I became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1946, in the teacher's organization in Bourgas.
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Displaying 10591 - 10620 of 50826 results
Gracia Albuhaire
I visited the town on a school graduation anniversary, and the first place I went to was the Jewish neighborhood. I was terrified because I couldn't find my father's house. I saw my neighbor 'Americata' by chance and she led me to the place where a big residential estate had been built. I asked her where the nice well had vanished to with the cold water we had once drunk from. The pear tree, the trellis vine had also disappeared. The well was now in the basement of the living estate, plugged up and quite useless. Uncle Yuda's house, which was opposite ours, looked dark, plain and abandoned. It looked like a shack, although it had once been stately, beautiful and large. I was very saddened. The well next to the school, from where the whole city took water, had also vanished.
In Karnobat not only the synagogue has been destroyed but also all the Jews have left since 1948, in large groups. Today there is not a single Jew in the town. Even the Jewish neighborhood, which had once been so lively, is now populated with Bulgarians who came from the nearby villages. The name of the street has been changed to 'Ivan Vazov', although people still say that they live in the Jewish quarter.
We had been colleagues. So we shook hands like in the old times and we talked for a while. It was during the Six-Day-War [18] in Israel. Suddenly he started saying: 'Those dirty Jews, how could Hitler have not exterminated them all!' The awful things he said terrified me and I told him in the end: 'What have I done to you to make you wish that Hitler had killed me too?' 'Why?' - he asked. 'Because I am a Jew.' - I replied. He turned pale, he wrung my hand but he couldn't say a word to me. And that's how we parted. I didn't make an interview with him. There were isolated cases like this one, but the good things were more numerous and far more interesting.
I started publishing books after 10th November 1989. I had greater opportunities because I received financial support from Switzerland, and I invested a part of this in publishing my books. The promotion of my books took place in the Jewish school and the Jewish community Shalom [17]. Many of my poems became popular in the Jewish community. In my book 'Shadai - the Star of David' I wanted to immortalize the memory of my perished compatriots.
I made an interview with Tupolev - the aviation constructor, who created the TU-154 airplane. I also interviewed a Chilean diplomat who came to establish friendly relations with Bulgaria [that was long before the Junta]. We arranged a meeting in the Balkan hotel with the understanding that he would come with an interpreter, but his interpreter didn't come. With my school French I was quite unable to make an interview. I tried Judezmo-Espaniol and the conversation went well. However, as a diplomat he passed me a paper with already prepared questions, but I couldn't read his handwriting. So what was I supposed to do? In order to resolve the delicate situation, I offered to take him to the radio studio because of the noise in the hotel lobby. He agreed but preferred to walk there by foot. I introduced him to the director and the secretary immediately found an interpreter - and that's how the interview was finally taken. I have also worked for the radio shows called 'Foreign Programs' and 'Program for the Capital'.
I also collaborated with newspapers; I wrote short stories. Albuhaire is quite difficult to pronounce and I was working primarily with Bulgarian people, so I decided that my husband's name Jack was much easier and I chose to present myself with it as a penname. So I am known as Gracia Jack in the radio and writers' circles and that's how I sign my name. In the Jewish quarter and the Bet Am [16] I am better known as Albuhaire.
Then I switched over to working in the 'Internal Information' department of the radio. I traveled around plants and factories and made a lot of interviews and articles about them reflecting on various problems. Now most of those enterprises are destroyed and it makes me feel really sad. Those were highly esteemed enterprises, which had worldwide export.
At that time Kamen Roussev, a senior lieutenant, was the editor-in-chief. I didn't get on well with him at all. I was inexperienced at the very beginning of my career as a journalist and he was constantly making remarks to me.
When I came to Sofia I first began working in the Voluntary Auxiliary Defense Organization (V.A.D.O.) at the Ministry of Defense. It was a school for radiotelegraphic operators, parachutists, and motorcyclists. I was there for some six years and in charge of the radio programs. Then I was redirected to the military editors of Radio Sofia and our programs were broadcast from there.
I graduated with a degree in journalism in 1954. The faculty of journalism was temporarily closed then; there weren't many newspapers and radio stations, there was no TV, but there were quite a lot of people who enrolled and graduated in journalism. A decree was passed, saying that all the people who were employed as journalists were obliged to have a higher educational degree. As there were many editors-in-chief and department directors who had no degree, a class was formed by the Central House of journalists with people who didn't match the criteria. They passed a qualification course there, at the end of which they got official diplomas, authorizing them to practice their profession. So, I joined the class with my editor's recommendation letter. That's how I graduated in journalism with the same professors who taught at the university.
My husband retired as a chairman of the Trade Union of Banking and Trade Workers. He was also elected a deputy of the Sofia municipality.
Several years later we moved to the apartment in Mladost district, which I eventually bought. We didn't have any firewood - and my poor aunt lived in a room, which I couldn't heat up. We were given half a ton of house coal for the whole winter. And my little daughter Olya was about a year old. We only heated the kitchen stove, where we gathered to cook and this is where we spent the most time because it was warm enough for the baby and my older daughter.
In Sofia my husband worked for the trade unions. In the beginning when we came to Sofia, my mother and my aunt lived with us. We lived in one room, on Veslets Street, as there were no apartments at that time. Those were hard times, until we were given a two-bedroom apartment in the center.
