In 1940 the Soviet power was established. At this moment papa was at the training in the Romanian army. Mama dressed me and Sheiva fancily and we went to the railway station to meet papa every day. When he arrived, he told mama that the Romanian military told them: ‘Don’t worry, we will be back a year from now’. Papa had education and was offered a position of director of the Center for domestic services. Papa went to work there.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 39661 - 39690 of 50826 results
Tamara Koblik
In summer the war began. Papa, mama, Sheiva and I evacuated. We had our bags of luggage with us and traveled on a freight train. When we were crossing the Dnestr, an air raid began. I remember well how the train operator tried to maneuver: forward-backward, forward-backward … Mama covered Sheiva and me with blankets. It was light, though it was already evening. We arrived at Rybnitsa on the opposite bank. Mama said her sister Riva lived here whom she hadn’t seen since 1918, but the train passed without stopping. We arrived at Krasnodar. From there we were taken to the kolkhoz [4] ‘Verniy put’ [The right way] in Kropotkin district by truck. Mama’s niece Zhenia and her daughter Dora were with us, but I don’t remember, when they joined us. A beautiful young Russian woman, whose husband, a lieutenant, was at the front, took us to her house. She had no children. Mama went to work in the field. On the first day she burnt her hands in the sun and they were covered with blisters. She had a short-sleeved dress on. Papa went to work as a shepherd.
Few months later Germans approached the Krasnodar Kray [Russian administrative division]. Chairman of the kolkhoz told us: ‘You’ve got to leave. Germans are close, and you are Jews’. They gave us wagons and we rode to Krasnodar. From there we took a freight train to Makhachkala. We were to cross the Caspian Sea to Krasnovodsk. There were crowds of people. We were accommodated in a hostel where we met mama’s sister Sonia Gandelman and her daughter Haya. One night militia came to check our documents. They took papa with them. Later mama got to know that he was charged of deserting: he was supposed to obtain a necessary military permit in Krasnodar.
Mama said we would not leave Makhachkala till she found out what happened to papa. Aunt Sonia and she rented a room and mama went to work to support us. We stayed there 5-6 months. Mama was trying to find out what happened to papa. Later she was told he was to be under trial as an ‘enemy of the people’ [5]. Papa was to be tried by the military tribunal. Mama managed to get to the court building. When papa came out of the building he managed to tell her in Yiddish: ‘Take care of the children. I am finished’. He gave her his watch and some money he had with him. Papa was sentenced to eight years, but I don’t know whether he had to serve his sentence in jail or in a camp. He was sent to Nizhniy Tagil. This was the last time we saw papa.
Mama and aunt Sonia worked at a factory. It was getting colder. Sheiva got pneumonia. She was 12 years old and she died. Makhachkala was a horrific town. I lost my father and my older sister there.
We went by train, but I don’t remember the trip. In Bukhara we settled down near the Gandelmans. Moisha was a tinsmith, Fania was a housewife. My mama went to work at the knitwear factory. We lived in a small room that we rented from an Uzbek family. There was a bed on bricks, there was a box full of dried apricots and a little table on shaky legs. There was a niche in the wall where we kept our clothes. Mama didn’t send me to school: I was to watch our belongings, but I think mama was reluctant to let me out of the house after the loss of her husband and daughter.
Ida Alkalai
During the internment of Jews in 1943 [14] in Sofia, a family of four came to live with us. That was the Kohen family. They were my mother’s relatives. We had a kitchen, living-room and one more room. We gave them the living-room. They stayed with us for some months.
At the beginning of the 1940s, when the anti-Jewish laws were adopted, we were very worried. My father continued working. He was close to a lot of villagers, who kept on buying goods from him. Otherwise, all the Jewish workshops, bank and organizations were closed.
In school I didn’t have problems because of my origin. I remember that during the war [World War II] some Germans, civilians and military, were accommodated in the vocational school. I don’t know why. But they didn’t treat us badly.
