Tag #141746 - Interview #98148 (Mois Natan)

The Jews had a good standard of living. Almost everywhere they had running water and electricity. In several slums for the poor people they had everything outside their houses, but such houses were a very rare thing to see. A big Jewish organization, ‘Malbish Arumim’ [14] was in charge of providing food and clothes to the poor people. In autumns they used to buy them winter clothes and shoes, there was also a communal canteen. There was no anti-Semitism before the introduction of the Law for Protection of the Nation [15]. But there was no anti-Semitism after this law, too – I mean – declared and rude one. [Editor’s note: He probably means although the anti-Semitic laws were introduced it was still little felt in the every day reality.] There was one pro-fascist organization ‘Country Defense’ [16], as well as ‘Ratnik’ [17], but nobody offended me because of my Jewish origin while I was a schoolboy in the high school, even after we had to wear those yellow stars [18]. None of my classmates has ever insulted me, because we were good students. They respected us. There wasn’t any anti-Semitism among the people in Bulgaria. The anti-Semitism was on an institutional level – stemming from the laws and regulations. But even in the period when we had to wear those yellow stars – there wasn’t any negative attitude to us.