From the school subjects I also loved literature, because I loved reading. As a child I read mostly the classics, such as Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, Mayne Reid, Jack London, Jules Verne, [Maxim] Gorky [6]. Later I started reading the so-called progressive [i.e. left-wing] literature written after 9th September 1944 [7] – Lenin, Stalin, Marxist literature. I read many such books, probably because my father had them at home even before Bulgaria turned from monarchy into a republic [1946]. At that turning point in history there were three popular newspapers: ‘Utro’ [Morning] [8], ‘Zaria’ [Fireworks] and ‘Zora’ [Dawn] [9]. What was typical about them was their different political orientation. For example, ‘Zaria’ was a progressive newspaper. It was, in a way, the forum of the new times. In other words, it was a leftist newspaper, popularizing the socialist ideas. ‘Zora’ was a fascist publication and was not bought by the common people – only by Branniks [10], Legionaries [Bulgarian Legions] [11], ‘Otets Paisii’ [12] members and chauvinists of the kind. ‘Utro’ was more social newspaper. You could see Jews reading ‘Utro’ or ‘Zaria’ in the streets, the barber’s and coffee shops.
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Displaying 39721 - 39750 of 50826 results
Gitli Alhalel
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I still remember one of the teachers (but I do not remember his name). I only remember that in the first grade we had a special teacher, who was also a headmaster. He taught us in gymnastics. We had classes outside near the Danube, that’s why I loved them. There was also a chamber mandoline orchestra in the school and my father came to conduct us. At that time I learned to play the accordion (that instrument was very popular at the start of the previous century).
From the school subjects I also loved literature, because I loved reading. As a child I read mostly the classics, such as Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, Mayne Reid, Jack London, Jules Verne, [Maxim] Gorky [6].
From the school subjects I also loved literature, because I loved reading. As a child I read mostly the classics, such as Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, Mayne Reid, Jack London, Jules Verne, [Maxim] Gorky [6].
I remember that the chairman of the Jewish organization at that time was Rozanov (I do not remember his first name). I also remember that the Jewish school was only up to the 4th form (equivalent to the present 4th grade). Adon [meaning ‘mister’ in Ivrit] Haim Levi, also from Vidin, taught us Ivrit from the Torah, and before that we read fairy tales in Ivrit. But we studied the letters for a whole year. After that adon Niko (Nissim) Sabetay taught us Ivrit and I also liked him as a teacher. Of course, at first I made mistakes all the time, it was very hard to learn Ivrit, because no one at home knew it. But I gradually got used to it and I even started to like it.
At the end of the previous century Vidin was quite a modest and small town. About 19,000 people lived there. The Jews were around 8,000 (significantly more than they are today). [According to the first census of the population, lands and cattle in the newly-liberated from Turkish rule Bulgaria – a census done by the temporary Russian authority over the Bulgarian lands (1878-1879) the overall number of Jews living in Vidin region was 2202 (1114 men and 1088 women). They lived predominantly in the cities and were 0.94% of the local population, among whom there were also Turks, gypsies and Wallachians. In 1900, 1905 and 1910 only in Vidin the Jewish population was respectively 1,784, 1,873 and 1,727 people. The overall number of citizens in the town was respectively 15,791, 16,387 and 16,450, among whom the Bulgarians were the most (followed by the Turks, the Jews, the gypsies and Wallachians) (the data was taken from the State Archive of the town of Vidin)].
As a child I did not know any special games, nor did I have many toys. I remember that at first the girls and the boys played separately. We, the girls, used to jump over a rope and laugh all day long. Later, we played ball together with the boys. There were no other interesting games.
Our house had two entrances. I remember that we had to pay it in installments because our family was not rich. That is why our landlords lived with us at the beginning. My family lived in one room and every month my father would pay part of the sum for the whole house. Unfortunately, we did not have a garden. But we had a yard with cobblestones – they were very clean, because we washed them every day. We also had electricity. There has been electricity in Vidin since the first half of the 20th century. At first we had some additional sheds – the hen-house, the outside toilet, the ‘shupron’ [a shed for coal and wood: the word comes from French and means 'to enter'. In Bulgaria it has another dialect meaning – a shelter covered in a hurry.] We were very close to the street where the children played all day.
