TALES FROM THE DARK
TESTIMONIES ABOUT THE COMMUNIST TERROR
This book is published in Bulgarian and English.
© Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ACET
7-9 Zvanika Str., apt. 3
1680 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tel/fax: (+359-2) 958.46.36
www.acet-bg.org
[email protected]
Edited by
Evgeni Genchev, M. D.
ISBN 954-9320-01-4
TALES FROM
THE DARK
Testimonies About the
Communist Terror
Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ÀÑÅÒ
Sofia, 2003
!
This publication has been produced with the financial assistance of the
European Community. The views expressed herein are those of the Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ACET and can therefore in no
way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission.
The Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - AÑÅÒ is a Bulgarian nongovernmental organisation for medical rehabilitation services for torture victims (refugees and victims of the Communist regime in Bulgaria
and their family members) and activities in the field of the prevention of
torture and other inhuman treatment. The medical rehabilitation
programme of ACET provides services in Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv, Stara
Zagora and Kazanluk.
ACET is accredited with the International Rehabilitation Council for
Torture Victims (IRCT). The Centre is a member of the Balkan Network for Prevention of Torture and Rehabilitation of Victims (BA.N)
and of the SOS-Network of the World Organisation Against Torture
(OMCT).
"
CONTENTS:
Editorial, Evgeni Genchev, M. D. ....................................................... 7
Heiress Or the Second Generation
of Torture Victims, Vania Jekova ..................................................... 10
Suffering in the Dark, Kouni Kounev ............................................... 14
Bitter Truth, Liliana Pirinchieva ...................................................... 34
Beyond Despair and Hope, Luben Buev .......................................... 68
In the Abyss of Hell, Milcho Prisadashki ....................................... 100
To Burn Out Before You Shine, Yanko Tokmakov ......................... 113
5361 Days, Dimiter Dimitrov .......................................................... 119
The Unfinished Conversation, Mimoza Dimitrova ......................... 126
Surviving Under Totalitarian
Repression, Krassimir Ivanov, M. D. ............................................. 135
About Words: In Lieu of Conclusion, Vesselka Makarinova ......... 148
#
Acknowledgement
The Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ACET thanks cordially
to the authors who have shared gratuitously for this book their bitter
truths for the Communist terror: Dimiter Stoev Dimitrov, Kouni Genchev
Kounev, Liliana Spasova Pirinchieva, Luben (Todorov) Buev, Milcho
Simeonov Prisadashki, Vania Jekova and Yanko Dimov Tokmakov.
The other materials for the book have been written by specialists
from the Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ACET. They
summarise the experience of the team providing medical rehabilitation
services for torture survivors. Special thanks to the colleagues from
Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Kazanluk and Stara Zagora.
Many thanks to Anika Krstic and Sergei for their friendly contribution for editing the English version.
Vesselka Makarinova, Chairperson of ACET
$
EDITORIAL
Dear reader,
You are about to become acquainted with the part of recent Bulgarian history full of cruelty, rage, death and indescribable sufferings. The
part of history from which everybody has the natural compelling wish
to run away. It is still not too late to close and put away this book. If not,
the consequences are yours to bear.
We would therefore like to warn you that you will be exposed to
authentic experiences of people who survived the Communist Concentration Camps, political wards of prisons, false accusations and trials,
death sentences, the dungeons of the Committee for State Security (KDS),
forced displacement, exile and deprivation of the rights to study, work,
or freely choose the place to live, authentic experiences of persecution
of people's relatives and all kinds of physical and psychological terror.
These are several partial stories of sufferings, experienced by tenths
and hundreds of thousands of people with different severity and peculiarity, mostly in the first two decades of the Communist regime in Bulgaria (starting from 9 September 1944). Our intention was not to find
the scariest stories, because suffering is not to be compared or measured. These are typical stories of the Communist repression in Bulgaria.
In this book we have also included a confession of the second generation. The fate of the second and next generations birth-marked by
the trauma of torture, transferred as a curse, will keep alive the horrid
legacy of terror in Bulgarian society until the torture victims, their successors and society as a whole have been appropriately rehabilitated.
The beginning of every treatment or rehabilitation starts with telling
the story of the individual experience. Talking is therapeutic only if the
words are listened to adequately. A listening full of compassion, sharing and understanding for the inexpressible horror. Listening by a person who refuses to comply with political terror, torture and any kind of
human rights violation. Listening by a person with a sense of responsibility for the rectification of evil, as well as for the destiny of society and
the world. If you are still reading this, you are probably the right person.
You will also find shared experience from specialists working in the
team of the Assistance Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Survivors ACET. We are people in search of an adequate way, from the rehabili%
TALES FROM THE DARK
tation point of view, of listening to the stories of suffering. As we can
share, it is a difficult and dubious process, which bares neither a technocratic approach, nor a simple sinking in the sorrow, pain and mourning of the survivors.
The research on survival strategies of the politically repressed shows
the real evil face of torture. Survival is only possible if the perpetrators
have not decided to break the resistance of their victims by all means.
As shown in the American movie Out of the Ashes directed by Joseph
Sergeant, the protagonist cannot fully resist the pressure over her moral
choices. As a physician in the infirmary of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp she is forced to assist to the gruesome Dr. Mengele. She has
even reached the point to admit patients out of order for payment, in
order to survive. The US Immigration Commission finally justifies her
attitude, but who's to judge people's actions under the conditions of
cruel torture?
This book is a step in the consistent efforts of ACET's team to brake
the silence about the torture and terror under Communism. This topic
is still being avoided, rejected and disregarded with remorse not only
at home, but also worldwide. This is an understandable defence reaction to horror and guilt feelings, but unfortunately ineffective and counterproductive when it comes to coping with trauma. As we know from
the experience acquired in the last decades in treatment of torture
related trauma, the therapeutic approach needs a different attitude.
First of all, breaking the silence and discovering the truth about the
repression. Secondly, recognition and adequate, respectful redress for
the victims. Thirdly, legal prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators. Fourthly, medical and psychological rehabilitation of torture
survivors, their relatives and next generations. Last but not least, prevention of any future incidents of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people.
Guilt feelings are among the most insidious consequences of terror
not only for the victims. Adequate rehabilitation of torture victims is a
crucial step to the rehabilitation of society as a whole too. Unequivocal
acknowledgement of the tragic events by society, an appropriate apology and commemoration of the sufferings could liberate the predominant, innocent part of society from guilt feelings and hopefully restore
the lost morality, so essentially needed for living a life with dignity.
If you would like to join us, or simply find out more about this complex problem, we invite you to immerse in the stories and analyses in
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EVGENI GENCHEV, M.D.
this book. They might horrify you or fill you with sorrow, but they are
more likely to set you free rather than traumatise you in any way. As
you have reached up to here, you certainly are no perpetrator, so you
bear no guilt for the events you will find in this book. As for the perpetrators, this book will be of no help to them unless they wish to come to
terms with the past, looking at their own image reflected in a mirror of
words.
Evgeni Genchev, M.D., psychotherapist - ACET
'
HEIRESS OR
THE SECOND GENERATION
OF TORTURE VICTIMS
Vania Zhekova
Suffering is a natural human feeling, which accompanies us from birth
to the very end of our life. Suffering from freedom and from the lack
of freedom, from happiness and unhappiness, flying and landing, talking and not talking, from totalitarianism and transition, democracy
and plutocracy. Suffering from the lack of suffering. Suffering - this is
my enormous inheritance. I know people who were made with the
same kind of pain inside them. They were people with the same energy fields. Suffering is the foundation of happiness. I am happy because I know what Suffering is. Through suffering I can guess what its
opposite is. Some types of suffering exist by constantly reproducing
themselves.
For the first time I felt something stuck in my throat when they cut
my hair - my golden straw. Then they stuck needles in my legs… Was it
a dream? Unhappiness could be exciting too.
Who can cure my fear of failure, my extreme shyness and horror of
falling? Who can cure me from the shadows and sounds of the past, my
mother's eyes dark with sorrow, shouts and hostility, from walking on
tip-toes and the feeling that the world is desert?
I'm writing as the life ends, as the dreams disappear, as the words
burn out.
Unhappiness As Creation
The anxiety and sorrow are challenging my pen, provoking images and
symbols. Unhappiness makes me creative. It is the unhappiness that
brings to me the stream of words and that originates the vivid images of
my messages.
In the second part of my book Catharsis, entitled "History in the First
Person", I have met with the peasant farmers - survivors from the Communist regime. They have presented their stories to me as they have
been experiencing them today. Their stories are sinister and cathartic. I
VANIA ZHEKOVA
realised that suffering had raised them above trifle things and insignificant events. Suffering had taught them the supreme Christian virtue of
forgiveness. The ranks of my heroes are thinning down. How can I manage without them, without the knowledge of coping? I have no point of
support. I want to believe in something.
Idealism - the Necessary Atavism
Idealism is riding at full speed my imagination. Idealism is derisive and
unnatural in our non-quixotic time.
I am an heiress to ideals. I see my father's face merging with thousands of other faces. I am standing in front of them on my toes. That is
why I followed their paths, cells and camps. Those places, which have
been impregnated with the heavy vibrations of torture, speak in their
own language. You have only to step into such a place and its story
overwhelms you wordless and speechless. The poisonous vapours of the
horrifying past events make you feel paralysed and short of breath. You
become the Past itself and you lose any adequacy. You carry a heavy
inheritance, which makes you unable to adapt, an outsider. How to
open the eyes of society, how to sharpen its hearing and make it come
to terms with itself?
Martyrdom has kept them alive. Moreover, it has faced them with
the eternal questions of the meaning and price of life, dignity, moral
and sacrifice, the choice to live or die. At this point of supreme providence you have to pass the hard test of the humane and the divine. Who
is more useful - Galileo alive or Giordano dead? Is there an answer to
this question? Death is the precondition for immortality. One has to
make one's own choice.
Causes require sacrifice. We, the others, do not know what it is to be
torn between the alternatives of life and death. I feel the original fear
growing in me, the fear that I could hardly manage to preserve my wholeness as I would wish. The doubt has been eating me up inside and making
me incomplete, somehow untested. Deprived of the ability to know my
own self and answer the question Who am I? I want to own my past, to
know it and examine it. I want to know more about sacrifice, coping and
forgiveness. I want to carry them with me and I prey that they will never
leave me. I want to link these categories with familiar faces so that I can
preserve my values and not melt away like so many generations that had
no ideals. Because the suffering has a culture of its own.
TALES FROM THE DARK
Rebellion Is Not Always Silence, It's Also Blood
I set out on a trip along the dusty country roads looking for the heroes
of my book. I came across the "goryani"1 people in Sliven and made a
documentary about them. I continued my work on Catharsis. Later I
made a film on the book.
In the village of Vrabevo, district of Lovech, I encountered people
who met me with an axe. I was trying to find out more about a person
called Stephan Toutekov, whose name I was unable to find in the
register of village inhabitants, either among the living or or the deceased . The man, who used to be the mayor during the sixties, jumped
at the movie camera with the frantic desire to break it into pieces in
the same way as he treated the people during his reign. He met us
with the words: "Why are you digging into things that happened 30
years ago?" I was stunned. When Toutekov was killed at the border,
his clothes were given back to his father. He, however, had been hiding the truth from his wife all her life. She died believing that her son
was living in France. What did it cost the old man to live and die with
this secret? I do not know and I will never know it. I only know that
the shadow of the young Stephan will always haunt me not only in my
dreams.
Another investigation. Petar Gogov, the head of the concentration
camp near the town of Lovech, the oppressor, the sadist. I was watching
for him in front of his flat in Liulin residential area in Sofia for two
days, but to no avail. Finally I found him in his native village. I met him
face to face. We talked in his garden. Among other things I asked him
what he did in the past. "I was a carpenter," he said. He did not say a
word about the camps. He was happy with his pension and lived in a
large house. Good old age. He could not but say that Communism would
be victorious even if after 100 years. He said he believed in China. He
did not recognise me. The National Television bought the rights on the
film but has not broadcast it yet. Maybe it is waiting for the last guilty
man to die. I do not know.
What else do I not know? When I met Marin Dinchev in Kozlodui,
"Goryani" ("the mountain people") was an armed people's self-defense movement against
the Communist regime, active in various parts of Bulgaria. The largest group was in the
Sliven region: it started in the spring of 1950, but was crushed during the same year. Most
of its members were killed or later sentenced to death.
1
VANIA ZHEKOVA
I was stunned with the stream of tears pouring down his and his wife's
faces. They looked warm-hearted. It seemed as if they had been waiting
for me for years. They told me about tortures, humiliation and hunger.
This recording later disappeared in strange circumstances.
What can I say about the reasons that made me write books and
make films? They are clear. They are part of me. They are my "genetic"
motive. I've had the honour to be born during that dark period and to
keep the memory of it, to write about it and fulfil my duty of relating it
to the generations of today and tomorrow. Because these truths need to
be told and find their reflecting space. We are the society and we need a
cure for our blindness. To open our eyes and see the tomorrow through
the past. To acknowledge, to forgive and to go on.
!
SUFFERING IN THE DARK
Kouni Genchev Kounev
Kouni Genchev Kounev was born on 25 October 1921 in the village of
Sabranovo, district of Nova Zagora, in the family of a well-to-do farmer.
His father, Gencho Kounev, and his uncle, Neiko Kounev, were among
the founders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU)
organisation in the village, set up even prior to 19201. After 9 September
19942, Mr. Kounev established the Bulgarian Youth Agrarian Union
(BYAU) and was elected its chairman - a position he held until the
Communists banned the organisation.
This story is an excerpt from his memories from the concentration
camp on the Island of Persin in the Danube River, close to the village of
Belene, district of Svishtov.
I decided to write this book after a lot of hesitation as to whether I
should begin now, 40 years after the events. I sincerely regret not having
done that when I left the camp. At that time the memories were fresher
in my mind and more numerous. Now there are quite a few things that
I cannot recall very well. But I want to put on paper the memories that
are still vivid. I am not a writer or a man of advanced education, so I
cannot write a captivating book. I am a countryman and I want to tell in
simple words what I remember now …
One day Georgi Dinev Yovchev from Nova Zagora, nicknamed The
Frying Pan, called out from our gate. We knew each other slightly. He
asked me about Gospodin Mitev Dinev (Gouncho). He told me that he
had dropped by his place to look for him but he was not there. I asked
him why he was looking for him, and obviously that was what he had
expected me to inquire, for he took out a rusty pistol and said that
Gouncho wanted it and he had taken it to his place to give it to him but
he had not been there. He began persuading me to leave it with me so
that I could give it to him. I refused firmly. But as he was about to leave,
he shoved it into my pocket and almost ran away - he wanted me to give
it to Gouncho. I threw it in front of him, but he strode over it and the
pistol remained in the street. I pondered for a while and then it struck
One of the most important political parties in Bulgaria until WWII.
The date a coup d'etat was successfully executed with the help of the Soviet Army and
later established as the official national celebration day by the Communist regime.
1
2
"
KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
me that it would be found in front of our gate and then things would
take a bad turn. He left and I took the pistol in. I realised that it was a
set-up. That same evening I found Gouncho and gave him the weapon,
and I told him that it was a put up job and that we would be detained. A
few days passed and we heard that Kani Petkov Chamov and Mincho
Georgiev Neikov were arrested. And the following week, on 21 November 1949, Gouncho and I were apprehended.
We were taken to the Ministry of Interior (MoI) division in Nova
Zagora and transported with the evening train to the State Security unit
in Stara Zagora. They split us and locked us up in different cells and in
about an hour I was taken upstairs to the investigation room and interrogated. They first asked me if I had been in the village of Benkovski, in
the house of Kani Petkov Chamov during the fair. I had not been there
and I did not know Mincho Georgiev Neikov from Stara Zagora. And
the State Security people immediately took to their customary action:
massage (beating) - left to right and top down and everywhere, coupled
with: "Tell us what we ask you!" They asked me about stuff that I had
neither heard nor knew anything about and the threats were: "You are in
our hands, do what you may, you'll hang on the rope". The fair at
Benkovski and the visitors at Kani Petkov Chamov's place were qualified as organising of a clandestine group for conducting an armed struggle
against the authorities. They asked me for which intelligence service I
worked as an agent. They wanted to know if I was paid in US dollars or
in British pounds. They kept massaging me, and when they satisfied
themselves that I had never heard of such things and I knew nothing,
they asked me about stuff that Gouncho and I had discussed. Then I
realised that Gouncho had told them the stuff they were asking me
about. I shared a cell with a man from the town of Kardjali. His name
was Marin Adamov and I was very grateful to him. When I was brought
back to the cell after another massage, uncle Marin helped me put my
coat on, as the massage was performed with my coat off and the time of
the year was November and December. There was ample snow and frost
and the massage covered the whole body. I ached all over. My entire
skin had turned blue because it was very cold.
Between 7 March - 17 November, I was on a reservist military service.
Upon the advent of 9 September 1944 a real confusion ensued in the
army. Everybody plundered whatever they could lay their hands on,
even though they might not need it. I also took some 30 cartridges with
paper bullets and about a score of live cartridges, because three years
#
TALES FROM THE DARK
before that I had had a game shooting license issued in my name but my
father had never allowed me to go game hunting and he had not let me
buy a gun either. I used to dismantle the cartridges and take the gunpowder out of them and at times I joined some old hunter for duck
shooting. Once Gouncho found me while I was dismantling the cartridges and he already knew about them. So he disclosed that I had
them and one evening they pressed me with the words: "Tell us how
many cartridges you have at your place!" I realised that this had been
disclosed to them and there was no point in my withholding the information about the cartridges from them. Our investigator was Stefan
Vasilev Lokov from Stara Zagora. They took a car and drove to my
village, where they searched my home and seized the cartridges. And
they held them as evidence that I had been collecting weapons for an
armed struggle against the government. I told them the truth but nobody would listen. These interrogations lasted for 43 days and nights.
One day they brought in a Greek guerrilla fighter, who was infested by
lice. The next thing we knew, we were full of lice ourselves. This was
another misfortune that made matters even worse. At that time we also
shared the same cell with Engineer Savov from Harmanli and Yanko
Dimov from the village of Brod, district of Parvomai. Savov had some
matches and a striking surface hidden in the hem of his coat. And every
now and then, as they brought us food wrapped up in paper, we made
torches out of the paper and we singed the hairy parts of our body to
burn lice and nits.
There were six cells at that State Security unit. They were occupied
by the following inmates distributed on the basis of how they could get
along together: me, Marin Adamov from Kardjali, Engineer Savov from
Harmanli, Yanko Dimov from the village of Brod, Parvomai district,
Gocho Dimov from the village of Byal Izvor, Stara Zagora district,
Osman, the young Turk from the village of Alexandrovo, Kazanlak district, who escaped when taken out into the yard to carry wood, Sali
Yamourliev from Kardjali district, Georgi Ivanov from the village of
Svirkovo, Harmanli district, Mincho Georgiev Neikov from Stara Zagora,
Kani Petkov Chamov from the village of Benkovski, Stara Zagora district, the Greek guerrilla fighter, and Ilyu Panev from the village of
Dlagnevo, Chirpan district; and there could also have been Koyu Gyonev
Koev from the village of Vinarovo, Chirpan district, but he did not tell
us his name, as he was afraid that there might be men of those in power
among us and that we were deliberately asking him questions, for such
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KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
people were indeed introduced among the detainees in order to question
them and eavesdrop.
The man, whom I believed to be Ilyu or Koyu, was in the first cell
and I was in the second cell. There was a small wooden door between
the two cells that was nailed so that it would not open but sounds could
be heard through it. The putative Ilyu or Koyu had a riveted chain
(fetters) on his foot. When he was taken out for interrogation and brought
back one could hear its loud rattle as it hit the stairs. He was "diversant"
as immigrants were labelled at that time. He said that he had blood all
over his head and that his body was covered with bruises caused by the
beating and that he would not stay alive much longer. Years later I was
told that both Ilyu and Koyu had been killed. In a few days time there
was no more chain clutter coming from the stairs or the room, as if
there was nobody there.
Several days before New Year's Eve and the advent of 1950 we were
moved from the premises of the State Security unit to the Second Militia Station. Before 9 September 1944 it had been a mounted police unit
with a stable. There was a cement floor and the doors were elevated 20
centimetres above it. The militiaman who was guarding us did not
allow me to stand up. He made me lie on the cement floor. I was alone
in the cell. And it was the last but one in the row. And every now and
then I could hear a man stir in the last cell but I could not figure out
what kind of a person was in there. I never heard anyone open the door
of that cell or talk to that person.
One evening at about 9 or 10 p.m., steps were heard in the corridor:
they neared the last cell in the row and the door opened. The steps
suggested that there were more men there
"Hold here!" I heard someone saying to the other but he had altered
his voice so that people could not recognise who it was.
"Don't move!" they were ordering from time to time, but I could not
strain my ears enough to hear anything else. I lay on the cement floor
shaking and shuddering with cold and I could not calm down and listen.
At that time I had an aluminium mess-tin with cooked cabbage that
had been brought to me by my folks from the village and the militiaman had placed it at the small window in the corridor opposite my cell.
And when it was freezing cold the food in the tin had turned into ice.
For two weeks, every time we were taken to the toilet or to wash ourselves the militiaman would take it from the window sill, hand it over to
me and say mockingly: "Here, eat!" But because of the ice I could not
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TALES FROM THE DARK
tear off anything. Then he would come to take it away and would say
derisively: "Enough with eating! Leave some for tomorrow!"
These two executioners had taken the lid of my mess-tin and had
filled it to the top with blood and had put it back on top of the tin. And
then they had forgotten to throw it away and wash the lid, so the blood
froze in it. In the morning the militiaman, in his usual manner, handed
the mess-tin to me but he was unaware that the lid was full of blood, so
I saw it and he immediately returned the tin to the window and made
me lie down on the floor. Then they took the lid, defrosted the blood
and washed the lid. And I realised why they did not let me stand up:
they kept me lying on the floor so that I would not find out what kind of
a person occupied that cell. So I suppose that they pulled that martyr's
blood out of his body with a syringe or that they cut his veins and deadened him in that way that night. For he had been exhausted to the
utmost and chilled to the marrow and I did not hear him groan or utter
any other sound. I only heard occasionally that he was sighing heavily
but I believe that he was half-conscious due to the frost and cold. I only
presume that this man was either Ilyu or Koyu, since at that time the
word had it that they were both betrayed by informants and detained.
They were both emigrants. Then I was not aware when they took him
out of the cell. And only his executioners knew where he was thrown.
During my approximately two-week stay at the Second Militia Station I only learned the name of a senior militiaman: he was called Neiko
and he came from some village in the mountain of Sredna Gora, around
the village of Kazanka, Stara Zagora district, or from a village close to
it. He probably knew who the man in the last cell was and who were the
executioners who destroyed him. There was a major snowstorm and the
wind drifted the snow under the front door, as it was also elevated some
20 centimetres above the cement floor. And it penetrated the corridor,
which was 150 centimetres wide, and from there it passed under the cell
doors and was all around us. If I pulled my coat on my head to prevent
the snow from getting around my neck, my waist would be uncovered.
If I pulled it down to warm up my waist, my head would be uncovered.
And this went on day and night. I turned on one side, then on the other,
and all the time the lice bit me severely. My chest and my abdomen
were grazed with scratching of bitten places.
I listened to the militiaman's steps on the cement floor as he did his
round of the cells and as he passed by my cell I would stand up, go to
the door in the light coming in through the peephole and would kill
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KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
lice. As he turned to come back I quickly lay down on the cement again.
As I pulled the sweater, the lice would come out through the stitch
holes. Once, as I was looking at the lice, I did not hear the steps of the
militiaman, so he saw he and me asked me why I was standing. I told
him that we had a lot of lice and that I was killing them. Then he asked
the men in the other cells if they had lice. And they all said that we had
plenty of them. He reported to the investigators that we were infested
with lice and on the next day they brought some liquid in a wickercovered demijohn and made us tear off a piece of cloth from the lining
of our clothes, then he would hand the demijohn in all the cells one
after the other. We soaked the cloth and spread the liquid all over our
bodies and, as the saying goes, I have not seen a louse to this very day.
After November 19893, when the totalitarian regime was renounced
and BANU - Nikola Petkov4 was exculpated, a Conference of the Union
was convened in the Opera House in Sofia on 3 February 1990. I met
engineer Savov there, and among the many memories we shared was
also the reminiscence about the lice and how we singed our bodies as if
we were animals.
On New Year's Eve, at the turn of 1949, they picked us from the
Second Militia Station and transported us to the intermediary Provost
Marshal's Office in Stara Zagora. At about midnight they put the whole
group on a train: me, Mincho Georgiev, Kani Petkov Chamov, Gospodin
Mitev (Gouncho), Engineer Savov, Yanko Dimov and a girl from Chirpan
or from a village around Chirpan. Her name was Monka. They dropped
us at Gorna Oryahovits railway station at the commandant's office,
while Monka went on towards the female camp of Bosna in Dobroudja.
During the night when Monka had been alone in the female cell at
the intermediary station in Stara Zagora there had been a militiaman
there from the village of Tsar Asparouhovo, district of Stara Zagora, his
name was Yurdan Zafirov. He had wanted to rape her, but she had
fought him and had not given in. Then he had taken a broom, had held
it by the lower end and had hit her 25 times on the head with the handle.
As we were travelling together from Stara Zagora to Gorna Oryahovitsa
sharing the same train compartment, she showed us the lumps on her
The fall of the Communist regime in Bulgaria.
The most important party in opposition to the Communist regime until its ban and the
execution in 1947of its leader - Nikola Petkov in a false trial organised by the Bulgarian
Communist Party and the court appointed by it.
3
4
'
TALES FROM THE DARK
head where Zafirov had hit her with the broom handle. This is common
knowledge for Mincho Georgiev Neikov, Kani Petkov Chamov, Engineer Savov, Yanko Dimov, with whom we travelled together.
When the Varna-Sofia train arrived, they put us on it and dropped us
at Levski railway station. There we boarded another train to Svishtov.
And once again we were brought into a militia station. It was outrageously dirty there. There was that basement in a cell and a hole was
dug in one of its corners where we relieved ourselves. Everybody who
has been there knows about it. The hole was full of excrements. We
spent the night there.
On the other day they put us on the train on the Levski-SvishtovBelene route. As we reached the final destination they took us to the
Headquarters on the river bank. They took our civilian clothes and gave
us worn-out and ragged uniforms from various army branches to wear.
They registered us as interned at a correctional labour colony (CLC) on
the island of Persin, village of Belene, on 3 January 1950. And at dusk
militiamen drove us on foot to a second site 12 km away. There were no
roads. The mud was plentiful.
Each of us was as lean as a rake, we were exhausted, starved, they
kept beating us as much as they wished until we reached the place
drenched with sweat. There we were split up and assigned to different
teams and sheds. The sheds were woven out of willow branches and
plastered up with mud. The mud was sandy, with no straw in it, so it
had cracked on the walls and pieces of it had fallen off leaving large
holes and the wind blew in snow though them. As we lay covered with
grass and maize foliage, and as the snow fell down and melted, it did
not just drip inside but there was running water everywhere. None of
the sheds had even a small window. And as we were newcomers, the old
camp inmates made us sleep by the walls. It was bitter cold.
