In the last period before we left for Sofia, we lived on Bunardjika hill, opposite the main entrance, on Tsar Osvoboditel Street. It was a twin house, one house split in two. A Greek family lived in one half of the house: a Greek woman and her husband, their two sons, who were students and one daughter. My mother, my father, my brother and I lived in the other half. We had different entrances to the house. The house itself had a big courtyard and lots of plants in it and the Greek woman took care of them. I remember that she used to be very suspicious of us at first –she probably thought that we were going to do harm to her plants – but after she got to know us better, she became our friend. The Greek woman was a Protestant and she tried to persuade my mother to go to the Protestant church gatherings with her. I used to join her because it was interesting for me to watch their meetings and the atmosphere there – the people sitting on the benches and singing psalms – because you can’t see that in our synagogues. This house no more exists now; an apartment block has been built there instead.
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Rebeca Gershon-Levi
We lived on Karnegi Street and just opposite us was Karnegi school. I changed to that junior high school. Our house was then just between Bunardjika hill and the fire brigades. That’s a very nice quarter of Plovdiv. We lived on the second floor at a cousin’s of my mother, and she lived on the first floor. Another Jewish family that had come from Greece lived on the second floor as well. I started my high school education in Plovdiv – in the 4th class in the mixed school. I moved to Sofia in the summer of 1938 and I went on studying here.
I studied in the Jewish school till the 4th class. It was difficult for me there and I started begging my mother to transfer me to another school. I found it really hard to learn a poem in Hebrew by heart. I still don’t speak Hebrew and I’m embarrassed because of that when I go to Israel.
My brother was born on 16th January 1929 in Plovdiv. He went to kindergarten there. He started school in Sofia and he got as far as the 3rd class when they interned us to Pleven. Practically he didn’t manage to get education while he lived in Bulgaria. He went to work after we came back to Sofia. He was a skilful boy and he started to work in a shoemaker’s workshop. He made a pair of lovely tourist shoes for everyone in the family before he left for Israel. He got interested in mechanics after he went to Israel, he graduated as a ‘mazger’ [Hebrew for mechanic] there and after that he became a teacher. He has created big construction projects in metallurgy.
Bulgaria
We lived in several places in Plovdiv. We moved from place to place very often because we lived in rented places. The house where we lived first was on the main street, Tsar Osvoboditel opposite Bunardjika [one of the hills in Plovdiv]. After that we went to live on Stranford Street on Sahat tepe. We lived twice on Tsar Osvoboditel Street – once at the beginning of the street and once at its end. The first time our landlords were Jewish and they lived on the upper floor and we lived on the first floor. My brother, Haim Albert Gershon, was born in that house.
I clearly remember that when we lived in the house opposite Bunardjika there wasn’t electricity there and my father used a lantern at nighttime. We used to have a housemaid – a young girl who helped in the household. One evening on our way back home from some visit I started to tease and pull the girl, who was carrying my baby brother then. She dropped him. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt but I got a big thrashing.
I clearly remember that when we lived in the house opposite Bunardjika there wasn’t electricity there and my father used a lantern at nighttime. We used to have a housemaid – a young girl who helped in the household. One evening on our way back home from some visit I started to tease and pull the girl, who was carrying my baby brother then. She dropped him. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt but I got a big thrashing.
My maternal grandfather died when I was just six years old. I remember that I heard some women talking about that on the street while I was going for a walk in town. I was a very little girl then and I couldn’t understand very well what was going on. I understood it only after my mother explained it to me. According to our traditions women don’t go to the cemetery so I don’t remember my grandfather’s funeral.
There was a small square near my grandparents’ house and the local circus performed there. I adored going to the circus and watch the animal shows. The economic school and the mixed high school, where I studied for a year before we moved to Sofia, were also in that part of town.
My paternal grandfather, Haim Avram Gershon, was born in Plovdiv. He was an agent but my father and his brother supported him mostly as they were merchants and had a big shop. My paternal grandparents lived in Plovdiv on Sahat tepe [one of the hills in the town of Plovdiv] in an old Bulgarian house with a large chardak [a wooden penthouse] and a big courtyard. The house had a solid stonewall. The atmosphere there was wonderful. I loved going there a lot. There were three large rooms in the house that impressed me very much because I lived in a more humble lodging at that time. I loved to have breakfast on the sofra [a traditional low table] and eat popara [popular breakfast of crumbled bread and fresh milk].
I remember one of my great-grandfather’s brothers who lived in Plovdiv and he was a very impressive man. He lived on the main street and I often visited him. He lived alone; there was only one housemaid.
