The toilet used to be out in the yard. A lavatory with a hole on the floor in a little cabin. I fell in the hole once as a child. We didn’t have electricity, we were using gas lamps. In winter we were using stoves on wood – the so-called ‘gypsy love’.

My aunt Souzana used to live at granny’s place as well – she was my mom’s stepsister who wasn’t married at the time. Uncle Albert, his wife Olga and their son David were living there too. My uncle used to drink a lot and he was unbearable when drunk - he used to become extremely aggressive. And at such occasions aunt Olga and my other aunt – Souzana – would close all the windows, lock the doors and hide into the house. He would come back home, leave no stone unturned, bump into things, until going to bed and falling asleep. Whenever aunt Olga saw him coming home drunk, she used to flee the house - not through the door but through the window so that he wouldn’t see what was going on – and then run to the neighbors. And on coming into the house he started throwing things, smashing, breaking and then he would go to bed. After his falling asleep, auntie Olga used to come back home and clean everything and in the morning there wasn’t a better person in the world than uncle Albert. There were cases like that – uncle would go out, make a trick of some sort and win some money, then he would put on a new overcoat, a suit, a bowler hat and would go out with friends in the evening. Later he would return with no overcoat, no hat, no nothing. There was such a case – they got drunk, he and his friends, there was some street-organ and he liked it so he bought it in the end. He had the money at that moment so he bought it just like that and then came home drunk with a gift for Olga – a street-organ. It used to stay there in the room, that street-organ, until they left for Israel.

My aunt Souzana used to provide for us – my mother’s stepsister, who was still living with granny. She used to work as a milliner at a workshop which belonged to a Bulgarian guy. We used to have a great relationship with my aunt. Later on she got married, in 1942 – 1943 and left for the town of Stara Zagora [a city in Central Bulgaria, 192 km from Sofia]. My aunt used to be very fastidious. I recall that every Friday the furniture was taken out, in the garden as in those years we used to have fleas and bed-bugs and it was normal because the floor was made of mud. So we would take everything out and we used to beat some things and pour boiling water on other things. For Pesach the entire cutlery was boiled and the houses were whitewashed. That was what granny was doing and that was what mum was doing.

On Friday only the women went to the public bath. It was Roman, new and very nice, with mineral water. It was made of marble. There was a pool, showers, bidets and even a sauna for to get very warm. The people would stay there in the steam so that all the dirt would go easily off their skin. We would go there with aunt Souzana – she would take me there and every time we took apples and cookies. We would stay there for hours. Afterwards we would climb the internal staircase in our towels and go to the second floor. The bath was downstairs and the beds – upstairs. There we would take a short rest.

There was one main street in Yambol – with a lot of shops. It was paved as well as the other big streets. The others were cobblestone secondary streets. The Police Department was in the Shopping Street as well. One of the distinctive features of Yambol are the so-called ‘Hali’ [the central covered market]. They date back to Roman times. They were really picturesque and ancient. They still exist but have been turned into a shopping center. They are situated right in the center of the town square. There are domes on them and arcs instead of doors. There were doors from the four main directions – east, west, north and south – so that people could enter from any direction. We usually used the eastern door. The butchers were on the right – one next to the other – all the meat merchants. Right opposite were the greengroceries and the fishmongers after the door. I remember very well. I used to go shopping with mum once a week but I also went with dad to buy minced meat for the meat fingers – ‘kebapcheta’ as he was a ‘kebapcheta’ maker.

Granny Rika’s house, where I used to live till starting primary school, was in the ‘Dolnata’ [Bulgarian for lower] Neighborhood, near the Toundzha River and the Shopping Street. There used to live mainly Jewish families, rarely was there a Bulgarian one. That’s why that district was known as the Jewish Neighborhood and it was something like a ghetto. I can state that all our neighbors were Jews. All my father’s brothers and sisters used to live in this lower neighborhood. There was also an upper neighborhood where my parents were living. The Turkish people lived in a separated neighborhood. We didn’t communicate with them a lot. Their neighborhood was near the hill ‘Baira’ (there was this hill which was called ‘Baira'), to the other end of the town. And the gypsy neighborhood was near the Turkish one whereas the Jewish Neighborhood was in the lower part of the town, near the Toundzha River. There were some Armenian families as well that were scattered throughout the town but didn’t have their own neighborhood. In the ‘Gorna’ [Upper] Neighborhood, where my parents were living, used to be the houses of the well-to-do families. In that neighborhood there were some Bulgarian families.

The people living in the Lower Neighborhood were very close indeed, in wonderful relationships. If you were in need of anything – advice, help, you could turn to your neighbor. There weren’t fences around the houses. When we needed something – tell your neighbor this, tell him that, do you have this, do you have that…They were borrowing and lending things, they were gathering in the evenings on a little square which was in the center of the neighborhood. Each person would carry their own chair and a conversation would start right away, they were chatting all the time. They were preparing together jam, tomato sauce called ‘liutenitsa’, ‘fideus’. My granny was a great expert on ‘fideus’. It was something like noodle which wasn’t cut into big pieces as usual. We were just waiting for the sheets of pastry to get a little dry, then we used to fold them and cut them afterwards. The pieces look like spaghetti. When the women of a household decide to prepare ‘fideus’, they would call other women from the neighborhood and cook in one of the houses, next time they would cook in another woman’s house. The same thing when ‘liutenitsa’ was prepared – all the people would gather and work together. A lot of jam was prepared because there were lots of plums and again all the neighbors took part.

We the children used to play a lot. I was together with my cousins. Aunt Ester, who used to live in the lower neighborhood, had five daughters – Rebeka, Gratsia, Sofi, Berta, Meriam. The second and the third sons of uncle Yeshua – Shimon and Israel were almost my age. We used to play all sorts of games. We liked to play ‘chilik’, hide-and-seek, play tag, ‘long donkey’, ‘short donkey’, we were hopping over each other. There were some vegetable gardens that were called ‘bakhchi’. We were taking walks in the ‘bakhchi’, climbing trees, picking plums, picking mulberries…The Toundzha was nearby so we used to go there to wade into it…Our parents didn’t control us at all, nobody was taking care of us… There were neither cars nor any other dangers. If a cart went by, we would jump at the back until the people chased us away. I lived with granny until I turned thirteen and started the junior high school.

Granny was religious and used to take me to the synagogue. It is a very beautiful building in my childhood memories. Downstairs there was a hall with a dome decorated with tainted glass. There were a lot of seats in it. That light coming from above hued in different colors seemed magnificently beautiful to me… The men would sit downstairs and the women upstairs on the balcony. There was also an entrance-hall from which the women headed for the balcony and the men remained downstairs. The women were wearing their newest clothes and were always with kerchiefs on their heads. Granny didn’t have a lot of dresses – only one formal and she used to wear it every Friday. Men would put on ‘kippah’. I was feeling very important but just the first fifteen minutes after which I used to get bored and started fidgeting on which granny would tell me to go to the yard. There was a large yard that surrounded the synagogue. There was a separate place for slaying animals. There was another separate building where the ‘shammash’ used to live – that was the person who was taking care of the building of the synagogue.

Granny was always fasting at Kippur. She was trying to make me follow suit but whenever I started crying because of being hungry she would give me something to eat. Taanit would end with a mass in the synagogue. On returning home we would first have a little slice of bread with a pinch of salt and then we would sit at the table where a lot of delicious dishes were served – I don’t exactly remember if there were leeks balls but I recall that the dishes were extremely tasty.

I don’t have any recollection of granny Berta Dzhaldeti (? – 1935); I only know that she was a rather domineering lady. As mum comes from a very poor family she wasn't accepted by granny Berta because mum didn’t have a dowry whereas my dad’s family was quite well-off – all of them were craftsmen. And on top of that, according to mum’s words, dad was a very popular man. Despite all the negative factors, the love between mum and dad was extremely strong. His parents, that means my grandmother because my grandfather was already dead (he died in 1932), didn’t give her consent. I have heard that at the time there was a man called grandfather Avram – something like a chieftain and all the people were seeking his advice and took his words into consideration. My dad went to him when he met my mother and afterwards set his mind on marrying her. That chieftain gave his consent and with the permission of the parents they got engaged. They were engaged for two years and for those two years mum was obliged to gather her dowry. And uncle Yeshua and dad worked hard during those two years and saved the money without informing their parents. The saved money they put into my mother’s bank account. And when there was enough money for the dowry, the parents, or my granny to be precise – my father’s mother – Berta gave their consent for the marriage. Dad and mum got married in 1934 in the synagogue in Yambol observing all the rituals.

Mum has told me that after getting married they started living with granny Berta in the big family house in the Lower Neighborhood. They were given a room that was facing the staircase. Mum used to tell me that granny had a big case in her room. The key from the case was kept in her skirts. Every time they came back home the old lady would lift her skirt and take the key out, then she would unlock the case, put inside the things they had brought, lock it again and hide the key. Mum was also saying that while she was pregnant, dad would bring her something – apples or grapes and on passing the room they were occupying with mum, would drop something through the window. There was something under the window – a sofa, or some other piece of furniture – so that his mother wouldn’t see that he was giving something to his wife. The rest he would give to the old woman and she put it in the case. They were eating only what she had decided to give them from the case. There were no protests – that was it – matriarchy. The whole family used to live in the big family house until my grandmother’s death. I remember that house. There were two rooms on the ground floor and a big kitchen. There the family was doing the washing, the cooking, the washing up. There was also a big corridor hall, a big bedroom and a little room. In the backyard there was something like a toilet and a summer kitchen. At my time there was living only uncle Yeshua with his sons and after 9th September for some time uncle David and auntie Bouka. Grandfather Israel died in 1932 and grandmother – in 1935. After her death mum and dad went to live somewhere else. At first they lived with an Armenian family and then rented rooms on the ground floor in the Upper Neighborhood. The owners were Jews. I only remember their first names, not their surname. I recall grandpa Moshe who had a son Yako, a daughter Rashel and a daughter-in-law Sofi.

Only kosher was cooked at granny Rika’s house. Pork was never brought into the house, she didn’t mix meat with dairy products, she was cooking in separate pots and when visiting mum she was always carrying her own meal because my mum’s dishes weren’t kosher. I even remember that dad was bringing home pork. We would often eat bacon with garlic in the evening.

On holidays and at the weekend I would go to my parents. Before the Holocaust we were convening with dad’s family in the Big family house. One of the women would make leek balls, another – something else, everything was very delicious. There would invariably be some meat on the table – usually lamb. Everybody would cook and then the dishes were brought to the table around which we gathered. We, the numerous children, would have great time under the table.

I remember that at Purim ‘mavlacheta’ were being made – in the form of the letters and we would take the bagel with the letter that was the first letter of our names. At Frutas [2] we were given bags full of different fruit. I felt at home both with granny and with my parents but I think I felt better with my parents. They were living in the Upper Neighborhood which wasn’t far from the Lower one.

My father Ezra Israel Dzhaldeti (1904 – 1968) was a very energetic, very practical and resourceful person. He was quite wild when he was young. In 1923–24, during the September uprising [Events of 1923] [3], he used to be keen on anarchism. And during those riotous years he and two or three other men were sentenced to death as anarchists. But he succeeded in escaping to Turkey by using a fake passport. He lived in Turkey for a year and a half. Afterwards there was an act of grace. And later on, when things in Bulgaria settled down a little, he returned to Yambol. There, in Turkey, he worked as a shoemaker, an assistant-shoemaker, a journeyman and he managed to make a pair of tourist shoes with a hole for a gun in the sole and that was how he returned from Turkey – with a gun in the sole of his shoe. But when he returned to Yambol his brother Yeshua and his father, my grandpa Israel, were so sacred that they almost made him jump and hide into the lavatory.

After getting married he settled down and started making ‘kebapcheta’ meat fingers so he settled down because he was short of time. And that was how, in a natural way, he gave up his political activities. He wasn’t a member of any Jewish organizations. He became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party [BCP] [4] only after 9th September 1944 [5].

His father was a dairyman. He was a dairyman, his uncle was a dairyman – I’m telling you about my family. My two uncles Yeshua and David were tinsmiths, all of them were craftsmen. Grandpa Israel had built a dairy shop apart from the house and dad inherited it. They also had a Big family house in the Dolna Neighborhood. Dad has a lot of brothers and sisters. All of them were craftsmen and all of them gave up their shares of the shop in my father’s favor because he was the last one to live with his parents.

At first my father started selling milk and after that put some tables in the shop itself. Later on he put some tables on the sidewalk and it turned out to be something between an inn and a shop. There were seven or eight tables inside the shop and four or five outside. Every evening a lot of people gathered here, mostly Jews but not only. It was so noisy! My dad was known as uncle Ezrata. He was very sociable and used to attract a lot of customers. He used to have heaps of friends – Jews and Bulgarians. In front of his shop there was an enormous sign that read: ‘Dairy and Kebapcheta Shop Ezra Dzhaldeti Kosher’. Kosher was written both in Hebrew and in Bulgarian. And as a matter of fact he obeyed all the rules of kosher. The ‘kebapcheta’ were made from lamb and veal or from mutton and veal. He used to sell milk only in the morning and ‘kebapcheta’ – only in the evening.

Not only did my father sell the milk, he also processed it. People from the nearby villages would bring the milk to him in the morning. He put it on the hob to boil, then poured it into some basins, leavened it and at dusk he would start making ‘kebapcheta’. Such were those basins – for four or five liters of milk. He used to sell the milk in the shop which was in the Gorna Neighborhood. My parents used to get up at 1.30 or 2 o’clock at night and would go to the shop to uncover the milk which was almost ready. In that shop there were some huge cases with shelves in them – there they used to put the basins with the milk and after it was ready they had to uncover it so that the yogurt could breathe and lower its temperature. In the morning they took it downstairs to the cellar, the cellar was made for that purpose. It was exactly under the shop and was three meters high. When the house was demolished it turned out the walls were more than sixty centimeters wide… So, they would take the yogurt downstairs, to make it cold and the one from the previous day would be taken up to the shop so that they could sell it. And it was yogurt difficult to describe – it was as thick as cheese, as butter… And when dad started to cut it, he used to have that spoon made from tin that was almost flat, and he dipped it into the yogurt and take some out of the basin – and the yogurt stayed like that, like a slice made of milk and when a person wanted to buy yogurt that was what he would do – dip the spoon into the basin and put two or three such slices into a bowl – as much as the customer wanted. After finishing work with the milk, dad started work on the meat. He was preparing it into a wooden trough in order to make the minced meat for the ‘kebapcheta’. He would leave blocks of ice underneath the trough in so that the meat would stay cold… Ice was sold at that time. There used to be an ice-selling cart that was passing through the neighborhood, I don’t know, they were making it somewhere… He used to buy six or seven blocks of ice every day. In the evening my parents would start grilling the meat - ‘kebapcheta’, liver, lamb sweetbreads…Dad used to make the minced meat and grill the ‘kebapcheta’. That was something only he was doing. Mum used to help in everything else. She was a waitress and a cleaner most of all.

My father became a member of the [communist] party after 9th September [1944] but I recall such a case during the Holocaust. Our neighbors were Jews and we gathered – either at our place or at some neighbor's. The adults were playing cards, poker with beans because they didn’t have money. Four or five families used to spend the evenings together – the women were playing on one of the tables, the men – on another, and we the children under the table to and fro and in the dark, outside, because we were living close together, so we could go home whenever we wished at that time…One day they had covered the window with a blanket and papa called us ‘Come here now. I want to show you something.’ He took the older children with him but we, the younger ones, joined them and he broke some toothpicks in two. He broke five toothpicks right in the middle and he arranged them on his hand, dropped some water on them and because of the water the picks moved and a David’s star appeared. My father was not a member of the Jewish community. There wasn’t anything like that at the time in Yambol.

My mother Fortunae Yako Revy Dzhaldeti (1912-1981) was a humble and sensible woman. She was of medium height, with black hair, very agile and very laborious. She seemed very pretty to me and to my father, I guess, as he wanted to marry her so badly… She used to tell me off from time to time, she even slapped me because I wasn’t a very good child. I was pretty wild to be honest. My knees were always bruised. I used to fall all the time, or hit myself… I was playing together with the boys. As the Jewish School was in the lower parts of the town, and it was snowing, and there was a lot of snow at that time, mind you, I would put the bag on the ground, sit on it and slide down the hill. It was like a real slide. Mum would always warn me not to tear my clothes on that slide. One year the bag simply couldn’t take it any more. We used to also go on top of the Toundzha River because it was nearby and would invariably freeze in winter so we used to go there to slide. Mum was always telling me off, especially when she had got fidgets. She was very angry because she worked too much. Dad didn’t use to tell me off at all.

My mother was an excellent cook and from her I learned how to prepare very nice pastel. You sift half a kilo of flour with a packet of baking powder, a little salt and one egg. After that I make a little well in the middle of the flour heap. In it I pour half a cup of vegetable oil, even a bit more and half a cup of yogurt with half a spoonful of baking soda stirred in it. I knead soft dough. I separate it into two parts – one of them slightly bigger than the other, I knead it into a ball and with the bigger rolling pin or a bottle, if you don’t have a rolling pin, I roll out the dough to fit the baking dish. I use medium size baking dish. The bigger ball of dough I flat out and put on top – in that way I’m sure the filling will not drip out. I put the filling, roll out the other sheet of dough and put it on top. When I put the first sheet of dough in the baking dish I make some holes in it with a fork – so that the dough wouldn’t rise and the air wouldn’t go out.

The filling – a well baked aubergine, chopped into tiny bits or hammered with a knife or a wooden spoon and 250 grams minced meat. A pinch of salt, black pepper and I fry all this. I don’t even put oil in the pan because there is enough fat in the meat. I also put one egg in the filling, after the meat has been fried, after I have taken the pan away from the hob and the filling has gone a little cold. So I put the filling, place the other sheet on top, press the endings with fingers so that the filling would stay in, make holes in the upper sheet with a fork and bake. I heat the oven to 200 degrees and when the dough is not sticky any more I know the dish is ready. That’s it. You can make a filling from spinach, cheese and eggs.

Our family always ate together – at breakfast, lunch and dinner. We waited for dad to sit at the table and then we sat down. My father used to buy the products and mum did the cooking. Usually at the table we discussed everyday topics, the things we were going to do or what has happened during the day. Dad didn’t like it when we were talking too much while eating so we usually had our meals in silence.

My parents’ house was in the Upper Neighborhood. They had rented some rooms in a basement. Before that they had lived with granny Berta who was a very authoritative woman. They had two rooms in that basement. One of them faced north and was very damp and practically nobody lived in it nonetheless it was furnished. We were living in the room that faced south. There was a small kitchen which was probably meant to be a washing room. We used to cook in an ‘odzhak’ [a hearth] and on ‘mangal’ [a brazier]. The toilet was in the house. There was running water in the house. There was no garden at all. The furniture – a bedroom suite, a nice wardrobe with a mirror on the middle door, a little bed for me, a stove, a table. The owners of the house used to live above the basement. They were Jews as well. We were on friendly terms with them. Inside, from the dark room, as we called it, there started a wooden staircase that we used to climb to their part of the house. During the Holocaust when there were restrictions on when to leave the house and on everything in general, we used to celebrate Pesach and other holidays with our landlords… regardless of the fact that there were restrictions. The windows were covered in black paper because of the air raids – so that no light would be let out. We would go upstairs and live in that way… I used to spend the holidays with my parents, not with my grandmother.

So, with our neighbors, who used to be our friends, we prepared superb meals, we used to make matzah, boyos. But not like the matzah we have these days, it was more like home made round loaves. And for eight days we used to eat only boyos without salt. They were hard and not very tasty. We couldn’t wait for it to finish so that we could have some real bread. And indeed we didn’t buy bread for eight days.

The period of the Holocaust coincided with my years at the nursery and primary schools. Almost all Jewish children attended one and the same nursery. It was mixed and there were children of Turkish, Jewish, Armenian origin. When the Holocaust started we, the Jewish children, somehow got isolated. Most probably that was done by the other children under the influence of their parents. I recall a child called me ‘chifutka’ [6]. I remember that may be because of that incident the teacher made a parents’ meeting and said that the Jewish children are no longer allowed to attend the nursery. We were expelled because of being Jews. There were about ten of us. And our parents were really worried. Then, one summer, they decided to take us to a Catholic nursery but we were turned out of there too. I also recall that Tsar Boris III [7] died at that time. And the other thing I can’t forget is that all day long the nuns would teach us how to pray.

In 1942 I enrolled in the Jewish school and I studied there until the fourth form. It was situated just between the Lower and Upper Neighborhood, next to the synagogue. It was in a large, beautiful building. There was a separate room for every class. In each class there were between 20 and 25 children. In that same 1942 it was turned into a police department and the school was moved to two rooms in the synagogue. The rumor had it that a lot of people were tortured in that police department. Some people had seen the police officers covered in blood. It was an absolutely horrible situation. In the new premises there were two classes in each room and usually two or three kids had to sit at one and the same desk. The first and the second form studied together in our room. And it was the staff room as well. There were three teachers. I can’t recall the name of the first one, Miss Rashel and Mr Leon. The teacher, whose name I can’t remember, was teaching Hebrew, but I couldn’t learn anything in that language. Miss Rashel was teaching Algebra, Art…, Mr Leon – Bulgarian. I didn’t have favorite subjects. I remember some of my friends’ names – Ancheto, Amada, Stela, Izako. I didn’t use to be a brilliant student, I was somewhere in the middle. I didn’t participate in any clubs. After 9th September [1944] the building of the Jewish school was restored to its original functions, but it was turned into a Bulgarian school this time. After the Jewish school, in 1945, I enrolled in a Bulgarian junior high school – Junior High School I. There I also made some friends – Ema, Roumyana, Mimi Sheytanova, Diana…

In 1942 the adults had to wear badges [Yellow star in Bulgaria] [8] but I hadn’t turned twelve and didn’t wear one. That was an advantage for the children because due to the restrictions imposed by the curfew only we could do the shopping. In the first years the curfew started at 9 p.m. and I recall that my parents used to meet with other Jewish families at dusk in the city garden, around which flows the Toundzha River. They were there together with the kids. I remember that when the curfew was introduced and we started going home earlier, while the sun was still shining, I would always ask mum ‘Why are we going home so early?’. She always said: ‘Because that is what we have to do.’

They didn’t comment but there was a period when they were very worried especially when more restrictions to our going out were introduced – we were allowed to be out only for two hours a day; we weren’t allowed to use the main streets, only the secondary. Afterwards the people interned from Sofia and Plovdiv arrived [Internment of Jews in Bulgaria] [9]. Our house was rented and very little so nobody was accommodated at our place. There was also a soup kitchen.

During the Holocaust my father’s job became totally rudimentary [Law for the Protection of the Nation] [10]. He was forbidden to practise it – both the dairy products and the meat fingers – and he gave away all the tools and vessels (grills, big pots, basins) to a neighbor – uncle Angel, who used to be a friend of my father’s. Angel wanted to take all these objects, hide them and pretend that he had bought them. He gave everything back to my dad after 9th September [1944]. The shop was closed but not seized. I can’t say if dad was made to pay taxes for it. Dad was mobilized into the forced labor camps [11]. I can’t say exactly where he was but he used to go there early in spring and returned in late autumn.

Mum had to support the family. She was from a poor family and before getting married, she had worked together with her mother, brother and sister in a workshop in Elkhovo where they used to make traditional Bulgarian costumes. Mum used to weave the tinsel stripes which were used to trim the costumes. She used to make them on a loom at home. So at that time she was forced to start this activity again. My cousins were making bead necklaces. I can’t say where they were being sold – neither the tinsel, nor the necklaces. We were giving them to some merchants and they were selling them in the nearby villages. Surviving was difficult.

I remember that one of my father’s suppliers of milk visited us once and he took me to a village near Yambol. I guess my father had made an arrangement with him. We went to the village by cart. It must have been at threshing time because I recall I and the children from the village were sliding with the threshing-board all day long. And in the evening they put 4 or 5 kilos of flour in a bag and returned me with that same cart to the outskirts of Yambol – at that time trade on the black market was severely punished. So they gave me a bag of flour and let me go. And, as I had to go through a neighborhood called ‘Karbona’ on my way home, I recall the bag was very heavy and it was extremely difficult for me to walk and to reach home.

