The children in our family were raised in accordance with Jewish traditions. I was sent to a private Jewish kindergarten, though it existed for no longer than about six months. I was taught the Yiddish alphabet at home. When we had guests, I was put on a chair in front of them to demonstrate my knowledge of the alphabet. My grandfather Joiseph spent a lot of time with me: he taught me Hebrew, told me about the Jewish religion and about Hasidim.
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Displaying 40111 - 40140 of 50826 results
Bela Ishakh
I am a descendant of a Sephardi [1] family, but unfortunately, I don’t know many specific facts, or any emblematic family stories connected with my ancestors. What I know for sure is that they lived in Silistra, a town near the Danube River, where I was born, too.
My grandparents’ paternal and maternal parents are not known to me. I know only that the whole family was burned in the death camps in 1943 after the deportation of Macedonian Jews [2]. I don’t know when the parents of my parents were born, and I can’t say anything about their life before their coming to live in Bulgaria. I have no idea of what their home might have looked like. I only know they were not rich.
My grandparents’ paternal and maternal parents are not known to me. I know only that the whole family was burned in the death camps in 1943 after the deportation of Macedonian Jews [2]. I don’t know when the parents of my parents were born, and I can’t say anything about their life before their coming to live in Bulgaria. I have no idea of what their home might have looked like. I only know they were not rich.
I remained in the Jewish ghetto of Ruse, where I made social contacts with the young Jewish boys and girls who were interned from Sofia. All of us were then supporters of the Union of Young Workers. My friends’ names from this period were Violeta, Sami, Moni, Stela and others, but I can’t remember their family names any more.
There was also Galiko, who was interned from Sofia. He was handicapped. That was how he was born – with tangled legs and strangely twisted arms. Our Jewish community looked after him and regularly walked him in the town in a perambulator.
Our gatherings of the Union of Young Workers often took place at his house. We often discussed the idea of the foundation of [the state of] Israel, which meant we were Zionists to a certain extent. I remember that the house he was renting was right opposite to Maccabi. In spite of the terror, I think this period was romantic.
There was also Galiko, who was interned from Sofia. He was handicapped. That was how he was born – with tangled legs and strangely twisted arms. Our Jewish community looked after him and regularly walked him in the town in a perambulator.
Our gatherings of the Union of Young Workers often took place at his house. We often discussed the idea of the foundation of [the state of] Israel, which meant we were Zionists to a certain extent. I remember that the house he was renting was right opposite to Maccabi. In spite of the terror, I think this period was romantic.
During the Law for the Protection of the Nation my future husband was sent as a worker to a forced labor camp [10] for Jews. Barely 18 years old he was sent to the camp in the village of Mikre, Lovech region, and after that he was moved to ‘Sveti Vrach’ camp and then to another one in the village of Veselinovo, Shumen region. In fact, Jewish men were then used as working force at no cost. They used them to build the road between Shumen and Burgas.
We married on 19th September 1945. We are proud that our wedding was one of the first civil marriages that took place in Ruse.
When I was young, I was an active member of the Union of Young Workers, or short UYW [9]. That was in fact the reason why I met my future husband, Aron Gavriel Ishakh, who was also a member of the UYW. We met in our illegal club in 1945. [Editor’s note: It must have already been legal, as this happened after 9th September 1944 when the communists came to power in Bulgaria.] We had to prepare a wall-newspaper then, but I can’t remember any details except for that we gathered in the UYW club on Gurko Street. He saw me home and we became friends.
It is known that a group of 200 Jews set off on a boat from Varna in 1940, but they suffered shipwreck in the Marmara Sea and most of them died. These were mainly young Jews from Sofia and Plovdiv. At the same time, a recruitment campaign for young people who want to immigrate to Israel was taking place in Ruse. However, there was no mass emigration from our town after this campaign, but I am not informed about the reasons.
After school we usually went to the Maccabi [7] yard to play. The chairman of Maccabi was Baruh Ovadia, a prominent public figure of Ruse’s Jewish community. Wonderful celebrations of the high holidays Chanukkah, Purim and Pesach were organized under his auspices. On Lag ba-Omer for example we had an impressive manifestation with music in the streets of Ruse, we always had a drummer in the avant-garde. In the afternoon the whole Jewish community would gather at the Habermann site near Ruse, on a meadow, where we, the Maccabi members, would present complex physical exercises and gymnastic pyramids. It was a nice time.
