Of course my sense of being Jewish strengthened in me after the change of regime, because anti-Semitism began. And then, if you read things like that, it gets into your mind. That never came to my mind in the party state, because this was not a matter for discussion. Or rather, it seems it was – only it was done very much under cover, those who were Jewish hid the fact. And I didn’t know about the trials against Jews in the Soviet Union [the Doctors’ Plot 9].
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Displaying 18451 - 18480 of 50826 results
Maria Eva Feheri
But it’s one thing to belong to the Jews and another that I can’t believe that there is a God who demands me to keep certain traditions. I can’t imagine that children have to wear payes, and girls have to wear long, warm dresses, or that it’s a problem if you eat noodles with cottage cheese. Would a God care about these things? I regard these things as absolutely childish and naive.
Rebeca Gershon-Levi
I retired in 1978. I was very scared straight after 1989 [following the events of 10th November 1989] [14]. I thought that we would return to a past that I was afraid of and hated. Then I realized that it was time for a change in both politics and economics. The Soviet Union first signaled for that. I understood then that nothing is just black and white but that there are nuances. Not everyone who isn’t a BSP member is a fascist, and not everyone who is a BSP member is a democrat etc. I started to see people as people, not as members of a certain party. We were very politicized after 1989. I understand now that one man cannot make politics just by himself. I value people by their qualities now.
I think that the political developments in Eastern Europe are quite normal. The process of the opening of Eastern Europe is right.
I thought that the Russian military invasion in the Czech Republic was something normal. I thought that things were going in the wrong direction there – I was brought up that way. During the developments in the Czech Republic I was in Israel visiting a friend of mine – a colleague. She was a great communist. She was married to a very amiable doctor. She had been fired and punished for having an affair with one of her superiors, who was falsely accused of being an ‘enemy’. My friend’s name is Beka Francez. When I visited her she expressed an opinion against the intervention of the Soviet Union. I was amazed. That was a heresy for me then. Despite the negative consequences of my marriage to Miuntzer – I always knew that if I only mentioned that I was his wife I would have been fired right away – I believed that I should be true to the party [the BCP].
I thought that the Russian military invasion in the Czech Republic was something normal. I thought that things were going in the wrong direction there – I was brought up that way. During the developments in the Czech Republic I was in Israel visiting a friend of mine – a colleague. She was a great communist. She was married to a very amiable doctor. She had been fired and punished for having an affair with one of her superiors, who was falsely accused of being an ‘enemy’. My friend’s name is Beka Francez. When I visited her she expressed an opinion against the intervention of the Soviet Union. I was amazed. That was a heresy for me then. Despite the negative consequences of my marriage to Miuntzer – I always knew that if I only mentioned that I was his wife I would have been fired right away – I believed that I should be true to the party [the BCP].
During the wars in Israel I supported my people entirely and I could have been punished for that. I believed that this country should exist because so many people had died for it. I was a trainee at the People’s Court then. I remember that a young colleague, whose father was a dean of the Faculty of Economics, used to bring a map of the Near East every day and mark off the military action places with flags.
I remember a meeting when Todor Zhivkov [13] held a speech and he mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the people then said that he was ready to go and fight on the Arabian side, but Todor Zhivkov answered ironically to that.
I remember a meeting when Todor Zhivkov [13] held a speech and he mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the people then said that he was ready to go and fight on the Arabian side, but Todor Zhivkov answered ironically to that.
When my parents were still alive I used to go to Israel very often – every two or three years. Sometimes it was difficult to leave. There was an absurd situation – when my mother was on her deathbed, they told me that I could only go to Israel if I was going for a funeral. That happened in 1983. My husband had already died then. My mother died the next year.
I divorced Miuntzer Blagoev in 1965 because of the great trouble he brought upon himself with his attitude towards the official authorities and the consequences this had for me. I got married for the second time in 1974, to a compatriot of mine; I knew him from my school years. My second husband’s name was Solomon Levi. He brought into the marriage and left me a son and a daughter that I wouldn’t have, had I not met him. I get along very well with them. They have helped me a lot – especially when I had to move to new houses. The years I lived with my second husband were full of many pleasant moments and many excursions to the countryside. After we got married we went on a journey to Israel and on the way back we passed through Greece.
When I returned from China I didn’t have a job and I decided to finish my education. I had passed exams for law in 1956. After that I had to leave university, as I didn’t have enough time to study and work at the same time. When I came back from China I applied at the dean’s office to continue my education. I graduated in 1967. I started to work with the Jurists Union. I was a legal consultant with the Water Industry company after that and I retired from there.
In 1954 the minister of finance Kiril Lazarov, who was Miuntzer’s godfather, became a press attaché in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He recommended Miuntzer for a mandate in China and so we went there. We lived in China for four years. Miuntzer worked as a second secretary of the Bulgarian embassy in China.
When I was in China I used to send my letters to my parents to Miuntzer’s mother in Bulgaria first and then she put them in another envelope and sent them on to Israel. In the times when I was in Bulgaria I used to send my letters to Israel directly.