My father fell ill in 1943. He got some horrifying neuralgia of the three-headed neuron and he was operated in 1943 in Sofia by professor Filipov. Traveling was forbidden for us at that time but that was some rare malady and they sort of experimented on dad, he was a test animal. Thank God, the operation was successful in spite of being difficult and complicated. It lasted for eight and a half hours and it was the first of the kind in Bulgaria, the eighth in the whole world. Dad had read that in some magazine. And exactly at that time my sister came into this world. My sister was born in 1943 in the basement. The delivery was guided by a midwife called Rayna. She had helped at my birth as well.

I remember that moment very well because there is a difference of eight and a half years between us. I wasn’t such a young child anymore and I remember how mum’s labor started. Then, they made me move to the dark room to sleep in. At some pint in the early morning papa came to me and woke me up; ‘Come on, Betty, get up, you have a sister.’ I jumped out of bed, they were bathing her, my little sister… It was so difficult. My mother had a lot of milk. I remember that the owners of the house, who were living above us, had a daughter as well. Her husband was from Sofia and they used to live there but they were interned to Yambol – they started living with her father and brother. That daughter, whose name I simply can’t remember, gave birth at the same time like mum. Her milk was too thick and that was making the baby constipated. So, she was taking down the baby every day so that mum could breastfeed it because mum had milk in excess. So mum was breastfeeding both of them. It seemed to me that more children were born at that time no matter the situation was extremely unfavorable. There was no problem with the nappies because mum was using what was left from my childhood. Nothing was thrown out in the past.

There is a difference of eight years between me and my sister Rika Ezra Dzhaldeti (1943 – 1994) and we were in close contact until 1949 when I had to go to Sofia to study. She was very young but I remember she was crying all the time – ‘I want with Betty, I want with Betty.’ So mum would always make me take Rika on my walks in Yambol. And when we turned around the corner and mum couldn’t see us, I would always slap her and send her back. I was a pretty grown-up girl at the time and she always wanted to come with me. Then I went to study in Sofia and then got married. When we had already moved to Plovdiv she came there to study at the college of medicine, to become a laboratory technician. Later on, she returned to Yambol and there she was working as a laboratory technician at the hospital. She didn’t succeed in getting married after all. I was communicating with her more actively in the last few years. She even died while living here with us, in Plovdiv. She got ill and lived here with us for four months, we were taking care of her. She died on her way from Plovdiv to Yambol, where she had to be hospitalized for blood transfusion. She was buried in Yambol.

I recall that during the Holocaust the communists and the members of UYW [12] were interned to a camp in Kailuka [13]. They were isolated there. It was something like a concentration camp. As a matter of fact all the families with partisans in them were interned there. Some of them managed to break away from the camp like Mati Roubenova. She was something like an organizer of the Jewish young people for the partisan movement. One of my cousins, Israel, Naftali’s brother, became a partisan. They were hiding in the mountains around Yambol.

Another cousin of mine, Albert Dzhaldeti, who was known like Dzhaldo by everyone, was a communist and spent three years in jail. There were my relatives in Kailuka, too – my uncle Davidcho, his wife, my younger cousin Naftali. And just before 9th September [1944] there was a fire in the camp which took the lives of lots of people. Three people from Yambol died there. Among them was grandpa Avram – the elder. He was the oldest person in the camp. Uncle Davidcho was just a little scorched. Tanti Bouka, his wife, was seriously burnt. My younger cousin had some wounds too – on his arm and head. When they returned they were in wounds. There were no medicines. I remember we used only flavin and changed the bandages. I recall that once, when I started removing Naftali’s bandage from the head where he had a very deep wound, there started falling white worms from the flesh. That cousin of mine survived but after all he had gone through he got valvular disease as a consequence to the rheumatism he had caught in the camp and the burning. The wounds healed but the valvular disease remained. He took to his bed and died at 21. His brother, Israel, came back from the Balkan Mountain alive and kicking, he went to the front as a volunteer and was killed on 25th December 1944. As a matter of fact almost everybody from the family survived apart from those two guys. I remember that on 9th September 1944, when the partisans returned, we were waiting for them in front of the Jewish school. They were on lorries, which stopped there, in front of the school. Tanti Bouka was still in bandages and we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting for uncle Elko (Israel) - the partisan, we used to call him uncle Elko. She lost hope and went back to our family house, she was sitting there, not knowing what to do. And at one time, the last lorries came and – there was uncle Elko. I ran to tanti Bouka to tell her… She was sitting on the stairs just like the sculpture ‘The Mother’ which is in front of Dimcho Debelyanov’s [14] House-Museum – sitting on the stairs just like that, leaning her head on her hand… it is as if I can still see her… And I shouted from far away: ‘Tanti Bouka, uncle Elko is back!’ She didn’t know if he was dead or alive, if he was going to return or not, because Nati Roubenova died, uncle Avramcho – a neighbor, died too.

After 9th September [1944] my father’s private business was done with. Until retirement, he worked as a manager of a confectionery, which wasn’t his, and mum helped him. Dad decided to turn our shop into a place for living for us because he had heard that our neighbor's shop was being nationalized so he thought the same would happen with ours. So he built a wall in the middle of the shop and we got two small rooms and a little hall – there was a separate bedroom and the other room served as a kitchen, living room, everything…

Aunt Souzana had married in Stara Zagora. She decided to leave with her family – with her husband and her son David, who was a year old – for Israel in 1948–1949 [Mass Aliyah] [15]. In a year’s time her brother David went there together with his wife Olga and their child. There they had two more children. Afterwards her mother went there too – my granny in 1950 or 51. She sold the house and paid for the journey with that money. My mother wanted us to leave for Israel very much because almost all her relatives emigrated but papa laid down a condition: ‘If you want to go, go, but I and the children will stay here.’ So we stayed. At that time everything was ready, even the documents but dad remained on his position. I don’t know why. Even now I feverishly believe that I have to stay here and I didn’t agree to leave for Israel then or later.

Uncle Yeshua’s son, Albert, stayed in the Big family house and lived there. After 9th September [1944] my cousin, who had been in jail, started work at the Ministry of Interior and became an investigator.

In 1949 I went to Sofia to study there. They had just opened a boarding house and a vocational school sponsored by Joint [16]. They called it ORT [17]. It was situated near Rouski Monument whereas the boarding house was on 20 ‘Pozitano’ Street, next to the Jewish school. In the first year there was only me and three other girls. In the second – there were eight girls form all over Bulgaria, in the third – fifteen. In the first year there were 52 boys and 4 girls. The person in charge of the boarding house was Rouzha Isakova. At that time she was 61 – a learned, intelligent woman. There we, the kids from the remote part of the country, learned manners and general culture. All that I know I have learned from her – how to eat with fork and knife; at home, to be honest, nobody was using knives at the table, we were a simple, ordinary family. There we learned how to keep our hygiene; what we had known before that was that we had to go to the public bath once a week; she was teaching us that we have to take a bath at least twice a week. Every evening or every morning we had to wash our intimate parts, in the evening we would go to bed only in our pyjamas, not wearing any other clothes. She explained that how the body had to breathe, to take a rest from everything. She was sleeping there, in the girls’ bedroom. We were all looking at her going to bed, then we would lie down, she turned off the lights; she made her bed look like a sack, only one corner was tuned invitingly… A woman of refined manners... She used to wear a corset… She would undress, remove the corset, put on the nightgown and go to bed. That is what I took from her and even now I cannot get used to sleeping with underwear. In the morning we were waken up with an alarm, so we would get up, wash, prepare ourselves and go downstairs for breakfast. By the way, food was scarce in those times but we didn’t feel it so much because everything was from Joint. In the morning we always had milk with cocoa, a spoonful of margarine and some jam – that was serious breakfast for those years. There were coupons for bread and we used to give our coupons to the steward but we weren’t given an exact amount of bread. They simply sliced the bread and put it on the tables – some people eat more bread, some less – but we always had bread on the table.

After breakfast we would stand in line and go to school. Our boarding house was on 106 ‘Pozitano’ Street and the school was near the Rouski Monument. Our teachers were Bulgarians and Jews. We used to study general and technical subjects. We had some practical lessons of cold working, locksmith skills, turnery in workshops that were fully equipped. There was a separate room for electrical engineering but we also visited other factories, like furrieries and foundry work factories. There we also had some practical lessons. The cold working and the electrical engineering were conducted in the school. At noon we would return, the whole group, for lunch. Lunch always consisted of soup and main course, there was no shortage. And from the canteen – to the study-room to prepare our lessons. Downstairs we used to have this big, sports hall, which was turned into a study-room, with tables. We studied individually. Rouzha Isakova was the manager of the boarding house and Marko Isakov was something like a mentor of the students. Uncle Yakov was in charge of the supplies, tanti Rashel was a cook, and later came tanti Sara. My classmates were Stela Davidova and Sara Mandil from Kyustendil [in South-West Bulgaria, 68 km from Sofia], Zhozefina Isakova from Plovdiv. The boys from Yambol were Albert Sintov – the husband of our famous [opera] singer Anna Tomova-Sintova, who is a first cousin of mine, Isak Benaroy and Hari Basan, from Yambol as well. We used to throw parties in the evenings. It was such fun, there was a guy who played the accordion. He was playing, we were dancing – tango, waltz, rumba…We were joking, presenting little drama plays… It was wonderful…

After 9th September [1944] the traditional Jewish holidays weren’t relevant anymore and we didn’t celebrate them but every Saturday we would go to the Bet Am [18]. We were allowed to leave the boarding house from 6p.m. until 9p.m. So we used the time to go to the parties there. We were like brothers and sisters with our boys. For the whole time I spent there only one couple formed and it was in the fourth year. Benaroy from Yambol and a girl called Binka from Samokov. They got married afterwards. If any of us had a courtier all of us were informed and involved. Each of us would share their opinion – if it was a good match or not.

We spent three years in the boarding house. Then it was closed down. In Plovdiv another vocational school was founded and the people from Plovdiv went there. The others, in whose towns there wasn’t a vocational school, formed a boarding house on 79 ‘Zhdanov’ Street [today Pirotska Street]. We didn’t have food, nobody was doing the cooking for us but each of us was granted a small scholarship. There we graduated.

We were going to a lot of cultural events with Miss Rouzha Isakova – to the theater, opera, ballet. I recall that at that time the jazz singer Lea Ivanova had come to Bulgaria for the first time. I had put on my dress from the graduation party and a pair of elegant shoes and it was snowing so heavily – there was a layer of 30 or 40 cm of snow. By the time we reached the hall my feet had turned into blocks of ice.

I graduated and returned to Yambol. I started work at the airport for jetliners in Bezmer. There is no civil airport there now but there was in the past. It was an airport for repair works on airplanes with engines with internal combustion. Bezmer is an airport for jetliners. I started work at the workshop at the airport. I managed to stay two months there. I fitted engines because my specialty at school was ‘Engines with Internal Combustion’. There were only two girls in the workshop. The other girl, she had started working there before me, used to wash the parts of the engines, when there were planes to repair. I was in the starting group. It consisted of six people. After assembling the engines we were checking if everything was fine, on the ground. Afterwards a captain, who was a pilot, tried it in air. He used to fly with the plane for half an hour and if there was anything wrong we would finish it, then he would fly for an hour or two and from there the plane was sent to its destination in one of the military establishments.

While I was still in the boarding house I had a boyfriend, a Bulgarian – a young officer from Yambol. We were seeing each other for a year but the rumors had reached my parents. My cousin Albert Dzhaldeti was working with a cousin of his in the Ministry of Interior. And that Bulgarian told him: ‘Listen, Dzhaldo, your cousin is going out with my cousin, but you should know that his mother and sisters, his relatives, are absolutely unhappy that he is in love with a Jew. If something serious happens and they get married, your cousin will see no good.’ So Albert told my parents, they told me and we split up.

After that a relative who was married in Plovdiv had come to Yambol. She saw me in the bathroom and liked the way I look very much. She told tanti Roza: ‘I like this girl, she has to live in Plovdiv.’ And after that he [her future husband Haim] visited tanti Roza, I was invited and that’s how we met. And our boy swallowed the bait at once. It was quite a courtship. We were walking in the garden and he, in order to impress me, used to throw his raincoat on the trees. We were dating for about a month. We didn’t get engaged before the wedding, only a sort of agreement, and we got married in 1954 in Yambol. We signed the register but the synagogue was already closed. Afterwards we came to Plovdiv. He used to live with his father in rented rooms. His mother had died a few months before the wedding. They had sold all their belongings. We were living on 7 ‘Nikolaev’ Street. There were three rooms and a kitchenette. In one of the rooms there lived another woman – a widow. We used the other two rooms – my father-in-law in one room, we – in the other one. My father-in-law died three years after we got married. We didn’t bury him according to the Jewish traditions but we chose the Jewish cemetery.

When I came to Plovdiv in 1955 the Shalom [19] was functioning until 1960. We were meeting there often and had great time. Bitoush Behar’s father – Dzhoudi – was the funniest person in the Bet Am. We were dancing a lot – gallop, polka. And usually Dzhoudi was leading the dance and showed us the steps and the figures we had to do. He was such a great guy! When we knew that Dzhoudi was going to be there we realized the party would be great…

I started work in ‘Peter Chengelov’ Shoe Factory in 1958 and I worked there till my retirement. I became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party [BCP] in 1961.

We didn’t have children for nine years. My relatives started wondering about the reason. I recall that had planted a lemon tree. We didn’t have enough room for it and gave it to tanti Soultana – my dad’s sister, Albert Sintov’s mother [Anna Tomova-Sintova’s husband] because she was very fond of flowers. It became a big tree but it didn’t give any fruit – it was grafted, watered, but no and no. And tanti Soultana said once to her neighbors who were talking before our door: ‘Can you see it, that lemon tree, it won’t give fruit, like its saibiika [owner – a word of Turkish origin]’ Mum had heard that and was extremely angry. And can you believe the paradox – I got pregnant and the tree gave a lemon that same year!

And there was another interesting thing with my conception. I had a friend from Yambol – Milka Godzes. She was a Jew too. Her father had started going blind gradually since the age of ten or twelve. Her father and my father were friends. My dad helped him by reading the lessons aloud to him so that he could finish the third year at school. When Milka was born, he saw and afterwards lost his sight completely. Milka married a Jew, too. We were friends with her because she was only a year and three months younger. Later, when we grew up we both got married. Her husband was a military officer in Burgas [a city on the Black Sea Coast in Southeast Bulgaria] and they moved to live there. Later, when they came to Plovdiv, they would visit us. After some years, having been in all towns in Bulgaria, he was transferred to Yambol and they settled down there. We would return to Yambol for the holidays and used to meet them in the Jewish club to celebrate – for Pesach, Rosh Hashanah. Milka gave birth to a son in 1961. He was given a brit. By chance I turned out to be in Yambol at that time and was present at the circumcision. There is such a belief among the Jews that if a childless woman takes the part from the brit and carries it with her all the time, she will have a baby. They gave me the part of his weewee. I folded it in a piece of cotton and was always carrying it in my handbag. I got pregnant in less than a year. My pregnancy was very hard. I stayed in bed for nine months. I was hospitalized three times and was put on systems because I couldn’t eat anything. Then I returned to Yambol and decided to give birth there. We were bringing up Stela as a Jew but at the same time didn’t want to make her feel isolated from the other children so I painted eggs and made cookies at Easter.

Stela finished high school and started work in the trade system. She finished a course for sales consultants. At first she was a shop assistant for 6 or 7 months and then she became a cashier at big store. She worked there for more than a year… What happened afterwards? Her wedding was also interesting and indicative of how sometimes things follow a certain destiny. As I have told you with Milka nee Godzes, Benaroy by marriage, we had been friends since childhood. My Stela was friends (when visiting her grandparents in Yambol) with her son – Isko – the boy part of whose flesh I had taken after the brit. When they were young children they were fighting and quarreling all the time. He used to pull her plaits. Later, when they grew up, they didn’t keep in touch because we lived in Plovdiv most of the time. We returned to Yambol from time to time. Afterwards, Itsko [diminutive from Isak] went to Varna [a city on the Black Sea Coast in Northeast Bulgaria] to study economics, he came back to Yambol to study for some exams and they met again, but as grown up people. Stela was finishing school and had gone to visit her aunt. They started flirting, wooing. They were writing letters and in a year, a year and a half they decided to get married in 1983. The wedding took place in the hall in the registry office. Stela was a real bride, all in white, unlike me. At my time it wasn’t fashionable for the brides to look like that. After that the reception was in the Jewish club. It was a magnificent wedding. We prepared everything with Milka, a lot of people came. About fifteen people had come from Plovdiv. It was very nice, we had lots of fun. They live in Yambol now. Even now when we get together with the young people and the in-laws Milka starts joking – ‘Stela is our girl from the very beginning. Don’t forget that she was conceived because of Itsko’s weewee’ and I reply: ‘Itsko is our boy – it was we who took his weewee…’ Stela worked for about ten years for the heating company in Yambol. Now she assists her husband. He makes furniture on commission. She stays in the office and takes the orders. My first grandson Mois was born in 1984. Now he is a student in Plovdiv and lives with us. Their daughter Alberta – Betti – was born in 1989. She is a student and lives in Yambol.

In 1991 my daughter Stela, her husband, his brother and his sister-in-law left for Israel to make an aliyah. They took my grandson – Moischo [diminutive from Mois] - along. At that time he was six. Our granddaughter, who was two years old, stayed with us. We moved to Yambol to look after her and started living with my sister. My grandson, Moischo, couldn’t get used to Israel. He had to start school but couldn’t learn the language for two or three months so they got him on the plane and returned him here. He started school here in Yambol. My daughter and son-in-law spent 11 months in Israel but nostalgia returned them to Bulgaria – they even had to pay a refund of 10, 000 dollars. The money they had earned was used to pay the loans back. Now they live in Yambol.

I have leftist beliefs. The changes of 1989 [10th November 1989] [20] brought a lot of difficulties for me. My life was changed entirely. We became very poor. In 1991 I was taking the biggest working pension of 185 levs [around 90 euro], during the [Ivan] Kostov government [1997-2001] it became 61 levs [around 30 euro].

I have been coming regularly to the Jewish home for 5 or 6 years. I am a member of club ‘Health’ and the Club of the Disabled. The activities of the Jewish organization have been revived. More and more young people start coming here, the activities expand and there are a lot more people. Itsko also regularly attends the Sunday school and goes to the Jewish home. I receive aid from Joint because our pensions are so little.

Glossary:

[1] Ladino: also known as Judeo-Spanish, it is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish and Portugese origin. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 (and Portugal in 1495) - it was merely the language of their province. It is also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit. When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal they were cut off from the further development of the language, but they continued to speak it in the communities and countries to which they emigrated. Ladino therefore reflects the grammar and vocabulary of 15th century Spanish. In Amsterdam, England and Italy, those Jews who continued to speak ‘Ladino’ were in constant contact with Spain and therefore they basically continued to speak the Castilian Spanish of the time. Ladino was nowhere near as diverse as the various forms of Yiddish, but there were still two different dialects, which corresponded to the different origins of the speakers: ‘Oriental’ Ladino was spoken in Turkey and Rhodes and reflected Castilian Spanish, whereas ‘Western’ Ladino was spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania, and preserved the characteristics of northern Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary of Ladino includes hundreds of archaic Spanish words, and also includes many words from different languages: mainly from Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and to a lesser extent from Italian. In the Ladino spoken in Israel, several words have been borrowed from Yiddish. For most of its lifetime, Ladino was written in the Hebrew alphabet, in Rashi script, or in Solitro. It was only in the late 19th century that Ladino was ever written using the Latin alphabet. At various times Ladino has been spoken in North Africa, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Israel, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States and Latin America.

[2] Fruitas: The popular name of the Tu bi-Shevat festival among the Bulgarian Jews.

[3] Events of 1923: By a coup d’état on 9th June 1923 the government of Alexander Stamboliiski, leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, was overthrown and power was assumed by the right-leaning Alexander Tsankov. This provoked riots that were quickly suppressed. The events of 1923 culminated in an uprising initiated by the communists in September 1923, which was also suppressed.
[4] Bulgarian Communist Party [up to 1990]: the ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when it ceased to be a Communist state. The Bulgarian Communist Party had dominated the Fatherland Front coalition that took power in 1944, late in World War II, after it led a coup against Bulgaria's fascist government in conjunction with the Red Army's crossing the border. The party's origins lay in the Social Democratic and Labour Party of Bulgaria, which was founded in 1903 after a split in the Social-Democratic Party. The party's founding leader was Dimitar Blagoev and its subsequent leaders included Georgi Dimitrov.

[5] 9th September 1944: The day of the communist takeover in Bulgaria. In September 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria. On 9th September 1944 the Fatherland Front, a broad left-wing coalition, deposed the government. Although the communists were in the minority in the Fatherland Front, they were the driving force in forming the coalition, and their position was strengthened by the presence of the Red Army in Bulgaria.

[6] Chifuti: Derogatory nickname for Jews in Bulgarian.
[7] King Boris III: The Third Bulgarian Kingdom was a constitutional monarchy with democratic constitution. Although pro-German, Bulgaria did not take part in World War II with its armed forces. King Boris III (who reigned from 1918-1943) joined the Axis to prevent an imminent German invasion in Bulgaria, but he refused to send Bulgarian troops to German aid on the Eastern front. He died suddenly after a meeting with Hitler and there have been speculations that he was actually poisoned by the Nazi dictator who wanted a more obedient Bulgaria. Many Bulgarian Jews saved from the Holocaust (over 50,000 people) regard King Boris III as their savior.
[8] Yellow star in Bulgaria: According to a governmental decree all Bulgarian Jews were forced to wear distinctive yellow stars after 24th September 1942. Contrary to the German-occupied countries the stars in Bulgaria were made of yellow plastic or textile and were also smaller. Volunteers in previous wars, the war-disabled, orphans and widows of victims of wars, and those awarded the military cross were given the privilege to wear the star in the form of a button. Jews who converted to Christianity and their families were totally exempt. The discriminatory measures and persecutions ended with the cancellation of the Law for the Protection of the Nation on 17th August 1944.

[9] Internment of Jews in Bulgaria: Although Jews living in Bulgaria where not deported to concentration camps abroad or to death camps, many were interned to different locations within Bulgaria. In accordance with the Law for the Protection of the Nation, the comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation initiated after the outbreak of WWII, males were sent to forced labor battalions in different locations of the country, and had to engage in hard work. There were plans to deport Bulgarian Jews to Nazi Death Camps, but these plans were not realized. Preparations had been made at certain points along the Danube, such as at Somovit and Lom. In fact, in 1943 the port at Lom was used to deport Jews from Aegean Thrace and from Macedonia, but in the end, the Jews from Bulgaria proper were spared.

[10] Law for the Protection of the Nation: A comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria was introduced after the outbreak of World War II. The ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’ was officially promulgated in January 1941. According to this law, Jews did not have the right to own shops and factories. Jews had to wear the distinctive yellow star; Jewish houses had to display a special sign identifying it as being Jewish; Jews were dismissed from all posts in schools and universities. The internment of Jews in certain designated towns was legalized and all Jews were expelled from Sofia in 1943. Jews were only allowed to go out into the streets for one or two hours a day. They were prohibited from using the main streets, from entering certain business establishments, and from attending places of entertainment. Their radios, automobiles, bicycles and other valuables were confiscated. From 1941 on Jewish males were sent to forced labor battalions and ordered to do extremely hard work in mountains, forests and road construction. In the Bulgarian-occupied Yugoslav (Macedonia) and Greek (Aegean Thrace) territories the Bulgarian army and administration introduced extreme measures. The Jews from these areas were deported to concentration camps, while the plans for the deportation of Jews from Bulgaria proper were halted by a protest movement launched by the vice-chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament.