Back then Maccabi was openly a Zionist organization whose aim was to prepare healthy and strong young men and women who would then immigrate to Palestine in order to build anew the Jewish State. We were prepared for that and most of my friends emigrated there during the great immigration process in 1948 [cf. Mass Aliyah] [8] and some of them even before that.
Back then Maccabi was openly a Zionist organization whose aim was to prepare healthy and strong young men and women who would then immigrate to Palestine in order to build anew the Jewish State. We were prepared for that and most of my friends emigrated there during the great immigration process in 1948 [cf. Mass Aliyah] [8] and some of them even before that.
As far as the school holidays of 1929 and 1930 are concerned, I was sent to Ruse’s Jewish school on the Varna campus. Several poor kids were selected and sent to holiday resorts with the financial support of the Jewish community. That was the first time I got on a train. Several rooms with beds were prepared for us in Varna. There was a chef, too, and we called her Auntie Hursi.
Jewish traditions were preserved to a great extent thanks to the Jewish school. We studied there from first to seventh grade. During our Hebrew classes we read the Tannakh and learned what the origin of the tradition was. The school’s headmaster Adon Josif Safra read the Tannakh for us and taught the kids to speak Hebrew. The school, which had 15 classrooms, a canteen and a gym, provided the opportunity for education of children from pre-school age up to the stage when they completed their elementary education. We didn’t have a yeshivah, but the school had a canteen, where dozens of children from poor families could have meals, including me and my brothers. On Pesach these children were given new shoes and clothes.
Later, when the time of the Law for the Protection of the Nation began [5], the Ashkenazi municipality was ruined, and so was their synagogue. Of course, Ashkenazim in Ruse spoke Yiddish to each other; they spoke usually in Bulgarian with us. Frankly speaking, I don’t recall any marriages between the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. If something of the kind had happened, I would have remembered it, that’s for sure.
The [Sephardi] Jewish community had its own building that contained three office rooms, a big hall and a library. Not every Jewish organization these days could boast about such preciseness of governing the community as ours could. Our community, for example, kept registers of its members’ marital status. We had registers of the families in Ruse, registers of the marriages, a book for the newborns and another one for the funerals. Today one can still see them because they are well preserved, although nobody keeps such records here anymore.
We also had a kind of internal healthcare, within the community. The Bikur Cholim [6] committee provided nurses or ‘rohesas’ [Ladino for ‘doctors’] to those people who were old and lived alone. Chevra Kaddisha was the funeral committee and its heads were Mois Aron Hakim and Yosif Shlomo Kapon. They took care of the cemetery, so that it looked decent, and also made sure the funerals were carried out in line with the Jewish traditions. There was a small hut within the graveyard where a custodian lived permanently. These customs now may sound like a fiction.
I remember Ez-Chaim, the committee for poor and sick women in childbirth. Auntie Mari, Auntie Ernestina, Adon Aron and Auntie Sofie were in charge of this. Their full names were Mari Avram Asher, Ernestina Aron Djaldeti and Sofie David Maer, but I can’t remember any biographical facts about them. However, I remember them as selfless and dedicated people. Usually they visited in shifts the sick people and provided them with medicines and funds. Isak Eshkenazi and Baruh Magriso were in charge of the committee for voluntary donations. Their mission was particularly respected within the community, because it was they who secured funds for the community’s budget, but I learned about this later.
We also had an old people’s home. For example, nowadays, the only old people’s home operating in Sofia it is known under the metaphorical name ‘Parents’ home.’ Half a century before that there was an old people’s home in Ruse, owned by the municipality, as it is today the situation with the house in Sofia. Yako Kapon was the director of the one in Ruse. A total of 20 poor and lonely people were accommodated there and all their expenses were covered by the municipality. As a matter of fact, none of my relatives has ever been accommodated there.
In those days there were a lot of charity activities taking place within our community. The funds in the Jewish municipality’s budget were used for financing the implementation of special programs. These programs were socially intended and they helped poor people achieve a better living standard. The whole Jewish community co-operated for the implementation of these programs.
The [Sephardi] Jewish community had its own building that contained three office rooms, a big hall and a library. Not every Jewish organization these days could boast about such preciseness of governing the community as ours could. Our community, for example, kept registers of its members’ marital status. We had registers of the families in Ruse, registers of the marriages, a book for the newborns and another one for the funerals. Today one can still see them because they are well preserved, although nobody keeps such records here anymore.
