For the first two weeks I was digging trenches in Isaszeg–Szentgyörgypuszta. These were no good for anything except for the Soviet soldiers to piss into when they got there, because the tanks rolled over them like you wouldn’t believe. And then they started us off for Germany along the road to Bács, which was horrible, because we usually had to sleep out in the open or the bottom of a boat. In Gönyű, for instance, in the bottom of a tugboat,41 and in Komárom, on the horse market square. It was November by then, and the conditions were terrible. Since I had false papers, every day I contemplated making my getaway. It wasn’t all that preposterous, especially when we were sleeping out in the open. We marched without being counted, like a herd of cattle. The Hungarian soldiers who accompanied us weren’t really hostile. It’s the gendarmes who were vile. But they accompanied us only along certain stretches of the road.
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Révész Gáborné
Then came October 15. That was the day of the Horthy Proclamation, when the Governor wanted to negotiate a separate peace in that absolutely dilettante political way of his. He thought that the Germans would be kind enough and leave, as if that were only to be expected from Hitler and the Germans in general. The next day Horthy was no longer the regent, and that same day, October 15, the Arrow Cross Party, which had been waiting in the wings, took over the government, and Szálasi sprang into action. That’s when the deportation of Budapest’s Jews began.37 The camp at Auschwitz had been liberated sometime in January 1944, so we couldn’t be taken there.38 There weren’t enough wagons by then. The Jews from the countryside were transported by cattle cars, but we walked on foot all the way to Austria. We had to walk twenty to twenty-five kilometres a day. Those who couldn’t make it were shot. I survived because I was young and had warm clothes and sturdy boots. About fifty of us left together from the same house, and I know that only six of us made it back.
The Arrow Cross took over on October 15, and by the next day there were various limiting degrees issued, for example, that every Jewish who in the spirit of the Nürenberg laws is considered Jewish must show up for labour service, including women between the ages of sixteen and fifty. I had just turned sixteen, so the law applied to me, too.39 . Luckily, my mother was older. Men had to go into labour service if they were between sixteen and sixty years of age. My stepfather was also exempt, because he was working in a German ammunitions factory.40 They ended up going from Dohány utca to the Ernst Museum, where the superintendent hid them, but they later ended up back in the ghetto, from where they were then liberated.
The Arrow Cross took over on October 15, and by the next day there were various limiting degrees issued, for example, that every Jewish who in the spirit of the Nürenberg laws is considered Jewish must show up for labour service, including women between the ages of sixteen and fifty. I had just turned sixteen, so the law applied to me, too.39 . Luckily, my mother was older. Men had to go into labour service if they were between sixteen and sixty years of age. My stepfather was also exempt, because he was working in a German ammunitions factory.40 They ended up going from Dohány utca to the Ernst Museum, where the superintendent hid them, but they later ended up back in the ghetto, from where they were then liberated.
Once took place just outside of Pest. We were crossing a village and a butcher came out of the shop in a big, bloody apron, and handed me a whole calf’s liver. I happened to be marching on the outside of the column. We managed to hide it, and we ate from it almost the whole way. If we were able to light a fire out in the open, we cooked it. When we were very hungry, we sometimes ate it raw. We all had a dixie cup, because we thought we were going for forced labour. In the evening, when we got to a new place, they gave us something to eat. But I ate that liver for a whole week. The other touching episode occurred when we crossed the outskirts of Győr. There was a bakery on the housing estate where the workers of the Wagon Factory of Győr lived. There was a line of women in front of the bakery and they brought out big, two-kilo breads and threw them to us, catch as catch can. I was deeply touched, and I know that this was not an isolated incident. Mária Honti, my best friend, was from Szombathely. She was five years old when this column also passed through Szombathely, and she remembers that her mother, who was a devout Catholic, wrapped two or three portions of food in a kitchen towel and wanted to take it to the column, to give it to the people. The gendarme pushed her away saying that if she wants to join the column, she’s welcome. In short, he threatened her. And her mother gave the bundle to Mária, saying that they won’t push a child aside, and that’s what happened.
In Komárom, my friend, who was two or three years older, and I sneaked away. We made up our minds every day to escape, but didn’t have the strength. At night we slept or rested and waited for the hot soup, and that’s the truth. In Komárom, where we slept on the horse market grounds, we had to get up very early because it was the weekly market and the locals came at five in the morning with their horses. There was a water hydrant, which played an important role. We washed our shoes, washed the mud off, made our appearance a bit more presentable unstitched the yellow star from our coats, and stepped out of line in the crowd and headed towards the Danube. We knew that we must head towards the Danube because on the way we’d spotted arrows that indicated that the railroad station was near the river. We left our knapsacks behind on the horse market grounds, because they would have given us away. I took a bundle more or less the size of a briefcase with me with my father’s blanket from the First World War, a black woollen blanket. My mother had packed it for me so I should have a warm blanket if I needed it. It was held together with a belt, so I took it along because I didn’t know if we’d manage our escape, and I didn’t want to be without a blanket in winter. When the railroad station came into sight – we were somewhere on the outskirts of town – I said to this girl, her name was Edit Láng, that I’m going to put the blanket down on a fence because I won’t be needing it any more. And a boy of about six or seven saw it, and started shouting, deserters! This was a real traumatic experience. When I came home I thought a lot about what could have become of that boy. I felt no hate as such, but I would have liked to know what became of that boy. His family must have held views like that if he said what he said and ran for the gendarmes.
In less than ten minutes, we hadn’t reached the station yet, but the gendarme was there on a bicycle. He took us to the gendarmerie barracks and the next day they put us in the next column. First they put us in a wagon somewhere near Vienna, I don’t know where, and took us to Dachau. If you look on a map, you know that the second front was already approaching from the direction of Normandy, the British-American troops were advancing from the north, the Soviet troops were attacking from the east, so the Germans were wedged in. But they still busied themselves with us. We were in Dachau for two weeks, in a camp called Landsberg. Then they transferred us to another camp. It was called Seestall.42 We still wore our own clothing there, and from time to time, our food was acceptable, too. For instance, I remember how surprised we were that they gave us jam, which was commonly called “Hitler bacon”, to go with the bread. It was a concentrated jam in a box. So things didn’t seem so hopeless there. They gave us hot soup once a day and black coffee once a day, in the morning, with bread and something to go with it.