[11] Forced labor camps in Bulgaria: Established under the Council of Ministers’ Act in 1941. All Jewish men between the ages of 18–50, eligible for military service, were called up. In these labor groups Jewish men were forced to work 7-8 months a year on different road constructions under very hard living and working conditions.

[12] UYW: The Union of Young Workers (also called Revolutionary Youth Union). A communist youth organization, which was legally established in 1928 as a sub-organization of the Bulgarian Communist Youth Union (BCYU). After the coup d’etat in 1934, when parties in Bulgaria were banned, it went underground and became the strongest wing of the BCYU. Some 70% of the partisans in Bulgaria were members of it. In 1947 it was renamed Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union, after Georgi Dimitrov, the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party at the time.

[13] Kailuka camp: Following protests against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews in Kiustendil (8th March 1943) and Sofia (24th May 1943), Jewish activists, who had taken part in the demonstrations, and their families, several hundred people, were sent to the Somovit camp. The camp had been established on the banks of the Danube, and they were deported there in preparation for their further deportation to the Nazi death camps. About 110 of them, mostly politically active people with predominantly Zionist and left-wing convictions and their relatives, were later redirected to the Kailuka camp. The camp burned down on 10th July 1944 and 10 people died in the fire. It never became clear whether it was an accident or a deliberate sabotage.

[14] Debelyanov, Dimcho (1887-1916): One of the greatest Bulgarian poets, born in Koprivshtitsa and lived in Plovdiv, Ihtiman and Sofia. Memories of Koprivshtitsa sunny days, his native house and early childhood happy days used to haunt him, driving him back to his idyllic past in his poetry. He worked as reporter in newspapers and magazines, translator, editor and journalist, as well as a stenographer in the National Assembly. Debelyanov joined the army as a volunteer in World War I. He was killed in a combat near Demir Hisar (region in Macedonia) at the age of 29. Unknown at his death, his posthumous fame was considerable. His poetry is in many respects symbolist, and is distinguished by its technical innovation, its precise rendering of nebulous emotional states, and its remarkable musicality. (http://www.plovdivcityguide.com; http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com)

[15] Mass Aliyah: Between September 1944 and October 1948, 7,000 Bulgarian Jews left for Palestine. The exodus was due to deep-rooted Zionist sentiments, relative alienation from Bulgarian intellectual and political life, and depressed economic conditions. Bulgarian policies toward national minorities were also a factor that motivated emigration. In the late 1940s Bulgaria was anxious to rid itself of national minority groups, such as Armenians and Turks, and thus make its population more homogeneous. More people were allowed to depart in the winter of 1948 and the spring of 1949. The mass exodus continued between 1949 and 1951: 44,267 Jews immigrated to Israel until only a few thousand Jews remained in the country.
[16] Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee): The Joint was formed in 1914 with the fusion of three American Jewish aid committees, which were alarmed by the suffering of Jews during World War I. In late 1944, the Joint entered Europe’s liberated areas and organized a massive relief operation. It provided food for Jewish survivors all over Europe, it supplied clothing, books and school supplies for children. It supported the establishment of cultural meeting places, including libraries, theaters and gardens. It also provided religious supplies for the Jewish communities. The Joint also operated DP camps, in which it organized retraining programs to help people learn trades that would enable them to earn a living, while its cultural and religious activities helped re-establish Jewish life. The Joint was also closely involved in helping Jews to emigrate from European and Muslim countries. The Joint was expelled from East Central Europe for decades during the Cold War and it has only come back to many of these countries after the fall of communism. Today the Joint provides social welfare programs for elderly Holocaust survivors and encourages Jewish renewal and communal development.

[17] Organisation for the Distribution of Artisan and Agricultural Skills among the Jews in Russia ORT: On 22nd March 1880, by order of the Minister of Interior Affairs of Russia, the Organisation for the Distribution of Artisan and Agricultural Skills among the Jews in Russia ¬ ORT ¬ was established. A small group of prominent Russian Jews petitioned Tzar Alexander II for permission to start a fund to help lift Russia’s five million Jews out of crushing poverty. ORT, Obschestvo Remeslenovo i zemledelcheskovo Trouda (the Society for Trades and Agricultural Labour) was founded. ORT today provides skills-training and self-help projects for some of the world’s most impoverished communities, using funds raised by its supporters, and added to by development agencies and national governments, to put people on the path to economic independence.

[18] Bet Am: The Jewish center in Sofia today, housing all Jewish organizations.

[19] Shalom Organization: Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria. It is an umbrella organization uniting 8,000 Jews in Bulgaria and has 19 regional branches. Shalom supports all forms of Jewish activities in the country and organizes various programs.

[20] 10th November 1989: After 35 years of rule, Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov was replaced by the hitherto Prime Minister Peter Mladenov who changed the Bulgarian Communist Party’s name to Socialist Party. On 17th November 1989 Mladenov became head of state, as successor of Zhivkov. Massive opposition demonstrations in Sofia with hundreds of thousands of participants calling for democratic reforms followed from 18th November to December 1989. On 7th December the ‘Union of Democratic Forces’ (SDS) was formed consisting of different political organizations and groups.

Matilda Mandil Ninyo
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov
Date of the interview: May 2005

Matilda Ninyo is a small hospitable lady who lives in a tiny but comfortable place downtown. She likes spending time with her friends and her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She follows the social and political events in Bulgaria with great interest and concern in the media and then she discusses them with her friends and acquaintances. She believes in the good fate and she is optimistic about people and the country. She shares her memories of her parents and relatives with true pleasure.

My father Mandil Levi was born in Karnobat [a small town in eastern Bulgaria close to the Black Sea]. He was a wheat trader. Unfortunately, he died very young, when I was five years old and after that we haven’t had many contacts with his relatives, because we left Karnobat, where I was born.

My father had a sister called Rashel, who lived in Karnobat with her three children, a son and two daughters – Zhak, Bela and Fortuna. Just like my mother Rashel was a widow. I have never known her husband, because he had died before I was born and I didn’t know his name either. I only remember that we all lived in the same house. Her son Zhak became a wheat trader, just like my father and uncle Aron Levi, while he was still living in Karnobat. When he moved to Plovdiv this business was not very profitable and he shifted to shoe business. My uncle went to live in Plovdiv around the time when I was born so I don’t remember seeing him in Karnobat. I think he had left for Karnobat before I was born.

We had closer relationship with my uncle Aron Levi. He was married in Plovdiv. He had a strong feeling for responsibility towards our family and especially towards us, the kids, who were half-orphans. After I started school I used to spend part of the summer holiday in Plovdiv with his family. Apart from that, it was a tradition for him to send us new clothes for Pesach and Rosh Hashanah. I remember that clearly, because it continued till our internment in 1943 [1]. My uncle was a very kind and educated man. He kept a shoe store. His wife – aunt Dina was from Plovdiv and they had two daughters and a son. The eldest son was Zhak and then his sisters Rebeka and Lily were born. Unfortunately, Zhak who was a brilliant schoolboy, entered some progressive [i.e. leftist] anti-Fascist circles and was killed as a partisan of the ‘Anton Ivanov’ squad at the age of 17. [Guerilla squad ‘Anton Ivanov’ was formed up in October 1942 in the area Longurliy, Batak Mountain, Western Rhodopes through the merger between the querilla forces active in Batak and the nearby Krichim. The squad operated in a region between the Northern Rhodopes, the banks of the Maritsa River, and the Chaya and Chepinska River. It consisted of five groups with separate areas of operations. In September 1943, the squad, that had attracted many new members, underwent reorganization. On 22th February 1944 the squad’s campsite was detected by the authorities and battles with the governmental forces began. The squad was busted on 1st March in the Suhoto Dere area in Batak Mountain and many partisans died.]. Now there is a memorial plaque in Plovdiv of the killed partisans and his name is engraved there. Rebeka and Lily are younger than me and now they live in Israel. Generally, my uncle’s family was very conservative. My uncle was the one earning money for the family, while his wife was taking care of the household.

My maternal grandmother was Mazal Levi and she lived with my uncle Aron in Plovdiv. She could speak only Ladino [2]. She used to wear shamia [from the Turkish word ‘şame’: kerchief] and she was always dressed in black because she was a widow. My grandfather had died in Karnobat long before I was born, so I don’t know what his occupation was. My grandmother used to wear the usual for the old people by that time, long black skirts with a blouse and a jacket. She was a woman of fair complexion with beautiful blue eyes. Sometimes, my cousins and I used to tease her saying things in Bulgarian that we knew she couldn’t understand. Her reaction was always very interesting. She used to tell us to stop in Ladino. By that time, we had already become students and had learnt a lot of new things, which were far different from our family traditions and habits. My grandmother was not able to understand us, but she could accept it. My uncle’s family moved to Israel in 1949 and my grandmother went with them. One of my cousins became a bank official and the other one was a housewife. Aunt Dina got a mental disease after her son Zhak died. After their departure, I had no contact with them for a long period of time. I managed to meet with them during my first visit to Israel in 1995. By that time, my uncle and aunt had gone very old and my grandmother was dead. My cousins told me she couldn’t adapt to the new environment. She couldn’t understand the language and she couldn’t stand the different climate. The younger cousin Lily graduated from the high school in Tel Aviv and then she worked at the accounting department of the university in the same city. She was very eager to learn new things and she has traveled a lot round the world. The other cousin of mine, Rebeka, graduated from the same high school in Tel Aviv, but her husband had a successful career at one of the local banks, so he didn’t want her to work. Practically, all what she’s been engaged in was the housework. She has two children and grandchildren.

Before my father died he and his brother Aron took care of their sister Rashel. This was very typical of the Jewish families, especially in this period. It was men who did better and it was they who took care of the women. I remember my aunt was very sad that my uncle left Karnobat; it seemed that he was a great help for her family. When I visited them in 1946, Zhak was already a grown man and he was already married. It was he who took care of the family. All of them moved to Israel in 1949. Unfortunately, I haven’t been in touch with them ever since.

Our house in Karnobat was a very big one, with two storeys. As far as I know, it was built by my grandfather Yako Levi. My father was born there. This is the picture I recall: my father sitting on the top of a ladder, trimming the grape vine in the yard. There were many Jewish people in Karnobat and my family was in touch mainly with them. In Karnobat we had the custom to get together on holidays not only with relatives but also with the closest family friends. For example, our frequent guests were widowed and single persons; those who didn’t have where to go for the holiday. It was considered a great sin if you didn’t share your Pesach holiday with anyone. We would even leave the door open on this day, so the lonely strangers were welcome to come. We would always have a lot of guests at Pesach. I was very little when we left the town, so I don’t remember the ordinary life of the Jews there. My aunt and her children lived in our house. As a whole, I don’t remember much of my father’s life, because I was told more about my mother’s family.

Since my mother was a widow she celebrated all the Jewish holidays together with her father and brother, who lived in Sofia. Because of that, I believe, those holidays were even more strictly worshiped in Karnobat. The Jews there were far more united in comparison to those in Sofia. There was a synagogue in Karnobat.

My mother Solchi Levi (nee Danon) was born in the town of Burgas. This town was considered superior and far more sophisticated than Karnobat those years. She graduated from the high school in the town of Trigrad [in the Rhodopes Mountain]. There she lived in a boarding-house. All her lessons there were taught in French. She spoke French, Turkish and Greek fluently. She could read books in Spanish. Later when she left for Israel, she learnt Ivrit very quickly.

My parents’ first meeting was very interesting. Mom was a beautiful thin tall woman. My brother looked like her. One day she went to a fair in Karnobat. This fair must have been arranged for showing the cattle and it must have taken place once a year. As far as I know, she went there with a friend of hers. Karnobat was near Burgas and it was not difficult for them to go there. My mother was not a little girl any more then. She was dressed elegantly, wearing high heels. Accidentally, she tripped on the stone pavement and she broke one of the heels. She got angry, promising herself never to come to the fair in Karnobat again. My father noticed her this very moment and he told himself: ‘This woman will be my wife!’ Mom was then to get engaged to a German Jew, called Freedman, who was living in Burgas. Dad sent a matchmaker several times asking for her hand. She would refuse every time. Then her father decided to talk to the German and find out more about his intentions. My mother thought it would be very rude if Freedman was treated this way. That is why she took the initiative and told him about the proposal she received from the man from Karnobat, but he did nothing about it. In the mean time my father was persistent in proposing her marriage. Finally, she consented, so did my grandfather. At the end, my mother went back to Karnobat despite the promise she had made. The tradition was the bride’s family to give dowry to the groom. It’s interesting that my father didn’t insist on any dowry from my mother’s family.

Mom had four brothers. All in all, there were five children in the family. Her father Pinhas Danon was a tailor. He was famous in Burgas for his work. He earned decently and he had enough money to support his family. Unfortunately, my grandmother Simha Danon, who was a housewife, died at the age of 42. She died quite young and this had negative consequences for the whole family. My grandmother’s sister Doreta was of a great support in this moment. She brought up Mom’s youngest brother - Israel Danon. Doretta took the little child to live with her. Thanks to my grandfather’s good status in Burgas, he was able to provide his children with education. The eldest son Elizer Danon graduated from the high school of trade in Burgas. Now this school is still considered to be very prestigious. After that he became an official in the town’s Italian bank. My uncle Elizer died very young. He had an accident and drowned in the sea. Later, his three brothers called after him their first-born sons.

The other brother Albert Danon was a traveling merchant. He married and lived in Plovdiv. I don’t know how exactly he happened to live there. His wife was from Plovdiv and her name was Oro. She came from a richer family. He might have met her on one of his journeys when he was selling different goods. He also sold newspapers and magazines. He had two children, a son Eliezer and a daughter Sima. Uncle Albert’s children weren’t very fond of studying. He was a traveling merchant and his wife took care of the household. Because of his job, he visited Sofia quite often.

Plovdiv is a place where the Jewish traditions are better kept than in many other towns of the country. I think this is still true nowadays. All the true Jews live there. They all observe strictly the Jewish traditions and they are very united. Their mentality is of people who live in a narrow circle. The assimilation process is inevitable of course, there are mixed marriages and friendships with Bulgarians. However, the people there are different. I think the assimilation process in Sofia is faster. It doesn’t mean that those who live here in Sofia are no more Jews. But in comparison with Plovdiv, things here are different, but I just don’t know how to put it right.

My mother’s third brother is Israel Danon, who also graduated from the same high school of trade in Burgas. He went to Sofia to work as an accountant in a Jewish company for ironware and building materials, called ‘Sitovi Bros’. My uncle’s wife was Rashel and she came from a wealthy family. Her father was an accountant in a Jewish company for dry cleaning. They had two children – Eliezer and Sonya.

My mother had one more brother – Mishel Danon who left for Palestine in 1933. He was married in Bulgaria. His wife was Elvira. I don’t know what his occupation was. I only know he had four children and two of them drowned in the Black Sea. It happened while they were trying to go to Palestine by boat in 1939. [Editor’s note: There is an error in the facts. The boat that sank in the Black Sea was called ‘Salvador’ but the shipwreck took place in December 1940. Some 400 Jews were transported by it. The incident occured near the Turkish coast. The number of the rescued Jews who were Bulgarian citizens was 72. They were transported back to Bulgaria. The names of the other two boats were ‘Rudnichar’ and ‘Maritsa.’] The other two children managed to reach Palestine. It seems that the children traveled separately, at different times.

My brother Zhak Levi was called after my paternal grandfather Yako. I was named after his wife – Mazal. Usually, the first children in a family were called after the paternal parents, the names of the maternal parents were used only if many children were born in a family - three or four, for example. It’s interesting that many families in Israel today observe this tradition.

I was a little girl when my family left Karnobat. I was born in 1928. We moved to Sofia in 1933 or 1934, soon after my father’s death. I returned to Karnobat only once when I was still at the high school in Sofia. It was right after our internment to Kyustendil. My aunt Rashel still lives there. We left Karnobat together with my mother’s father. Her brother, Israel Danon, was also of a great help for us. When my mother became a widow my grandfather decided to move with us and help earn the family’s living. My mother and my grandfather decided that this was the way for them to work together and to help each other. My grandmother Simha died in 1928, which wasn’t long before that. My grandfather was left alone and this was one of the reasons for him to come and live with us. I don’t know if my father had left any savings. But several years after he died my mother didn’t work so I suppose she had some money. After that she started working as a tailor. We didn’t live in the Jewish quarter in Sofia. I don’t know the precise reason, but I suppose my mother didn’t like it there. Many poor people lived in the Jewish quarter called Iuchbunar [3]. There was a great poverty in the Jewish quarter. Of course, there were some very nice people who lived there. My maternal grandmother’s brothers lived there: Aron and Vitali Bali, as well as their sister Doreta.

We were lucky to have been accommodated in a nice house. We rented a house on Antim I Street. I suppose my uncle Israel Danon had found the place in advance. He was a rich man and he used to help us very much. The house was very nice. Our landlord was Stoyan Kosturkov, who was a famous politician at that time. [Kosturkov, Stoyan (25.11.1866-17.12.1949): a politician and statesman, born in Panagyurishte. He studied law in Geneva and after that worked as a teacher in various Bulgarian towns. He was one of the founders of the Radical Democratic Party and was its secretary from 1906 until 1934, when the party’s existence ended. He took part in the editing of the party’s newspaper ‘Radical’, and ‘Demokraticheski Pregled’ [Democratic Review’]. He was a minister in the cabinet of Alexander Malinov (June-November 1918) and after that from November 1918 until October 1919 in the government led by Teodor Teodorov. In the early 1930s he led one of the wings in the party and joined the Naroden Block [People’s Bloc] coalition. When the coalition formed a government in the period between 1931 and 1934, Kosturkov became Minister of the Railways. After 9th September 1944, the Radical Party, led by him, formed a coalition with the communist ‘Otechestven Front’ [Fatherland Front]. He became Minister of Education in the first communist government in the period from 1945 to 1946.] He was a Member of the Parliament and a chairman of the Radical Democratic Party. He was a very honorable man. He lived alone and he had a housekeeper. The house had a glass antechamber, three rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. I don’t remember the furnishings, because I was quite little at the time, but I suppose there was everything necessary for us. There was a stove in the kitchen. In fact we lived on a whole floor of the house. There was another house in the backyard. There were no other houses in this part of the street - it was only ours there.

We had very good conditions for life in the house. My brother and grandfather shared one room, the second one was for me and my mother and the third one was occupied by my uncle. But he lived with us for a short period. We had a glass-windowed garden room in the house and there was a large entrance corridor with a table and chairs. We also had a summer kitchen in the yard and we rented it out on our own. There were no disagreements with the landlord Stoyan Kosturkov about that. This kitchen was rented by another Jew, who I didn’t know. My uncle lived with us for a short time and as soon as he got married he moved to his wife’s home on Benkovski Str. However, he kept helping us financially. I used to visit his family and I recall that his house was large and well-furnished.

We have always had a mezuzah on the door. That was the first thing we would do when we moved to a new home. When a close friend wants to give you a mezuzah he comes to put it on the door personally. Usually these are luxurious mezuzahs with a fine decoration.

I started school after we moved to Sofia. I attended a school on Tsar Simeon Str., which was near the central open market of the city. It was called ‘Simcha’. It was a secondary school. When I finished it I moved to the high school called ‘Antim I’. A year before graduation we were interned and I couldn’t graduate. I didn’t study at a Jewish school, because we didn’t live in the Jewish quarter. This school was a far cry from home and no one was able to take me there and then see me back home. It was entirely my mother’s decision not to attend the Jewish school.

On holidays we used to get together with my mother’s uncles, Aron and Vitali Bali. They were brothers of my maternal grandmother Simha Danon. We visited them quite often. They belonged to the Bali family and they were all epicures. They would always serve many dishes at a richly decorated table; this was particularly true on holidays.

We always celebrated Pesach at home with my grandfather. Mom would always prepare ‘boyos’- special unleavened bread without salt. The table was arranged with white, neatly ironed tissues where the pieces of boyos were put. When we were kids, they used to tie these tissues to our necks as if we were on a long journey to Jerusalem. Another typical dish was fried leek balls and chicken soup. If the family is a big one, for example six people or more it should be prepared from a big hen. The whole hen should be boiled and after that it should be rationed to all the members of the family. There should be no vermicelli in the soup, but only chopped matzah. It has to be mixed with raw eggs. My mother used to buy a live hen from the market and then she took it to the shochet at the synagogue to have it killed. There was a special place in the yard of the central synagogue for this kind of things. We never ate pork at home.

My mother used to boil in water all the pottery in the house before Pesach. There were Jewish families, which had special dishware for this holyday and they used it only once a year on Pesach. We didn’t have it so my mother used to clean all the pottery until it was all shiny.

At Pesach my grandfather used to read from the Haggadah and we would read passages from the book after him in turns. It was very interesting because we had to read and sing in the same time. Later, when I got married my family used to read the Haggadah only in the first years of our marriage, while we were still living with the parents of my husband.

My grandfather was faithful to the Jewish traditions. He was always present at the synagogue on every holiday. He had a prayer book and a tallit. He was a very kind person. He used to bring large bags full of fruits on the holiday of Frutas [4]. However, we didn’t talk with him about anything special, not even religion.

We always had a very rich menu on the holiday of Pesach. One of the compulsory things was the wine, which everyone had to taste. There was a special dish called pastel, which was prepared of thin layers of dough, which were stuffed with meat. The matzah had to be chopped and sprinkled with water so that it could get wet. It was then covered with the seasoned minced meat, which on its turn was covered again with matzah. We used a lot of spices in the meals, especially parsley and pepper. We rarely used mint for example when we cooked beans. We sometimes had meatballs and potatoes. I wouldn’t say that our cuisine is very different from the traditional Bulgarian one. Maybe the one dish that truly makes a difference is that we prepare leek balls. We couldn’t do without it on holidays like Pesach and Rosh Hashanah. A typical Jewish dish is potato stew. It’s interesting that we used to cook beans every Monday. Even when I got married my mother-in-law always cooked beans on Monday. On this day she used to do her laundry, she wanted more time for this task and so she preferred to cook the easiest dish. There is one tradition about the day of Pesach, which I observe until now. We made a dish, called burmoelos [5] and we treated our neighbors with it even if they were Bulgarians. Burmoelos is prepared out of special dough, which firstly needs to be soaked in water. Then it is made into balls, which are fried.

Frutas was a very nice holiday. We had to put seven fruits in a bag. We put inside oranges, dates, tangerines, figs and so on. We used to prepare the same bags for all our close friends, including Bulgarians. We were happy to treat them like that and they were also pleased. In return, our Bulgarian neighbors used to bring home their Easter cake and colored eggs, which they prepared for Easter.

We would always light candles on the day of Chanukkah. What was typical of this tradition was that the candles had to be lighted by the man in the family. Any other holiday tradition allowed a woman to do this. My family used to observe all the high Jewish holidays. My mother and grandfather didn’t eat anything on the day of Yom Kippur, but the kids could have a bite. In the evening the shofar was playing so we used to go to the synagogue. I was told that there was a carnival in the Jewish quarter on the day of Purim, but we didn’t do that at home. I knew there was a great celebration in the Jewish quarter in Sofia’s Iuchbunar, but I had never attended it. Our only visits to this part of the city were when we were guests to Aron and Vitali Bali.

Saturday was the day that we should visit our friends. Sometimes my mother had to work on Sabbath. Every time I went to my friend’s house and my mother prepared sweet bread for me to take as a present. In these years it was obligatory to bring presents when you visit somebody at his place. People would never go without a present. Usually, my mother prepared cakes and for the Jewish holidays she made tispishtil. This was baked dough, which was soaked in sugar syrup with walnuts and raisins. When we had guests at home we welcomed them serving jam.

Our family had a very close relationship with grandmother’s brothers Aron and Vitali Bali, who were absolute bonvivants. I know that they came from Turkey. There was a kind of proverb in the Jewish quarter about the three so-called ‘royal’ families. One of them was the Balis, the other one was the Bangos (it was my husband’s family name, too) and I can’t remember the third one. All these families were known for being bonvivants. Aron worked in a fish store and Vitali had a bakery. Vitali was said to be part of the ‘underground world’. The brothers were such an amazing company; they were joyful and lively people who knew how to have fun. The best celebrations were the weddings that took place in the Jewish quarter. There were lots of songs and dancing. My mother was a good singer and she could dance excellently. She knew many Greek songs. Sometimes she sang Bulgarian national songs at home and she could also dance the traditional Bulgarian folk dances. She loved singing and often enjoyed it. Mom insisted that my brother and I should have better education and that we should be raised in a more sophisticated environment. Family friends were only our relatives. Children could have next-door friends.