My maternal great-grandmother was named Estrea. She spoke both Ladino and Bulgarian. She lived to a very old age – with one of her daughters in the town of Yambol. She used to visit my grandmother in Plovdiv. We even went to health resorts together – my great-grandmother, my grandmother and I. I remember that my maternal grandmother wrote in Ladino. She was a very calm and kind woman. She used to tell me fairy-tales – she was very eloquent and had an endless list of tales. My favorite ones were those from the ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ collection. My grandma was very intelligent and good and everybody in Plovdiv respected and loved her a lot. She died after we had already moved to live in Sofia, when I was in the 7th class of high school.
My maternal great-grandfather lived in Pazardjik and was a Greek citizen. His ancestors had been from Greece. No one in my mother’s family ever told me when he had come to Bulgaria and from where exactly. I remember that his daughter, my grandmother, Mazaltov Haim Kalet, nee Sidi, who was a Greek citizen, had to go to the municipal offices in Plovdiv every year in order to certify her passport. My mother, her sister and brother got Bulgarian citizenship after they turned 18.
My father, his brother and my maternal uncle were sent to forced labor camps [9] during the Holocaust. My maternal uncle hadn’t been interned, but he was sent to a ghetto that was built especially for Jews. My father was sent to the forced labor groups in Belene [a town in North Bulgаria]. We understood where he was allocated much later and we couldn’t contact him while he was in the forced labor groups. We didn’t have any other funds but my small salary at that time.
Some very curious and paradoxical things happened in Pleven. I met three young men who treated me as if I was a princess though they were extreme left-wingers. One of them was even a legionnaire [see Bulgarian Legions] [8]. They protected me and one of them was even in love with me and gave me a beautiful bracelet as a gift. We used to go for walks together, I visited his house, and I trusted him very much. They treated me like real gentlemen.
I met a member of the famous and rich family Aseo in Pleven. This family owned big real-estate properties in Sofia, including the most famous cinema in town. He was a young man and still a student, but his hair had turned gray. We became close but after we returned to Sofia our lives separated.
I met a member of the famous and rich family Aseo in Pleven. This family owned big real-estate properties in Sofia, including the most famous cinema in town. He was a young man and still a student, but his hair had turned gray. We became close but after we returned to Sofia our lives separated.
Thanks to our Jewish ability to organize ourselves, we managed to go through it. We used to gather every Saturday and Sunday without any special reason for doing so. We even assembled a music band in which the musicians played the violin. We used to sing and give lectures.
We were first accommodated in a school in Pleven and after that we were allowed to rent a lodging – just one room in fact. We lived by the road that was leading to Kailuka prison [see Kailuka concentration camp] [7]. This region was in the suburbs of the town. Our landlords were very friendly and they invited us to pick grapes from their fruit garden. We used to eat in the public canteen [Jewish newcomers in the town received free food at a certain place at a certain exact hour]. I started work in a shoe factory. I became a so-called ‘saiadjiika’ because I was among the ones that made the ‘sai’, the upper parts of the shoes.
I had a very unpleasant time in Pleven. Only some people around me were good. I worked with many other girls in the shoe factory; other people used to go and work in the vineyards. One of the masters in the factory repressed me quite a lot – he kept watching me and bothered me all the time. He tormented me and when he was in a bad mood he made me go out and collect the leather cuttings. There was no reason whatsoever to do that. Finally, the factory owner approached me and advised me to quit and so I did. I went to another factory, where the owner was a fascist. Fortunately there was a nice Jewish man of my father’s age who was working there and he helped me become acquainted with the atmosphere and protected me all the time. Thanks God, 9th September [1944] came and I quit my job there.
The factory master was impudent enough to come to Sofia to look for me. I threatened him with an arrest. I couldn’t understand how a grown up man with a family could do such a thing. So, that was quite a bad period for me.
I had a very unpleasant time in Pleven. Only some people around me were good. I worked with many other girls in the shoe factory; other people used to go and work in the vineyards. One of the masters in the factory repressed me quite a lot – he kept watching me and bothered me all the time. He tormented me and when he was in a bad mood he made me go out and collect the leather cuttings. There was no reason whatsoever to do that. Finally, the factory owner approached me and advised me to quit and so I did. I went to another factory, where the owner was a fascist. Fortunately there was a nice Jewish man of my father’s age who was working there and he helped me become acquainted with the atmosphere and protected me all the time. Thanks God, 9th September [1944] came and I quit my job there.
The factory master was impudent enough to come to Sofia to look for me. I threatened him with an arrest. I couldn’t understand how a grown up man with a family could do such a thing. So, that was quite a bad period for me.