We also had a kind of internal healthcare, within the community. The Bikur Cholim [6] committee provided nurses or ‘rohesas’ [Ladino for ‘doctors’] to those people who were old and lived alone. Chevra Kaddisha was the funeral committee and its heads were Mois Aron Hakim and Yosif Shlomo Kapon. They took care of the cemetery, so that it looked decent, and also made sure the funerals were carried out in line with the Jewish traditions. There was a small hut within the graveyard where a custodian lived permanently. These customs now may sound like a fiction.
I remember Ez-Chaim, the committee for poor and sick women in childbirth. Auntie Mari, Auntie Ernestina, Adon Aron and Auntie Sofie were in charge of this. Their full names were Mari Avram Asher, Ernestina Aron Djaldeti and Sofie David Maer, but I can’t remember any biographical facts about them. However, I remember them as selfless and dedicated people. Usually they visited in shifts the sick people and provided them with medicines and funds. Isak Eshkenazi and Baruh Magriso were in charge of the committee for voluntary donations. Their mission was particularly respected within the community, because it was they who secured funds for the community’s budget, but I learned about this later.
We also had an old people’s home. For example, nowadays, the only old people’s home operating in Sofia it is known under the metaphorical name ‘Parents’ home.’ Half a century before that there was an old people’s home in Ruse, owned by the municipality, as it is today the situation with the house in Sofia. Yako Kapon was the director of the one in Ruse. A total of 20 poor and lonely people were accommodated there and all their expenses were covered by the municipality. As a matter of fact, none of my relatives has ever been accommodated there.
In those days there were a lot of charity activities taking place within our community. The funds in the Jewish municipality’s budget were used for financing the implementation of special programs. These programs were socially intended and they helped poor people achieve a better living standard. The whole Jewish community co-operated for the implementation of these programs.
In Ruse there were three synagogues: two were of the Sephardim, and one belonged to the Ashkenazim. In both of the Sephardi synagogues, ‘the small’ and ‘the big’ one, as they used to call them, there were religious rituals taking place. On weekdays, the rituals were performed in the small synagogue.
Usually, my family attended services at the big synagogue. The reading of the Torah on Erev Sabbath and for other Jewish holidays was taking place at the big synagogue. Every family that had paid a voluntary fee had special places reserved there. During the prayerful days at Pesach, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah even women were gathering in the synagogue whose seats were separate from those of men; women’s places were on the balcony.
Yosif Alhalel was the chazzan of the Sephardi synagogues, and he was also a secretary of the Jewish community. Albert Yulzari was the shammash as well as the archivist. Naftali Rut was rabbi at the Ashkenazi synagogue, while Lupo Geldstein was the shammash. Chevra Kaddisha responsibilities were entrusted by the community to Simon Segal and Morits Kronberg. Both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues were religious centers where young and old Jews gathered for Erev Sabbath and the Jewish holidays. There the Jewish traditions were kept alive and passed from father to son. The religious activity of the synagogues was part of the activity of the whole community.
There were no major differences between the large Sephardi and the significantly smaller Askenazi communities – neither from a religious nor a lifestyle point of view. Our Bet Am was a community. Periodically, concerts and social evenings were organized there, which attracted the Jewish youth. Events organized by the Askenazi or by the Sephardi community were intended for all the Jews. The only difference was that we had separate municipalities.
Usually, my family attended services at the big synagogue. The reading of the Torah on Erev Sabbath and for other Jewish holidays was taking place at the big synagogue. Every family that had paid a voluntary fee had special places reserved there. During the prayerful days at Pesach, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah even women were gathering in the synagogue whose seats were separate from those of men; women’s places were on the balcony.
Yosif Alhalel was the chazzan of the Sephardi synagogues, and he was also a secretary of the Jewish community. Albert Yulzari was the shammash as well as the archivist. Naftali Rut was rabbi at the Ashkenazi synagogue, while Lupo Geldstein was the shammash. Chevra Kaddisha responsibilities were entrusted by the community to Simon Segal and Morits Kronberg. Both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues were religious centers where young and old Jews gathered for Erev Sabbath and the Jewish holidays. There the Jewish traditions were kept alive and passed from father to son. The religious activity of the synagogues was part of the activity of the whole community.
There were no major differences between the large Sephardi and the significantly smaller Askenazi communities – neither from a religious nor a lifestyle point of view. Our Bet Am was a community. Periodically, concerts and social evenings were organized there, which attracted the Jewish youth. Events organized by the Askenazi or by the Sephardi community were intended for all the Jews. The only difference was that we had separate municipalities.