We slept with our clothes on, the same ones we wore in the daytime,
including the greatcoats, covered with a worn-out soldier's blanket. Many
of the people whom we found there had cut pieces of their blankets to
patch their trousers and jackets and only a half of their blankets had
remained. Just to have something to give back in case they were asked
to. In time we also cut pieces from our blankets for patches. There were
people, who had also cut parts of their greatcoats into patches and had
converted them into short coats.
Gouncho and I were in the 31st detachment there. Insofar as I can
remember now, the following persons were there with us: Dimitar Ivanov
KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
from Sofia - he was our detachment commander, Andrei Velev Ivanov
from Gabrovo, old man Petko Papazov from Gabrovo - a tailor, who
got a letter from his folks that his boy, a student, had been detained and
beaten, and that his health was quite poor, and in about twenty days he
received another letter saying that his son had passed away, Hristofor
Stomanyakov from Gabrovo, old man Petar Bonev from the district of
Svilengrad, Minko Raikovski from Troyan, Manko Kolev Bakardjiev from
the district of Troyan: he was killed by the Head of the camp Major
Stefan Rashkov Kitov from the village of Katina, Sofia district, Ivan
Samsonov from Stara Zagora, Tanyu Slavov Tanev from the village of
Draganovets, Targovishte district, Asen Nikolov Valchev from
Dobroudja, Kosta Kostov Lyudtskanov from the village of Bilo, Balchik
district, Petko Tsonev from the village of Ignatitsa, Vratsa district, residing in Sofia, Kroumcho from Kyustendil residing in Sofia, a waiter at
the British Embassy, Dimitar Yakimov from Gabrovo, Dimitar
Stoimenov Grancharov from the village of Osikovo, Nevrokop district,
Ivan Pandiev from the village of Vranya, Sandanski district, Ivan
Palankov from Bansko, Nikolai Kravchenko from Bourgas and Sizyakin
- Russian whiteguards. Then there were shifts to other brigades, where I
worked with many other people. It was not possible for one to come to
know everybody. We were moved to different sites.
When they brought us to the island, the weather turned very cold and
the Danube froze and the ice was over two meters thick. The horse and
ox-driven supply carts moved across the ice, and then in February it
became warmer and the ice began to melt. In the west, close to Nikopol,
the ice on the Danube began to crack and the water dragged enormous
floes with an area of some 1000 square meters and even more. Where
the Danube branched off, huge quantities of ice floes accumulated.
Around Nikopol they used artillery to hit the drift ice and an aeroplane
to bombard it.
On 16 February 1950 water gushed onto the island from the northwest and caused a flood. And about lunchtime the militia issued an
order that everybody from Site Two should take their luggage, quickly
fall in line and run to Site One. They drove us and beat us to run faster.
There was a senior militia officer, fair-haired and tall, and as far as I
remember he came from the village of Vinarovo, district of Chirpan,
who proved to be good at beating others. Between Site Two and Site
One there was low land where a wooden bridge was built. The water
had flooded the place and was overflowing the bridge on both sides
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causing some ten-meter-wide stream. We, the younger ones, quickly took
off our shoes and, with our trouser legs rolled up, waded across the icy
water. Some people got cuts on their legs caused by the ice, and the old
men could not take off their shoes quickly and the militiaman hit them
with a pole and drove them like sheep to wade through the water with
their shoes on. And when the militiaman tried to cross over and stepped
into the water further to the side in the direction of the bridge, it happened so that he reached a deep hole, that had been dug there to get
earth to put between the pieces of wood on top of the bridge, and that
pit could not be seen under the water, so he fell in the pit. The water
covered him completely, so that we could not see him, but he quickly
emerged and came out. Throughout the whole drive to the river bank at
Belene this militiaman remained soaked with the ice-cold water. I saw
him pour it out of his boots but nobody heard him utter a single word
during the transfer with the help of boats and pontoons between the
huge ice-floes until we reached the other bank close to the village.
When we were transferred to the opposite bank they took us some 34 kilometres to the south of Belene to some empty sheds, probably
abandoned by brigade members or others. We worked on a big dyke
there. We had a fellow inmate from the village of Chernogorovo,
Pazardjik district. His name was Atanas Tilev and he was an elderly
man. He had been a publican. One day we were working on the dike.
Some of us were carrying earth by using wooden litters, others were
digging the soil of the dyke. There were several hundred of us. There
was yet another fellow camp inmate there, his name was Ivan Vlaykov,
and he was an ex-colonel. I do not know why, but he and old man
Atanas had some kind of a quarrel, so Atanas lifted his spade and swung
it in his direction to hit him, but old man Slavi Pop Ignatov was close to
them, so he lifted his own spade in front of that of Atanas's, blocking its
progress and preventing the blow, and Ivan Vlaykov managed to escape. Atanas got very angry.
As he somewhat calmed down, we asked him why he wanted to hit
him and he told us the following story: "In the past people believed in
God and in the spring time and they would set a date and would come
together in groups of neighbouring households and would buy lambs
and they would slaughter the animals sacrificing them for vows they
had made and they would cook them and the priest would say a prayer.
And they had a service praying for rain in the summer and for fruitful
orchards. And I cannot quite remember which year it was - either 1923
KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
or 1925, but they once again decided to buy lambs and to slaughter
them at a particular place by the village chosen for that purpose. They
prepared 24 cauldrons with the ingredients for lamb soup and built a
fire to boil it. But someone from the village reported to the authorities
in Pazardjik that members of the agrarian party and Communists had
come together and had been slaughtering and cooking lambs and had
been celebrating something together. Then a cavalry squadron was sent
over from Pazardjik (at that time there was a regiment of mounted troops
in Pazardjik) and Ivan Vlaykov was a captain and he came over with his
squadron. They approached the people, who were boiling the lamb dish.
Vlaykov issued a command that the soldiers should take out their swords
and ordered an officer to get off the horse and to spill all 24 cauldrons
of soup. He told the people that if they offered resistance they would all
be stabbed to death by the soldiers. And the officer moved from cauldron to cauldron and kicked each one of them and spilled them. Then
Vlaykov told the people to take the empty cauldrons and the soldiers
drove them towards the village and their homes. And then the troops
headed back for Pazardjik. So the people went back, gathered the meat,
allocated it among themselves and they boiled it in their homes."
When our camp inmates realised why Atanas had wanted to hit Ivan
Vlaykov, many of them told old man Slavi Pop Ignatov that he should
not have stopped uncle Atanas from hitting him several times with the
spade, as he had been that kind of a commander. But old man Slavi said
that he had not been aware that there had been such a case.
Our daily quota was to dig out 3 to 6 cubic meters earth and carry it
over 35 to 40 meters by means of wooden litters. There were wheelbarrows as well. In case of shortage of litters and wheelbarrows, we took off
our greatcoats and jackets and carried soil with them. For if one failed
to do his quota, he would be deprived of his bread and soup in the
evening. We worked in groups of three. One would dig and load, two
would carry, and after five wooden litters of earth are carried to the
destination the digger would come out of the pit to carry the litter,
while one of the other two would get in his place. And we would rotate
in this manner until we did the quota of 18 cubic meters for three people.
One day near the end of February 1950, only two months after we
were interned in the camp, they called Gouncho and set him free. We
worked there until the autumn, when we were once again taken back to
the island. On the island we would uproot willow trees and cut and
whittle stakes needed for the summer time for tomatoes to be grown in
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the vegetable garden. To the north of our island there were two other
isles called Malka Barzina (Low Speed) and Golyama Barzina (High
Speed). Camp inmates were sent there to cut wood for timber, and one
day, while 4 people were crossing over in a boat, a hole opened in the
boat, as it was very old, and they drowned. No one looked for them any
more. I had crossed over in that old boat myself and every time I had
felt fear. We removed the willows and tree stumps from many acres of
land and we ploughed it at those places and turned it into fields. We
used to sow hemp, maize, barley, oats, sunflower and other crops. One
summer there was a plot of land under watermelons. There was a camp
inmate who guarded the watermelons, his name was Kolyo Mitev Vasilev
and he was from the village of Chokoba, Sliven district. Had he been a
dog, he would not have barked as maliciously at us as he treated us.
I shall recount an occurrence that I shall remember forever. One day
some 30 of us were going to work in the vegetable garden. We were
passing by the watermelon field. Some people there were loading a trailer
with watermelons and it was almost loaded. Later on, when we were
already some 300 meters away, the trailer with two militiamen sitting
on top of the watermelons caught up with us. There was a fellow inmate, a small man, who was called old man Kolyo, and as far as I
remember he came from the village of Gradishte, Svilengrad district
and he had been a shepherd in his village. As the trailer passed by us, he
ran after it, when the militiamen were with their backs to us and took a
big watermelon. We all thought that the militiamen would see him and
that they would put a bullet in him. But they did not see him. When the
trailer was a good distance away, old man Kolyo said:
"Fellows, now I have the opportunity to treat you to watermelon.
Stop for a while and let us cut it up." He gave each one a piece and we
ate them up with the peel. We all blessed him and wished him to go
home and to live a long and healthy life.
There was a team of Serbian boys made up of some 40 or 50 people.
I heard that they had wanted to escape from Serbia to Turkey but they
had not been willing to go through Greece as the Greeks had been sending their kind back to Serbia, so they had chosen to pass through Bulgaria illegally in order to avoid going through Greece on their way to
Turkey. But something even worse happened to them in Bulgaria: they
got caught at the border and then transferred to the camp in Belene.
One day the militiamen at the gateway of Site Two ate watermelon and
threw out the peels. One of the Serbian boys went out of the gate to get
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KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
the peel pieces and eat them. The militiaman ordered him to go back
but he begged to be allowed to take the peel and eat it. He took several
pieces of peel but the guard called other militiamen from their premise
and they took the boy to that premise. He alone knew what they did to
him there, but as he came out we saw him throw the peel pieces behind
the premise of the militiamen: he had not been allowed to eat them.
The Serbian boys were not allowed to receive any parcels, so starvation was common among them, too. There was that Serbian boy, whose
name was Ninat. He worked at the bakery, and he was the only one with
better luck. There was yet another Serbian, whose name was Gyoshe.
When someone got a parcel, he would go to him and beg to be given
something. When the relatives of some inmates were sending them parcels, they failed to realise that boiled chickens should not be included
in the parcels, for it took them at least two weeks to reach us and the
chickens would go bad and its foul smell would spoil the whole parcel.
A person, who got such a parcel, would throw the chicken away and
Gyoshe was happy as he would take it and eat it.
"Gyoshe, how many parcels did you get today?" some people would
ask jesting with him. And he, his mouth full, would only show one, two
or more fingers.
There was also a team of some 30 boys from Greece. To my knowledge they were all soldiers. I came to know their platoon commander,
also a young man, in the following manner: I had received a parcel and
I was arranging its contents in my suitcase. Their commander was looking so sadly at me, and I was aware of that, and I gave him a piece of
rusk and some bacon. He took what I gave him and his tears gushed out
so intensively that he could not even say "thank you" to me, but I knew
that he was very grateful. His name was Christakis Koutridis. His father
was General Koutridis, the commander of the Thessaloniki garrison.
He had a good command of spoken Bulgarian. Later on we two became
good friends. He used to tell me how they had been taken captive and
brought to Bulgaria. They were involved in the hostilities in the Greek
mountains of Vitsi and Grammos between the Greek guerilla fighters
headed by General Markos and the Greek army. The Greek government sent an aeroplane over these mountains to spread leaflets and to
warn the guerilla commanders that they should release the elderly people
and the women and children, whom they had forcefully taken out of the
villages and into the mountains claiming that the people was supporting them. As they were not released by the time set, the government
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troops advanced from all sides and the guerrillas began to transfer elderly people, women and children to Bulgaria. Then Christakis Koutridis
was sent with his platoon and a truck to beset the road to Bulgaria, and
at a place where the road was bending five or six guerrillas armed with
a machine-gun stopped the truck, and the soldiers inside could not
deploy properly for a battle. They were forced to drop their guns from
the truck to the ground, to get down, push the truck in a precipice and
thus they were brought to Bulgaria. After painful interrogations they
were sent to Belene, to the island.
One autumn we had dishes prepared with red peppers of the Gorogled
variety, which were otherwise meant to be dried and ground and used
for frying. It had very hard jacket. As some of our fellow inmates ate
them, they would spit out the hard jacket of the peppers and the Greek
boys would rush several at a time bustling like chickens in their desire
to get the jacket from the ground and eat it. That is how starved they
were, too.
I shall recount yet another case of starvation. We had a fellow inmate
by the name of Dimitar Petkov Donev from the village of Gramada,
Kulata district, who was there together with his father Petko Donev.
Both of them were in the camp, while their family (the wife with the two
young children and the mother-in-law) was resettled to the village of
Vodenichene, Yambol district. There was no way for Dimitar to get any
parcels, so he used to catch water snakes, which he roasted and ate.
There were many water snakes on the island.
There was another case, which I had not witnessed, but which I heard
about from my fellow inmates and it was about three Gypsy camp inmates. When Veliko, a militiaman, killed a fox and some of our inmates
skinned it, he took the skin, and they took the fox, roasted it and ate it.
When a fox is skinned, even flies do not alight on it, for its meat becomes real dry and black, but the people ate even a fox, since they were
starving. Another case: the person involved was again Veliko, who caught
a wild cat in a snare. There were plenty of wild cats on the island. Some
of our inmates skinned it for him, he took the skin, while the inmates
surreptitiously took the cat to the kitchen for the cooks to roast it. Then
a group of our camp inmates and the cooks ate it together. I know that
some people from that group were beaten: old man Kiril Yosifov Popov,
Ivan Kostov Strehinov, the major, and some others.
I shall recount yet another case of a starving person. Some people
may think that this is not true, but I and many of my fellow inmates
$
KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
witnessed it. There was a guy from Turkish origin from the district of
Provadia, some sixty years old, and his name was old man Osman. When
the horse-driven cart brought some stuff and the horses had been fed
with barley and some of the barley was not digested in the stomachs of
the horses, they had a bowel movement and there were whole grains in
the faeces. Osman gathered the horse faeces, washed them lavishly with
water and thus collected the barley, which he then boiled and ate. This
old man Osman had a really ill fate: he was included in a group that was
taken to the river bank opposite the Headquarters close to Belene to
load timber from the trees we cut on the island, so that it could be sent
down the Danube to the camps in Dobroudja. Osman fell off the back
side of a pontoon into the Danube, but an inmate - his name was
Karabaliev and he came from the village of Lyubenovo, Stara Zagora
district, was quick to take action: he jumped at the front part of the
pontoon and the water brought Osman along and he caught him by the
back of his clothing and rescued him.
Later on, in early spring, I do not remember which month it was, we
were sleeping in a shed at Site One. Old man Osman slept on the top
plank-bed in the corner. His neighbour was a boy whose nervous system was strongly affected by the treatment he got at the State Security
service where he was brought to the verge of madness. He obviously got
angry with Osman, but we could not figure out why. One night old man
Osman got down from his plank-bed and went out to urinate and as he
came back that boy had got down and was standing by the stove. The
boy took a piece of firewood and hit him in the head and he fell by the
stove. Everybody in the shed woke up, we shouted to the guarding militiaman that the young doctor should come - he was also a camp inmate,
his name was Kolyo and he came from a village in the district of Lom.
He came but there were no medicines whatsoever, and the stroke had
been so bad that that the skull was ruptured. In the morning we put him
on the trailer to be taken to the hospital in Svishtov but he passed away
while he was still close to the bank. Then we all said to ourselves that
when it was meant that someone would not go back home he may go
through much trouble but what was meant to happen, would happen.
That is how old man Osman from the district of Provadia died. There
was yet another boy, his name was Angelcho Zhelyazkov and he was
from the village of Chernook, Provadia district. He knew exactly which
village old man Osman came from.
Once, in the spring, I cannot remember if it was March or April of
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either 1951 or 1952, there was a nasty flue. For four days and nights I
coughed continuously suppressing the urge to throw up. There were no
medicines. We were very weak and exhausted with work and starvation.
That flue sent many people to the island of Shtourcheto (The Little
Cricket). At that time they were buried there…
A group of construction workers regularly walked to the northern
coast of the island opposite the island of Barzina ("Speed"), where they
were erecting a building for the border troops. The group walked without guards and they had been told that they should move together, in a
group, and that no one should split and walk aside. As they were walking back from the construction site towards Site Two after working hours,
Ivan Yondev from Kyustendil split off and moved somewhat to the side
of the group to urinate and a soldier killed him. That soldier was very ill
disposed towards the camp inmates. He also joined others in beating
inmates. His name was Perchemliev…
An elderly man from Pleven, aged 83, was brought over; his name
was grandpa Asparouh. We, the younger ones, gave him the name "the
young Communist league member". We found out that he had never
been married and that there was no one to send him parcels with food
and clothes. The winter was very cold. The snow cover was some 40
centimetres deep. As we got up in the mornings they made us fall in line
on the ground, we trampled on it and it turned into a thick ice crust.
The guards took pleasure in chasing us on the ice. We, the younger
ones, coped somehow, but the old men often slipped and fell. One
morning some bosses came from Sofia. They made us form up on the
ice and began counting us. They counted us brigade by brigade, took
notes and went over to the militiamen's premise to do the calculations
in the warm, then came back and resumed the counting. The brigade
commanders reported to them the number of the inmates according to
the list, the number of those present, the number of those on barrackroom duty, of those in the kitchen, of the sick ones in the premises and
so on. We overheard that there was a mismatch between the listed names
and the actual inmates by 6 people. So the counting continued until
lunchtime. We all froze with the cold. Finally they came over and said:
"People on duty, sick men, kitchen and bakery workers, everybody must
come and fall in rank." Old man Asparouh was ill and they dragged
him in his blanket across the ice and left him in front of his brigade.
And by the time they reached his brigade for the counting, the people in
the brigade started shouting: "He is dead. He is dead," old man Asparouh
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KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
passed away on the ice in front of the brigade and they counted him
dead…
This happened in August. At that time all camp inmates were allowed to write to their families to come and visit in connection with 9
September 1950 (the 6th anniversary of the Communist coup). But on a
Sunday before the visit half of the carters were sent to transport beans to
the threshing machine, while the other half, including me and old man
Kolyu, were allowed to wash and patch our clothes, to shave and to
wash ourselves. We had not been allowed to do that for quite some time.
When we finished all we had to do, old man Kolyu told me:
"I have got a parcel with honey in it," he said he had a lot of bee
hives, "let us see how we can get some of the ox grain, boil it in the
pannikins and eat it with honey."
We walked into a field under hemp and made a fire under a willow
tree. But the militiaman, who was guarding the camp inmates threshing
the beans at that time was on top of the stack where they piled the
threshed beans and he saw the smoke under the willow tree and came
over to us. When he was some ten steps away, he fired his gun in the
branches of the willow tree above us and shouted:
"What are you doing here? I will kill you all right now!" the
militiaman's name was Stefan. We started pleading with him. When he
saw what we were doing, he made us put off the fire and take our
pannikins, then he took us to the shed, where our stuff was, to take
everything we had, and marched us off to Site One in front of the
militiamen's premise. There we were taken in, one at a time, for counselling.
As a result of this counselling I got two hernias. I had a surgery to
have one of them remedied after I was released, but I have had the
other one to this very day. For when they were providing counsel to
someone, they kicked them mostly in the abdomen and at the back,
where the kidneys were. And after the good counsel they asked the Headquarters at the Belene coast what they should do with us.
They took us to Site One, to a disciplinary detachment to do bricks
for one month. In the mornings we used to get up an hour earlier than
the rest of the inmates and in the evenings we would come back an hour
later. The food consisted of half a dipper of soup and 360 grams of
bread, and we worked without rest throughout the day. The only break
we had was for 15 minutes at noon, to have our meal. Our group of
penalised inmates was quite large. As we walked to the brick field in the
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morning and as we came back in the evening we had to sing a song We
have erred before the people, which contained the verse Forward march
with Georgi Dimitrov but we sang Forward march with G.M. Dimitrov5.
This was the only part of the song's lyrics that I knew. And when the
militiamen did not like our singing because it was not loud enough,
they would make us go back some 100-200 meters and sing again, this
time louder. We were most frequently compelled to go back by the Gypsy
militiamen. One of them was Ivan Pankov from the village of Gorna
Stoudena, Svishtov district, and the other one, who had a darker complexion, was his brother-in-law.
On 9 September 1950, my wife, my child and my uncle - an old man
aged 80, came to visit me, but my name was crossed out from the list of
people who could have visitors, because those who had been transferred
to the disciplinary department were deprived of family visits. There
were others like me, who were not allowed to have visitors either. Our
families went together to the commander to beg him to let them see us.
His name was major Angel Kourtev. And then, after offences and inappropriate treatment of our families, it was only in the evening, after
working hours, that we were taken to the coast by the Headquarters to
meet our families in the light of a lantern for ten minutes. That commander had allowed that much and that was the visit. After that they
prohibited all kinds of visits until the liquidation of the camp…
There was a civilian gardener from the village of Dekov, Svishtov
district, looking after the garden, whose name was old man Yourdan.
One day, as we were heading towards the garden to work there and as
we were walking along the road, he was hitting an inmate with a stick so
hard - I have no idea why he harboured such hatred for him - that his
flesh turned blue. The next summer, a warder came along: his name
was Yonko and he came from the district of Gorna Oryahovitsa. Initially he was very quiet and only observed without uttering a word, but
in time he started beating and harassing people, penalising them - you
would not like to meet him. I did not witness that but I heard that there
were even people killed by him, when the prisoners were brought over.
He punished people after work: he would take them out to the ground,
make them strip their clothes until they had nothing on but their shorts
and order them to stand still while the mosquitoes bit them. And the
5
A play of words: Georgi Dimitrov is a famous Bulgarian Communist leader that passed
away in 1949; G. M. Dimitrov is a popular opposition leader during that time.
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KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
mosquitoes swarmed all over them. He would punish them to stand still
for five minutes, and if someone moved he would increase the time to
six, seven and even more minutes, if they could stand it, until finally the
person fainted and fell to the ground. And then their body itched for a
whole week with the bites. This was one of his cruel penalties…
When I was released from the camp I worked at different places,
wherever I could find a job. I worked in Sliven and quite by chance I
met doctor Georgi Petrov Poryazov, born in the village of Mezhda,
Yambol district. Then I asked him how old man Petar Poryazov was
doing - that was his father and one of my fellow inmates at the camp. He
looked at me and answered with pain in his voice that he had passed
away. I asked him when he had died and he replied that it was on the
seventeenth day after his release. I told him that he had been strong and
healthy and wanted to know what had caused his death. He responded
that his father had fought to survive until he returned to his home.
Many of our fellow inmates got such bruises upon their release from
prisons or camps, so that they would not live long after they were set
free. The doctor told me: "I am a physician, I wanted to help my father
very much, but I was of no help to him."
There were two members of the Communist party from my village:
Dragia Dragiev Vlaev and Stoyan Kostov Kabakov, who had called for
my wife, too, and had pressed her to disclaim me for she would never
see me again. But my wife proved to be persistent, she did not follow
their advice and we have lived together in good health to this very day.
So they applied such tricks, too, and they broke up many families…
When we were in the hands of out torturers they took pleasure in
tormenting us to confess offences they charged us with but we had not
committed. One of the tortures was to cuff our hands, so that we could
not defend ourselves, to grip our hair with one hand and to pull our
head backwards to expose our trachea, and then to hit our trachea with
the other hand: they called this a "sword stroke". Speaking about myself, I have felt pain in my throat when taking in food ever since, but
this reminds me of the "good" totalitarian times…
The Eyewitness Dog
Old man Hristo Cheshmedjiev lived on the main street in Kazanlak, to
the south of the city square in the direction of Arsenala. I remember
him as a well-built slender man, aged about 70, with absolutely white
!
TALES FROM THE DARK
hair and with big white moustache, wearing riding-breeches and high
shoes with knee-high puttees and a light green coat. He had a cartridgebelt girdled around his waist and a shot-gun on his shoulder. He was a
passionate hunter and he had a big hunting dog, which always followed
him. After the advent of 9 September 1944 his son Atanas, who had
been some kind of a clerk with the police, was detained. During the
detention period old man Hristo visited the lock-up to take food to his
son. And the dog was with him and it saw that Atanas was there and
later on it often walked from the house to the police station, where
Atanas was detained. Atanas loved the dog and played with it. When, as
a schoolboy, I happened to be there with classmates of mine, we also
played with the dog. Because I lived opposite the yard of the
Cheshmedjievs.
When the People's Court was in session and Atanas Cheshmedjiev
was sentenced to death, old man Hristo was there with the dog: he
would not go anywhere without it. When the convicted men were brought
back to the district police station, the dog followed them and managed
to make its way to them. Atanas stroked it and it remained outside and
did not go back home. As it got dark, the convicted men were put on a
covered truck, which set off for the village of Ovoshtnik (its old name is
Imishleri). There are spas there. From that point it headed towards the
village of Razhina, then towards the village of Gorno Gradishte and the
village of Bouzovgrad (its old name is Armaganovo), where they turned
right and moved straight to the north along the road to Kazanlak. They
passed over the bridge across the Toundja river and several hundred
meters to the left from the road in the southern direction is the Kazanlak
graveyard. The truck turned to the left before the graveyard and stopped
there. All that time the dog had been running after the truck, so it also
reached the place. It was about 10 or 11 p.m. There was a ditch (grave)
there dug up in advance. The convicted victims were brought down and
forced to stand next to the grave one by one. Then each one got shot and
fell in the grave.
The dog watched all this and it saw that Atanas was also killed there.
When they were all shot dead, the grave was buried and the remaining
considerable amount of earth was spread about and the truck with the
murderers left. Then the dog started pawing the grave and it made a
hole but the earth was recently dug and unsettled and it kept falling
back into the hole. So at dawn the dog gave up pawing and headed for
home, for the house of old man Hristo's family. The yard was sur!
KOUNI GENCHEV KOUNEV
rounded by a wall and there was a big double plank gate. The house was
in the back end of the yard, some ten meters away from the gate. The
dog was barking and whining and old man Hristo heard it and went
over to open the gate for it. The dog approached old man Hristo and
then went back to the street and it did so several times. The sign was
clear though it could not talk. And old man Hristo followed it and it
took him straight to the grave and it once again started pawing but the
earth fell back into the hole. And old man Hristo realised that the people
convicted by the People's Court were killed there. And from that time
onwards there were always flowers on the grave. There were guards positioned there to prevent people from reaching the grave but the people
went over to put flowers and to see where the grave was. The dog found
the grave on the very next day. And the whole town of Kazanlak knew
that the dog was the living eyewitness…
At this point the original book in Bulgarian language contains a list
of 517 people which the author remembers as his fellow inmates at the
concentration camp, including also 13 people about whom he knew that
they were buried in the area of the camp while he was there, and 5
people who he knew were buried there after he was released.
!!
