Selected text
Hadjinikolov then invited me and proposed to write a dissertation on the ransacking of Bulgarian economy during World War II. I became very enthusiastic and ambitious about it and for two years every day after work I would take my bicycle and ride to the Archive of History Department, where I would read until the library closed. I wrote some 120 pages and gave them to him to review. One day I went to hear his opinion. He started with remarks about many oversights. I went out very unsatisfied with my manuscript. When I calmed down I continued working for another year, after which I managed to defend my dissertation on Bulgaria’s economy during World War II.
The chairman of the State Archive, Michail Alexiev, insisted that we all speak one major European language, so he invited paid teachers for us. I took up French. A teacher from the Bulgarian News Agency, Miss Alkalay, came to teach us. She was a very good pedagogue. With her help I learnt French very well. At my examination, I immediately began a conversation in French and I received the maximum possible grade. I tried to do the same on my exam in Russian, but it was more difficult. The main test was, however, the most difficult. My examiners were Professor Hadjinikolov and his assistant, Lyuben Berov, who became Prime Minister in 1990 [Editor’s note: actually from 1992 until 1994]. Hadjinikolov understood my uneasiness and with Lyuben Berov he went to the opposite part of the hall, so that they could leave me alone in peace and quiet. After an hour and a half, I found myself and managed to elaborate on the question. After that, they examined me on the whole material and assigned me a five out of a maximum of six. Many years later I met my scientific supervisor and we talked about the exam. He was a man, who managed to hearten young people. His students became professors and PhDs.
During the period I worked as an archivist, I visited Auschwitz and particularly the museum of belongings that remained from the deported Jews who had been killed. I had an ambition to find out more about my uncle and his wife who were burnt there. The museum shows a horrifying picture of the life in the camp. There are belongings of old people, women, men, children, even babies. They have a sickening collection of baby’s shoes and socks. There I had the chance to take hold of a bar of soap, where the letters RIF were engraved: Rein jüdisches Fett, which means [in German] ‘pure Jewish fat’. [Editor’s note: In the Polish ghettos the German occupants distributed bars of soap with the inscription ‘Rif.’ The Jews in the ghetto interpreted it as ‘Rein jüdisches Fett’, that is, ‘pure Jewish fat,’ and that is why the belief that the Germans made soap out of Jewish bodies spread. In reality RIF stands for ‘Reichstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung’.] I kept this bar of soap in a small case next to the yellow star [21] that the then-government had decorated me with. With the years this bar just fell into pieces and turned into dust. In that museum I saw a lampshade made of human skin. I had another experience: while I was examining the museum, a very noisy group of Bulgarians passed by. And this is a holy place for both the Jewish and Polish people. They step into that place in reverence as if they enter a synagogue or a church. These people, however, were rather noisy and I reproved them. They understood immediately and got out of the museum.
One of my co-workers remained there to search for information and I have received a book from her, published by the museum of Auschwitz. There she states the date when the Trancy’s echelon near Paris, where the Jews from France were deported from, reached the concentration camp in Poland. This was an important date, because based on it they found the lists of people who were there, so I learnt that my uncle and aunt were sent to the gas chambers, where they were suffocated and [later] burnt. My father would often sigh that Bulgaria seemed too narrow to my uncle and he went to try his luck far away abroad.
The chairman of the State Archive, Michail Alexiev, insisted that we all speak one major European language, so he invited paid teachers for us. I took up French. A teacher from the Bulgarian News Agency, Miss Alkalay, came to teach us. She was a very good pedagogue. With her help I learnt French very well. At my examination, I immediately began a conversation in French and I received the maximum possible grade. I tried to do the same on my exam in Russian, but it was more difficult. The main test was, however, the most difficult. My examiners were Professor Hadjinikolov and his assistant, Lyuben Berov, who became Prime Minister in 1990 [Editor’s note: actually from 1992 until 1994]. Hadjinikolov understood my uneasiness and with Lyuben Berov he went to the opposite part of the hall, so that they could leave me alone in peace and quiet. After an hour and a half, I found myself and managed to elaborate on the question. After that, they examined me on the whole material and assigned me a five out of a maximum of six. Many years later I met my scientific supervisor and we talked about the exam. He was a man, who managed to hearten young people. His students became professors and PhDs.
During the period I worked as an archivist, I visited Auschwitz and particularly the museum of belongings that remained from the deported Jews who had been killed. I had an ambition to find out more about my uncle and his wife who were burnt there. The museum shows a horrifying picture of the life in the camp. There are belongings of old people, women, men, children, even babies. They have a sickening collection of baby’s shoes and socks. There I had the chance to take hold of a bar of soap, where the letters RIF were engraved: Rein jüdisches Fett, which means [in German] ‘pure Jewish fat’. [Editor’s note: In the Polish ghettos the German occupants distributed bars of soap with the inscription ‘Rif.’ The Jews in the ghetto interpreted it as ‘Rein jüdisches Fett’, that is, ‘pure Jewish fat,’ and that is why the belief that the Germans made soap out of Jewish bodies spread. In reality RIF stands for ‘Reichstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung’.] I kept this bar of soap in a small case next to the yellow star [21] that the then-government had decorated me with. With the years this bar just fell into pieces and turned into dust. In that museum I saw a lampshade made of human skin. I had another experience: while I was examining the museum, a very noisy group of Bulgarians passed by. And this is a holy place for both the Jewish and Polish people. They step into that place in reverence as if they enter a synagogue or a church. These people, however, were rather noisy and I reproved them. They understood immediately and got out of the museum.
One of my co-workers remained there to search for information and I have received a book from her, published by the museum of Auschwitz. There she states the date when the Trancy’s echelon near Paris, where the Jews from France were deported from, reached the concentration camp in Poland. This was an important date, because based on it they found the lists of people who were there, so I learnt that my uncle and aunt were sent to the gas chambers, where they were suffocated and [later] burnt. My father would often sigh that Bulgaria seemed too narrow to my uncle and he went to try his luck far away abroad.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
David Kohen