My hometown is Vidin, or Bdin, as they called it in the past. Every Jew born in Vidin remains in love with this town and the country. As a child I loved going for long walks along the river. If you stop at the bend of the river, you can see Kalafat straight in front of you. Here, in Vidin, people like saying metaphorically that the lights of Kalafat are like the lights of life, because at first they are broad, then the river waters shrink them more and more until they dissolve in one single ray.
At home we always spoke in Bulgarian and in Ladino. We spoke both languages at the same time very rarely (maybe when I was a child) - for example, my father or my mother would say something in Ladino, and I would answer in Bulgarian or vice versa. Of course, before I started school I spoke to my peers in Ladino, since we lived in the Jewish neighborhood, Kale. The truth is that the times were different then. I mean, there were not so many mixed marriages between Jews and Bulgarians. Nowadays, the first language children learn is the Bulgarian. At those times my parents and the parents of all children I knew were Sephardi. So, our mother tongue was Ladino. We spoke it at home and outside, we also used it in the Jewish school, because we were all Jewish children from Sephardi families and it was the language closest to us.
My parents have different origin. My father David Avram Levi (1898 – 1969) is a Sephardi Jew born in Vidin [port city on the right bank of the Danube in Bulgaria, 220 km. away from Sofia]. My mother Rashel Avram Levi (nee Benjosef, 1899 – 1975) was also born here, but she is half Ashkenazi Jew. That is, her mother, my grandmother Ester, whose family name I do not know, moved from Germany to Bulgaria due to reasons unknown to me. My father was a middleman and my mother – a housewife.
Most of the Bulgarian Jews came from Spain and so did my ancestors. [1] Far back in the 15th century Jews were persecuted from Spain in 1492 by the royals Fernando and Isabella, because they refused to adopt Christianity. Some of the Jews sailed across the Mediterranean Sea in the direction of North Africa, others passed through Italy and France. A significant part of them settled on the Balkan Peninsula. They were all from the Sephardi group. [2] That’s why all Jews in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia and former Yugoslavia speak Ladino [3] and not Yiddish, for example [the language of the Ashkenazi Jews, who live in Russia, Romania, Germany, Poland and the USA] The nice thing is that all Jews on the Balkan Peninsula can communicate with each other in Ladino. That language is a kind of medieval Spanish, the so-called ‘language of Miguel de Cervantes’ [4] which does not resemble modern-day Spanish.
Present-day relations between Bulgaria and Israel are much different than the ones before 10th November 1989. At that time Bulgaria kept friendly relations with some of the Arab countries, which did not approve of the existence of Israel. Iraq was such a country, the country where now the Bulgarian army tries to restore peace, advocating the US policy. Politics is strange. During totalitarianism we did not speak much about the saving of the Bulgarian Jews, although there were some films and books on the topic. Yet, today, this fact is emphasized by each of the democratic Bulgarian governments. On the other hand, at the end of January 2005 when the world celebrated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the people from the Auschwitz concentration camp (only 2000 people survived thanks to the Russian army) we were the only European country that did not send its Prime Minister to the commemoration ceremonies there. Another curious detail is that the present Prime Minister [i.e. Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prime Minster of Bulgaria between 2001-2005] in Bulgaria is son of a monarch: King Boris III, called by Hitler ‘The Fox’. That same king was in good relations with the national socialists and Hitler. It was King Boris III who introduced the degrading Law for Protection of the Nation and sent those misfortunate 11 343 Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia to certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. But, as people say, politics is complex. That is why I think that the changes here after 1989 have contradictory character.
I am saddened by the fact that the small number of Jews in Vidin (only 26, the others have died or immigrated to Israel) do not have a comfortable life after the fall of the communist regime. The paradox is that now when we have the freedom to gather any time we want, there are too few of us left here. Now the Jewish community is well organized only in Sofia. Here the organization exists in misery and its chairman Zhak Moshe finds it very hard to raise money. The Jewish community in Vidin has had a sad fate since 10th November. We are mostly elder Jews. We gather once or twice a month to celebrate a holiday, for example Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, Purim, Chanukkah, Yom Hashoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day], Yom Atsmaut [the day of independence of Israel, introduced as a national holiday in 1948]. Unfortunately, we are not as active as the Jews in Sofia. Unlike us, they gather often at specific days during the week and at weekends. They have a number of clubs, for example ‘Golden Age’ club [of the elderly people], ‘Health’ club, and the club of the disabled people. They listen to lectures on political, social and economic topics, go to the cinema or to the theater, on excursions, dance and do gymnastics, do everything a pensioner needs to do in order to feel part of society and of the Jewish community. We, in Vidin, do not do most of these activities. We also have problems with our properties. That is what I mean by saying that our organization is in misery.