At the time we lived at Antim I Street we had no problems about the fact we were Jews. Shortly before our internment, however, we already had to wear badges [yellow stars] [6]. I wore a badge while we were living in Kyustendil, where we were interned. However, all my friends were Bulgarian. On the day when I had to leave for Kyustendil, my closest friend from the neighborhood Lily Lazarova came to see me off. She was with her family and they gave us food for the traveling. They were all filled with compassion for us. We were friends as children, later we didn’t keep in touch.

We had wonderful relations with the other neighbors, too. Generally, the Jews in Bulgaria have never had major problems. There was one absurd situation at school when there was this so called ‘Brannik’ organization [7], and Jewish children weren’t allowed to participate in it. At first, we didn’t know that this kind of organization was against us. So we used to cry, because we didn’t understand why we were not accepted as members. There were no other Jews in my class, but I knew there were some at the school. I had very good relationship with all my classmates. My teacher in Bulgarian was Mrs. Tsankova, who was the mother of the famous Bulgarian theater and film director Vili Tsankov. I will never forget her. In those years, we used the old Bulgarian alphabet. [The Act of 1st July 1921 when Bulgaria introduces simplified spelling upon proposal of a committee led by Linguistics Professor Alexander Teodrov Balan. The writing of ‘ь’ ‘ъ’ letters at the end of certain words was cancelled as they were no longer pronounced.] My handwriting was very beautiful and there were lots of exercises on writing and spelling at school. I had difficulty in writing one of the vowels, nevertheless I always had the highest marks in the class. The teacher usually picked me to read aloud my homework in front of the whole class. There were many other good teachers and I never felt discriminated because of my religion.

Until we were forced to move to Kyustendil my family had the support of our relatives. We had that special sense of unity and mutual help. The Balis weren’t rich but they always shared everything they had with us. There is one proverb in Ladino: ‘The most important thing is the smile on your face; you can deal with the rest.’

Before we left Sofia the whole family used to go on picnics by the riverside outside the city. We took a horse cart and we had a lot of food with us, so it was a great fun. The Balis were the organizers of those little excursions. We could hire the carts with the coachman, it was so enjoyable. We preferred to go to places where we could find fine mellows and water. We never went to the mountains. We did those trips at least once a week during our summer vacation. I remember the carts were very large like a big platform. We used to bring with us tomatoes and cheese for a snack. In those years the streets of Sofia were covered with concrete, so they were clean and smooth. But the streets in the Jewish quarter were dirty and muddy; the toilets were usually outside in the yard. Our family certainly had better than those conditions of life.

There was a Bulgarian family, the Tomovis, who lived on the upper floor of our house in Antim I Street. They were very nice people and they loved us very much. They took care of my brother Zhak and me when we were alone, because my mother worked all day long. She worked from seven o’clock in the morning till nine o’clock in the evening. My grandfather also worked all the day. My brother was three years younger than me, so by the time I was at school the Tomovis took him in their home. He behaved well and never made any troubles. Later he also attended a Bulgarian school. Our neighbors, the Tomovis, were a very important part of our life. They had a store for sewing machines. It was time when people didn’t throw anything away, but instead they tried to fix it. Women used to mend the ladders on their stockings themselves. There were even special workshops where one can have either socks or female stockings mended. For example, my mother was very good at resoling socks.

One day Mrs Nadia Tomova called my mother to tell her they had imported a new machine especially designed to mend ladders. She offered Mom to show me how it worked so that I could help them in the store and teach the clients how to use this machine. I could go to work in the store when I was free from school or when I had little homework. They promised to pay me, so my mother agreed. So I went to the store, learnt all the necessary things and started working.

In 1943 I was fifteen years old and I was in the seventh class at school (one year before high-school graduation), when my family was interned. Before we left, our kind neighbors gave us one of those special machines for mending ladders. In fact, this machine turned out to be our salvation in the years of our internment. My family was forced to move to the town of Kyustendil, while the family of my uncle Israel Danon had to go to Stara Zagora. Just before we had to leave my uncle had given us some money which we locked in tin cans. That was the only way to carry the money secretly. This money was insufficient for the family, though.

At first, we were accommodated in the local Jewish school. After a while, the local Jews came to us and one family invited us to live at their place. That was the family of Baruh Alkalai, who lived in a large, beautiful house. He offered one of the rooms where we could stay. Once again we were lucky to live in a nice house. There was another small building in the backyard, which was meant to be a summer kitchen. There were two more spare rooms, which we were allowed to sleep in. This local family helped my grandfather find a job in a tailor workshop in the town. Although it was forbidden by the law for the interned Jews to work [8], men were frequently hired. I found a job with another sewing workshop. I went to the Bulgarian tailor with my mother and she told him I was able to sew stockings with that special machine. He agreed to have me there and allowed me to take one of the seats in the workshop where I could place my machine. I had to pay a fee for working there on my machine. The Jewish children weren’t allowed to go to school so I started working. It was an interesting experience for me, though. There were times when women used to bring six pairs of torn stockings and offered me two of them instead of payment. It was war then and people had no cash.

My mother was an excellent housewife, which helped us survive. She was extremely ingenious. For example, plums were very cheap in Kyustendil. So she prepared jam out of them. She could also make a potato cake. She boiled the potatoes, and then she put them in a tray and spread plum jam on it. She always managed to do something and feed us. She continued to mend socks as well. That was the way we earned our living. I will never forget our kind neighbors from Sofia, who helped us in this ordeal. Along with that, we had left some of our belongings to our landlord in Sofia, Stoyan Kosturkov. He told us to write him where we were accommodated. He wrote us back that he wanted to visit us and bring our stuff as well as some money and food. He was an amazing person. I think after our exile was over my mother went to see him only once and later we never met. Now I have a great desire to find his relatives.

We didn’t have many close friends in Kyustendil. Sometimes, I was disturbed by naughty young men in the streets, who were trying to tease me. But it was not because of the fact I was Jewish, just for the sake of joking. Generally, we had no problems with the local people. Near the Alkakai’s house there was a bakery. Maybe we didn’t have enough space with the Alkalais and my mother talked to the owners of the bakery, who were Bulgarians, and they said we could move to their house. The man from the Bulgarian family was called Simo. He and his wife were very kind to us and they often treated us with muffins. In the house we had a room and a separate summer kitchen. My grandfather had a bed in the kitchen and the other room was for Mom, my brother and me – just next to the bakery. The next-door house belonged to another Bulgarian family and there was another Jewish family living with them. The Jewish children were a brother and a sister, so that girl, Reny, became a friend of mine. Still, our parents weren’t close at all. Her family was of a higher establishment. The father had graduated in Germany – he was either an economist or an accountant. They had no baggage, but they had a gramophone and record disks. That was the way I had my first lessons in music.

We didn’t keep in touch with the local Jews. I was still very young and my only friends were that girl Reny and Alkalai’s son David. He was in contact with people from the Union of Young Workers [9], so sometimes he asked me to give shelter to his friends, who were hiding from the police. My grandfather was the only one who knew, because those men used to stay with him in the summer kitchen. This was a very risky thing for us to do, because the son of the Bulgarian family was a police agent.

Once we learnt that a young Jewish woman was arrested. So Reny and I walked around the police office to learn something more about her. As soon as the police officers noticed us, we were also arrested. They made us clean the whole police office and then we were set free. I was very scared that they might question me about the men we were hiding at home.

All in all, the time spent in Kyustendil was not so bad. The town was nice and we managed to earn something. Even after 9th September 1944 [10] we stayed there for one more year, when I was back at school to finish it. In the meantime, my uncle Israel Danon returned to Sofia from Stara Zagora. However we decided to stay, because we had no place to live in Sofia. The house we used to live in was hired by another family. Furthermore, my mother had a job in Kyustendil and if we were back to Sofia it could turn difficult for her to find a new one. Nevertheless, one year later we went back to the capital. My uncle found a job for me in the ‘Sintovi Bros’ company. I was cleaning the rooms in their office. In the evenings I studied at the high school. We renewed the relationship with all our relatives in Sofia, as soon as we came back.

I learnt how to type while I was working for ‘Sintovi Bros’. I didn’t graduate from the evening school, because there was a rumor that those who graduated it are not accepted in the university. Then my mother gathered all our relatives. She told them I was a good student, but I would not be admitted to university education because I didn’t attend a regular high school. She asked them for their support so I could leave the job and move to the regular school to finish the last grade. They all agreed to help and that was the way I completed my high school education.

At the end of the 1940s, when my family was very poor, we received aid from the charity organization ‘Joint’ [11]. We received clothes, blankets and sheets. I was a high school student at that time. I clearly remember I got a nice pleated skirt with a jacket.

In 1949 Bulgarian Jews were allowed to move to Israel [12]. Most of the people who decided to leave didn’t have any special professions. In general, women worked as maidservants. In Israel my mother worked simultaneously at two separate places as a maidservant. She worked until she became 70 years old. She mainly looked after kids. Still she had a good pension afterwards, because the legislation there was very social and people got good social security benefits.

It is interesting that before that, in Bulgaria, my mother met a Russian Jew called Maer, and she married him at the age of 42. They went to Israel and they took my little brother as well. They lived happily for 10 years and then her husband died. Soon she met the German Jew Freedman again and eventually she married him. My mother was unfortunate to outlive all her husbands and my younger brother as well. My brother lived in Bat Yam. He married twice. He had three daughters from his first wife Lea – Silvia, Sarah, and Anat. His second wife gave birth to two boys – Roi and Kvir.

My mother and brother went to Israel with Maer and his son in 1949. At first, they lived in poverty in bungalows. When they left, I had already met my husband. I married him a couple of months later. There was a tradition for the parents to make sure if their children were going to marry a decent person, so they investigated their children’s future husbands or wives and their families. I remember my mother told me once that there was a nice boy who liked me and that she had already checked his family. She said it was a decent one. I married that boy in the same year 1949, soon after my mother had left for Israel.

When we were young we used to gather in the Jewish sport club ‘Akoah’ every Saturday. It was situated on Opalchenska Street. That was the place where one could meet friends. Stela (Ester), a Jewish friend from the university took me there once and she introduced me to my future husband. Stela lived in the Jewish quarter and that is how she knew my husband and his family. The young people in the club were interested in sports. They went there for training.

I remember I had letters from my relatives in Israel. A couple of years after they moved we were not allowed to visit them, nor could they return. Of course I was very worried if everything was ok about them there. I suffered a lot that I could not have any contact with my mother and brother. This suffering was even greater because my mother-in-law was worried about her elder son. He also had left for Israel together with his wife and child.

My husband, Isak Ninyo, and I had a civil marriage. Our wedding was a humble one with a couple of friends as guests. We lived in the same house with his parents Lenka and Yako for 28 years. My mother-in-law was a very intelligent person and we got along very well. She played a big part in our development as individuals.

My husband’s family was a patriarchic one. We lived in the Jewish quarter. They observed all the Jewish traditions. There was a strict hierarchy in the family and we had great respect for each other. My father-in-law was a barber. He worked every day until noon, but we never had lunch before he was home. Along with that, every Friday evening we had a family dinner and my husband and I had to be present by all means. His father used to drink brandy and tell stories about the time he was in the army. Our family was very harmonious and united.

When we got married I was studying chemistry at the university and I was in my third year. My husband was attending the evening technical high school. I received no support from my relatives. At that time, my husband didn’t have a job. But my mother-in-law was an amazing woman. She could always give advice and she could point out the best solution for any problem. There were special courses which were very popular at that time, they were called ‘rabfak’ [Workers’ Academy] [12] and they were professional courses taught at high school. My husband graduated from one of those courses and that was how he received a high school certificate. After that he went on studying electrical engineering at the Institute of Machine Electrical Engineering. At first, it was difficult for him to study because he didn’t have a good basic knowledge from the high school. Therefore he had to catch up a lot. He had a small scholarship from the Jewish community. It was 200 Bulgarian levs and it was granted only to Jewish students. He also received a special bag and a pair of ‘Richter’ compasses, because he studied a technical science. I didn’t have a job because I was still at the university. The only person from the family to work was my father-in-law, who was a barber. My mother-in-law had had a job before 9th September [1944] when she was a tailor.

When I got my degree from the university I had already given birth to my son. It was a hard time at home because my husband hadn’t finished his studies yet and all of us were dependent on the money that my father-in-law could earn. Every month my mother sent me a small allowance from Israel.

I have been a little bit superstitious ever since I was young, because there were many lovely things that happened to me. I am an optimist and believe that everything will be just fine at the end. I think there is a power that rules everyone's fate. For instance, when I first started looking for a job I relied mainly on the acquaintances I had. There was no success at the beginning. One day, by accident, I met a classmate from the school in Kyustendil. She worked at the human resources department of a Center for ceramics and porcelain research. She told me she could offer me a job there. There was a laboratory so I took the position of a chemist. My task was to make researches in ceramics. At first, my contract was for a limited period because I was supposed to take the place of a person who went abroad for a while. But he didn't come back so I took his place permanently. Later, he decided to return and I was forced to leave. His experience was considered grater than mine because he had worked abroad. Just by a lucky coincidence, one colleague of my husband helped me, so I got the job again after a while.

After 9th September 1944, I have never had any problems related to my origin, regardless of the fact I was the only Jew in the lab. Everybody there did his job well and there was no reason for conflicts.

Later on, this department changed its status and it became an Institute for Glass and Fine Ceramics, part of the Ministry of Light Industry. We moved to another building and I was promoted to a technical assistant. That was the start of my career in science. I took an exam for a science worker. It was around 1960 when I decided to go for higher degree. There were some vacant positions in Czechoslovakia. I was approved for an aspirant in Bratislava.

When I lived in Kyustendil there was an Italian Corps, where one could attend classes in Italian. I finished that course. Later, I studied Italian at the high school again. When I had to take the aspirant’s degree, I had to take an additional exam in a foreign language. But there were only exams in English, German and French. So I began studying German – I paid to a teacher. It took me four years to cover the whole Ph.D. course. I was a distant student in Bratislava so I didn’t have to be there all the time. I traveled to Bratislava twice a year. My mother-in-law was very supportive so I never worried what was happening at home while I was away.

As part of my thesis I carried out a research of a new bentonyte field, which is a rare kind of clay. It has a vast range of application, especially in producing fine ceramics and porcelain goods. This thesis was of great interest both to the Czechs and the Slovaks. This field was located in Bulgaria. I finished my thesis in Bratislava at the age of 42. Before that I had become a head of department at the Institute. I became a senior scientific worker, second degree. Because of my work, I traveled to many countries. I visited Italy and most of the countries of the Soviet Bloc. I worked as a consultant on production of ceramic materials in Cuba. My knowledge in Ladino helped me a lot in this country. That was why I learnt Spanish very quickly. I studied Spanish for four semesters at the University of Havana. I received a certificate, which allows me to teach the language.

I went to Cuba in 1974 after I had undergone a serious operation. My doctor said that going there was the best thing for me, because I needed to travel and change my lifestyle. I discussed that issue with my husband and we decided that I should go. He joined me one year later. Bulgarian professionals were much respected in Cuba at that time. We returned to Bulgaria in 1978.

My husband graduated from the Institute of Machine Electrical Engineering. Right after that, he received an invitation to work in the country’s Air Forces. He was an engineer there until he retired. He had a successful career. He was promoted to colonel. He had the reputation of a man who initiated many changes and reforms.

We had hard times while both of us were at the university. But soon after that, we graduated and started working – then we could afford to go on holidays twice a year – in the summer and in the winter. We used to go on excursions with our friends. I may not have had the opportunity to travel wherever I wanted like today’s young people, but still my husband and I had a beautiful and interesting life.

We even succeed in buying apartments for our children where they could live independently. For me and my generation those were good times, especially having in mind how we started. That was very important. Nowadays there are many young people who cannot cope with the problems and they are afraid of having a family.

We have had a good life and good career realization. My husband had a group of friends that he got on very will with. He was a man of reason. His friendship with some of these guys dated back to the kindergarten. They were all born in 1924 and they were all classmates at the Jewish school. They must have turned 80 now. He regarded them as his family. The last time I was together with my friends was at our wedding, afterwards we didn’t keep in touch. I used to see only my husband’s friends. They were inseparable. They were away from each other only during the internment. However, I am grateful to my husband because he introduced me to such honorable people. The same was the case with his friends’ wives.

We were stricter in keeping the Jewish traditions while my husband’s parents were still alive. Before the changes in 1989 [14], I liked to go to the synagogue on the New Year’s day. On this day a rabbi from Israel used to come. This man had marvelous voice. Prayers dedicated to Rosh Hashanah contain very nice religious songs.

In the meantime, my children became grown-ups. They both graduated from the University of Economics. My son Zhak Ninyo got a degree in foreign trade. He finished a course in marketing organized by the Ministry of Foreign Trade. He graduated from the English language school in the years when this high school was newly founded. All his teachers were British. Presently, he works with a French company here in Bulgaria. My daughter, Silvia Ninyo, also graduated from the University of Economics. Her professional choice was determined by a chance. She wanted very much to study journalism and Bulgarian literature. One day I met a relative who worked for the national radio. I met him in the street right in front of the place where we lived. He came with me upstairs and told my daughter that she should go for a degree at the University of Economics. That was how she got a diploma in political economy with a profile of sociology.

Both my children are married to Bulgarians. Firstly, my son was engaged to a girl, who couldn’t get used to the close relationships that we have in our family. So they split up. My mother-in-law was very ill at the time my husband and I were in Cuba. My son didn’t want to leave his grandmother in a condition like that, so that was the reason for his girlfriend to leave him. Later he married to a Bulgarian girl, Branimira. But they got divorced. They have a son Isak. It is interesting that my father and his brother Aron were wheat traders. Now my son is engaged in the same business. My daughter’s husband’s name is Tsvetan. They have a daughter, Maya.

I can say that my mother’s family was a rich one. But after the death of my father and later, when my grandfather died, I think my family got poorer. Thanks to the changes in the country that took place in 1944, my husband and I managed to build good careers.

It is true that not everything was right in the period of communism, which was the reason for this regime to collapse. I agree that there were a lot of unacceptable things. For example, I worked for a state-owned institute. It happened that some employees would come to work drunken. There was no legal requirement for them to be fined. Besides, there were people who were hired only because they had influential friends. I think those examples were applicable only to some extent. In my field of expertise it wasn’t possible to hire someone who was not a professional, because a non-expert simply wouldn’t manage with the job.

There used to be many nice holiday hostels. There were companies and factories that were ruined when the new regime kicked off, so that they could be sold out for next to nothing. It is a different story when you improve the old things, rather than simply destroy them. The corruption in the period before 1989 was not so high as it is now.

It is very difficult for me to assess the change of the political course in the country after 1989. I think that people here became very poor all of a sudden, which was a cruel thing to happen. For the sake of having beautiful packages of the goods we buy, many people suffer now. I have a lot of close friends who live in poverty now. I can’t tell what the advantages of the changes are. Many people consider this new period good, because they can have more freedom. But I can’t understand the freedom of being poor and hungry.

For several years I dedicated all my time to my husband who was ill. He died in 2003. Now I live alone and I often meet with my friends who are both Bulgarians and Jews. I also keep in touch with my husband’s friends from the Jewish school.

My family and my children are celebrating both the Jewish holydays and the Christian ones. We prepare both typical Bulgarian Easter cakes along with the burmoelos. I am very happy with my children and grandchildren and I have recently got two grand-grandchildren, too. I rarely go to the synagogue and the Jewish center [Bet Am] [15].

Translated by Alexander Manuiloff

Glossary

[1] Internment of Jews in Bulgaria: Although Jews living in Bulgaria where not deported to concentration camps abroad or to death camps, many were interned to different locations within Bulgaria. In accordance with the Law for the Protection of the Nation, the comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation initiated after the outbreak of WWII, males were sent to forced labor battalions in different locations of the country, and had to engage in hard work. There were plans to deport Bulgarian Jews to Nazi Death Camps, but these plans were not realized. Preparations had been made at certain points along the Danube, such as at Somovit and Lom. In fact, in 1943 the port at Lom was used to deport Jews from Aegean Thrace and from Macedonia, but in the end, the Jews from Bulgaria proper were spared.

[2] Ladino: also known as Judeo-Spanish, it is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish and Portugese origin. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 (and Portugal in 1495) - it was merely the language of their province. It is also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit. When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal they were cut off from the further development of the language, but they continued to speak it in the communities and countries to which they emigrated. Ladino therefore reflects the grammar and vocabulary of 15th century Spanish. In Amsterdam, England and Italy, those Jews who continued to speak ‘Ladino’ were in constant contact with Spain and therefore they basically continued to speak the Castilian Spanish of the time. Ladino was nowhere near as diverse as the various forms of Yiddish, but there were still two different dialects, which corresponded to the different origins of the speakers: ‘Oriental’ Ladino was spoken in Turkey and Rhodes and reflected Castilian Spanish, whereas ‘Western’ Ladino was spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania, and preserved the characteristics of northern Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary of Ladino includes hundreds of archaic Spanish words, and also includes many words from different languages: mainly from Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and to a lesser extent from Italian. In the Ladino spoken in Israel, several words have been borrowed from Yiddish. For most of its lifetime, Ladino was written in the Hebrew alphabet, in Rashi script, or in Solitro. It was only in the late 19th century that Ladino was ever written using the Latin alphabet. At various times Ladino has been spoken in North Africa, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Israel, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States and Latin America.

[3] Iuchbunar: The poorest residential district in Sofia; the word is of Turkish origin and means ‘the three wells’.

[4] Fruitas: The popular name of the Tu bi-Shevat festival among the Bulgarian Jews.

[5] Burmoelos (or burmolikos, burlikus): A sweetmeat made from matzah, typical for Pesach. First, the matzah is put into water, then squashed and mixed with eggs. Balls are made from the mixture, they are fried and the result is something like donuts.

[6] Yellow star in Bulgaria: According to a governmental decree all Bulgarian Jews were forced to wear distinctive yellow stars after 24th September 1942. Contrary to the German-occupied countries the stars in Bulgaria were made of yellow plastic or textile and were also smaller. Volunteers in previous wars, the war-disabled, orphans and widows of victims of wars, and those awarded the military cross were given the privilege to wear the star in the form of a button. Jews who converted to Christianity and their families were totally exempt. The discriminatory measures and persecutions ended with the cancellation of the Law for the Protection of the Nation on 17th August 1944.

[7] Brannik: Pro-fascist youth organization. It started functioning after the Law for the Protection of the Nation was passed in 1941 and the Bulgarian government forged its pro-German policy. The Branniks regularly maltreated Jews.

[8] Law for the Protection of the Nation: A comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria was introduced after the outbreak of World War II. The ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’ was officially promulgated in January 1941. According to this law, Jews did not have the right to own shops and factories. Jews had to wear the distinctive yellow star; Jewish houses had to display a special sign identifying it as being Jewish; Jews were dismissed from all posts in schools and universities. The internment of Jews in certain designated towns was legalized and all Jews were expelled from Sofia in 1943. Jews were only allowed to go out into the streets for one or two hours a day. They were prohibited from using the main streets, from entering certain business establishments, and from attending places of entertainment. Their radios, automobiles, bicycles and other valuables were confiscated. From 1941 on Jewish males were sent to forced labor battalions and ordered to do extremely hard work in mountains, forests and road construction. In the Bulgarian-occupied Yugoslav (Macedonia) and Greek (Aegean Thrace) territories the Bulgarian army and administration introduced extreme measures. The Jews from these areas were deported to concentration camps, while the plans for the deportation of Jews from Bulgaria proper were halted by a protest movement launched by the vice-chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament.