BITTER TRUTH
Lilyana Spasova Pirinchieva
When years come to pass the concentration camp inmates that have
been dumb should speak up. Their truth, bitter and dreadful as it
might be, should open the eyes of the people, so that there should never
be injustice or atrocities disgracing our nation again. Sooner or later
history puts everybody in his or her proper place. Hopefully, Bulgaria,
which has suffered a lot but is now free of its hideous past, will occupy
a worthy position in a peaceful Europe …
It is very difficult for me to write about what I endured at the concentration camps of Bosna and Belene, at what came to be known then as
Correctional Labour Colonies - CLCs. I spent 5 years and 8 months
there. Many things have already faded, others have entirely vanished
from my memory. As fate had willed, I came to meet numerous people
and experience many events there. Nature has endowed me with a pure
heart and adamant faith in good and justice, but it has been a miser as
regards my ability to recount what I experienced there. That is why I
have been postponing it so far, but I have already turned 78 and the
inevitable degradation of old age threatens to obliterate everything.
So I start. The picture will be approximate and pale. Adam Mickiewicz1,
speaking through his characters, has said: Maybe only God remembers
what has been experienced.
After 9 September 19442, the "people's democratic state" that was
established in Bulgaria and that was later termed "advanced real socialism", was in fact a centralised bureaucratic Stalinist dictatorship where
all fibres of the individual persons were concentrated. The situation was
intolerable for the individual, particularly if they were declared as an
enemy of the ruling crust. And an enemy was everyone who dared have
thoughts different from the instructions provided by the top authority:
the Central Committee of the Communist party. This was sufficient for
them to be deprived of freedom and to land in prison, and it was even
easier for them to get in a CLC without any trial or court sentence.
I lived and worked as a pharmacist in Plovdiv3 with my family: my
husband, a lawyer, my eight-year-old daughter, my father-in-law and my
A great Polish writer.
The date the Communists got the power in Bulgaria.
3
Second biggest city in Bulgaria.
1
2
!"
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
mother-in-law. On 20 November 1947 some agents from the State Security Service searched our house at 5 a.m. and took me to the militia station
in Vasil Kolarov Str. for "a minor check-up". There, in the dungeon, they
brought me into a relatively small premise with some twenty women in it.
Their behaviour and attire prompted me that they had not been detained
for political reasons. As soon as I entered the cell, I came across fighting
and row. Two women were having a fight over a cigarette end that they
had found in the corridor when they were being taken to the toilet, and
others were trying to separate them. Cursing, swearing, foul words and
terrible dust accompanied all this. It was then that I first heard the word
kaltak (scum). It seemed to me that I was standing on a theatre stage,
where a play of the type of Gorky's4 Lower Depths was being performed
with considerable success. In a short while they focused on me.
"She doesn't seem to be one of us," said a young woman, who looked
more reassured as she found out that I did not smoke.
We slept on the uncovered floor planks packed like sardines. From
early morning until late evening women were taken out for interrogation, some were leaving and new ones were coming in. The atmosphere
was the same: beating, tears. I spent a week in that cell and I was infested with lice. I was not given the food that my family had brought for
me: all I got was a small piece of bread.
The first interrogation was held at the office of an investigator from
the criminal service. When they searched my house, they found money
there. I did not know what the amount was. That same day a cousin of
my husband's had left it with me for safekeeping, as he had to leave for
Peshtera. He lived close to my house in a small rented cottage. His
landlord's son was notorious for his thefts. I told the investigator about
that. I was never interrogated about that case any more.
Then the interrogations at the office of a State Security investigator
began. I remember neither his name nor the number of times I was
taken to his office. At times he was very rude to me but I was not beaten.
The attitude towards me was as if I were a dangerous enemy, who wanted
to conceal their own deeds and the actions of those sharing the same
views aimed against the rule of the Fatherland Front5 and particularly
against the Communist Party. They were not interested in political stands
but wanted to know about links with the Fourth (Communist) International, with the Trotskyites (followers of Trotsky) in Bulgaria and abroad.
4
5
A prominent Soviet writer.
Ruling coalition, controlled by the Communists.
!#
TALES FROM THE DARK
Naturally, they tried to suggest to me that Trotskyites were traitors,
counter-revolutionaries, etc. The entire Stalinist arsenal of slanders and
accusations were poured onto me. I maintained that I had no links with
any traitors and that I myself was not a politically committed person.
When the interrogations at the office of the State Security investigator began, I was moved to cell No 6, where I was the sole occupant. It
was dark, there was no window and it was adjacent to the toilet and
without an external wall. Its dirt filtered into the cell. They took away
the belt of my dress, so that I would not hang myself. There was a small
plank on the muddy floor, where one could not even sit, let alone sleep.
They kept me there for a week. Terrible conditions. I wore hiking shoes
and my feet were quite damp. I survived due to the fur lining of my coat
but it was replete with lice just as my clothes were. They could not be
killed in the dark, so they had made wounds around my neck. During
an interrogation at the investigator's office I released two lice, caught
by me earlier, on his desk and I told him that the basement provided
every condition for the proliferation of classical typhus.
On the next day they took me to another cell No 6 with a cement
floor and a small window high up on the wall close to the ceiling. There
was a broad and long plank there, on which one could lie down. As I
was exhausted, I used my shoes as a pillow and, spent with fatigue, I
slept soundly. That same day a team was sent over by the sanitary authorities to do away with the lice. While my clothes were treated in the
steam drums for exterminating the lice and the nits, I remained very
lightly clad in the cold cell for a long while. Because of that and perhaps
because of my stay in cell No 6 as well, I got sick: I ran high temperature and I shook with fever. I asked the militiamen to inform the investigator but nobody paid any attention to me.
Several days passed and one evening, when it was already dark, they
took me out of the cell. I was given two woollen blankets, which my
family had brought over at the very beginning but which had not been
conveyed to me while I was locked up in the cells, and escorted by two
militiamen with guns. I was taken, in the chilly December night, to the
intermediary Provost-Marshal's Office at the railway station. There I
was locked up in a small room with window bars. The windowpane was
broken. It was as cold inside as outside. Luckily, the militiamen from
the intermediary office proved to be good people. The letter by virtue of
which I was transferred was sealed, which meant that the escorted person was a political prisoner. Under the pretext that I had to clean the
!$
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
floor of their room I was taken to it. In a while I felt warmer but though
I refused to clean, they did not abuse me as I had expected. Instead they
let me sit on a stool and talked to me. With a lot of charm, prompted by
youth, I explained to them my ideas because of which I had been detained. I wanted them to understand that I was not some kind of a
criminal. They treated me with sympathy, they gave me food, and later,
when I got on the train with two militiamen in the compartment for
prisoners, I was allowed to lie down on the seat, while they kept quiet
throughout the whole trip to Stara Zagora. The warm carriage and the
sleep helped me recover to a certain extent. As we were parting they
gave me bread vouchers.
I spent one day at the intermediary Provost-Marshal's Office, then
I was put on the night train together with two more prisoners, criminal ones, and a militiaman and we headed north along the railroad
crossing the Balkan Mountain. There was no separate compartment
for prisoners, so the last section of the long and half-dark carriage was
vacated. The militiaman told me that he was very tired and asked me
to watch that the criminal prisoners would not escape if he fell asleep.
Then the ticket collector passed: a young man whose beautiful clever
eyes looked at me with sympathy. We managed to exchange a couple
of words. He told me that he was an anarchist. I managed to tell him
my name, my address and what they had detained me for. As he passed
on to the adjacent section, he handed 2000 leva6 over to me. I used the
vouchers that I had and this money for food that was bought for me
by the militiamen at the transfer stations in Gorna Oryahovitsa and
Rousse.
When I was at the intermediary office in Gorna Oryahovitsa, they
brought in two other women. As I listened to their conversation I realised
that they were prostitutes. They were hungry and inadequately dressed.
I gave them a blanket and offered them whatever food I had. We stayed
overnight in a cold attic at the Rousse State Security Office. It was
December 28, my birthday. Quite close, on the high bank of the Danube
River, near the house of Granny Tonka7, was the house where I had
been born and where my grandmother and aunt lived, unaware of what
was happening to their favourite granddaughter.
The next day we were transferred further to Toutrakan by ship. The
group was made up of three women and four men, who were criminal
6
7
Bulgaria's national currency.
A national heroine from the liberation movement against the Ottoman Empire.
!%
TALES FROM THE DARK
prisoners. The militiaman proved to be a good man: he took us to the
warm hall, where a Soviet film was shown.
Naturally, we were separated from the other passengers. When we
arrived in Toutrakan, it was already dark. We were taken to some place
out of town, to a very dirty premise, which had been used as a cattleshed. The walls were made of big round boulders, but the space between
them was not properly filled in with mud and the cold penetrated from
all directions. The premise was divided into two parts, again by means of
round stones. The women were brought into one of the sections and the
men into the other. It was freezing cold. I do not know how but the men
had obtained firewood and branch timber and they built a fire to get
warm. The heat did not reach us, only the smoke did. We choked and
asked them to put out the fire but their response was billingsgate and
swearing, and the danger of suffocation passed only when they burned
everything. Nobody thought of bringing us any food or even water. Naturally, it was impossible to sleep. The three of us came as close to each
other as possible and spent what seemed an endless night wrapped in
the blanket.
In the morning we headed for Nozharovo. Our conducts were two
militiamen. We got on an open truck but soon after that it broke down,
so we continued on foot. Nipping winds lashed at the ground. Only in
the morning some stripes appeared in the eastern sky but they stood out
ominously among the lead grey clouds. At some places patches of bare
land snarled at us, while at others there were snowdrifts, which we had
hard time crossing. The countryside was deforested. We walked across
those endless steppes peering for the small houses of a village where we
could warm ourselves. It turned out that there was considerable distance between the villages. The detainees and future camp inmates were
inadequately dressed and they whined with cold and wept as children.
But that was in the beginning. Later on we became so stiff with cold that
we seemed to have become lifeless robots. The only thing that mattered
was to make the next step. Probably even the militiamen who wore
proper shoes and fur coats must have cursed their jobs on that day. The
truck that had broken down never caught up with us. Then the guards
decided that when we reached a village we would go to the pub to warm
up. The villagers were scared, yet they demonstrated sympathy. In one
of the pubs I managed to talk to the publican secretly. In a while he
brought a hoe cake, which he gave to the militiamen, and they divided it
among the group. Late in the evening, when it was already dark, we
!&
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
arrived at Nozharovo CLC. Human beings are so tenacious to hard life
and suffering! We were separated from the men. We entered a big dark
premise furnished with benches, each made of a single plank. The floor
was earthen, so we tried to get some sleep on the benches, frozen and
hungry as we were.
In the morning an interned camp inmate brought us some boiled
maize in army pannikins. We gobbled it with enormous appetite. I
managed to exchange words with the man. He used to be a member of
the Agrarian Party adhering to the ideas of Nikola Petkov8 and an agronomist by trade. I also told him about myself in brief and then he informed me that Dimitar Gachev, a lawyer, and Doctor Telbizov, who
shared my ideas and had been at a concentration camp for two years,
were alive and lived in isolation at the camp near the village of Bashtino
in a house close to the road leading to Bosna, which we would take on
our way to the female camp. We set off in a horse-driven sledge, naturally conducted by a militiaman armed with a rifle. The sledge was
loaded with foodstuffs. We passed through hilly countryside: barren,
bleak, covered with snow. Most of the time we walked, as we had to get
out of the sledge, particularly when we climbed a hill
"Hurry up, you mother f…!" cursed continuously at us the militiaman
as we were walking. We passed close to Bashtino and I saw the solitary
little house, consisting of just one small premise, made up of woven
wooden sticks covered by snow. One could distinguish dark spots on
the walls. The woven branches snarled under the plaster at the patches
where it had fallen off. I was eager to see my comrades but the militiaman would not allow me.
The small Turkish village of Bosna, on the land that was given to the
militia situated the female concentration camp in Dobroudja8. There had
been small wattle and daub houses there that belonged to poor Turkish
families. They were alienated and for some time they were occupied by
camp inmates, male and female, brought over there. They lived there under really harsh conditions and built a hostel for camp inmates. They
made the bricks themselves. Then the small Turkish houses were pulled
down, only two of them were left for hen houses. There was a beautiful
residential building for the staff. The building where the female inmates
lived looked like a cattle-shed. There were long premises furnished with
8
The main opposition leader to the Communist regime. Executed by the Communists
after a false trial.
9
North-East region of Bulgaria.
!'
TALES FROM THE DARK
plank-beds, nailed directly to the ground. They were double ones, arranged in two rows. We slept there, on pallets, squeezed tightly.
The women that were sent to the concentration camp without court
sentence or a fixed period of stay were political and administrative prisoners.
We were dressed in old, ragged and dirty soldiers' and policemen's
jackets, breeches and overcoats, and we wore threadbare rubber sandals
of different sizes, which we attached to our feet by means of cords and
rags.
The plank-beds teemed with bedbugs and fleas. We, the political prisoners, the majority of whom were educated and civilised women worked
hard and invested a lot of effort in cleaning ourselves and patching our
clothes. There was not sufficient water in the hostel, particularly in the
summer time, so maintaining proper hygiene was a hard job.
The administrative inmates occupied a separate premise. Under the
pretence of instilling hygienic habits in them I was moved to their living
quarters soon after I arrived in Bosna. This was an extremely difficult
task. The majority of them were young prostitutes, there were thieves,
pimps and wretched half-witted creatures victims and products of poor
social conditions and hereditary taint. Most of them had no parents or
they were divorced, they were children of alcoholics, who had neither
home nor profession. Almost all of them suffered from syphilis, gonorrhoea or other diseases. There was stench hanging in the air around
them caused by their fluxes, and they made no effort to clean either the
clothes, or the shabby blankets, which were given to them to cover themselves with. Most of them were female Bulgarians, but there were also
Gypsies and a few Jewish women. They came to stay for a fixed period
of time, they did not keep them long, but when they were set free, i.e.
released to the streets, they resumed their old trade of prostitution or
stealing, so they were taken back to the camp.
There were women aged between sixteen and sixty in the camp. The
political inmates had no fixed period of stay. Most of them were women
from the opposition agrarian party of Nikola Petkov, there were anarchists, Trotskyites, social democrats from the opposition, Communist
followers of Tito10 and others. There was only one old woman that was
regarded as a fascist, as she had disclosed the whereabouts of a hiding
Communist pursued by the police before 9th of September 1944. Other
inmates were the sisters of Raiko Aleksiev, Nadia Stoyanova - the secre10
The leader of the Yugoslav Communist Party and state.
"
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
tary of the Queen, a general's daughter, the sister of Todor Aleksandrov
- Kotsa, a retired teacher, the wives and daughters of factory-owners,
the mothers and sisters of individuals that had defected, young women
who had had friendship with foreigners, nuns and others. Most of the
women, sent as political inmates, were intelligent, educated and civilised.
There were physicians, too: Maria Gacheva M.D., the niece of Dimitar
Gachev, Hristina Rodeva M.D., Zdravka Krachoulova, nurses - I will
mention Zhulieta Zets, the journalists Dona Soubotina, Ana Aleksieva,
Bozhena Yurich, Milka Kiustendilska; some teachers, who were members of the Agrarian Party: Tsvetana Tsacheva, Penka Neikova, Naina
Lapardova and others, whose names I cannot remember, a university
lecturer - Moskovska, many clerks, workers, the university students Katya
Petrova, Elena Sofiyska, Keti Yakimova, who studied medicine and law,
the ballet-dancers Ana Dietrich and Olga Ognyanova, the pop singer
Leya Ivanova and many others, whom I would not be able to list. There
were many female villagers, sent over during the conversion of private
land into labour co-operative farms on a mass scale. Many women said
that they did not know what they had been arrested for, others - for not
agreeing to become informers of the authorities; and some were in for
political jokes.
The food was very bad and insufficient. In the morning we used to be
given slightly sweetened black jack tea, and very rarely jam, and in most
cases it had turned sour. For lunch we had vermicelli and nettle soup,
dried peppers and leeks with grouts, cabbage, and bean soup was a
luxury. Only on holidays, such as 9 September, May Day and New
Year, meat meals were cooked. They said, that the meat came from
slaughtered sick animals, usually swine. One could hardly notice that
fat had been added to the meal, the bread was of poor quality and given
in accordance with the fulfilment of the labour quotas, and these were
extremely high, unattainable as regards digging and harvesting and any
other job. It was never enough for us to be satiated and we were hungry
all the time. In the beginning we were allowed to receive packages up to
five kilograms once a month. We would write one open postcard, which
had to contain a couple of lines and it was censored by the administration. We received one letter a month. Later on they introduced the rule
that we could receive one letter and one parcel in four months. They
often punished us by depriving us of a letter and a parcel.
Every day, except Sunday, throughout all the seasons of the year we
were taken out to work. We used most antediluvian instruments: heavy
"
TALES FROM THE DARK
picks (pickaxes), mattocks, spades and hoes to earth up maize, sunflower,
beans, lentils, melon, we planted vines, orchards, we reaped the endless
fields with sickles, we made bricks manually, we dug a canal. From dawn
to dusk, in cold and hot weather, in rain and blizzards we were out, doing
hard, often unproductive, meaningless jobs. In Belene, on the island of
Shturcheto we made a dyke, we uprooted trees and looked after swine.
The life at the CLC and our toil constituted an endless series of pangs.
The bombastic motto: "toward re-education" of the personality "by means
of labour", coined in the spirit of socialism, which was supposed to lead
us to the shining summits of communism, was a big lie and profanation.
It was criminal hypocrisy. People were brought there to be tortured and
to be morally and physically crushed.
There were "male educators" and "female educators" in the camp.
But these very people were immoral, poorly and insufficiently educated
blunt-witted and brutal Stalinists. They treated us as enemies, who had
to be tortured, humiliated and crushed at any cost. The persons that
had gained particular distinction in this activity were Milenkov, who
often came from Sofia and who was a senior officer at the Ministry of
the Interior, Kostov, the Chief Supervisor from Nozharovo, our female
supervisors Yarmenka Slavova Hristova, Radka Deneva from Nozharovo,
lieutenant Nikolov, Kitov and Gershanov. There were sadist male and
female militia officers, but I do not recall their names. The camp staff
included good and humane employees, who sympathised with us and
often helped us out of trouble. I shall mention the names of old man
Kolyo, the police-sergeant from Bosna and Velichka, the police-sergeant at Belene. We caused exasperation particularly when we argued
on political and ideological matters and when we brought up our demands for better living and labour conditions in the camp.
The misery, that we were plunged in, the hard physical work and the
hunger crippled us. It all depended on the tenacity of the particular
individual. But the most painful part was the mental harassment. We
were subjected to total misinformation regarding everything that was
taking place in Bulgaria and abroad. We were deprived of news about
our families for months. Over a period of five years and eight months
spent in the concentration camps I was allowed two visits: one by my
husband, and the other one by him and my daughter, each for only
fifteen minutes. My mother had been brought back from Nozharovo.
They intentionally provided us with untruthful information about our
families and relatives. The grief and concern for our children, for our
"
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
mothers, fathers, husbands, for our brothers and sisters, for our loved
friends and colleagues constituted one of the cruellest types of torture.
Purely Jesuitical methods were used to attack the psyche of the camp
inmates at any time: it was brought home about them that they were
enemies, that they had to surrender, or else they would be destroyed and
that the destiny of their families depended on their behaviour. We were
subjected to most crushing humiliation, starting with the deplorable
appearance, and going through solitary confinement, The Black Company, the room of the Bambels, etc.
When years come to pass the concentration camp inmates that have
been dumb should speak up. Their truth, bitter and dreadful as it might
be, should open the eyes of the people, so that there should never be
injustice or atrocities disgracing our nation again. Sooner or later history puts everybody in his or her proper place. Hopefully, Bulgaria,
which has suffered a lot but is now free of its hideous past, will occupy
a worthy position in a peaceful Europe.
Not very long after my arrival at the Bosna camp a beautiful, personable woman, who was not particularly young - Magda Petkova, was
brought over. She acted with dignity, she was quiet, reserved, she talked
rarely and quietly and her words were wise and carefully weighed. We
made friends and became as close as sisters. She came from Macedonia
as I did. She had been very young when Turks had killed her father in
Macedonia. The mother and her three children had managed to escape
to Bulgaria. They had worked hard in Sofia, and as they had done well,
they had been able to set up a small textile factory. I remember neither
the details nor the grounds for sending Magda to the camp, but I will
never forget the horror that made her shiver all over, when she told me
that when she was kept at the State Security office in Sofia, she was
locked up in a cell with the opposition social-democrat Lyudmila
Slavova. She had been brought to the State Security Service from the
camp of Bosna. One day the inmates were told that they would be taken
to have a bath. Magda wanted to go into the bathroom first but she was
told that Lyudmila should be first. Soon a heart-rending scream was
heard. Lyudmila was scalded with boiling water, she was tanned alive
and she passed away. Magda did not dare tell anybody else about this
tragic incident. When it became clear, that a political or administrative
prisoner was about to die, she would be released, so that there would be
no registered death cases in the camp - Jesuitical hypocrisy.
When I was brought to the female concentration camp in Bosna, there
"!
TALES FROM THE DARK
were no medical services whatsoever. As I was a medical worker - a
pharmacist, they made me nurse the sick people and look after the hygiene. I wrote to my husband and he sent me the drugs I requested, as
well as the book "Family Doctor", which helped me to a certain extent
to cope with the task, which was beyond my competence. There was no
other medical worker at the camp then.
Scabies had appeared in the camp. As the water for washing and doing
the laundry was insufficient, there was a danger that the whole hostel
would get infected. I asked the administration to supply me with sulphur
and slaked lime and I boiled plaster against scabies: "Solucio Fleminx". It
emitted a really bad stench, it was very brutal to the skin, but it worked.
Another problem that was not less difficult to cope with was that of
delousing. Along with bugs and fleas, the blankets and the clothes of
the administrative inmates also contained lice. I used a tank and a cask
to make a primitive device for steaming clothes, but the good thing was
that the doctor from the camp by the village of Glavenitsa, where a jail
hospital was situated, came to help. She was the wife of a white-guard11.
Her husband was held at the concentration camp there. She was a good
and civilised woman, but she had few drugs and the conditions for treating patients in the hospital were poor. She managed to arrange for a
delousing team to come to our camp from Toutrakan. Only then did we
rid ourselves of this scourge.
Even though there was nothing to do in the camp field in the winter
of 1948, we were never allowed to stay in the premises. We were out
from morning until night. Using shovels and mattocks we cleaned the
snow from the country road, but it snowed again and again. We changed
the straw and cleaned the excrements from the stables and the pigsty,
which were absolutely primitive. We scraped up the dirt from the ground,
removed it on wooden litters and heaped it in manure piles. We carried
these piles from one place to another with the heavy stinky litters all
day long. Pointless, unproductive, hard Sisyphean labour. It had a disastrous effect not only on the physique of the camp inmates but on
their psyche as well, and that was the actual aim.
In the coldest winter nights, when the temperature must have been
lower than minus 20° C, they invented the following torture for the more
persevering women that had not crushed. All night long we should convey
bags of ground cereals for the pigs from the grinder to the pig-tenders in
11
A name for the Russian officers of the Tsar's army who have escaped from the Bolsheviks.
""
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
an oxcart. I do not recollect how large the distance was but it seemed
endless to me. Several nights I was woken up to do that job. Naturally, in
the daytime I worked on-site with the others. The nights were very clear
with big bright stars in the sky - remote and cold. It seemed to me that my
breath was freezing while I was exhaling. My hands and feet, my face and
my entire body had become stiff with cold. I walked in front of the oxen as
if I was an icicle. All the time I kept repeating to myself, "A little bit more,
I have to make it just a little bit more!". I was young and I made it. Yet,
there was something good in that torture. There was no escorting militiaman or supervisor with me and at that moment I had the deceitful feeling
that I was a free human being. Indeed, why does one realise that freedom
is the most valuable good only when they lose it.
It was June 1948 and the place was the female concentration camp
near Bosna. Early in the morning we were taken to a field that was some
five or six kilometres away from the colony to earth up maize. While we
were in the field, the supervisors and the detachment commanders, who
were inmates, and who made sure that even a single blade of grass
should not remain in the beds, closely followed us. By 3 p.m. we reached
the end of the field. On the opposite side, some fifty or sixty meters
away, some Turks from the village of Bosna were earthing up their fields.
We noticed dark clouds on the horizon. There was some movement
among the Turks: obviously they were getting ready to leave. We shifted
in such a way as to enable Leya Ivanova, who was the only one among
us, who knew Turkish, to ask them if it was going to rain. They said that
there would be a downpour within half an hour. They went away.
Indeed, in half an hour time some large raindrops fell to the ground.
We continued our earthing up job. The rain became more intensive.
The soil turned into mud. Our feet and out mattocks sank in the mud. It
was only then that we left. The rain became torrential. The road went
up and down the hilly countryside. The dry gullies turned into torrents
themselves and as we crossed them, we held at each other forming a
chain, so that no one would be swept away. When we reached the dormitory, we were dripping wet, covered with mud and exhausted with
fatigue. And the pelting rain kept pouring from the sky. The yard was
gradually flooded, then the water penetrated into the bedrooms. When
its level reached 20-30 cm, they decided to evacuate us to the barn. It
was vast, made up of planks and propped up on stone supports - a
meter and a half high. Several women from the group of the political
inmates, including myself, were selected to rescue the chickens. We car"#
TALES FROM THE DARK
ried them to the pigsty, which was higher up, on the hill, in heavy boxes.
At places we sank in the muddy waters up to our armpits. Our rubber
sandals remained stuck in the mud. We managed to take the chickens to
safety - they were worth something, and what was the health and lives of
the wretched women worth? ... We made our way back to the barn with
enormous difficulty. We stayed there until the water drained off. I wonder how we survived. But the pain in my joints, bones and muscles have
reminded me of the flood ever since.
There was an old Turkish graveyard close to the militia farm. Once
three women from the group of the criminal inmates were sent there to
take out the tombstones. This was a penalty for their attempt to escape
from the camp. They had been betrayed. The Turks in the village, for
whom the graveyard was a sacred place, protested in Sofia. The matter
became an issue in the diplomatic circles. For the purpose of hushing
up the incident and exculpating the administration, which had ordered
the extraction of the tombstones, the three women had to wear signs
written in Turkish on their necks, which read that they, the women, had
pulled the tombstones out at their own free will. They were conducted
round the village with these signs on. A despicable incident, but also
highly indicative of the Stalinist style applied in Bulgaria.
The summer of 1948 was dry and hot. Big crevices had opened in the
land near the village of Bosna, which was quite arid anyway. Drinking
water was scarce at the concentration camp. It was a real exploit to wash
our clothes that had gone stiff with sweat. This was usually done at night.
Everything that we had planted in the fields either withered or swayed
feebly lashed mercilessly by the Dobroudja wind. The only source of
water at the end of the village was a swamp, or rather a puddle. It was
used to irrigate the vegetable garden in the farm of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) division. That garden was only intended to meet the needs of
the staff - the administration and the militiamen, for vegetables. A water
wheel was used to obtain water for irrigation purposes. For a certain period of time, on the hottest days, instead of harnessing the horse, they
sent us, the female inmates, to do its job. Not only because horses had to
be spared, but also because the interned inmates had to be tortured in a
most brutal way, they had to be maimed and frightened to death by the
back-breaking toil and the intolerable heat. When they needed women to
substitute the horse in the water-wheel harness, they usually selected the
more robust ones and those that had to be tortured in order to surrender.