All Jews in Bulgaria were watched closely before 1989. The Jewish community could not gather on any occasion, even on our high holidays – in the Jewish home or in the synagogue. In other words, we had to ask for permission some of the structures of the Communist Party. Our properties were also nationalized [that is, the properties of the Organization of Jews in Bulgaria ‘Shalom’ [32]]. After 10th November 1989 [33] the situation improved. Then the contradictory restitution law was adopted. It was unfair to the individual citizens but helped our organization. Let me be more specific. Some of our fellow citizens living in Sofia did not own any properties, except the flat owned by the municipality, which they rented. When the law came into force, those people were thrown out on the street by policemen, who threw out their belongings without waiting for the municipality to give them another place to stay. Those flats were returned to their previous owners, who already had a number of flats. That is why I said that the law was unfair. On the other hand, it is not a bad law because it returned the properties of the Organization of Jews, which were nationalized after 9th September 1944. Let’s also not forget that after 10th November 1989 ‘Joint’ [34] and the respective foundation from Switzerland sent us aid during the economic crisis and high inflation. Of course, I see the benefit from the changes and approve of them.
After 9th September 1944 my family continued to celebrate the high Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Tu bi-Shevat (called mostly Frutas in Ladino), [Yom] Kippur, Pesach, Sukkot etc. After 9th September 1944 the general approach of the party was against all religions. The Communist Party forbade people of Jewish origin to gather on their holidays. Yet, we found ways to celebrate. Most often, we visited other families. We did not always go to the synagogue, because my husband and I were active party members, so our activities were observed and at that time visits to the synagogue were not approved.
My husband and I have two children – Streya Mayer Puncheva (nee Alhalel) and Sheli Mayer Vladeva (nee Alhalel). The elder one, Streya, was born in 1949. She graduated from the chemical technical school in Vidin. She has been working as a chemist in the local meat processing plant for some years. My younger daughter Sheli was born in 1954 and is a construction engineer. Unfortunately, she does not have children. I have grandchildren from Streya, who also worked in the municipality in Vidin. My granddaughter Yanita lives in a kibbutz now. She has a family in northern Israel (I do not know the name of the kibbutz). My grandson Lyubomir, who is director of Bulbank in Sofia, also has children. Their names are Konstantin and Mihaela.
My husband was also born in Vidin in 1923. He has secondary high school education. He is a polygraphist (a printer). I remember clearly the relatives of my husband, because we were neighbors. His grandfather was a confectioner and the Jewish children loved him very much. He owned a small confectionery in Kale and sold ice cream and Jewish sweets made by my husband’s grandmother Mazal. For Pesach she made biskuchicos con lokum [Ladino: pastries with Turkish delight], roskitas [Ladino: ring-shaped buns], petikas de almendra [Ladino: almond sweets], which we, the children, loved a lot. His grandmother Mazal was famous as one of the most beautiful women in Vidin. His mother [Bulisa Rafael Alhalel] was a seamstress, she sewed ladies’ underwear and men’s shirts.
He has a sister, with whom I have always got on very well. Her name is Lea Yosef Halfon (nee Alhalel). She was also born in Vidin in 1915. She has always been a housewife and she lives in Beit-Avot (Israel) with her family. Her husband’s name is Yosef Halfon. Their son is Simanto Yosef Halfon.
He has a sister, with whom I have always got on very well. Her name is Lea Yosef Halfon (nee Alhalel). She was also born in Vidin in 1915. She has always been a housewife and she lives in Beit-Avot (Israel) with her family. Her husband’s name is Yosef Halfon. Their son is Simanto Yosef Halfon.
Bulgaria
When we lived in Cherven Briag, we lived comfortably. My husband was involved in many party [Bulgarian Communist Party] activities. I worked as an accountant in the meat processing plant and the construction company in Vidin. I retired at those two positions.
My husband and I married in 1948. Our wedding was on 9th July 1948 in Cherven Briag [a town in Northern Bulgaria, 150 km away from Sofia]. Before that we lived together for one year in Cherven Briag. We married before the registrar on a weekday. I did not have a wedding gown, nor did he have a wedding suit, because we could not afford them. After the wedding we went back to Vidin where we looked after our parents. To be honest, there was a moment when we thought about leaving to Israel. But our parents - his and mine - did not want to, because the four of them already felt old. And yet, many Jews older than them left their life in Bulgaria and emigrated.
