My father was a well-read man. I remember from my childhood that he subscribed to a number of newspapers. There were always a lot of books at home, including books from private libraries [big home libraries]. Stara Zagora was a cultural center – it had the first opera in Bulgaria, many poets, writers, artists… I continued this tradition in my family.
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Displaying 20851 - 20880 of 50826 results
Eshua Aron Almalech
My father had a shop for textile and tailoring materials. It was one of the most visited shops in Stara Zagora. His partner was Angel Dikov, a Bulgarian. They were very good friends. When the Law for the Protection of the Nation [2] was passed, our property was confiscated and his partner became the sole owner of the shop. But he did not forget us and helped us financially. Later his daughter Stefka Dikova married a Jew. I also helped sometimes in the work in the shop together with some other children, but it was mainly my father and Angel who worked there. At that time the trade union of the railway workers was very strong and my father had a good connection with its branch in Stara Zagora – they bought the textile for their working clothes from him.
Bulgaria
My mother was born in Stara Zagora and graduated the junior high school in her hometown. It is interesting to note that she was in the same class with Marina, the mother of my wife Nedyalka, and they were friends from childhood. But my mother did not get to know my wife because she died while I was still in college. She was a very nice and beautiful woman. She was a housewife and took very good care of us. She was also deeply attached to the families of her sisters and their children. Everybody, our neighbors, Bulgarians, Jews or Turks (many Turks lived in Stara Zagora then) loved her. She dressed very elegantly and paid a lot of attention to her appearance.
My father was born in 1885. He was orphaned very young. His father died in 1898 and his mother Roza Almalech soon after him (in 1901). At the age of 16 he started working as an accountant in a Bulgarian company in Stara Zagora and was attracted to the socialist ideas. The Bulgarian Socialist Party was set up in 1892. But there was a congress in 1903, at which one part of the party proclaimed itself left-wing socialists [these were the future communists] and the other right-wing socialists [these were the future social democrats]. My father was present at that congress and joined the latter group. He took part in the two Balkan wars and in the First World War as an infantryman in the 12th Stara Zagora infantry regiment of the Bulgarian army. He told me that he used to shoot in the air, thinking that if he didn’t kill anybody, he would not be killed either. He married my mother Zelma Michael, nee Behar, in 1919 after he returned from the war.
From all my grandparents I knew only her; all the others had died long before I was born. When I was a little child I used to go to her place, she lived with one of my mother’s sisters, Marie. When I went back home, I always found a clove of garlic in my pocket. Every time she hid some garlic in our pockets, mine and my sister’s and cousins’, against evil eyes and to keep us healthy. I remember vividly taking her to see ‘Ben-Hur’ in the 1930s, an American movie about the legendary Jewish hero who rebelled against the Roman Empire. She was much excited by the story and by the mystery of the moving pictures. During the Holocaust she lived with us, she didn’t go out at all, but she wore the yellow star and was always worrying about us. She was very old when she left to Israel with my aunt Marie, my mother’s sister. Marie’s daughters left for Israel in the 1930s and lived in the Miselot kibbutz, near the town of Beth Shan. My grandmother lived with them and passed away in the mid-1950s at the age of 102. She was buried in the kibbutz cemetery. My grandfather died very young and my grandmother Bohora had to rely only on herself. I only know that he was a very skilled leather-worker.
Bulgaria
In the family we, the children, called my grandmother Manacheto. Bulgarian was difficult for her and we picked up Spanish (i.e. Ladino) being around her.
My maternal grandmother was Bohora Behar. She married twice and both times widowers, who had children from their previous marriages. So I had a lot of aunts and uncles. From her first marriage my grandmother had a daughter Hana. Her second marriage was with my grandfather Michael Behar, who had one son Isak from his first marriage. Later Hana and Isak got married. So, my mother was a sister to them both. From her second marriage my grandmother gave birth to my mother, my aunt Marie and my uncles Mushon and Solomon. Their families moved to Israel and they have children and grandchildren. But the most interesting story is that of my aunt Marie. She became a widow during World War I and she had two little girls Sola and Ester. She didn’t receive any news from her husband Haim Almor for a very long time. It was 20 years after the war ended that she was told that he had been killed and buried in the soldiers’ cemetery in Skopje, where he probably died as a prisoner of war. But there was no evidence proving that. My cousins, Marie’s daughters, moved to Palestine in 1932 and were among the founders of one of the kibbutzim, Miselot, and helped build contemporary Israel. Marie moved to Israel in 1948.