When I was in China I used to send my letters to my parents to Miuntzer’s mother in Bulgaria first and then she put them in another envelope and sent them on to Israel. In the times when I was in Bulgaria I used to send my letters to Israel directly.
I worked in the Police Department till 1951. They fired my husband then – he worked as an inspector there – because he didn’t get along with the management of the department, and they also fired me. That made me very happy because as long as I was working there I was very restricted and I felt it was a burden for me. We got one extra salary and I remember that I went to the textile shop, which was located where the American Embassy is today, and I bought some wonderful fabrics there. I received job recommendations while Miuntzer got a penalty from the party. My recommendations were for three jobs. I chose the Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies. The other recommendation was for the City Committee of the BCP. The Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies was then located on Mizia Street and I started there as head of international relations. I worked there till my departure for China.
After my husband was fired in 1951, he didn’t start to work again until 1954. I provided for him for four years.
After my husband was fired in 1951, he didn’t start to work again until 1954. I provided for him for four years.
I went on living on 2, Tolbuhin Blvd after my parents left. I lived there with my husband. He was in conflict with Valko Chervenkov [then minister of culture] because of some objections that my husband had against the communist party rule. On the other hand his mother lived with the thought that she was an active party functionary. They had even been chased out of their apartment following an order by Valko Chervenkov.
I didn’t observe the Jewish holidays then. It wasn’t popular to celebrate holidays after 9th September 1944. Most of my friends were Bulgarians. My husband was a strange person and he lived in isolation. He accepted his brothers only. That’s how I gradually became estranged from my Jewish circle.
I met my first husband at work. He wasn’t Jewish. His father was a co-worker of Georgi Dimitrov [12] and Vasil Kolarov [a minister in Dimitrov’s government]. His family left underground for Russia in 1923. They came back from Moscow in 1947. He graduated in law. We got married in December 1949. My parents didn’t attend the ceremony.
I used to go to the Jewish cultural club Klimentina quite often before the internment to Pleven. I loved to read and I went there mostly for that. Gradually I met different people there who started to educate me. I was in a Jewish circle before the internment. After I came back I went on visiting the Jewish community center and I even used to sing in the choir. But as a police officer my working time was unlimited and that was an obstacle for me to continue going there. My circle then consisted of my colleagues and a friend from school.
My father started work in Israel immediately. The conditions were severe because there wasn’t enough work for all newcomers. They looked for work at many places. My brother tells this sad story about how my father and he went from Pardes Hanah, where they had been in the camps, right down to Haifa to look for work but they didn’t manage to find any. They slept in the open air and had to come back in the end. My brother worked in the lime-stores and his legs were burnt there. After that my father found work as a manager in a municipal building company called Amidar that built homes for the newcomers. He used to help people settle and they loved and respected him a lot. When he announced that he was going to retire at the age of 78, a large number of people came and asked him to stay. He received a good pension while my mother used to get a social pension. They had their own house and my brother inherited it.
After Israel was founded, the Jews started to leave Bulgaria. My parents left in 1949 and my relatives from Plovdiv in 1948. There was a mass aliyah [11] after that and all my friends left. Just 10,000 out of 45,000 people stayed here, and I don’t know if there are even 5,000 Jews left in Bulgaria today. My parents were put in so-called ‘srikove’ – special barracks. My brother didn’t want to be settled in a lodging in the town and his first home was in Iafo – in the newly-built part of the city.
After 9th September 1944 I took steps so that my brother could go and specialize in the Bata [10] company school in the Czech Republic. He didn’t get a good record form his work and he didn’t manage to leave. Maybe if he had got a good record and would have gone to the Czech Republic, he wouldn’t have gone to Israel that soon. That was a turning point in his life.
The first place where my parents settled in Sofia was on Opalchenska Street and after that they moved into the house of a classmate of mine, Ani Pasturkova, on Tsar Simeon Street. Later, in 1943, we were interned to Pleven. I remember one air raid on Sofia. We lived on Tsar Simeon Street then. It was a three-floor house. The raid was terrible. We hid in the basement of a neighboring house. They bombed the railway station and our house was near it and we could hear all the thunder very clearly. In Pleven we saw only squadrons of airplanes flying to Sofia.
My parents and my brother went to live in Sofia in 1937 and I stayed in Plovdiv till the next year. I lived with my uncle Shmuel and I was studying in the mixed school in Plovdiv until I left for Sofia. My life in Plovdiv was charming and I used to cry a lot when I moved to Sofia. I was out of my reasons for entire six months. I went to Sofia in the summer of 1938 and I thought it was very miserable. All was strange and unpleasant to me. I went through this change with great difficulty. After a few months I went to Plovdiv again because it was summer vacation time. I managed to adapt to the new situation only after I came back to Sofia again and I already had close classmates. I used to go to the library club and I had friends there, too.
Very often – usually on Saturdays – we went to the Casino, a place on Bunardjika hill. We lived nearby and we used to sit together with other families and listen to the music. The singer and dancer Djip was very popular then. We, the children, received some money on Saturdays and we used to buy some food for ourselves – fried livers, grilled rissoles, baked maize. We also went to the confectioner’s shop. Plovdiv was a horn of plenty!