My husband [Mayer Rafael Alhalel] told me that the people in his first and second labor camp were about 300-400 people. They were divided into groups: a Vidin one, a Vratsa one and a more general one including workers from Jewish origin born in Northwest Bulgaria. The Vidin group had a ‘seemed-to-be’ vicious and cruel supervisor: that is he cursed the Jews and made them do the hardest work in front of his superiors, but as soon as those superiors went away, he started playing belote with the Jewish men. It was only after 9th September that my husband learned that their strict supervisor was also a UYW member. But he became a supervisor in a Jewish labor camp, because he was very poor and he needed money.
The Soviet army entered Bulgaria not as a conqueror, but as a liberator and the people welcomed it warmly. All authorities have their positive and negative sides. Fascism was good for its supporters, gave them rights and privileges. But the more progressive people wanted to resist that policy, which helped the Germans oppose Russia. A partisan movement developed in Bulgaria, which resisted the support of the Bulgarian government to the Germans. The government, in turn, killed the partisans, set their homes on fire. The terror in that period, especially between 1943-1944 was great. Many young people died, so did many Jews, especially in Plovdiv [a Bulgarian city in Southern Bulgaria, 200 km away from Sofia] and Sofia. There was a concentration camp in Kailuka [31] in Pleven where relatives or brothers of partisans were imprisoned. One summer day in 1944 some fascist organizations set the camp on fire and killed about ten Jews. They were old people, who could not escape from the flames in time.
There were also some Jews who changed their religion in order to save their lives. Then the authorities ordered that the baptized Jews should not be separated from the rest. That is, the disgraceful Law for Protection of the Nation affected them too. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many other people there was not anti-Semitism in Bulgaria. The anti-Semitism was imported here. Or maybe it was based purely on spite and envy, which is something else, neither patriotism, nor chauvinism, nor pride, nor anti-Semitism.
The people in Vidin also discussed a lot the demonstration on 24th May 1943 [24] in Sofia against the internment of the Sofia Jews and the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews [25]. That demonstration started from the Jewish school in Iuchbunar [26], the present-day 134th Dimcho Debelyanov High School and continued to Klementina Sq, where the Jewish Home stands today. [Bet Am] [27] People said that the police caught up with the demonstrators there, dispersed them and arrested many people. Many other were pushed in lorries and transported to labor camps [28]. That demonstration was led by rabbi Daniel [29], who later hid at Bishop Stephan’s place [Exarch Stephan] [30]. The Sofia bishop definitely supported the Jews at that time.
When the Law for Protection of the Nation came into force in 1942, we had to wear yellow six-beam stars made of plastic. They placed a notice with a yellow star on the door of every Jewish home. We were all registered in the municipality as special Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin. Of course the clerks were not very nice to us. There was also a commissariat on the ‘Jewish problem’ in Vidin and in all Bulgarian towns [Commissariat for Jewish Affairs] [23]. We were afraid to pass near it and were also afraid of the Branniks and Legionaries who beat us and humiliated us. There were some streets where we did not go to at all, because there was a special order that Jews should not go out after 9 pm. Our food was rationed, it was very little and one and the same. That was definitely the hardest period of my life, a real nightmare.
When the Law for Protection of the Nation was adopted in 1942 we were not allowed to leave Kale, nor go to school or leave home very often. At that time the advantage was that we could easily enter the neighbor’s yard through doors in the fences. So, all of us, the children, passed from house to house all the time, without going out on the street and spent all the time together. In fact, that helped us much to go through that period. Thanks to those small doors between the yards, we even saved people who were sought to be arrested. For example, the famous anti-fascist Asen Balkanski [The only thing the interviewee knows is that his origin is Bulgarian. He was born in the village of Chuplene, Belogradchik region and around World War II he escaped to Yugoslavia. There is no further information about him.] - commander of a Yugoslav partisan squad hid in the basement of my friend and neighbor Mimi Pizanti for a long time. In the end, a phaeton was arranged for him to leave the town, but he was caught at the border with Yugoslavia and shot as a political prisoner.