Bulgaria
After three classes in a junior high school I enrolled in the vocational school in Dupnitsa. When I graduated from the junior high school, I wanted to study in a high school. Then my mother told me that I had to learn a craft and enrolled me in the vocational school. There I learned sewing and worked with my mother for some time. Sewing was what we did for a living. My mother sewed dresses and when I graduated from the vocational school I started giving her some advice. There were Jews and Bulgarians among my mother’s clients. I graduated with a master’s certificate in sewing. That was shortly before 1939.
On Yom Kippur, even nowadays, I observe the tradition of not eating anything from the evening of the previous day until 6pm the following day. I also do nothing on that day. On Frutas besides citrus fruit, my mother baked sunflower seeds, peanuts and hazelnuts. We all loved nuts at home and my father often bought them. On Purim we had small purses and went to our relatives who gave us coins. I went to my uncles and each of them put a lev in my purse. Children in fancy clothes also came and their parents gave them presents. There was a tradition on that day to give money to the children. That tradition is still being observed today. On Chanukkah there was a tradition for us to eat halva [13] and sweet things. The halva was made at home. We had a candlestick with eight candles and every day we lit a new one. Now we also have a candlestick for Chanukkah.
When I was a child, we always celebrated Pesach and the other high Jewish holidays such as Frutas [11] and Chanukkah. On Pesach we weren’t allowed to eat bread. We strictly observed that for eight days. There was matzah and boyos [small flat loaves] on the table. We celebrated Pesach by ourselves. Usually some of my father’s relatives also visited us. My mother prepared a holiday dinner. We made burmolikos [12] from matzah. We put the matzah in water, then kneaded it, added eggs, and fried it in hot oil. We then dipped them in sugar syrup and ate them with a boiled egg. We also made pastel [pastry with meat]. We didn’t have separate dishes for Pesach, but before the holiday we cleaned the entire cutlery, and the house.\
When my father and uncles gathered at my grandfather’s for Pesach, the ritual was more closely followed. Firstly, they washed their hands, then said a prayer, and read the Haggadah. The observation of the rituals was done mostly by our grandparents. When I got married, my husband and I didn’t follow the Jewish rituals. After the mass aliyah in 1948-1950, not many Jews remained here.
When my father and uncles gathered at my grandfather’s for Pesach, the ritual was more closely followed. Firstly, they washed their hands, then said a prayer, and read the Haggadah. The observation of the rituals was done mostly by our grandparents. When I got married, my husband and I didn’t follow the Jewish rituals. After the mass aliyah in 1948-1950, not many Jews remained here.
When I was a child, my parents and I often went on vacation by cart to Sapareva Banya. That is the village with the mineral water spa where my grandfather died. We usually spent 10-15 days there. My father hired a cart with a coachman; we took some luggage and went to Sapareva Banya. Usually only my family went, but sometimes we also took along other Jewish families. In Sapareva Banya we usually rented a private lodging during our stay. We did that once a year. Later, when I got married, my husband and I went to seaside resorts every year. I also often went to mineral water spa resorts.
When we were young, we often went to the theater and cinema. The movies were very popular and tickets were sold out quickly. The cinema was at the place of the military club in the center of the town. After my marriage we still went to the theater and cinema.
There were Jewish organizations in the town. The most popular were Maccabi [9] and ‘Saznanie’ [Conscience] [10]. I was a member of Maccabi. I don’t remember doing gymnastics or any other sports. The association ‘Saznanie’ was a cultural and educational organization. There was a choir, library and theater group. They were all housed in the building of the Jewish municipality in the center of town. I also saw Bulgarians visit the ‘Saznanie’ community house. I don’t remember Maccabi having some concrete activities. We just gathered to see each other. Most of the Jews were members of ‘Saznanie.’ They had a rich cultural program. They put on opera performances, concerts and theater plays. They were much visited by the Jewish community in the town. You can say that the ‘Saznanie’ community house organized the cultural life of the whole town. My family also went to opera and theater performances.
