Selected text
I became a member of UYW in 1939. I got involved in the organization without realizing it at first. I was friends with Izidor Benbasat, Isak Talvi, Aaron Meshulam and we frequently met in the Chitalishte. The others who were older than us were already members of the Party. An entertainment party was organized every Sunday in the Jewish organization. We visited each other and organized dance parties at our places, too. Everyone would sit wherever possible. We would play the gramophone. The Comparsita tango was popular at the time: Asparuh Leshnikov [19] and Albert Pinkas. We used to dance tango, foxtrot, waltz, ‘horsey’ – a dance which involved standing in a line and lifting our feet, something similar to letkiss. During the breaks between the different records there were some lectures, we read poems, made some issues clearer and tried to attract the disoriented youngsters who we called ‘boulevard youngsters.’
As a matter of fact, beside these general enlightening activities, a lot of communist and socialist ideas about social equality were put through and these ideas actually made us join the UYW movement with our older friends who were already members. Everything was illegal and took place in secret. In that way, with some of my closest friends, we created several UYW groups. On completing such activities I made some friends. One of my friends, Aaron Galvi, became my brother-in-law when he married Stella, my future wife Roza’s sister, and the other one, Yosif Galvi, became a partisan and died afterwards.
With our dance parties and meetings in the evenings we carried out a lot of activities because it was a great achievement to attract two or three of the abstract minded, disoriented people from the Jewish youth. We acted very actively and were increasing the number of the UYW groups all the time. Beside that we wrote appeals and slogans, usually on the houses. We wrote ‘Death to Fascism’ on the slogans and ‘Out the Fascists from Bulgaria.’ We distributed them mainly among the inhabitants of Iuchbunar [20]. We wrote on the walls, and left appeals under the doors. Usually we moved around in groups of two: one of us would look out for trouble-makers or policemen and the other would spread the appeals. We had a variety of musical signals. In case of danger we whistled.
I remember an incident with my friend Izidor Benbasat. We usually distributed the appeals at dusk. One evening, on Tundzha Street, Izidor was distributing the appeals and I was supposed to watch out and whistle the signals. But I simply hadn’t noticed that a policeman had been following us and had been hiding on top of that. Izi saw him at the last moment and at the same time I started giving out the signal but he was already running. The signal froze on my lips but I succeeded in overcoming my fear and, pretending that everything was okay, went to talk to the policeman about insignificant things. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about.
I remember that we went to the houses in Iuchbunar to whip up support for the Sobolev’s Action [21], for Bulgaria’s detachment from the military union and for declaring its independence. We were collecting signatures.
As a matter of fact, beside these general enlightening activities, a lot of communist and socialist ideas about social equality were put through and these ideas actually made us join the UYW movement with our older friends who were already members. Everything was illegal and took place in secret. In that way, with some of my closest friends, we created several UYW groups. On completing such activities I made some friends. One of my friends, Aaron Galvi, became my brother-in-law when he married Stella, my future wife Roza’s sister, and the other one, Yosif Galvi, became a partisan and died afterwards.
With our dance parties and meetings in the evenings we carried out a lot of activities because it was a great achievement to attract two or three of the abstract minded, disoriented people from the Jewish youth. We acted very actively and were increasing the number of the UYW groups all the time. Beside that we wrote appeals and slogans, usually on the houses. We wrote ‘Death to Fascism’ on the slogans and ‘Out the Fascists from Bulgaria.’ We distributed them mainly among the inhabitants of Iuchbunar [20]. We wrote on the walls, and left appeals under the doors. Usually we moved around in groups of two: one of us would look out for trouble-makers or policemen and the other would spread the appeals. We had a variety of musical signals. In case of danger we whistled.
I remember an incident with my friend Izidor Benbasat. We usually distributed the appeals at dusk. One evening, on Tundzha Street, Izidor was distributing the appeals and I was supposed to watch out and whistle the signals. But I simply hadn’t noticed that a policeman had been following us and had been hiding on top of that. Izi saw him at the last moment and at the same time I started giving out the signal but he was already running. The signal froze on my lips but I succeeded in overcoming my fear and, pretending that everything was okay, went to talk to the policeman about insignificant things. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about.
I remember that we went to the houses in Iuchbunar to whip up support for the Sobolev’s Action [21], for Bulgaria’s detachment from the military union and for declaring its independence. We were collecting signatures.
Period
Location
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interview
Leon Yako Anzhel