They sent four women, who alternated in turning the wheel.
"$
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
The villagers were forbidden to come anywhere near us, and they
were threatened that otherwise they would be severely punished. The
work was extremely hard. There was no shadow whatsoever for us to
hide in. We were parched by the heat and by thirst. The water in the
swamp was muddy and stinking. There was a militiaman or a militiawoman standing under the only tree nearby, in order to make sure that
the wheel did not stop. When they went away to drink water or to stretch
their legs, we collapsed to the dusty ground, tired to death, until they
came back and prodded us on with curses and kicks. The day seemed
endless to us. The women fainted often. It was an Inferno circle, perfectly calculated by Satan himself. The stronger and sturdier ones worked
to compensate for the weaker. However, even the toughest were soon to
lose their strength subjected to this extremely emaciating toil. When the
administration found that the swollen legs and arms could no longer
move, it made replacements. This was the perfect place for bending the
human strength and will and some of the weaker women surrendered
after no more than two or three days. Who could blame them?… The
unbearable suffering destroys everything human in a person. Those in
power had known this for ages and the followers of Stalin had practised
it on a large scale.
In the autumn, when the deep ploughing came to an end, they used
to send us to the fields to break down the lumps of earth with heavy
hoes, spades and pickaxes. We hit and pounded all day long, lined up in
a row. Clouds of dust rose from the ground and stuck to our clothes and
faces, penetrated into our eyes and lungs. We spent the whole day on
foot. We returned to the dorm dog-tired, looking like grey apparitions.
Once there, we had no strength left to clean ourselves properly, and
frequently there often was insufficient water anyway, so we just shook
the dirt off our clothes and collapsed on the plank-beds.
In late autumn, when it was already raining, they made us dig holes in
the arable land for a future melon field. We used spades and shovels to dig
out the heavy and moist soil, which was almost mud. It was hard, but
carrying manure to the holes we had dug out was even harder. The manure was a stinking, sticky mass, dung coming from the pigsty and the
stables, that was unloaded at the end of the fields and we had to carry it to
the holes and mix it with the dug up soil. Enormous lumps of dirt clung to
our feet and we had to make a great effort to move around the field carrying the manure. To crown it all, there were quotas, and bread was given in
accordance with their fulfilment. And the quotas were too high - they
"%
TALES FROM THE DARK
were unattainable. We came back in the evening, covered all over with
mud and dung, and so overworked that we could barely gobble up the
little piece of black bread and the tasteless, disgusting broth.
The strenuous and often Sisyphean labour, the hunger, the utter misinformation, the constant suggestion that you are an enemy, the separation from your family and trade were all mercilessly doing their destructive deed. We were fading imperceptibly. The people sent to this hell,
the CLC, without court trials were kept there for indefinite periods.
This was an insult to the human personality.
The winter of 1948 stayed on very long. There was a lot of snow,
which was slow to thaw, and the cold would not go away. The dorm ran
out of firewood. They had taken us to a young deciduous forest in the
autumn to cut brushwood, far away from the farm. We piled the branches
into big heaps. They were supposed to keep us warm in the winter. We
failed to convey it all. Towards the end of the winter we had no firewood
to boil our meagre broth, let alone to keep us warm. Then the administration decided that the rest of the brushwood that we had cut in the
autumn was to be transported as well. They called five strong women
from the criminal offenders and me. They entrusted me with the leadership of the group. We borrowed warm clothes from our fellow inmates: fur-coats, gloves, scarves and warm socks and set out for the
forest riding in horse-sleighs. No militiaman was sent with us. They did
not want to expose themselves to the cold and to the danger of encountering wolves. There were lots of wolves in that area in those years. The
snow had settled down and the sleigh moved easily along the road.
Loading the sleighs was the hard part. It was very difficult to pull the
brushwood and branches out of the snow that covered them, and that
had turned into armour of glass.
We did not care about the exhaustion, but we were very late. The short
winter day wore away. Suddenly the horses were neighing and jumping:
they had probably picked up the scent of wolves. We were horror stricken
when we realised the trouble we were in. Nothing but courage could help
us. Finally, we loaded the sleighs up. I let the two sleighs go in front of me
and we set out. Dusk and fog were closing in on us. When we were half
way through, sitting on top of the loaded branches, they suddenly twisted,
turned over and fell in the snow. We stopped and shouted at the people in
the front two sleighs to stop and help us load our sleigh again, but no one
heard us, and the sleighs disappeared, trotting in the distance. We were
alone. My fellow inmate got scared, became hysterical, she could do noth"&
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
ing and just stood there petrified with fear. I begged and embraced her
and explaining that we would perish if we did not load the sleigh and get
going, but to no avail. Then I slapped her repeatedly and hit her with a
stick until she came to her senses and the two of us, wailing, managed to
load the branches up and get going. It was already dark. Only the sturdy
horses, that galloped as fast as they could because they were afraid of the
wolves, saved us. When only two sleighs arrived at the dorm before us it
became clear that something had happened to our sleigh. The women
begged the administration to send help, but no one moved a finger. They
did not feel responsible. It did not matter that some camp women would
die, and the horses were state property… When we arrived at the camp, the
women - our sisters in fate, met us and held us in their arms crying with
joy, as if we were returning from the dead.
It was a Sunday afternoon in early spring. Everyone was trying to do
her washing, clean herself and mend her ragged soldier's and policeman's
clothes and take some rest. Lieutenant Nikolov, who was a young and
heavily built man, arrived from "Nozharovo". He caused anguish and
tears to the interns any time he came. He liked to deliver long speeches
that were meant to accuse and edify, but they were absolutely pointless.
Along with the ridiculous talk of building the "bright Communist future", they contained threats and most disgusting terms of abuse pertaining to us - the enemies of the people. He possessed no knowledge
and was highly uncivilised. He always had a whip in his hand, which he
used to flap from time to time as if to make his arguments more convincing. As soon as he arrived they had us lined up in front of the premises. We stood there and waited for a long time for him to emerge from
the office. And when he finally commenced his edifying speech, our
Ivanka barked at him vehemently. She was a big shepherd dog who used
to come to the fields with us and guard our bags of bread.
The barking of our favourite Ivanka sounded like revenge for the
humiliation to which we were subjected. The lieutenant also took it that
way, and got furious. He took out his pistol and there, in front of the
line, shot the only being that had been kind to us. A cry of terror escaped everyone's lips. Then he made us run around the muddy yard by
way of punishment. It was early in the spring, the snow had just thawed
and there were many puddles in the yard. Our overshoes were old and
leaky and as they were not well attached to our feet, they remained
stuck in the mud. Elisaveta Popantonova, a former Member of Parliament from Nikola Petkov's Agrarian Party in opposition, was clumsily
"'
TALES FROM THE DARK
trying to run beside me. I told her to walk slowly with me and that I
would not run. So we did. The lieutenant saw what was going on and
came to us, whip in hand. Then the priest's wife fell on her knees in the
mud and pleaded: "Please, don't do this, forgive me, I have made a
mistake, I will never again… " I tried to stand her up, to make her keep
her human dignity. The commander showed mercy and let the wretched
woman go, while I was punished to stand in the sun for three hours. It
was really fine for me. He did not realise that it was not summer, when
standing in the sun for three hours would cause a fit, but early spring,
when the sun was gentle and desired. It was the only time I had been
lucky, considering the numerous punishments I endured during my
nearly six-year stay at the CLC.
Once, soon after it had rained, we went to the field to hoe the beans,
but there was so much water we could not get into the field. So we
stayed at the field boundary until it drained a bit. Some of us noticed
snails crawling on the boundary. We all rushed to gather them. We
boiled them in our mess-tins, not cleaned and unsalted. We ate them
ravenously even though they were half-cooked - it was food and more
than that: it was meat. We had such luck a couple of times.
In 1948, opium poppy was planted in the farm belonging to the Bosna
militia. Political prisoners were sent to work in the field. We got up
before sunrise every morning and started work at daybreak. We made
transverse cuts on the poppy-heads using special little knives. The juice
that streaked out would harden in the hot hours of the day and we
would collect it two hours later. It was a tricky job, the quota was too
high, and we still hungry even after the seemingly easy work. Add to it
the biting of numerous ladybirds. Our bodies blistered and our lips
cracked in the heat. No one paid any attention to out complaints. Those
of us, who were deprived of our freedom without court trial were creatures without any rights whatsoever.
It was the winter of 1949. The climate in Dobroudzha was continental.
The winter was cold, the heavy snowfall caused a thick snow cover, and
the winds were strong and icy. A small number of women at the Bosna
female concentration camp were occupied with pig breeding at the pigsty.
They were the lucky ones. The pigsty was big and primitive, and it was
cold inside, but not nearly as cold as it was outside. Besides, they could
quench their hunger by eating the food intended for the pigs - maize flour
mixed in hot water. The few "interned inmates" who worked at the storehouse, in the sewing room, in the kitchen, or who cleaned the office were
#
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
the luckiest of us all. The rest of the female inmates were taken out in the
cold regardless of the weather. The number of women in the camp had
increased considerably: it had doubled, even tripled. In order to put all of
us to work, they had us dig a canal not very far from the dormitory. Except
for those working on the sites mentioned earlier, all other women would
go to the canal and dig from 8 to 12 a.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m. A long line
of women dressed and wrapped in whatever clothes they could find, trailed
through the white steppe. All goose flesh due to the cold, we looked like
ghosts. We walked in a dissonant manner, constantly yelled at by the detachment commanders. Everyone was trying to snatch some piece of wood
or thorny bush along the road. It was a real treasure, for it would warm up
the frozen legs and arms at least for a little while.
We used picks to break up the upper layer of the soil, which had been
frozen for almost three month, and employed spades for the soil underneath it. We dug the dirt away with shovels. The canal was 3.5 meters
deep and 4 meters wide. Again, we had a quota, and it was too high, so
we could not fulfil it.
The number of the people was used as a basis for calculating the
amount of the work that we had to perform. The only good thing about
it was the option for several women to come together and help each
other. We immediately formed our "Front" group. It was a hard job for
women, the more so that the crude sight made it intolerably painful as
well. The day seemed endless and only comradeship and high moral
helped us get through it. We sustained our moral with songs. The songs
about justice and freedom had a miraculous effect on us. During the
breaks we recited poetry and told each other various things that we had
read in the wonderful books in the areas of fiction and science. We
shared occurrences experienced by our relatives, parents, children, friends
and lovers. We did the same in the evening, on the plank-beds, in the
flickering light of the small and reeking tin gas lamps.
The icy wind at the canal buffeted the faces, feet and hands that had
turned red and blue with the chill. Still, it was easier for the young ones
to endure it. Now I understand what a wonderful thing youth is. But
there were also elderly women among us. It must have been very hard
for them to cope. When we were digging the canal and its depth exceeded two meters, it was easier, because the wind was not so strong
down there, and, though rarely, the chilled limbs could be somewhat
warmed up by a small fire. And, together with the moaning, a song
could be heard at the site:
#
TALES FROM THE DARK
Blow you furious wind in the fields,
Bend the branches of nervy old beeches.
But the wings of tough eagles
You will not break again.
Born in poverty and hard toil,
Tempered in battles for a new life,
We always carry freedom in our hearts,
We are the fighters of the working people.
Even now, as I lie comfortably on the soft couch in the warm room,
I can feel the tears in my eyes as I recall those days experienced by me
at the concentration camps - that is the highest peak that my life has
ever reached.
The chilly wind carried our songs, our faith that life can be free, just
and happy for all people. We were somewhat protected against the cold
by the woollen sweaters, scarves, hats and socks that our families had
sent to us, and the luckiest ones had sheep-skin jackets, which visited
the most frozen and sick backs. Mutual assistance and genuine selfless
comradeship constituted the great power of our survival.
Thus the winter went by.
In early spring several women, including myself, were selected to
make granulated manure. We mixed ammonium nitrate with cattle and
pig dung and in a most primitive way made small granules, which we
dried in the sun. It was a dirty job. We coped somehow. We worked in
close proximity to the maize barn. There were fissures there and occasionally we would pilfer corncobs. We were trying to satiate our hunger
with the maize grain on which mice had peed, but it was better, when we
managed to conceal the corn, removed from the cob, in our clothes and
later on, at night, after the evening check-up, we would bake them in
our mess-tins. Though the grains were very hard, they tasted much better than the raw ones and were regarded as real delicacy.
Once we saw that some hens, whose death had been caused by a
disease, were buried behind the barn. The women dug them up and
boiled them in cans during the night. I scolded them and told them that
they should not eat the hens for they would be sick, but they were so
fascinated by the idea that they would have meat, that nobody paid any
attention to me and the hens were eaten up to the last little bone. And
the most interesting part of it all was that no one was taken ill.
I remember yet another case. It was harvest-time. We were given more
#
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
bread: naturally, if we managed to fulfil our quota - to reap manually
0,3 acres of land. As we were quite feeble and most of the women did
not have the relevant skills, this was unattainable and we were hungry
all the time. Once two rats drowned in the cauldron where the bean
soup was boiled. Some of the women never tasted the soup: they preferred to go hungry, but the majority of them had more soup to satiate
their hunger with that day. And once again, miraculously, nobody got
sick. Probably the rats had been in the boiling cauldron for a long time.
1949 was a productive year. A lot of wheat was grown. When it was
time to reap it, additional prisoners were brought over; they were criminal offenders from the jails. There were few reaping machines and no
combine harvesters at all, so the larger part of wheat was reaped manually, particularly so, if the ground was uneven. Soon after the initiation
of the harvest a Black company was set up for penalising purposes.
Probably the intention was to frighten the women and to drain them of
all their strength as well as to make an attempt to crush those of the
political inmates, who had safeguarded their convictions and human
dignity. The women that were transferred to it had committed no offence at all: they were among the best field workers. Obviously the
penalising order had come from senior quarters. We were dressed in
really ragged, soiled, stinky clothes, we were separated from the others
and accommodated in a small cottage: it consisted of only one wattle
and daub room, it was low, with a thatched roof. Prior to our accommodation there it had been used as a hen house. It had not been cleaned
and we slept on pallets on the dirty ground. It was replete with hen lice,
whose biting caused a lot of suffering to us. There were some ten to
fifteen of us, all women. I remember the members of the Agrarian Party
Tsvetana Tsacheva, Penka, Adelina Neikova, Nikolova, the anarchists
Maria Doganova and Tsetsa Jermanova, the Trotskyites Penka Radeva
and me, the ballet-dancer Ana Dietrich and Olga Ognyanova, the medical student Katya Partova and others. A homeless Jew, Bela Rozberska,
was also brought to the camp. I called her Bambela - she was halfwitted. She was not even capable of looking after herself, let alone of
working. She was a good-natured and kind creature. I felt pity for that
wretched woman and I washed and patched her frock, which she wore
on her naked body, and I gave her a bath. All her body was covered with
scabs. She was very grateful and devoted to me. She called me "my little
sister". As she did not work at all, she drifted like an apparition in the
farmyard.
#!
TALES FROM THE DARK
The other camp inmates were prohibited from having any contact with
us, they were threatened that they would join the Black company. Only
Bambela managed to sneak to our house and to bring us some bread,
which she had hidden under her frock. Starvation was intolerable to the
utmost. We were given 200 grams of low quality bread per day. In the
morning we had tea, at lunch time it was soup made of amaranthus (a
weed, which was added to the food of the pigs without a drop of fat, just
weed boiled with salt). We were not given anything for supper. In a short
period of time we became emaciated: we were reduced to skeletons wearing black dry skin. It was almost impossible for us to go to sleep, as we
were tormented by hunger and hen lice. In the morning we were taken to
the fields an hour earlier than the other inmates.
On 2 July we were not sent to work. We were told that the great
leader and teacher Georgi Dimitrov12 had passed away. The militiaman
was allowed to buy each of us a quarter of a kilo of yoghurt from the
shop and we were given more bread. But the best thing was that we were
allowed to daub the hen house with mud and this brought us some
relief from the hen lice. Two thieves, who had already been at the camp
a couple of times, were also brought to the Black company. Maybe they
were assigned the task to spy on us or the idea was to scare the criminal
inmates. They were kept there for a short while - about ten days. This
was enough for them to lose weight and to become so starved that when
they rejoined the other women, they ate so much that they got very sick
and were sent to hospital, where one of them died.
We were taken to reap wheat in fields that were far away from the
other inmates. There were more thistles there than wheat-ears. On the
way there we picked wild mustard and peeled off its stalks to put something in our stomachs. Initially, when we were still strong enough, we
reaped, but soon we grew so emaciated that we could barely drag ourselves to the site, where we lay on the parched ground in the scorching
sun. In this big trouble we were in a way fortunate. We had to reap rye.
It could be eaten uncooked after rubbing the ears between the palms of
one's hands. And that saved us. The militiamen urged us to reap, they
shouted, threatened, cursed, but as we had lost all our strength no one
could make us move. Another factor for our survival was our high moral.
We were not scared, we did not beg for mercy, instead we helped each
other. When we were transferred back to the other camp inmates, we
12
Leader of the Bulgarian Communist party, head of the Communist International for
many years.
#"
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
were not only treated with compassion but even the criminal prisoners
helped us in any possible way.
There was a small room in the dormitory for female inmates at the
Bosna concentration camp, which had a narrow window high up near the
ceiling. Four women were accommodated there separately from the others. One of them was Bambela as well as two pretty young women, prostitutes - Fanche and Danche, real wrecks, affected badly by venereal diseases, who had not been treated properly and had reeking fluxes, and all
three of them wetted their beds. The fourth one was Luna: a Jewish tobacco-worker. She suffered from syphilis and tuberculosis and threw up
blood. The small room was equipped with a wooden plank-bed covered
by straw-mattresses wet with urine. During the winter months of 1949 I
was also transferred there to share the room with them, after the visit of
Milenkov, a senior CLC officer from Sofia, to the camp. I had told him,
before the lined up inmates, that Stalinism was not eternal or almighty
and that it was in fact a lamp-chimney, a cracked one, which would sooner
or later disintegrate into pitiable fragments. When they learned that I was
transferred to their premise, the Bambela room, my new roommates wept
and right away had the straw in the mattresses changed. These poor creatures had a pressing need for treatment and not for torture at the concentration camp. After some time they transferred to our quarters the anarchist Tsvetana Jermanova: a wonderful young lady. The two of us managed to make life at the Bambela room tolerable. The food parcels that
Tsena and I received from our families were shared among us all. There
was no heater, so we, wrapped and dressed in everything we had, nestled
against each other to keep ourselves warm. The stinky gas lamp flickered
and we would start a song. Our fellow inmates knew moving songs, and
we taught them some new ones. As the women from the other rooms
listened to the singing, they cried. Thus the endless winter passed by.
In the autumn of 1950 we were taken to a remote field to pluck maize.
The beds were very long. The stronger inmates helped the weaker ones.
During the lunch break other female inmates were also brought to the
field. Among them was Tsvetana Tsacheva, who had been a candidate
for a Member of Parliament representing Byala Cherkva, a teacher, a
very estimable, civilised and clever lady, who had skills to perform all
kinds of jobs. When I arrived at the Bosna camp, she kindly offered to
me the plank-bed next to hers, as a mother would. I will never forget
how dignified and brave she was when she was informed that her hus##
TALES FROM THE DARK
band had passed away! Her grief was enormous. They had had a wonderful marriage and family with two daughters. She was not allowed to
attend the funeral. I was really worried that she was brought to the
camp for the second time. She told me that this time it would not be for
long. I asked her immediately if she had been to see my parents recently, as they were in Sofia, where her daughters lived. I had been
penalised and for several months they had intercepted the letters from
my family, so I was not aware how they were doing.
"Recently, after your father's death in the spring," she told me, "I
have not been able to go to Sofia to see how your mother was doing."
Oh, God! The horror that gripped me! My father was dead... Not only
had they refused to allow me to attend the funeral (later on I found out
from my husband that he had filed a request to this end with the MoI),
but they had also intercepted the letter, which would have broken the sad
news to me. My father had been a judge, Deputy Chair of the Sofia Court
of Appeal, and he had addressed the MoI many a time with the request
that my case should be clarified and that if I had committed an offence I
should be brought before the court. His efforts had been of no avail. They
had waited for me to go back every day, every hour... I cannot forgive the
Stalinists for this suffering of my beloved ones. I promptly got up, entered
the maize field to pluck corn cobs on my own, and when I made sure that
I was far enough and the women would not hear me, I cried my heart out,
torn by anguish. I did not want to make the informers and villains happy
or to provoke those in power to attempt to crush me using my deep sorrow. As I rejoined the women, I never shed a single tear.
In the end of October 1950, a large group of women was sent from the
concentration camp at Bosna to Toutrakan, where the militia had a vegetable farm. Immediately after our arrival we took to plucking out the
withered tomato and pepper stalks. The job was not hard, and what was
more, there were some carrots still in the ground at the end of the beds.
This was a real godsend for the starving camp inmates, who had been
deprived of fresh vegetables. We plucked the carrots out of the ground
and as we were not able to wash them, we just wiped them clean using our
clothes and gobbled them voraciously. We were very happy that we had
satiated our hunger. In the evening we were locked up in a premise with
double plank-beds. The place was congested: we were cooped up. And
during the night the situation took a really bad turn! The raw carrots that
we had eaten were rich in cellulose. They bloated our stomachs and we all
felt strong pain. We felt as if we were simply going to burst. Many women
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LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
vomited without being able to account for the fact that due to the congestion they were doing so all over the other people. Some of them had diarrhoea. Groaning, moaning and shouting came from all quarters of the
dark premise. We knocked and thumped demanding to be let out to relieve ourselves outside but nobody responded. We were panic-stricken,
people believed that they were dying and the night was very long.... We
survived but we looked so miserable, we were so dirty!... It was inconceivable that we would be allowed to clean ourselves. Still bending with pain
we were immediately driven to the field, where we had to cut cabbage.
During the night we had had deep frost, which had frozen on the cabbage
and on the ground. Our feet, poorly shod, chilled immediately and soon
our hands went numb, too. Thus, cutting the cabbage heads and whining
with pain we waited for the late autumn sun to warm us up. We worked in
this manner for several days. Still, it was a good site: the cabbage was
edible. Then we were sent to pluck out sugar beet. Due to the drought the
individual beetroots were small and difficult to extract from the hard soil,
yet we did a good job. It happened so that the militiaman was a decent
fellow: he allowed us to build a fire, to roast beet and to extract the potatoes that had remained not harvested in the adjacent field. We were so
grateful both to him and to fate!
At the Belene Concentration Camp on the Island of Shtourcheto
It was the end of December 1951. We put on our own clothes, those that
we had had on upon our arrival in Bosna, we packed our personal belongings which consisted in blankets and clothes that had been sent to us by
our families, and then they put us on trucks. We were over a hundred and
fifty women. We were not told where we were going. We arrived in Toutrakan
and there we were locked in the basement premises of the militia station.
We were all very scared with the unknown. Then, down there in the basement, we sang folk songs, tunes whose lyrics were poems written by Botev13
and other fine melodies in order to give ourselves courage. We explained
to the militiamen that we were celebrating my birthday, and it was indeed
28 December. They took the matter to heart and allowed two women,
escorted by a militiaman, to go out and buy some fine quality bread and
sausage, naturally with our own money. We had not seen real food for so
many years. The next day they put us on a train and we arrived in the
village of Belene close to the Danube River. It was late in the afternoon.
13
Bulgaria's greatest national poet, also fighter for national freedom.
#%
TALES FROM THE DARK
The village was deserted. Probably the villagers were hiding in their houses
when prisoners under conduct were passing by. The song Our mothers
always wear black clothes mourning over us… sounded over the loudspeakers of the radio diffusion sets. A very suitable song to welcome us
with. The women started crying. We reached the riverbank, each of us
carrying her own bigger or smaller bundle. We asked each other in fear:
"Now, where to?" They put us on a pontoon. In an effort to overcome our
despair, we sang the tune Exiles, which used Yavorov's14 poem as lyrics, as
well as the song of the Yambol15 anarchists:
Oh, wind, wind, I cursed you, cursed you
With malicious bitter curses,
Where are you roving, where are you romping
Overseas?
Blow, blow and kindle
Rebellious spirit in our hearts
Brisk and wanton: freedom spirit.
For a predestined reckless battle thou be ready
For the blazing love we feel is grand.
Everyone joined in the singing - both political and criminal prisoners, in spite of the incessant shouts of the militiamen ordering us to be
silent. Our song drifted over the village and the Danube River. They
took us to a small island: Shtourcheto (Little Cricket), close to the large
island Persin, whose length was measured in kilometres and where thousands of men, camp inmates and prisoners, were kept.
Our island was covered with big trees. The river constantly flooded it,
when the waters swelled, particularly in the spring. Large and small swamps
were formed, which provided breeding ground for mosquitoes. Prior to
our arrival male camp inmates had been brought to the island, and they
had built a dyke and on it they had erected the premises in which we were
accommodated. There were two big long rooms. They were furnished with
plank-beds nailed in two rows. One of the rows was next to the single
windows, which were hammered closed and were never opened, while the
other one was by the low wall. There was a narrow aisle between them.
We, the political prisoners were accommodated in one of the rooms while
the administrative ones occupied the other room. There was quite a large
14
15
Bulgaria's most lyrical poet.
Bulgarian town.
#&
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
ground in front of the premises, where they made us fall in line in the
morning and in the evening for check-up. We washed ourselves with water
from the Danube River. How did we have a bath and wash our clothes?
We used buckets to bring water from the river, then we washed the iron
wheelbarrows, which we used while we worked at the dyke, we lit fire
under them in order to heat the water. They brought over three barrels for
water heating only in late spring and we built ourselves a small premise
out of tree branches and mud, which we used as a bathroom.
The male inmates had built pigsties in the western part of the island,
which was not flooded by the river. There was also a large and high
shed, which served as a kitchen for the swine. When we arrived, the pigs
were already there. Some of the women were ordered to work there,
while others, including myself, to enlarge the dyke, on which our dormitories had been built. We would dig out soil, load it on iron wheelbarrows and use it for piling. The work was very hard, particularly so for
women. They wanted us to fulfil a quota of 3,5 cubic meters per person,
which was unattainable, given our physical capacity. The amount of the
bread that we were given depended on our performance. In reality this
meant that we were never able to earn enough to satiate our hunger.
Once a predatory bird that flew over our heads got scared of our shouts
and dropped a small rooster, which it had grabbed in its claws at the
bank. It fell to the ground close to us and survived, even though it was
wounded. We took it to the dormitory and took care of it with a lot of
affection, which we also allotted to two kittens - we never found out how
they had come our way. The kittens and the young rooster grew up and
became our pets. The rooster would go out with us and in the evening it
would walk with an air of importance in front of the line and then he
would get into the dorm. The young rooster and the kittens were the
object of everybody's attention and tenderness that we ourselves missed
so much. Any delay in the appearance of the rooster before the line caused
general concern. Then, all of a sudden, the rooster disappeared. It turned
out that it had been strangled to death by the Gypsy Gina, who had been
brought over that same day and who had been to camps two or three
times before. In their desire to give her a thrash the inmates, particularly
the criminal ones, flew at her so vehemently that if it had not been for
several women, including myself, who protected her, she would have been
beaten black and blue. In an attempt to justify herself she said that she
was very hungry, she cried and begged us to forgive her - she said she did
not know that the rooster was our mascot and pet. We did not allow her to
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TALES FROM THE DARK
eat it, nor did any of the other hungry women express a desire to do so. We
buried him in a small grave dug up close to the building and we wept.