Bulgaria
The eldest was Avram, born before the Russian-Turkish Liberation War, that is, before 1878 and he died in 1924. His two daughters moved to Palestine before the Holocaust. The second one, Solomon, left for France very young and lived in Avignon, and he married a French Jew. He was killed during the Nazi occupation of France. His children managed to escape. My father’s third brother Mordu married a Jew from Sarajevo during one of his travels. He had two sons and two daughters. They lived in Stara Zagora, but during the Holocaust were interned to Byala Slatina. His elder son left for Palestine in 1938. My uncle died in 1945 on a ship on his way to Haifa. His younger son Iosif and two daughters Roza and Luna took an active part in the movement against the fascist government in Bulgaria and were sent to prison. Because of the harsh conditions there Roza developed a serious illness and died in 1948. Iosif left for Israel in 1948 and Luna remained in Plovdiv. All except Roza have children living in Israel, but all my four cousins have already passed away. My father’s sister Ester also left early for Palestine with her family – two sons and four daughters -- to build the new Jewish state. They all died already, but their children and grandchildren are still living. My father’s youngest sister Marie lived in Plovdiv and had one son Mois. They left Bulgaria in 1948 and shortly after that Marie died. Mois married and became one of the founders of the agricultural cooperative movement in Israel. He also died, but he has two daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Bulgaria
My grandfather had four sons and two daughters. My father Aron Eshua Almalech was the youngest. My uncles were all very easy-going and traveled a lot. And my grandfather, after whom I am named, used to tell my father, his youngest son, ‘Aroncho, Aroncho, you are the youngest and the smartest, but your brothers spent all our money throughout Europe. What am I going to leave you?
My paternal grandmother was illiterate and she just looked after the children. My father, Aron Almalech, told me that she was a very nice woman, but he only had some childhood memories of her. Their house was visited by many people, not only Jews.
My paternal grandfather, Eshua Avram Almalech, was born in the first part of the 19th century. He was a relatively well-off merchant. He was a well-known figure in Stara Zagora even before the Russian-Turkish War, which liberated Bulgaria (1877-1878). During the April Rebellion [1] in 1876 he hid one of its leaders Stephan Stambolov in his home. After the liberation of Bulgaria Stambolov came to Stara Zagora a number of times, firstly as Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, later as Bulgarian Prime Minister and he stayed at my grandfather’s house. Although my grandfather was a Jew, he took an active part in Bulgarian politics.
The Almalech kin, my paternal ancestors, is a famous family name, not only in Bulgaria, but also in Turkey and France. There is a legend that is handed down from generation to generation that they originate from the Jews who were banished by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago, after the Temple in Jerusalem was burned down. Most of them settled on the Mediterranean lands in the Roman colonies. The Almalechs do not originate from the so-called Spanish Jews, who were banished by the Spanish King in the end of the 15th century and who settled in Southeast Europe. The Almalechs lived on these lands even before Bulgaria was founded in 681. These Jews are also known as Romaniots (the name comes from Rome). My hometown Stara Zagora existed even in the Thracian times and in the time of the Roman Empire. It was called Avgusta Trayana then. The many archeological sites, which are still being researched, prove this. Some ancient Roman buildings were discovered in the small town of Nikopol on the Danube. And, interestingly, there was a synagogue among them in which the Almalech family name could be seen among the Hebrew inscriptions. During the Turkish rule and in present-day Turkey you can come across our family name as Azmanoglu, and they were also famous Jews, working mostly in trading. On the other hand, my mother’s family name, Behar, is very typical of the Jews who came to the Balkan Peninsula after they were driven out of Spain. They were mostly craftsmen – leather-workers. Both families were religious, but not to the extreme. They observed the Jewish traditions and rites and valued very highly the holidays and the family. They did not live in a closed Jewish community, but were also in contact with the Bulgarians and the Turks.
Leon Yako Anzhel
When we were in Chuchuligovo near the border with Greece we worked near the railway tracks. The trains to Kulata and Greece and back went there. We saw trains with Greek Jews passing. Those were tiny open carriages. They were overcrowded with men, women, and children; old and young people. On both sides of the carriages there was a policeman and military man with rifles to guard them.
