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We had Hashomer Hatzair [13], Betar [14] and Maccabi [15] in Vidin. I was a member of Maccabi, which was more of a sports organization. We gathered and played sports games. We had some kind of uniforms - white shirts and dark blue skirts. We had a sports hall with gymnastic apparatuses - two wooden horizontal bars - and we played a lot there. The older Jewish girls and boys told us about Israel and its history. On Sunday we went around the houses with a moneybox and raised money for charity, for Keren Kayemet [16]. We were usually two or three children, a boy and a girl, walking from house to house. I don't remember anything particular about these organizations. When I was in high school my interests were directed to the UYW [17], the political youth organization.
During that time the creation of fascist organizations - Legionaries, Ratniks [18], 'Otets Paisii' had already begun. There were also some anti- Semitic activities. They insulted us, called us 'chifuti' [19] and said, 'why don't you leave?' Especially after the successes of Hitler's army in Europe and its invasion in the Soviet Union, the anti-Semites became very active. We, the Jews, decided that we should do something. This was the beginning of our left convictions and our desire to fight the fascist harassment of Jews. We had a UYW group consisting of a number of people; we raised money. Besides money, we later also collected clothes for the partisans. We read philosophic, progressive literature, which I didn't understand at all at the beginning. For example, Marx... I cannot say how many of us Jews there were, but compared to the number of Bulgarians, I think we formed the bigger percentage.
Our UYW group became very active when the Jews interned from Sofia came to Vidin [see Internment of Jews in Bulgaria] [20]. There were many nice young and enthusiastic people among them. They had greater experience in the progressive UYW movement in Sofia. We started having meetings, we read lectures, discussed fascism or communism - we divided into a group defending fascism and a group against it, each defending its argument. We exchanged a lot of interesting ideas. Very nice poems were recited, poems by Vaptsarov [21], Smirnenski [classics of Bulgarian poetry]. From the foreign authors we loved the Soviet ones a lot. We read Maxim Gorky [22] and Chekhov [23] and some of the newer ones. 'How Steel was Hardened' [by Nikolay Ostrovski] and other revolutionary books were passed from hand to hand, they were not available in the libraries.
During that time the creation of fascist organizations - Legionaries, Ratniks [18], 'Otets Paisii' had already begun. There were also some anti- Semitic activities. They insulted us, called us 'chifuti' [19] and said, 'why don't you leave?' Especially after the successes of Hitler's army in Europe and its invasion in the Soviet Union, the anti-Semites became very active. We, the Jews, decided that we should do something. This was the beginning of our left convictions and our desire to fight the fascist harassment of Jews. We had a UYW group consisting of a number of people; we raised money. Besides money, we later also collected clothes for the partisans. We read philosophic, progressive literature, which I didn't understand at all at the beginning. For example, Marx... I cannot say how many of us Jews there were, but compared to the number of Bulgarians, I think we formed the bigger percentage.
Our UYW group became very active when the Jews interned from Sofia came to Vidin [see Internment of Jews in Bulgaria] [20]. There were many nice young and enthusiastic people among them. They had greater experience in the progressive UYW movement in Sofia. We started having meetings, we read lectures, discussed fascism or communism - we divided into a group defending fascism and a group against it, each defending its argument. We exchanged a lot of interesting ideas. Very nice poems were recited, poems by Vaptsarov [21], Smirnenski [classics of Bulgarian poetry]. From the foreign authors we loved the Soviet ones a lot. We read Maxim Gorky [22] and Chekhov [23] and some of the newer ones. 'How Steel was Hardened' [by Nikolay Ostrovski] and other revolutionary books were passed from hand to hand, they were not available in the libraries.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
sophie pinkas