My relatives from Plovdiv were not interned from town. They were put under a restrictive regime. They weren’t allowed to go to work or leave town.
My aunt Ernesta was married to a rabbi in Burgas. He was a Greek citizen. When the persecutions against Jews started, the district governor of Burgas advised him to leave the country so that he wouldn’t be sent to the concentration camp. So the family packed and left for Turkey in 1942 and from there to Israel. My aunt already had two children then. She didn’t live a happy life in Israel and she divorced her husband. We used to write letters to each other and that’s how I learned that. I told her that I would do anything possible to help her come back to Bulgaria if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She stayed in Tel Aviv and later she died of leukemia. I loved this aunt of mine very much.
My aunt Ernesta was married to a rabbi in Burgas. He was a Greek citizen. When the persecutions against Jews started, the district governor of Burgas advised him to leave the country so that he wouldn’t be sent to the concentration camp. So the family packed and left for Turkey in 1942 and from there to Israel. My aunt already had two children then. She didn’t live a happy life in Israel and she divorced her husband. We used to write letters to each other and that’s how I learned that. I told her that I would do anything possible to help her come back to Bulgaria if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She stayed in Tel Aviv and later she died of leukemia. I loved this aunt of mine very much.
I graduated from high school in 1941. We started wearing badges in 1942 so that it would be clear that we were Jews, but despite that we didn’t loose our courage and I tried to start work in Sofia as I had studied to be a typist. We didn’t have the financial means to settle in our own home in Sofia. But in 1943 we were interned to Pleven. We had to sell all the belongings from our house on Tsar Simeon Street where we lived then.
In 1942-1943 Brannik was an official organization. I had a classmate in high school that became a member of that organization. It happened that I met her many years after that again. She was a repulsive person. I met her accidentally at the entrance of the Court of Justice. I was with my second husband who had known her from his work place. My husband kissed her on the cheek without knowing what I thought of her. I reacted emotionally and slapped him in the face. I was a trainee in the Court of Justice at that time and my husband was a lawyer. My husband forgave me, though with great difficulty.
I felt the first anti-Semitic moods in 1939 when the Law for the Protection of the Nation [5] was passed. I remember that one day I was taking a walk with a friend of mine on Hristo Botev Boulevard. Suddenly a group of Branniks [6] started to bother us and then fortunately my friend, who wasn’t Jewish, asked an officer, who was passing by, for help. I felt really humiliated wearing the Jewish badge. I was very lucky that I wasn’t violated and maltreated.
The law from 1939 affected those who owned some real-estate property first. We had neither money nor property and even though my father was working for a Bulgarian employer, we also started to feel the stagnation.
The law from 1939 affected those who owned some real-estate property first. We had neither money nor property and even though my father was working for a Bulgarian employer, we also started to feel the stagnation.
My father started to work as a traveling salesman in a chocolate factory in Sofia. He became close to the owner, who realized that my father was a talented and responsible person. My father used to travel around the country and he was in charge of the production disposal in the whole country. My father didn’t have the time to be in contact with the Jews of Sofia. He traveled all the time and never stayed in town for a long time. He was a sociable person and had friends all over the country. The owners’ living standards couldn’t possibly be compared to ours. They were prosperous villagers. His daughter was my classmate in Third Girls’ high school. We didn’t have the financial opportunity to settle in our own home in Sofia. We only had my father’s salary as my brother and I were still students.
The BCP [Bulgarian Communist Party] took a party decision regarding the departure of Jews – everyone could go. The director of the Police Department then called to tell me that even if I applied for departure they wouldn’t let me go for at least five or six years. And they really only let me see my relatives after 13 years – in 1963. After the coup d’etat of 9th September 1944 I had left-wing political convictions [pro-communist]. Although many compatriots of mine left, I myself didn’t want to. I made some pro-forma steps just to please my parents.
I haven’t had any problems at my workplace because of my Jewish origin. I remember an incident when a female officer at the Police Department was telling a story about how she had been chased out by her landlord. There was a certain practice then that the authorities used to settle the newcomers in Sofia in the houses and apartments of other people. She called the owner of the lodging where she was settled ‘a dirty Jew’. The same had happened to that officer. I stood up and slapped her face. I was also settled in such a lodging on Tolbuhin Boulevard at that time. I would have never called my landlord that way, even if she had been Bulgarian. After that incident my boss threatened me with court procedures. It all turned out fine in the end and we even remained friends.
I returned to Sofia in October 1944. The trains were crowded. After 9th September 1944 I was invited straight to the district administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Pleven. I worked there and used to type reports. When it was announced that we could go back to Sofia, I went to the district governor who was a very nice man and gave me several recommendation letters. When I came back to Sofia I went to the Police Department on Lavov most Square. An amiable man accepted me to work in the passport department there.