In less than ten minutes, we hadn’t reached the station yet, but the gendarme was there on a bicycle. He took us to the gendarmerie barracks and the next day they put us in the next column. First they put us in a wagon somewhere near Vienna, I don’t know where, and took us to Dachau. If you look on a map, you know that the second front was already approaching from the direction of Normandy, the British-American troops were advancing from the north, the Soviet troops were attacking from the east, so the Germans were wedged in. But they still busied themselves with us. We were in Dachau for two weeks, in a camp called Landsberg. Then they transferred us to another camp. It was called Seestall.42 We still wore our own clothing there, and from time to time, our food was acceptable, too. For instance, I remember how surprised we were that they gave us jam, which was commonly called “Hitler bacon”, to go with the bread. It was a concentrated jam in a box. So things didn’t seem so hopeless there. They gave us hot soup once a day and black coffee once a day, in the morning, with bread and something to go with it.
The beginning of December, they transferred us to Bergen-Belsen. On the way from Dachau to Bergen-Belsen, we made terribly wide detours.
. Suddenly one Sunday, it was April 15 – of course I didn’t know this at the time because we didn’t even know what month it was – the British-American tanks appeared. They crashed through the camp fence. We heard it and knew that it was over for us now, even though only a few people were still milling about in our barrack. Most of us had died. We slept so close at first, if somebody turned around at night, the entire row had to turn. Now this was finally a thing of the past. We all had our own comfortable space.
There were very few of us left, and those of us who could get to their feet went outside to see what was happening. I couldn’t even stand up, but about an hour from the time they entered the camp, they gave us hot milk. They brought it in a so-called goulash-canon, a big cauldron. We couldn’t believe our eyes. When they saw that those who were still alive were on the verge of starving to death, they wanted to give us something to eat right away. We were like skeletons and not like human beings at all. When I left home, I weighed sixty kilos, and two months after the liberation, when I’d already been given proper food regularly, I was still just twenty-eight kilos. I’d lost more than half of my weight, and on top of that I was in my sixteenth year, when you’re still developing physically, when you’re still growing. The first thing we got was hot, sweet milk. It gave a great many of us strong diarrhoea. Our digestion was completely off. An hour and a half or two hours later, they came with a big vehicle and everybody got two tins. Needless to say, we all fell on them. I remember to this day that these tins were closed so that you had to peel a metal strip off before you could open them. I looked to see what’s inside, like we all did. The first ration that I opened had beans with smoked meat. There’s no food harder to digest, but I thought, I’m going to eat this if it’s the last thing I do. I can’t not eat it. And I devoured it down just as it was, the beans and that big peace of smoked meat. And then I opened the second tin as well, thinking that since they gave it to me, I might as well eat it. I think that this was my great luck, because cocoa is good against diarrhoea. In short, it prevented what little there was inside me from coming out. Actually, most of the others died then, because not everyone was lucky enough to have cocoa in their second tin. Some had two tins of meat, and they ate it. Nobody had the strength of will not to touch it.
There were very few of us left, and those of us who could get to their feet went outside to see what was happening. I couldn’t even stand up, but about an hour from the time they entered the camp, they gave us hot milk. They brought it in a so-called goulash-canon, a big cauldron. We couldn’t believe our eyes. When they saw that those who were still alive were on the verge of starving to death, they wanted to give us something to eat right away. We were like skeletons and not like human beings at all. When I left home, I weighed sixty kilos, and two months after the liberation, when I’d already been given proper food regularly, I was still just twenty-eight kilos. I’d lost more than half of my weight, and on top of that I was in my sixteenth year, when you’re still developing physically, when you’re still growing. The first thing we got was hot, sweet milk. It gave a great many of us strong diarrhoea. Our digestion was completely off. An hour and a half or two hours later, they came with a big vehicle and everybody got two tins. Needless to say, we all fell on them. I remember to this day that these tins were closed so that you had to peel a metal strip off before you could open them. I looked to see what’s inside, like we all did. The first ration that I opened had beans with smoked meat. There’s no food harder to digest, but I thought, I’m going to eat this if it’s the last thing I do. I can’t not eat it. And I devoured it down just as it was, the beans and that big peace of smoked meat. And then I opened the second tin as well, thinking that since they gave it to me, I might as well eat it. I think that this was my great luck, because cocoa is good against diarrhoea. In short, it prevented what little there was inside me from coming out. Actually, most of the others died then, because not everyone was lucky enough to have cocoa in their second tin. Some had two tins of meat, and they ate it. Nobody had the strength of will not to touch it.
On May 8, Victory Day, there was a great big celebration with fireworks and music.46 In as many languages as there were nations in the camp, they announced that the war had ended, meaning in Europe, and that the Germans had capitulated. In short, there was a huge to-do. And I thought, surprised, the war is over only now? As far as I was concerned, it came to an end three weeks earlier, when we were liberated. It was so strange. That’s when we realized that it was over for the others, too, most probably, meaning for those back home.
The story of how I came back home involves Aunt Erzsi, who was working at the Hungarian embassy in Stockholm by then. She got me the airfare from Stockholm to Prague from some foundation. She said that I’d be able to make it home by train from Prague somehow. Anyway, I was able to get home from Prague to Budapest, except really by train, and not by airplane. They were bringing ten Hungarian soldiers home. They had also been taken from Bergen-Belsen to a hospital in Sweden, and since only I spoke a foreign language, German, I was appointed their transport leader, and I accompanied these boys all the way home. They came in handy in Prague, because I had a lot of luggage and other bags to carry by tram from the airport, and they were strong young men. When I saw the Danube from the train, that was the first big shock I had. This was somewhere near Komárom, because the trains had to make big detours. The bridges were down, so we couldn’t come the usual way. We came in to the Eastern Railroad Station by passing all along the Danube Bend. Anyway, the train stopped at the shore of the Danube at the outer station near Komárom, by a watch-box. I stood by the window, crying. And then a track-watchman came over, because the tracks were by his house, and he said not to cry, and filled his cap with cherries he’d picked. And it was the end of May, and those cherries were so puny and watery, but he handed them up to me so I wouldn’t cry.