[9] UYW: The Union of Young Workers (also called Revolutionary Youth Union). A communist youth organization, which was legally established in 1928 as a sub-organization of the Bulgarian Communist Youth Union (BCYU). After the coup d’etat in 1934, when parties in Bulgaria were banned, it went underground and became the strongest wing of the BCYU. Some 70% of the partisans in Bulgaria were members of it. In 1947 it was renamed Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union, after Georgi Dimitrov, the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party at the time.

[10] 9th September 1944: The day of the communist takeover in Bulgaria. In September 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria. On 9th September 1944 the Fatherland Front, a broad left-wing coalition, deposed the government. Although the communists were in the minority in the Fatherland Front, they were the driving force in forming the coalition, and their position was strengthened by the presence of the Red Army in Bulgaria.

[11] Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee): The Joint was formed in 1914 with the fusion of three American Jewish aid committees, which were alarmed by the suffering of Jews during World War I. In late 1944, the Joint entered Europe’s liberated areas and organized a massive relief operation. It provided food for Jewish survivors all over Europe, it supplied clothing, books and school supplies for children. It supported the establishment of cultural meeting places, including libraries, theaters and gardens. It also provided religious supplies for the Jewish communities. The Joint also operated DP camps, in which it organized retraining programs to help people learn trades that would enable them to earn a living, while its cultural and religious activities helped re-establish Jewish life. The Joint was also closely involved in helping Jews to emigrate from European and Muslim countries. The Joint was expelled from East Central Europe for decades during the Cold War and it has only come back to many of these countries after the fall of communism. Today the Joint provides social welfare programs for elderly Holocaust survivors and encourages Jewish renewal and communal development.

[12] Mass Aliyah: Between September 1944 and October 1948, 7,000 Bulgarian Jews left for Palestine. The exodus was due to deep-rooted Zionist sentiments, relative alienation from Bulgarian intellectual and political life, and depressed economic conditions. Bulgarian policies toward national minorities were also a factor that motivated emigration. In the late 1940s Bulgaria was anxious to rid itself of national minority groups, such as Armenians and Turks, and thus make its population more homogeneous. More people were allowed to depart in the winter of 1948 and the spring of 1949. The mass exodus continued between 1949 and 1951: 44,267 Jews immigrated to Israel until only a few thousand Jews remained in the country.

[13] Workers’ Academy: In socialist times Workers’ Schools were organized throughout the entire Eastern Block. Modes of instruction included both evening and correspondence classes and all educational levels were served – from elementary school to higher education.

[14] 10th November 1989: After 35 years of rule, Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov was replaced by the hitherto Prime Minister Peter Mladenov who changed the Bulgarian Communist Party’s name to Socialist Party. On 17th November 1989 Mladenov became head of state, as successor of Zhivkov. Massive opposition demonstrations in Sofia with hundreds of thousands of participants calling for democratic reforms followed from 18th November to December 1989. On 7th December the ‘Union of Democratic Forces’ (SDS) was formed consisting of different political organizations and groups.

[15] Bet Am: The Jewish center in Sofia today, housing all Jewish organizations.

Aron Ishakh

Ruse

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova

Date of Interview: October 2003

Aron Ishakh is an energetic, sensitive and intelligent man, who spent all his life in the town of Ruse. Although he is retired now, he is very involved in social activities as a member of the leadership of the ‘Shalom’ Organization 1 of Jews in Ruse and chairman of the local Israelite Spiritual Council. Deeply connected to Jewish life, he lives in a small space, together with four generations of relatives. His hobby is to investigate the history of Jewry in Ruse in detail – from the time of its establishment, through its flourishing and almost complete disappearance today. This is his greatest passion, giving him answers to many questions and providing him with a rare opportunity to preserve the  memory of generations of distinguished Ruse Jews.  

I come from a Sephardi family, whose roots reach back to Tsaribrod [today located in the Pirot District of Serbia and officially known as Dimitrovgrad] under Turkish rule. Unfortunately, I don’t have many concrete facts or emblematic family stories related to my ancestors. What I do know is that some time around 1917-18 Tsaribrod became Serbian territory and some of the Bulgarians living there together with some Jewish families moved to live in Bulgaria 2. One of these families was that of my paternal grandfather and grandmother. They moved to live in Ruse – the beautiful Bulgarian town on the Danube coast, famous for its flourishing Jewish and Bulgarian communities.

I don’t know anything about my grandfather’s kin, except that the whole Ishakh family from Tsaribrod was burned to death in the death camps in 1943, when the Macedonian Jews were deported. Only one relative remained alive. I only know that he lived in Israel. My grandfather, Samuil Moshe Ishakh, was a very quiet man, although he worked as a tinsmith. He had a workshop in Tsaribrod. When he came to Ruse, he opened another small workshop, ‘Tishina’ [Silence]. My father, Gavriel Samuel Ishakh, also worked in it.

My grandmother, Luna Ishakh, came to live in Ruse in her last years. Most probably she was a housewife before that. She was a stout, beautiful woman. She wore two or three skirts at the same time. You could even say that she wore all the clothes she had at the same time, in a Turkish fashion. In the end, she came down with a serious illness; she had hallucinations of devils playing.

I don’t know when my father’s parents were born. I know no details of their life before they came to Bulgaria. In any case, they weren’t religious and weren’t interested in politics. I remember their house. It was a sagging low house, plastered with mud and lime, similar to the typical Turkish houses from those times. When there was heavy rain, the water poured into the room. They had no garden. They lived in misery. Their neighbors respected them as elderly people. They spent the last years of their lives in a home for the elderly in Ruse.

My father came here as a young man with his family from Tsaribrod. As soon as he came to Ruse, he started looking for work as a tinsmith. So, he was hired in the tin factory of Moreno Atias; he is a relative of mine on my mother’s side. My father was so diligent in his work, that Uncle Atias liked him very much and suggested to him, ‘Let’s marry you to a girl of ours!’ It was he who introduced my mother to my father. They married in Ruse in 1919. The ceremony was in the synagogue; in fact, there were no civil marriages at that time.

The family of my mother, Sofi Aron Ashkenazi are native inhabitants of Ruse. My grandfather, Aron Ashkenazi, had his own dressmaking and tailoring studio. This is how he provided for his large family with six children. He used to be a famous tailor in Ruse. My maternal grandmother, Duda Ashkenazi [nee Alfandari], was a housewife. They were religious. I don’t know anything else about their kin.

My mother, who was born in Ruse, died young. She was a dressmaker and came from a family of craftsmen. She was a sociable woman. The neighbors, the Bulgarians and the Jews, respected her very much. Before she married my father, she was not poor. But we were very poor, because my father had to support his father, his mother, and us, the four children, at home. Besides, he was forced to sell what he had made extremely cheaply to the merchants.

My parents were neither religious nor political and this passed on to my children as well. We seldom went to the synagogue. We went only on holidays: Yom Kippur, Pesach, Chanukkah, Lag ba-Omer, Purim, Rosh Hashanah. My favorite holiday was Pesach, because the poor children, including my siblings and me, received shoes and clothes from the Jewish community.

We lived in two rooms and a small kitchen. We were four children, plus my mother and my father – six people in all. There was no electricity at that time, we used a gas lamp. Later, when electricity was introduced, we also used it. But we lived in a rented house, and we moved from one house to another. We used wood to warm the rooms. My father made a cooker, which could burn wood. By the way, I do not remember him telling us any war stories.

At home we all spoke only Ladino, but we also understood Bulgarian. My grandfather, grandmother and my mother could also speak Turkish, but my father could not. We did not read religious books; we read mostly secular novels, such as Mayne Reid. Later, during the war, we children also read Marxist literature, dialectical materialism.

There were very nice markets organized in Ruse. Villagers brought their produce and the locals crowded to buy it. There was a big market and a small market. They were organized every Tuesday and Friday. We went to the small market. But we did not have any favorite vendors.

When I was young, I went to the Jewish preschool at the Jewish school in Ruse. It started with the first grade and went up to seventh grade. I graduated from the Jewish school in the town of Ruse. Our teacher was Adon [‘mister’ in Hebrew] Yosif Safra. He was our favorite teacher. He was very educated. There were no teachers or subjects that I hated; I didn't go to any private lessons, nor did I play any instruments. I started working when I was 14 years old. I must say that everything I have achieved, I have done all by myself, with a lot of hard work and perseverance.

At that time charity giving was very popular in our neighborhood. The resources from the Jewish community's budget were used to implement concrete programs for the separate commissions. These programs gave poor people the chance to have a normal life. The whole community was involved. Jewish traditions were to a great extent supported by the Jewish school, funded by the Jewish community. In our Hebrew classes we read Tannakh and learned the origins of Jewish traditions. The school headmaster, Adon Yosif Safra, read the Tannakh and taught the children Ivrit. [Editor’s note: It must have been classical Hebrew that he taught (maybe besides Ivrit, the modern language) as the religious scripts are written in that language.] The school had 15 classrooms, a canteen and a gym. This is where the Jewish children received their primary education. We did not have a yeshivah. There was a canteen, where many children of poor parents ate, including my brothers and I.

As for our vacations, in 1929 and 1930 I was sent from the Ruse Jewish school to Varna [on the Black Sea coast] to a holiday home owned by the Jewish community of Varna. They took some poor children and with money from the Jewish community, they sent us on vacation. That was the first time I got on a train. A number of rooms with beds awaited us in Varna. There was also a cook, we called her Tanti [Aunt] Hursi. My friends at that time were Jewish kids living on the same street: Miko Polidi, Meto Rubitsa, Itshak – I don’t remember his family name, Fiko Koen, Marsela Blansh – we were all the same age, studying in the same class, and living close to each other in the Jewish neighborhood. Usually after school we went to the yard owned by ‘Maccabi’ 3 to play. We were very poor. We had no time for hobbies. Later, I was a member  of Maccabi.       

The history of Ruse and the Jewish community is the following. In the year 967 the future citizens [he refers to the Bulgarian tribes coming from the plains of Eastern Europe to the Balkans] of the town of Ruse passed the Danube near Silistra and found a way between the river and East Stara Planina [Balkan Mountains]. They founded many villages and towns, among which the town of Ruse in 968, whose name is translated from Ruscuk, its Turkish name meaning ‘many Russians’. [Editors note: The Ottoman Turks appeared in the Balkans as late as the late 14th and early 15th Century. The city must have had different names before the Turkish Ruscuk (Slavonic, Greek or Bulgarian) when it was founded in the 10th Century.] We know from Bulgarian history that in 1365 Ivan-Alexander divided the Bulgarian kingdom between his sons. Ivan Shishman, son of Queen Teodora [Empress of Byzantium], a Jew by origin, received the greater part from the Tarnovo Patriarchy, including Ruse. In 1398 after a big battle near Razgrad, the Turks seized Ruse.         

In 1519 Ruse was struck by a horrible plague, probably brought by the Turkish army from Odrin. Later, from 1546 until 1561, Rosten Pasha was governor and then vizier [military commander] of Ruse. He had a big mansion near Ruse, called ‘seray ciflik’ in Turkish, with many watermills. He also built a mosque and other buildings. By the end of the 17th century, Ruse was a small town, with small significance for trade. It is said that the population was around 6-7,000 people, of which 600 families were Bulgarian. [The rest was probably mainly Turkish.] There is no trace of the presence of any Jews in Ruse at this time. After 1788, according to the historians Joanen and Van Gaver, Jewish merchants settled in Ruse, but only temporarily. They point out the names of Eliya Primo, Haim Alhalel, Itshak Alevi and the son of Yosif Benaroyo.

The first Jew to move to Ruse, was Mayer Ben Aron, nicknamed Bohor Karpus. He was the founder of a family with the same family name in the town of Ruse and they lived here until they moved to Israel in 1948. He came, according to some, from Tsarigrad; according to others, from Vidin or Nikopol, brought here by his master tinsmith – an Armenian, to whom the Jew was an apprentice. Before he died, Mayer Ben Aron told the rohet [Hebrew for hospital attendant], who was with him that he was the first Jew to have settled in Ruse. He also said that the first Jews who moved into Ruse came from Belgrade, where there was a big Jewish community. So, it is assumed that the migration of Jews to Ruse began in 1792.

The governor of Ruse was Mustafa Pasha from Trastenik [a village near Ruse.] He was a brave and humble governor with a big heart, who strongly believed in justice; that is how the Turkish historian Fazif Efendi described him. He loved Jews and encouraged them to settle in Ruse. Mustafa Pasha's wife was sick. A Jewish woman, who was a midwife, looked after her all the time. When the holidays approached, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish woman informed Pasha that she would have to go to Giurgevo [capital city of Giurgiu County, Romania, on the left bank of the Danube] to see her family, since there was no synagogue or Jewish community in Ruse at the time. All Jews who were temporarily in town returned to their families during the holidays. So Mustafa Pasha realized that a synagogue would keep Jews in Ruse during the holidays and each of them would bring their family here. That happened in 1797. Since he was ready to do anything for his sick wife, Mustafa Pasha gave one of his houses on the Danube coast, near the Old Bath, to serve as a prayer house for the Jews. Thus the first synagogue appeared in Ruse.

Two years later when fleeing from Vidin, which was struck by a plague, a group of Jews also settled in Ruse. In 1800, the first chazzan of the synagogue was Rabbi Avram Graciani, who founded the first Jewish community and selected five board members, called madjihidim [an old Spanish word; ‘concillors’ in Ladino] and a gabbai. They received a Sefer Torah from Giurgevo. Rabbi Avram Graciani was born in Vidin and was said to be a great scholar. According to the rabbi of Odrin, Rabbi Avram ben Aroyo, Rabbi Avram Graciani was worthy of the position. At a general meeting of the community in Ruse, Rabbi Avram Graciani was elected for a term of seven years. He was also a judge and a confidant. Everyone was obliged under oath to recognize his authority and not to contradict him. The elected madjihidim had the task, depending on the material well-being of the community, to set and collect annual taxes, called ‘mas’ or ‘paca.’

The authorities gave a municipal lot to the Jewish community for free and Rabbi Avram Graciani built the first Jewish cemetery for Ruse there, and established conditions for the foundation of the Chevra Rehitza [he refers to the Chevra Kaddisha], which started functioning in 1824. According to the book [‘History of the Jewish Community in Ruse’, by Shlomo Rozanis, published in 1914] the founding document said: ‘We, the undersigned members of the Ruse [then Ruscuk] community, have unanimously decided to establish a ‘Chevra Rehitza.’ We approve the askama [Hebrew for recommendation] of Rabbi Eliyau Ventura and of the rabbi of the community, Rabbi Avram Graciani, and we are bound to do all that is necessary in case of death.’

Ever since their settlement in Ruscuk, the Jews took an active part in the economic progress of the town, because they were quite well-off. This was due mostly to their knowledge and skills in trade and entrepreneurial spirit. The Ruse Jews, who were merchants, together with the Bulgarians, were one of the first to organize import-export trade. They imported manufactured goods from England and Brasso [town in Transylvania], haberdashery from Bohemia, ironware from Saxony and colonial goods from France. They traveled to Bucharest, along the Danube to Vienna, and from there to Leipzig, or even to Manchester. Their high incomes gave them the appearance of a bourgeois class in the heart of the Ottoman feudal order. Their travels to Europe helped to establish useful connections. When the Habsburg Empire decided to establish a consulate in Ruse, Avram Kaneti was chosen to be their agent.    

As early as 1867 the Jewish community founded the first school called mildar, which in Ladino means a place for reading. Such mildars existed in almost all Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire. They were very primitive educational facilities. The first teacher was Sinay Graciani. The classes consisted of reading the Pentateuch. They read it and wrote in Ladino. In 1869, under the initiative of the chairman of the Jewish community in Ruse, Avram Rozanis, the foundations of a modern secular school were laid. He managed to buy an old house for the school and attracted the famous pedagogues Menahem Farhi, Isak Davidovich Bali and Haim Bidzherano. Ten years later the school was restructured into an alliance with new rules and regulations and became the first secular school in Bulgaria, free from religious dogma.

The community of Ruse was the fourth largest Jewish community in Bulgaria, after Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. According to the 1934 census, 2,356 Jews lived in Ruse, and in 1942 they were 2,630; so over a period of 8 years there was an increase of 270 people, newly-born and coming from other towns. Looking at graphic data on the people living in Ruse, we can see that in 1942 the overall population of the town was 52,000, with 2,630 Jews. In other words, the Jews comprised 5.1% of the town’s population. In 1945 the population had reached 55,000, of which there were 5,500 Jews, or 10%. In 1944 the population was 58,000, with 6,132 Jews, or 9.1%. The increase in number of Jews in Ruse in 1943 was due to the forced internment of the Jews from Sofia during the Law for Protection of the Nation 4. So, some 3,502 people were interned in Ruse.

During my childhood, the Jewish people in Ruse still continued to take an active part in the development of the economic life of the town. The founders included wealthy Jews such as Avram Ventura, owner of the Zhiti Factory, producing ironware and wire; Iskovich Levi, producing paint and varnish; Mushon Melamed, producing stationery; Nissim Mevorah, producing rubber materials; Herman Hirsch, producing cement, Atiyas and Buko Heskiya, producing canned vegetables; Haim and Shimon Barutchievi, producing cartridges and explosives; Nissim Nissimov, producing hats; Solomon Arie, producing shirts; Lazar Aron, import and trade of petrol products; brothers Mizrahi, Fazan Factory producing socks; Alkalay and Panizhel, trading eggs; Sabetay Beniesh, oil-factory and production of confectionery; Blaushtain, producing ladies’ palarii [‘hats’ in the local Bulgarian dialect] and haberdashery; Samuil Patak, producing stationery; Asher and Mois Yakov, commissioners.

The famous merchants in Ruse were Nissim Surozhon, Avram Bensusan, brothers Arditi, Asher Uziel, brothers Benvenisti, Nissim Dzhivri, Fiko Kapon, Marko Kohenov, brothers Aladzhem and brothers Shoev.

In the crafts sector there were tinsmiths with their own workshops: Haim Alfandari, Avram Ashkenazi, Sabetay Benyamin Ashkenazi and my grandfather, Gavriel Samuel Ishakh. Tailors and seamstresses: Sinto Ashkenazi, Rashel Vidas, Nora Fortune, Ester Machilarkata, Regina Ayzner.

The statistical data for the town of Ruse show that the majority of the Jews in Ruse were hired workers, craftsmen, retailers and servicemen – they earned their living with hard labor.

There was also a Jewish choir called ‘David’, which had a special wedding program, which they performed at Jewish weddings in the synagogue with the participation of talented Jewish singers. The opera ‘Cornevil Bells’ was performed in the theater in Ruse and was very successful, as well as the operetta ‘The Black Spot’; unfortunately I don't know the authors and directors of these works. The musical association ‘David’ was run by the conductor Isak Leon Ashkenazi and by the deputy chairman Rober Beraha. There was also a choir and an orchestra at the synagogue, and a youth jazz orchestra – one of the first in the country, run by Ziko Graciani. You could say that the musical association ‘David’ laid the grounds for the art of opera in Ruse.

The youth Zionist organizations Maccabi 3 and ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ 5 and mass events like maccabiada and moshav [summer camps of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’] were very important for Jewish communal life. The maccabiads were accompanied by gymnastic competitions. So, once a year, almost the whole Jewish community gathered together. For example, in 1930 a big gym was built on 20 Vidin Street in the Jewish neighborhood. Every day when classes were over, you could hear the hubbub of the Jewish children playing in the yard. The noticeable ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ youth leaders, were Elika Ayzner, Yonel Markus, Iko Konorti, Sofi Kapon, Yako Yakov and Tinka Dzhain. And for ‘Maccabi’ – Mimi Bensusan, Moni Hakim, Fifi Mashiah, Miko Yulzari, Itsko Ayzner and Rafael Kauli. The yard of the old Jewish school, which was opposite the Odeon cinema, was the girls' and boys' meeting place, fans of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’; they sang Jewish songs, whose lyrics and melodies I, personally, do not remember; played Jewish dances; and learned to love Palestine, which was also called ‘The Jews' Promised Land’. During summer vacations they sent groups of boys and girls to hakhsharah in state agricultural farms such as Obraztsov Chiflik [meaning ‘Model Farm’ in Bulgarian] – in Ruse and Sadovo, in the Plovdiv region, where they worked and learned how to cultivate the land. They were being prepared to be future members of kibbutzim and in fact, after the emigration of Bulgarian Jews from the shomrim [in Hebrew - members of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’], flourishing kibbutzim were created in bare, rocky areas. In 1939, an aliyah for Palestine was organized, and a group of young men from Ruse took part in it. Such an aliyah was also organized in 1941.

In the Jewish neighborhood in my childhood on the streets of David, Vidin, Klementina, Gurko, Dondukov, Korsakov and others, densely inhabited by Jews, you could see small sagging houses, where the poor Jews lived in misery. In some places there were nice, tall houses owned by the richer Jews. Social interaction between the poor and the rich was helped by the Jewish community, who did everything possible to collect money from the richer Jews in order to support the poorer ones.

Archive documents show that on 1st July 1912, 33 Jews from Ruse founded a charity called ‘Malbish Arumim’ [this name is taken from a blessing said every morning, thanking G-d for 'clothing the naked'.] They elected Moysey Avram Ventura as chairman and David Geron as secretary. The aim of the charity was to give away clothes and shoes to the poorer students from the Jewish school in Ruse. In 1913 the Education Ministry approved the charity's statute and it was registered in Ruse's district court as a legal entity. A letter from the charity to the Jewish Sephardi community [there was also an Ashkenazi community] shows that the initiative to found such a charity dates back to 1891. In 1938, remembering the history of the founding of the ‘Malbish’, one of the founding members, Samuil Ventura, tells how, they gathered and founded the charity, led by their good intentions. At first, their resources allowed them to dress 10 poor students, but over the course of time,  this increased to 65 children. On 2nd April 1932, the charity bought a two-storey house on 16 Gurko Street from the Catholic bishop Damian Yosif Telen, which still exists,  and it's still ours, now owned by ‘Shalom’ ; they used it as an office and club, in which to organize their meetings, so that the Jews would not be dispersed among other cafés and clubs.

Now this house is rented by various companies and the money goes to the regional ‘Shalom’ organization. The association is being funded by members' fees, income from the café reading room, which was in the building, periodic charity events, charity Purim balls and evening parties, and the daily ‘Hazkarat Neshamot’ [memorial services]. In 1933, the general assembly voted for changes to the Statute, increasing the goals of the association, including setting up a refectory in the Jewish school in Ruse where the poor students could eat, so that they would be supported in their physical, moral and intellectual growth. Such a refectory existed in the Jewish school on 30 Rila Street until the school was closed. A change to article III from the Statute was accepted; this stated that ‘honored members are those Jews who have donated at least 5,000 levs to the association.’ The first honored members were Jacques Elias, Perets Pizanti, Israel Moshe Levi – the founders. But in 1937, when they were declared as such, they lived in Sofia. Dr. Isak Kalmi was also an honored member. He was a long-time chairman of the board of the association.

At that time the Jewish community had its own building, consisting of three offices, a big hall and a library. It also stored various registers on the Jews of Ruse – a family register, marriage register, birth register and funeral register. The birth register noted the date of brit milah. There was another register for bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah. They are still preserved today. The Bikur Holim commission, chaired by Mois Israel Ashkenazi, provided nurses to sick and lonely poor Jews. The people responsible for the  Chevra Kaddisha were Mois Aron Hakim and Yosif Shlomo Kapon. They took care of the Jewish cemeteries and made sure that funeral procedures were done in accordance with religious requirements of the Jewish tradition. There was a small house in the cemetery, where a paid guard lived the whole year. The women responsible for Etz Haim, the commission for sick poor people and women who have given birth, were Mari Avram Asher, Ernestina Aron Dzhaldeti and Sofi David Maer. They visited sick people and gave them money for medicine. The people responsible for the charities commission  were Isak Leon Ashkenazi and Baruh Yako Magriso. Their mission was respected in the Jewish community, who provided money for the budget. Dr. Yako Kapon was in charge of the home for the elderly, which was owned by the community. Twenty poor and lonely people were fully supported there by the Jewish community. My grandfather and grandmother were among them.