Dupnitsa was a relatively developed town for its times. When I was a child there were carriages and buses to the nearby villages. I have traveled by carriage. There was a narrow-gauge line passing near Dupnitsa.
I studied in the Jewish school until the fourth grade. I think that there was also a nursery [cheder] at the Jewish school. It was for children up to pre-school age. We had a teacher at the Jewish school called Monsieur Revakh, who was very strict. He taught us Ivrit. When we didn’t know our work, he hit us with a small pencil and made us stand in the corner facing the wall. I wasn’t very good at Ivrit. Monsieur Revakh did his best to teach us the language, but I think we weren’t very hard working. There were also female teachers in the school who were Jewish. There was a stage at the Jewish school. We gathered in a big hall there to dance and party. The Jewish school was the only school in town which had a stage. On that stage I sang in the school choir.
The synagogue was near our house. Jews visited it regularly. There was a small stream with drinking water in the yard. Weddings were also done there. My father didn’t go to the synagogue as he wasn’t religious. He liked doing the shopping. He was very good at housework and his business. Even during the greatest crisis in fascist times [during World War II] he managed to support our family. Every year we prepared winter supplies: raw and boiled pickles, flat sausages from mutton and pork. When I was a child, there was a small building next to the synagogue and we took hens there to be slaughtered by the shochet. But sometimes my father put on an apron and slaughtered the hen in the sink at home. Later when I got married, we asked someone from our Bulgarian neighbors to slaughter the chicken.
I had a very good friend, Dinka, who was the daughter of Uncle Daniel. We played a lot along the river near the Jewish neighborhood. When we were a little older, I made her watch from the balcony whether Aron, my future husband, would enter the confectionery opposite the street so that I would go there to see him. Those were nice years. My husband and I met at a ‘jour:’ that’s how the gatherings of young people were called then. ‘Jours’ were for all young people, both Jews and Bulgarians. But my friends were Jews. ‘Jours’ were made in the houses. We listened to popular music and danced.
My husband and I flirted and grew closer to each other. We went out for about a year before we got married. We went together to restaurants and bars in Dupnitsa, but only after 9th September 1944 [8].
My husband and I flirted and grew closer to each other. We went out for about a year before we got married. We went together to restaurants and bars in Dupnitsa, but only after 9th September 1944 [8].
During the Jewish holidays we welcomed our Bulgarian friends. Whole families came to visit us. My mother’s meals weren’t very different from the traditional Bulgarian cuisine, which includes a lot of vegetables and meat. But there were some differences, for example, Bulgarians didn’t make leak balls. My mother made very nice rice with chicken, okra with chicken, hotchpotch with aubergines and meat, pastries with cheese, minced meat, leaks, and spinach. She also made very nice crackers. My mother was a very good housewife. Grandmother Kadena also cooked very well.
My parents communicated mostly with Jews. Their environment was Jewish. They spoke more of Ladino than Bulgarian. In the past I heard people saying that Jews spoke Bulgarian with an accent. The interesting thing was that there were Bulgarians in the Jewish neighborhood who spoke Ladino. Their environment was Jewish, they communicated with Jews mostly and that’s how they learned Ladino. Some Bulgarians knew Ladino very well, because they had learned it when they were kids, during their games with the Jewish children. When I was a child, I was friends with all the children in the neighborhood, both Jewish and Bulgarian. We got along very well.
We had both Bulgarian and Jewish neighbors.
We had both Bulgarian and Jewish neighbors.
My mother, Matilda Shekerdjiiska, nee Elazar, was born in Kyustendil. I suppose that my father saw her when he went to Kyustendil and that’s how they met. She worked as a seamstress. She had her own sewing machine. When I graduated from the vocational school, I started helping her with the sewing. She didn’t observe Sabbath because she had to work on Saturdays. I have seen her sew on Saturdays. But my grandmothers observed Sabbath very strictly.