Once I knew when the plane would be leaving from Stockholm, I sent home a telegram. I sent a telegram in which I said, I’m on the way home, I’m leaving Prague Friday night. I knew that my plane would be arriving in Prague Friday afternoon, and that we’d probably continue the journey that night by train. I took it for granted that my family back home would know when I’d be arriving. I thought that the trains were running according to schedule. But there were no schedules. The trains ran at random. Only later did I learn what happened. My [future] husband went to the Eastern Railroad Station and asked, if someone leaves Prague Friday night, when would they be arriving? They told him not before Tuesday, because trains everywhere were stopping for twelve hours at a stretch, and it’s not likely that my train would get in before Tuesday the earliest. Then he went to the Southern Railroad Station and asked again, and they said that the train might come in on Monday. Then my mother took her shopping bag, because she wanted to do some shopping at the Garay Square market, and then thought that she might as well go to the Western Railroad Station herself to ask, just to be on the safe side. This was on Saturday afternoon. She went to the Western Railroad Station and asked when the train from Prague would be coming in. And they said there’s a train standing on one of the outer tracks that’s come from Prague. However, they don’t know when it left Prague, so she should wait a bit until they find out. Meanwhile, I got off the train. It was purely by chance that we met, because they were expecting me on Monday or Tuesday. I can’t describe what it was like when I suddenly saw my mother.
Once I knew when the plane would be leaving from Stockholm, I sent home a telegram. I sent a telegram in which I said, I’m on the way home, I’m leaving Prague Friday night. I knew that my plane would be arriving in Prague Friday afternoon, and that we’d probably continue the journey that night by train. I took it for granted that my family back home would know when I’d be arriving. I thought that the trains were running according to schedule. But there were no schedules. The trains ran at random. Only later did I learn what happened. My [future] husband went to the Eastern Railroad Station and asked, if someone leaves Prague Friday night, when would they be arriving? They told him not before Tuesday, because trains everywhere were stopping for twelve hours at a stretch, and it’s not likely that my train would get in before Tuesday the earliest. Then he went to the Southern Railroad Station and asked again, and they said that the train might come in on Monday. Then my mother took her shopping bag, because she wanted to do some shopping at the Garay Square market, and then thought that she might as well go to the Western Railroad Station herself to ask, just to be on the safe side. This was on Saturday afternoon. She went to the Western Railroad Station and asked when the train from Prague would be coming in. And they said there’s a train standing on one of the outer tracks that’s come from Prague. However, they don’t know when it left Prague, so she should wait a bit until they find out. Meanwhile, I got off the train. It was purely by chance that we met, because they were expecting me on Monday or Tuesday. I can’t describe what it was like when I suddenly saw my mother.
When I got married, we had our own apartment. But when my mother started taking ill – she had high blood pressure and a bad heart – and she had to retire, we moved in together in Szász Károly utca, in Buda. I was expecting my second child by then. We traded two small apartments for a big, hundred and ten square meter, three and a half room apartment, and the six of us lived there together, my parents, my husband, myself, and the two children.
My husband was a textile worker. He studied at the middle school for the textile industry in Markó utca, here in Budapest before the war. After he graduated, he went to work in a factory in Újpest. He was a textile worker at the Herman Pollack und Söhne textile factory in Újpest. After the liberation the factories weren’t working, not really, the textile factories didn’t either, for lack of raw material. So he went to work for a small tradesman. The place was called the Székács Workshop and it was in Lánchíd utca. He wove a two-meter long fabric for skirts from Australian wool that this small tradesman bought on the black market. He made beautiful things. When I came back home, he gave me two materials for dresses. He designed multi-coloured, square-patterned woollens. They were very beautiful, and one of a kind. He never made two that were alike. You can’t buy anything like it today, of course. This went on until 1947. Then between 1948 and 1952 he finished the Károly Marx University of Economics. When he couldn’t work there anymore, he went to work to a state owned company. This was the National Clothing Institute, where they made uniforms for the military, the police, and other uniforms as well. From there he went to the Ministry of Finance, and later to the Planning Office. He went into retirement from the Institute for Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
We were divorced in 1970.
Next September I enrolled in the Workers’ Gymnasium and graduated. Then I went to university to study philosophy and pedagogy at the ELTE BTK [Eötvös Lóránd University, Faculty of the Humanities]. I received my teacher’s certificate in 1954, and from then on my life was on track, I think, because although our opportunities were limited in comparison to today’s young people, our future was secure. We never had much, but we knew that we could make end meet. Meanwhile my husband had finished the university of economics in evening school, and we lived very well, except that my entire life my state of health prevented me from doing certain things. In 1948 I was in sanatorium with bone tuberculosis, and then again with kidney tuberculosis for a year. I lived a full life, because even during these times I wasn’t idle, because when I was hospitalised with bone tuberculosis, I finished out the year in evening school. I studied in bed that whole year. I lay in a plaster cast for three months, but I kept abreast of the teaching material. I found the profession that is close to my heart. Until 1957 I was teaching assistant in the department of philosophy at ELTE. Then I taught lower level at the Hegedű utca general school until 1959, and from there I went to the Trefort Gymnasium, where I taught until I retired, and where I was vice principal from 1960 to 1988. Between 1989 and 1999 I was principal at the school run by the Autism Foundation.
I bore two children, Magda and Gábor, whom my husband and I put through school. Gábor was born in 1954 and he studied at the Károly Marx University of Economics for two years, then in 1974 he defected. He studied mathematics and philosophy in England, where he got a PhD in mathematics. He then went to live in America, in a city called Lawrence, for two years, where he taught mathematics. In 1987 he came back home and taught mathematics at the University of Miskolc in English and Hungarian. He died unexpectedly in 1997 in Budapest. He has one son, my grandson Bálint Révész. I’m a second mother to him. He spends a lot of time here with me. He lives in Csillaghegy and studies at the Alternative Gymnasium for Economics. Magda was born in 1956 in Budapest. She’s a social psychologist. She studied psychology at ELTE. Presently she’s working for a child’s welfare agency in Budapest. Her son Péter became a general practitioner.