In the Jewish quarter on David, Vidin, Klementina, Gurko, Dondukov and Korsakov Streets, where the Jewish population lived, there were only small houses to see. The relationships between the poor and rich Jews were regulated by the Jewish community that collected funds from the rich Jews to give them to the poor.
We moved to live in Ruse when I was still very young. I remember that Ruse always had nice markets. Villagers from the nearby settlements came to sell their goods and the citizens crowded to buy things. We had a big and a small market there. We preferred the small one. Tuesdays and Fridays were the market days. All tradesmen there were favorites with us.
As a child, I attended the Jewish nursery and the Jewish school in Ruse. The Jewish school then started when the kids were first-graders and ended when they completed their seventh school year. After that, I graduated from the Jewish school in Ruse. Adon [‘Sir’ in Ivrit] Yosif Safra was our teacher in Ivrit. He was a favorite with us because he was very intelligent and nice. I didn’t hate any of the subjects at school, I didn’t need private lessons in any of them, and I didn’t play any musical instrument.
During the totalitarian period my sister Ester lived in Sofia and immigrated to Israel in 1999. Now she lives in Rishon Le Zion. She is married to David Alfandari, who worked as a textile designer when he lived in Bulgaria. They are not religious. Their son, Simon Alfandari, is a doctor. At present, Ester and David are pensioners.
Victoria lived in Ruse together with her husband Leon Markus and after his death in 2002 she moved to Israel – to stay with her son Avram Markus. They live in Kiryat Yam. They are not religious, either.
Victoria lived in Ruse together with her husband Leon Markus and after his death in 2002 she moved to Israel – to stay with her son Avram Markus. They live in Kiryat Yam. They are not religious, either.
We lived a simple life in a tidy, humble house in the Jewish neighborhood of Ruse. The house had two rooms and a kitchen. We used wood for heating. There was no electricity then. We had oil lamps. Despite the poverty of my childhood, I cannot complain because I felt good.
We spoke Ladino [3] at home, but of course we could communicate in Bulgarian when the situation required it. We used to read non-religious books mainly, secular novels by Mayne Reid [(1818-1883): Irish-American novelist] and others, and after that Marxist literature, dialectical materialism. We, the children read these books.
My parents were religious people and this was what my children inherited, too, since my father and mother actively helped me with the bringing-up of my own children. We attended services at the synagogue quite regularly, especially on the high Jewish holidays such as Yom Kippur, Pesach, Chanukkah, Lag ba-Omer, Purim, and Rosh Hashanah. My favorite holiday was Pesach. I liked the history of this holiday, especially the lesson of this holiday, which was for me that the Jewish people have been united because of their faith and the strength of this faith.
If I have to express my personal opinion of the historical date of 10th November 1989, I would rather say I am satisfied with the changes. I feel freer than before, my family also enjoys the new social conditions. After the changes, I, as all other Jews of my age, received the three installments of the aid from the Swiss Fund. It is no secret that both my daughters have their jobs, and both my sisters immigrated to Israel where they feel comfortable.
This is the one side of the coin, though. On the other hand, I don’t’ like the economic changes that took place after democracy was established in Bulgaria. Unemployment, poverty and discontent – that were the seeds of democracy here. Before 1989, everybody had a job, the society was calm, everybody could build his own home. My family was even in the possession of a plot of land where we grew okra and grapes for making wine.
This unemployment has affected the other part of my family: my grandson [Sonia’s son] is jobless, so is my daughter-in-law. It is paradoxical how we reached to a situation when my husband and I have to help them out with money from our pensions; to help them with our advice and to take care of them.
This is the one side of the coin, though. On the other hand, I don’t’ like the economic changes that took place after democracy was established in Bulgaria. Unemployment, poverty and discontent – that were the seeds of democracy here. Before 1989, everybody had a job, the society was calm, everybody could build his own home. My family was even in the possession of a plot of land where we grew okra and grapes for making wine.
This unemployment has affected the other part of my family: my grandson [Sonia’s son] is jobless, so is my daughter-in-law. It is paradoxical how we reached to a situation when my husband and I have to help them out with money from our pensions; to help them with our advice and to take care of them.