Thus the humane aspect of man is manifested in most abnormal and
unusual situations in order to sublimate them and inspire faith and strength
in them to endure the suffering and survive.
There was very little room in our sleeping quarters. We slept squeezed
tightly against each other. When a woman was set free, we had an additional reason to be happy, because for a night or two, until another inmate arrived, we had more lying and breathing space. One could not lie
on her back: there was not enough room for that. In the summer they
would put a bucket in the room for relieving ourselves at night, for each
room was locked up. The women sleeping close to the bucket were in the
worst situation, particularly, God forbid, when the food had been bad
and we had diarrhoea. There was no bucket in winter: the door was unlocked and we had to go out in the cold and walk through the snow to get
to the lavatory, which was very primitive and built under the dyke. As I
already mentioned, the windows were nailed shut and, particularly in the
summer time, it was extremely hot and stuffy inside. In spring more than
half of the island was flooded and the water provided breeding environment for swarms of mosquitoes and those were among our cruellest inquisitors. A terrible penalty was to have a naked woman exposed to the
mosquitoes in the summer time for the sake of punishment. And there
were such cases, too. I remember a young woman - Petsa from Pleven,
who fainted when, penalised in this manner. They made long cotton trousers for us and these saved us partially from the intolerable biting. The
militia-women and the administrative staff - also made up of women,
were not only provided with protective clothing, covering their whole body,
but wore netted helmets on their heads as well. During the morning and
evening check-ups, in the cases, when we stood in line for quite some
time, we were severely bitten by the mosquitoes. And they showed no
mercy for us even in the daytime, in the wooded shady island.
Other jobs besides dyke building and pig breeding were uprooting of
bog trees, pruning of branches and carrying them to the bank. Raina
Gardjeva, a nun, whom we nicknamed The Priest, was appointed as our
detachment commander. Her looks were not unattractive, her voice was
wonderful, but she was badly brought up, uncivilised and poorly educated
and she was nasty and mean at heart. She was eavesdropping and reporting to the administration. She was said to have been a singer in Yugoslavia
before she took the veil. She sang Serbian songs beautifully. So, she promptly
$
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
reported to Ermenka Hristova, a supervisor, who did not conceal her hatred for the more intelligent women, that I was teaching my comrades to
recite a Russian poem, which allegedly contained the following verse: Informers and liars report to fools. It turned out that this was The Priest's
interpretation and translation of Pushkin's16 poem Monument, and more
particularly the line Accept any praising and slander with indifference
and do not challenge a fool… Naturally, this earned me a punishment. But
we had our chance to take revenge on her for her nasty behaviour. We
were uprooting big trees. The job was hard and dangerous. We used pickaxes and spades to level the ground around the tree, then we denuded the
side roots, cut them and the tree crashed down. The holes were often deep
and when a tree collapsed suddenly, those that worked around it could
get jammed. There was no quota and the detachment commander Raina
Gardjeva determined the quantity of bread that we were to get. And in
order to get the approval of the administration she would report smaller
quantities of bread for us. One evening, when she came back from a meeting at the office and opened the door to enter our room, I shouted:
"Tell us who betrayed Vasil Levski17?"
"The Priest, The Priest!" shouted everybody back in one voice. She
stopped dead and stood there petrified for some time, then, without
uttering a sound, she plunged on her plank-bed. But she never reported
that event to the administration. It seemed that in spite of her thick skin
she was hurt, her consciousness stirred, but not for long.
As I already mentioned, there were pigsties on the island. They bred
mostly sows. There were white and black sows. The white ones farrowed
in the boxes, which we diligently cleaned and covered with straw. The
black sows however would escape to the woods, where they would litter.
But since many foxes swam over from the mainland and ate up many
piglets left alone when their mother would go to drink water or find food,
we were ordered to search for the litters and carry the baby pigs to the
boxes. This activity proved to be difficult and dangerous. Back sows had
retained many wild instincts and if someone touched their young ones,
they attacked him or her fiercely. So we had to act very cautiously. We
would wait for an opportune moment, when the mother would leave her
den, we would put the piglets in a basket and cover them so that they
would keep quiet, but we would leave one of them, which we would make
Russia's greatest national poet.
Bulgaria's greatest national martyr. Organised nation-wide committees for struggle
against the Ottoman occupation. Betrayed by a Bulgarian and hung by the Ottomans.
16
17
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TALES FROM THE DARK
squeal by pulling its ear. Then we would run and pass this "baton" to each
other as in a relay race. Having heard the squeal of her young one, the sow
would head towards it to get it. We hardly managed to reach the pigsty
and drop the piglet in a box. The sow would also settle in there with it.
Very cautiously we would bring in the other piglets as well. There were
cases, when we would fail to reach the pigsty in time, so we would drop
the piglet and leave it with its mother, who had outrun us and caught up
with us. She would take it back to the den. And the whole exercise would
be repeated all over again.
Two oxcarts with two pairs of oxen were brought to Shtourcheto for
conveying ground cereals from the pontoons to the pig kitchen and for
transporting the ready food to the boxes. One of the oxen pairs was assigned to me and the other one to Maria Ilieva, whom we had nicknamed
Makyun. She was a countrywoman and knew how we should look after
the animals. Her oxen were older and quieter than mine, which were
young and still untrained. In the morning the militia-woman would wake
us up before daybreak to rub down and feed the oxen and to get them
ready for work. And outside the mosquitoes were already waiting for us.
Though we used branches to protect ourselves, they managed to bite our
faces and hands. And Heaven forbid that you would feel an urge to relieve yourself. The oxen in the closed barn felt our presence from afar and
lowed as the mosquitoes in spite of their thick skin also bit them. We
would build a fire and put ox dung in it. The smoke and the stench partially drove away the swarm of mosquitoes. As we combed the animals
they calmed down. The delivery of the food to the pigsties was not an easy
job, but there was a rest, when we took the pigs to graze. Then we would
take along the book that we always carried on us in order to read it. I have
not mentioned that both at the Bosna concentration camp and at Belene
there were quite good libraries, where, along with the regular propaganda
books in the spirit of Stalinism there were some good ones as well.
Maria was about 40, a wonderful person and comrade. She was thorough in her work, she loved animals and had rich worldly experience.
Her convictions were those of a follower of Nikola Petkov's Agrarian
Party in opposition. She had comprehensive interests, she was straightforward and honest and she never despaired or feared due to our hard
life. She liked singing and here is her favourite song:
A shepherd was grazing his herd
By a clear lonely stream.
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LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
His forehead was adorned with flowers,
And he was singing a sad song,
"I have been a shepherd for nine years,
Since by beloved left me.
I escaped to remote valleys,
To solitary branchy forests,
Where working-bees do not exist,
Nor do sweet spinning gatherings.
Where I can find no peace
In woods quiet and secluded,
And in the dead of night my beloved appears.
The spring of 1952 was chilly and the weather was cold even on Easter. It was on that very day that several women from the group of the
political prisoners, including myself, were assigned the task to wash the
troughs from the pigsties in the Danube River. We had to carry the
heavy troughs down the steep river bank and wash them in the almost
icy water. Our hands and feet benumbed. We begged no one for mercy,
for we knew that there would be none. We sang in order to cheer ourselves up. The songs drifted over the river and people on the bank of the
river heard them as well. I do not remember all the songs but there is
one that I will never forget. The lyrics were written by the anarchist
Lipovanski and the author of the music was Ivan Nedyalkov:
There's a clear brook by the forest,
There's a pink-cheeked lassie by the brook.
She adorns her head with flowers
Looking at her water image,
Speaking kindly to the stream
"Oh, you stream with silver water,
Do young rebels drink from you?
I've a sweetheart, who's a rebel
And I weave this wreath for him!"
I cursed you wind, there's no curse left,
Be my brother, don't go to the hills.
Don't you shake off tree-top leaves!
For where will my beloved hide,
When he's traced down by his foes?
Where will he find a shelter,
$!
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When his eyes close with fatigue?...
Oh, my dear, tender sweetheart,
I've been weaving cloth for three years.
I quietly bend over the loom
To weave in black stripe away from Mom's eye.
And out of the cloth I'll make wedding gifts
And I will wander in the quiet woods,
And in early morning I will rove in forests,
And I'll ask for cure and for herbs for you.
When we are told where our grave is,
I'll quietly chant a wedding tune
And I'll convene the pretty wedding-guests:
Nine beeches and old oak-trees,
And I'll give them each a gift,
So that when your comrades come,
They should not sever their fibres,
To dress their sore wounds.
I cursed you wind, there's no curse left,
Be my brother, don't go to the hills.
I'll give you gifts with woven silver,
Don't you shake off tree-top leaves!
Songs enraged the administration, but this time they did not penalise
us: we had done a good job when we washed the troughs of the pigs on
Easter.
One day three women, including myself, were ordered to step out of the
line and were sent to unearth a hovel of charcoal. One of the women was
Ivanka Vodenicharova from Shoumen. She was a respectable, educated
and civilised woman, who coped with the difficulties under any circumstances in a quiet and balanced manner, while demonstrating a sense of
humour. She was 45 and shared the ideas of Nikola Petkov's Agrarian
Party. The other one was Elza Daskalova, aged 30, who was the wife of
Rangel Daskalov, member of the Standing Committee of the agrarian
union headed by Nikola Petkov. He had been sentenced to seven years of
imprisonment for opposing the government but he had not spent long
time in jail: he had been locked up at the State Security Service in Sofia for
years. He had been severely tortured there to confess that he had been a
spy. And it was there that they had murdered him after unworldly suffering. His wife went from prison to prison looking for him but she could get
$"
LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
no information about her husband. In 1951 she was also detained and she
was locked up at the State Security Service in Sofia for months. It was
there that her hair turned grey, as every day and night she could hear the
moaning and screaming of tortured detainees coming from the cell above
hers. She had left her two young boys with her parents, whose flourmill
and property at the village of Cherni Vrah, Provadia District, had been
expropriated and they lived in a rural area under deplorable conditions. In
spite of her enormous anxiety and sorrow she was a master of her emotions and her conduct was very dignified and brave. She never gave a cry
of bent before the executioners.
So, the three of us took to work. We harnessed a pair of oxen, went to
the Danube and, using buckets, filled the tanks that were mounted on the
cart. It was early spring. The water was ice cold: we were freezing. We
conveyed the water to the hovel. It was on the high bank of the river. Trees
had been cut there, then they had been burnt and reduced to live coal,
which had been covered with earth to be converted into charcoal. Our job
was to remove the soil and unearth the charcoal. There was a danger that
at some spots the coal, which had not yet smouldered away, would flare
up, so we kept pouring buckets of water onto the live-coal. The job was
hard and responsible but the good part was that there was no militiaman
to shout at us as if we were brutes. We were very thorough in performing
the task that was assigned to us. And we were doing well, but...as we looked
at each other, we burst out laughing: the black dust that came up as we
poured water on the coal had transformed us into veritable Negroes. The
only white spots that could be seen were our eyes and teeth. We worked at
this site for three days. Occasionally we would go to the edge of the high
bank overlooking the Danube to enjoy the view. The prospect was very
beautiful. On a sunny day huge wreaths of white flowers drifted along the
quiet waters of the river. The river, that had recently thawed, carried pieces
of rubbish, ice floes with wind-driven snow still lingering at the edges. In
the vicinities of the hovel we noticed several dugouts intended for four
persons and covered with branches and soil. We built fire in the dugouts
to warm up. The thoughtful Ivanka had brought over matches. We managed to have a bath and wash our clothes there. Elza sang beautiful opera
arias in her splendid voice, I recited poems and Ivanka told us interesting
stories from her personal experience. For three days we had the illusory
feeling that we were free. Those were three days of happiness.
The senior officer, who was in charge of the pigsty on the island of
Shtourcheto, was a one-eyed man, whom we called Uncle Ivan, a live$#
TALES FROM THE DARK
stock expert. He was very fond of the animals and knowledgeable about
his work. He treated us, the concentration camp inmates, kind-heartedly
but required that everybody should have conscientious attitude towards
the respective assignment. In certain intervals we would weigh the litters
to find out how the piglets were gaining weight. There were white and
black sows. The black ones did not farrow in the boxes: they littered at
various places on the island, and when the piglets were old enough, the
mothers came back to the pigsty. It was possible to weigh the piglets of the
white sows but not those of the black ones. A white mother would not put
up resistance, when her young ones were taken away from her, while a
black one would immediately fly at those who wanted to touch them.
There was a rumour that on the island of Persin, where the male inmates
worked, a black sow had torn a man to pieces. Once some boss came
down from Sofia to check the pigsty. When he found out that we were not
weighing the black litters, he reprimanded Uncle Ivan sternly and ordered
that we should immediately weigh the piglets of a black sow. He made me
do it. I refused to go into the box and so did the others after me. Then,
having abused and threatened us that we would be penalised, and driven
by his desire to demonstrate audacity, the boss stepped into the box, but a
few seconds later he rocketed out of there and splashed into the puddle by
the pigsty as he was in his new light-colour clothes. The sow revenged for
our humiliation. We all smiled maliciously but secretly, so that they would
not notice: otherwise this would spell out more trouble for us.
On rainy days the ground around us turned muddy and it was very
hard to work. The food on the island was also insufficient and of poor
quality. We were always hungry. Initially, when they first brought over
the sows, the feed that we gave to them was ground maize. The starved
women could eat the maize flour mixed with boiling water as well. Naturally, we would take some of it secretly, without being seen, out to our
fellow inmates, who did not work at the pigsty. Occasionally we would
even hide a copper food bucket full of stewed maize in the bushes for
the male inmates, who came to our island to mow the grass. But these
days of happiness did not last long. At a certain point of time ground
cereals combined with oil-cake were supplied and no matter how hungry we were and how we tried to eat it, we were not able to. Some women
took to trapping sparrows, which would fly into the shed serving as a pig
shed in flocks. Once I was given a big live sparrow, "Take it, sister, roast
it, it is the best one!" When I took the frightened little bird in my hands,
I felt the wild beating of its little heart. The creature had been taken
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LILYANA SPASOVA PIRINCHIEVA
captive and deprived of its freedom just as I was and it was doomed to
perish. This little living thing and I were akin and I felt inexpressible joy,
when, without being noticed, I sneaked out of the shed, stretched out
my hand and set the birdie free. The bird flew away… and would I also
be free some day! This was a memorable experience in my life, even
though it may seem insignificant.
After Stalin's death the women from the Belene concentration camp,
hence from the island of Shtourcheto, too, were gradually released in
small groups. On 9 August 1953 I was also set free. As I was very weak
and miserable in appearance, I decided to spend some time in Rousse,
with my grandmother and aunt until I recovered slightly. Four women,
including myself, left for Rousse by ship. Most of the passengers, who
judged from our appearance that we had just come out of the concentration camp, treated us with sympathy, even though they obviously felt
fear. Someone treated us to a big and wonderful watermelon: the sweetest watermelon I had ever eaten in my life. The ship sailed slowly and we
reached Rousse at 11 p.m. The city was asleep. A big bright moon had
risen in the sky. I could not yet believe that I was free, and as I walked
down the pier I kept looking around and turning back.
The small house in the large yard on the bank of the Danube was dark.
"Mummy, dear Mummy, come out, I am back!" I shouted out.
"Gine, Dafe, get up, our Lilly is coming back!" I heard my
grandmother's voice coming from the inside.
Three trembling old women: my grandmother, Mummy and my dear
aunt opened the door and for a little while stood there and looked at me in
dismay, as if they could not recognise me. Then there were hugs and tears
caused by joy and pain brought about by my condition. When I had a bath
and ate supper, the soft couch in the parlour was covered with snow-white
linen for me. I lay in bed feeling infinitely happy, but soon I had to jump
out of it, as my legs were benumbed with strong pain. Then I spread the
bed sheet on the carpet, lay down and blissfully went to sleep. It was
probably about noon, when the noise of quiet weeping woke me up. My
three beloved ones were leaning over me and crying looked at me with
bewilderment. Thus I slept on the hard floor for a couple of nights until I
got used to lying in a normal spring bed. I am not going to recount the
meeting with my husband and my daughter. I was trying to turn everything into a joke and I was often successful. I had lost much of my somewhat attractive appearance but not my love for my family and for the
kind-hearted and honest people, nor had I lost my faith in the good and in
justice in this confused and sinful world…
$%
BEYOND DESPAIR AND HOPE
Luben Todorov Buev
Mr. Buev was sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent 2 years in
camps and 5 years in prison. He was arrested on 1 July 1949 and
released on 20 June 1961. That makes a total of 12 years. The text
below is an excerpt from his full story.
Early in the morning of 1 July 1949 several armed men suddenly barged
into my room and arrested me without providing any reason for the
arrest; I only felt the iron jaws of the handcuffs lock round my wrists. I
was ordered to stand in the corner and not talk to anybody. They called
a neighbour, their confidential man, who had to bare witness that the
arrest and the search were legitimate.
Then the search started. Well, it was good that the room was small,
there was no furniture - only two chairs and several nails in the wall, on
which I used to hang my clothes. I put my shoes under the bed in the
evening and took them out in the morning. So it was not difficult for
them to search around except for the pillow and the mattress which
they tore.
Infuriated by the fact they haven't found anything, they called
grandma Zorka - the landlady- and Parvan Nisterov - a neighbour (the
"impartial" one). With a commanding gesture they ordered the old
woman to unlock the cellar, but they did not find anything there either.
"Do you have an attic?" asked sharply agent Dinko Ztvetkov from
the village of Slivovok, district of Lom.
"Every house has an attic," answered the old woman gently.
"Take us there!"
The old woman brought a ladder and put it under an opening in the
ceiling. The agent climbed up first, then - the confidential man and the
old woman. While the old woman was climbing up the ladder Dinko
had managed to go round the attic.
"What the hell are you looking for in the attic?"
"We'll see grandma. Something might pop up in the most unlikely
places before you know it."
And as if by chance, he glanced up and stared at an object stuck
between the tiles.
"What could this be, uh, grandma. Let me have a closer look at it ,"
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the agent took out a pistol, which lay between the tiles and the beam.
"A decent boy, you say. Is this pistol yours?"
"He wouldn't carry a jack knife in his pocket, let alone a pistol.
"He might not have a jack knife but you can see by yourself what he
had hidden under the tiles in the attic.
The old woman was suddenly embarrassed and confused, but quickly
got hold of herself. Some inner feeling aroused her suspicion. She went
to the agent and touched the pistol he had found under the tiles, which
he was holding in his hands. As soon as she touched the iron, she got
excited and cried out:
"Is it possible that the iron has been lying under the tiles and still be
worm? You have put it there."
Ha, ha, ha, a clever old granny, it was a lark," grinned the agent.
"A lark. You scared me out of my wits… How could you make fun of
an old woman like me!"
"Shut up! The hero is waiting for us to take him away. We have been
kept very long."
"Where are you going to take him? Poor boy!"
"Where he belongs," Dinko snapped at her.
The militiamen were looking at me quite perplexed. They knew me I was a very sociable person with everyone. One of them even said:
"May I unlock his handcuffs, comrade Tzvetkov? He is a good boy,
I know him."
"A good boy, you say. He looks as if butter will never melt in his
mouth. He looks such a good boy but he is standing against the people's
power."
The agent shot a glance at the militiaman, then stared at me and
asked in a rude voice:
"You're barefoot, don't you have any shoes?"
"They're under the bed," said I in a low voice.
They took out my shoes from under the bed, tore off the soles and
ordered me to put the shoes on as they were, with soles torn-off.
"There is nothing under the soles, … comrades. You have been sent to
me in vain. You won't find anything to discredit me in the back yard,
even if you search it all. You came here empty-handed and you will go
away empty-handed.
"You're wrong this time. We'll go away but not without you."
He pushed me through the door. The three of them, armed with loaded
submachine guns, followed me.
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"We caught the "criminal", don't you worry, men. You can sleep peacefully from now on."
The neighbours, scared and hiding behind window-curtains and fences,
were casting furtive glances at the search party moving in the street and
the calm man ahead of it. The people who had gathered in front of the
municipality building disappeared as soon as they saw me cuffed and
escorted by armed militiamen.
In front of the municipal building we were met by the "power" itself
- Ivan Kamenov, head of the State Security, a tailor by profession, who
was appointed district head of the State Security in the town of Lom.
He ushered me into a room, which was partitioned into small booths by
curtains, where the other arrested men were put later. They called us by
name as they were putting us into the booths.
It had most probably taken them several days of preparation and
engineering to stage this tragicomic farce. The chief was nervous and
kept asking why the others were late and where they were hanging about.
"All of them are here, comrade chief, but for Teophil Filchev Kirilov
and Jordan Georguiev Stoyanov", reported to Ivan Kamenov a fairhaired snub-nosed agent. "They are all in a safe place."
"All right, what about the vehicle? Is it ready?" the chief asked the
mayor.
"Yes, sir," reported like a serviceman Boris Mladenov and saluted
though bareheaded. He was a Communist, a lifetime mayor of the village of Golintzi, now renamed Mladenovo (after the man who had killed
a soldier in the village of Asparouhovo, district of Lom).
"Put the hoods on them and let's go!"
They put something like a sack made of thick cloth on me and it
covered my head to the shoulders. If it hadn't been for the opening at
the bottom of the sack, I would have suffocate for sure.
Heading for the State Security
We were forced to get on a truck, on which an iron bar was fixed from
the driver's cab to the tailgate at the height of one meter. We were
fastened to that bar with our handcuffs and we felt the iron jaws cut into
our flesh. The truck growled, and jumping up and down along the bumpy
road was taking us in an unknown direction. There was nothing to lean
on but our cuffed hands and our legs wide apart on the shaking floor of
the truck. The damned driver would stop the truck short and then he
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would speed it up. We would pile up by the cab, then stand up again and
after that stagger backwards. We staggered left and right all over the
place and the men who escorted us were shouting with laughter. The
Byzantine solders must have laughed at Samuil's solders in the same
way, after they gauged out their eyes. "O tempora, o mores". We could
not see them but we heard their loud shouts at our pain and misery.
"My! Aren't you the least bit ashamed!"
"Shut up! Shut up you damn scoundrel!" said a voice from the escort.
Apparently we had arrived, since orders were given to block the street
from both sides. There was hue and cry and we heard horse hoofs rattling on the stone pavement. They started forcing us off the truck.
In the Wardrobe
It was my turn. They took the hood off my head and unfastened my arm
from the bar. I was ordered to get off the truck. I could not use my legs
and two militiamen carried me to a built-in wardrobe. They pushed me
into the wardrobe, locked it and left.
Stunned by what had happened to me, I fainted on the floor. I cannot
remember for how long I was in shock. The wardrobe was as dark and
narrow as a grave. Only a thin light passed through the keyhole. I came
about and began to recover. I tried to stand up. I failed and then tried
again. It was impossible. I was pressed tightly by the wall on the one
side and by the door on the other. Besides, my left arm was stiff and
painful as if yet hanging on the bar, and I felt it burning from fingers to
the shoulder.
Occasionally I would hear steps in the corridor. And then it became
quiet again. I felt as if I was in a grave. I wished I could lie on the floor,
but it was impossible.
At last, by leaning my right hand elbow on the wall, I managed to
crawl up to the top of the wardrobe. My head touched the top but I was
unable to stand erect. I was thankful to God that I hadn't been made
taller and for not feeling the wardrobe twice as narrow. I wonder how
taller people would have made it in this cage. It was terrible!
And yet, I was standing and feeling comfortable though my left arm
was like an alien part attached to my shoulder. It was difficult to withstand emptiness and silence, especially when combined with fear and
pain. Thank God, I was still alive. In the dark, things seemed somehow
clearer. In the chaos of my thoughts I tried to understand my situation.
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I was using big, wise words. I could not find any answer. Why am I in
this "gas chamber"? What have I done? It was an enigma.
I kept asking myself but I could not find any answer.
However, my perverse torturer knew. His sick imagination had already
created a solid conviction what to do with me and with the other prisoners. I was sure that he would act, but there was nothing I could do. Three
days passed and I was not given any water or food. I was only forced to
the toilet for a few seconds and then quickly brought back; if I had the
urge to go it was all right, if I did not - I had to endure till next time.
I started talking to myself. Silence was difficult to handle. It was
more unbearable than pain. Torturers know this perfectly well and from
time to time they use repression in combination with loneliness.
I am a workaholic, so in order not to waste time and become emptyheaded I would invent stories all day long or measure the wardrobe four spans long, two spans and something wide and eight spans high.
This had been my receptacle for 32 days.
Can one survive in such a place and for such a long time? I find it
difficult to explain although I have written it and have survived it.
Then they forgot about me. This was a Communist KGB method of
pressing the victim. No water, no bread, and this time - no toilet for
three whole days and nights. I was tormented by bodily needs. I started
knocking on the door. There was no response. I made my knocking
louder. At last a sleepy mug appeared.
"Why are you protesting, damn scoundrel?"
"I want to go to the toilet."
"Don't you have trousers," said he smiling maliciously, banged the
door and went away.
In a while he came back and said through his teeth: "Move and don't
talk! Is that clear?" He unlocked a toilet, pushed me in and locked the
door again. I had already pissed in my pants. They were soaked with
urine. I had no urge to go - a hungry stomach needs no toilet. Water; my
cracked lips and dry throat wanted water.
There was no tap in the toilet. The instinct awakened my senses. I
looked around and listened for a sound. I directed my attention on an
almost imperceptible sound. I saw water trickling from the flushing
tank. I stepped quickly on the toilet bowl and started to guzzle water. It
was stale and stinking but this was no time to be fastidious. I was drinking from my right hand, my left hand was still stiff.
Then I sat on the toilet bowl to get some rest. What a comfort it was
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
compared to the wardrobe. I could stretch my legs, stand erect without
touching the ceiling with my head. What a wonderful life!
"You scoundrel, how long are you going to squat in there!"
"Finished," I said.
He opened the door, kicked me and threatened: "Don't you dare
bully me again in the middle of the night."
So I have bullied him!
"It's always night time for me. I forgot that there is daytime."
"Shut up, you damn scoundrel! You don't deserve even this much,"
he banged the door and took out the key.
A flicker of light passed through the keyhole and was reflected on the
wall. I am sentimental, so the flickering light in the darkness amid all
the torture evoked in me tender feelings, emotions and dreams, which
distracted my attention from the horror around. This was good, of course,
for it helped me to survive.
I had no idea whether it was day or night and I could not think of
anything else but water and how to change the position of my body to
ease the pain in my muscles and joints.
On that day another scowling guard opened the wardrobe.
"Move on to the toilet! Faster!" he locked the door and I heard the
noise of his steps on the pavement.