Sometime in the early 1980s we at Trefort, my school, became sisters with a Germany gymnasium in Giessen48 Their choir came to Budapest, and we went to Germany to reciprocate the visit – our choir, the two music teachers, and someone from the school administration. It didn’t even occur to me to go, even though I had very pleasant impressions of the German teachers. I thought that they were very pleasant people. When the question of who should go to Germany was raised, I was nominated, since I spoke German. I’m not going, I protested, because I have promised never to set foot in that country, and I am going to keep that promise. But they kept insisting, saying that I had to go because I speak German. Besides I’m not going of my own accord, it’s work, it’s my duty. And so I went, and the truth is that that’s when I experienced my first serious change of heart with regard to the Germans. When we arrived in Giessen, we were all put up with the families of the children. The two music teachers stayed with the families of the two German music teacher, and I stayed at the home of the principal. I walked into their drawing room, where one of the walls was full of books. While I was waiting for dinner, I browsed through the book shelves, and with only a slight exaggeration, my own library looked back at me – the classics, the German and world literature, those books was also among my own books, including the German literature from between the two world wars, Thomas Mann, for instance, and also the great post-war writers, Lenz, Böll, max von der Grün, Günter Grass, and so on.49 In short all those who wrote about the German conscience, who wrote novels about such things.
That’s when something began to give way inside me, the realization that here, among the Germans, there are many decent people, too. Meanwhile, we sat down to dinner. My host, who was perhaps one year older than me, opened a bottle of champagne. He drank a toast to me, I drank the champagne, and it went to my head. I’d been on the road all day, I drank the champagne on an empty stomach, and so it went to my head. If I had been sober I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but I said to him that I’m not unequivocally happy that I had to come here, because I had promised myself that I would never set foot on German soil, and until now, I have kept that promise. And then I told him why. The principal and his wife turned ashen white. It was a terrible situation. And then my host got up and left the room. Needless to say, I had no idea where he was going. In no time at all he was back. He came back holding a small wooden box – it was pieced together by hand – and handed it to me, telling me to open it. I took from it a letter written on birch-bark that had been rubbed smooth. It was dated October 5, 1944. This was my host’s seventeenth birthday. He had written that letter to his mother. It said, I am seventeen years old today, but I cannot be with you. It was a farewell letter. He wrote that he was going to die soon, and that he thinks of his parents with love. Then he told me that he and his two brothers were taken to Northern Poland to do logging because his father was a Social Democrat printer and he wouldn’t allow his sons to join the Hitler Jugend. He was otherwise a very religious Catholic. So basically to punish him, they took his three sons to a labour camp. His two older brothers died there and were buried there. He came home with tuberculosis and had to undergo surgery to remove one of his lungs. And I felt terribly ashamed that I had condemned prejudice against Jews, but at the same time I was guilty of the same thing, I was prejudiced against the Germans and boycotted Germany as such. At that moment I put this whole thing behind me once and for all.
That’s when something began to give way inside me, the realization that here, among the Germans, there are many decent people, too. Meanwhile, we sat down to dinner. My host, who was perhaps one year older than me, opened a bottle of champagne. He drank a toast to me, I drank the champagne, and it went to my head. I’d been on the road all day, I drank the champagne on an empty stomach, and so it went to my head. If I had been sober I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but I said to him that I’m not unequivocally happy that I had to come here, because I had promised myself that I would never set foot on German soil, and until now, I have kept that promise. And then I told him why. The principal and his wife turned ashen white. It was a terrible situation. And then my host got up and left the room. Needless to say, I had no idea where he was going. In no time at all he was back. He came back holding a small wooden box – it was pieced together by hand – and handed it to me, telling me to open it. I took from it a letter written on birch-bark that had been rubbed smooth. It was dated October 5, 1944. This was my host’s seventeenth birthday. He had written that letter to his mother. It said, I am seventeen years old today, but I cannot be with you. It was a farewell letter. He wrote that he was going to die soon, and that he thinks of his parents with love. Then he told me that he and his two brothers were taken to Northern Poland to do logging because his father was a Social Democrat printer and he wouldn’t allow his sons to join the Hitler Jugend. He was otherwise a very religious Catholic. So basically to punish him, they took his three sons to a labour camp. His two older brothers died there and were buried there. He came home with tuberculosis and had to undergo surgery to remove one of his lungs. And I felt terribly ashamed that I had condemned prejudice against Jews, but at the same time I was guilty of the same thing, I was prejudiced against the Germans and boycotted Germany as such. At that moment I put this whole thing behind me once and for all.
I feel that it is my duty to pass on the horrors of war. I’ve been to the Trefort Gymnasium, my old school, where I spoke about these things to a class who were preparing to go on a class excursion to Poland and were going to stop at Auschwitz. I talked about the subject during a history class in my grandchild’s school. I consider it very important that these children should know what happened and not be taken in by lies. I know that I am of Jewish extraction. My children and my grandchildren know it too. I’m not making a secret of it. In the fall of 2005, I took my children and grandchildren to Auschwitz. I have never felt that the non-Jews living around me were hostile to me, ever, or are hostile now. I feel no such thing, I never experienced any such thing. All the same, I am aware of the existence of anti-Semitism. When I came home, we had a regime in which people could not say bad things against the Jews. I know that it is customary and even fashionable to deride the decades that today they call communism, but there was no abusing the Jews back then. People may have felt that way, and maybe there were people who thought differently, but they never gave any tokens of it. I like to look for the good in people, and not the bad, and as I result, I don’t experience the bad.
csernovits sámuel
Szélsőségesen vallásos ember volt, és azzá nevelte a fiát, édesapámat is. Beregszászon és általában a keleti részeken mind ilyen szektás zsidó vallásokat hoztak létre. Szektás zsidókon a fanatikusan vallásos közösségeket értem.
Nagyapám a haszid irányzat tagjaként, az ottani [beregszászi] ortodox zsidó közösséghez tartozott.
Nagyapám a haszid irányzat tagjaként, az ottani [beregszászi] ortodox zsidó közösséghez tartozott. Szélsőségesen vallásos ember volt, és azzá nevelte a fiát, édesapámat is. Beregszászon és általában a keleti részeken mind ilyen szektás zsidó vallásokat hoztak létre. Szektás zsidókon a fanatikusan vallásos közösségeket értem. Ez főleg a Kelet-Európába vándorolt zsidó csoportokra volt jellemző.
