Tag #122427 - Interview #78551 (Matilda Albuhaire)

Before the Holocaust, a lot of young people used to come to Bourgas on their way to Israel – there was a lot of illegal immigration then. There were people from Hungary and, because they invariably looked up the Jewish community, they used to come to the club. We knew each other and usually saw them off to the ship. Once a cousin of my mother’s came with her family – her husband and three children – two girls and one boy. They came from France to go to Israel via Bourgas. My mother took me to meet that family. They, however, got on a ship, which took on board more people than it should have and it sank. That steamer was called Salvador. Shippers used to gather more people for illegal immigration in order to get more money. That was such an insecure matter – it wasn’t a boat, it was a steamer, but it couldn’t keep afloat, and capsized. And most of the people drowned. Only the father and one of the daughters survived.