My parents came back a little time after me and found accommodation in a two-storied house on Tsar Ivan-Assen II Street. I received accommodation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Graf Ignatiev and Tolbuhin Blvd [today Vasil Levski]. The lodging on Ivan Assen II Street consisted of two rooms only, that’s why we went to live on 2, Tolbuhin Blvd in the ex-lodging of a colleague of mine. We shared that place with a compatriot of mine – a Jewish woman who didn’t want us at first – she even put out our luggage twice. We became good friends in the end. She lived in one of the rooms and my family – my mother, my father, my brother and I – had a kitchen, a living-room and a bedroom. The apartment was enormous. After my parents moved to Israel, I was offered to buy the apartment, but my first husband, Miuntzer Blagoev Zahariev, didn’t agree because he believed that everything would become state property. Later we had to vacate the apartment because the owner’s sister wanted to sell it. Meanwhile my parents went to Israel. After that my first husband and I moved to Marin Drinov Street.
My parents came back a little time after me and found accommodation in a two-storied house on Tsar Ivan-Assen II Street. I received accommodation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Graf Ignatiev and Tolbuhin Blvd [today Vasil Levski]. The lodging on Ivan Assen II Street consisted of two rooms only, that’s why we went to live on 2, Tolbuhin Blvd in the ex-lodging of a colleague of mine. We shared that place with a compatriot of mine – a Jewish woman who didn’t want us at first – she even put out our luggage twice. We became good friends in the end. She lived in one of the rooms and my family – my mother, my father, my brother and I – had a kitchen, a living-room and a bedroom. The apartment was enormous. After my parents moved to Israel, I was offered to buy the apartment, but my first husband, Miuntzer Blagoev Zahariev, didn’t agree because he believed that everything would become state property. Later we had to vacate the apartment because the owner’s sister wanted to sell it. Meanwhile my parents went to Israel. After that my first husband and I moved to Marin Drinov Street.
Peter Reisz
He was abroad from about 1925-30. Then he came home, and married my mother in 1930. I don’t know exactly where my parents met, but it could be that they got together because both their families came from Slovakia. They had a proper wedding in the synagogue in Obuda.
My father, Imre Reisz, was born in 1888 in Budapest. He was a man skilled with his hands. He graduated from high school and would have liked to study more, but he couldn’t because of the Numerus Clausus (laws of 1920 limiting number of Jews allowed into university) Since he didn’t have work here in Budapest, and he wasn’t allowed to study, he went to Paris, or perhaps Lyons, and worked in a silk-factory there, drawing Hungarian motifs that were incorporated into necktie designs.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My father’s parents were barkeepers, and owned their own bar. Like my mother’s parents, they came from Slovakia.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My grandmother had six siblings. One of her sisters, Berta, was a trained candy maker. The Brull Confectionery belonged to her and her husband. They did really well financially, and bought a two-story apartment house.
Grandma knew the Swabs well. She would go to visit them when someone in their families died, or when someone was born, and she also went to congratulate them on their holidays. She brought them gifts, and they gave her gifts, like shlachmones (any gift given at Purim). We never had a Christmas tree, but Grandma always went to congratulate the Swabs on Christmas. We celebrated Hanukkah, and if Hanukkah didn’t fall on Christmas, then they would come to congratulate us. They would bring us something, pears, plums, grapes. But they didn’t bring any other food, because they knew that grandmother and her family wouldn’t eat it, but fruit they would eat.
My grandparents were religious people. I know that because I had a place in the great temple here in Obuda, and not just on holidays, but on Friday evenings, too. What I learned of religious customs, and of reading Hebrew, I learned from my grandmother. My grandfather lies in a place of honor in the cemetery, because I believe he was some sort of representative of the congregation. There weren’t really any kosher shops in Obuda, but my grandparents pretty well kept the faith. There was a kosher slaughterhouse, but later it closed. At first my grandmother went to a little market on the corner of Lehel road and Robert Karoly Ring-Road for kosher meat. Later, she went to Lipotvaros. My grandmother was completely kosher; she kept dairy and meat products separate. Up until the day she died, she never ate pork.
My grandparents owned and operated a food shop before the First World War. But my maternal grandfather, Kalman Breiner, was a prisoner of war for a long time during World War I, and my grandmother had to stay at home with the three kids, so the business went under. After the war my grandfather worked as an agent for the Szent Istvan Feed Plant, and traveled around the villages near Budapest selling their goods. He died in 1938. After my grandfather’s death the children were cared for my grandmother, who from then on, always lived with her children.