Rafael Beraha
Of course, I have received money from Switzerland. What’s more, we really depend on them, because my sons in Bulgaria were unemployed, although one was an engineer and the other a philologist. I couldn’t support them with my pension. And they had to emigrate in order to find work, although they both have university education. We keep in touch with our relatives in Israel – by phone or by letters.
Bulgaria
Although I took part in the illegal plot against Todor Zhivkov, I definitely think that nothing positive came out of the changes after 10th November 1989 [24]. Yes, I was against Todor Zhivkov, but he was a man who valued Bulgaria. And the people who have come after him do not value Bulgaria at all. They would sell even their mothers, if they had the chance. They are selling their country. These are people, who... I have always said that, I can also give you something I wrote: ‘Bulgarians, preserve your land!’ I have a whole article, which has been reprinted four times now. I published it in the local paper Utro [Morning] in Ruse.
I must say that during the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria I was repressed. I took part in the illegal ‘Gorunya Plot’ in 1965. Ivan Todorov, nicknamed Gorunya [‘gorunya’ is an old Bulgarian word meaning a strong and resilient tree, used metaphorically in this case] initiated the legendary attempt for a coup d’etat against Todor Zhivkov [22]. Ivan Todorov-Gorunya was a member of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and head of the department ‘Marine Farming’ in the Ministry of Agriculture. Before that he had been a partisan leader. His disagreement with the policy of the head of state Todor Zhivkov led to his decision to organize this [unsuccessful] coup d’etat, commonly known as the ‘Gorunya Plot’. I was also involved in a political scandal by my colleagues, but I want to emphasize that my Jewish origin has nothing to do with these events. I had two sentences. But I wasn’t in prison. I will try to explain in short the reasons for that.
In Ruse I taught in the Technical University. Suddenly they decided to change the profile of the institute – they wanted to make it an agricultural institute, which sparked the protests of the teachers. I, personally, wrote a letter to Politburo [Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party] saying that it wasn’t expedient now that we had a technical profile to turn it into an agricultural one. But the party thought otherwise. That’s why they sent me to Sofia with some members from the academic circles to defend our ideas and try to keep the institute as it was. The rector Atanas Ganev, who is an agronomist – at the moment he chairs the agricultural cooperatives in Ruse – insisted on that transformation. His driver also came with us to Sofia. It happened so that his driver and I were in one room. He stole my letter. I hadn’t sent it in advance, because I was told that the Academic Council had already prepared such a letter. So, it was meaningless to repeat one and the same thing. But then the big act of treachery took place – the District Committee of the Party sent my stolen letter to the party organization to review it. I was also a member of the Communist Party then. The party bureau gathered and the party secretary, who was one of the obedient ones, said that the letter he had received wasn’t coordinated with the Party. Although I still also had the right to reply, after all! In addition, the academic council had also written a protest letter similar to mine. And I did not even send mine…and I told them, ‘Let’s see if I’ve written anything wrong in it.’
They started bullying me: that didn’t matter, what was important was to say that I had made my colleagues think like me… I told them, ‘I’ve discussed this issue with no one else.’ But they didn’t believe me. They wanted me to make a written confession. Then I realized that my letter had been stolen and I got very angry. I grabbed a chair and hit the party secretary Krastyo Petrov, who was just about to write, on the hand. It seemed that I cracked the bone between the elbow and the wrist of his right hand. They decided to form a conspiracy. I and some colleagues of mine were separated, like an anti-party group. It was easier for them to say that I was supported by colleagues of mine – political prisoners before 9th September 1944 [24]: Tsviatko Lilov and Sabetay Levi, Donka Grancharova and some others.
I was put on trial, accused of hitting the party secretary on the head with the intention of killing him. So, they made up a sentence. But the judge, Lilyana Atanasova was a smart woman and saw what it was all about. She decided to sentence me to three years on probation, because I had to be sentenced in some way – the Central Committee of the Communist Party had ordered so. But the district chief Petar Danailov said at a meeting, ‘How is this possible? How is this possible?’ Meaning, how was it possible for me to receive such a light sentence. But my defenders were a district advisor to the Party, Maximov and a very good lawyer, Markaryan, an Armenian. He was a bit timid, but he defended me well. Maximov also defended me well. After the defense Danailov got very angry and said that he would file an objection in the Supreme Court. So, they filed it. The Supreme Court reviewed the case and sentenced me to three years in prison; the sentence was suspended.
In 1963 I was released from the institute and I was sent to work in the SPATSP [State Plant for Auto, Tractor and Spare Parts]. I worked there for one year and I was the chief technologist in the plant. Then I went to work in the ship construction company in Ruse, where a university colleague of mine, Dicho Petrov Dichev, worked. He is also an engineer; he graduated in ship construction in Varna. Dichev was a very close friend of my lawyer Markaryan. And he told him, ‘Listen, this man has two children. How could you put him on trial! Do you know what will happen to his wife and two children?’ Markaryan thought about it and it seems that he realized that they had gone too far. Then he went to the presidium and said, ‘Let’s put right what happened.’ He told our director, ‘And you write a clemency appeal.’ But I didn’t want to be pardoned and insisted on that. But I also didn’t want to go to a socialist prison. Dichev and Markaryan wrote an appeal, which they gave to me to sign. I told them, ‘I don’t want to and I will not sign!’ But in the end they convinced me and I signed it. So, they saved me. They arranged a pardon for me. That happened in 1963.
As I mentioned earlier, I joined the so-called ‘Gorunya Plot’ aiming to depose Todor Zhivkov from power by an army coup d’etat. I, personally, wasn’t among these 140 people most directly involved in the coup, because I’m senior lieutenant by rank – one of the non-commissioned officer ranks. [Most of the 140 people were generals, senior and superior officers. The senior officers had ranks higher than a mayor and the superior officers higher than a colonel.] But I was the only Jew taking part in the plot. Yet, most of us were military servicemen. However, the authorities uncovered the plot. Thus, I received my second sentence. Yet, they didn’t dare to sentence me. They didn’t even call me as a prosecutor’s witness. Because something happened before that.