They were passing in the evening in order to keep them unnoticed and not to be very conspicuous. They reached Dupnitsa [South-West Bulgaria, 49km from Sofia] and afterwards were sent further on. First, they were led to some barracks and later on, sent to Germany and Poland.
We, the young members of UYW, pulled our weight and started collecting food from the things they gave us for breakfast. We put everything in packets and gave them to the people secretly. And when they passed they would shout ‘Pensense’ [Calmness].
I don’t know if they realized where they were being taken. I didn’t have the chance to talk to them. We didn’t know where they were being sent either. We found out much later.
They were passing in the evening in order to keep them unnoticed and not to be very conspicuous. They reached Dupnitsa [South-West Bulgaria, 49km from Sofia] and afterwards were sent further on. First, they were led to some barracks and later on, sent to Germany and Poland.
We, the young members of UYW, pulled our weight and started collecting food from the things they gave us for breakfast. We put everything in packets and gave them to the people secretly. And when they passed they would shout ‘Pensense’ [Calmness].
I don’t know if they realized where they were being taken. I didn’t have the chance to talk to them. We didn’t know where they were being sent either. We found out much later.
In another labor camp, five kilometers away, worked Roza’s brother Isak. Bentsion Eliezer was in his group. We used to call him Bitsko. He played the accordion wonderfully. Later he became a professor at the Conservatory. We used to meet: we’d sing, play musical instruments, laugh, etc. We made our own theater in which we performed different arias from operas and operettas. I took part in it as well as Etienne Levy’s father: Hertsel Levy. Some of the boys played the violin, others, like me, would sing, but the inspirer, the main organizer was Bitsko. He used to sing the arias in all languages: he danced and made us feel calm. Our audience was the rest of the laborers. We would usually present our performance on Sundays, during the day. And we used to forget about the quarries and rocks, and the enormous flies that bit us till we were bleeding. That was a breath of fresh air, a breath of life, which gave us the certainty that we were still alive and there was still something good in life.
When we were on the bank of the Struma River, 98 percent of us got sick from different kinds of malaria. Instead of giving us quinine they treated us with some German medicines that were ersatz. The Bulgarian population in the different places remained indifferent to us perhaps because we didn’t have the chance to be in contact with the locals. I heard later from my friends that in some places the Bulgarians helped with food and clothes.
Life was extremely difficult. There seemed to be no escape from the situation but we, the UYW members, pulled our weight together. We exchanged information; we were giving each other courage and created a variety on our own.
Life was extremely difficult. There seemed to be no escape from the situation but we, the UYW members, pulled our weight together. We exchanged information; we were giving each other courage and created a variety on our own.
I left in 1942. Before that I was called upon to appear before a military commission to decide whether I was fit for military service. And when they decided that you were fit for military service, you received a call-up order and they mobilized you. You took only the most necessary clothes.
I was in the labor camps from 1942 until 1944. I received four call-up orders. I was in the village of Rudnik [North-East Bulgaria, 364km from Sofia], the village of Chuchuligovo near our border with Greece, Belitsa, Vratsa [North-Western Bulgaria, 112km north of Sofia], Svishtov [North-Central Bulgaria, 195km from Sofia]. We were working during the summer; in November they would let us go home for the winter period and in January would mobilize us again. We would sleep in tents and cabins. We worked hard everywhere. We mainly built roads and railroad tracks. In Varna district our group was taking out and crashing rocks in a quarry in the forest. We loaded the stones on a cart drawn by oxen. The mobilized Bulgarians would take the cart to the road Varna – Burgas. The other laborers from other groups covered the road with the broken stones.
In Chuchuligovo near our border with Greece, we were also building a road: Gorna Dzhumaya – Kulata. There were a lot of groups from Simitli at the border. We worked on the railway tracks, too. In Chuchuliogovo we were accommodated in the building of the police department: in one half of it. We were mainly given beans and lentils; the soup was very thin and smelled foul. Often we found different small animals floating on top. Since then I haven’t been able to eat lentils. We were also entitled to half a loaf of bread for 24 hours. On rare occasions we were given a dessert: rice with water and that was something we accepted as luxury.
We worked for ten or twelve hours a day and everybody had a quota but if you finished the quota it didn’t mean you had finished for the day. They very often found something else for you to do. We had a day off on Sunday but that, too, wasn’t always the case. Very often we worked on Sundays. Our superiors would often beat the people who didn’t obey the discipline and did something wrong in one way or another. For my entire service in the labor camps I was slapped only once because I talked during the retreat but it was such a slap that I saw stars in broad daylight.