As a matter of fact, during the totalitarian period, when we were deprived of our estates, we were also deprived of our synagogues. I am speaking of the two synagogues: the big Sephardi one and that of the Ashkenazim. The small Sephardi synagogue was demolished in 1935 because it was then almost in ruins and the Jewish community took a decision to demolish it. An apartment block was built on the site. The big synagogue was given as an atelier to a town council sculptor and he made his sculptures in there. So our synagogue started looking like a bungalow.
The Ashkenazi synagogue was given to the state lottery and they built twelve small rooms in it. When we were given back our estates in 1989, we were also given the two synagogues. We had a double problem to solve. We had to pull down the inner walls in the Ashkenazi synagogue in order to transform it into a synagogue and a club again.
We needed money, but we didn’t have it. That is why we sold an estate. I am speaking of an old house that was in the possession of a Jew who immigrated to Palestine before 1948. The house remained as a property of the Jewish community in Ruse. It was located on Alexandrovska Street, and we started the reconstruction. That happened in 1992.
Meanwhile, the big Sephardi synagogue started falling into ruins. It was crumbling away in front of our eyes, but we didn’t have the money to reconstruct it. We asked for 100,000 BGN [which equals some EUR 50,000] from the central governing body of Shalom in Sofia – but the sum was very high and there was nobody to give it to us.
That was the reason why the governing committee of Ruse’s Shalom decided to sell it to an Evangelist sect. [Editor’s note: It is most probably a smaller neo-Protestant Church.] All the Jews in Ruse are convinced that it is a sect, not a widely accepted branch of the Christian religion. And we sold it. They spent USD 120,000 to reconstruct the building.
It is sad, but it looks now exactly the way it did 50 years ago. But it is no longer functioning as a synagogue. And it will never be a synagogue again, because we don’t have funds to buy it back from the Evangelists.
The Ashkenazi synagogue was given to the state lottery and they built twelve small rooms in it. When we were given back our estates in 1989, we were also given the two synagogues. We had a double problem to solve. We had to pull down the inner walls in the Ashkenazi synagogue in order to transform it into a synagogue and a club again.
We needed money, but we didn’t have it. That is why we sold an estate. I am speaking of an old house that was in the possession of a Jew who immigrated to Palestine before 1948. The house remained as a property of the Jewish community in Ruse. It was located on Alexandrovska Street, and we started the reconstruction. That happened in 1992.
Meanwhile, the big Sephardi synagogue started falling into ruins. It was crumbling away in front of our eyes, but we didn’t have the money to reconstruct it. We asked for 100,000 BGN [which equals some EUR 50,000] from the central governing body of Shalom in Sofia – but the sum was very high and there was nobody to give it to us.
That was the reason why the governing committee of Ruse’s Shalom decided to sell it to an Evangelist sect. [Editor’s note: It is most probably a smaller neo-Protestant Church.] All the Jews in Ruse are convinced that it is a sect, not a widely accepted branch of the Christian religion. And we sold it. They spent USD 120,000 to reconstruct the building.
It is sad, but it looks now exactly the way it did 50 years ago. But it is no longer functioning as a synagogue. And it will never be a synagogue again, because we don’t have funds to buy it back from the Evangelists.
The date 10th November 1989 was warmly welcomed by the Jewry of Ruse. As a matter of fact, our regional organization ‘Shalom’ is apolitical. We don’t like focusing on politics, but it was very favorable for us that our estates were given back to us as we now have the chance to lead better lives; now we can also make use of the freedom to reconstruct our traditions. Before that we were deprived of our buildings and we had to pay rent to the municipal Housing Estate Fund.
We were not allowed to observe our rituals in public. They wanted from us to have our events together with the Fatherland Front [30]. We didn’t have much choice then because of the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s Central Committee. Their idea was to quickly and easily assimilate Jews through mixed marriages between Bulgarians and Jews. As a result there are almost no Jews in Ruse nowadays, and those who remain are of mixed origin. There are only five pure-blooded families left in Ruse now. I am proud that the Ishakh family is among them.
We were not allowed to observe our rituals in public. They wanted from us to have our events together with the Fatherland Front [30]. We didn’t have much choice then because of the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s Central Committee. Their idea was to quickly and easily assimilate Jews through mixed marriages between Bulgarians and Jews. As a result there are almost no Jews in Ruse nowadays, and those who remain are of mixed origin. There are only five pure-blooded families left in Ruse now. I am proud that the Ishakh family is among them.