It was a different toilet. There was cast-iron squat toilet instead of a
faience toilet bowl. It was impossible to drink water from the flushing
tank as before, when they took me to the upper floor. But I was as
thirsty as before. I needed water for my cracked lips and my tongue was
dry. I pulled the chain and put my hand under the siphon. The water,
before pouring down the channel, filled my cupped hand. Thirsty as I
felt, I drank it all in a sip. I put my hand under the siphon again but
something abominable turned my stomach inside out, I felt sick and
vomited.
"Are you making a dung wreath, you scoundrel?" shouted the arm of
the law.
"I'm finished," said I.
He swore at me, pushed me into the wardrobe and went away to
swear at others.
For how long are they going to keep me in this coffin? More dead
than alive! I could somehow withstand the physical pain but it was
difficult to bear the agony of emotional pain. I remembered a saying
about the woodcutter and the bear: You can cure an axe cut but you
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TALES FROM THE DARK
cannot forget a bad word. What a good allegory!
I knew that I was subjected to ill treatment and it was only the
purgatory of the labyrinth of hell. The Communists were unsurpassed
in inventing ways of torture. I did not know what the future held in store
for me. The investigation was about to start.
One day at last Ivan Kamenov, the State Security chief was standing
in front of the "gas chamber". He was looking at me arrogantly, slyly,
with malice and hypocrisy.
"How are you doing? Your suit looks crumpled," he asked me pretending to be concerned about my situation.
"Not quite so. No way to crumple it in this den where I am standing
all day long and it is suspended on me as if on a hanger."
"This is what we can afford to accommodate perpetrators against the
public order and peace."
"I don't know who the perpetrators are. I only know I haven't been in
anyone's way."
"You've been in the way of the authorities who are working to achieve
their intentions, which are democratic. We have to nip in the bud any
attempt to stop the aspiration for communism, as comrade Lenin says."
"If you think I'm guilty, I want to know what I'm guilty of, what the
accusations are. Are there laws in this country, are there legal norms for
opinion and judgement? To help judge if a person has been arrested
correctly or incorrectly?" I asked.
"There's no need to hurry. There's everything - there are laws and
legal norms."
"Blessed innocence!" thought I.
Kamenov stopped the conversation. He called Goran the Fog, a police-sergeant from the village of Vassilovtzi, district of Lom, serving
and doing the dirtiest work of the obscurantist State Security. I had
never in my life met a more hard-hearted man than Goran the Fog. He
looked like a creature from the labyrinth of hell. It was hardly possible
to find a better nickname for this gloomy man. He would carry with
him a chair leg and would beat anyone around as soon as Ivan Kamenov
would give him a sign. The chair leg hit me between the shoulders, right
on the backbone. I staggered forward but I managed to lean on the wall
opposite me.
"Ha, ha, ha! You're very tender, ain't you. It was only a caress and
you staggered. If you only knew what is in store for you!"
I realised that cruelty would be less provoked by silence, taking it for
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spontaneous submissiveness, while objection and justification attempts
would be treated as open protest. And I decided to be silent.
The Care for Man
Two days later I was given a thin slice of bread and a small piece of
cheese. I swallowed the bread greedily but I did not dare touch the
cheese. I knew it was salty. I had been given no water for days and I
knew that the salty cheese would make me thirstier. I made a mistake.
In the evening I was given a can of water, a thin slice of white bread and
a small piece of cheese. I was warned not to devour the food (as if I was
going to feast) and not to drink very quickly as this could lead to irreversible psychosomatic anomalies.
I knew it was not a care for man, i.e., a care for me, it was a care for
themselves. What if something happens to the prisoners because of lack
of attention on their part? It could not have an adverse effect on their
consciousness and the concealed repression but it could delay the court
trial. Now the time has come for them to kill by law.
I remember with sadness those forty lawless days after 9 September
1944, when they committed outrageous deeds and instilled fear throughout Bulgaria. Today we see the same people. Their vindictive and cruel
character has not at all changed over these years.
Todor Alexandrov - The Ear
I lost all track of time. I had dim recollection of the hours, days and
months. There were no days, there were only nights interrupted now
and then by my bodily needs. And then it was night again.
They moved me to a room in the attic. I quickly lay on the floor and
fell asleep. I could not remember for how long I had been sleeping
when I was awaken by bangs and swearing. I saw them put a corpse
near my legs and then they went out of the room. I was scared, my hair
stood up and cold shivers went down my spine. Stunned by what I saw,
I huddled up in the corner.
I did not know what to do. I was only staring at the blood on the face
of the corpse and the blood stain on his jacket.
Suddenly I noticed that one of his legs moved slightly. I was happy.
He is alive! In an hour or so the corpse leaned on his elbows, shook his
head, looked left and right, swore and asked me: "Why, how long have
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I been here?"
Suffering evoked compassion, I wanted to calm him down. Though I
myself needed calm and medical treatment. My sprained arm was swollen in the shoulder and the wrist stiff with pain.
"What can I do for you?" I asked him.
"I haven't had anything to eat and drink for five days. This is what
you can do for me. What could you really do for me? I see that you are
in the same situation. Thank you for your kindness. Look what they
have done to me. They're not human. They're thirsty, blood thirsty beasts
of prey. What do they want from me? Why are they torturing me? I'm
a young man, I've never been in anybody's way. I only want to be free to
work and live my life. I leave the power to them. I know that the power
is their only goal and this is why they're greedily trying to keep the
power in their hands and they're afraid that someone may take it from
them. That's why we're here."
"I have a piece of cheese from yesterday. Help yourself, that's all I
have," he swallowed the cheese as if it were a Turkish delight, not thinking that he might get thirsty.
"It is so kind of you, we've been room-mates for three or four hours
but we don't know each other's names. I am Todor Alexandrov from
Razgrad. What's your name?" he asked.
"I forgot my name. Here they call me a scoundrel," I replied.
"They call everyone a scoundrel. This is their favourite name to call
people whose views are different from theirs. A scoundrel, that's the
name that matches them perfectly. Yet, you must have a name of your
own," he said.
"Luben," said I and spoke no more. The corpse that came back to life
so quickly looked so vital that it aroused my suspicion.
In the morning we were allowed to go to the toilet and the tap one
after the other. I was given a can of water. Bottles were not allowed - out
of the care for man. Someone might break the bottle and cut his veins.
This is what happened to the editor of the "New Macedonia" newspaper in the Central prison in Sofia.
I went to the toilet, then I was forced back to the room in the attic.
Tosho was not there. An hour passed but he did not come back. The
mystery became clear!
I knew that the investigation used such methods. The first act of the
play misled me and deceived me ("the bleeding corpse") but the second
act puzzled me. I simply could not make out how Tosho, a lifeless corpse,
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became so fresh and full of energy overnight. Besides, we were brought
to the toilet together but he came back two hours after me.
"Did they force you to the city toilet?" asked I delicately hinting and
smiling.
"There were stains all over me with blood from my nose and my
mouth broken by our 'archangels', so I washed my face," swearing at
Ivan Kamenov and The Fog, sighing heavily and moaning he sat on the
cement floor. "They will destroy me. I may fret and fume but I don't
know what to do," he continued looking for compassion and response
and then became silent. I was silent too. To distract his suspicion that I
might have detected his role of a provocateur, I pretended to be compassionate and said to him: "If you've done something, you better confess it. They won't kill you."
I looked at him - he was clean, not a trace of blood on his face. There
were only dry traces of blood on the lapels of his jacket. There should
have been some visible traces of the "inquisition".
"You must be very young, judging by your looks, a teenager. Maybe
you haven't been to the barracks yet. What do they want from you?
Why have they arrested you?" he asked.
"I was a teenager four - five years ago. I have been to the barracks. I
don't know why I am here. The job of the authorities is to make up
something," said I.
"I think the same, to tell you the truth. I was in a fabricated conspiracy of three persons, three madcaps, anarchists: Parvan Cholashki,
Sofron, I forgot his family name, and me. It was no conspiracy at all.
We were three good friends who were not inclined to accept the stupidities of the members of the Young Communist League to arrest and
blackmail the people in the village, even our neighbours, for money.
The three of us refused. They imagine that anyone who had criticised
the power that was overthrown is a Communist or at least a sympathiser.
And since they failed to recruit us for their treacherous network, they
made use of a picnic we organised and arrested the three of us. They
accused us for planning to set the fields on fire."
I was not following his words very attentively. I was listening without
paying special attention to them as I was deep in thought, feeling sharp
pain in my swollen arm and my legs, bitten with standing for so long. At
last I fell asleep on the cement floor.
In the evening we were brought to the lavatories at one and the same
time, but to different lavatories. In front of the door to which I was
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directed by Goran the Fog, there stood a man with a worn-out face who
whispered in my ear:
"Be careful, Tosho is an ear."
The police-sergeant started to swear at us as if it were not his blame
that three of us were let in at the same time. He locked me in the toilet
and kicked the other man off to his lock-up room.
My feeling that Tosho was an informer proved true. He was not in the
attic again. In the evening they brought him with exaggerated kicks and
swearing.
"It's becoming worse and worse with every day. What do they take
me for? They want me to confess for having done something. Why
shouldn't I confess? What would you say?" asked he.
"If you feel any guilt it's better to confess. You said you weren't guilty,
were you? A fault confessed is half redressed," said I.
"You're quite right, but they interpret the things in their own way.
We only went for a walk. But they say that only crazy people go for a
walk at that hour and that we've gone out to commit sabotage when
they arrested us."
"Their job's to pick our souls and make us tell them what they want
to hear. If we don't have anything to tell them, they'll torture us. If we
have or make up something, they'll sentence us and that's all," said I.
"Which of the two would they prefer?" asked Tosho giving me an
encouraging smile.
"If the first thing happens, they'll enjoy our suffering. If the other
thing happens, they may be patted on the shoulder or another star may
be put on their shoulder piece. Look, both options are to their benefit,"
I said.
"It's good that you don't talk much. I'm not very talkative either,"
said Tosho. "There's no one to talk to," he added. "I've been in a single
cell for four months now. Maybe they had pricks of conscience and
moved me downstairs to your cell. That's why I'm so talkative. I don't
know when you were arrested. I've been moved from one to another
prison cell for half a year -I have been beaten, interrogated and beaten
again."
"It's good that you're strong enough and can endure it," I said.
"It doesn't matter whether you are strong or weak here. You haven't
seen much yet," said Tosho and pointed to a wall. I've been behind
these walls too, I could see the high school and the street in front the
State Security from the window. Every day for months on end our rela%&
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tives would bring baskets full of food. Have you tried home made food
recently?"
"Not a single bite," I replied .
"Well, we're under regime but why our relatives should be under
regime too. Why should they be cheated that the food is given to us.
The food goes to the family of the chief warder of the prison. They are
telling us that we don't have any relatives any longer. All the people
who knew us have renounced us and reproached us for our anti-popular activities," he said.
I knew it was a lie. I could not, however, understand Tosho's behaviour.
How was it possible that he was serving the two opposite sides so easily
and with such an artistic skill. Was it worth the trouble to be humiliated
and kicked for the possibility to be released or to be put under a more
relaxed regime?
In the Chief's Office
At last, I was brought to an office. Opposite the door there was a dilapidated sofa upholstered with leather. Ivan Kamenov was sitting relaxed
on the sofa with his arms crossed behind the back of his head. On both
sides of the sofa two stout men were sitting in armchairs with crossed
legs, scrutinising me as if they were going to paint my portrait.
"Well, Luben, you know that we've taken one of your notebooks during the search. In the verses you've tried to scribble, so to say, you've
foreseen your own fate," he opened the notebook and began to read
haltingly:
Our fate is our own will
to create the life we live
and to scare away hardships
when we count the minutes left to live
"I see that you had a foreboding that your fate wouldn't be an easy
one. You couldn't help it, could you. You knew very well that you were
doing stupid things. You reap what you have sown, people say. Let's
now begin with the most important. You complained that there were no
laws and no order in this country. Now you can see that there is order,
there are laws and those who don't observe them come to us. Am I
right? Yes, I am," he replied to his own question. "Now, go to that
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corner! Goran, put his cuffs on, to be on the safe side."
Goran was only waiting to hear the order. He kicked several times
my cracked and swollen ankles, made me stand erect in the corner and
put the cuffs on my hands. He ordered me to look at one point only, not
look aside.
After me Avram Jordanov Avramov from the village of Mladenovo
was forced into the room. I recognised him by his voice. His hair was
short and he was so lean that he looked like a walking skeleton on its
way to the crematorium. He was also "served" by Goran - handcuffs,
kicks and a hit with his favourite chair leg. He was also ordered to look
at one point and not to move.
We were standing till the electric bulbs were lit. Goran the Fog was
lying in an armchair. Other people came in and out of the room, paying
no attention to us. It became dark outside.
My cracked lips were parched with thirst. There was an end to this
monstrous suffering. I heard a clock strike twelve times. At such moments you realise how helpless you are and you rely on providence, on
a supernatural force to help you.
It's July, I thought, and the nights are shorter.
My legs were shaking.
Avram fell on the floor. The Fog jumped out of his armchair as if a
wasp had stung him. He splashed some water on Avram, hit him in the
back several times and stood him up in the corner.
The dusk began to oust the night.
On that morning Ivan Kamenov came earlier. As he opened the door,
I fell on the floor. The Fog who had just managed to "cure" Avram,
turned on me. The broken chair leg was in his hand. As a matter of fact,
it was always in his hand. He splashed lavishly water on me. I had my
handcuffs unchained and was made to get up on my feet. I was staggering to and for.
"How long are you going to sabotage us, you son of a bitch! How long
are you going to fool around with us! There's no end to your tricks but
I know how to break you."
These words were followed by two strong slaps at my ears. They were
like thunder strikes. I fainted. There were drumbeats in my ears. My
nostrils were filled with coagulated blood. I was breathing through my
mouth.
I realised I was lying on the cement floor in the attic. The pain in my
swollen legs was unbearable. The pain in my sprained arm was three
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times stronger. Something was scraping in my brain, I heard a muffled
noise and a roaring sound in my ears accompanied by a dull pain. I was
overcome by drowsiness.
Tosho told me that I had been talking incoherently in my sleep all
night.
In the evening Ivan Kostov, the other turnkey, unlocked the door
and I was brought to the tap and the toilet while Tosho was ordered to
go in a different direction. I was ordered to wash myself. I didn't have a
clue what I had done, but when they saw me they split their sides with
laughter. I was given a soap and paper towels to dry myself and clean
the blood stains.
"Go back and wash yourself properly as people do."
"What, you've regarded me as man! If only I've understood it earlier."
I was standing before of them awaiting my ill fortune.
A stout man was sitting on the sofa like a Turkish feudal governor.
His hair was so thin and short that it resembled the bristles on the back
of a boar. This was Hristo from Chiren, district of Vratza.
Two other men were sitting in the armchairs: Dinko Tzvetanov from
the village of Slivovak, district of Lom and Ivan Kamenov, born in the
village of Cherni Vruh, district of Lom.
Hristo, the man on the sofa, had been delegated by the authorities to
move from Vratza to the State Security in Lom as a specialist of rare
abilities. He was an expert to ferret out evidence even in the most complicated cases. But what was his excellence compared to his colleagues'
in the State Security in Lom? He was absolutely identical to them. Well,
we have to recognise him as an experienced master of torture. He was
not brought by chance all the way from Vratza.
So there I was, waiting for my charge.
"Comrades," said Ivan Kamenov to the other two men, "we have in
front of us a disoriented man, a vagabond," he tried to attach yet another name to me but nothing came to his mind and he said nothing.
"So to say, then. To convince him that we are human beings, so to
say, and if he admits his guilt, so to say, then, we can let him go, so to
say.
"Why shouldn't we let him go, if he only confesses his guilt," said
Dinko and then continued, "but only if he confesses his guilt without us
forcing him to. He can see that we haven't involved him in this stupid
conspiracy in the village of Mladenovo."
&
TALES FROM THE DARK
"If you don't understand this," said Hristo with the bristles, "you're
going to be very sorry. You're a young man. We know that you're the
most educated man in the group, in which we don't want to include
you, but they keep on saying that you're the leader of their conspiracy.
You will be released only if you tell us who gave you the deadly idea of
organising resistance against the people's power. I don't think the others are capable of coming up with such a thing."
"But you said that you haven't connected me with any organisation.
Why are you provoking me, then?" I asked.
"You don't get it. We want to undeceive you because you transgressed
and we know that you're a member of the conspiracy in question. You'd
been cheated. Who's the man that cheated you? Who's he? As comrade Georgi Dimitrov says, who is your Mephistopheles? If you tell us,
you can go."
"How can I tell you when I don't know that Mephistopheles?" I
asked, deciding to play stupid, since I knew this was something they
would tolerate.
"You needn't act so naive. We know very well who Luben Todorov is
and what he knows. But we believe that there is an evil spirit behind you
who is putting harmful ideas in your head," intervened Dinko, siting in
an armchair.
The sun lit the room. It looked as if they were falling asleep.
"Comrades, we're all tired, it's six o'clock. Let's go and get some rest.
We'll continue tomorrow," said Ivan Kamenov and pressed the bell.
"Very good, comrade chief," reported The Fog with servility.
"Goran, you know what to do. Dry regime! Absolutely nothing - no
bread, no water, no sleep. Standing with cuffs on his hands!"
The three of them left the room.
The large office was just as useful for torture as the in-built wardrobe. In the wardrobe, it was the body that was tortured. In the office,
they reopened old wounds of my soul with self-conceited boastfulness.
My silence would have freed from guilt two persons -Bozhidar
Marinov from Lom and a fair-haired man with a Russian accent. Both
of them were present at the interrogations from time to time and did
not ask any questions.
Goran was very happy with the orders of his boss. His diabolical
cruel nature was given complete freedom (though it has never been restrained) and he rushed furiously to obey his orders. First, I was brought
to the toilet. He unlocked my cuffs and did not close the door. He stood
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
at the door all the time. He was following me as a falcon follows its prey.
He brought me back to the office with kicks. I was made to stand in the
corner again. He sat in the armchair holding a glass of water in his hand,
touched a bottle with his glass to make it clink and started to drink
slowly the water in sips with deep satisfaction. The noise of the water,
pouring from the bottle into the glass, stimulated in me the unbearable
psychic reflexes of thirst and pain with thirst. I imagined him giving me
a glass of water and swallowed dry air.
I want to tell the people who are going to read about this suffering
that nothing compares to thirst, especially in such a situation, in the
State Security. It borders the limits of one's endurance.
At about 8 o'clock Goran the Fog left the office. His replacement
was Ivan Kostov, the police-sergeant from the village of Vassilovtzi.
Goran did not tell him that he had brought me to the toilet and had
unchained my cuffs. Kostov brought me to the toilet again. He closed
the door. I was waiting for that moment. I quickly stepped on the toilet
bowl and started to gulp water from the flush tank. On this floor the
toilet bowls were made of porcelain and I was able to reach the flush
tank. I quenched my thirst like an animal. The police-sergeant brought
me back and again ordered me to stand in the corner.
I did not feel like eating. My stomach seemed to have reconciled
with the situation. But I felt thirsty all the time. Perhaps drug addicts
have the same psychosomatic feeling, when they have not taken their
dose, or smokers, when having no cigarettes. I never had any of those
habits that tend to develop into an obsession.
It was a terribly hot day. It was August, the hottest month of the year.
Fatigue and pain caused by long standing in one place had made my
legs weak.
It was around midnight when the torturers came. They looked quite
tipsy. They used to come at that time of the night; it was their time. The
darkness of the night with its ominous mystery was like a veil covering
their infernal thoughts and acts. It aroused our fears and expectations
of things worse than what we really experienced.
"Where are your handcuffs?" asked Kamenov.
"I don't know," I said. "Men don't need handcuffs in the toilet."
"Maybe others don't need handcuffs in the toilet but men like you
have to be in chains," he said. "But I want to let you know that we're
good people. Sergeant, don't put the cuffs on his hands. You've made a
mistake. You were alone with him and you took off his cuffs. You should
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be more careful in the future."
"But…," the sergeant tried to explain.
"No buts!" said Kamenov. "This is carelessness, inattention, which
the enemy can notice and take advantage of. You should be more careful in the future. Haven't you read the slogan in the corridor?" he asked.
"I've read it, comrade chief, but I haven't paid enough attention to
it," said the sergeant.
"Go and read it, quickly! And pay enough attention to it this time!"
ordered chief Kamenov angrily.
"Comrade chief, the slogan reads 'Carelessness is a slit through which
the enemy can squeeze'," said the sergeant.
"Now you know what's what. This is a command, not just a slogan,
by Felix Edmoundovich Dzerdjinski, which is an appeal to us, the state
security men, to be on the alert around the clock. This is why we shouldn't
be careless and neglect it."
"Citizen prisoner, come closer. You shouldn't be afraid, we don't eat
people, even if they're our enemies," turned to me Hristov the Yazze.
We gave him this nickname because of the dialect forms yazze and
tizze, which he used instead of az and ti1.
"You'd better eat me than torture me," said I with a trembling and
hoarse voice. My lungs and vocal cords were dry and weak
"You (tizze) call this torture? We are really spoiling you. Am I right,
comrades?" he addressed his people. They were nodding, smiling from
ear to ear. The Yazze continued: "From the investigation we know that
you have been trying in vain to cover for the man who urged you into
this activity against the people. We, however, uncovered this subversive
mole. No need to beat around the bush. Do you know Efrem Mitev?"
"Everyone in the district of Lom knows him and even everyone in the
region. Now he is a people's representative, social-democrat from the
Fatherland Front coalition," I said.
"So you share the same ideology and maintain close links and relations?" he asked.
"We're not that close. I respect him. His fame and glory are like the
aureole for the lay brothers," I replied. We talked a lot about Efrem
Mitev. The inquisitors recognised his erudition as a lawyer and orator
but harshly criticised his intolerance for the Fatherland Front.
"He is supposed to be a member of the Fatherland Front but as a
lawyer he defends people who do much harm to the people's power,
1
Meaning I and you.
&"
LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
such as saboteurs and kulaks. He abuses his official post and his immunity as a people's representative. But soon he'll know what's what. He'll
follow in your steps."
This ill omen sent shivers down my spine. How could they dare do
such a thing! They had exterminated the elite of Bulgarian society with
raging hatred four-five years before. They continued to organise actions
for the complete extermination of those who managed to "squeeze"
through Dzerdjinski's imaginary slit. Dzerdjinski was the one who invented the men-grinding machine of the 20th century - the Extraordinary Commission ("Che Ka") in 1917.
The sun lit up the windows. I secretly looked at the street. People
were hurrying to the early morning train. Opposite from our building
was the high school, which evoked plenty of memories in me.
The severe pain in my sprained arm and swollen legs brought me
back to reality. I had been in this merciless trap for three months. Today, after all that time I can definitely say that nothing compares to the
tortures in the State Security, for all the suffering and oppression one
may be subjected to. A word that could equal to torture in the State
Security has never been pronounced or written. Perhaps there is no
need to look for such a word. In fact it has been written in blood by the
dark totalitarian times - the COMMUNISM! A word that inspired so
much idealism but was never fully understood in its reality by many
people. A word, on the other hand, well known and brutally experienced by countless others, including myself.
On that morning The Yazze did not go home together with Kamenov
and Dinko. He sat on the sofa and said to me in a commanding voice:
"Well, we're alone at last, you and me (yazzeka and tizze). There's
nobody to stand in our way. We can talk undisturbed. I heard that your
father is in America."
"In Argentina," I said. "He left us twenty years ago. I don't remember him. He never called us. I don't know anything about letters received or sent by my elder brother and my sisters."
"We're not interested. But why did you try to run away and join him?"
asked he.
"What do you mean to join him?" I asked. "I don't even remember
him. I was three when he left. I can't join him because I don't know his
address. Argentina is not the size of a village. You can't just ask the
people in the street for directions and find out where the man lives."
I was silent. He did not speak either. All of a sudden he jumped like a
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tiger and hit me twice in the chest. I could hardly stand on my weak legs
and I staggered in his direction.
"Are you (tizze) trailing my coat? Let me show you what it's to attack
a public official and a state security man at that!"
He stopped me with clenched fists. Maybe he was hurt, because he
shook his hand convulsively several times, grinned and furiously hit
me in the diaphragm knocking me down. For a moment I could not
breathe.
When I opened my eyes he was splashing water over me. They dragged
me to the window, opened it and warned the guard to watch out. He
made a sign that he understood. I was warned not to do anything stupid.
They were cautious because several days before, Jordan Vurbanov
Alexandrov from the village of Mladenovo had jumped from the upper
floor.
They were quite right to warn us because everyone would prefer death
rather than the unbearable torture. As inquisitors they knew this perfectly well. Moreover, the care for man had to continue until the court
trial. After that - some would survive, others would die - may they rest
in peace - let the future count them.
"Get up, no more pretending!"
"I can't. I'm not strong enough," I said.
"No more indulging. Now I'll help you," he said and took a hose,
about 50 cm long, out of the drawer. He began to beat me on the head,
on the back and all over.
The pain was not much different from any other pain, but it was
sharper because of the flexible hose and my hurting arm and swollen
legs. I tried to stand on my feet but failed. His rage became madness. He
kept kicking me in the loins, kidneys and all over my body. At the beginning I was clenching my teeth. I tried to force myself and suppress the
pain, but it was stronger than my will. I began to cry again and to beg for
mercy. The Yazze got tired but his craving for revenge was still visible in
his face. At last he got tired of it. He sat on the sofa, stared at me like a
beast which has caught its prey but has not yet torn it apart.
"I couldn't care less if it's true that you wanted to leave your motherland, fuck you. Gemeto2 and Nikola Petkov3 wanted to do it for quite
some time and they paid a high price for their treachery. Do you want to
A nickname for G. M. Dimitrov - a political leader in opposition to the Communists.
A political leader in opposition to the Communists, sentenced to death and executed on
23 September 1947.
2
3
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
pay the same price as him?" asked he.
"If it's true that I wanted to leave my motherland and to go to Argentina, how can I be involved in sabotage against Bulgaria, for which you
have accused me" I said.
"Oh, you're quite a philosopher but I'll make you forget all about
your fabrications. So, you did not want to go to your father. Let's forget
it for now. But I (yazze) want the truth. Who urged you to organise a
conspiracy against the people's power. I (yazze) know very well who he
is. You (tizze) must only confirm his name and that's all."
"I don't know how many times I've to repeat that I didn't participate
and I'm not participating in any such fictitious conspiracy," I said.
"I see that we're not getting along. Stand up on your feet or I'll come
to help you."
I managed to stand on my feet, although with great difficulty, as I
knew very well what his "help" could be. He pressed the bell. Goran the
Fog came into the room.
"Yes, comrade chief," he reported.
"There's only one thing that we can do to deal with this scoundrel.
Regime! Stringent regime! This will knock some sense into him." Hristo
the Yazze from the village of Chiren repeated his orders several times
and left the office.
Goran was very thorough in fulfilling the orders given by his boss. He
nailed me to the wall with one stab in my back.
It was sunset. The time of the ominous mystery was coming nearer the time for torture and torturers.
"Move to the toilet because you can make everybody around stink
like what that lanky fellow did," said the Fog.
