site.btaRescue of Bulgarian Jews Is One of Bulgarian History's Brightest Chapters, but Not Talked about Enough - Journalist Daniela Farhi

People should not be judged by their ethnicity or colour, but by their actions and outlook, journalist Daniela Farhi, who learned this maxim from her father Haim Farhi, said in a BTA interview. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews, she told BTA what her father has told her about how his family survived during World War II.

For her, the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews is one of the brightest chapters in Bulgarian history, but it is not talked about enough in society or in textbooks.

Haim Farhi was born in October of 1927 in  the coastal city of Varna. He spent his childhood in the city's centre and his neighbors were Greeks, Armenians and Turks. He studied in a Jewish school until the 4th grade. He graduated from a Bulgarian junior high school and then he enrolled in a local high school, but was forced to drop out early on because in July 1943 the family was interned, together with all the other Jewish families, Daniela Farhi said. They had the right to choose between the northeastern towns of Omurtag, Targovishte and Preslav, she added. The family chose Omurtag. Her father's memories of this town were quite contradictory. He said that due to the presence of partisans in the area, a curfew was imposed from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. However, this curfew applied not only to Jews, but to the entire population. Among Haim Farhi's childhood memories, were also the hanged corpses of murdered partisans in the town's centre.

The family consisted of six people - two adults and four children, Daniela Farhi added. The eldest son, then 18, was sent to the southwestern town of Sveti Vrach (present-day Sandanski) under the Law for Protection of the Nation to a labour camp to hammer stones. The rest of the family was "housed" in two rooms.

Haim Farhi's father was a tinsmith, and when they were expelled from Varna he managed to take some of his tools with him, and in Omurtag he began repairing various items for people. However, the authorities forbade him to work because he was wearing the yellow star. Then his wife began to wash other people's clothes in secret so that the family could still survive.

"My father used to say that the attitude of ordinary Bulgarians towards the Jews in Omurtag was largely neutral. Their comrades, seeing what misery the family was in, helped them," Daniela Farhi said.

Upon leaving Varna, they had three days to gather what they could before being driven away, she said.After their departure, the secretary of the police commandant's office in the seaside town immediately moved into their home.

The scariest days were actually well before the deportation, Daniela Farhi added. She explained that the family was on the list of 700 (out of a total of about 1,300) Varna Jews who were to be sent to the concentration camps in occupied Poland. They gathered everyone together and told them the day and time they were to report at the assembly point, Farhi said. According to her father's recollections, no one knew exactly where they were being taken or why, but everyone was aware that it would not be for the best and terrible things awaited them. They waited for several days, but no one ever came to load them on the train. Later they were told they would be interned in other Bulgarian cities, Farhi added. She added that according to her father, by sending them away from Varna, the Bulgarian authorities actually wanted to remove the Jews from the big cities in order to keep them out of the Germans' sight. That way they could have the excuse that those with the yellow stars were sent to labor camps and the Reich's demands were met, but in our own, Bulgarian way, Farhi said.

Her father had taken great offense to the yellow star.  Perhaps because he was a teenager, he said he was very offended, Farhi said. She said one of his worst memories was related to the March 3 celebrations. He went to school to participate in the celebrations, and a classmate kicked him out because he was not human. Besides that, he said that he did not experience any ill treatment by teachers and classmates, the journalist added.

"My father hardly told me anything about the past, in fact I learned a lot of things while he was telling stories to the other children," Farhi added. According to her, Haim Farhi's main message to his grandchildren was to judge a person's worth by their deeds. "My father used to say that people should not be judged by their ethnicity or their colour, but by their outlook, their education," Daniela Farhi added.

She remembers that her father often helped her son Paul study his lessons and was often bitter. He was very disappointed that children were only given tests and not taught how to think, Daniela Farhi explained. According to her, Haim Farhi believed that today's education deliberately makes students into semi-robots, people without opinions of their own, and such people are easily manipulated and cannot be expected to achieve anything great. Farhi is also critical, especially of the history textbooks, where the rescue of Bulgarian Jews is barely touched on.  What Bulgaria has done should be talked about, it should be separated into whole lessons, the journalist said. She drew a parallel with Israel, explaining that she was shocked on her first visit to that country in 1992. "When you tell someone that you're from Bulgaria, they're always happy to see you and talk about what our country has done, while our children here are unaware of this," she said.

She remembers that because she was fascinated by Israel, she was ready to move there. For a number of reasons, it didn't happen. In 1996, she went again, and when she got home, she started convincing her parents to all move there together. Her mother, Pavlina, who is Bulgarian, was ready to go, but her father cut her off and said he was not leaving Bulgaria. He loved to travel, but in no way did he want to separate himself from his roots, Farhi said.

After the democratic changes of 1989, her father was actively involved in reviving the life of the Jewish community in Varna, especially after the establishment of the Shalom Club.  

He was talkative, charismatic and always cracked a joke during serious conversations, Farhi recalled with a smile. Asked if he told jokes about Jews, she said that these were her dad's favorite. Since he also knew many Armenians who sometimes came to the club, he had an awful lot of jokes in his arsenal about relations between the two ethnic groups, Farhi added.

Another cherished memory she has is of the Friday family dinner. "My father introduced the rule to talk and discuss only good things on Sabbath, it was forbidden to talk about problems," Farhi said.

She also said that Haim Farhi kept the yellow star from his childhood years until his last day. On holidays, he would sometimes bring it to the table, but not to make others sad. He used to say that everything should be remembered, the truth should be told openly, and it should be drilled into the heads of the younger ones so that they would not repeat the mistakes, Farhi said.

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), in partnership with the Alef Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation Center, set itself the task to recall the events of the past and the participants in them, and to present the importance of the rescue and the rescuers. Nearly 50,000 lives were saved in Bulgaria. According to information on the website of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center, Bulgaria had 50,000 Jews before World War II and zero victims. It is the only country with zero victims.