I had to go to Sofia to collect materials for a report to be used in the education of welders throughout the country. I went to the welding institute, but they came and took me straight to the central prison. General Spassov from the Ministry of Internal Affairs awaited me there. He was assigned the investigation on the ‘Gorunya’ plot. He asked me, ‘Why did you take part?’ And I said, ‘The world was created to be changed.’ I wasn’t scared. I had already become inured to everything. ‘What? Don’t you quote Marx on me!’ And I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I quote him? He is your guiding light!’ They kept me there a day and a half... But I told them nothing. In the end, Todor Zhivkov said that he wouldn’t sentence all participants in the plot. In order to avoid news of the incident spreading around, they sentenced only the leader of the group in Ruse – Avram Chernev and lieutenant-colonel Blagoy Mavrodiev. Both have already passed away. We, the other participants, were not harmed, because that would have meant a big trial in court. But I was under surveillance for 27 years.
In Ruse I taught in the Technical University. Suddenly they decided to change the profile of the institute – they wanted to make it an agricultural institute, which sparked the protests of the teachers. I, personally, wrote a letter to Politburo [Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party] saying that it wasn’t expedient now that we had a technical profile to turn it into an agricultural one. But the party thought otherwise. That’s why they sent me to Sofia with some members from the academic circles to defend our ideas and try to keep the institute as it was. The rector Atanas Ganev, who is an agronomist – at the moment he chairs the agricultural cooperatives in Ruse – insisted on that transformation. His driver also came with us to Sofia. It happened so that his driver and I were in one room. He stole my letter. I hadn’t sent it in advance, because I was told that the Academic Council had already prepared such a letter. So, it was meaningless to repeat one and the same thing. But then the big act of treachery took place – the District Committee of the Party sent my stolen letter to the party organization to review it. I was also a member of the Communist Party then. The party bureau gathered and the party secretary, who was one of the obedient ones, said that the letter he had received wasn’t coordinated with the Party. Although I still also had the right to reply, after all! In addition, the academic council had also written a protest letter similar to mine. And I did not even send mine…and I told them, ‘Let’s see if I’ve written anything wrong in it.’
They started bullying me: that didn’t matter, what was important was to say that I had made my colleagues think like me… I told them, ‘I’ve discussed this issue with no one else.’ But they didn’t believe me. They wanted me to make a written confession. Then I realized that my letter had been stolen and I got very angry. I grabbed a chair and hit the party secretary Krastyo Petrov, who was just about to write, on the hand. It seemed that I cracked the bone between the elbow and the wrist of his right hand. They decided to form a conspiracy. I and some colleagues of mine were separated, like an anti-party group. It was easier for them to say that I was supported by colleagues of mine – political prisoners before 9th September 1944 [24]: Tsviatko Lilov and Sabetay Levi, Donka Grancharova and some others.
I was put on trial, accused of hitting the party secretary on the head with the intention of killing him. So, they made up a sentence. But the judge, Lilyana Atanasova was a smart woman and saw what it was all about. She decided to sentence me to three years on probation, because I had to be sentenced in some way – the Central Committee of the Communist Party had ordered so. But the district chief Petar Danailov said at a meeting, ‘How is this possible? How is this possible?’ Meaning, how was it possible for me to receive such a light sentence. But my defenders were a district advisor to the Party, Maximov and a very good lawyer, Markaryan, an Armenian. He was a bit timid, but he defended me well. Maximov also defended me well. After the defense Danailov got very angry and said that he would file an objection in the Supreme Court. So, they filed it. The Supreme Court reviewed the case and sentenced me to three years in prison; the sentence was suspended.
In 1963 I was released from the institute and I was sent to work in the SPATSP [State Plant for Auto, Tractor and Spare Parts]. I worked there for one year and I was the chief technologist in the plant. Then I went to work in the ship construction company in Ruse, where a university colleague of mine, Dicho Petrov Dichev, worked. He is also an engineer; he graduated in ship construction in Varna. Dichev was a very close friend of my lawyer Markaryan. And he told him, ‘Listen, this man has two children. How could you put him on trial! Do you know what will happen to his wife and two children?’ Markaryan thought about it and it seems that he realized that they had gone too far. Then he went to the presidium and said, ‘Let’s put right what happened.’ He told our director, ‘And you write a clemency appeal.’ But I didn’t want to be pardoned and insisted on that. But I also didn’t want to go to a socialist prison. Dichev and Markaryan wrote an appeal, which they gave to me to sign. I told them, ‘I don’t want to and I will not sign!’ But in the end they convinced me and I signed it. So, they saved me. They arranged a pardon for me. That happened in 1963.
As I mentioned earlier, I joined the so-called ‘Gorunya Plot’ aiming to depose Todor Zhivkov from power by an army coup d’etat. I, personally, wasn’t among these 140 people most directly involved in the coup, because I’m senior lieutenant by rank – one of the non-commissioned officer ranks. [Most of the 140 people were generals, senior and superior officers. The senior officers had ranks higher than a mayor and the superior officers higher than a colonel.] But I was the only Jew taking part in the plot. Yet, most of us were military servicemen. However, the authorities uncovered the plot. Thus, I received my second sentence. Yet, they didn’t dare to sentence me. They didn’t even call me as a prosecutor’s witness. Because something happened before that.
I had to go to Sofia to collect materials for a report to be used in the education of welders throughout the country. I went to the welding institute, but they came and took me straight to the central prison. General Spassov from the Ministry of Internal Affairs awaited me there. He was assigned the investigation on the ‘Gorunya’ plot. He asked me, ‘Why did you take part?’ And I said, ‘The world was created to be changed.’ I wasn’t scared. I had already become inured to everything. ‘What? Don’t you quote Marx on me!’ And I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I quote him? He is your guiding light!’ They kept me there a day and a half... But I told them nothing. In the end, Todor Zhivkov said that he wouldn’t sentence all participants in the plot. In order to avoid news of the incident spreading around, they sentenced only the leader of the group in Ruse – Avram Chernev and lieutenant-colonel Blagoy Mavrodiev. Both have already passed away. We, the other participants, were not harmed, because that would have meant a big trial in court. But I was under surveillance for 27 years.
