Selected text
The other problem was my studying at high school. According to the regulations only two per cent of the Jews in a certain town could attend high school and, of course, the local people had an advantage. My mother couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t get proper education and she wrote a letter to the then minister of education, Yotsov, who replied that I should stick to the regulations as a Jew, but I had the right to attend the high school as a private student. We started looking for teachers to prepare me. Mum succeeded in finding the teachers needed and I, in this so complicated situation, started preparing for the exams. [According to the Law for the Protection of he Nation, the admittance of Jews to the schools was limited. Nonetheless, in most of the schools – talking about the middle class Jews – they continue their education in exactly this way – as private students.] We often heard shots and could see the smoke from the Romanian bank opposite because they were bombing Kalafat – they would sound the alarm whenever planes of the English-American union passed over Vidin. On such occasions, we would leave the town and hide in airraid shelters. [On 27th September 1940 the Tripartite pact was officially signed – in fact that was a union between Germany, Italy and Japan. On 1st March 1941 the government led by Bogdan Filov signed a protocol and Bulgaria joined the pact. On 12th December the same year Bulgaria discontinued its diplomatic relations with the USA and Great Britain and declared war on these states. As a reaction to this decision the allies Great Britain and the USA declared war on Bulgaria. The English-American airraids on the Balkans were particularly intensive from September 1943 – on 13th the towns of Stara Zagora, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Kazanlak were bombed, in October – Skopje, Veslets and Nis. In the period between 1st Novemver and 20th December the headquarters of the strategic airraid forces of the USA in Europe formed the 15th Air-borne Army for bombing Bulgaria. In December Sofia and Plovdiv were bombed. At the beginning of 1944 after the second massive airraids on Sofia, the allies attacked the air space over Skopje, Vratsa, Kunino and Beglezh.] I managed to prepare for the exams in May 1944. I sat for all the examinations, passed them and got a certificate that I have finished the fifth grade.
We welcomed 9th September [1944] [22] in Vidin. Our boys managed to enter the District Administration and they said that there were found lists according to which the male Jews should have been sent to Poland, whereas the women and children were supposed to be put on barges and sunk into the river. I don’t know whether this is true.
Two days before 9th September the fascist authorities sounded the alarm. We were taken out of the town, but I can’t say if all the Jews were made to leave it. In this way the German forces quartered in Vidin were given the conditions to leave town unobstructed. The troops withdrew from the town but dug themselves in on some heights near Zaychar – to the west, on Yugoslavian territory. When the Russian troops headed for the border, the Germans started shooting from the high grounds and turned them into bloody meat. They drove the Russians to Vidin like that, in the trucks. On 20th September left the first Bulgarian forces, which were joined by a lot of Jews volunteers. The first victim was claimed – Zhak Kohen.
We welcomed 9th September [1944] [22] in Vidin. Our boys managed to enter the District Administration and they said that there were found lists according to which the male Jews should have been sent to Poland, whereas the women and children were supposed to be put on barges and sunk into the river. I don’t know whether this is true.
Two days before 9th September the fascist authorities sounded the alarm. We were taken out of the town, but I can’t say if all the Jews were made to leave it. In this way the German forces quartered in Vidin were given the conditions to leave town unobstructed. The troops withdrew from the town but dug themselves in on some heights near Zaychar – to the west, on Yugoslavian territory. When the Russian troops headed for the border, the Germans started shooting from the high grounds and turned them into bloody meat. They drove the Russians to Vidin like that, in the trucks. On 20th September left the first Bulgarian forces, which were joined by a lot of Jews volunteers. The first victim was claimed – Zhak Kohen.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Reyna Lidgi