My children were brought up in line with the Jewish traditions by their grandfather and grandmother Menahem and Roza Alfandari. They were very religious people, observed all the traditions and thought very highly of the Jewry. That means they strictly observed Jewish rituals on holidays and on Sabbath.
My parents passed on to my children their knowledge, firstly, about the Jewish cuisine and, secondly, about our holidays Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Lag-ba-Omer. They celebrated these at home. Of course, we used to attend services at the synagogue, but rarely. I mean, we visited the synagogue only for the high Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah, Pesach, Sukkot etc.
My parents passed on to my children their knowledge, firstly, about the Jewish cuisine and, secondly, about our holidays Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Lag-ba-Omer. They celebrated these at home. Of course, we used to attend services at the synagogue, but rarely. I mean, we visited the synagogue only for the high Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah, Pesach, Sukkot etc.
I have two daughters: Sonia, born in 1946, and Roza, born in 1953. My elder daughter graduated from the mechanical technical school ‘Yuriy Gagarin’ in Ruse and now works for ‘Shalom’ [29], being also the chairwoman of the economy commission at ‘Shalom.’ She is in charge of the collecting of rents from the organization’s estates that were let. These funds go for support to the local Jewish organization.
My younger daughter works as a statistician at the Statistical Office. Roza is divorced; her family name was Dalakmanska, but now she is Ishakh again.
My younger daughter works as a statistician at the Statistical Office. Roza is divorced; her family name was Dalakmanska, but now she is Ishakh again.
I have been to Israel only once – in 1989 – and I loved the life there. When I came back to Bulgaria I felt the difference at once. In fact, from all our relatives it was my husband and I who remained in Bulgaria.
After the foundation of the state of Israel [26] we all felt it as our country and our sympathies for the Jewish nation increased even further. During the wars in Israel of 1967 [27] and 1973 [28] we were regularly reading all kinds of commentaries on them in the Bulgarian press, although we didn’t believe in them at all. From the letters we received from our friends there, we knew that the war was incited by the Arabs.
After 9th September 1944 [25], my husband worked many years for the police, then called militia, and after the democratic changes in Bulgaria [in 1989] became a chairman of the Israeli Religious Council in Ruse. He has always been one of the most respected people in both Bulgarian and Jewish communities. He is also known for the fact that he introduced the ‘Personal Number’ [‘Edinen Grazhdanski Nomer’ (EGN), which stands for ‘Unified Civil Number’, used to certify the identity of Bulgarian citizens] in Bulgaria after the pattern of western European societies. His major passion – to collect facts and commentaries on the history of Ruse’s Jewry materialized recently in his book ‘Historic Notes on the Jews in Ruse’ [Ruse, 2002].
From this difficult period, I remember well the victims of the Jewish community in Ruse: Izidor Ayzner, who was two years older than me, and Tinka Dzhain – she was one year younger.
Izidor became a member of the Union of Young Workers in Ruse when he was very young; he was only 17 years old. He was very clever and respected with his knowledge of Marxist ideas. That is why he was very soon appointed secretary of the Ruse Union of Young Workers’ town committee. He was also known for his talent for organizing the meetings of young people. I was among them, too. Thus Izidor could build a strong organization in a very short period of time, which consisted of 150 young men and women, most of them Jews.
What kind of activities were we involved in? Led by him, we were distributing leaflets and were writing anti-German slogans on the houses’ walls at nights, for example. But it didn’t last for long. Izidor was caught by the police during the Law for the Protection of the Nation in 1942 and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was, however, tormented to death in the Varna prison, where he was sent to, as a result of which he died in May 1943.
Ana Ventura was the daughter of the well-known Ruse industrialist Avram Ventura, who owned ‘Zhiti’ factory. Influenced by Izidor Ayzner she became an active member of the local young workers’ organization – of course it was an illegal organization – yet before the Law for the Protection of the Nation was introduced. After Ayzner’s death she became a secretary of UYW regional committee. She organized and led many campaigns against the fascist regime of which my friends and I only heard because we didn’t take part in them. I admired her. Ana Ventura was killed in her illegal lodgings in Ruse in February 1944.
Tinka Dzhain had a similar fate to that of Izidor Ayzner and Ana Ventura. Tinka and I were both members of Hashomer Hatzair with the only difference that she was influenced by Isi Ayzner and Yako Yakov and became a member of the illegal Union of Young Workers. She took part in many campaigns against the fascist authorities. I don’t remember what exactly they were. She got involved in illegal activities already in 1943,during the Law for the Protection of the Nation, becoming a political commissioner of an illegal fighting group.