"Whom was The Fog telling me about? It must be Rafail Kopchev.
He is over 1,90 m tall," I thought. When I was arrested in the municipality I heard his name when they checked our names. His name was not
the only one I had heard. In fact they called all the names to be sure that
they had not arrested a neighbour by mistake. In addition to Rafail's
name, I heard the names of Avram Jordanov Avramov, Asen Petkov
Dudov, Georgi Milanov Serafimov, Victor Kirilov Aigurskii, Jordan
Vurbanov Alexandrov as well as the names Teofil Filchev Aigurski and
Jordan Georgiev Stoyanov, who were arrested several days before the
others. The last three men were only 18-19 years old at the time.
The State Security
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The State Security occupied a solid building in the main street of Lom,
across the street from the high school, at about 200 metres from the
port. This used to be a private house owned by Boyan Voinikov's family. Confiscated by the Communists in 1944 after the arrest of the owner
and after the expulsion, torture and internment of the rest of the family,
it was assigned to the State Security.
I cannot imagine that Boyan Voinikov has ever thought that the comfortable house, which he had built as a family house for his loved ones,
would be transformed into a place for torturing innocent people, especially the in-built wardrobes, which were used as "gas chambers" by the
Communists. The "gas chambers" in the inquisition room were the most
terrible of all places. First they used to put there those who had given
up and afterwards the difficult ones, i.e., the men who opposed them.
The difficult ones were pressured by facts or mere fabrications obtained
as confessions from those who had given up.
The good thing was that when they applied this method on me it
yielded no results. Asen Dudov, who was put into the "gas chamber"
before me, did not accuse me of anything, not because he was a hero
but because there was nothing he could say against me.
On the way back from the toilet Goran the Fog hit me in the back
several times with the chair leg which was always in his hand and brought
me into the inquisition room.
The Yazze was sitting comfortably on the sofa.
"It's no pleasure for you to see me, is it?" he asked trying to be humorous.
"That was a good guess," I replied.
"It isn't a pleasure for you because you're hiding the name of the man
who's guilty for suggesting this harmful idea to you. But as I told you we
know his name," said he.
"Why are you torturing me then if you know his name? Don't you see
that I've no strength left? I know that there's no such man but I'll confirm it if you show him to me."
"We're not that silly. You can't fool us. You shouldn't forget that you're
standing in front of State Security people. We have our methods to get out
the truth no matter how complicated and disguised it is. Comrade Lenin
and comrade Dzerdjinski have trained us how to proceed in such cases.
The perpetrator must confess his guilt and we'll only register it," he said.
"What do you register if there is no guilt?"
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
Perhaps the people who read this would ask themselves how I managed to pluck my courage to oppose him at such a risky moment. I'd
like to tell these people that psychological and physical suffering which
causes depression is not the last stage of one's endurance. Hope is what
saves us. It gives us self-control, audacity and self-confidence - the inherent essence of our nature, which does not leave us until the last
moment.
There is, however, a critical moment beyond despair and hope. Only
the people who have passed through the labyrinth of Communist Hell
have experienced this. And there is conscience - the keeper of one's
strength. In torture people can be misled into betrayal but this is overcome by noble human feelings. The inner judge who lives in everyone
does not recognise investigators or confessions. What is the force that
does not recognise the power of the omnipotent or the weakness of the
one who suffers?
Yes, it is conscience! It is the strength inherent in the good side of the
human being, the judge who is standing above thought and action as the
absolute reason.
This basic rule of life does not seem to be valid for the Communists.
They say about themselves that they are made of a different clay, i.e.,
they have different ideas guided by different requirements. To put it
more precisely, robots guided by the misanthropic idea of total usurpation of power and transformation of people into a herd.
While thinking about the essence of human beings I finally heard the
clock strike eleven. Midnight was the usual time for torture. Big drops
of blood were dripping from my cracked lips. I was ordered to clean the
blood with a paper towel. I bent to clean the blood drops but my head
began to turn and I fell on the floor face down. I felt a strong hit on the
head and fainted.
When I woke up in the attic I saw Tosho bending over me:
"Why, brother, why? What have they done to you? It's difficult to
recognise you. And you told me it would be better to confess everything. I hope you would survive and recover. I confessed everything and
they promised to let me free."
"You think you'll be free! My problem's that I've nothing to confess.
They were talking about some Mephistopheles and Efrem Mitev. I know
Efrem Mitev but I haven't even heard about the other one.
I was whispering.
In the morning when Tosho went to the toilet I was given a slice of
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bread, a small piece of cheese and a can of water. I ate the bread and the
cheese without taking into consideration the care for man.
I did not feel strong enough to stand up. I could not control my
swollen legs. Even a slight touch brought an excruciating pain.
I was left alone for three days.
One day they gave me two slices of bread and a bunch of grapes.
Tosho has disappeared. Maybe they had released him. I did not know.
He disappeared three days before and most probably he got a new assignment. It was better that I was isolated. It was better than to be
forced to no sleep. The best trick of the Communists - inquisitors in the
State Security was to keep you standing in the corner with handcuffs
and without water or bread, without any sleep.
You might say that you have had too much of this "no-sleep regime".
Maybe you could just try to imagine how I endured this deprivation for
months on end as well as many other people.
Theatre of Temptations
The day before, at the usual time around midnight, Ivan Kamenev ordered me to go downstairs to the inquisition room. Dinko and The Yazze
were sitting in the two armchairs. Ivan Kamenev sat on the sofa. The
desk was covered with a red tablecloth. On the desk there were warm
delicious dishes - juicy steaks and large fresh vegetable salads.
A basket with several bottles of beer covered with ice was put intentionally next to me. They thought they were tempting me.
"Well, Luben, what do you think about this? It's a nice thing to be a
free man and eat and drink whatever you like," said Ivan Kamenov.
"It's a nice thing if you haven't seen a nicer thing," I said.
"Maybe you (tizze) are Burov's or Rockefeller's son?!"
"I am not Burov's or Rockefeller's son but unlike you they haven't
done anything bad to me. There's so much hatred in you. You have
hearts of stone," I said.
"He deserves to be smashed," rushed on me with his clenched fists
Hristo the Yazze. Kamenov held him back. He knew that if The Yazze
hits twice the interrogation would be postponed. They were pressed by
their bosses to hurry up with the police inquiry.
The show started. I was ordered to stand by the wall. They were
eating and chewing noisily, drinking water as loudly as possible. They
poured the beer into the glasses from as high as possible. The beer gurgled
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
in the bottleneck and splashed into the glass. Though I was very thirsty
I was not tempted as much as before, when Goran the Yazze tortured
me in the same way. At that time I was groggy, completely exhausted.
This time I felt stronger because I had had two and a half days to recover. From what I said earlier you already know that I am a total abstainer. I dislike alcoholic drinks and mutton. I only imagined that the
food was a mutton steak and I forgot the menu.
The show was a failure. The only viewer was not interested at all in
the boring cynical farce.
They changed their places. Kamenov sat on the sofa, Dinko and The
Yazze sat in the armchairs.
"We didn't invite you because we knew that you would not respect
our invitation to join us," said Kamenov in a mocking voice.
"Good for you because I don't take mutton," said I.
"The steaks were not mutton."
"It's all meat and I don't take alcohol."
"How's that? You think that we're alcoholics! Is beer an alcoholic
drink? Moreover, we had only a bottle each."
"I don't know how many bottles it would take before you lose your
balance. I only know that people should not drink at work. As far as I
know beer is an alcoholic drink."
"Bloody scoundrel, are you teaching me morals?" The Yazze jumped
from the armchair and hit me quickly twice in the diaphragm before
Dinko and Ivan Kamenov managed to stop him. I fell on the floor.
Dinko and Ivan Kamenov grumbled at The Yazze. They criticised
each other for making mistakes and for the delay in the investigation,
for not moving ahead, for my obstruction by pretending and fainting.
Beasts! They said that I had been pretending while they knew very well
that they themselves could not survive such suffering for a single day.
The power was given to them like a present on a silver plate - they
did not have to make it, to bake it. Just like that! They had not gone
through it. Ivan Kamenov was an apprentice tailor, Dinko Tzvetanov
was a carpenter, Hristo the Yazze from Chiren was nobody. The three
of them were half-literate individuals who would have remained with
a needle or a chisel, or with their stupidity for life if the "brothersliberators" had not infected them with a wild, misanthropic Bolshevik
hatred.
The power was given to them but who would endow them with brain?
Perhaps they need no brain. They only need to know how to fabricate
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accusations from the extorted evidence as soon as possible and how to
concoct charges as big as possible.
The sun was rising. The rays of sunlight passed through the shutters
creating ribs of light on the wall and the wooden floor. The tired investigators went home. Only Ivan Kostov - the sergeant, was in the room.
He was doing what was required by his bloodhound job but was not so
cruel as Ivan Kamenov and especially The Yazze and The Fog. Ivan
Kostov gave me more time in the toilet and I could wash myself, even
sit for a few moments on the toilet bowl. I could step on the bowl and
drink a few handfuls of water from the flush tank. So I could have some
rest.
When Goran the Fog was on duty such things were not allowed;
otherwise the chair leg would be put in action again.
I regret that I am unable to give a chronological account of this brutal time, which has settled deeply in my mind and memory. I regret
being unable to follow the course of days and months. Yet, my mind
has managed to preserve the most important events and my hand has
written them down on paper.
Early in the morning on that day a young man was on duty. He was
about my age, not older than 22 or 23. His face was pretty. It showed
politeness.
The notorious Dinko entered the room after him. He wanted to impress the young trainee as an experienced agent. He started asking me
questions that were not related to the preliminary investigation report.
He gave way to his fancy, his dirty mind was entangled in paralogisms,
which had nothing in common with the questions that I had been asked
before. He asked me for example if I had participated in a burglary of
the warehouse belonging to the militia in Sadovo. What arms I had
stolen and where I have hidden them. How much I charged for membership dues to each conspirator as a secretary-cashier. Where the money
was and to whom I had given it.
He was a castle-builder trying to accuse me of bigger things with the
hope to find out any secret. Alas! He did not know, or maybe he knew,
that I had no clue what he was asking me about. He wanted to increase
the weight of evidence by adding one more accusation to his patchy
concoction. You never can tell what will happen! Before you know it
another stripe could appear on your shoulder strap.
"Look, Luben, you can't live forever with your illusions that you can
deceive the experienced officers of the State Security. We've become
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LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
experienced over the past few years and our personnel is highly qualified. It's only an illusion to think that you can distract our attention with
your fabrications. Why have you been trying to hide behind your back
someone who's much bigger than you? Why are you concealing him,
you scoundrel? We know who he is. Maybe you think that I'm blackmailing you but it's not so. We never use false accusations. Our purpose
is to uncover a criminal activity by using lawful means," said he.
"What type of means is torture?" I asked, interrupting Dinko's panegyric in defence of the "lawful means".
At that very moment arrived The Yazze - the biggest expert of them
all.
"Are you still chatting away?" he asked and came down on me: "Can't
you put two and two together, there's no time for shilly-shally. What we
want from you is to admit your guilt unless you prefer to stay here for
the winter. You're shilly-shallying now but you'll start to play like a
gramophone. Moreover, you'll have trouble with the cold. You must
confess everything, you scoundrel! You must confess everything while
it's good for you. I believe comrade Tzvetanov told you that any resistance would be in vain. We are talking about Efrem Mitev. Why are you
concealing that arch-rogue?"
"Why are you persecuting this innocent man?"
"Did you say 'innocent'? Do you know that he's been defending,
being a lawyer and a people's representative himself, the worst enemies
of the people in our district?"
"This is his moral right."
"You think he has the right to be everybody's advocate, don't you. I
agree with you but he has no right to instigate people."
"I don't know anything about it. I don't know him well, I know him
only by face. I never even came close to him. I believe you know him
better than I do," I said.
"You say you've never come close to him," he thrust his hand into his
bag and took out a photograph the size of a postcard. He showed it first
to Dinko and then turned it to me.
"Can you see yourself very far from your Efrem Mitev?" he said and
showed me the photograph. In the photograph I saw myself, only 166
cm tall, standing by Efrem Mitev's big figure. His broad hand was protectively on my shoulder.
'!
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Fiasco - the Photograph
I had lived in a mystery till they showed me the photograph.
When facing the wall I had been asking myself what they wanted
from me. They had been asking so many questions, all of them related
to some conspiracy in the village of Mladenovo, and to Efrem Mitev.
I had thought it was only a meaningless confusion in the imagination
of these KGB men.
If it were not for my much smaller figure I would have been unable
to say who was who in the photograph.
"Do you surrender?" asked The Yazze holding the photograph in
front of my face.
"I can't see anything without my glasses," I said. My glasses were
taken away when they arrested me. It was again due to the care for man.
They brought my glasses. I saw that Efrem Mitev looked like Hercules,
much, much taller than I was. I have seen the man. I thought he was not
more than 10 centimetres taller than me. The man in the photograph
was about 30 centimetres taller. Got you there!
It was a fiasco, a failed attempt of the State Security men to make a
photomontage.
I supposed that they noticed my doubts about the photograph because I was holding it for a few seconds smiling.
"You like it, don't you?" said Kamenov.
"Very much," I said. "The photograph is a real evidence and proof.
You can't cheat anybody at all."
They did not get my allusion. It was for the better. I could not understand how these men born as human beings had utterly changed within
such a short period of time. From anthropology I knew that physical
and intellectual development has been a slow process lasting for thousands, even millions of years. Following its own course the slow evolution had entered its twentieth century of development by the Christian
calendar, where it stopped sharply and made a throw-back caused by
communism and man became again a primate or a beast.
In 1917, first in Russia and later - at the end of the fourth decade - in
large parts of Europe and Asia, a Utopian, unachievable dream caused
a political and economic commotion. The whole of Bulgaria sunk into
utter ignorance only a few days after 9 September 1944.
Churches, monasteries and foreign language schools were made a
taboo. The people who spoke foreign languages were said to be foreign
'"
LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
agents. Famous statesmen, professors, teachers, artists, poets, actors the whole intellectual elite - were destroyed.
Some were anathematised, others sent into exile and many others
were murdered and buried in the ground like animals all over the lands
of our mother - Bulgaria.
As the days passed I was becoming more and more afraid that my
fate would be as terrible as theirs. My torturers became more and more
arrogant, wrecking my body and worrying my soul. Their arrogance
increased with each passing day.
Spurred from Above
Their nervous behaviour and the way they spoke made me think that
they were in great hurry to end the case of the Mladenovo conspiracy,
with which they had associated me. They were spurred from above,
God knows where this "above" was. On their turn they urged us, forcing
us to confess downright lies as being the truth. In addition, the building
was becoming overcrowded.
Conspiracies had been uncovered - one in the village of Gaitantzi,
headed by Konstantin Popdimitrov, a priest; another one in the village of
Dryanovetz, headed by Liubomir Miloushev and Devetak Krustev, a third
one in the village of Rassovo, headed by Rafail Dimitrov Tzonev, a priest.
The inexperienced inquisitors believed that they could fabricate conspiracies by beating and torturing illegally arrested people. They did
not worry about discrediting themselves if they failed because they knew
that the detainee had a sentence prior to his detention. The rest of it,
torturing the doomed people and scaring the whole population was only
for their sadistic amusement.
There was no sympathy with the suffering people. It was only cruelty
in action. Suffering people were only an instrument for achieving their
goals.
The Snake
One day Dinko seemed fed up with the stereotype of interrogation - no
water, no food, no sleep, only standing with your face to the wall. He
decided like a skilful KGB man to apply his own method, a more rational one, and thus to intimidate the detainee and at the same time to
impress his comrades - the State Security guys.
'#
TALES FROM THE DARK
In the past, when I was a child, there were rubber or wooden vertebrae in the form of a snake on sale during fairs. They were skilfully
painted and strung up on a piece of round elastic. When the string was
moved in zigzags it imitated a snake.
Dinko entertained himself with the help of such a "snake" by winding it round the neck of Rafail Dimitrov Tzenov, head of the conspiracy
in the village of Rassovo, district of Lom, who lived in the village of
Komoshtitza.
Scared by the disgusting and dangerous reptile round his neck, Rafail
became hysterical. He started to scream and bang on the doors and all
the things around him. The whole building echoed with his bangs and
frantic screams.
I did not know what was going on because I was under the "no-sleep"
regime - no water, no food, no sleep, standing with my face to the wall.
At such moments my psychic and physical sensations were extremely
sharp.
I heard Dinko Tzvetanov swearing at Ivan Kamenov who had reproached him for the stupid move he made with Rafail.
We were scattered to detention rooms, "gas chamber" in-built wardrobes, to some rooms on the attic, cellar rooms and coal stores.
I was again forced to a coal store. God bless them, I thought hoping
I could find water there; without hiding my happiness I turned on the
tap. Alas! All my hopes were in vain. No water was running from the
tap.
Having spent the night on a mattress of coal, I was forced to the
inquisition room in the morning.
Looking at me, the whole pack of them were shaking with laughter.
"Have you (tizze) been cleaning chimneys all night long? Goran,
take him out to the yard to beat the dust out of his clothes!" The Yazze
ordered Goran. "Take him to the tap after that to brush up his feathers
a little bit!"
On my way back to the inquisition room, while passing through the
lobby, for a second I noticed in a mirror a scarecrow, which looked like
me. I broke into tears not because I was sentimental but because I felt
weak and humiliated.
At that moment I remembered Dante Alighieri's Hell. He described
the sufferings of some Lano from Sienna who had been transformed
into a dry tree with leafless branches. When passers-by broke unwillingly a branch, the tree would give a cry:
'$
LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
Why have you broken me so mercilessly?
May death come! May death come and give me rest!
Canto XIII
The cry of torment and pain, calling the death to come and save them
from further suffering. Many a time while reading Dante's works I had
remembered this hopeless cry but I had not understood it in the same
way as I did at that moment, experiencing the same pain. At that moment I understood the deep meaning of calling the death to save you!!!
Because my sufferings were more, incomparably more painful than
death.
Pushkin had come to the same conclusion in his poem Poltava, where
he wrote about Kuchobei who had been taken hostage by Mazzeppa:
For him death was a long-cherished dream.
That was the dream of all people who had passed through the dark
labyrinths of Hell.
I feel helpless every time I try to find the proper word to denounce
the madness I was forced to live through. And I was not the only one.
Repression is a weak word, which can only give a vague idea of what
I have gone through in the State Security. And those fanatics, regardless
of how hated or politically skilful they could be, even if they were to
change their names 365 times a year, will never change.
May the time come when this Utopia would be rejected directly or
indirectly.
What Are They Plotting Now?
Finally they released me from the current regime and set a new one.
They brought me to the attic and gave me some food in a can with no
spoon. I did not know what kind of weapon they thought the spoon
might be. I was given only a slice of bread (I was not angry with them. I
knew that it was all out of the care for man).
I was allowed to rest for three whole days. They started giving me
home stuff. Where did it come from? Perhaps this was the food brought
by the poor parents of other detainees under the stringent regime (no
sleep), who did not know anything and who were not told anything.
I was given water as much as I wanted. I wondered what was going
on. No tortures! I could not hear any whispers or moans.
Only Ivan Kostov would come to me to give me food and water and
to take me to the toilet. There was no trace of Ivan Kamenov, Dinko
Tzvetanov or The Yazze. Where have these perfect militia despots dis'%
TALES FROM THE DARK
appeared? I wondered. I knew they had not forgotten me. This mysterious situation was bothering me. I had the feeling that something terrible
was going happen. I was sure that their horrible intentions had not ended
yet.
However perfidious and disgraceful they might be, they wanted to be
remembered as loyal sons of the nation as they sang in their songs.
Alas! The wild was calling them and instead of being tolerant they
showed their bravado, they demonstrated they were not afraid of anything and that they would deal with the enemy as the enemy deserves.
Tragic Days
The people were hurrying in their carts (whoever managed to hide their
carts for some time) along the dusty roads. I remember uncle Mitrutz
from the village of Momin brod, district of Lom, who travelled 60
kilometres to the village of Kutovo, district of Vidin, to find sowingseed. However, they were on the alert. Already before he could manage
to unload the cart he was forced to go with the wheat, cart and cows
directly to the public yard - a Soviet-style expropriation. How was he to
sow his fields? What was he going to eat? The mad pack who called
themselves activists made all the decisions. That's that! Believe it or
not!
Whoever disbelieves my words, may he or she never experience what
my generation and I have lived through!
We had only one right - to speak ill of our friends, to report about a
neighbour who had concealed, say, six half bushels of his own wheat in
a haystack.
We did not have the right to help one another.
It was absolutely useless to apply for legal defence. Instead of being
defenders, lawyers were prosecutors. They pressed us more than the
State Security agents to plead guilty and promised to "pull strings" in
order to mitigate the punishment.
Honest lawyers became brick-layers and painters, concealed themselves and it was difficult to find honest legal defence.
The so called People's Court was a sword of Damocles hanging over
the heads of lawyers who would dare defend detainees with political
charges. The Bulgarian Communist party has said that the prosecution
is objective and there was no need for defence.
No one pleaded guilty out of nine alleged conspirators in the
'&
LUBEN TODOROV BUEV
Mladenovo conspiracy, not because they were heroes; simply because
they had nothing to confess.
Efrem Mitev and I had the same lawyer. Immediately after the court
hearing he was arrested and sentenced for his daring and courage.
The parents of Jordan Georguiev Stoyanov and Assen Petkov Doudov
under the pressure of the State Security hired another lawyer who promised them to secure "mitigating circumstances" if they pleaded guilty
and accused the others for misleading them. But Assen and Dancho did
not yield to that cunning fabrication and they refused to be defended by
that lawyer.
This was the end of the vicious Communist insinuation to suppress
the truth with lies and legalise a non existent, fabricated conspiracy.
As a matter of fact they legalised it in their own way.
They held the detention places, investigators, prosecutors, judges and
prisons.
At that time they were busy staging the notorious trial of Traicho
Kostov. Like me, he refused to plead guilty and they had to quickly
adopt a new legislation, which provided that "irrespective of whether
you plead or you do not plead guilty to the charge, a sufficient reason
for accusation on an equal footing shall be the testimony of another
defendant in the same trial."
This law proved to be yet another lie. We all plead not guilty and in
spite of that all of us were sentenced.
One day Ivan Kamenov asked me: "Have you read The Young Guard
by Fadeev? You may have been inspired by Oleg Koshevoi's heroism
manifested in coping stoically with fascist torture in the name of Soviet
power and against Nazi invaders. Whose side are you on? You are as
poor as a church mouse. You have no land or capital."
"Now we are all equal, for those who had in the past are now like
me," I replied ready to take the consequences.
"You are a scoundrel and you will remain a scoundrel!" he said and
slammed the door behind him...
''
IN THE ABYSS OF HELL
Milcho Simeonov Prisadashki1
January 1, 1953. Just a month ago I was moved from the army unit
55320 in the town of Harmanly to the town of Razgrad, where at the
Headquarters of the Razgrad division, there was a non-commissioned
Officer School for mounted reconnoitres. I served in a similar platoon
in Harmanly. My regiment, in which I served, was organic to 21st Haskovo
rifle division known as the Black Division. It was assigned the mission,
in a situation of military conflict, to hold back the enemy for 24 hours,
holding positions at the border, until the arrival of reinforcements from
the interior. Therefore, an intense training of all units was conducted
there, just next to the border, in extremely hard circumstances.
We dug trenches and underground shelters during the day, and at
night we served reinforced duty. We were settled in a forest between the
villages of Mezek and Siva Reka, in dugouts, and we slept right on the
straw brought from the co-operative farm. The food was very bad. The
living conditions were unbearable. I fell ill with jaundice there. I spent a
month of medical treatment in the garrison hospital at the division's
headquarters in the town of Haskovo. Then I was given a home leave to
my native Ugarchin. My parents, realising my illness, met me with a
mixed feeling… Both merrily and sadly!
During those twenty days, spent in the countryside, I learned that my
two friends Hristo Vladov and Hristo Kolev form the village of Mikre,
Lovech region, were arrested. Later I got to know, they were brought in
front of court martial together with some other soldiers, and they were
both sentenced to death. As far as I understood, they were sent, together
with some other lads with the same sentence, to the Soviet Union in
order to work for life in some dangerous and hazardous mines. Their
parents were told that they had been executed, and their personal belongings and suits were delivered to them.
I came back from my leave to the barracks in Harmanly, deeply grieved
by this news. I already had in mind that I could be arrested any moment,
because prior to our recruitment to the barracks we had some common
deeds. 1951 and 1952 were hard years, full of strain, total terror on
behalf of the Communist authorities, especially in the countryside. At
1
The author was born in the village of Ugurchin (now a town), Lovech district.
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
that time, a total campaign for forcing the farmers to enter into the
newly established co-operative farms, named Labour Co-operative Agricultural Farms (LCAF), was undertaken by the government. The peasants resisted. They did not want to voluntarily give their land, cattle and
stock, by which they fed their families, as the only possibility to make a
living and to survive in the post-war hunger. Whole military units from
the internal troops were brought to assist the local authorities and together with the local Party-members they conducted day-and-night terror over the defenceless peasants. Murders took place in the villages.
Thus, in the village of Dermantsi, Lukovit region, Neko Marinov's mother
and sister were killed. In the village of Nikolaevo, three men were killed
in a clash while the peasants were taking back their cattle from the cooperative yard. The people with their bare arms, with pitchforks, shovels, axes, scythes, and sticks stood bravely and with dedication against
the military unit armed a hundred times better. An unbearable strain
was created in the country. In such an atmosphere I was ordered back to
Razgrad. We saw the New 1953 in with several people in the stables,
where we served duty on servicing the horses available in the unit. On
the next day, I was sent to carry the platoon soldiers' washing to the
garrison laundry, which was in the unit's yard. I had just delivered it,
when I saw my platoon sergeant Christov coming, short of breath, telling me gaspingly:
"Private Prisadashki, go quickly to the platoon commander, because
you are being sent on an assignment," he ordered.
Initially the news amazed me. Only a month ago I had arrived from
Harmanly, and now a new assignment. I went to the platoon commander,
and he gave me some draft for food ration while specially warning me
that I would leave without my personal arms, and that I would receive
another weapon at the unit where I was going. And I would receive the
assignment order itself from the Division Headquarters. I went to the
food store, and I had just entered when a soldier entered after me, but
as I saw him, his face arose doubts in me as he looked too old for a
soldier.
"Are you private Prisadashki?" I looked at him.
"Yes. That's me!"
"Hurry up or you'll miss the train!" I looked at him once again.
He seemed too old to be a regular soldier...
"Are you going to travel with me, too?" I asked.
"No! They asked me from the Division Headquarters to inform you."
TALES FROM THE DARK
"Ha, ha," I laughed. "From the Division Headquarters?" And I
thought, "Where does he know me from, and he is calling me by family
name even, and coming to me directly?"
I went to the division headquarters. The "Intruder" followed me. I
went to the second floor and he followed me again. I found the number
of the room that was given to me by the platoon commander, and I
knocked and entered, and with an arm lifted in a soldier's manner, I
reported.
"Private Prisadashki reports at your order..."