In 1942 my mother died from stomach cancer and we, the four children, remained with my father. I knew that my mother had cancer, but I did not know that she was so seriously sick. I remember clearly that on 16th November 1942 when we were released from the camp in the village of Mikre, Lovech region, coming to Ruse, I found my mother on her death bed. When she saw me, she said, ‘I am very sick, I am going away…You take care of the kids.’ I was 18 years old then. Three days later my mother died. A year after her death, my father remarried and went with Shlima, his second wife, to live in Sofia. We, the children, remained alone in Ruse. I know nothing more about Shlima. My brothers’ names are Moni [Solomon] born in 1925 and Sami [Samuel] Ishakh born in 1930. My sister Rifka [Rebecca] Levi was born in 1928 and now lives in Holon, Israel. I do not know the family name of my stepmother. At that time, since I was the eldest, I had to work and support my brothers until they left for Israel with the big aliyah of 1948. My father also moved to Israel and died there in 1969. My brothers and sister still live in Israel with their families.

My mother's death combined with another hard event in my life. When I was 18, I was sent to the forced labor camp in the village of Mikre, in the Lovech region. I was there until November 1942. We were released on 16th November and we spent December and January at home. In February we were sent to another camp – ‘Sveti Vrach.’ We were there until the end of the year. We were once again released for one or two months and in May we were sent to a third camp – in the village of Vesselinovo, in the Shumen region. 9th September [1944] 6 came while we were there. In fact, we were used as a free labor force. At that time we were building the road Shumen-Burgas. It was very hard.

What happened in the end was interesting. On 6th September 1944 Israel Mayer [a Jew from Ruse, taking an active part in the illegal UYW 7 organization, which continued to exist secretly in the camp], who was in the sixth group, while we were in the eighth, came to the camp. He brought a flag with the image of Lenin 8 and told Solomon Aladzhem, who was a member of the communist party, that he should disarm the guards and let the Jews go to their homes. Solomon Aladzhem gathered a few people, also progressive men: Albert Filkenstein [a lawyer, later he was prosecutor in Sofia], his brother Jacques Filkenstein and me. He ordered us to disarm the guards. I had to disarm the captain of the guards. I do not remember his name. I knocked on the door of his office and told him that I had a letter from the eighth group. I entered, holding my hand in my pocket and said ‘Raise your hands, give me your weapon!’ He panicked and shouted, ‘It is in the briefcase, take it!’ I took the gun and went back to give it to Solomon Aladzhem. But it turned out the gun was without a cartridge. ‘Where is the cartridge?’ he asked. I went back to the shed, ‘Give me the cartridge!’ I took it and brought it to Solomon Aladzhem. Jacques and Albert Filkenstein disarmed the three non-commissioned officers. Then we made an improvised general meeting in the camp and said to everybody, ‘Go wherever you like, because we could be pursued.’ So, we freed the Jews in the camp and came back to Ruse.

One year before the death of my mother I experienced the first anti-Semitic reaction against me. In 1941, since my mother was already very sick, I had to get up early in the morning to buy yoghurt. But the Law for Protection of the Nation forbade us to go out earlier than 8am. Despite this, I went out and bought it, but a policeman met me on my way. ‘What are you carrying’ – ‘Yoghurt’ – ‘Give it to me!’ He took the yoghurt and took me to the police. They prepared an act and fined me 500 levs for going out before the appointed hour. We were poor and thankfully a cousin of mine took pity on us and gave us the money to pay the fine.

This incident affected me. It was true that in Ruse in particular the Jews were invited to share the Bulgarian traditions, which formed the basis of their friendship with the Bulgarians. However in the years before the war, with the support of the pro-German movement ‘Social Power’, youth fascist organizations were set up in Bulgaria: Brannik 9, Ratnik 10, Legionaries 11 and ‘Otets Paisii’ – modeled after the German Hitler Youth [Hitlerjugend] with emphasis on anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic activities. They wrote anti-Jewish slogans on the walls of the houses and distributed leaflets urging the population to despise and hate the Jews.

Between 1940 and 1941, 460 Jews were sentenced to imprisonment in the Bulgarian jails. Examples of such Jews from Ruse were Moni Hakim, Sason Panizhel, Liza Hason, Jules Aroyo, Yako Melamed, Salvador Papo, Eli Ashoev, Hor Eliezer, Mois Natan, Izidor Ayzner, Izho Levi, Yako Yulzari, who were imprisoned for being members of the UYW. 260 Jews fought in the partisan squads, among them Yako Izidor Yakov and Miko Yulzari from Ruse.

The leadership of the Jewish community included a large number of Jews mainly from the Zionist organizations. Individuals from other political parties and organizations did not have much influence in the Jewish community. The  Jewish community's political inclinations fell in two directions – Zionism and Jewish religious rites and traditions. Suddenly, the military period aggravated the scuffles between the various Jewish organizations and increased the gap between their ideological beliefs. At one end of the spectrum were all the Zionist organizations: ‘Poale Zion’ [leftist Zionism]; ‘General Zionists’; and ‘Revisionists’, who were unanimous that the Jews should avoid any intervention in the war against fascism. They thought that any participation of Jews would increase anti-Semitic attitudes. So they ran an overt campaign to dissuade the Jews. The leadership of the Jewish community, headed by the chairman Yosif Levi, took their side. On a number of occasions on Erev Sabbath in the big synagogue, he appealed to the parents to do their best to influence their children not to take part in the anti-fascist struggle. At the other end of the spectrum was ‘Hashomer Hatzair’, under the influence of Izidor Ayzner, Yako Yakov and Tinka Dzhain, who supported the anti-fascist struggle. Some of the youth from ‘Maccabi’, among them Moni Hakim, Miko Yulzari, Fifi Mashiah and Liza Hason, attracted a large following. These young people from Ruse, organized into groups of three, were involved in illegal activities against fascism.

In 1941 when the German army invaded the USSR, Leon Tadzher, a port worker in Ruse, who had escaped from a Jewish concentration camp, set fire to the petrol factory's refineries. When the German guards tried to capture him, he stabbed them to death, but was captured by the workers chasing him. He was later sentenced to death and hanged. After this act the Ruse GESTAPO ordered the regional police chief to detain 300 of the most distinguished Jews from the town and hand them to the Germans to deport them to the death camps. Yosif Levi, chairman of the Jewish community, had to prepare the list. He did so, but instead of including distinguished Jews, he included the relatives of Jewish political prisoners and communists, who were involved in anti-fascist activities. The rich Jews gave a large sum of money to the police chief Stefan Simeonov, who was also a delegate for Jewish issues and in this way they were exempt from the list. I personally do not approve of that. The Jews on the list were arrested and sent to temporary detention camps in Somovit and Pleven, in the Kailuka, region with the intention to deport them to the death camps. The camp in Kailuka 12 was set on fire. One man from Ruse, Nissim Benvenisti, was among the ten people who died. The replacement of the names on the list and the bribe given to the police chief was made known later, after the fall of fascism in Bulgaria. Yosif Levi hid in the English embassy, from where he went to Palestine. But he was not put on trial, because he was forced to prepare that list.

I have a similar memory from the ‘Sveti Vrach’ camp. We were a group of progressive young men there: Ariko Haimov, Yako Yakov, Miko Yulzari, Pepo from Haskovo [town in South Bulgaria], and we kept in contact with partisan supporters. On 6th March 1943 we received a telegram - we were allowed to receive telegrams - from our parents in Ruse that they had been ordered to collect luggage of no more than 20 kg and within three days gather at the port centers for deportation to the death camps; of course, it is only now that we know of the death camps, they had no idea where they were to be sent at the time. We, the progressive youths, decided that if this deportation took place, we would kill all the guards, including a captain, sergeant major and four NCOs and  go into hiding. But we didn't have to do that because we received a second telegram on 8th March from our parents saying that the evacuation [that is, the deportation] had been canceled.

My other memory is from the camp in the village of Mikre. There was a very cruel lieutenant there; I don't remember his name. One morning, people from the village offered us bread and yoghurt, which we bought. The poorer ones among us washed the dishes of the richer ones – Avram Ventura was among them – for pocket money and that’s how we had some. The lieutenant caught us at that moment – me, Fiko Koen, Aron and Rafael Abular and chased us with a shovel. Two of us managed to escape, but Fiko couldn't and the blade of the shovel split his back in two. He lay in stitches for two weeks.

Honestly, I have not had problems with my origin at my workplace, because after 9th September 1944, right after I returned from the camp, I started to work for the police force and spent fifteen years there. I retired as an officer. But we, the Jews, had to work twice as hard as the others to prove that we are good and to keep our jobs.

I met my wife, Bela Alfandari, in 1945. At that time we were UYW members and we had to prepare a wall-newspaper. We gathered on 6 Gurko Street in the UYW club. I accompanied her to her house on the way home and we became friends. We married on 19th September of the same year. Ours was one of the first civil marriages in Ruse. She was born in Ruse. She is a hairdresser and has two sisters; she was the youngest and the first to marry. Her sisters’ names are Victoria Markus and Ester Alfandari. Both are now in Israel. Ester Alfandari lives in Rishon Le Zion; she has a son, who is a doctor. Victoria lives near Haifa.

After the state of Israel was established, we all felt it was our country and we felt very close to the Jewish people. During the wars in Israel in 1967 and 1973 we read the news in the Bulgarian press, but we didn't believe it. We knew from the letters we received from our relatives that the war was provoked by the Arabs. I went to Israel only once – in 1989. I spent a month visiting my brothers. I liked life there very much. But when I came back to Bulgaria, I felt the difference in all aspects of the progress of the two nations – Bulgaria and Israel.

I have two daughters – Sonia, born in 1946 and Roza, born in 1953. My older daughter graduated from the mechanical technical school ‘Yuriy Gagarin’ in Ruse. Now she works in ‘Shalom’ and chairs the finance division at the local ‘Shalom’. She collects the rent from the organization's properties. This money is used to run the Jewish organization in Ruse. My younger daughter works as a statistician. Roza is divorced. Her surname was Dalakmanska by her husband, now she is Ishakh once again. My elder daughter's surname is Grigorova. Her son, Aron, lives in Ramat Gan. He graduated from college in trade and industry management and is now in his last year of studies for a degree in engineering. He works in a company and the management is very happy with his work. His name was Roman before, because there was a regulation in Bulgarian law that children from mixed marriages were Bulgarian nationals and could not have Jewish names. That law was adopted during the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria.  

My children were raised to feel Jewish by their grandparents, Menahem and Roza Alfandari, my wife's parents, who were quiet people. They were very religious and observed all the traditions. They taught my children about Jewish cuisine and our holidays: Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Lag ba-Omer. They observed them at home. Of course, we also went to the synagogue. There were three synagogues in Ruse; two for Sephardi Jews and one for Ashkenazi Jews. Various religious rites were performed in the two Sephardi synagogues, which were called the ‘small’ and the ‘big’ synagogue. During the week the prayers were performed in the small synagogue. My family usually went to the big synagogue. On Erev Sabbath and on Jewish holidays the Torah was read in the big synagogue. In it every family who had paid a voluntary fee had their own seat. On prayer days such as Pesach, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, women also came into the synagogue and sat separately from the men on the balcony.

Menahem Alfandari [Aron Ishakh's wife Bela's father] was a son of the rabbi in Silistra [their family moved from Silistra to Ruse after Silistra was annexed to Romania after the end of WWI]. When our fellow Jews immigrated to Israel and we were left without a chazzan, he used to read the prayers in the synagogue. His wife, Roza Alfandari, was a housewife.

The chazzan of the Sephardi synagogue was Yosif Alhalel, who was the secretary of the Jewish community. Albert Yulzari was shammash and in charge of the archives. The rabbi of the Ashkenazi synagogue was Naftali Rut and the shammash was Lupo Geldstein. Simon Segal and Morits Kronberg were in charge of the Chevra Kaddisha. The Sephardi and Ashkenazi synagogues were religious centers, in which young and old Jews gathered on Erev Sabbath and on religious holidays, which kept the Jewish traditions alive and passed them from generation to generation. The religious activities of the synagogues were part of the overall activity of the Jewish community in Ruse.

There were no major differences between the Sephardi and the much smaller Ashkenazi community in Ruse – neither in religious aspects, nor in everyday life. We shared one Beit Aam [cultural and administrative center, including the head office of the community administration, various clubs, the library, etc.]. Concerts and parties were regularly organized there. The events organized by the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities were for all the Jews; we were not strictly divided into Ashkenazim and Sephardim, only our synagogues were separate. But when the Law for Protection of the Nation was passed, the Ashkenazi community was closed, and their synagogue too. Then the two communities merged. That happened in 1943, when the authorities fired the rabbi Naftali. In 1947 he immigrated with his family to Israel, together with most of the Ashkenazi Jews. Only two families remained – Ayzner and Goldstein. Meanwhile, all property owned by the Jews, including the synagogues, were nationalized by the communist authorities and returned after the political changes in 1989.

We, the Jewish members of ‘Shalom’, are an apolitical organization. We're not involved in politics; the positive thing is that we had our properties given back, which allowed us to lead a better life and to have the freedom to restore our traditions. I was a member of the leadership of ‘Shalom’ for 30 years, from 1961 until 1989. I was also deputy chairman of the organization for some time in the last few years. I remember that, during the totalitarian regime, all our properties were confiscated, the reason given to us being that a cultural and educational organization should not own property. The leadership of the ‘Shalom’ center in Sofia supported us. We received 2,000 – 3,000 levs per year, with which we paid the rent on the hall we used in the building on 6 Gurko Street. We had our own building taken away and we had to pay rent to ‘Zhilfond’ [meaning ‘housing fund’ in Bulgarian]. We were not allowed to perform Jewish activities. We had to organize events together with the Fatherland Front 13; we were afraid to organize anything. The aim of the Central Committee of the Communist Party's policy was to assimilate the Jews faster and painlessly. They also wanted to assimilate us with mixed marriages – they agitated us to have mixed marriages, so that we would change our names and abandon the traditions of the Jewish family. That was a bad period for us.

When they took our properties, they also took our synagogues – the Ashkenazi synagogue and the big Sephardi synagogue. The small Sephardi synagogue was demolished a long time ago. The big synagogue was given to a sculptor from the City Council and he made his sculptures there. The synagogue was in a decrepit state. The Ashkenazi one was rented by ‘Sport Toto’ [state lottery]. They built 12 rooms in it. So when we had our properties back, we had the synagogues too. Thirteen properties were returned to us, while we had given them thirty two properties with a protocol from the community. The others were sold or demolished. In the Ashkenazi synagogue we had to knock down walls and restore it to be a synagogue again. We needed money, which we did not have. So in 1992 we sold a property on Alexandrovska Street and started the repairs. But the big synagogue also started falling apart, and we once again did not have money for it. We asked for a loan of 100,000 levs from the central leadership of ‘Shalom’ in Sofia – a lot of money, and no one could give us so much. That's why the leadership of ‘Shalom’ decided to sell the synagogue to an Evangelist sect. So we sold it. They spent $120,000 USD to restore it. Now, the synagogue has been restored to its former state.. We have no money to buy it back. The small Sephardi synagogue was demolished in 1935, because it was falling apart and the Jewish community decided to demolish it and build a housing estate in its place.

I have chaired the Israeli Spiritual Council in Ruse for three years. The previous chairman was Robert Beraha; the problems with the return and restoration of the synagogues happened during his term. Of course, now people don't approve of the sale of the synagogue, because it's said that even if one Jew remains, the synagogue must exist until the end.

After the changes I received aid from the Swiss fund three times. But my political views as a communist do not square with all that democracy brought to Bulgaria. Unemployment, the misery of the people, I don't approve of them. In 1989 everyone had a job; people lived more or less well: we could build our own houses; we had a piece of land, which we cultivated. Now my family is also affected by unemployment. My grandson, Roza’s son, is without work. He is 30 years old. His wife is unemployed too – we helped them with our pensions and with the help of the girl’s parents.

Glossary

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova

Date of interview: June 2003

Mois Saltiel is an energetic, sociable, good-mannered and dedicated man. He is responsible and devoted to his work for the Jewish community and Bulgarian society. He lives in a cozy two-room apartment in the suburbs of Sofia. He is an introvert, but talkative, emotional and an easily impressed person.

My ancestors came from Spain in the 16th century. They settled in the Ottoman Empire and some of them went to live in Bosnia. Later they moved to the town of Pirot in present-day Serbia and shortly before my elder uncle was born, my grandfather Avram Saltiel moved to live in Sofia. The reason was that his wife Tamara died in Pirot and he married her friend Mazal, which was the tradition at that time. [Editor’s note: Actually the tradition is that if somebody’s wife or husband dies he/she must remarry one of his spouse’s single siblings.] Mazal looked after his children after the death of his wife. Mazal was from Pirot.

I do not remember my grandfather because I was born in 1923 and he moved to Jerusalem in 1926. I also do not remember my grandmother for the same reasons. What I know about them, I have heard from other people who knew them. So, it is difficult for me to talk about them, because I have no personal impressions of them.

What I know is that my grandfather was a glass-maker and at one point he was a gabai of the synagogue in Pirot. He spoke mainly Ladino, his family talked in Ladino 1 at home. I do not know how they dressed; I do not have any photos of them. As far as I have heard, they were religious people. They observed the Jewish tradition.

I do not know what my father [Solomon Saltiel] did before he married. As for his sister, Tamara, she was married to Avram Ashkenazi, who was a teacher. He taught geography in the Jewish school in the capital. They married in Sofia and lived at the corner of Sredna Gora Street and Stamboliiski Street. They had a bookstore under their apartment.

They had two sons and one daughter: Shlomo, David and Yodita. Shlomo died in Israel. David also lived in Israel, but later immigrated to the USA where he founded his own company for vinyl records. I don’t know when they immigrated. Yodita died in Israel where she moved around 1948. I do not know to what extent they were religious. But I think that in principle Bulgarian Jews are not very religious.

My father had four brothers and one sister. As I said before, his sister was Tamara and the brothers were called Meshulam, Yosif, Benjamin and Mois. None of them is alive any longer. Mois died in 1921 in Sofia; he did not have a family.

Benjamin and Yosif were merchants. They had a shop on Nishka Street where they sold materials for cobblers. They had secondary education and many heirs, who now live in Israel.

We kept in touch with most of our relatives, but we met most often with my aunt Tamara and uncle Benjamin. They did not come to our house often, because we were poorer. They were all better off financially and we were the ones to contact them. My aunt Tamara gave a plot near the entrance to her house on Stamboliiski Street to my brother Haim so that he would build a shed and start repairing shoes there.

I do not have any information about my mother’s life before her marriage, but I know where she lived before that. The family house was on 10 Bregalnitsa Street in Sofia.

My parents were Solomon Avram Saltiel and Rebecca Eliya-Kyoso, which is her father’s family name. They were born in 1892 and had secondary education. They spoke Bulgarian and Ladino. My mother was a housewife and my father was a cobbler. He had a workshop where he repaired shoes. I do not know how they met or if the marriage was arranged or not, because I was not born yet. They had a religious wedding in Sofia. They dressed in accordance with the tradition at those times.

We were not doing very well financially. We were not extremely poor, but we were not rich either. We lived in my maternal grandparents’ house so that we would not have to pay money for rent. Our home had two rooms, where the six of us lived. My parents slept in one of the rooms and my three brothers and I slept in the other. At first we did not have a kitchen or closet so we made a small kitchen in the corridor. We used coal-burning stoves for heating. We did not have a garden or animals.

In the beginning there was a maid, who helped our mother, but my mother looked after us mostly – we did not have a nanny or a governess. I did not go to a kindergarten. I spent my childhood at home with my mother and playing games with the children.

We had mostly secular books and a few religious ones. My parents read books, but only when they had some free time. My father’s obligation was to earn money to support us, and my mother’s – to cook and buy food. They also helped us in our education – advised us what to read and how to study.

My parents were not very religious, but they observed the Jewish traditions – mostly on the high holidays Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Sukkot. They were not members of any political parties or cultural organizations. They got along well with our neighbors, most of whom were Jews, but there were also Bulgarians who were very tolerant.

I had three brothers. The eldest was Albert, who was born in 1916. Haim was born in 1918 and the youngest, Yako, in 1928. They all spoke Bulgarian and Ladino, had a secondary education and studied in the same Jewish school as I did. Albert was a dental mechanic. Haim was a cobbler, but later in Israel he worked in the El-Al [Israeli national airways] company, and Yako, who was the first to move to Israel as a young man, worked as a salesman in a shop in Yaffo.

My brothers lived in Bulgaria until 1948 and then moved to Israel. Albert had two children – Solomon and Pnina; Haim also has two children – Rivka and Tali [affectionate forNaftali], and Yako’s children are Rivka and Shlomo.

My brothers Albert and Haim Saltiel married in Sofia in 1943 and 1945, respectively, in accordance with the religious ritual. Yako also had a religious wedding, but in Israel in the 1950s. They were not very religious, but they observed the traditions.

I was born in Sofia on 30th November 1923. This is the capital of Bulgaria – a city surrounded by a mountain range, in the middle of which is the beautiful Vitosha Mountain. I was born at the corner of Boris I Street and Tsar Simeon Street where I lived for four or five years. This was in Iuchbunar 2, the poor Jewish quarter in Sofia. Then a big fire broke out in our house and spread into many of the rooms, where other families lived. We moved to live in the family house of my mother on 10 Bregalnitsa Street in Sofia.

In contrast to our previous home, which was close to the town’s center and closer to the central Jewish synagogue, 10 Bregalnitsa Street was at the heart of the Jewish quarter [Iuchbunar]. Of course, there were Bulgarians there too, but most of the people were Jews, who were very united. At that time there were around 20,000 Jews in Sofia.

There were a number of synagogues: the central one, the Iuchbunar one, the Ashkenazi one and maybe some more, which I did not know. There was a rabbi, a shochet, a chazzan – I cannot say how many they were. This is what I remember.

The [Iuchbunar] Jewish school where I had my elementary and junior high school education was close to our house. I finished my secondary education as a student in the evening high school in Sofia on Stara Planina Street. There we studied all subjects, which were taught in the other schools in Bulgarian and Ivrit. I cannot remember who taught us Ivrit then but one of the teachers there, who is still alive today, was Mati Albuhaire. My favorite subjects were literature, maths and French. I did not take private lessons.

Most of the Jews in Sofia were craftsmen or street vendors. For example, my father had a small shoemaker’s workshop. It was located on Serdika Street and occasionally the Jewish school used to organize an auction for the manufacturing of the students’ shoes. During the times when my father won the auction, our economic situation improved, because we had more money. Then we could afford to buy some new clothes or shoes for the joy of the children in the family.

We had electricity in the house, but no running water in the kitchen. We had a faucet in the yard, where we had to go in the winters and in the summers to pour water, although we lived on the first floor. A little later, we made another faucet in the corridor on the first floor and used it instead of the one in the yard.

On the whole, the Bulgarian people treated the Jews with tolerance. As a child I was a typical Jew, so to say, with red hair and a freckled face. So, the Branniks 3 and Legionaries 4 vented their anger on me; that is, they beat me up and insulted me for being a Jew, but I cannot say that I suffered much strong anti-Semite attitude directed towards me when I was young.

On the contrary, I remember occasions showing quite the opposite. For example, every vacation I went to work in a shop close to my father’s workshop. It was owned by the Bulgarian Nesho Draganov and sold electrical appliances. He was always very understanding, gave me work and he saved us from being banished from the country, on which I will return later. We had other neighbors, too –Hristo, a knife-grinder, close to my father. My father and I got along very well with him.

As for the way we were brought up at home, naturally, we, as all the other children, celebrated the Bulgarian holidays. If there was a parade, we went to watch, but I do not have any concrete memories. When Simeoncho 5 was born, we went to the palace to celebrate the birth of the heir to the throne.

We, the children, learned patriotic poems and songs. But I cannot sing them to you, because I cannot sing well. We observed the Jewish traditions at home, but no one was deeply religious to such an extent as to observe every minute detail of the holiday ritual.

