Read Online The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sandy Tolan
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We're never going to see you again!" Other Jews, resisting this fate, pressed the sympathetic businessman to travel to Sofia and meet with Dimitur Peshev in the parliament on their behalf. Suichmezov agreed. "I had given my word to the Jews that I would defend them," the shop owner wrote years later. "And I would not back out."
On the early evening of March 8, Suichmezov and three other men began their journey toward Sofia. What had started out as a delegation of forty had now shrunk to four; this would be the entire ad hoc Kyustendil delegation to the parliament and its vice president, Dimitur Peshev.
When the four men arrived at the Kyustendil railway station, a yellow brick building with a broad cobblestone platform, they could see the long lines of freight cars ready to deport the Jews. The final destination, they would learn later, was to be the Treblinka death camp.
As they approached the platform, the men noticed police milling about; it occurred to them that someone had alerted the authorities of their trip to the parliament and that they could be blocked from boarding the train to Sofia. Quickly, they climbed onto a horse-drawn carriage and traveled to Kopelovsky, the next station down the line. From there, the four men got on the train and rode north, toward the capital and their meeting with Dimitur Peshev.
At about the same time, perhaps on that very same March evening in 1943, Moshe and Solia sat waiting with her parents at their home in the hills of Sliven. No one knew what to pack, what to talk about, how to wait, how even to wonder where they were going. Moshe and Solia had been married three years earlier, in a simple ceremony in the Balkan synagogue in Sofia. Solia had stood with her raven black hair flowing over her shoulders; Moshe, nervous, serious, standing stiffly in his suit, held the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. The young couple had faced the rabbi and the holy ark. Their wedding had taken place just weeks before the anti-Jewish measures went into effect and Moshe was sent away to the labor camps. Now, on that March 1943 evening in Sliven, just beyond the Valley of the Roses, the family sat in silence.
Sixty miles to the southwest, just before 3:00 A.M., Rabbi Behar led his family across Russian Boulevard and toward the Jewish school in Plovdiv. The streets were empty. Presently the school, and its black iron fence surrounding an empty courtyard, came into view. Rabbi Behar and his wife walked through the gate, followed by Susannah, her brother, and the two policemen. The family passed the first cold hour alone in the courtyard. Then, just as the rabbi had predicted, other Jewish families shuffled in, their arms filled with clothing, blankets, yellow cheese, and round loaves of black Bulgarian bread.
Just after sunrise, Bishop Kiril's servant came back to tell the rabbi that the bishop was taking action. Kiril had sent a telegram to King Boris, "begging him in God's name to have pity on these unfortunate people." The bishop had also sent a message to the chief of police "that I, who until now had always been loyal towards the government, now reserved the right to act with a free hand on this matter and heed only the dictates of my conscience."
By now, Kiril estimated, "between 1,500 and 1,600 Jews" had assembled in the Jewish school yard in Plovdiv. Other citizens of Plovdiv had learned of this and begun to gather outside the school in protest; now there were crowds on both sides of the fence. "There was widespread indignation among the public," Kiril reported.
One eyewitness would recall Kiril himself showing up at the Jewish school that morning, saying, "My children, I will not let this happen to you. I will lie on the railroad tracks and will not let you go."
Susannah does not recall this, but she does remember sneaking through a loose board in the back of the school yard outhouse to hatch a contingency plan with a friend: When the time came, she would be spirited away and
On the early evening of March 8, Suichmezov and three other men began their journey toward Sofia. What had started out as a delegation of forty had now shrunk to four; this would be the entire ad hoc Kyustendil delegation to the parliament and its vice president, Dimitur Peshev.
When the four men arrived at the Kyustendil railway station, a yellow brick building with a broad cobblestone platform, they could see the long lines of freight cars ready to deport the Jews. The final destination, they would learn later, was to be the Treblinka death camp.
As they approached the platform, the men noticed police milling about; it occurred to them that someone had alerted the authorities of their trip to the parliament and that they could be blocked from boarding the train to Sofia. Quickly, they climbed onto a horse-drawn carriage and traveled to Kopelovsky, the next station down the line. From there, the four men got on the train and rode north, toward the capital and their meeting with Dimitur Peshev.
At about the same time, perhaps on that very same March evening in 1943, Moshe and Solia sat waiting with her parents at their home in the hills of Sliven. No one knew what to pack, what to talk about, how to wait, how even to wonder where they were going. Moshe and Solia had been married three years earlier, in a simple ceremony in the Balkan synagogue in Sofia. Solia had stood with her raven black hair flowing over her shoulders; Moshe, nervous, serious, standing stiffly in his suit, held the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. The young couple had faced the rabbi and the holy ark. Their wedding had taken place just weeks before the anti-Jewish measures went into effect and Moshe was sent away to the labor camps. Now, on that March 1943 evening in Sliven, just beyond the Valley of the Roses, the family sat in silence.
Sixty miles to the southwest, just before 3:00 A.M., Rabbi Behar led his family across Russian Boulevard and toward the Jewish school in Plovdiv. The streets were empty. Presently the school, and its black iron fence surrounding an empty courtyard, came into view. Rabbi Behar and his wife walked through the gate, followed by Susannah, her brother, and the two policemen. The family passed the first cold hour alone in the courtyard. Then, just as the rabbi had predicted, other Jewish families shuffled in, their arms filled with clothing, blankets, yellow cheese, and round loaves of black Bulgarian bread.
Just after sunrise, Bishop Kiril's servant came back to tell the rabbi that the bishop was taking action. Kiril had sent a telegram to King Boris, "begging him in God's name to have pity on these unfortunate people." The bishop had also sent a message to the chief of police "that I, who until now had always been loyal towards the government, now reserved the right to act with a free hand on this matter and heed only the dictates of my conscience."
By now, Kiril estimated, "between 1,500 and 1,600 Jews" had assembled in the Jewish school yard in Plovdiv. Other citizens of Plovdiv had learned of this and begun to gather outside the school in protest; now there were crowds on both sides of the fence. "There was widespread indignation among the public," Kiril reported.
One eyewitness would recall Kiril himself showing up at the Jewish school that morning, saying, "My children, I will not let this happen to you. I will lie on the railroad tracks and will not let you go."
Susannah does not recall this, but she does remember sneaking through a loose board in the back of the school yard outhouse to hatch a contingency plan with a friend: When the time came, she would be spirited away and
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