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When fascism started in Bulgaria, we gradually realized that we should stay aside and watch its invasion. When I was 15 or 16 years old, after the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, my adherents and I decided that we should help the Soviet army who were struggling with fascism. Many of the Hashomer Hatzair members passed on to UYW [8], the [communist] youth organization fighting against fascism. In fact our opposition was a rather harmless one. But there were combat groups, which carried out sabotage activities on trains as well as some restaurants attended by Germans, where they threw bombs. We were younger at that time and our task was to raise funds and provide food and medicines for some friends of ours, who had landed in prison under hard conditions. Once we had a set-back during the setting up of such a group. We were detained by the police: some of us were set free, while others were sentenced. This happened in February 1943. In May 1943 I was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.
At first I was in Sofia prison. This coincided with the events of deportation of Jews in March 1943. At that time we were about eight Jews in the prison. The deportation failed and Jews were saved. In order to compensate this failure the Bulgarian fascists decided to intern all the Jews from Sofia. At that time around 25,000 Jews lived in the city. Orders were given for every family to be interned to a particular town: Kyustendil, Shumen, Ruse or others. They had to leave with a maximum of 20 kilograms of luggage and abandon their houses. It was a very ugly scene. The people took their belongings to the market and sold them very cheap as they neither knew what they were destined to, nor whether the deportation would be temporarily stopped. A lot of Jews thought that it was temporary and that from the Danube they would be deported to the death camps. In the meantime I was in prison and it can be said that I was comparatively well until May 1943. There was no food for most of us. Actually we were given some kind of a soup, which was close to nothing. Until May [1943] my relatives were still in Sofia and they would bring for us some food occasionally. After 24th May 1943 [9] all Jews were interned from Sofia. My relatives went to Kyustendil and Lom. Thus we couldn’t communicate with them and the situation became much worse.
At first I was in Sofia prison. This coincided with the events of deportation of Jews in March 1943. At that time we were about eight Jews in the prison. The deportation failed and Jews were saved. In order to compensate this failure the Bulgarian fascists decided to intern all the Jews from Sofia. At that time around 25,000 Jews lived in the city. Orders were given for every family to be interned to a particular town: Kyustendil, Shumen, Ruse or others. They had to leave with a maximum of 20 kilograms of luggage and abandon their houses. It was a very ugly scene. The people took their belongings to the market and sold them very cheap as they neither knew what they were destined to, nor whether the deportation would be temporarily stopped. A lot of Jews thought that it was temporary and that from the Danube they would be deported to the death camps. In the meantime I was in prison and it can be said that I was comparatively well until May 1943. There was no food for most of us. Actually we were given some kind of a soup, which was close to nothing. Until May [1943] my relatives were still in Sofia and they would bring for us some food occasionally. After 24th May 1943 [9] all Jews were interned from Sofia. My relatives went to Kyustendil and Lom. Thus we couldn’t communicate with them and the situation became much worse.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Yosif Avram Levi