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While growing up I played the piano all the time, every free minute I listened to the gramophone and then tried to play it by ear. I clearly remember that fateful morning at the end of the summer of 1939 when a police officer came to our house and told us that we had to leave Greece within 24 hours, because we were Bulgarian nationals. World War II had just started. We called our father urgently. When he came home we were all flabbergasted. We were given 24 hours to leave all the things we loved: our home, my maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and many other close friends.
In the morning, on the next day, we all went to the station in Salonica and started hugging each other goodbye. The day was warm and sunny, sad and wonderful at the same time. My sister’s classmates from the private French school had come, friends and colleagues of my father’s also. But from that day I remember most clearly one extraordinary woman. Her name was Sarika. She looked after us while my sister and I were growing up. ‘Governess’ sounds too pretentious for her, and ‘nanny’ sounds too disparaging, because she had become a member of our family. Sarika was of great help to my mother when she was too young to manage everything by herself. When we had to get on the train she could hardly let us go and she was the last to leave the platform, staring at us and crying disconsolately. Probably she anticipated what would happen.
And so we left. I didn’t know yet that all these people dear to us would be part of the six million people with tattooed numbers on their hands, who would enter the gas chambers and crematories of Treblinka and Auschwitz [both today Poland]. Innumerable friends of my father’s had urged him to reject his Bulgarian citizenship and apply for a Greek one. But he had always said no. He told them, ‘I’m Bulgarian, and I have my own country for which I fought for eight years on the battlefront.’ It’s scary but true that this love of his towards Bulgaria saved us from the concentration camps. We are alive because of it. We are the only ones left from our large Salonica family.
In the morning, on the next day, we all went to the station in Salonica and started hugging each other goodbye. The day was warm and sunny, sad and wonderful at the same time. My sister’s classmates from the private French school had come, friends and colleagues of my father’s also. But from that day I remember most clearly one extraordinary woman. Her name was Sarika. She looked after us while my sister and I were growing up. ‘Governess’ sounds too pretentious for her, and ‘nanny’ sounds too disparaging, because she had become a member of our family. Sarika was of great help to my mother when she was too young to manage everything by herself. When we had to get on the train she could hardly let us go and she was the last to leave the platform, staring at us and crying disconsolately. Probably she anticipated what would happen.
And so we left. I didn’t know yet that all these people dear to us would be part of the six million people with tattooed numbers on their hands, who would enter the gas chambers and crematories of Treblinka and Auschwitz [both today Poland]. Innumerable friends of my father’s had urged him to reject his Bulgarian citizenship and apply for a Greek one. But he had always said no. He told them, ‘I’m Bulgarian, and I have my own country for which I fought for eight years on the battlefront.’ It’s scary but true that this love of his towards Bulgaria saved us from the concentration camps. We are alive because of it. We are the only ones left from our large Salonica family.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Jul Efraim Levi