In the end she was betrayed by the person in whose lodgings she lived illegally. The police executed her in the village of Bozhichen in the region of Ruse. After 10th November 1989 [24], we, the Jews from the Ruse’s Jewish Organization spent own funds to build a memorial for her at her place of death – on the central square in Bozhichen.
Izidor became a member of the Union of Young Workers in Ruse when he was very young; he was only 17 years old. He was very clever and respected with his knowledge of Marxist ideas. That is why he was very soon appointed secretary of the Ruse Union of Young Workers’ town committee. He was also known for his talent for organizing the meetings of young people. I was among them, too. Thus Izidor could build a strong organization in a very short period of time, which consisted of 150 young men and women, most of them Jews.
What kind of activities were we involved in? Led by him, we were distributing leaflets and were writing anti-German slogans on the houses’ walls at nights, for example. But it didn’t last for long. Izidor was caught by the police during the Law for the Protection of the Nation in 1942 and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was, however, tormented to death in the Varna prison, where he was sent to, as a result of which he died in May 1943.
Ana Ventura was the daughter of the well-known Ruse industrialist Avram Ventura, who owned ‘Zhiti’ factory. Influenced by Izidor Ayzner she became an active member of the local young workers’ organization – of course it was an illegal organization – yet before the Law for the Protection of the Nation was introduced. After Ayzner’s death she became a secretary of UYW regional committee. She organized and led many campaigns against the fascist regime of which my friends and I only heard because we didn’t take part in them. I admired her. Ana Ventura was killed in her illegal lodgings in Ruse in February 1944.
Tinka Dzhain had a similar fate to that of Izidor Ayzner and Ana Ventura. Tinka and I were both members of Hashomer Hatzair with the only difference that she was influenced by Isi Ayzner and Yako Yakov and became a member of the illegal Union of Young Workers. She took part in many campaigns against the fascist authorities. I don’t remember what exactly they were. She got involved in illegal activities already in 1943,during the Law for the Protection of the Nation, becoming a political commissioner of an illegal fighting group.
In the end she was betrayed by the person in whose lodgings she lived illegally. The police executed her in the village of Bozhichen in the region of Ruse. After 10th November 1989 [24], we, the Jews from the Ruse’s Jewish Organization spent own funds to build a memorial for her at her place of death – on the central square in Bozhichen.
Leon Tadzher’s full story was as follows. He was born in 1903 in Sofia and he found a way – I don’t know how exactly – to immigrate illegally to Palestine already in the 1920s. He was expelled and returned to Bulgaria in 1934 because of his revolutionary activity against the English colonialist administration.
When back in Sofia he earned his living as a workman in the construction sector. He actively took part in the strike of the sector’s trade union. In those days Leon Tadzher as a prominent Zionist with leftist [communist] views was often invited by the Jewish national library club to deliver lectures on Zionist topics, for example: why should the country Israel be constituted, why should people immigrate to Israel.
Leon Tadzher appeared on the police’s list of dangerous communist activists, that is a criminal for the then monarchist government. So, on 11th April 1941 he was officially asked to present himself before the police and was accused of something he hadn’t done. He was beaten and tormented, after which he was released because of lack of evidence.
After he was let free, Leon was interned to Isperih. Then, after the introduction of the Law for the Protection of the Nation he was sent to a Jewish forced labor camp near the village of Tserovo.
When the war between Germany and the USSR was declared, Tadzher escaped from the camp and was hiding in the huts and orchards near Ruse. He managed to get in touch with the local illegal communist workers who helped him to start working as a docker and after that as a blue-collar worker in the state-owned Ruse factory Petrol under the false name Dimitar Kirov and a Bulgarian identity card.
At the end of 1941, Leon Tadzher set fire to the crude oil refineries of the Petrol plant. The rest you already know. He was hanged on the central town square in Ruse on 17th November 1941.
After this event, the Gestapo, which had offices also in Ruse, demanded that the regional police chief of staff detain 300 of the most distinguished Jews in the town, and send them to the Germans for deportation to death camps.
This is one of my most dramatic memories. The compiling of the list was assigned to the chairman of the Jewish community, Yosif Levi. The list was ready but it contained the names of those next of kin to political prisoners and anti-fascists instead of rich and well-known Jews. In fact, the richer among us managed to buy themselves out of this list for a serious amount of money. The money was handed to the regional police chief of staff, Stefan Simeonov, who was also our delegate on Jewish matters. He had no objections on his turn.