Before that incident happened Mimi and I were in the same UYW group [20]. The person in charge of the group was the future professor Avram Pinkas, a distinguished surgeon. The group also included Marsel Varsano, Leon Pinkas, Beka Aladgem. I was also a member of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ [21]. When we were in the last grade in junior high school we all received a leaflet propagating the establishment of a Jewish state. A committee was formed and we went to its meetings. One of the requirements for the foundation of Israel was that the Jews should immigrate there. We were divided into groups. There were people two years older than me, in high school, and two years younger than me, still in primary school. We sang songs and had fun. But most of the time we listened to lectures on various topics – from political to religious (on the essence of religion) and emancipation ones. Some members spent days discussing the fate of the character Nora in ‘Puppets’ House’ by playwright Henrik Ibsen [22]. No matter how meaningless such discussions may seem through the lens of time, they helped us mature. In that way, we developed our individualities and learned to be independent and work in a team.
Mimi Pizanti, the youngest of the three daughters in our neighbors’ family escaped from home later on and fought together with the Bulgarians at the front. All my friends in Vidin were brave Bulgarians and Jews (there were also many Armenians and Turkish people in our town too). My first experience of the Law for Protection of the Nation is also related to Mimi Pizanti, who is older than me. It happened in the Bulgarian high school where all the Jews studied after the 4th grade in the Jewish school. In March 1941 all students of Jewish origin were ordered to wear the disgraceful yellow stars [19]. In that freezing March morning the high school headmaster Mr Cholakov ordered all students to go out and form columns in the schoolyard. Then he said: ‘Gitli Alhalel, Veneta Ilel, Beka Pinkas, Stela Paparo, Mimi Pizanti, Beka Arie, Fifi Kohen (there were also others but I do not remember them) – two steps forward!’ We did that and heard him say: ‘From now on you are not welcome in our school!’ I felt as if I had just been punched in the stomach.
I remember how Mimi Buko Pizanti was humiliated once at school. Some of our classmates had anti-Semitic attitudes towards us. When the Law for Protection of the Nation came into force, we put on the yellow stars and wore them at school. [Jewish children did go to school for a short while wearing the disgraceful yellow stars. After that they were really banished from the classroom because of their Jewish origin. The reason was that the anti-Semitic Law for Protection of the Nation was adopted on 23rd January, 1941. As for the children of the Bulgarian Jews, there was really a paradox because they had to go to school for a couple of months, wearing the yellow stars and studying side by side to the children of the Legionaries. They were banned to go to school in March 1942 when the Law for Protection of the Nation was in full swing.] Once the daughter of the police chief in the neighborhood (who was also the class chairman) shouted in the schoolyard after Mimi: ‘Take off your badge, or I will fine you!’ Mimi said: ‘I can’t take it off, because your father will lock me in…’ It was a very ugly scene.
I remember how Mimi Buko Pizanti was humiliated once at school. Some of our classmates had anti-Semitic attitudes towards us. When the Law for Protection of the Nation came into force, we put on the yellow stars and wore them at school. [Jewish children did go to school for a short while wearing the disgraceful yellow stars. After that they were really banished from the classroom because of their Jewish origin. The reason was that the anti-Semitic Law for Protection of the Nation was adopted on 23rd January, 1941. As for the children of the Bulgarian Jews, there was really a paradox because they had to go to school for a couple of months, wearing the yellow stars and studying side by side to the children of the Legionaries. They were banned to go to school in March 1942 when the Law for Protection of the Nation was in full swing.] Once the daughter of the police chief in the neighborhood (who was also the class chairman) shouted in the schoolyard after Mimi: ‘Take off your badge, or I will fine you!’ Mimi said: ‘I can’t take it off, because your father will lock me in…’ It was a very ugly scene.
Usually there was a fair on the 28th August in Vidin. All students and children, including me, loved going there so that our parents would buy us confetti and sweets. But unfortunately, I remember the bad events more clearly. For example, when the Law for Protection of the Nation [15] came out in 1942 a disgusting man appeared in the Jewish neighborhood, Ivan Zviara [meaning ‘the Beast’]. I witnessed how he banished our neighbors, the Pizanti family, from their own house. They were five of them and they had to sleep in the hen-house. They slept on the floor, without being able to enter their home or use their belongings. People said that the same fascist and evil Bulgarian, Ivan Zviara, went to the Aegean Sea when the Germans led the Aegean Jews [16] sacrificed by King Boris III [17] to the ships, which transported them to the Maydanek concentration camp [18]. People also said that returning from there Ivan Zviara brought back so many unnecessary clothes and things that his wife did not know what to do with them or what they were used for.
