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My family was informed about the course of events in World War II. We knew what was happening in Poland and about the concentration camps from the foreign radio stations and from what other people were saying. We didn't consider leaving Bulgaria because my parents didn't have much money. When I finished high school in 1943, I wanted to continue with my education. I wanted to study medicine, but I wasn't allowed to. My father was willing to give me money to study in Tsarigrad, but the authorities didn't allow us Jews to leave the country. I tried to enroll in a school for midwives in Sofia, but I couldn't to do that either, because I wasn't allowed to leave Sliven. At that time it wasn't possible to leave the country in any legal way. In some towns Jews were better organized and many of them left the country, but only illegally, and moved to Palestine as early as the 1940s. I guess the Jews in Sliven weren't as well organized.
My sisters and I were more involved with the UYW than with the Jewish organizations. We became UYW members very early - while we were studying in high school. I was a student in the last grade, when I became a member. At first we helped the Sliven partisan group. We distributed leaflets against the Germans from house to house, which was very risky. Some partisans killed by the authorities were put on display in our town's square. They had come from another town and were shot without trial or sentence only because they were involved with the communists. My largest contribution as a leader of our group was saving a political prisoner from a death sentence. We gathered money and bribed the judge and so we saved the man from a sure death. We gathered food from the Jewish families when food was distributed in rations and was scarce. We put aside from the little food we had to help the political prisoners, although that was very risky. Yet, there were good people, for example a policeman who was a friend of my father and who warned him that the police was following me and knew who I was meeting with.
My sisters and I were more involved with the UYW than with the Jewish organizations. We became UYW members very early - while we were studying in high school. I was a student in the last grade, when I became a member. At first we helped the Sliven partisan group. We distributed leaflets against the Germans from house to house, which was very risky. Some partisans killed by the authorities were put on display in our town's square. They had come from another town and were shot without trial or sentence only because they were involved with the communists. My largest contribution as a leader of our group was saving a political prisoner from a death sentence. We gathered money and bribed the judge and so we saved the man from a sure death. We gathered food from the Jewish families when food was distributed in rations and was scarce. We put aside from the little food we had to help the political prisoners, although that was very risky. Yet, there were good people, for example a policeman who was a friend of my father and who warned him that the police was following me and knew who I was meeting with.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
korina solomonova