Tag #124641 - Interview #78517 (Leon Yako Anzhel)

In another labor camp, five kilometers away, worked Roza’s brother Isak. Bentsion Eliezer was in his group. We used to call him Bitsko. He played the accordion wonderfully. Later he became a professor at the Conservatory. We used to meet: we’d sing, play musical instruments, laugh, etc. We made our own theater in which we performed different arias from operas and operettas. I took part in it as well as Etienne Levy’s father: Hertsel Levy. Some of the boys played the violin, others, like me, would sing, but the inspirer, the main organizer was Bitsko. He used to sing the arias in all languages: he danced and made us feel calm. Our audience was the rest of the laborers. We would usually present our performance on Sundays, during the day. And we used to forget about the quarries and rocks, and the enormous flies that bit us till we were bleeding. That was a breath of fresh air, a breath of life, which gave us the certainty that we were still alive and there was still something good in life.