Kale was and still is the oldest Jewish neighborhood in Vidin. It was founded when the Jews came to Vidin two centuries ago [the presence of Jews in the vicinity of Vidin dates from Justinian (527-565)]. It is between the Bath and the Baba Vida Fortress. In fact that relatively small area included the whole town at the beginning; that is, the original town was quite small. Now, the residential district ‘Benkovski’ is located there. In the past there were a lot of little streets such as Kaloyan St, Samuil St etc. And in the middle of the neighborhood was Kanlu Dere St (these are Turkish words, ‘dere’ means a river, but I do not know what ‘kanlu’ means). It was the border between the Jewish and the Turkish neighborhood, which was larger and more populated than ours. They even had another Turkish neighborhood called Ag Djamia [Mosque]. The new part of the town was established in the 1920s and the Bulgarians lived there. The Jews and the Turks remained in the old part. That is why there were very few Bulgarian families in Kale (between 40 and 50 families) especially during the Holocaust [the Jewish community of Vidin did not suffer severely during World War II. The decree of expulsion in 1943 was not carried out.].
We have always had good relations with them. At those times the Jews were mostly craftsmen. There were also tinsmiths, the streets were full of barber’s shops, bakeries, workshops of carpenters and glaziers, in which mostly Jews worked. They all lived in Kale and had workshops in various places in town.
We have always had good relations with them. At those times the Jews were mostly craftsmen. There were also tinsmiths, the streets were full of barber’s shops, bakeries, workshops of carpenters and glaziers, in which mostly Jews worked. They all lived in Kale and had workshops in various places in town.
The Baba Vida Fortress [14] is in the center of Vidin. The town itself has a number of zones circling the fortress. The first zone surrounds the fortress and was a ditch in the past. The second zone surrounds the back part of the fortress. And the third zone is the so-called ‘reduti’ [the word comes from French and means a trench for one-man defense]. In fact, the Jewish neighborhood Kale took the most part of the second zone. It was the most favorable neighborhood, because it was the highest neighborhood in Vidin. During the great flood in Vidin in 1942 (when the Danube River flooded our town) the people from the whole town came to Kale. It was the only neighborhood, which was not affected so seriously.
I remember that scary flood very well, because I was 12 years old then. I got really afraid. The Danube River flooded the town because ice had obstructed its path. The river is usually not a pretty sight in winter. That particular winter it had frozen, but a big wave came and broke the ice. The waters of the river got obstructed by the ice and entered the town. For two days the whole town, except parts of Kale, was flooded by the water. Fortunately, there were no victims, apart from an old lady who died from natural causes at that time. I remember how mobilized all the people were then. All students from the upper classes of the men’s high school spread in groups around the neighborhoods to save as many people as possible. They went around the town in military boats and ordinary fishing boats, in which they transported the people from the low one-storey buildings. All of those people had left their belongings behind and fled towards Kale. Of course, most of the buildings were destroyed. On some of the preserved old houses you can still see the sign placed in 1942 showing the level the water reached then. There are also houses where the level was higher than a man’s height. That disaster could be compared in part to the recent tsunami floods in the southern part of the world.
I remember that scary flood very well, because I was 12 years old then. I got really afraid. The Danube River flooded the town because ice had obstructed its path. The river is usually not a pretty sight in winter. That particular winter it had frozen, but a big wave came and broke the ice. The waters of the river got obstructed by the ice and entered the town. For two days the whole town, except parts of Kale, was flooded by the water. Fortunately, there were no victims, apart from an old lady who died from natural causes at that time. I remember how mobilized all the people were then. All students from the upper classes of the men’s high school spread in groups around the neighborhoods to save as many people as possible. They went around the town in military boats and ordinary fishing boats, in which they transported the people from the low one-storey buildings. All of those people had left their belongings behind and fled towards Kale. Of course, most of the buildings were destroyed. On some of the preserved old houses you can still see the sign placed in 1942 showing the level the water reached then. There are also houses where the level was higher than a man’s height. That disaster could be compared in part to the recent tsunami floods in the southern part of the world.
I also remember that the Jewish school was only up to the 4th form (equivalent to the present 4th grade). Adon [meaning ‘mister’ in Ivrit] Haim Levi, also from Vidin, taught us Ivrit from the Torah, and before that we read fairy tales in Ivrit. But we studied the letters for a whole year. After that adon Niko (Nissim) Sabetay taught us Ivrit and I also liked him as a teacher.
Bulgaria