Read Online The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan - Free Book Online
Authors: Sandy Tolan
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of vital information. The optician received his bribe and quickly revealed the government's plans to deport the Jews of Bulgaria. The optician also had reason to know: He was the brother-in-law of Petur Gabrovski, the interior minister and former member of the Ratnitsi, the Bulgarian Fascist organization.
The optician had grown up in Kyustendil, a tranquil hill town surrounded by orchards and wheat fields close to the mountainous border with Macedonia. For the next several days, this "fruit basket" of Bulgaria, with its lovely shaded streets, its street vendors with their sugared apples and cherries on a stick, its family cafes serving lamb soup and Bulgarian wine, would become the battleground upon which the future of Bulgaria's Jews would be decided.
Fears of a coming catastrophe gripped Kyustendil. The owner of a local glass factory passed along the deportation rumors; he often worked with Germans, so his information seemed good. A Macedonian leader had also learned the secret, apparently during a party at Aleksander Belev's house, and quickly warned his Jewish friends. Kyustendil's district governor, despite his official position and reputation for corruption, did not keep quiet, either: When he learned of the plans directly from Belev's office, he alerted a prominent Jewish pharmacist, Samuel Barouh.
Soon virtually every Jew in Kyustendil knew of Belev's secret plans. Terrifying rumors began to circulate: The Fernandes tobacco warehouse was being swept out to store Jews near the train station. A list of Jews had been drawn up by Belev's office, and families began to speculate about whose names were on it. Long chains of boxcars, it was said, had already been assembled in neighboring towns.
In early March, residents caught sight of the trains from Thrace passing near Kyustendil. They were packed with Jews, crying out and begging for food. Shocked local residents and Jews interned in nearby work camps raced alongside the tracks, throwing bread into the cars as the trains rolled by. Similar scenes were recorded by Metropolitan Stefan, the Orthodox bishop and top religious official in the nation. "What I saw exceeded my notions of horror and my conception of inhumanity," the bishop wrote. "In the freight wagons, there were old and young, sick and well, mothers with their nursing babies, pregnant women, packed like sardines and weak from standing; they cried out desperately for help, for pity, for water, for air, for a scrap of humanity." Stefan had sent a telegram to the prime minister, pleading with him not to send those Jews to Poland, "a name that had a sinister ring, even to the ears of babies."
In Kyustendil, as word of the fate of Macedonian and Thracian Jews spread and rumors of new deportations surfaced, Jews began to panic. A young woman named Mati brought her family photo album to the home of a close Gentile friend, Vela. Vela was a fellow resister in the anti-Fascist movement; like Susannah Behar, the rabbi's daughter in Plovdiv, the two friends worked underground in support of the Partizans fighting in the southern mountains near Greece. Mati wore a small black pouch made of silk around her neck. Inside it she had placed lockets of hair from her mother, father, and sister, tokens in case the family became separated.
Mati was crying. "Vela," she said, "if I have the luck to come back, I'll take my album back. But if not, please keep it as a memory for me." She looked strangely at her friend: "When you get bars of soap from Poland, please wash your face. Probably this will be soap made from me. And I will touch your face again."
By March 6, the Jews of Kyustendil had mobilized. That day Samuel Barouh, the pharmacist, sent word of the deportations to his brother, Yako, in Sofia. Yako, politically well connected in the capital, began working his contacts in the ministries and the parliament. After a series of alarming and ultimately fruitless meetings, he called on an old high school classmate, Dimitur Peshev,
The optician had grown up in Kyustendil, a tranquil hill town surrounded by orchards and wheat fields close to the mountainous border with Macedonia. For the next several days, this "fruit basket" of Bulgaria, with its lovely shaded streets, its street vendors with their sugared apples and cherries on a stick, its family cafes serving lamb soup and Bulgarian wine, would become the battleground upon which the future of Bulgaria's Jews would be decided.
Fears of a coming catastrophe gripped Kyustendil. The owner of a local glass factory passed along the deportation rumors; he often worked with Germans, so his information seemed good. A Macedonian leader had also learned the secret, apparently during a party at Aleksander Belev's house, and quickly warned his Jewish friends. Kyustendil's district governor, despite his official position and reputation for corruption, did not keep quiet, either: When he learned of the plans directly from Belev's office, he alerted a prominent Jewish pharmacist, Samuel Barouh.
Soon virtually every Jew in Kyustendil knew of Belev's secret plans. Terrifying rumors began to circulate: The Fernandes tobacco warehouse was being swept out to store Jews near the train station. A list of Jews had been drawn up by Belev's office, and families began to speculate about whose names were on it. Long chains of boxcars, it was said, had already been assembled in neighboring towns.
In early March, residents caught sight of the trains from Thrace passing near Kyustendil. They were packed with Jews, crying out and begging for food. Shocked local residents and Jews interned in nearby work camps raced alongside the tracks, throwing bread into the cars as the trains rolled by. Similar scenes were recorded by Metropolitan Stefan, the Orthodox bishop and top religious official in the nation. "What I saw exceeded my notions of horror and my conception of inhumanity," the bishop wrote. "In the freight wagons, there were old and young, sick and well, mothers with their nursing babies, pregnant women, packed like sardines and weak from standing; they cried out desperately for help, for pity, for water, for air, for a scrap of humanity." Stefan had sent a telegram to the prime minister, pleading with him not to send those Jews to Poland, "a name that had a sinister ring, even to the ears of babies."
In Kyustendil, as word of the fate of Macedonian and Thracian Jews spread and rumors of new deportations surfaced, Jews began to panic. A young woman named Mati brought her family photo album to the home of a close Gentile friend, Vela. Vela was a fellow resister in the anti-Fascist movement; like Susannah Behar, the rabbi's daughter in Plovdiv, the two friends worked underground in support of the Partizans fighting in the southern mountains near Greece. Mati wore a small black pouch made of silk around her neck. Inside it she had placed lockets of hair from her mother, father, and sister, tokens in case the family became separated.
Mati was crying. "Vela," she said, "if I have the luck to come back, I'll take my album back. But if not, please keep it as a memory for me." She looked strangely at her friend: "When you get bars of soap from Poland, please wash your face. Probably this will be soap made from me. And I will touch your face again."
By March 6, the Jews of Kyustendil had mobilized. That day Samuel Barouh, the pharmacist, sent word of the deportations to his brother, Yako, in Sofia. Yako, politically well connected in the capital, began working his contacts in the ministries and the parliament. After a series of alarming and ultimately fruitless meetings, he called on an old high school classmate, Dimitur Peshev,
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