Tag #127864 - Interview #98363 (Aron Ishakh)

On 6th September 1944 Israel Mayer [a Jew from Ruse, taking an active part in the illegal UYW [7] organization, which continued to exist secretly in the camp], who was in the sixth group, while we were in the eighth, came to the camp. He brought a flag with the image of Lenin [8] and told Solomon Aladzhem, who was a member of the communist party, that he should disarm the guards and let the Jews go to their homes. Solomon Aladzhem gathered a few people, also progressive men: Albert Filkenstein [a lawyer, later he was prosecutor in Sofia], his brother Jacques Filkenstein and me. He ordered us to disarm the guards. I had to disarm the captain of the guards. I do not remember his name. I knocked on the door of his office and told him that I had a letter from the eighth group. I entered, holding my hand in my pocket and said ‘Raise your hands, give me your weapon!’ He panicked and shouted, ‘It is in the briefcase, take it!’ I took the gun and went back to give it to Solomon Aladzhem. But it turned out the gun was without a cartridge. ‘Where is the cartridge?’ he asked. I went back to the shed, ‘Give me the cartridge!’ I took it and brought it to Solomon Aladzhem. Jacques and Albert Filkenstein disarmed the three non-commissioned officers. Then we made an improvised general meeting in the camp and said to everybody, ‘Go wherever you like, because we could be pursued.’ So, we freed the Jews in the camp and came back to Ruse.