Besides the vegetable markets, which were not as many as today, what is interesting is that there was also a market for servants. It was situated in a park close to the place where the present-day Tsentralni Hali [central covered market in Sofia] is located now. When the season for hiring servants and maids came, all girls from the villages were brought by their parents and a kind of bargaining began – if you needed a maid, you went there and started bargaining for this or that girl – you asked the father, the neighbors and then hired a maid.

We went shopping to the neighboring shops, which were mostly owned by Bulgarians, with whom we got along well. There was a grocery on the corner of Bregalnitsa Street and Positano Street where we went when we had no money – the shop assistant gave us the food we wanted for free and wrote down in a notebook the amount of money we owed. When we had money, we went there and paid our debts.

I had many friends, most of whom were Jews and classmates of mine. I can name Professor Shimon Ninyo, Тiko Israel, Solomon Haimov and many others. I spent my free time in the Jewish organizations. I met my future wife, Juliet Fridman, there, because we went out with the same friends from the Jewish community center.

At that time there was an association named ‘Tоshavim,’ which means ‘Natives’ [nonpolitical Zionist association whose members gathered regularly to discuss contemporary issues related to Israel]. Its head office was at Stamboliiski Blvd. opposite the Bet Am 6. It had a small library and young people went there to borrow books and read various papers. Different youth groups formed there. The leader of our group was Albert Kohen – a future writer, who is no longer alive. Other members were David Elazar, Zacho [Isak] Benvenisti and others.

In fact, my journalist career started there in 1941, when I made the first ‘live’ newspaper in the form of a notebook, including articles, short stories and poems. The newspaper had only one issue – a notebook, which was handed from one person to the other between the members of the association. Unfortunately, the police banned it. Everything was done with educational purposes, but they said we were engaged in anti-fascist activities.

As a student I was also a member of Hashomer Hatzair 7. As scouts we learned the history of the Jewish people, prepared for our departure for our own land there, and on the whole did everything that the present members of Hashomer Hatzair do.

I got on a car for the first time quite late, but I traveled by train, with a steam engine, for the first time in 1934 when I went to Kjustendil. I had surgery on my appendicitis and I went to my aunt in Kjustendil to recover. My favorite place to spend the vacations was the seacoast. I saw the sea for the first time after 9th September 1944 8 – in 1947 or 1948.

I had various jobs. I started as a worker in the workshop owned by Nersez Shirinyan, and later, between 1941 and 1942, I worked as a clerk in the lawyer’s office of Yosef Moshev. I did not have any trouble at work for being a Jew. My first boss was an Armenian and the second one a Jew, so there were no problems.

In 1941 the government ordered that all Jews, who had foreign citizenship and who were not protected by the relevant country should leave Bulgaria. Since my father was a Serbian subject, we had to leave for Varna. Our whole family, that is, my parents, my younger brother and I – because we still did not have Bulgarian passports and were regarded as Serbian nationals – were ordered to go to Varna and wait for transport to Israel.

So we went to Varna, but before that we took pictures with our friends, relatives, and of our house. We settled in a village near Varna waiting for the ship. Meanwhile, some Bulgarian friends of ours started looking for ways to cancel our deportation order. One of them was Nesho Draganov, former officer of the reserve, who had connections with the police. While we were there, he managed to arrange an order allowing us to remain in Bulgaria and return home. One of the ships, which we probably would have boarded, sank at sea and all passengers drowned.

When the Toshavim association was forbidden in 1941/42, I became a member of the Jewish state community center, which had a library on the corner of Stamboliiski Blvd and Opalchenska Street. Various groups formed there and some of them became members of the UYW 9. We read a lot, we presented various papers, went on excursions etc. At that time the anti-Jewish legislation was adopted – the Law for the Protection of the Nation 10, together with the fascist legislation – and we became involved in anti-fascist activities.

One of our activities, for which I was sent to prison, was as much comic as tragic. In 1942 the platform of the Fatherland Front 11 was read on Hristo Botev radio from Moscow. It had some demands and tasks set by the Fatherland Front for the democratic development of the country, including some against the anti-Jewish legislation. We decided to popularize this platform, because the government and the newspapers said nothing.

I was the leader of a number of [UYW] groups. In one of them we decided to make copies of the platform. Writing by hand would have taken a lot of time and we had no printing house. Then we decided to make copies of some passages in a photo studio. One of the members, Sabat Melamed, worked in one. He took the necessary materials and a cassette for film copying and we gathered in the apartment of Mois Perets on the corner of Odrin Street and Stamboliiski Blvd. at around 11-12 o’clock at night in August.

We started working. But the opening and closing of the box, in which we took the pictures was very noisy. The house was run-down and some Bulgarians lived on the floor below. We had put blankets on the doors and windows so that the room would look dark from the outside.

But we made a lot of noise and when it was midnight the neighbors came upstairs to see what was happening. They tried to open the door, but we locked it. They said, ‘You are doing something illegal, we will call the police if you don’t leave’. They went downstairs and we decided it would be best to stop working and leave.

One of us, who lived nearby, Leon Levi, took the box with all the materials to hide it at home. But there was a policeman in the café on the opposite street who noticed a young man carrying a box at night. He started shouting at him, ‘Stop! Stop!’ Leon started running. We heard everything from the room. Leon was caught and arrested.

Meanwhile, Sabat Melamed and I climbed over the roof and walking on the roofs of the small buildings reached the corner of Positano Street and Odrin Street where another friend of ours, Daniel Albahari, lived. We entered the house, waking the people up, but they let us spend the night there.

Meanwhile, when Leon Levi was beaten up, he confessed who lived in that house and Mois Perets was also arrested. That was when our illegal life started. The police started searching for me. They took a photo of mine from home and sent it everywhere. I hid at various places, but the police arrested many of the people who were members of my [UYW] groups, they organized a trial and sentenced me to death. But since I was under age, I was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. The sentence was by default because I was not present at the trial.

Later on, still living illegally, despite my efforts the police caught me because of the betrayal of one man and because I was not shrewd enough to evade them. It happened in 1942. Since I already had a sentence, I was sent to Sofia prison. After half a year I was sent to Skopje prison in Idrizovo.

During that period, 1942-1943, the anti-Jewish legislation was fully in force, and in 1943 my parents as all Jews in Bulgaria received orders for internment to Razgrad 12. My younger brother and my parents went there, while my two brothers were sent to labor camps. My mother’s health deteriorated, because while still in Sofia my family was often beaten by the police who were searching the house for me.

The life of my family in Razgrad was very hard. My mother died in 1943 while I was still in prison. I was not allowed to go to her funeral. I know that her funeral took place in accordance with the Jewish traditions. Of course, all that reflected on my education, and although I had finished my secondary education, I could not go to study at university. My father also suffered, because he had to close the workshop, sell some of the property and give the rest to friends to keep. So, my family led a very difficult life.

The conditions in the prison were very bad. It was a two-story building situated in the center of a farming field, surrounded by a tall stonewall, and there was a faucet in the yard. We lived in big rooms, which at first had had spring beds, but when we arrived these beds were taken away and wooden bunk beds with hay mattresses full of dust and bugs were made for us. We were 19 Jews there. To name but some of them: David Shabbat, Samuil Nisimov, Isak Samuilov, Solomon Haimov, David Solomonov, Rudolf Levi, Rudolf Benvenisti, Isak Alvas and others. We were allocated in eight cells.

Let me tell you about the death of one of the Jews – David Shabbat. By coincidence, he was sent to prison for a reason similar to mine. He had decided to spread the platform of the Fatherland Front. His friends and he had bought a lot of sticking labels for notebooks from bookstores. They wrote some passages from the platform on them and stuck them to post boxes, fences etc. He was arrested and beaten by the police. They deliberately kicked him in the kidneys and damaged them badly. The police arranged a trial and sentenced him to many years of imprisonment.

At first he was in the prison in Sofia and then in the one in Skopje. From the beating he continued to suffer strong pain and swelling of the kidneys. So David turned to the management and asked them to send him to hospital for treatment. They ignored him completely. He turned to the prosecutor and asked him to help him. The prosecutor said to him, ‘You should be sent to Hitler to help you.’ The political prisoners went on a hunger strike demanding that David be treated.

After that his condition worsened – he fainted and then he was taken to the Skopje prison, seemingly to treat him in hospital. In the evening they locked him in the moist lock-up room where he shouted in pain and asked for a doctor or to be sent to hospital, but no one of the guards came to help. The prisoners from the neighboring cells also banged and shouted, but no one went to help David the whole night. In the morning when the guard opened the door of the lock-up room, David was already dead. So, a nineteen-year-old young man died only because he wanted to make the [Fatherland Front] platform more popular.

Most of the other Jews were in that prison for similar reasons. I must say that we, the Jews in the prison, were under even greater stress, especially at the beginning of 1944. German officers came to the prison in Idrizovo, and one of the guards told us that they asked him if there were political prisoners and Jews there. He said that they were only criminals.

So, we found out that the deportation of the Jews to Germany was being organized. Meanwhile, in 1943 all Jews from Macedonia were sent to Auschwitz. The leadership of the political prisoners organized our escape from prison and on 28thAugust 1944 we escaped with the help of some soldiers from the guard, and with the support of the Third Macedonian Youth Partisan Brigade we reached Bulgaria. Let me tell you how that happened.

We were often sent outside on the field to do hard physical labor – harvesting and other things. We organized the escape of four people – two local Macedonians and two Bulgarians. They contacted the partisans in Macedonia and together with them arranged for some progressive soldiers to be sent as guards to the prison.

One of the organizers was Metodi Stoev, who kept in touch with the soldiers and was allowed to sleep outside prison – in the rooms where the guards slept. Vasil Ivanovski, who managed to escape, contacted the partisans and organized the contact with the partisans.

We realized the escape in the following way. After we, the political prisoners, were taken out to do our everyday work on the field, the older one of the guards was distracted by a political prisoner with some stories. When he was no longer paying attention to the other four prisoners, they managed to escape.

They had a preliminary arrangement to meet some people from Macedonia. Through these people from the Bulgarian army our people contacted the Macedonian partisans. In this way the guard at the prison was replaced with progressive soldiers who kept our connection with Metodi Stoev. That is why, after the escape the guards were on our side.

After the escape while we were on our way to Bulgaria with the Macedonian brigade a big army unit came from one of the villages to accompany us, because they saw that the situation in Macedonia was not good for the Bulgarian army. We dressed in army uniforms and reached Bulgaria on 15th September 1944.

I went to Kjustendil and from there to Razgrad to look for my family. I arrived in Shumen and found out that one of our political prisoners, Metodi Stoev, was already director of the police there. I worked as a policeman for some time to help maintain the people’s authority in Shumen.

Later, seeing that my family wanted to leave Razgrad, I went there, found them – of course, without my mother who had passed away – and returned to Sofia. Our house had been preserved. My father had given most of the household stuff to friends to keep so we settled in our old home although it was much more humbly furnished than before.

At the end of 1944 our neighbors and friends were very happy to see that we were alive and well. Although our property had dwindled significantly, we still had our home – a place to sleep and start our lives anew. Each of us started work – my father reopened his workshop, I started work in the Head Office of the People’s Police.

Yako, my younger brother, was the first to move to Israel. In 1948 my other relatives also decided to go there. We all gathered and discussed what we wanted to do. I did not want to move to Israel, because I had devoted my youth and my health to create a new authority. I thought that it was my duty to work for its strengthening in Bulgaria, for the realization of our dreams. So, I remained here to work, while my family, even my father, left. They reached Yaffo by ship.

Juliet Fridman did the same even before we decided to get married. When her parents decided to leave, they prepared to get passports including for all their children. But Juliet went to the police and said that she did not want to leave.

Juliet was born on 17th December 1925 in Sofia. Her mother tongue is Bulgarian, she had a secondary education, and she worked as a sales assistant. Her parents were Yosif and Blanche Fridman, they both moved to Israel and are no longer alive.

My wife’s parents were relatively religious, which means that they observed the Jewish traditions, but not every single detail of them. Juliet’s father was of Ashkenazi origin, that is, a Russian Jew, and her mother Blanche Israel was of the Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria 13. After they left for Israel, they lived in the town of Yazur.

Juliet’s brother, Shrata Fridman, still lives in Israel. He worked as a construction technician, and now he is a pensioner. The only information I have about his family is that he has two daughters and a son: Hanita, Pnina and David. They have a lot of grandchildren. He was relatively religious.

When I went to prison, Juliet was interned to Asenovgrad and occasionally she would send me postcards secretly from her parents. When I returned from prison we renewed our friendship. She started work, we became close, and we got married in 1947. We married before the registrar, that is, we did not wed in the synagogue in accordance with the Jewish ritual.

She had a bed and a chest and I had another bed, quite different. But we put them one close to the other and made a double bed out of them. But we had no stove for heating. There was nothing in the shops to buy, everything was distributed in rations. To buy a stove, we had to get a special note from the Supply Commissariat. Since my wife got pregnant, we went there and asked them for such a note. They gave it to us to keep the baby warm. We bought a cooking stove to use it for various purposes.

We have three children: Solomon, Yosif and Ani. They were born in Sofia where they live now. Solomon is professor, doctor of sciences, working in the area of quantum electronics. Yosif is automation engineer, has a private company. Ani is an architect and is not working at the moment.

They have families and each of them has two children. I even have two great-grandchildren from Ani. Ani’s children are Nikolay and Elena Mladenovi. Nikolay works in Canada as a computer specialist, and Elena is an engineer in the Water Supply and Drainage company.

Yosif’s children are Georgi and Monica Saltiel. Georgi graduated in chemistry from the Chemical Technical Institute, but he also works with computer technology. Monica is a student in the tenth grade in the Sofia Natural and Mathematical High School. Before that she studied in the Jewish school on Pirotska Street near the synagogue in Sofia.

Solomon’s children are Juliet and Kalina Saltiel. Juliet is a third-year student in architecture management at the American University in Blagoevgrad. My great-grandchildren – Mladen and Anton Mladenovi – seven and two years old, are the sons of my grandson Nikolay and grandsons of my daughter Ani.

We did not educate our children in the Jewish traditions. Maybe this was a mistake. They know what had happened to my family and me during the war, but they do not talk much about it. They know that they are Jews, but I do not think they feel Jewish. We celebrate the Jewish holidays very rarely, we started doing it only recently and we invite them here, but they are not used to that. They do not go to the synagogue.

All my children are married to Bulgarians, so they celebrate both Pesach and Christmas, but they do not celebrate Christmas in a religious way, they just mark the holiday. My wife prepares some Jewish dishes, she also taught her Bulgarian daughters-in-law to prepare matzah, make a soup with matzah balls, make pastel for Pesach, agristada 14, anjinara 15. My wife Juliet learned the recipes for these dishes from a special collection of recipes published by the Shalom publishing house at the Shalom Organization of Jews in Bulgaria 16.

I was a member of the Communist Workers’ Party and I still have the same beliefs and think that they are the most adequate. I became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1946 17. I have not changed my views. I do not feel I have to give an explanation why I still find them relevant today.

I remember, of course, all friends who left for Israel. I went there on excursions a couple of times and met them. I have been to Israel three times: the first time in 1974 when my father was still alive. Then I saw all the sights, met all my relatives and I was very impressed. My other two visits were in the 1980s. Now we still write to each other, they come to visit, we go there – so we still keep in touch with our friends and relatives in Israel.

I have a lot of friends today. They are mostly Jews, with some exceptions. We do not meet often with our relatives in Israel, but we respect each other. One of my hobbies is to make a complete family tree of my father’s family, my mother’s and my wife’s. I have made much progress in collecting factual data.

Thanks to the family tree made by me I got in touch through the Internet with cousins of mine living in Jerusalem – ancestors of Meshulam. He was a brother of my father, adopted by an Israeli citizen when he was eight years old. His ancestors sent me their own family tree and I combined the two into one.

My family tree is the only one of the Saltiel family in Bulgaria and other family trees were sent to the management of the international meeting of the Saltiel families in Thessaloniki, where all saw it. For more information about the meeting, one could read the electronic edition of the Saltiel magazine and of the Bulgarian newspaper ‘Evreiski Vesti’ [Jewish News], which is published by the Shalom Organization of Jews in Bulgaria.

For 16 years I worked as an editor of the ‘Protivopojarna Ohrana’ [Fire Prevention Service] magazine, I contributed to many Bulgarian dailies, radio and television in the area of fire prevention.

I want to tell some anecdotes of how my Jewish origin influenced the attitude towards me at my work place. After 9th September 1944 I had a responsible job at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But there was an order at that time, which started in the Soviet Union and came to Bulgaria, which said that people who keep in touch with relatives abroad cannot work for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

My colleagues respected me very much and wanted me to keep my job, but the management pressed them to fire me, because I was a Jew and had relatives in Israel. So, a friend of mine told me, ‘Listen, you will not survive long here in State Security around such people. Let me transfer you to another job, where you will survive. I can appoint you as a deputy director of the Fire Prevention Service Bureau. Do you want to go there?’ I agreed, because I was tired of fighting.

In 1953 I started working in the Fire Prevention Service. I worked there for 26 years and a half. I worked in the system of the ministry more than 36 years. I had one more conflict when I worked in the Fire Prevention Service. In 1957 during the war between Egypt and Israel 18 the attitudes towards Israel here were very negative and strong.

I said to a neighbor ironically, ‘These ‘brothers’ the Arabs, who you Bulgarians regard as brothers, will play a bad trick on you. You should be careful about them…’ He wrote a report to the ministry and they started questioning people trying to prove that I was a Zionist – I have never been a Zionist –, that I was saying bad things about our friends, the Arabs.

At that time the Interior Minister was a man who had been a prisoner in the Skopje prison with me, Angel Solakov. The deputy minister was Vladimir Borachev. They told me that I was doing a very good job, but I must not remain there. They sent me to a lower position, although I was paid the same salary. That was the second case. Although I retired in that system, I was continuously appointed to more and more insignificant positions, although I received the same money.

After 10th November 1989 19 the dictatorship fell. There is freedom of speech, but the economic instability is greater than before. There is political freedom, but the economic freedom is weak, because people are not well financially. This is especially true of retired people like us, because I receive the maximum pension, which is now 200 levs, less than 100 dollars, with which it is hard to make a living. My wife receives a pension of 100 levs.

After 1989 my contacts with the Jewish community changed. Firstly, the activity of the Jewish organizations increased, because the new conditions allowed it. Many institutions were created within the framework of the Shalom organization in 1990. The Organization of Jews in Bulgaria has existed for decades. Until the changes on 10th November 1989 it was chaired for many years by Yosif Asparuhov, who was a deputy of the Bulgarian Communist Party and represented Jews in the Bulgarian Parliament.

In the second half of 1990 the organization’s name was changed to OJB ‘Shalom’ [Organization of Jews in Bulgaria]. It was chaired by the theatre director and art critic Eddi Schwarz. He was a chairman for two mandates and then he was replaced by Emil Kalo, who is doctor of philosophy sciences and has lead the organization ever since.

I was a chairman of the Jewish State Community Center ‘Emil Shekerdjiiski’ for four years and member of its management for eight or ten years. For two years now I have been a member of the ‘Golden Age’ club uniting the efforts of 100-150 retired Jews living in Sofia. Every Saturday there are some programs and birthday parties organized, we mark the contributions of various people from our community to different areas of culture – music, art.

The Jews in our town live in the same way as those around the world – everybody has some problems, but the good thing is that we can get together at events organized by the Jewish community.

I, personally, do not receive aid, but many people from the community receive aid from Joint 20 and other organizations. My wife and I received money from Switzerland; I do not have precise information. Germany rejected our request for compensation, because they do not regard our pain and suffering as a sufficient reason for compensation.

Glossary

Juliet Yosif Saltiel (nee Fridman)

Sofia 

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova 

Date of interview: May - September 2004

Juliet Saltiel is a cordial and delicate woman. Her wisdom and hard family fate make her life story sound unique. It was only her family that took a serious view of the warnings for prospective internment of Bulgarian Jews to certain places that appeared in the press of 1942. One year before that she and the next of kin decided to move to a town that they knew and where they had relatives, ahead of the events to come. Thus, Fridman family gained the most important: the right to choose. This right and this choice set their mark on her later life that she lived under the lucky name Saltiel. Juliet Saltiel is a woman advanced in years, her movement being handicapped because of the stroke she once had. Her flat is small, humble, and tidy. The curious fact is that the old family Saltiel has recently come into possession of a computer (second-hand) and with the help of their grandchildren they are now learning how to operate with it, using it mainly as a typewriter.  

It is difficult for me to speak of my maternal and paternal grandparents because I have no information about them. However, I can tell interesting facts of my father Yosif Fridman’s life story, who was a Russian Jew as well as the story of my mother Blanche Fridman (nee Baruh) who was a Bulgarian Jew.

My father Yosif Fridman was born in the village of Luninets, Minsk Region [Luninets is in Brest region, Belarus] in 1897. Unfortunately, I know nothing of other possible children in my father’s parents; neither can I say if he had any siblings. As far as I know, my father was a soldier in the Russian army and took part in the October Revolution in 1917 1. He fled from Russia most probably in the period between 1920 and 1922. I can’t remember anything else about that. When he moved to Bulgaria, he received the so-called Nansen’s citizenship, which means he had an emigrant status in Bulgaria but did not have a citizenship [he was a Russian subject, but received certain civil rights in Bulgaria]. His Nansen’s citizenship, however, expired after 9th September 1944 2 and he was forced to move to Israel [Palestine], where he died in Yagur in 1961.

I should mention that this Nansen’s citizenship was helpful but at the same time, it was a handicap. Because my father was a cobbler, but he couldn’t practise his profession here, as he was not allowed to. That’s why my family led the poor life of nomads. Dad worked everything he could do – he used to make bars of soap and sell them. Furthermore, he was always on the go and we, a family with many members, travelled together with him.  We helped each other. For example, the bars of soap were made at home. We mixed the ingredients, boiled them and then we cut them in bars. I remember all of us, including my mother, taking part in this important activity. These days I was a second-grade student. Before that, when I was just born, my father had been a worker in the construction, he had carried stones and sand with horse and cart. But precisely on my birthday he fell over and broke his leg. He was also a trade intermediary in co-operation with my maternal uncle Israel Baruh. I remember that he loved going to a famous in its time café – ‘Phoenix’; it was in Dondoukov Blvd. He also worked there, but he never had any problems in his work because of his origin. 

Dad sometimes was very joyful, sometimes – extremely strict. Strict mainly with my mother and my half-brother whom he didn’t want. He thought of my half-brother’s ailment as a stain and he would always tell him off. However, as a whole, he was a just man and he didn’t have any problems in his communication with people. In certain cases, he loved singing – in Russian or in Yiddish. His favourite song was ‘Ei, uhnem!’ [Russian: Come on, altogether!]. I remember him also singing religious songs in Ivrit (I cannot reconstruct them in my memory now), because my father was very religious in contrast to my mother. For example, my mother used to prepare matzah for Pesach; but secretly from my father she also ate bread. He used to observe all the traditions and often went to the synagogue. He used to wear his tallit. And he filled us, his children, with strong respect.

I remember the following event. Once my younger brother Shraga [Shraga was his nick-name, used by his friends. His official name was Faivel.] and I went to school (we attended one and the same school). I was then in the forth grade while he was in the first. These days we were allotted snacks in the breaks at school and I still think it’s a good thing to do in the school breaks. All right, but it was Yom Kippur then. Faivel went to take his snack and I shouted at him ‘You mustn’t. How can you eat on Kippur?’ and I threw his breakfast away. Now I think what I did was very cruel to the small Faivel.  Now I remember that my father was very fond of going to the synagogue on Pesach.  Before that, however, he would buy a hen and send my mother and me to the shochet who would cut its throat in our presence. Then my mother would cook it deliciously. Of course, all this was possible before the Law for Protection of the Nation 3.     

My father had come to Bulgaria from Russia, coming to Sofia most probably through Vidin. In Sofia he met my mother Blanche Israel Baruh, who then worked as a clerk at a good position (but unfortunately I have no information where). After her second marriage (to my father) my mother stopped working. She was a housewife. But I know nothing about how my mother and my father had met. I know only that my mother was divorced then and had one kid. I can’t say anything for certain about her first husband, Yosif Levi. Once I saw him from the back in a street. He seemed to me dirty.

