In the evenings we talked about the Law for the Protection of the Nation. We read it article by article and interpreted what we were allowed to do and what we were banned from doing. Because of that law we had to change our apartments. We didn’t have any unused living space for them to confiscate, but we had to move to the other apartment. The apartment opposite my grandmother Zelma was ours. We rented it to a family. We had to move to live there and the tenants moved to the one we had lived in.
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Sarina Chelibakova
When the war started in 1939 [10] I was six years old. We usually played on the streets in the neighborhood. Once we heard that the German army was coming. It must have been 1941 or 1942. [Editor’s note: the passing of the German army through Bulgaria took place on 5th March 1941. On 1st March 1941 the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Bogdan Filov signed the protocol for the country’s accession to the Axis.] The people in our old neighborhood took flowers to welcome the German tanks. My brother and I decided to go and welcome them too. We went home and asked my mother to give us some money. She simply said, ‘But, children, they don’t bring good times for us…’ She let us go because we were very insistent. She also gave us money for flowers.
We went to Ruski Boulevard. Then they started settling the German officers in houses; one or two officers lived opposite our house. They had orderlies who cleaned their shoes. In the evening we, the children, went outside to play in a small dead-end street. One of the orderlies would also go out to get some fresh air in the evenings. One evening one of the children turned to him and said, ‘They are Jews!’ My brother and I got scared and stopped going out to play in the neighborhood.
Danger was in the air.
We went to Ruski Boulevard. Then they started settling the German officers in houses; one or two officers lived opposite our house. They had orderlies who cleaned their shoes. In the evening we, the children, went outside to play in a small dead-end street. One of the orderlies would also go out to get some fresh air in the evenings. One evening one of the children turned to him and said, ‘They are Jews!’ My brother and I got scared and stopped going out to play in the neighborhood.
Danger was in the air.
I was the only Jew in junior high school. In high school I was in one class with the Jewish girls Beka Benaroyo and Kleri Madjar. Being a Jew didn’t make me feel different in either school. No one said anything insulting about my Jewish origins in my presence. They may have talked about it behind my back, but it never reached me. Moreover, I am not a mistrustful person and I quickly forget bad words.
As I said, my mother was against my studying in a Jewish school. I was an excellent student in both junior high school and high school. My favorite subject was literature. I wanted to study Bulgarian Philology, but after 9th September 1944 [9] my parents fell into poverty and couldn’t afford to support my studies in Sofia.
Bulgaria
I have always had a very strong relationship with my brother Josef Victor Molho [1936 – 1998], not only during my childhood, but also later on when he was in Israel. We were together all the time, because my cousins were born much later. We played in our grandmother’s yard. He would always come along when I went out with friends. I would even tell him he’s like a tail of mine. He was the quieter of the two of us. I played jokes on him a lot, pretending I was dying and so on.
He graduated from the Mechanics Technical School in Plovdiv and in 1955 left with my parents for Israel. In 1967 he married a Bulgarian Jewish lady in Israel.
He graduated from the Mechanics Technical School in Plovdiv and in 1955 left with my parents for Israel. In 1967 he married a Bulgarian Jewish lady in Israel.
Bulgaria
Since our family was well-off, we could afford to go on a holiday in Velingrad. [Editor’s note: a town in Northwest Rhodope Mountains. It is a popular spa center, home to the biggest Karst spring, Kleptuza.] We didn’t go to the seaside. Even these days I don’t like going to the seaside. We would spend about a month and a half in Velingrad. There we would rent a house, but we carried with us a lot of our belongings. That is why the preparation for the holiday took a long time. We sewed pillows and bed linen. We put everything in big bundles together with kitchen utensils. We traveled using a narrow gauge railway.
We had a lot of fun in Velingrad. We were often visited by friends of my parents and their children. We played until late at night on the street in front of the houses and during the day the adults went to the baths. I still have a lot of fond memories of those times. My mother cooked outside and the food tasted much more delicious. My father would come at the end of every week or every two weeks, because he was working. The visits to Velingrad stopped during the Holocaust. 1946 was the last time my parents, my brother and I went to Velingrad. Later, I went to Velingrad again, but this time with my husband and daughter.
