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At the end of January and the beginning of February [1944] we were sent to 5th precinct in Sofia. It was hell. They searched us in the most humiliating way. We had to strip naked and they started searching our clothes. We stood there, naked and dirty because we had not had a shower in a very long time.
My last shower was on the 13th December and my next – on 9th September. We were put in a dark cell where the only light came from the cracks in the door. There were such big cockroaches that I have been afraid of them ever since. They were scuttling on the floor day and night... Hell! My parents did not know where I was.
They found out that we were no longer in Gorna Dzhumaya. While we were at the barracks, they regularly brought us food. My mother washed my clothes and sent them back. But when we came to Sofia no one knew where we were. There was one week when they gave us nothing to eat.
Suddenly the door was opened and a policeman came out. 'Hey, chifut [46], come and clean the stairs. Are you going to sleep all day?' He brought me to the kitchen. He made me fill a bucket with water and wash the stairs.
When I came back, he stood guard around me and when some policeman passed nearby, he started swearing at me. He brought me back to the kitchen to return the bucket. Meanwhile, the women in the kitchen had prepared some bread and yellow cheese for me. 'Eat, girl, eat!' But there was such a friendship and solidarity between me and the other girls that I said that the other girls were starving too.
So, the two women cut the bread in two and filled it with cheese, yellow cheese and butter. That was in the winter and I was wearing the winter coat in which my mother had sewn the gold rings, which no one managed to find. I hid the bread beneath it and the policeman took me back to the cell. After 9th September I did not manage to find these people. That bread, which we divided among ourselves in the cell saved us from death from starvation.
My last shower was on the 13th December and my next – on 9th September. We were put in a dark cell where the only light came from the cracks in the door. There were such big cockroaches that I have been afraid of them ever since. They were scuttling on the floor day and night... Hell! My parents did not know where I was.
They found out that we were no longer in Gorna Dzhumaya. While we were at the barracks, they regularly brought us food. My mother washed my clothes and sent them back. But when we came to Sofia no one knew where we were. There was one week when they gave us nothing to eat.
Suddenly the door was opened and a policeman came out. 'Hey, chifut [46], come and clean the stairs. Are you going to sleep all day?' He brought me to the kitchen. He made me fill a bucket with water and wash the stairs.
When I came back, he stood guard around me and when some policeman passed nearby, he started swearing at me. He brought me back to the kitchen to return the bucket. Meanwhile, the women in the kitchen had prepared some bread and yellow cheese for me. 'Eat, girl, eat!' But there was such a friendship and solidarity between me and the other girls that I said that the other girls were starving too.
So, the two women cut the bread in two and filled it with cheese, yellow cheese and butter. That was in the winter and I was wearing the winter coat in which my mother had sewn the gold rings, which no one managed to find. I hid the bread beneath it and the policeman took me back to the cell. After 9th September I did not manage to find these people. That bread, which we divided among ourselves in the cell saved us from death from starvation.
Period
Year
1944
Location
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interview
Stela Astrukova