After that, the Jews whose names had remained on the list were arrested and sent to the temporary camps Somovit [22] near the Danube River and Kailuka [23] near Pleven, after which they were to be deported to the death camps. But as it is known – the camp near Kailuka was set on fire. Among the ten victims of the arson, only one man was from Ruse – Nissim Benvenisti.
The substitution of names in the list as well as the bribery of the Gestapo in Ruse became known after 1944. The chairman of the community, Yosif Levi, then hid in the English Embassy. From there he managed to escape to Palestine. He was not brought to justice, because he was forced to present such a list to the then Bulgarian authorities that were controlled by the Gestapo in Ruse.
When back in Sofia he earned his living as a workman in the construction sector. He actively took part in the strike of the sector’s trade union. In those days Leon Tadzher as a prominent Zionist with leftist [communist] views was often invited by the Jewish national library club to deliver lectures on Zionist topics, for example: why should the country Israel be constituted, why should people immigrate to Israel.
Leon Tadzher appeared on the police’s list of dangerous communist activists, that is a criminal for the then monarchist government. So, on 11th April 1941 he was officially asked to present himself before the police and was accused of something he hadn’t done. He was beaten and tormented, after which he was released because of lack of evidence.
After he was let free, Leon was interned to Isperih. Then, after the introduction of the Law for the Protection of the Nation he was sent to a Jewish forced labor camp near the village of Tserovo.
When the war between Germany and the USSR was declared, Tadzher escaped from the camp and was hiding in the huts and orchards near Ruse. He managed to get in touch with the local illegal communist workers who helped him to start working as a docker and after that as a blue-collar worker in the state-owned Ruse factory Petrol under the false name Dimitar Kirov and a Bulgarian identity card.
At the end of 1941, Leon Tadzher set fire to the crude oil refineries of the Petrol plant. The rest you already know. He was hanged on the central town square in Ruse on 17th November 1941.
After this event, the Gestapo, which had offices also in Ruse, demanded that the regional police chief of staff detain 300 of the most distinguished Jews in the town, and send them to the Germans for deportation to death camps.
This is one of my most dramatic memories. The compiling of the list was assigned to the chairman of the Jewish community, Yosif Levi. The list was ready but it contained the names of those next of kin to political prisoners and anti-fascists instead of rich and well-known Jews. In fact, the richer among us managed to buy themselves out of this list for a serious amount of money. The money was handed to the regional police chief of staff, Stefan Simeonov, who was also our delegate on Jewish matters. He had no objections on his turn.
After that, the Jews whose names had remained on the list were arrested and sent to the temporary camps Somovit [22] near the Danube River and Kailuka [23] near Pleven, after which they were to be deported to the death camps. But as it is known – the camp near Kailuka was set on fire. Among the ten victims of the arson, only one man was from Ruse – Nissim Benvenisti.
The substitution of names in the list as well as the bribery of the Gestapo in Ruse became known after 1944. The chairman of the community, Yosif Levi, then hid in the English Embassy. From there he managed to escape to Palestine. He was not brought to justice, because he was forced to present such a list to the then Bulgarian authorities that were controlled by the Gestapo in Ruse.
Part of the young people from the sports organization Maccabi – Moni Hakim, Miko Yulzari, Fifi Mashiah and Liza Hason – attracted a great group of supporters of the same cause. These young Jewish men and women from Ruse, organized in groups of three, led the illegal conspiracy activities against fascism. Although my husband, Aron Gavriel Ishakh, and I did not join them, we were also engaged in the illegal activity connected with the Union of Young Workers.
I remember very well some of their bravest actions. For example, in 1941 during the German invasion of the Soviet Union [21], Leon Tadzher, who was a docker in Ruse and had escaped from a Jewish [forced] labor camp, decided to inflame the oil refinement utilities of the ‘Petrol’ plant. He killed with his knife the German security guard who tried to take hold of him, but was caught by the workers who started running after him. Later, Leon was sentenced to death and hanged.
I remember very well some of their bravest actions. For example, in 1941 during the German invasion of the Soviet Union [21], Leon Tadzher, who was a docker in Ruse and had escaped from a Jewish [forced] labor camp, decided to inflame the oil refinement utilities of the ‘Petrol’ plant. He killed with his knife the German security guard who tried to take hold of him, but was caught by the workers who started running after him. Later, Leon was sentenced to death and hanged.