We had a lot of fun in Velingrad. We were often visited by friends of my parents and their children. We played until late at night on the street in front of the houses and during the day the adults went to the baths. I still have a lot of fond memories of those times. My mother cooked outside and the food tasted much more delicious. My father would come at the end of every week or every two weeks, because he was working. The visits to Velingrad stopped during the Holocaust. 1946 was the last time my parents, my brother and I went to Velingrad. Later, I went to Velingrad again, but this time with my husband and daughter.
I don’t remember us lighting candles on Chanukkah. The only thing I remember is the halva [8], which wasn’t made of semolina like now, but of butter, baked flour and syrup consisting of water and sugar. [Editor’s note: It is customary on Chanukkah to eat foods cooked in oil.] First, you bake the flour with some oil, then you add the water until the mixture thickens. It was served cooled. We visited the synagogue on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. I don’t have clear memories of it.
We kept taanit [fasted] on Yom Kippur. We had an early dinner before the fast began [at sundown]. The adults fasted all day and we, the children, until noon. The adults gathered together reading books and talking. We played in the yard and showed our tongues to each other. If your tongue was white, the others would say, ‘You are lying, you have eaten something and your tongue is white.’ ‘No, no I haven’t,’ we would say.
Then we went to listen to the shofar in the synagogue and hurried to sit at the table. Dinner was started by breaking the taanit with a morello cherry syrup, followed by a light soup and gradually we started the main course. Slowly, slowly. For Pesach we were bought new clothes, patent leather shoes with a button, nice socks and new dresses.
Then we went to listen to the shofar in the synagogue and hurried to sit at the table. Dinner was started by breaking the taanit with a morello cherry syrup, followed by a light soup and gradually we started the main course. Slowly, slowly. For Pesach we were bought new clothes, patent leather shoes with a button, nice socks and new dresses.
We celebrated the traditional Jewish holidays at my paternal grandmother Sarina’s house. The first evening we would always meet in this living-room we are sitting in now. The other days we visited the other relatives, my grandmother Zelma and so on. I remember that for every Purim my mother would knit a purse for the presents with a satin lining. The purses were different every year [it is customary on Purim to give gifts of food to one another]. People sold ‘mavlacheta,’ enormous letters in white and pink. They also made sweets: Burakitas del Alhashu, Tishpishti etc. We also had purses for Tu bi-Shevat, but they were larger.
Our family observed some Jewish traditions. My mother didn’t allow pork to be brought home, but our food wasn’t kosher. There was a tradition in her family that if you wanted to eat a sausage for example, you could buy it and eat it outside. My father’s family also forbade pork. I was raised as a Jew although I went to a Bulgarian school. My brother had a brit on his eighth day in Dr. Araf’s private Jewish hospital which was located on the central square in Plovdiv, where the post office is nowadays [Brit milah: Jewish ritual circumcision, which is done on the eighth day of a baby boy’s life, as long as he is healthy enough].
My father, Victor Yosif Molho [1901 - 1966], was a gentle and compliant man, who was used to being silent and leaving the decision-making to my mother. He was a very serious man. When he had problems, he didn’t talk to anybody. I would know that ‘papa is angry’ if I saw him silently climbing the staircase to our house, because he would usually whistle or sing. Although he wasn’t authoritative, he insisted on the patriarchal way of life. We always sat together at lunch and at dinner.
He worked in the ‘Phoenix’ Insurance Company, although he had graduated from a teaching college. He didn’t have fixed working hours. We would always wait for him to sit at the table. He liked to say, ‘While I am head of this family, we will all dine together.’ So I always had to be at the table at eight thirty in the evening. Dinner was always served on a white starched tablecloth with a piece of embroidery put over it.
He worked in the ‘Phoenix’ Insurance Company, although he had graduated from a teaching college. He didn’t have fixed working hours. We would always wait for him to sit at the table. He liked to say, ‘While I am head of this family, we will all dine together.’ So I always had to be at the table at eight thirty in the evening. Dinner was always served on a white starched tablecloth with a piece of embroidery put over it.