After 1944 I remained in Bulgaria to serve the ideas of socialist labor. I could have moved to Israel like my brothers, but I didn’t want to. I worked as an engineer in machine construction and ship construction in Ruse, Shumen, Vratsa and Sopot [the military plants]. At that time there was ship construction in Bulgaria; now the economy has been destroyed.
We have two sons: Vladimir Rafael Beraha and Ilya Yakov Beraha. We raised them to feel Jewish. Vladimir was born on 30th May 1951 in Sofia. He graduated in machine engineering from the Higher Institute on Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture in Ruse. Before that he was a labor service man in Svishtov, where he got a severe form of colitis, which he still has. Vladimir has been in Israel with his family for eight years now. They live in the Bulgarian colony in Bat Yam, the suburb in Tel Aviv. My son’s wife is Bulgarian. Her name is Rumiana Beraha, nee Stefanova. She is an engineer. She was born in Lom and my son and she met in the school for ship construction in Ruse, where they both studied. They married in 1979 or 1980. They have two sons: Rossen and Avishay. Avishay is a student, who is now twelve years old.
When Vladimir’s first son was born, he asked me whether they should name him Rossen Vladimir Rafailov, instead of Rossen Vladimir Beraha. This question is very important for every father and son: to take the family name – in this case Beraha – or Rafailov, after me, for the continuation of the kin. I chose the family name, of course, because I strongly believe that the family name should be preserved. It should be known so that our heirs know where they come from. Rossen was born in 1981 and Avishay in 1991. At the moment he is a student of the sixth grade, he studies in a high school in Israel. Every summer Avishay comes to Ruse for the vacation to spend it with his grandparents.
My son Ilya was born on 20th August 1962 in Ruse. He graduated in English philology in Sofia. He has been living with his family in New York for three years. Ilya’s wife is Bulgarian. Her name is Zornitsa Beraha, nee Vladimirova. She was born 28 years ago, in 1975. She is an economist. At the moment she works as a clerk in a bank in Manhattan. They have one daughter named Niya, who studies in art school in New York.
When Vladimir’s first son was born, he asked me whether they should name him Rossen Vladimir Rafailov, instead of Rossen Vladimir Beraha. This question is very important for every father and son: to take the family name – in this case Beraha – or Rafailov, after me, for the continuation of the kin. I chose the family name, of course, because I strongly believe that the family name should be preserved. It should be known so that our heirs know where they come from. Rossen was born in 1981 and Avishay in 1991. At the moment he is a student of the sixth grade, he studies in a high school in Israel. Every summer Avishay comes to Ruse for the vacation to spend it with his grandparents.
My son Ilya was born on 20th August 1962 in Ruse. He graduated in English philology in Sofia. He has been living with his family in New York for three years. Ilya’s wife is Bulgarian. Her name is Zornitsa Beraha, nee Vladimirova. She was born 28 years ago, in 1975. She is an economist. At the moment she works as a clerk in a bank in Manhattan. They have one daughter named Niya, who studies in art school in New York.
In 1954 I returned from my studies. I studied the first year in Ruse and then in Sofia, in the State Polytechnic University ‘Stalin’. In this period I wore glasses, because I worked during the night from 11 o’clock until 5 o’clock in the morning. The whole factory was dark at that time, except my cutting machine, an instrument processing metal and giving much productivity to the processed material. I made shafts, which I milled. I came home after 5am, and my wife woke me up at 7am every morning so that I would go to lectures. My eyesight got worse at that time.
My wife was born on 8th February 1927 in the village of Galiche, Vratsa region. She isn’t Jewish. Her grandfather Garto Pashkov died in the Balkan War in 1913. My wife lived in Oriahovo. She finished her secondary education there. After that she graduated from the Pedagogic College in Burgas. Her specialty was Bulgarian philology. She worked as junior high school teacher, but when she came to Ruse, she decided to train for a new job. She started work as a lab chemist in the lab of the Ruse plant for agricultural machines named after Georgi Dimitrov [21]. She worked there for 35 years. She became a shock worker of the socialist labor.
2nd June 1946 is a remarkable date in my life, because then I met my wife: Ganka Penova Pashkova. I was a soldier in the Military Command Office. I saw her by accident. Opposite the office there was a small park [now the American market – this small and tidy market is called this way by the locals, but nobody knows why – and the synagogue are there]. I saw three or four girls sitting on a bench reading. Later I found out that they were just finishing their last year of high school in Oriahovo. I went closer to them. There were roses around. I said to myself, ‘I like this girl’ and picked a rose. It was then that I noticed that they were reading the philosophy dictionary of Rosenthal and Yudin. [M.Rosenthal & P.Yudin: ‘A Short Dictionary of Philosophy’, translated and published in Bulgaria in 1946] My first thought was that she was ‘a girl of ours’, a Jew. After all, she was reading the famous dialectical and historical materialism of Rosenthal and Yudin. I gave her the rose in front of her friends. We started talking; I showed them around town because they were from Oriahovo. They had come on an excursion. Then Ganka and I started writing letters to each other.
Later, I visited her in Oriahovo to help her with her graduation exam, because I had already graduated two years before. We continued to write letters to each other for three more years. All the time I wanted to tell her that my brothers and some friends were leaving for Israel, while I wanted to stay here and study to become an engineer. That was my childhood dream. In the end I wrote her a sincere letter, saying, ‘Bear in mind that I am poor. I have no money so think carefully whether you want our relationship to continue. You must know my situation.’ At that time we no longer had a house, because we had sold our house in Kazanlak. But she agreed. ‘You might be just a porter, but I love you.’ We exchanged letters for three years, then I went to Burgas where she was studying at university, we got engaged and after two or three months we got married. We married on 14th January 1949 in Ruse. Then I went to study at university in Sofia.
Later, I visited her in Oriahovo to help her with her graduation exam, because I had already graduated two years before. We continued to write letters to each other for three more years. All the time I wanted to tell her that my brothers and some friends were leaving for Israel, while I wanted to stay here and study to become an engineer. That was my childhood dream. In the end I wrote her a sincere letter, saying, ‘Bear in mind that I am poor. I have no money so think carefully whether you want our relationship to continue. You must know my situation.’ At that time we no longer had a house, because we had sold our house in Kazanlak. But she agreed. ‘You might be just a porter, but I love you.’ We exchanged letters for three years, then I went to Burgas where she was studying at university, we got engaged and after two or three months we got married. We married on 14th January 1949 in Ruse. Then I went to study at university in Sofia.