We used to go on excursions out of Plovdiv every weekend. Sometimes we left on Friday evening. We traveled in drays. We went to Komatovo, Kuklino and Markovo. We passed through lovely walnut forests that unfortunately no longer exist today. We used to bring special barbeque grills with us and light a fire. My parents loved these excursions very much.
Plovdiv was like a Jewish country-town for me. I felt very cozy there. My relatives were very united and they used to gather very often and supported each other a lot. Besides I was the only granddaughter in the 1920s and everybody was very kind to me. I lived a carefree life then and I didn’t think about the political and economical situation in Bulgaria at all. I was always well dressed and satisfied.
My father was a merchant. He traded with haberdashery and worked with villagers mostly. He used to sell ribbons, laces and buttons but unfortunately he didn’t sell any toys. His shop was on the merchant street near the mosque and Maritsa pharmacy. It was a two-storied shop. The first floor was something like a reception-room and the trade articles were on the second floor. My father liked to receive guests on the first floor. That’s why he always had some fresh pastry or other small things to eat with him. As I mentioned before, my father was a devoted revisionist and a Zionist and he was a member of the ‘Jabotinsky’ organization [see Revisionist Zionism] [2] – a Jewish organization that propagandized the idea of reconstructing Israel’s territories via military actions. The organization is named after its founder – Vladimir Jabotinsky [3]. Jews in Plovdiv had various political convictions at the time. My father was an extreme right-winger. I remember that there was a member in the organization in which my father participated whose name was Pasi – he was the grandfather of the present minister of foreign affairs Solomon Pasi.
My father perceived religion in his own way. He was mostly interested in politics – he was a great dabbler in politics. My father wasn’t very religious. He became more religious after he went to Israel. He learned Hebrew there and he used to read newspapers. My brother also learned Hebrew perfectly – he used to teach in Hebrew. My father was very studious and he read a lot, though he hadn’t gone to school. He was a thorough Zionist and a revisionist and I often argued with him because I had left-wing convictions. My father and my brother didn’t have enough time to read and educate themselves. Despite that they both had a thorough knowledge of certain matters. They hadn’t studied anything special but knew a lot when it came to geography, history and economics.
We observed Chanukkah as well. We had a special chandelier that we used to light on the holiday. We always prepared big festive tables. On Purim they always gave me a small bag filled with different fruits – oranges, apples, dates and walnuts. They used to give us some money, too, and we went straight to the roundabouts and spent it there.
We always celebrated Pesach. Then the oldest member of the family reads the prayer that tells the story of the liberation of the Jewish people from the Egyptian invasion. My father was the oldest in our home, but sometimes we used to gather with my mother’s or father’s relatives and then my grandfathers read the prayer. I was more attached to my mother’s family than to my father’s relatives. I felt they were more curious and interested in things.
When I was a little girl, my maternal grandmother used to take me to the synagogue. I remember that she used to take me on the holiday of Yom Kippur – on that day we don’t eat the whole day and then we have dinner at six o’clock in the evening. Then friends and relatives forgive each other their sins. That holiday is devoted both to the living and the dead. After the priest had finished his speech in the synagogue we bit into a big quince and that was the first thing we ate that day. It was a great success if the children managed not to eat the whole day.
In my family we used to go shopping on Wednesdays and Thursdays and on Fridays we did the cooking. We didn’t cook on Saturdays, but we turned on the lights and listened to the radio. My family observed the kashrut. We always shopped in shops where the rabbi had put his stamp; we used to eat veal mostly. We ate pork after 9th September 1944 [1] for the first time. There was a great food crisis at that time: I got some pork from my work place, I brought it home and that was when my mother cooked pork for the first time.
Bulgaria
I’ve always spoken with my friends in Bulgarian. My grandma and my mother spoke Ladino but I thought this language was archaic. We didn’t speak Hebrew. I started to be interested in Ladino just recently because I realized the connection with Spanish.
I loved to walk around Plovdiv and I had the chance to do so a lot. My favorite places were Sahat tepe, Bunardjika and Maritsa River. A bunch of children used to gather and wander around town. We played a lot of games – I used to play with small balls with the boys, for instance. We took the balls that came with bottles of lemonade or soda. We used to play ‘thieves and policemen’ a lot. Another interesting game was ‘Ghosts’: We used to gather in different houses and pull down the curtains. Then we started to summon ghosts until we seemed to see something and usually one of us got very scared and cried out loud. Of course we used to do that only in our parents’ absence. We used to play hide-and-seek also.
I remember that when we lived on Tsar Osvoboditel Street I used to gather some children and tell them that if we dug the ground we would reach the center of the Earth. I imagined that there was a boat there and we could sail away on it. We started to dig and of course we found nothing. We loved to pick plums and other fruits from the trees in our neighbors’ courtyards and they often scolded us for that.
I remember that when we lived on Tsar Osvoboditel Street I used to gather some children and tell them that if we dug the ground we would reach the center of the Earth. I imagined that there was a boat there and we could sail away on it. We started to dig and of course we found nothing. We loved to pick plums and other fruits from the trees in our neighbors’ courtyards and they often scolded us for that.