My mother was also an avid Zionist. She was a secretary for WIZO [7]. They persuaded young girls to leave for the kibbutzim and for the specialized agricultural schools in Israel, especially those who were poor. They convinced them that they would have a better future there. They organized bazaars and took part in the WIZO congress meetings in Bulgaria. Along with the other members, my mother organized the WIZO balls and she also took part in the preparation of the Russian salads, which I still make at home. They look like the ones you can buy in a shop, but are much more delicious.
She was a very dedicated Zionist. She said she would never allow us to marry Bulgarians, although my brother had a Bulgarian girlfriend. Maybe that’s why she wanted us to leave the country so badly. She and my father thought that if I married a Bulgarian, I would have five or six children and he would leave me, or be drunk all the time and so on.
She was a very dedicated Zionist. She said she would never allow us to marry Bulgarians, although my brother had a Bulgarian girlfriend. Maybe that’s why she wanted us to leave the country so badly. She and my father thought that if I married a Bulgarian, I would have five or six children and he would leave me, or be drunk all the time and so on.
I was always chosen as a model student at school. My high school literature teacher used to say, ‘Look at Sarina, she’s not Bulgarian, but she knows Bulgarian better than you: its pronunciation, its spelling and literature, and you, Bulgarians, are bad both in grammar and literature.
My mother’s ambition showed in everything she did. She was a perfect housewife, who kept the house tidy and clean; she knitted, sewed, made wonderful desserts and dishes. She also wanted us to rise in society. We were educated not to stand out from the crowd, rather to do the same as everyone else, but to do it better. That’s why we didn’t speak Ladino at home, only Bulgarian. She didn’t allow us to go to the Jewish school, which she disapproved of. She enrolled us in the elite junior high school ‘Kiril and Methodii’ and then we graduated from the elite junior high school ‘Carnegie’, which my aunts and uncles had gone to.
She married my father when she was 19 years old. Most probably the marriage was arranged by their parents. She never told me anything about her relationship with my father before they got married. My father’s family was also fairly well-off. My father was eleven years older than my mother. It was a big wedding, much talked about in Plovdiv. It was conducted in line with all the Jewish rituals and preceded by a one-year engagement. They married on 16th August 1932.
I was born in a house just opposite the fire station, but I don’t remember it. Then we rented a place on today’s Petyofi Street, which was then called Bolyarska Street. I remember that house very well. It had two floors and a very nice yard. It was opposite the Bunardjik hill [Editor’s note: One of Plovdiv’s main attractions are the seven syenite hills also known as ‘tepeta,’ over which the Plovdiv residential districts are built]. There was a very beautiful external staircase leading to an entrance hall, and a separate backdoor for the servants, which they used to bring wood and coal inside from the cellar where they were stored.
We had a living room, guest room, bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom and toilet combined. Then we went to live elsewhere on the same street, 13 Bolyarska Street. Afterwards, we moved into this house, in which we still live. We own it. My grandmother and my uncle lived in one of the apartments and we let out the other one. We lived in the one which we let out. We moved here because according to the Law for the Protection of the Nation [6] one couldn’t let out his or her own apartment; the authorities took either the rent or the apartment. The people who lived in our apartment went to live in our former house on 13 Bolyarska Street.
We had a living room, guest room, bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom and toilet combined. Then we went to live elsewhere on the same street, 13 Bolyarska Street. Afterwards, we moved into this house, in which we still live. We own it. My grandmother and my uncle lived in one of the apartments and we let out the other one. We lived in the one which we let out. We moved here because according to the Law for the Protection of the Nation [6] one couldn’t let out his or her own apartment; the authorities took either the rent or the apartment. The people who lived in our apartment went to live in our former house on 13 Bolyarska Street.
My grandparents and uncle lived in the apartment where my husband and I later lived. My uncle was a very shy man and mostly talked to my grandmother. She told me tales in Bulgarian and spoke to me in Ladino [5], she sang songs to me and indulged me in every way. I learned Ladino from her, because my mother didn’t allow us to speak Ladino at home. She thought it would prevent us from learning Bulgarian pronunciation and spelling well.