I was in the labor camps from 1942 until 1944. I received four call-up orders. I was in the village of Rudnik [North-East Bulgaria, 364km from Sofia], the village of Chuchuligovo near our border with Greece, Belitsa, Vratsa [North-Western Bulgaria, 112km north of Sofia], Svishtov [North-Central Bulgaria, 195km from Sofia]. We were working during the summer; in November they would let us go home for the winter period and in January would mobilize us again. We would sleep in tents and cabins. We worked hard everywhere. We mainly built roads and railroad tracks. In Varna district our group was taking out and crashing rocks in a quarry in the forest. We loaded the stones on a cart drawn by oxen. The mobilized Bulgarians would take the cart to the road Varna – Burgas. The other laborers from other groups covered the road with the broken stones.
In Chuchuligovo near our border with Greece, we were also building a road: Gorna Dzhumaya – Kulata. There were a lot of groups from Simitli at the border. We worked on the railway tracks, too. In Chuchuliogovo we were accommodated in the building of the police department: in one half of it. We were mainly given beans and lentils; the soup was very thin and smelled foul. Often we found different small animals floating on top. Since then I haven’t been able to eat lentils. We were also entitled to half a loaf of bread for 24 hours. On rare occasions we were given a dessert: rice with water and that was something we accepted as luxury.
We worked for ten or twelve hours a day and everybody had a quota but if you finished the quota it didn’t mean you had finished for the day. They very often found something else for you to do. We had a day off on Sunday but that, too, wasn’t always the case. Very often we worked on Sundays. Our superiors would often beat the people who didn’t obey the discipline and did something wrong in one way or another. For my entire service in the labor camps I was slapped only once because I talked during the retreat but it was such a slap that I saw stars in broad daylight.
The first mobilization of Jews took place in 1941 along the Iskar River from Kurilo to Lukatnik. They were building the railway tracks. At every railway station there were Jewish groups, they were given labor uniforms, and military officers were appointed. And in every labor group there were one or two Bulgarian military officers. Another labor group was created that same year. They weren’t a military group; they were like us and worked in a place called Trunska Klisura.
We were aware that we were Jews and the official attitude towards us was different because of the Tsar’s Decree, State Decrees and Regulations of the Ministry of the Interior then but it wasn’t stated in the documents that the men should be sent to camps and their families interned. [The interviewee is talking about the restrictions imposed by the Law for the Protection of the Nation [24] in 1941, Regulations for its application, Decree for the creation of a Commissariat on the Jewish Issues in 1942 as well as all the other laws and decrees published by the government of Bogdan Filov which were created to restrict the rights of the Jews. The next phase from the development of the Jewish issue in Bulgaria was in 1943 when Alexander Belev and Theodore Daneker signed the agreement for the internment of Jews abroad.
Her mother insisted on my introducing myself to her with my mother and in that way declaring my serious intentions. On the other hand, I was wondering how to tell my mother about my relationship. At that time I had two friends: Aaron Galvi, the future husband of Roza’s sister Stella, and Yosif Galvi. They both accompanied me to my mother because I was a little scared. They started convincing her that she should give her consent and that she should go to Roza’s house, to meet her mother Olga but it turned out that she was already aware of our relationship and had nothing against it. So my friends, my mother and I went to Granny Olga. Roza’s brother Isak was getting married the following day. It was January 1943. So, to summarize it all, I met Roza in 1939 and in 1943 our relationship became official. We got married in March 1944. We had been friends and comrades for five years before the official wedding. From the moment her mother gave her blessing Roza officially became ‘my girl.
Granny Olga didn’t let Roza go away with anything. Granny Olga was even trying to find her suitors. But she wanted suitors with proper jobs, money, and social status. Not someone like me, who worked hard and was a hired laborer like her, and nobody knew who I was and why I was like that. That was what I heard from friends. That was the way our relationship began.
