Last of the witnesses: Albert Farhy

Albert Farhy talks about living in a Bulgarian ghetto. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

Being sent to a Bulgarian ghetto; living in fear of being beaten

By Laura Malt Schneiderman | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Oct. 13, 2024

Albert Farhy, 96, grew up the middle son of a prosperous family living a block from the Bulgarian tsar’s house in Sofia, the capital of the country.

“Bulgarians and Jews, we were like brothers,” Farhy said in an interview earlier this year.

But as early as 1940, Bulgaria — which depended economically on Nazi Germany — began instituting anti-Jewish laws. “[Antisemitism] started slow, slow,” Farhy said. “We were forbidden to go to certain streets, shopping. Children from age 10 and above must wear the star. … Jews were not permitted to have a business or profession.”

“I was going on the street going to school and saw ‘Death to the Jews’ in graffiti and the Jewish star with a cross” through it and a swastika, he said.

And every Jewish home had to have a special card on the front door with a list of the Jewish inhabitants who lived there.

His father, a self-employed banker and proud former officer in the Bulgarian army, balked at the imposed humiliations. Once, he slapped a contractor who insulted him for being Jewish.

In 1943, Bulgaria complied with German orders to deport Jews from Bulgarian-occupied territories near Greece and Yugoslavia. The Germans sent these roughly 11,000 people to the Treblinka death camp, where all were gassed or shot to death, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Bulgarian politicians, intellectuals, clergy and the public resisted demands to deport Jews from core areas of the country. Instead, the government dispersed them to the countryside and imposed forced labor.

Farhy remembered the government giving everyone 48 hours to pack and be shipped out.

They were sent by train to Pleven about 100 miles east of Sofia. They crowded into one area of the city, although non-Jews also lived there and it was not fenced, as Jewish ghettos in other countries were. The Farhy family — parents and three children — lived in one room of a house.

Albert Farhy holds his Bulgarian Jewish Star button that he had to wear as a Jewish teen in Bulgaria during the war. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

Albert Farhy as a boy in Bulgaria. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

Later, he said, they occupied a corner of a living room, with other families in each of the other corners. His father bribed an official to allow them to live in the Bulgarian part of town.

Still later, his father arranged for them to live in his birthplace of Shumen, about 137 miles further east. His father’s uncle let them live with his family, with the two families sharing two rooms.

A quota existed limiting the number of Jews at high schools, but at one of them, Farhy passed the entrance exam and was permitted to attend.

He made friends, although not everyone wanted a Jewish person nearby. One friend invited him to his house. “But I’m forbidden to go there,” Farhy said, since that was against the rules. “You’re with me,” his friend replied.

Once at his friend’s house, some other boys saw the Jewish star on Farhy’s clothes. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

The back of a family photo is stamped the Jewish Star. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

“You want to fight?” the friend responded. The other boys backed down, mumbling apologies. “But if I was alone,” Farhy said, “I would be beaten.”

Tension existed at home as well. Farhy’s older brother and father often argued. Once, his brother was writing something when his father, angered, grabbed the papers off the desk and threw them out the window. “That was against the government!” the brother yelled. He was secretly collecting money for the anti-government partisans.

Farhy ran to the staircase, slid on the handrail to ground level and began snatching papers off the street while his father and brother continued to quarrel.

On Sept. 8, 1944, the Soviet army invaded Bulgaria from the east. Defying his father, Farhy joined the Communists. “And now the wheel turns,” he said.

A photo of Farhy's father, Nissim, and his father's violin. Farhy's father was a well-to-do banker who played violin in a local orchestra. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

His father warned, “They’re using you.”

“But I was naive, young,” Farhy said. “So I felt the power … After being persecuted, now you can do the same thing to them. With one guy, he was German. He was making jokes, and I said, ‘Behave!’ Like, I’m the boss. He was scared.”

Farhy said he didn’t act this way for long. “I couldn’t be like them [the Nazis].”

Eventually, his father was able to repair their old house and the family moved back. The government had given most of their possessions away, but Farhy’s father was able to obtain a list of the items and track them down. Most people gave them back, Farhy said.

Farhy's family, from left, brothers Moise and David, mother Karolin, Albert, and father Nissim. (John Colombo/For the Post-Gazette)

He earned a college degree and worked as a chemist in Israel until 1961. He later moved to the United States following a brother and earning another college degree. After a divorce, he moved to Western Pennsylvania where his brother lived, remarried and moved to Pittsburgh.

He said he believes in judging people as individuals, not by their ethnic origin.

“Germany persecutes the Jews, but still you do not hate the nation,” he said.

Laura Malt Schneiderman, lschneiderman@post-gazette.com.

Their accounts

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Moshe Baran (1920 - 2024)

Escaped a ghetto, joined partisans