Our house had two floors and a big balcony. It was in the center of Dupnitsa, very close to the building of the Jewish municipality. It was built by Grandfather Haim. Each family had their own entrance. The house was old but the living conditions were good. There were two buildings in the yard. My family’s apartment was in one of the buildings and consisted of two rooms and a kitchen. We had water and electricity. We didn’t have a radio. One of the buildings faced the street and there were small shops on the ground floor. We lived in that building, but in the rooms facing the yard. The other building was further out in the yard. My father’s brothers, who lived in Dupnitsa, had separate shops with warehouses. All the shops were on the main street of the town.
There were a lot of Jewish houses in the center of Dupnitsa, but there was no Jewish neighborhood there. It was located not far from the center along the [Jerman] river [6], which passes through the town. There was no difference between the Jews living in the center and those along the river. You can’t say that those in the center were richer. We had a Jewish school called ‘Eliachi Hadjidavidov’ [Eliachi hadji David was a famous corn-dealer in Dupnitsa.]. The building of the Jewish municipality, the synagogue, which was massive and old, and the Jewish bank ‘Bratstvo’ [Brotherhood] [7] were in the center. The bank was governed by the Jewish municipality. It supported mostly Jews, and gave them credit for the purchase of apartments or education. Nissim Alkalai, my husband Aron Alkalai’s father, was a teller in that bank and was paying a mortgage there. We had a chazzan and shochet, who was in a separate building. Before the mass aliyah, after the state of Israel was founded [the big aliyah in 1948], the Jews in Dupnitsa were around 2000.
My father had five brothers and a sister: Buko, Aron, Adolf, Daniel, Nissim and Matilda. Uncles Aron, Adolf and Daniel lived in our yard. We were a very united family. Uncle Buko lived elsewhere and Uncle Nissim was in Sofia. Uncle Buko lived in the Jewish neighborhood. He had three sons: Haim, who was blind, Josko and Nissim. Haim was a basket-maker. All my father’s brothers were dealers. Uncle Buko sold flour. Uncle Nissim sold clothes in Sofia. Uncles Aron and Adolf also sold flour. Uncle Adolf went to Gyurgevo to help my grandfather, but after an accident he came back and became a dealer.
The eldest brother was Uncle Buko, and then my father was born. Aron was the third child, Nissim the fourth, Adolf the fifth, Daniel the sixth and Tanti [Aunt] Matilda was the youngest. She got married and lived in Sofia, but she didn’t have any children. Uncle Nissim’s wife was from Sofia. I don’t remember her name. Uncle Buko married Zumbul, nee Shimon, from Dupnitsa, Uncle Aron married Liza from Samokov, Uncle Daniel married Ester from Kyustendil, and Uncle Adolf married Vita, who was born in Sofia. Some of those families left for Israel. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the names of all my cousins and relatives. Uncle Daniel and Aunt Ester lived in Dupnitsa. They had two children: Rahamim, who became a professor in pharmacy in Sofia and Dinka, who became an accountant in Sofia.
The eldest brother was Uncle Buko, and then my father was born. Aron was the third child, Nissim the fourth, Adolf the fifth, Daniel the sixth and Tanti [Aunt] Matilda was the youngest. She got married and lived in Sofia, but she didn’t have any children. Uncle Nissim’s wife was from Sofia. I don’t remember her name. Uncle Buko married Zumbul, nee Shimon, from Dupnitsa, Uncle Aron married Liza from Samokov, Uncle Daniel married Ester from Kyustendil, and Uncle Adolf married Vita, who was born in Sofia. Some of those families left for Israel. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the names of all my cousins and relatives. Uncle Daniel and Aunt Ester lived in Dupnitsa. They had two children: Rahamim, who became a professor in pharmacy in Sofia and Dinka, who became an accountant in Sofia.