He died when I was six years old. I remember his funeral, which followed all the Jewish rituals. I remember that the synagogue brought little black tables, at which we, the closest relatives, ate for seven days. [Editor’s note: It is customary to openly mourn the death of a close relative for seven days, during which those who are ‘sitting shiva’ – ‘shiva’ is Hebrew for ‘seven’ – sit on low chairs and their family and friends take care of all their physical needs]. The rabbi cut our underwear with a pair of scissors. [Editor’s note: At the funeral, an outer item of clothing, usually a shirt or cardigan, is torn as a sign of one’s mourning.]
Our relatives prepared and brought us food. We ate only salty dishes. [Editor’s note: on returning from the funeral to the home where they are sitting shiva, the mourners eat plain food consisting of an egg and a (round) bagel, to symbolize the cycle of life.]
I remember the horses, which carried the coffin away. They were dressed in black coats decorated with gold threads. I know from my relatives that at the cemetery there is a special room where the deceased is bathed and dressed in special clothing called ‘mortaja,’ a shirt and underwear, which the family had prepared.
When my grandmother Sarina died much later, I saw that she had also prepared for herself such clothing. Since she died in 1965, the rituals weren’t observed, but we buried her in that clothing in the Jewish cemetery.
Our relatives prepared and brought us food. We ate only salty dishes. [Editor’s note: on returning from the funeral to the home where they are sitting shiva, the mourners eat plain food consisting of an egg and a (round) bagel, to symbolize the cycle of life.]
I remember the horses, which carried the coffin away. They were dressed in black coats decorated with gold threads. I know from my relatives that at the cemetery there is a special room where the deceased is bathed and dressed in special clothing called ‘mortaja,’ a shirt and underwear, which the family had prepared.
When my grandmother Sarina died much later, I saw that she had also prepared for herself such clothing. Since she died in 1965, the rituals weren’t observed, but we buried her in that clothing in the Jewish cemetery.
Bulgaria
My grandparents on both sides were moderately rich, but my mother’s family, Katalan, was better off. My maternal grandfather was Yako Katalan [? – 1937] and was born in Plovdiv. I don’t know what he graduated in and what education he had, but he was a bank director. I don’t know the name of the bank he was in charge of. His wife, Zelma Katalan, nee Natan, was also born in Plovdiv.
Their family was wealthy and they could afford to give their children a good education. They had four children – my uncles Isak and David Katalan, who graduated in law in Strasbourg, and their two sisters: my mother Ernesta, who studied at the French College in Ruse [3], but didn’t graduate, and Marga, who has a secondary education.
Their house was nice and large and it was also an example of their wealth. It was on Svetoslav Street and had a very nice garden. Later they sold a big part of it and the yard got very small. Yes, the house was large and the attic floor was also suitable for living in. When I was young, Uncle Isak, Uncle David and Aunt Marga were still single. Uncle Isak got married in 1942 to Vizurka from Dupnitsa and they moved to Sofia. In 1946 Uncle David married Veneziya Sarafova and Aunt Marga married Mordehay Natan.
The rooms in the house were lit by lamps with very beautiful chandeliers. They had two pianos. My aunt had a piano and the second one was bought as a dowry when my mother was about to get engaged, but no one played them. They also had a radio set. The floors were covered by linoleum covered with Persian rugs. I remember that they had wonderful dinner sets.
They also had a refrigerator with ice. At that time the first refrigerators didn’t freeze water. There were people who sold blocks of ice, which were put into the refrigerator. They received ice every day.
They had a very good cellar on the ground floor with a wooden floor, which was also used as a dining room and living room during the summer, when the weather was very hot. We climbed down an interior staircase and had lunch there. The cellar wasn’t furnished in the usual Bulgarian folk style, but with modern furniture. There were tables, chairs and a buffet.
Both the bathroom and the toilet were inside the house. There was a bath and a shower in the bathroom. Water was heated by a geyser with boiler tubes. The bathroom had a sink and the toilet was downstairs.