Before Roza met me, Granny Olga was extremely strict with her. She didn’t let her out. There was even one case on 22nd June [23] when World War II was beginning. It was Sunday and I had an arrangement with her to go and see a friend who had been called to the Jewish labor groups in 1941 along the Iskar River. His name was Zhak Benbasat. We had to meet at the corner, in front of her place. I was waiting for her to come, but she didn’t show up. Suddenly her sister came out. She said, ‘Larry, she can’t, mum will not let her out, go alone.’ I went alone, took the train to Svoge [South-West Bulgaria, 32km from Sofia] or some other place, to Bov Station and they announced on the radio that the German forces had invaded the Soviet Union. And that was one reason why they didn’t allow her to come. It was as early as 1941.
Before Roza met me, Granny Olga was extremely strict with her. She didn’t let her out. There was even one case on 22nd June [23] when World War II was beginning. It was Sunday and I had an arrangement with her to go and see a friend who had been called to the Jewish labor groups in 1941 along the Iskar River. His name was Zhak Benbasat. We had to meet at the corner, in front of her place. I was waiting for her to come, but she didn’t show up. Suddenly her sister came out. She said, ‘Larry, she can’t, mum will not let her out, go alone.’ I went alone, took the train to Svoge [South-West Bulgaria, 32km from Sofia] or some other place, to Bov Station and they announced on the radio that the German forces had invaded the Soviet Union. And that was one reason why they didn’t allow her to come. It was as early as 1941.
And Roza and I met on several occasions in the Chitalishte, we talked about different things and we, of course, talked about love as well.
One day, it was in September 1939, while we were walking and talking about love again, I told her, ‘Do you want us to become comrades?’ Yes, yes, that was the question. She blushed, of course, and said, ‘I’ll think about it, I’ll see.’ I was nervous for several days. We met again and became comrades in that way. That was in September 1939.
I liked Roza very much. There were other girls around me but they seemed very frivolous, naive, etc, whereas Roza was mature and she was thinking in the right way. She wasn’t that talkative, she was quieter, shy. She was very sensible and hadn’t turned fifteen yet, I was nineteen, and hadn’t turned twenty. She seemed very serious to me. She appealed to me the most. It wasn’t because of her beauty, or appearance, but because of her soul, cordiality, carefulness, joviality. She could walk, jump, sing, have fun, and laugh in a happy manner. This is the way our friendship began, and how we used to meet. We would walk somewhere in Borisova Gradina Park [Boris’s Garden] and at some point, at the end of the walk; I would allow myself to barely touch her hand. And that was all. And that was how it continued, we didn’t allow ourselves any kisses, caresses.
One day, it was in September 1939, while we were walking and talking about love again, I told her, ‘Do you want us to become comrades?’ Yes, yes, that was the question. She blushed, of course, and said, ‘I’ll think about it, I’ll see.’ I was nervous for several days. We met again and became comrades in that way. That was in September 1939.
I liked Roza very much. There were other girls around me but they seemed very frivolous, naive, etc, whereas Roza was mature and she was thinking in the right way. She wasn’t that talkative, she was quieter, shy. She was very sensible and hadn’t turned fifteen yet, I was nineteen, and hadn’t turned twenty. She seemed very serious to me. She appealed to me the most. It wasn’t because of her beauty, or appearance, but because of her soul, cordiality, carefulness, joviality. She could walk, jump, sing, have fun, and laugh in a happy manner. This is the way our friendship began, and how we used to meet. We would walk somewhere in Borisova Gradina Park [Boris’s Garden] and at some point, at the end of the walk; I would allow myself to barely touch her hand. And that was all. And that was how it continued, we didn’t allow ourselves any kisses, caresses.
We used to go hiking to the Starcheski Polyani [Old Men’s Fields], for example, or the Kremikovtsi Monastery [situated not far from Sofia, near the village of Kremikovtsi, one of the most noteworthy Bulgarian monasteries from the 14th century with unique murals]. We used to meet there to have enlightening lectures. Very often on these excursions there were trouble-makers and that prevented us from starting an immediate open communist propaganda, but among ourselves and in narrow circles we used to conduct our propaganda activities.
We also used to meet often in the Jewish Chitalishte, which was on Stamboliiski and Opalchenska. There I met my future wife Roza. It was a regular activity to organize lectures and other events, speeches, and so on. Again, we were organizing meetings in order to create an assisting organization, to collect money, clothes, food for the partisans, outlaws and political prisoners. And here, in the Jewish Chitalishte we were again making attempts to attract and organize, how shall I put it, abstract-minded youngsters, not oriented. This Chitalishte often organized outings to Vitosha. Then there weren’t trams, there were no buses. We used to go on foot.
