Tag #127868 - Interview #98363 (Aron Ishakh)

In 1941 when the German army invaded the USSR, Leon Tadzher, a port worker in Ruse, who had escaped from a Jewish concentration camp, set fire to the petrol factory's refineries. When the German guards tried to capture him, he stabbed them to death, but was captured by the workers chasing him. He was later sentenced to death and hanged. After this act the Ruse GESTAPO ordered the regional police chief to detain 300 of the most distinguished Jews from the town and hand them to the Germans to deport them to the death camps. Yosif Levi, chairman of the Jewish community, had to prepare the list. He did so, but instead of including distinguished Jews, he included the relatives of Jewish political prisoners and communists, who were involved in anti-fascist activities. The rich Jews gave a large sum of money to the police chief Stefan Simeonov, who was also a delegate for Jewish issues and in this way they were exempt from the list. I personally do not approve of that. The Jews on the list were arrested and sent to temporary detention camps in Somovit and Pleven, in the Kailuka, region with the intention to deport them to the death camps. The camp in Kailuka [12] was set on fire. One man from Ruse, Nissim Benvenisti, was among the ten people who died. The replacement of the names on the list and the bribe given to the police chief was made known later, after the fall of fascism in Bulgaria. Yosif Levi hid in the English embassy, from where he went to Palestine. But he was not put on trial, because he was forced to prepare that list.