I remember the beautiful yard where my brother and I often played. A very nice staircase connected the house with the yard. I loved spending the evenings there. We used to wash our feet in front of the staircase before we went to bed.
In the winter they heated the rooms with stoves, built inside the walls with enormous grates covered with beautiful nets. In the evenings when the fire was going down, we would open the grate and the only thing lit would be the embers and the sparks. It was warm and cozy everywhere. They had big rubber plants in the rooms. The furniture was elegant. It was much cozier than in my other grandmother’s house. The garden and the fireplaces made it very comfortable.
We also had maids. I particularly remember a woman named Ganka. She was a Bulgarian who worked there for many years. I remember her from my childhood. Then she got married. We became close and she became like a family member.
Their family was wealthy and they could afford to give their children a good education. They had four children – my uncles Isak and David Katalan, who graduated in law in Strasbourg, and their two sisters: my mother Ernesta, who studied at the French College in Ruse [3], but didn’t graduate, and Marga, who has a secondary education.
Their house was nice and large and it was also an example of their wealth. It was on Svetoslav Street and had a very nice garden. Later they sold a big part of it and the yard got very small. Yes, the house was large and the attic floor was also suitable for living in. When I was young, Uncle Isak, Uncle David and Aunt Marga were still single. Uncle Isak got married in 1942 to Vizurka from Dupnitsa and they moved to Sofia. In 1946 Uncle David married Veneziya Sarafova and Aunt Marga married Mordehay Natan.
The rooms in the house were lit by lamps with very beautiful chandeliers. They had two pianos. My aunt had a piano and the second one was bought as a dowry when my mother was about to get engaged, but no one played them. They also had a radio set. The floors were covered by linoleum covered with Persian rugs. I remember that they had wonderful dinner sets.
They also had a refrigerator with ice. At that time the first refrigerators didn’t freeze water. There were people who sold blocks of ice, which were put into the refrigerator. They received ice every day.
They had a very good cellar on the ground floor with a wooden floor, which was also used as a dining room and living room during the summer, when the weather was very hot. We climbed down an interior staircase and had lunch there. The cellar wasn’t furnished in the usual Bulgarian folk style, but with modern furniture. There were tables, chairs and a buffet.
Both the bathroom and the toilet were inside the house. There was a bath and a shower in the bathroom. Water was heated by a geyser with boiler tubes. The bathroom had a sink and the toilet was downstairs.
I remember the beautiful yard where my brother and I often played. A very nice staircase connected the house with the yard. I loved spending the evenings there. We used to wash our feet in front of the staircase before we went to bed.
In the winter they heated the rooms with stoves, built inside the walls with enormous grates covered with beautiful nets. In the evenings when the fire was going down, we would open the grate and the only thing lit would be the embers and the sparks. It was warm and cozy everywhere. They had big rubber plants in the rooms. The furniture was elegant. It was much cozier than in my other grandmother’s house. The garden and the fireplaces made it very comfortable.
We also had maids. I particularly remember a woman named Ganka. She was a Bulgarian who worked there for many years. I remember her from my childhood. Then she got married. We became close and she became like a family member.
I am a Sephardi Jew [2] both on my maternal and paternal side.
Bulgaria
I speak Bulgarian, a little Ladino and Ivrit.
Bulgaria
Between 1951 and 1958 I worked at a meat processing plant in Plovdiv after which I worked in the ‘Petar Chengelov’ shoe making plant for thirty years, where I retired as organizer of manufacturing.
Milka Ilieva
I’ll never forget how we used to celebrate Purim. There was a very nice song for Purim of whose origin I know nothing. The specific point about it was that every new stanza began with a letter in accordance with the order of the Hebrew alphabet. My sister Sara sang it marvelously. On Purim my father would always tell her, ‘Sarika, please, kerida… [‘dear’ in Ladino] and she would start singing. The feeling was remarkable. I remember visiting Sara in her kibbutz during my last journey to Israel in 1990. I cannot recall the name of her kibbutz. Her job was to patch up clothes on a machine and the people loved her. So we, the three sisters, went to see her. I remember she lived in a small neat room; she also had a toilet and office in her room. Well, I went to her and asked her, ‘Sister, please, sing the first stanza of our favorite Purim song.’ She was 80 then. When she started singing something happened to me. I rushed out of the room in tears; I just couldn’t stop crying. I remember we were a very warm, united, extraordinary family.