We walked like that: a group of boys, my friends and I, and a group of girls, Roza and some of her friends. She kept her distance. We talked a lot and that was how the excursion finished.
We also used to meet often in the Jewish Chitalishte, which was on Stamboliiski and Opalchenska. There I met my future wife Roza. It was a regular activity to organize lectures and other events, speeches, and so on. Again, we were organizing meetings in order to create an assisting organization, to collect money, clothes, food for the partisans, outlaws and political prisoners. And here, in the Jewish Chitalishte we were again making attempts to attract and organize, how shall I put it, abstract-minded youngsters, not oriented. This Chitalishte often organized outings to Vitosha. Then there weren’t trams, there were no buses. We used to go on foot.
We walked like that: a group of boys, my friends and I, and a group of girls, Roza and some of her friends. She kept her distance. We talked a lot and that was how the excursion finished.
I became a member of UYW in 1939. I got involved in the organization without realizing it at first. I was friends with Izidor Benbasat, Isak Talvi, Aaron Meshulam and we frequently met in the Chitalishte. The others who were older than us were already members of the Party. An entertainment party was organized every Sunday in the Jewish organization. We visited each other and organized dance parties at our places, too. Everyone would sit wherever possible. We would play the gramophone. The Comparsita tango was popular at the time: Asparuh Leshnikov [19] and Albert Pinkas. We used to dance tango, foxtrot, waltz, ‘horsey’ – a dance which involved standing in a line and lifting our feet, something similar to letkiss. During the breaks between the different records there were some lectures, we read poems, made some issues clearer and tried to attract the disoriented youngsters who we called ‘boulevard youngsters.’
As a matter of fact, beside these general enlightening activities, a lot of communist and socialist ideas about social equality were put through and these ideas actually made us join the UYW movement with our older friends who were already members. Everything was illegal and took place in secret. In that way, with some of my closest friends, we created several UYW groups. On completing such activities I made some friends. One of my friends, Aaron Galvi, became my brother-in-law when he married Stella, my future wife Roza’s sister, and the other one, Yosif Galvi, became a partisan and died afterwards.
With our dance parties and meetings in the evenings we carried out a lot of activities because it was a great achievement to attract two or three of the abstract minded, disoriented people from the Jewish youth. We acted very actively and were increasing the number of the UYW groups all the time. Beside that we wrote appeals and slogans, usually on the houses. We wrote ‘Death to Fascism’ on the slogans and ‘Out the Fascists from Bulgaria.’ We distributed them mainly among the inhabitants of Iuchbunar [20]. We wrote on the walls, and left appeals under the doors. Usually we moved around in groups of two: one of us would look out for trouble-makers or policemen and the other would spread the appeals. We had a variety of musical signals. In case of danger we whistled.
I remember an incident with my friend Izidor Benbasat. We usually distributed the appeals at dusk. One evening, on Tundzha Street, Izidor was distributing the appeals and I was supposed to watch out and whistle the signals. But I simply hadn’t noticed that a policeman had been following us and had been hiding on top of that. Izi saw him at the last moment and at the same time I started giving out the signal but he was already running. The signal froze on my lips but I succeeded in overcoming my fear and, pretending that everything was okay, went to talk to the policeman about insignificant things. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about.
I remember that we went to the houses in Iuchbunar to whip up support for the Sobolev’s Action [21], for Bulgaria’s detachment from the military union and for declaring its independence. We were collecting signatures.
As a matter of fact, beside these general enlightening activities, a lot of communist and socialist ideas about social equality were put through and these ideas actually made us join the UYW movement with our older friends who were already members. Everything was illegal and took place in secret. In that way, with some of my closest friends, we created several UYW groups. On completing such activities I made some friends. One of my friends, Aaron Galvi, became my brother-in-law when he married Stella, my future wife Roza’s sister, and the other one, Yosif Galvi, became a partisan and died afterwards.
With our dance parties and meetings in the evenings we carried out a lot of activities because it was a great achievement to attract two or three of the abstract minded, disoriented people from the Jewish youth. We acted very actively and were increasing the number of the UYW groups all the time. Beside that we wrote appeals and slogans, usually on the houses. We wrote ‘Death to Fascism’ on the slogans and ‘Out the Fascists from Bulgaria.’ We distributed them mainly among the inhabitants of Iuchbunar [20]. We wrote on the walls, and left appeals under the doors. Usually we moved around in groups of two: one of us would look out for trouble-makers or policemen and the other would spread the appeals. We had a variety of musical signals. In case of danger we whistled.