After 1948, when everyone left for Israel [during the Mass Aliyah] [15], there were no more children and the Jewish school was closed. We couldn't leave. My husband's relatives all remained here together with their families. As for my family, my elder brother left, but my younger brother stayed here.
After the annulment of the coupon system during the 1940s, things loosened up a bit; holiday houses were built at the sea and mountain resorts sprung up too. A special department was formed for the distribution of holiday cards. They were at reasonable prices for 15-20 days. We went on holidays every year, either the whole family or just one of us with the children. My husband loved to take me to different interesting places and show me the most picturesque ones. I still remember, as though in a dream, a wooden palace of woodcarving called 'The Forest King', somewhere in the Varna district. We visited the Plovdiv fair on a regular basis. My husband took me everywhere with him; he enjoyed traveling with me. When he went to a conference in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia or some other country, he took me with him at his own expense.
Our wedding was in December 1945. We had a civil marriage. Everything was bought with coupons and we couldn't buy anything from the market in order to prepare ourselves for the modest party. My husband still worked in the mill, where, despite the prohibition, his sister had worked as an accountant in his place during the war, as he was in the labor camps. From there he was given some pork guts, from which we cooked meatballs. We found a kilogram of semolina somewhere and made artificial caviar - with onion, red pepper and a little vinegar. There was no sugar to make sweets. It was something extraordinary when we first received support from the Joint [14] - orange juice. We saved it for our daughter, so that she could taste it. In the evening they came to our home to have a modest celebration. That was it - our wedding.
We lived for three months as a family but we were only engaged. In a small town people often gossip and they invent so many things. One day I received a letter from my mother, in which she told me that a rumor had spread in town that I was kept as a mistress and that they would get rid of me sometime, leaving me with nothing. I read the letter, smiling faintly, because we were so busy that this didn't even occur to us. When he read the letter, Jack got so upset that he took my hand and told me: 'Let's go and sign right now.' I told him: 'Please, give me at least a week to prepare myself!
We lived in one room, and my father-in-law, who was ill, and my mother-in-law lived in the other room. My husband provided for all of us.
My husband had a younger brother named Mair and a sister, Matilda. My mother-in-law didn't let us marry for a long time because according to the tradition the daughter had to marry first.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My husband graduated from the business high school in Bourgas. During the Holocaust he was sent to forced labor camps. He had a certificate, issued by the Jewish community, listing all the camps he was sent to. Unfortunately I don't know to which ones. He worked in the big Bourgas flourmills and during World War II, despite the prohibition to hire Jews, the owner retained his position but took his sister Matilda instead.
My father-in-law was born in Turkey and had Turkish citizenship. During the fascist times the authorities wanted to send him back to Turkey as a Turkish citizen, while his wife Rebecca and the children, who were Bulgarian citizens, were to remain in Bulgaria. My father-in-law, very upset, went to Sofia to try and solve the problem. A motorcycle hit him there. His leg was broken, he was sent to a hospital and so he missed the internment in Turkey. This is how they remained in Bourgas.
At a meeting where my future husband was a speaker, a friend called Albert was there, too. After the meeting there were dances. Everybody invited me because I was a guest. My husband didn't dance with anybody, and then he suddenly came and invited me. He asked me to wait for him after his meeting in the municipality, because he wanted to speak with me. I said 'Fine'. I left with Albert and told him that I was going to come back because Jack asked me to see him afterwards. At first he didn't say a word, then he snapped very angrily: 'Don't you see he is going to propose to you. Go, if you want.' I was mad at both of them. At Albert because he spoke sharply with me, and at Jack because he would ask me to marry him after only seeing me for the fist time. I took my suitcase and left for Karnobat. The following day Jack arrived in Karnobat with his friend Shimon. And there they took me to a football match. And then they left. Jack didn't say anything more to me at this point. He was very shy. Then we met at a meeting in Bourgas and Shimon said: 'Let me congratulate you on your engagement!'. And I shook hands with my husband. He said: 'Let me introduce you to my mother.' And so it all started. I went there and sent a telegram to my mother that I was getting married to Jack Albuhaire.
There was a saying after 9th September 1944: 'Work the whole day, go to a meeting in the evening and join the brigade on Sunday'.
Later I moved to Bourgas to become a regular teacher. I was told that I had to graduate from the Pedagogy Institute, which had open doors during the summer. So, I began in the summer and later I became a teacher of Bulgarian language and literature at the Jewish school in Bourgas for two years.
After 9th September 1944, I became a temporary teacher in the elementary school in the village of Nevestino. It was about 15 kilometers from Karnobat.
We organized a fancy-dress ball with masks for Purim, we lit a chanukkyiah at Chanukkah. After the synagogue was opened, some ritual objects were found for it. The small synagogue was destroyed during the war. Now it is partially reconstructed. Moreover, from the 48,000 Jews only about five or six thousand were left, including the mixed marriages.
The synagogue in Sofia remained closed a long time after the war. We only started observing the traditions again after 10th November 1989 [12].
I tore my white blouse with the yellow star and threw it in the Bokludzha River when freedom came. I was so happy to be free that I climbed the hill and began crying: 'We are free, we are free!' That is how that period of persecution between 1942- 1944 ended.
Right after the war we celebrated Pesach, Purim and other holidays, but there was no sugar for sweets. People moved and there was nobody to prepare them. The factories were no longer working; the families had left.