My father’s name was Zhak [Haim] Shekerdjiiski. He was a dealer of second-hand clothes and goods. He had a small warehouse behind the house. He sold his goods there. He didn’t have a shop. My mother helped him. Villagers came and bought what they needed. They knew him and asked for him. That helped us during the time of the anti-Jewish laws, when Jews were forbidden to do business [5]. Despite the bans the villagers continued to buy goods from us. We weren’t poor. My father went to Sofia every week and brought us nice food. But that was before the war [World War II]. After that my father got sick and stopped going to Sofia. We couldn’t afford to have a maid. My mother sewed custom-made clothes and my father’s business wasn’t too successful. We were a nice modest family. From my father’s brothers only Uncle Aron and Aunt Liza had a maid.
When I was a child, probably at the end of the 1920s, my paternal grandparents left for Gyurgevo near Sapareva Banya, which is about 20 kilometers from Dupnitsa. My grandfather had a grocery store there. He sold everything: sugar, oil, flour, butter, ironware. Sapareva Banya is a resort village with a nice mineral water spa. Once, my grandfather decided to try the mineral water spa in Sapareva Banya and a bull passed through there, attacked and stabbed him. That’s how my grandfather died.
My grandfather liked his grandsons more than his granddaughters. He didn’t like me much because I was a girl. He didn’t pay much attention to me. He was a strict man. He was also quite a big man. He dressed in plain town clothes: he usually wore trousers and a jacket. I don’t remember him having a beard. After my grandfather died, Grandmother Kadena came to live with us in Dupnitsa. She lived alone in a room in the attic. She was a humble and short woman. Sometimes she had lunch with us or with some of my father’s brothers. I remember that she often sat on the big balcony and spent her time there.
My grandfather liked his grandsons more than his granddaughters. He didn’t like me much because I was a girl. He didn’t pay much attention to me. He was a strict man. He was also quite a big man. He dressed in plain town clothes: he usually wore trousers and a jacket. I don’t remember him having a beard. After my grandfather died, Grandmother Kadena came to live with us in Dupnitsa. She lived alone in a room in the attic. She was a humble and short woman. Sometimes she had lunch with us or with some of my father’s brothers. I remember that she often sat on the big balcony and spent her time there.
My paternal grandfather’s name was Haim Shekerdjiiski, and my grandmother’s name was Kadena Shekerdjiiska. My grandfather was related to Emil Shekerdjiiski, but I don’t know their exact relation. [Shekerdjiiski, Emil Mois (1912-1944): journalist, writer, literary critic. Born in Dupnitsa. A communist functionary and member of the Bulgarian Communist Party since 1932. Studied at ‘Kliment Ohridski’ Sofia University, as well as architecture in Belgrade (Serbia). Contributor to a number of Bulgarian newspapers and magazines. During World War II he was a partisan (with the nickname Stefan) in the Kyustendil squad. Killed as a partisan in a firing with the police in 1944.] I’m not sure where they were born, most probably in Dupnitsa. We never spoke about that. I only remember that four families in addition to my grandparents lived in the house in Dupnitsa, in which I was born. Apart from my father, the families of some of my father’s brothers also lived there.
My mother, Matilda Shekerdjiiska, was born in Kyustendil. She had three brothers and two sisters. The eldest one, Nissim Elazar, was a cobbler in Kyustendil. I don’t remember his wife. My mother’s second eldest brother was Estrel Elazar. He was a tinsmith in Kyustendil. His wife’s name was Vintura. They had four children, who left for Israel during the mass aliyah [4]. They were very beautiful girls. I remember the names of two of them: Marika and Sarika. My mother’s third brother was Rahamim Elazar. He worked as a tailor and lived in Sofia. His family also left for Israel. I don’t know any details.
Bulgaria
When I was a child, I visited my grandmother almost every year. I traveled by bus. Kyustendil was a beautiful town with nice mineral water spas. There were rich and very poor Jews living there. I usually visited my mother’s brothers and sisters when I went to Kyustendil on my summer vacations. I was still a pupil then. I had a very good time. We went to restaurants and had walks around the town. They asked me to sing and I did gladly.