I remember an incident with my friend Izidor Benbasat. We usually distributed the appeals at dusk. One evening, on Tundzha Street, Izidor was distributing the appeals and I was supposed to watch out and whistle the signals. But I simply hadn’t noticed that a policeman had been following us and had been hiding on top of that. Izi saw him at the last moment and at the same time I started giving out the signal but he was already running. The signal froze on my lips but I succeeded in overcoming my fear and, pretending that everything was okay, went to talk to the policeman about insignificant things. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about.
I remember that we went to the houses in Iuchbunar to whip up support for the Sobolev’s Action [21], for Bulgaria’s detachment from the military union and for declaring its independence. We were collecting signatures.
I was lucky. They didn’t sack me from work and even more, the owner of the bookstore gave me permission not to wear my badge. He just came and told me one day that he felt it wasn’t obligatory for me to wear the badge. They called me Lalyo in the bookstore anyway. His name was Radoslav Liskov and he was rolling in wealth. His bookstore was a big company at the time: the Ivan Liskov joint-stock company. He supported me financially very often. He helped some of my poorer colleagues as well. He gave them sheets of paper free of charge and they sold them, because they were communists, too.
In October 1942 a decree was published which limited the access of Jews. Jews were supposed to live on the left side of Hristo Botev Street and the direction was towards the Central Railway Station. All their property: factories, shops, were confiscated.
I didn’t feel any expressions of anti-Semitism; I didn’t feel different in elementary or high school. I worked in the bookstore with two other boys of my age but, maybe because I was small-sized; nobody picked on me or behaved rudely with me.
The anti-Semitic unrest began later: in 1938 or 1939. Then I became a member of the Union of the Young Workers [UYW]. I remember that in the Jewish Chitalishte [17] which didn’t have a name at the time and was known simply like that, a lot of us, young Jewish people used to gather there, but some gangs used to come, they threw objects at us, and shouted slogans against us. In 1939 there were assaults against the Jewish shops. They broke the shop windows and chased and bullied the Jewish shop assistants. Later we put on the badges [18] and a curfew was introduced. We couldn’t afford any willfulness.
The anti-Semitic unrest began later: in 1938 or 1939. Then I became a member of the Union of the Young Workers [UYW]. I remember that in the Jewish Chitalishte [17] which didn’t have a name at the time and was known simply like that, a lot of us, young Jewish people used to gather there, but some gangs used to come, they threw objects at us, and shouted slogans against us. In 1939 there were assaults against the Jewish shops. They broke the shop windows and chased and bullied the Jewish shop assistants. Later we put on the badges [18] and a curfew was introduced. We couldn’t afford any willfulness.
The perimeter of my movement was very limited: from home to school, afterwards to work and the same on the following day and that’s why I don’t have a lot of recollections about the city and its life. I couldn’t play a lot in the street because I didn’t have the time but I remember that the children kicked rag-balls in some of the yards.
The financial situation of the family of my other brother, Isak, was better than ours, too. They had their own apartment on Stefan Karadzha Street, today opposite the Satire Theater and at that time it was opposite the Italian School. They used to live on the last floor. I remember that they had a built-in fireplace in their apartment. His wife’s name was Kler. There was an air of softness about her and she always had a smile on her face. They had two children, Yafa and Isak, who, when I wasn’t at work, for example on Sunday, I would take to the cinema. Isak also used to help my family: me, my mother and Marko, with small sums.
We moved house several times and, as I have already told you, wherever we lived, near us were always my mother’s brother Roben and his wife Rebecca. When we lived on Kiril i Metodii Street, they lived on Exarch Yosif Street; when we were on Pirotska, they came to live somewhere near us on Simeon Street and when we were on Bacho Kiro Street, they lived a block away on Tetevenska, nowadays called Budapeshta Street. Their financial situation was better than ours because their two sons, Hiskia and Sason, worked and their salaries were good. They often helped us with money.
My mother was a sociable woman, in due time she made some Bulgarian friends but continued meeting with her sisters every day. Sometimes she and her sisters, or her Bulgarian friends, would go for a cup of coffee in a confectionery and there they usually served the coffee with a glass of water. There was one such confectionery on Hristo Botev Street, on the corner with Stamboliiski Street.