We strictly observed the kashrut at home on Pesach, and on the eve of this great holiday, all of us used to help my mother with the big cleaning up. [Editor’s note: She probably means that they had a traditional kosher meal for Pesach and maybe other holidays too but didn’t observe the ritual rules for the rest of the year.] Nobody was allowed to bring bread home during Pesach. As a matter of fact, there were no religious books in Ivrit [Hebrew] at home. I have also no information on whether my father was a member of a Zionist organization, although he must have been a convinced Zionist. What’s more important, the Jewish rituals observed on high Jewish holidays made our family really united.
My father was very religious, but we, the kids, didn’t manage to preserve this religious spirit. Our life made us atheists. Maybe this was because we lived in poverty and everyone in the family had to start working at a very early age. Our life was hard; we saw all the injustice around us and that provoked a strong social sense in us rather than a religious one. But at least when we were young we observed all the Jewish holidays with my father. He used to tell us a lot about them.
We were a merry big family of ten members. Eight of us were only the kids: five sisters and three brothers. Mois was the first, born in 1911, followed by Ester in 1913, then Albert in 1915, Nissim in 1917, Sara in 1920, Venezia in 1922, Jina in 1925 and lastly I was born in 1928. We lived poorly, I would say, but our life was very spiritual and amusing despite this. What’s for sure is that we never lacked a sense of humor.
I’m a descendant of a Jewish family from the Sephardi [1] branch that came from Spain more than five centuries ago. As is well known, most of the Jews expelled by the Spanish Queen Isabella in the 15th century settled on the Balkan Peninsula [2]. My ancestors had a similar fate. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about my grandparents, because they died before I was born. And what’s more, I made the mistake of not asking my parents for details about them. However, I know that my parents, Ventura Samuel Mashiakh and Samuel Moshe Mashiakh, were born in Nis, Macedonia [Editor’s note: Nis is in today’s Serbia and Montenegro.]. They met in Nis and then the two families, Shamli and Mashiakh, decided to move together to Sofia. So it was in the Bulgarian capital that my parents got married, in 1910.
The events that took place in Bulgaria after 10th November 1989 didn’t fascinate me. I’m for the tolerance. I never argue with friends in the organization [Milka is speaking of the local Jewish organization in Ruse called ‘Shalom’]: if one supports the Union of Democratic Forces or the Bulgarian Socialist Party, I’m simply not interested in that. Just the other way about. I try to respect other people’s opinions. My sister, who came back to Bulgaria for a while after 10th November 1989, listened to what people were commenting then and told me, ‘Milka, the people here are mad!’ Herzel and I vote with different bulletins. He’s for the conservatives and I’m for the liberals. But should we argue about that at home?’ I think this is the right way of thinking.
I retired in 1983. Until then I worked in the Human Resources Department at the Agriculture and Mechanical Engineering Institute in Ruse. I was at a very good self-dependant position and after that I started receiving a nice pension. I had another 15 years length of service before that. So my total length of service runs to 35 years, although I started working as young as a child during the Law for the Protection of the Nation.
I have experienced every possible misadventure: internment, ghetto, poverty, anti-Semitic regulations, disgraceful yellow star [16], curfew, and so on. So I celebrated 9th September 1944 as liberation. However, I can’t say I accepted 10th November 1989 as liberation, too. Before this date, there were a lot of things I liked. For example, there was more freedom to speak of your ethnical origin; at least, this is my opinion. Less antagonism. More economic safety and social stability. Before, there was a certain category of people, ‘active fighters’ against fascism. They received this date with hostility. Before that, they felt themselves as aristocrats, but this date dispelled their halo. I have never been an ‘active fighter.’ And I didn’t feel any hostility. I can’t say conditions of life changed for me, because I was already a pensioner when the democratic changes in Bulgaria took place.