All I know about my mother’s relatives is that she is a descendant of a Jewish family from the Sephardim branch. Her father, Israel Samuel Baruh, was born in Vidin and his father, Samuel Baruh was an inn-keeper and had a total of four children. So my father had two sisters and a brother. Their names were Ester, Mazal, and Victor, but unfortunately I know nothing else about them. I know nothing at all about my paternal grandmother, Djamila Samuel Baruh, because she had died before I was born (that is before 1925) but I suppose she was also from Vidin and was most probably a housewife, staying at home and looking after her children, just like all the women of that time.

My mother’s brothers and sisters were Samuel (called also Bucco as first born son, since this was the tradition in the Jewish families then), Israel Baruh, Avram Israel Baruh, Isak Israel Baruh, Haim Israel Baruh, and Berta Baruh. Of course, the least information I have about my uncle Avram, who died of some illness as a child, that is - before the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced in Bulgaria [1941]. I remember that uncle Bucco was a cobbler, Isak worked together with my father as a trades intermediary, uncle Haim made paper packaging for seeds which he sold at the market, and auntie Berta was a housewife. Except for Avram, who died very young and Haim, who died also of an illness relatively young in 1948, all other relatives emigrated to Israel at one time or another (I don’t know exactly when, but it was most probably after 9th September 1944.) Avram and Haim died in Bulgaria, while all others – in Israel. The name of my uncle Haim’s wife was Margarita, but they didn’t have children and didn’t manage to go to Israel. The names of uncle Bucco’s and auntie Berta’s children are Isidor, Dora, Lora, Josef, Jana, and Albert. They left for Israel and I don’t know anything about them. Uncle Isak and auntie Rashel Baruh had children whose names were Tiko, Rozhe, and Jacque. I have no information about them and their families. Berta and Morits Bokumski’s children were called Frida, Ani and Zhori. I know nothing about them. However, as far as I know, Berta died in Israel in the early 1980s.

I remember that my half-brother Leon, whose pet name was Edi, lived with us until I started to go to school (that is about 1931-1932). After that my uncle Haim and auntie Margarita Baruh grew him up. My brother Leon Yosif Levi (born 1920) was undesired by my father and because of that I was often present to arguments between mum and dad at home; Leon was the reason for these arguments but he was not guilty.

The point was that Edi was different from other people because he was born without thumbs on his palms and what is more - he was my mother’s child from another man. All this was depressing to my father and thus a situation was provoked by which my uncle and aunt decided to take care of him. I should underline, however, that despite his defect, my brother was literate: he could read, he could write and he also had much talent for painting.

My elder brother’s name was Ruben. He was born in Sofia in 1923 and died in Israel in 1999. He was an electrician. From his wife Ester (nee Sachi), he had three children: Yosif, Sima and Dafna. They live in Haifa in Israel. His wife was a housewife and now she is a pensioner. As far as I know it was Ruben who took care of our mother until she died.

My younger brother Shraga (his name used in the family was Faivel, after our paternal grandfather, Faivel Fridman) was born in the village of Karamanovo, Svishtov region, in 1928. He also emigrated to Israel. He is a constructor. They have three children with his wife Shoshana: Pnina, Hanita and David. Their children also live in Israel. Before she retired, Shoshana worked as a host at the Bulgarian old people’s home in Rishon Lezion, while she was living in Yagur with her family, near to my mother.

I was born in the village of Slatina, near Sofia, on 17th December 1925. Our family was often forced to move from one place to another, because it was difficult for our father to find a permanent job. That is why my brothers and I were born in different places in Bulgaria. All this, however, didn’t mean that my childhood wasn’t good. But I should mention I never attended a Jewish school. All the schools I studied at were Bulgarian, except for the first one. I started my primary education in Ruse. There I studied up to first grade only. It was the local Catholic school, and I don’t know why my parents decided to choose exactly this one, but it was perhaps because of the better education it seemed to provide.  In my second grade I was already at the Sofia’s school ‘Father Paisii’. In fact, I studied there up to my fourth grade. After that the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced and I didn’t study during this period [1941-1944]. In 1946, however, I continued my education at a night school. At this point all my relatives had already emigrated to Israel. After the night school I attended the so-called Rabfac 4. My favorite subject in the workers’ faculty was Physics. I don’t remember who the teacher was. I remember only my teachers in Bulgarian and Mathematics – Mrs. Denkova and Mr. Radulov. I can’t remember any other details about my early childhood.

I remember that before and during the Law for Protection of the Nation my family lived at different addresses. We lived in a rented flat in Ruse, after that – in Sofia, where we changed our addresses very often. I remember that in my early childhood we lived in Beli Iskar Str. near the railway station. After that we moved to live in Tetevenska Str. Then we changed our address to a two-storey house in Skobelev Blvd. We lived in two rented rooms in the attic. We had electricity, running water and even a radio. I remember we loved listening to radio Sofia. After that we left for Asenovgrad where we changed two houses. After 9th September 1944 we came back to Sofia and we found a flat in Bacho Kiro Str. Actually, before that we lived for a while in Struma Str.. In 1946 my relatives emigrated to Israel (then Palestine) and I remained to live in a huge, half-empty room at Bacho Kiro Str. Except for me in the flat lived my aunt Haim and auntie Margarita Baruh with my half-brother Leon Yosif Levi. We lived everywhere in rented flats. It was not until I married in 1947 when I started to think of living in my own flat.

I remember the period of the Law for Protection of the Nation very well. When we went out we had to wear these disgraceful yellow stars; we got insulted and even humiliated by random people in the streets whom we even didn't know. We had an obligatory curfew hour; besides, Jews were banned from entering certain shops, restaurants, theaters and so on. There was an invariable sign at these places: ‘Forbidden for Jews’. But what is more - the Jews were not allowed to keep running their private pharmacies, most of them - situated in Sofia's center, so Bulgarians got an advantage of taking control over the pharmacies. Of course, there were restrictions for tradesmen of Jewish origin as well (and the Jews were then predominantly retailers). Students of Jewish origin could not continue their education at universities. There was also one-off tax, for example if one had a bank account of 100,000 leva 30 per cent or 40 per cent of that sum simply got confiscated. I remember very well a historic date - 24th May 1943 5, when in Sofia the Jews manifested against the decision for their internment out of the capital, as well as against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews. The people were marching from the Synagogue 6 to the school, starting from Stamboliiski Blvd. They wanted to reach the royal palace and ask King Boris III 7 for help. However, the police suddenly intercepted them on Vazrazhdane Square, where Bet Am 8 is situated today. They stuffed them into trucks and arrested many people. In fact, the action led by rabbi Daniel [Zion] was smashed. Rabbi Daniel managed to find refuge with bishop [i.e. Exarch] Stefan 9, who was then an active opposer to the idea for Jewish internment.

My family voluntarily moved to live in Asenovgrad one year before that. We decided to do it after we read the announcements that appeared in the daily newspapers and on the radio that warned of a forthcoming law for forced internment of all Jews living in Sofia to places in the country [Internment of the Jews in Bulgaria] 10. We moved our baggage to the house of the sister of my brother Ruben’s wife. Ruben had just married in Sofia. That happened in 1941. My brother was then at around 19 years of age. His wife’s name was Ester (nee Sachi) and her sister was called Lili Videva (nee Sachi). At the beginning we lived in Lili’s two-storey house, where also her family lived. They were three of them then (she had just given birth to his first son Vassil). And we were seven (together with my brother, his wife and my half-brother); that is – three different families that had to live together. Of course, this situation could not continue for ever, so Lili Videva and her husband found for us a separate rented house in another district, which was however close to their place. I remember there were a lot of Turks in our district, fewer Bulgarians and Jews (who already wore the disgraceful yellow stars); no Armenians lived there though. Despite the mixed origin of the residents we lived well together. Our house was small of course, with low ceilings – a typical Turkish house. There were two rooms and a kitchen. We used logs for heating. My brother Ruben once lost his wedding ring in the pile of logs in the yard.

Men were sent to forced labor camps 11 - to build roads in the mountains. Thank goodness, the men in our family remained in the ghetto together with us. The authorities in the country understood that they could not feed such a multitude of interned Jews and decided to use part of the confiscated Jewish money to establish public catering units for them. Thus, the Jews received every day hot food (mostly potatoes).

How did we earn our living during the Law for Protection of the Nation? My brother was an electrician and he often went to the nearby villages to practice his profession, although it was forbidden; he used to take off his yellow star before that. Of course, the villagers could give him away to the authorities, because his activity was against the law [Jews could work only in the field of manual labor, thanks to which they could earn something for their living.] But they didn’t do that. Moreover, my brother often brought home wires. In these cases, all the family gathered, including the children, enthusiastic for the work – we made of the wires elements (some kind of insulators) – that we painted after that. These wires were again for the villagers, when there was a place to be supplied with electric current. Sometimes my father made walnut oil. We all gathered for such cases again, opened the walnuts, then we milled them, heated them to a certain temperature in a big pot or a ‘paila’ [dialect Bulgarian word meaning big flat baking dish] we put the substance in a press and it was only after that that walnut oil was produced. My father used to sell this oil to Bulgarians. But not at the market (because the authorities would have immediately caught him) – he sold it directly to individuals. That is how we earned our living.    

After 9th September 1944 my family came back to Sofia convinced that we all must emigrate to Israel [Palestine] after two years – in 1946. My brother Faivel, however, emigrated ahead of all yet in 1945 together with some friends of his. In the meantime my relatives lodged their documents in the police so that their emigration might be legally organized. I ran away from home for everybody’s surprise. The reason for my flight was that I wanted to stay in Bulgaria. For a certain period I lived with a friend of mine who hid me. Eventually, I plucked up courage and decided to meet with the head of the police office to tell him in person I didn’t want to leave. I still remember him finding my passport in the file with all other ready documents of my family that were required for our departure, he opened the page with my picture and crossed it out. That meant he practically had nothing against my remaining in my country.  That is how I remained here despite my parents’ opinion. As it happens in life, my relatives found me several days later and I got a thrashing for what I did. But what’s done can’t be undone. They left and I stayed here.

As a matter of fact, my reason to stay here was a boy from Jewish origin, whom I had fallen in love with. His name was Sasho. He worked at a metal processing workshop located in Nish Str.. We knew each other well, because we were from one and the same Jewish crowd before 9th September 1944. Eventually we separated though. It was not before it that I discovered my future husband, Mois Solomon Saltiel, who was in fact from the same Jewish crowd.

I first met him when our family lived in a rented flat on the attic floor in Struma Str., just opposite to the home of my uncle Isak and auntie Rashel Baruh. Their sons’ names were Tiko, Rozhe and Jacque. After that they emigrated to Israel and I have no information about them (they must have died most probably). We lived so close to each other that we used to communicate from our windows. Well, Mois worked at his father’s cobbler workshop near there. I used to go there wearing a short dress, and, of course, he would gaze at me. Later, we met in the Jewish crowd I mentioned. One of the crowd was also my cousin Dori, who was interned to Kyustendil during the Law for Protection of the Nation. Afterwards, she married Rafael Kalev from Plovdiv, where she lives up to the present day (they have two sons: Izidor and Solomon). Our crowd included also Becca Koen (today her family name is Bidjerano and she lives in Israel) as well as other people.

There was also a violinist, Rudolf Benvenisti, (born in 1924) who got a 15-year sentence and was imprisoned together with my future husband Mois Saltiel from September 1942 to September 1944. He loved playing ‘A Little Night Music’ for us. Unfortunately, our crowd split at the point when the so called ‘progressive ideas’ started to increasingly creep into it [i.e. the communist ideas] and the Law for Protection of the Nation was the other thing that split us, obviously.

Of course, we knew each other with Mois yet from the period he went underground. I remember that one day when I was interned with my family in Asenovgrad I received a letter from him. Then he was imprisoned in the Skopje jail, but despite all this we had the possibility to be in relatively undisturbed correspondence. I knew they read his letters in the prison before I received them. And after I got the letters I had to show them to my mother (this was the way the things were these days – family matriarchate dominated in our family). But I didn’t find these details as something wrong.

 The main reason for his imprisoning was as comic as it was tragic. I will describe this important story in details. In 1942 on ‘Hristo Botev’ radio the platform of the Fatherland Front 12 was read. There was a series of requirements and tasks for the democratic development of the country set by the Fatherland Front in it, including certain points against the anti-Semitic legislation. Underground members of the Union of Young Workers (UYW) 13, among which was also Mois, decided that this platform has to be delivered to the broad public, because the government did not comment on it and the newspapers didn’t write anything about it. Mois was then the head of several UYW groups, one of which decided to multiply leaflets with this important platform. These days I kept myself away from the underground activity of my future husband, although I was informed about it. And because it was very labor consuming to write the platform by hand and there was no printing house to publish it, they decided that they could multiply it by photo typing separate parts of the platform. One of them, Sabat Melamed, worked at a photo studio and took materials as well as cassette for film copying. The whole group gathered in the flat of Mois Perets at the corner of Odrin Str. and Stamboliiski Blvd.. [Odrin Street is one of the oldest streets in Sofia. It is a crossing of Stamboliiski Blvd, relatively near to the Jewish Center.] It was in August 1942 between 23:00 and 24:00 p.m.. And they started to copy these pictures. There was a lot of noise coming from the opening and closing of the box where the copying was carried out. Even more, the house was all wattle and daub and on the storey below them lived unknown Bulgarians. Well, as they were producing this noise in the night the neighbors went up to see what happens. They wanted to open the door, but because Mois and the others had locked it and pulled down the curtains, the Bulgarians told them: ‘You are doing something wrong and we are going to call the police, if you don’t leave.’ Then one of the daredevils, Leon Levi, who lived at the opposite corner, took the box with all the materials in order to liquidate them. But when he went out it happened that a policeman was sitting in the nearby café who saw that a youngster in a hurry carried a dubious box at an unearthly hour. He started shouting at him; ‘Halt! Halt!’ and the boy started to run, they chased each other, and finally Leon Levi was arrested. In the meanwhile, Mois together with Sabat Melamed ran away on the roofs of the low buildings from Stamboliiski Blvd as far as Positano and Odrin Streets, where another friend of theirs lived, Daniel Albahari. There they rested for the night. But when the policemen started to beat Leon Levi, after dawn, he told them who lived in the house and they went and arrested Mois Perets. 

In fact, this was the beginning of Mois’s underground life. Meanwhile, police started to track him down. They took one of his pictures and started to seek for him. He hid at many different places, until the police, which was carrying out its investigations, arrested most of the young men who were in the UYW groups led by Mois. They initiated legal proceedings where his death sentence was asked. But because of the fact he was juvenile, he got a 15-year sentence. Mois wasn’t at the trial, so the sentence was a judgment by default. Later he eventually got to the police betrayed by one man (but I don’t know the details). Mois was thus sent to the Sofia jail first. After six months there he was sent to the prison in Skopje in the Idrizovo branch [Bulgarian Occupation of Macedonia in World War II] 14. That happened in 1943.  

As I have already mentioned after 1946 - the year when my parents emigrated – I remained to live alone in a half-empty rented room. There were five more people living in the same apartment. In the next room were my brother Ruben with his wife Ester. They earned their living making for example paper packaging for seeds out of newspapers; uncle Haim sold them at the market. My aunt was a housewife. In the kitchen lived my half-brother Leon Levi.

My room seemed to be big, because I lived alone. I mentioned it was half-empty because this was the simple truth. After my parents left, I had only a bed, a cupboard and a big case chest that served me as a wardrobe. I put my clothes in it.

Then I met Mois by chance. After 9th September 1944 I worked as an editor-in-chief of ‘Septemvriyche’ [a junior high school communist organization in Bulgaria, preparing the children to join the Komsomol; the name is derivative of September, allusion to the 9th September 1944] child’s magazine in Sofia. I was also in charge of a group of children then. I taught them to sing songs and to play games (the goal then was to reach a state of union and team spirit by playing). I was something like a primary teacher and child educator, as far as it was possible with my education. It was funny these days. The region leader was Venezia Mochiah (the future wife of Marko Isakov, the parents of the great opera singer Niko Isakov). There were only few such groups that worked with children then. It was Venezia that asked me to distribute some of ‘Septemvriyche’’s issues. There was also a big Jewish club on Klementina Square [even today the Jewish organization ‘Shalom’ is situated there]. One day, in this club, I was struggling to write something on a typewriter when Mois appeared next to me and gallantly offered me to write it for me. After this we more and more drew together. And eventually we got married in 1947.   

After we married with Mois, he came to live with me - in my poor, big, half-empty room in Bacho Kiro Str. We found a wardrobe and brought it in. But actually we had nothing interesting in this room. I was already pregnant. So we decided to ask urgently for a stove from the commissariat (it was practice to ask for help in cases such as ours). But it had to be not only a stove, but a cooking range, too – multifunctional, made in Bulgaria to serve us both for heating and for cooking.

As a matter of fact, I don’t remember any anti-Semitic reactions against me or my family before 1944 and after that. Gradually, my husband and I started leading a normal life (I mean in easy circumstances relatively). At the beginning Mois, who had just been employed with the People’s Militia Directorate helped me find a new job as a clerk at the Interior Ministry’s passport department. After that I was an Interior Ministry regional secretary. At that time I had already given birth to my first son, Solomon Mois Saltiel (1947) and he was already six months old. At that point I got fired from the passport department and I started work with Interior Ministry’s political committee. My dismissal was not provoked by my Jewish origin, there were simply huge job cuts then and they had to dismiss 100 people for six months. However, I worked as an Interior Ministry’s regional secretary long years after that. I was very pleased with my colleagues all of whom were Bulgarians. Mois then worked for the Youth Committee (a DCYU regional committee – Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union, which was later renamed to DUNY - Dimitrov’s Union of People’s Youth, which was incorporated in the Interior Ministry’s system; Mois was in fact DUNY chairman in the period between 1947-1950.)    

In 1951 I was suddenly dismissed by Kyosovski, who was my boss then (a regional leader). After that it was very difficult for me to find a job. My dismissal was something like a stain. I think the reason was his personal attitude towards me. 

At that time I gave birth to Yosif, my second son, and together with Mois and our first child Moni [Solomon] we already lived in Odrin Str., near Stamboliiski Blvd. We had our small garden with hens. However, we lived there only for one year. In 1953 we moved to a flat near the Fire brigade’s office. After a long job seek I found a job as a foodstuff inspector in restaurants. It was not before this point that I managed to lodge my documents for continuing my education in RabFac. The course there lasted for three years. I think it happened in the period between 1951 and 1954. When I graduated from the Rabfac I studied Physics at the university from 1955 to 1956 and simultaneously worked as a dressmaker at home. I sewed children’s clothes: trousers, blouses etc. But it was a very low-paid job. So I worked as a dressmaker until 1956 when my third child, Ani, turned one year of age. Then I stopped my studies at the university. Physics was my child’s dream. I still regret I had to quit then, but I didn’t have the choice. So I have an uncompleted level of higher education.

During our internment to Asenovgrad I suffered very badly from peritonitis. My parents took me as far as Plovdiv so that I might have an operation done. In order to go there we had to ask the police for permission. Before that I had suffered from pleurisy. That’s why doctors told me I could not have any children. So, before marrying Mois I was convinced I wouldn’t have children. Despite that we have three children with Mois: Solomon, Yosif, and Ani. They all were born in Sofia. As a matter of fact, I don’t know when they understood they were Jews. We used to celebrate all the Jewish holidays at home, although we didn’t always observe the tradition very strictly. My children graduated from Bulgarian schools. So I am not sure if they have an increased Jewish self-consciousness. What is for sure, no one can remember of anti-Semitic incident against a member of our family. I remember that Moni was a very good student at the Electricity Technical High School in Sofia. I used to help him with Mathematics very often. After that he continued his education at the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University 15 and then in Moscow at Lomonosov University where he completed his education in Physics. Later he was on a specialization assignment in America for two years at the Irvine University where he specialized in quant electronics. Jozhko [Yosif] chose to study electrotechnics. Ani on her turn became an architect. She completed her education at Sofia’s Institute of Architecture and Construction (VIAS).

Solomon is a professor today, Ph.D, and was accepted as a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the field of quant electronics in 2004. Moni was the last of my children to get married. He married after he completed his higher education and after he started work as a teacher at the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University. His wife, Veska Saltiel, is also a physicist (she was born in Sofia and her maiden name was Lyubenova, she works in the Sofia University’s administration). They married in 1977. Their children’s names are Juliet (1978) and Kalina (1982). At present, Juliet lives in Haifa, Israel, where she studies the same specialty as her aunt Ani – architecture. This year she completed her university education. Kalina lives in Bulgaria and studies economy (marketing) in the American University in Blagoevgrad.

Yosif is an automatics engineer and has his own company in Sofia. He married Nina (I don’t know what her maiden name was) in 1976. His wife is also an engineer in automatics. Now Nina works with the Defence Ministry, but not as a clerk. As far as I know, she is in charge of the computer network maintenance at the ministry. Jozhi [Yosif] and Nina live in Mladost district [a Sofia’s suburb] and have two children; Georgi (1979) and Monica (1987). Georgi is an IT specialist (he completed his university education in this field), while Monica is still a schoolgirl.

Ani is an architect, but she is not working at present. As a matter of fact she was the first to marry – yet as a schoolgirl in 1973. My husband and I even had to ask for permission for their wedding, because they hadn’t completed their high school education yet (Ani was then almost 18 years old). Her husband’s name is Mladen Mladenov, they were classmates. She was still a schoolgirl when she gave birth to her first child Nikolay (1973). Nikolay graduated from the Sofia’s High School of Mathematics, after which he married and went to Canada. At present he lives there together with his wife Stanislava, also a mathematician, and their two children Mladen (1996) and Anton (2001). Ani’s daughter is called Elena (1978). She graduated from the Construction University in Sofia and is a water conduit and sewerage engineer. Now she is practicing her profession with a company.

Frankly speaking, I didn’t like the changes that took place after 10th November 1989 16. The reason is that the people in Bulgaria got significantly poorer; there is nothing left from the economy and social security of the past, which we remember from the totalitarian period; and that is why people as a whole feel bad. Firstly, because they came suddenly and lasted for too long. Of course, it is wrong to deny everything that is new, but we cannot simply bury all that was created in the totalitarian period in Bulgaria.  People, despite their humble income, lived then much more calmly. I know a lot of people of my age who want the socialism back in power. This is a very understandable wish, given the increased level of crime in the country after 1989. My family is nostalgic about the time when we could afford to go to the sea-side or to the mountains every year, when we regularly bought books, newspapers, magazines. To put it in simple words: we lived very well then, without having big salaries. I will not even mention the medicines. Now we don't know how to save money to buy the medicines we need.

I have been to Israel three times (1974, 1982 and 1994) together with my husband and want to underline that the life there, even not so calm, is much better. I remember that when I first went there my father Yosif Faivel Fridman had already died. As I have already mentioned my elder brother, Ruben, took care of my mother in Israel, although my younger brother Shraga lived with his family nearer her, in the same street in Yagur actually. In 1974 Israel seemed to me a beautiful and calm country for the time. Later I began to worry because of the disorders there. Now I travel much less frequently due to my illness which makes me relatively sluggish. I go to visit our family friends (who are predominantly Jewish) more rarely, but I am well informed of everything that is going on in the Bulgarian Jewish community. It is because of my husband Mois Saltiel who was the chairman of the Jewish Library Club in Sofia for more than 10 years, and has been the chairman of the ‘Golden Age’ club at the Jewish Organization in Bulgaria ‘Shalom’ 17 for more than two years. The activity of the club consists of weekly gatherings on Saturday afternoons, when the old members of our community gather. The club organizes a multitude of meetings with artists of Jewish origin, more or less nearing the golden age, such as the actor Itzhak Fintzi, theater director professor Grisha Ostrovski, the writer Victor Baruh, etc. It is the arrangement and holding of these meetings, as well as the organized attendance to cinema and theater performances that my husband takes care of.

Translated by Alexander Manuiloff

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