Of course, there was a difference between the Jewish communities in Kazanlak and Ruse. In Kazanlak there was a community of more than 250 Jews, who were all some distant cousins. There were more Jews in Ruse – 2,500, some of whom didn’t even know each other. But there were some families of intellectuals with very famous family names. The world-famous writer, Nobel laureate Elias Canetti [19], was born in Ruse. So were the great Bulgarian director Leon Daniel and many others. There was also a Bnai Brith lodge. That was a Masonic lodge, which had its club. That club was run by my uncle Yako Bidjerano – my mother’s third brother. I must say that he was only an organizer and not a member of the club. So, I didn’t know what its activities were. It wasn’t a charity one. In any case, only rich Jews gathered there, for example the families Lazar, Aron, Uziel, Ventura – the father of Ana Ventura, who was a factory owner –, Iskovich, Levi and Mizrahi, who owned the socks factory ‘Fazan’. To be honest, they were the color of Ruse. They helped us: for example I worked in the factory owned by Ventura, ‘Zhiti’. But their help wasn’t motivated by principles, valued by the members of the Bnai Brith lodge. While in Kazanlak there were only one or two rich families and they were something like the local aristocrats.
Both Ruse and Kazanlak had their Jewish neighborhoods. The typical Jewish professions at that time were those related to trade. The market of Kazanlak was in the center of the town – around the so-called ‘Tsarska Cheshma’ [King’s Fountain], which was built on the occasion of the visit of King Ferdinand to the town. Usually the vendors coming from the villages were arranged in a line. It was very interesting for me to watch the famous Bulgarian writer Chudomir Chorbadzhiski, who went around and took down in shorthand what the village women were saying to each other. His wife was my teacher in drawing. In Ruse there were a number of markets. We went to the one closest to the Jewish neighborhood. It wasn’t much different from the other markets in the country.
There was only one synagogue in Kazanlak, while there were two in Ruse – a Sephardi [20] one and an Ashkenazi one. But there was a wonderful rabbi, Heskiya, the father of Zako Heskiya [a famous Bulgarian film director], in Kazanlak. I don’t know about Ruse, because I wasn’t from a religious family and I didn’t go to the synagogue. But I know that the Sepharadi synagogue is very interesting, because its dome is built without supporting beams. However, the Jews in Ruse sold it to an Evangelic sect [a neo-protestant church] at the beginning of the 1990s. Of course, the Evangelists renovated it, with the help of an American foundation.
Both Ruse and Kazanlak had their Jewish neighborhoods. The typical Jewish professions at that time were those related to trade. The market of Kazanlak was in the center of the town – around the so-called ‘Tsarska Cheshma’ [King’s Fountain], which was built on the occasion of the visit of King Ferdinand to the town. Usually the vendors coming from the villages were arranged in a line. It was very interesting for me to watch the famous Bulgarian writer Chudomir Chorbadzhiski, who went around and took down in shorthand what the village women were saying to each other. His wife was my teacher in drawing. In Ruse there were a number of markets. We went to the one closest to the Jewish neighborhood. It wasn’t much different from the other markets in the country.
There was only one synagogue in Kazanlak, while there were two in Ruse – a Sephardi [20] one and an Ashkenazi one. But there was a wonderful rabbi, Heskiya, the father of Zako Heskiya [a famous Bulgarian film director], in Kazanlak. I don’t know about Ruse, because I wasn’t from a religious family and I didn’t go to the synagogue. But I know that the Sepharadi synagogue is very interesting, because its dome is built without supporting beams. However, the Jews in Ruse sold it to an Evangelic sect [a neo-protestant church] at the beginning of the 1990s. Of course, the Evangelists renovated it, with the help of an American foundation.
Bulgaria
There is an interesting story involving my brother Zako from the time he worked in the labor camp ‘Sveti Vrach’ in 1943. At that time the wagons full of Jews from the Aegean Thrace and Macedonia going to the death camps passed through their camp. [The Jews in the Bulgarian occupied lands in Yugoslavia and Greece were deported to death camps.] My brother wrote a letter to his wife describing the miserable condition of these people – stuffed like animals in the wagons with no food or water. He described the whole tragedy. But the authorities took hold of that letter and imprisoned my brother. We had to give the sum from the sale of our house in Kazanlak to the authorities in order to save him. Otherwise, he would have been sentenced and would have died.
I was sent to a forced labor camp [18], right after I finished school in 1944. At that time the children who finished secondary school were mobilized right away. So was I. I was not 19 years old yet at that time, but I worked for three months and a half in Jewish labor camps – in the villages Smyadovo and Vesselinovo [they are near the town of Shumen]. We repaired the Smyadovo-Vesselinovo road. It was very difficult – we had to break very hard stones made from syenite in the Shumen Mountains. I still have a deformation of my fingers from the work. At that time my family was supported by relatives thanks to the fact that my brothers and I worked for the brothers of my aunt – tanti [aunt] Zheneva, the wife of uncle Davidcho. They were big commissioners. We worked for them in the winter and in the labor camps in the summer.
I will never forget the Brannik leader, Simeon Tonchev, who was also in our school. When on 7th March 1943 we learned that we had to leave for Poland – and we had to leave on 9th March – he came to my house to say goodbye, since everyone knew that there was no return from there… Because, when the Germans would show to my classmates soap, ‘Seife von Juden’ [Soap of Jews], everyone knew very well what the situation was and we abandoned all hope. I remember the Germans standing in line and selling cheap watches along the alley towards the Technical School, where the students often gathered. One of them took out the soap in question and showed it. By the way, Serbian prisoners of war were daily led along this alley in the center of Ruse during World War II.
Some people asked us during the war: ‘Why aren’t you rebelling?’ I said, ‘How can you rebel against an organized army? This means to speed your death.’ Well, at that time we were lucky to be sent only to labor camps and to obey the anti-Jewish regulations.
Some people asked us during the war: ‘Why aren’t you rebelling?’ I said, ‘How can you rebel against an organized army? This means to speed your death.’ Well, at that time we were lucky to be sent only to labor camps and to obey the anti-Jewish regulations.