Selected text
I had to wear my Jewish star here as well. I always put it on the collar of my shirt so that it could be seen when I put on my apron. But there was an agent of State Security Service – Kosta, who lived a few blocks from the bookstore and had decided to harass me. When a lot of people came into the bookstore, usually on Mondays, when I would bend down to lift something and my star couldn’t be seen, I would see Kosta at the door. He would hide and watch me and always appear at such a moment. And since the bookstore was crowded, I couldn’t see him. Panaiot would be at the cashier desk and Kosta would ask him loudly, ‘Panaiot, who’s that over there?’ Then I would realize that my star couldn’t be seen and put it right. And Kosta would say, ‘Spare me your tricks! Why are you hiding your star?’ And my boss, who was a noble man, but sickly, would say, ‘Kosta, please, let her be, look how crowded it is in here!’ Kosta always did it on Mondays when it was full of people. ‘No, she’ll come with me to the police station,’ Kosta would say.
That was the paradox: Kosta was only looking for a reason to arrest me and exercise his authority while also receiving a bribe. So, he would arrest me. And why was I arrested? So that Panaiot would go and pay some money to release me. I was taken to the police station, stayed there for a couple of hours, then Panaiot would come, pay ten levs and take me with him. Kosta did the same thing when I would go to post some letters on the other side of the street because the mailboxes were there. I sent letters to my friends who had been interned to other towns. I don’t know if Kosta treated the other Jews the same way, but he always did that to me. He picked on my sister too, although more rarely, because she worked inside the building. But he knew me very well, because I was in the bookstore.
The sons of our landlady treated us very differently. There were very nice boys, although one of them served in the military police as a conscript. He helped me once. Goshko, the younger one, also helped us a lot. We weren’t allowed to go to the market and we had no rations. So my mother asked him to buy us at least one bottle of oil from the black market. And when we took the beans soup from the synagogue, she would fry it a bit to make it tastier. The boy helped us: went to the market, found something and bought it for us. In the ghetto we were also allowed to go out of our homes, but for only two hours a day: between 9am and 11am. I would run away and go to work. So, I was also arrested. It was very difficult. We also had to take our food from the synagogue during those two hours. But the people around us helped us as much as they could.
That was the paradox: Kosta was only looking for a reason to arrest me and exercise his authority while also receiving a bribe. So, he would arrest me. And why was I arrested? So that Panaiot would go and pay some money to release me. I was taken to the police station, stayed there for a couple of hours, then Panaiot would come, pay ten levs and take me with him. Kosta did the same thing when I would go to post some letters on the other side of the street because the mailboxes were there. I sent letters to my friends who had been interned to other towns. I don’t know if Kosta treated the other Jews the same way, but he always did that to me. He picked on my sister too, although more rarely, because she worked inside the building. But he knew me very well, because I was in the bookstore.
The sons of our landlady treated us very differently. There were very nice boys, although one of them served in the military police as a conscript. He helped me once. Goshko, the younger one, also helped us a lot. We weren’t allowed to go to the market and we had no rations. So my mother asked him to buy us at least one bottle of oil from the black market. And when we took the beans soup from the synagogue, she would fry it a bit to make it tastier. The boy helped us: went to the market, found something and bought it for us. In the ghetto we were also allowed to go out of our homes, but for only two hours a day: between 9am and 11am. I would run away and go to work. So, I was also arrested. It was very difficult. We also had to take our food from the synagogue during those two hours. But the people around us helped us as much as they could.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Adela Nissimova Levi