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I spent only one of my holidays at Moshava, a camp of Hashomer Hatzair. It was in present-day Velingrad. I remember that I ate very little. And my mother told me: 'If you eat French beans the whole summer, you will go to Moshava, if you don't eat, you won't go.' So, I grew to like French beans. I remember that my grandfather's brother kir David ['kir' means 'mister' in Turkish and it was also used in Bulgarian at the beginning of the century], who had five sons, had 50 levs in coins with the image of King Boris III on them. He went to my mother and said, 'Take these 50 levs and pay for Moshava. When her father comes out of prison, he will give it back to me.' Of course, my father didn't return it, but the important thing is that I went to Moshava and I liked it. That was my only vacation. During my other vacations I stayed at home and worked. There was no other way. I worked in the 'Arda' cigarette factory and in vegetable gardens for a guy named Tarzan. I still remember him standing at the beginning of a vegetable row and yelling 'Come oooon!' Even now when I'm doing something and someone stands behind my back, I start to shiver all over. I was a child at that time, after all.
Victoria Ilkova was a classmate of mine, a Wallachian [Romanian minority, living in various parts of Bulgaria, among them Vidin, by the Danube]. During the Law for the Protection of the Nation, when we were expelled from school, her brother was a political prisoner and in one cell with my father in Vidin prison. She lived in the Wallachian quarter of the town - Kum Bair, which was quite far from our home. But she came to our house, carrying lots of products wrapped in a canvas and hidden between her trousers and her panties. She brought us flour and meat and thus helped us. I will never forget her kindness. We survived because the Bulgarians were nice and tolerant with us [and so were the Wallachians, the Romanians].
After 9th September 1944 the police chief Ivan the Beast was arrested, because he beat political prisoners in the army. His wife Penka took their luggage and went to the village of his mother. We were very poor, so there was nothing they could take from us. But we had a red dress that I will never forget. At the port we were waiting to be taken to the barges and my mother had sewn for us bags for our most precious things. They told us, 'Leave you luggage and go', because they thought there was gold in it. Later I saw Rumyana, the daughter of the police chief in our red dress. And it was the only nice dress at home and my sister Veneta and I had taken turns to wear it. For the fifth anniversary of our marriage my husband bought me red cloth so I could have a red dress sewed for myself.
Victoria Ilkova was a classmate of mine, a Wallachian [Romanian minority, living in various parts of Bulgaria, among them Vidin, by the Danube]. During the Law for the Protection of the Nation, when we were expelled from school, her brother was a political prisoner and in one cell with my father in Vidin prison. She lived in the Wallachian quarter of the town - Kum Bair, which was quite far from our home. But she came to our house, carrying lots of products wrapped in a canvas and hidden between her trousers and her panties. She brought us flour and meat and thus helped us. I will never forget her kindness. We survived because the Bulgarians were nice and tolerant with us [and so were the Wallachians, the Romanians].
After 9th September 1944 the police chief Ivan the Beast was arrested, because he beat political prisoners in the army. His wife Penka took their luggage and went to the village of his mother. We were very poor, so there was nothing they could take from us. But we had a red dress that I will never forget. At the port we were waiting to be taken to the barges and my mother had sewn for us bags for our most precious things. They told us, 'Leave you luggage and go', because they thought there was gold in it. Later I saw Rumyana, the daughter of the police chief in our red dress. And it was the only nice dress at home and my sister Veneta and I had taken turns to wear it. For the fifth anniversary of our marriage my husband bought me red cloth so I could have a red dress sewed for myself.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Mimi-Matilda Petkova