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I remember that I was greatly impressed by the first children’s program that I listened to on the radio. Some man in the box was talking like a hen, a rabbit, and other animals. I didn’t understand a word from the story, but its melody, intonation, and the animal sounds imitated, grabbed me. My uncle told me the name of the actor who was telling the children’s stories and I still remember it. That was Nikola Balabanov.
After some years when I was working for the National Theater, I could appreciate even better the greatness of his artistic talent. But then, when I first heard the miracle box, I would have never believed that nine years later, I would ‘enter’ that box.
It was very funny in 1939 when we came to Sofia. I understood nothing of what my cousins were talking, especially in the first days. They spoke the local Spanolit [Ladino]: a language full of Turkish words and variations of Bulgarian words. I found the Bulgarian verbs used in Spanish conjugations the funniest. Something like: ‘No razvalees el ezik’, which means ‘Don’t ruin the language!’ [The words are Bulgarian (razvale and ezik) with Ladino ending (es) and the grammatical structure is Ladino]. A story was being told as a joke at that time about a Bulgarian Jew who had left a note on the door of his house when he went out: ‘El kliuch esta debasho de la chergita’ [The Bulgarian words in the sentence are kliuch (key) and chergita (rug with Ladino suffix) while the syntactic structure is Ladino.] or ‘The key is right under the rug.’ It sounds like a code.
I remember that when we arrived in Bulgaria, we felt that the situation was very tense. An invisible ring was being tightened up around us. Even our first days at my uncle’s were worrying. Suddenly, they started talking about smashed shop windows of Jewish shops, death threat notes written on the houses, and similar scary things. I was very scared by them. I had felt the same way in Salonica just before we had left. The first time I felt dizzy with fear was when a group of newspaper boys, running along the main street near us, shouted at the top of their voices, ‘Polemos!’ In Greek that word means ‘war.’ I didn’t understand the situation then, but the sheer intensity and strength of their shouts and their chaotic intonation made me very scared.
After some years when I was working for the National Theater, I could appreciate even better the greatness of his artistic talent. But then, when I first heard the miracle box, I would have never believed that nine years later, I would ‘enter’ that box.
It was very funny in 1939 when we came to Sofia. I understood nothing of what my cousins were talking, especially in the first days. They spoke the local Spanolit [Ladino]: a language full of Turkish words and variations of Bulgarian words. I found the Bulgarian verbs used in Spanish conjugations the funniest. Something like: ‘No razvalees el ezik’, which means ‘Don’t ruin the language!’ [The words are Bulgarian (razvale and ezik) with Ladino ending (es) and the grammatical structure is Ladino]. A story was being told as a joke at that time about a Bulgarian Jew who had left a note on the door of his house when he went out: ‘El kliuch esta debasho de la chergita’ [The Bulgarian words in the sentence are kliuch (key) and chergita (rug with Ladino suffix) while the syntactic structure is Ladino.] or ‘The key is right under the rug.’ It sounds like a code.
I remember that when we arrived in Bulgaria, we felt that the situation was very tense. An invisible ring was being tightened up around us. Even our first days at my uncle’s were worrying. Suddenly, they started talking about smashed shop windows of Jewish shops, death threat notes written on the houses, and similar scary things. I was very scared by them. I had felt the same way in Salonica just before we had left. The first time I felt dizzy with fear was when a group of newspaper boys, running along the main street near us, shouted at the top of their voices, ‘Polemos!’ In Greek that word means ‘war.’ I didn’t understand the situation then, but the sheer intensity and strength of their shouts and their chaotic intonation made me very scared.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Jul Efraim Levi