Selected text
The war broke out in 1939 [24]. I graduated from the Jewish school in 1937 so in that time I was already at high school.
In 1941, the decree that obliged us to go to the municipality to buy the so-called badges [25] was introduced. And they weren’t that cheap. [No documents could be found on the purchase of Jewish badges. In the literature and most of all in the State Newspaper decree No. 212 was published concerning the wearing of the yellow star.] And this wasn’t the only thing we had to do. There was supposed to be a star sewn on each piece of clothing, and so we had to buy badges for all our clothes and sew them on. And we found a way: we stuck them on the clothes with a piece of wire. Nobody was brave enough to go out without a badge. The people who knew you started shouting, ‘Hey, where is your badge!’ Especially some of the young boys; the so-called legionaries [26] and Branniks [27]. They made sure that we wore the badges.
And a little later they started breaking the windows of our houses. My father was forced to make shutters. And they succeeded in breaking the windows through the shutters. We calmed ourselves down with the words, ‘Maybe a glazier is breaking the windows so that we would go and order new windows from him.’ But in fact we were perfectly aware that those were bands of young men who roamed the streets at night to throw stones. And it was easy for them because all the Jews lived in the same quarter. They walked around carrying tens of stones in the evening. They didn’t break windows during the day. And you can imagine, we went to bed shaking because we were scared that they would come into the house. And on hearing a noise we knew the attack was beginning.
In 1941, the decree that obliged us to go to the municipality to buy the so-called badges [25] was introduced. And they weren’t that cheap. [No documents could be found on the purchase of Jewish badges. In the literature and most of all in the State Newspaper decree No. 212 was published concerning the wearing of the yellow star.] And this wasn’t the only thing we had to do. There was supposed to be a star sewn on each piece of clothing, and so we had to buy badges for all our clothes and sew them on. And we found a way: we stuck them on the clothes with a piece of wire. Nobody was brave enough to go out without a badge. The people who knew you started shouting, ‘Hey, where is your badge!’ Especially some of the young boys; the so-called legionaries [26] and Branniks [27]. They made sure that we wore the badges.
And a little later they started breaking the windows of our houses. My father was forced to make shutters. And they succeeded in breaking the windows through the shutters. We calmed ourselves down with the words, ‘Maybe a glazier is breaking the windows so that we would go and order new windows from him.’ But in fact we were perfectly aware that those were bands of young men who roamed the streets at night to throw stones. And it was easy for them because all the Jews lived in the same quarter. They walked around carrying tens of stones in the evening. They didn’t break windows during the day. And you can imagine, we went to bed shaking because we were scared that they would come into the house. And on hearing a noise we knew the attack was beginning.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Pazardzhik
Bulgaria
Interview
Sofi Eshua Danon-Moshe