Tag #126014 - Interview #78405 (Rafael Beraha)

I remember clearly that one year before I was admitted to the technical school in Ruse, I experienced the first anti-Semitic action towards me. That happened in Kazanlak. In 1937 the heir of King Boris III [12], Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha [13] was born and in 1938 I remember the King’s maneuvers performed by the soldiers in the local barracks in Kazanlak – these were lavish military parades and demonstrations. There was a campaign against the ethnic groups – they often beat Gypsies and Jews in a fit of ‘patriotic feelings’. By the way, I was among the welcoming people in 1938. Naturally, there were some hooligans there. They saw me and probably they knew me from somewhere – after all, the town was not very big – and they ran after me to beat me up. A classmate of mine, who was around, saved me. ‘Don’t touch him!’he said. He was quite big and that helped.