A fair-haired officer rose from his chair behind the desk in front of
me and, without receiving the report, raised a machinegun against me
and snapped out loudly:
"Hands up! Don't move!"
In the meantime the "intruder" rushed into the room after me. At
that moment I recollected suddenly that this very officer would every
day, when we had lessons in the studies, open the door, look inside and
close it.
"So this guy," I said to myself, "is the special military counterintelligence cop".
"Do you see this private? You will follow him where he tells you!
You are under arrest. You shall not stop nor talk to any soldier! Is that
clear?!" he asked me commandingly. I kept silent. My brain worked
overburdened...
"Private, if he moves away and breaks my orders, shoot him down."
"Yes sir, comrade first lieutenant! I shall kill him like a dog! I will
not bat an eyelid at all. Isn't that the reason I gave an oath to our Party,
to serve it truly and faithfully?"
We set off. We passed through the courtyard. We walked out of the
garrison and headed towards the town, which was located rather far
from the military unit. Before long a jeep caught up with us and stopped.
Several civilians jumped out of it and shoved us inside. After about half
an hour's trip around Razgrad the jeep stopped in front of a building. A
soldier stood on post in front of it. I was taken out and shoved into a
room where a civilian started interrogating me. Two others came. They
made me strip naked and began ransacking my soldier's clothes. They
turned the pockets inside out. They checked the hems of the trousers
and the jacket. They checked the boots. They made me bend down.
What were they looking for at the back, I didn't know. They probably
feared that I had hidden poison, and thus they wanted to prevent me
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
from committing suicide... At that time another soldier came in, almost
my age, with two strips on the shoulder strap. They left him to guard me.
The others went out somewhere. Then they came back and made me put
on my clothes. Then they put the "intruder" and me, in the jeep and
drove us to the railway station. They dropped us, and the jeep went
back. The "intruder" went to arrange for the travelling tickets, while the
junior sergeant and I remained outside the platform. The cold and the
piercing winter breeze froze our faces quickly. The interesting thing was
that they did not take my belt, as was the practice when arresting a
soldier. Maybe in this way they wanted no one to realise, if they saw I
was under arrest. They obviously wanted to hide my detention.
"Where will we be travelling to?" I asked the junior sergeant.
"To the town of Pleven."
I felt by his reply that he felt some sympathy for me."
"I see!..." I whispered to myself.
He was also a country boy from some Bulgarian village. His parents
were also suffering under the excessive conditions imposed on them by
the Communist authorities that wanted a quota: meat, milk, wool, eggs,
and whatever else they could think of. And any peasant, who did not
succeed in fulfilling those obligations set to him by the authorities, was
sentenced and taken to prison.
On 2 January, at 1 a.m. the train from Russe arrived at the Pleven
railway station. It was beastly cold. The town was covered with a snowsheet. The snow was continuously coming down, and there was not a
living soul in the streets of the frozen town. I did not know why, but I
was driven on foot towards the centre of the town, passing by the channel. The vehicles of the public transport had also stopped services. Perhaps there were taxicabs at the station, but God knew why they did not
prefer to use their services. The guide was "the boss", and not the junior
sergeant who was entitled by seniority to be such. Everything became
clear to me...
We headed towards the centre. But where the State Security office
was situated I did not know. I did not show interest and I never had to.
After about an hour we got to the square in front of the mausoleum with
the cannons. We turned left. A nice building rose at the left-hand side of
the square. It was constructed in the beginning of the century. As a
child, when I had been with my father to Pleven, he had told me: " This
is the Audit Office". We climbed the snow-covered steps and stopped in
front of the big wooden door. He rang the bell and after a while the door
!
TALES FROM THE DARK
opened. A fat man in uniform with one wide strip on the shoulder strap
came out half-asleep. I managed to see his swollen face in the insufficient light coming from the inside. The "Intruder" entered. After a while
the door opened again. The fat man shoved me inside. He closed the
door after me. And the two convoys remained outside. The fat man gave
orders to some cops, and they began stripping my clothes off and ransacking me, in the same way as in Razgrad. After they finished the search,
they took me down some stairs, leading to the basement of the building.
In fact the State Security prisoners' cells were located there. Two or
three corridors were adapted for this purpose. They made me stop in
front of cell No 19. They opened the wooden door and shoved me inside.
"Watch him! ..." It seemed that they gave the order to the militiaman
on duty, who did not stop circling around the cells all night. However
silently he stepped, I felt him stopping in front of my cell. He seemed to
have some nose disease, for he was sniffing with his nostrils all the time
and this exposed his whereabouts. Dressed in a thick fur coat, instead
of regular boots he wore some thick Russian boots made of felt. It was
beastly cold in the basement. The cell was about one meter eighty long
and a meter wide. Beneath, a bare cement floor. The walls alongside all splashed with dry bloodstains. And because I was exhausted of this
long travelling, I stretched myself on the cement floor. I took off my
soldier's boots, folded them one over the other and used them as a
pillow. I buttoned the cap bellow the chin, so that at once I felt a relief
from the unbearable cold. I stuck my hands in the sleeves of the soldier's
overcoat and I fell in a deep sleep. I didn't know what time during the
night it was, but some strong hits on my legs woke me up. I saw how the
warder on duty, with two other men like him kicked me in the legs
malicious and frightened.
"Hey skunk, what's the matter with you?"
I had probably started snoring because of the uncomfortable position of my body. The man on duty had heard me, and frightened that I
might have hung myself, immediately sounded the alarm and came
together with the other warders to find out what was happening to me.
"You shall not lie down! Do you hear, you skunk? You will get us into
trouble. You will sleep on your ass. Give me the cap, give me the cap over
here!" They grabbed it from my head like vultures. I stayed in such a way
until the morning. The clattering of the cell locking bars woke me up.
They began taking the detainees out of the cells for toilet, one by one, so
"
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
that the occupants of one cell could not meet the occupants of another.
Even the guards did not speak, but only whistled. All men on duty from
the shift gathered when calling to the toilet began. One opened the door,
another convoyed the detainee, and a third one watched the detainee in
the toilet. They did not let us close the toilet door in order to be able to
watch unless someone did something and committed suicide. It seemed
that they had a female detainee as I heard her voice, because on her attempt to close the door, the warder growled out.
"Don't close it, bitch!" he screamed wildly. "How many times do we
have to tell you?!"
"Is it my ass you want to see, you scoundrel? Look at your chick's
ass, not at mine," she answered him...
On the run, for about half an hour, using of the toilet ended. At
around ten o'clock the cell was opened and a two-meter tall, broadshouldered, tough captain entered. He asked me about my name and
put it down in some notebook. I was thinking, "This should be the guy in
charge of beating. He was writing my schedule for tonight." He closed
the door.
Thus a day, two days passed - no one was asking for me. I was not
taken anywhere for inquiry. At last on Monday, I was taken upstairs
where the inquiry offices of the investigators were situated. We stopped
in front of one of them and I was shoved inside. A man in an officer's
greatcoat was sitting behind the desk. Slim, tall, with pimpled face and
blond hair.
"I will be your investigator. My name is lieutenant Mladenov. I hope
that we will come to terms with you and the investigation will pass
without misunderstandings." And while he was speaking with me, he
took out of the desk drawer his gun and put it on top so that I could see
it well from the chair next to the door, where the guard made me sit.
"Do you know what you have been here for?" asked the investigator.
"No!"
"So that's that, we brought you here for nothing?"
I kept silent.
"It depends on you how the investigation will proceed! If you confess
and you are candid, we will let you go... If not - the bullet! A man like you
stood up to me, did not listen to me, and got the lead... So, think it over."
"Dear me," I was thinking, "this one will turn out to be a dog in a
man's skin."
"I have nothing to say!"
#
TALES FROM THE DARK
"You will say! You will say! We have seen such..."
And he began in a roundabout way with quite innocent questions. About
my mom, about my dad, did they know that I was there? When was the
last time I wrote a letter to them? Was my girlfriend calling on me? Questions like that all the time, which had nothing to do with what I was there
for. Nothing in particular that would prompt me what he knew and what
he did not know... I was waiting for him to let the cat out of the bag, but he
did not. He wanted to confuse me in a very smart way and to catch me in
his trap. He pressed the bell button and the guard came in.
"Take him in. To ripen... he is not ready yet."
He drove me back to the basement. But instead of cell 19, this time
he stopped me in front of cell 21. He opened the door and kicked me
inside. The lock banged behind me. I saw a man opposite to me. A
young man, like myself. Dressed in labour conscript clothes. Hollowcheeked. Pale. With a beard four fingers long. He was sitting quietly on
the cement as if nothing had happened. I stood and looked at him. I
looked at him and wondered. What kind of a bird was that one? I could
not yet make heads or tails of the situation. This was the first detainee I
had seen after my arrival. And I was aware that the cells are full. I had
even already read the name of Stoyan Dobrev from the village of
Dragana, Lovech region, roughly scratched on a food mug. The same
man was sentenced to death together with his son-in-law and another
person from the same village.
"Where do you come from?" asked my new acquaintance.
"From the village of Ugarchin, Lovech region... And you?"
"From the village of Debelets, Veliko Tarnovo region."
And I saw him glance at the peephole all the time...
"We should not to speak at all!" and he pointed to his ear with a
finger on his mouth. "They have brought you to me in order to spy on
you..."
"Ha, ha... So that's how it is!"
We spent several days in complete silence, without uttering a single
word. I was taken out for investigation at one moment, and so was he
at another. The investigator interrogated me in a roundabout way. He
asked me questions. However, I answered in a relaxed way, with arguments sufficient enough in order to be able to refute the charges that
were brought against me. One day he took me to a large office. It was
a Thursday. The second week of my detention. Along the wall there
was a crowd of individuals in uniforms. Seated in armchairs, they be$
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
gan cross-examining me. The first one, sitting next to me, asked me a
question. I had not finished my answer, when I heard another question asked by someone else. Thus, I was bombarded by questions from
every direction. Questions of different nature. Without them even
waiting for me to answer to every one of the questions. This might
have been a psychological impact attempt?! To exert influence on me
and to confuse me.
However, I succeeded in not giving in… They were asking their questions, but I was not in a hurry to give an answer. This proved a failure,
as well. I was brought back to my cell. Who knows what the other
occupant had said before me? Maybe he had said that I had been as
mute as a poker, and I did not utter a single word. The next day, on
Friday, I was taken again to investigator Mladenov's office. He started
convincing me gently to confess, and to say who had made me write
fly-sheets and organise the youths. He was telling me that I had been
young and foolish, and that the others would get punished, while for
me it was only to name them. I was asked about a teacher of mine, as
well - Georgi Paraskov from Gotze Delchev who worked in the
Ugurchin High School. Well…yes, however I had been expelled and
had left the Ugurchin High School long ago, so there was no match
here…. I was asked about Kolyo Pushkov (son of Dimitar Pushkov,
Levski's collaborator), however he was too old for me to be able to be
in contact with him. Again no fit… But the investigator did not stop. He
continued persuading me that they knew it all and that they were waiting to see when I would stop being thick-headed. Later on, Kolyo
Pushkov was put in prison. Another person had been found who had
agreed, so they framed him in such a way that he was given 15 years.
And he was even blamed for allegedly having taken a weapon from
uncle Kolyo, as well.
"You will get the bullet, as I see it, with your thick-headedness. I
have sent many individuals to execution, and you will not get away,
either."
"This is your business!" I said to him. "What can I do if I am tied up
here. It is an easy job to shoot down a tied person…"
"So, you are not willing to tell us about what you perpetrated, and to
co-operate with the investigation?!"
"I don't have an idea what should I be remorseful of."
The investigator got angry. He hit the desk with his fists. The escort
jumped in the office, as if stung.
%
TALES FROM THE DARK
"Take this rag of a man to the solitary confinement cell to rot there so
that he could learn sense!"
"Yes, Sir!"
He took me out and led me to the solitary confinement cell in the
basement, holding me tightly by the neck. Downstairs he opened a dungeon that was one meter long and one meter wide. Two tough guys from
the security seemed to be waiting for me. They came down upon me.
"Undress quickly and leave only the under-vest and the shorts, and
you'll see the hospitality here."
I had not yet entered, when other two men brought in two buckets
full of ice. They poured the ice in the middle of the solitary confinement cell
"Step on the ice you son of a bitch, you are playing tricks on the
investigator, aren't you?"
I stepped on it. The ice cold captured my soles.
"Do not move or we will finish you off right away!"
They brought two more buckets of ice and buried my legs almost up
to my knees. I felt freeze at the beginning. Later on, however, as if my
body got used and adjusted to it. They closed the door of the dungeon,
and one warder was placed before it to watch through the peephole that
I would not move. Some light hardly filtered from the barely flickering
electric bulb through a little window above the door, covered with a net.
I had the unpleasant feeling as if I was in a grave. The guard lifted the
peephole cover from time to time. He kept his glance on me, and then
he put the cover down, hiding behind the door of the dungeon.
The day slowly approached sunset. A noise was heard from the corridors. Someone started to scream. Curses were heard. Blows echoed.
Pouring out of water… and then - silence again. Death-like silence. And
I was standing there silent. I got ambitious. I would die, if I had to, but
I would not say things that were not true. They, on their part, demanded,
demanded…insisted…. Listed lots of names to me. Their number increased
every day. But I had heard that should one fall in the claws of the militia, one should keep one's mouth shut throughout the investigation. To
involve as few people as possible in one's affairs.
The doors began clicking again. The mugs began clinking. It was
clear. The evening had come. There, they began opening the cells and
pouring out the food. But the door of my underground cell did not
move. Nobody opened it. It meant that I was punished. Not only I was
placed in ice, but was deprived of food, as well. In fact, I did not feel
&
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
hungry. My grief had eaten me from inside. I was less concerned with
myself and much more with my parents. They were old and worn out,
already. They had buried five children before my birth. And here were
these people now, digging my grave, too.
The clicking of cell door bars was heard again. Opening. Closing. They
were taking them out to the toilet. They washed the mugs, used the toilet
and - back to the cell. This was the routine. And thus day after day…
Repeating one and the same thing. Well, in the solitary confinement cell it
was a different story. One stood and talked to oneself. One talked to the
four walls. One reflected… One weighed everything in ones mind and
memory. The body was burdened… However, the mind was free as a bird!
Unrestrained and independent! One could fly wherever one wanted in
their thoughts. To the village. To friends. To one's beloved. To roam restlessly through the vast woods of one's birthplace. And then, to find shelter
again in one's cursed body. Here in this icy cell. A state, which is difficult
to describe… It was hard for the human mind to grasp the cruelty designed
with such inventiveness by the torturers. And the ice, although slowly,
melted under the influence of my body's temperature.
Silence fell. From time to time I was hearing shouts coming from this
sniffing animal, dressed in militia garments…
"Stand up! Do not lie down! Do you hear me you bloody bastard?"
he was kicking the door with the boots. "This is not a hotel!"
The buzz of a transformer could be heard from somewhere. It seemed
that it provided low voltage power to these hardly flickering lamps in
front of each cell. As a result of this twilight, one got the feeling as if one
were in a grave, in the very abyss, in HELL!
"Sit down! No one has permitted you to stand up!"
"I got stiff," answered a voice.
"I'll call my mates to shake you and heal you… Ha, ha, ha! Silence
again! And again ominous expectation hovered in the air."
"Lie down! Lie down!" the voices of the warders were herd.
"Lie down and go to sleep. I do not want to hear any whispering…"
So it was already ten o'clock. This was the detainees' bedtime. We
went to sleep at ten PM, and got up at five AM. I heard someone knock
on a door.
"What do you want, you bastard?!"
"I need to go to the toilet."
"Do it in your pants."
A moment of silence. The bar clicked…
'
TALES FROM THE DARK
"Come on! Hurry up!" and they began beating him because he addressed them out of the rules…
"Do not slow down! Do not slow down! Do you hear me, you bastard? Asshole!"
Here he was. Coming back. Trotting impatiently towards the cell.
Again, club hits. And the bar again. And silence again.
The bar of my dungeon clicked, too. The ice had diminished. It had
almost melted down. The water had spread on the cement. Whistling
was heard. Two warders ran in with a bucket, broom, and a shovel.
They collected the water. "Dried" the cement floor. And here, as if
upon a command, another two were fetching the buckets filled with ice.
The same process again. They put it in the middle. I step on it. And
once again my legs were buried up to the knees. They closed the bar.
And silence again. Only the buzzing of the transformer was to be heard.
And here I was again alone with the four walls, and that animal sniffing
with his nose. My legs were almost frozen. Completely benumbed. As if
made of wood. There I was, standing in the ice and thinking of that
thought of Maxim Gorki's2: "Human: there is a ring of pride in the
word!" Where was the pride? What was the pride of those monsters,
created as "humans" by virtue of nature's improvidence? They were
crueler and more malicious than beasts. Could one call those "human
beasts" men? I was thinking. Reflecting. My life was of no importance
to me any more. If there had been any hope in me - it had vanished. It
had sunk somewhere down in the ice, in the water spreading on the
cement. One night and one day - as if they were a whole week…The
second day. Saturday…The third day. Sunday…all the same…and the same
again… Opening of the dungeon. Throwing of the water out. Ice again.
No moving again. I began urinating ever more frequently. My mouth
went dry. My legs were benumbed. They disobeyed me. They gave in
and I hit the door. I stood up again. I wanted to take control of my legs,
but this was only a moment. Only seconds. And there behind the door,
the mean laughter of the torturer was to be heard…
"Ha, ha, ha!!!" and nothing else. He lifted the peephole cover. He
threw a glance at me, and again, "Ha, ha, ha!!!": the same mean laughter all the time. The ice had melted. The water had spread on the cement. And, oh Lord, all of a sudden I saw some cables to the side, next
to the wall. I felt relaxed. End of the torture. I would bite one of them…and
that would be the end. However, what a pity indeed - this was only a
2
A famous Soviet writer.
MILCHO SIMEONOV PRISADASHKI
hallucination as a result of the cold and fatigue, the sleeplessness and
hunger, and dehydration.
It was already Monday. The new week was ensuing. I did not know
what the time was. The bar clicked. The door was opened.
"Get out!"
I was trying to make a step, but I could not. My right led was completely stiff. I was dragged out of the cell. They gave me the pair of
breeches, but I could not put it on. They cut the breech legs and made
me slip into them. My legs were swollen. They put socks on my legs, but
the boots could not take in my swollen legs.
"Move!"
I made efforts, but my legs fully refused to obey. The two tough guys
from the security took me under the arms, and began dragging me to
the investigator's office. They brought me in. They put me on a chair.
And it was as hot as hell inside. I remember that much. The rest has
been obliterated from my memory. I probably collapsed… When I regained consciousness, I saw that I was in a different cell. I did not remember how and when I had been placed there. Inside - a detainee. He
had a soldier's uniform on, as well. He had been given soldier's blankets to cover himself with. Strange business. Who was this guy? They
were taking him out in the morning. And they were bringing him back
in the evening. And all the time he was telling stories… All the time
complaining… He had been kept hungry. Fatigued by inquiries. They
had intended to blast powder magazines. They had intended to set the
barracks on fire. They had intended to blast the staff… I was listening to
him, and I was wondering where his brains were. Probably, he wanted
to challenge me, too, to tell him that we had been intending to do the
same. However, after having spent two days with him, something impressed me. In the evening we were taken out for toilet. And this guy
"the hungry one", "the fatigued one", who had not been in the cell
whole day long, in the evening he drank half a soldier's mug of water…
And I, due to the hunger, could hardly drink two swallows, and look at
him?!... This made me suspicious. What kind of a bird was he?! I was
not taken out to the investigator any more. I had ulcers on my legs due
to the freezing. Some doctor came to treat me. To smear my ulcers with
some kind of ointments. God knew what. However, the ulcers kept bursting and bleeding…The nails of my toes fell out.
One day, it must have been February already, I was brought a small
hard bit of home-made bread.
TALES FROM THE DARK
"This is from your father. Eat…"
Thank God, my father had found me at last! I was eating and crying.
Crying with joy, and not with pain, that my parents already knew where
their son was. I had never eaten more delicious bread in my life! I would
always remember it.
After a week I was brought underwear for change, some bread again,
and a piece of a hen. I changed my clothes. I took off the dirty clothes,
and I thought …How could I communicate to my parents what my condition was…The clothes I was giving for laundry from the inside out,
would not be searched for sure. When I was brought in, I was searched
most carefully. I took one chicken bone, I dipped it in the bleeding
ulcer, and I wrote by blood on the shirt. I folded the underwear, and I
handed it out. Until this point everything was smooth and calm. Saturday passed. Sunday passed. An on Monday I was taken to the investigator. He was angry, and he met me with curses from the doorway.
"You bastard, you would like to be a greater conspirator than us,
wouldn't you?" he took out the shirt from the desk. "Only a bullet will
make you straight, nothing else…"
I was taken back to the same cell. The other guy, who was telling me
big stories, was not there any more. Neither he nor the blankets were
there. Evidently, he had betrayed me. He was no detainee. Simply, he
was an ear of the cops…Thus, I saw him no more, neither in the Pleven
prison, nor in the Belene prison, where I spent almost four years of
penal servitude in back-breaking labour, close confinement, with 320 g
of bread daily ration. I received and sent one letter in four months and
one parcel of four kilograms for the same period. It was good that I was
young and healthy, so I could endure. The older ones died, and were
taken to the Magaretza Island, I pray to God that what I had gone
through should never happen to anyone!
TO BURN OUT BEFORE YOU SHINE
Yanko Dimov Tokmakov
It was the morning of 6 April 1948. The peasants were awakening after
their night sleep when we heard somebody knocking at the door of my
parents' house. My mother looked through the window and said to my
father:
"Dimo, the house is surrounded by soldiers. Captain Atanassov is
waiting at the door." My father went downstairs and opened the
door.
"I am looking for Yanko," I heard captain Atanassov saying. "We
need some information from him."
I got up, put my clothes on and went downstairs.
"You must come with me to the barracks," he said.
I was escorted to the barracks by captain Atanassov and two armed
soldiers. In his office captain Atanassov delivered a cutting blow at my
throat and knocked me down.
"I got you at last, little green worm. You have organised the whole
village against us. I am going to make your life difficult! The village was
not big enough for you so you have expanded your operations on the
whole territory of the district of Michourin," he said.
After a while I was taken to a room where I saw 10-15 men from my
village. They kept us in that room all day long. In the evening they gave
a piece of bread to everyone. In the morning we were tied in twos and
conducted to the town of Malko Turnovo. On the way to the town captain Atanassov used a peculiar method to scare us - he forced us to go
into the forest in twos and fired shots above our heads in order to extort
confessions.
We were conducted to the headquarters of the border troops in the
town of Malko Turnovo. They forced us into a detention room and then
called us one by one to the second floor to be interrogated. I was one of
the first men to be called. When I entered the room I saw an officer who
was a lieutenant colonel and two civilians. The lieutenant colonel jumped
from his chair, took a stick from the desk, grasped my hair, knocked me
down and put my head between his legs. I cannot remember how long
he beat me but when he stopped and I stood up I saw only the metal
part of the stick in his hand. I was put with my back leaning against the
wall. Two men grasped me under my arms (I was unable to walk after
!
TALES FROM THE DARK
the severe beating), took me out of the inquisition room and down the
stairs to the detention room.
In the evening we were forced into an army truck and ordered to lie
on the floor face down. There were two benches in the truck and the
armed soldiers were sitting on them. They threw a canvas over us. In the
driver's cabin I saw an officer (I cannot remember what his rank was).
We were warned that those who moved or tried to run away would be
shot. I had been beaten severely and I tried to move a little so that I
could feel more comfortable but one of the soldiers dealt me a heavy
blow with the butt-stock of his light-machine gun.
The distance between Malko Turnovo and Bourgas was 70 kilometres.
In Bourgas the truck stopped in front of the building of the district
department of the Ministry of Interior. The soldiers got off the truck.
As they were removing the canvass, I heard someone asking:
"Are you carrying people or animals!?"
We were brought to the canteen. It was late, about midnight. There
were no tables or chairs in the canteen so we had to lie on the cement
floor. I had been severely beaten and I fell asleep immediately. I was
awakened by someone who was saying to me:
"Get up or you will become stiff with cold."
In the morning all arrested men besides me were put in one room. I
was moved to a small storeroom where they kept empty barrels and old
mattresses. I remained in that room for several days. I made myself a
bed - I put two mattresses on the floor and another two over me. Later
I was moved to an old lavatory and cuffed for 24 hours. In the morning
the sergeant who was in charge of the regime came, unlocked the door
and began to beat me with his clenched fists.
"You will not leave this place alive! Your bones will remain here!" he
said, unchained my handcuffs and stuffed my mouth with stale bread.
"Eat, you blockhead! I'll be back in five minutes. Hurry up and eat your
bread because I'll put your handcuffs on again."
In a while he was back, put the cuffs on my hands, kicked me several
times and locked the door. On the next day he moved me to a cellar in
handcuffs again. The cellar was a coal store. The night was nightmarish.
All night I felt big rats moving between my legs. In the morning I was
taken out of the cellar and brought to the same storeroom for barrels
and mattresses. Later in the prison in Bourgas I was told that the same
sergeant had died in a firing incident in the vineyards near Bourgas.
One day when I was in the prison in Bourgas a strange man came to my
"
YANKO DIMOV TOKMAKOV
cell. He said he had been arrested for espionage for the Turkish government. He spent a few days in my cell. The nights he spent elsewhere, in
another prison, he said. In the morning he came to my cell and after
two or three hours they called him to be interrogated and he did not
come back to my cell. That man kept persuading me to get out of the
cell through a small window, to jump from the cement roof of the storeroom and along Bogoridi St. to run away to Turkey. He complained that
he would be sentenced to death because he had been charged with espionage. I realised what instructions had been given to him with regard
to me and that the man was actually an agent provocateur. Therefore I
refused. I told him that my native village was 8 kilometres from the
Turkish border and that I had no intention to run away from Bulgaria.
The aim was transparent - to shoot me on the cement roof for attempted
flight. After several days of persuasion I refused to run away and I never
saw that agent provocateur again.
Yanko Stoyanov was the investigator who interrogated me. He was a
good man. He used no violence against me. The investigation lasted
about 40 days. When it was over some of the people were released,
whereas a group of 10 men was sent to the prison in Bourgas. I was
among them.
The Prisons
In the prison in Bourgas I spent about 6 months awaiting indictment
and a court trial. In that prison I was in a solitary confinement. I was
allowed to go out of the cell and go to the lavatory in the morning, at
noon and in the evening. I was not allowed any contacts with other
people: only the warder with the clinking keys. After my indictment
had come through I was allowed to see my lawyer. I received letters and
parcels but had no right to see any visitors. When I obtained my indictment I understood that the charge against me was very serious and
according to one of the articles death sentence was envisaged. During
one of his visits my lawyer told me that even if I had threatened the
overall population of Bourgas I could not be sentenced to more than 15
years of imprisonment because I had not come of age yet.
The court trial began. In the morning they would take us to the prison
yard. We were cuffed in pairs. In addition, I had a chain weighing 25
kilos. We walked several kilometres to the district court in Bourgas under close guard. I was always at the head of the group. The aim was
#
TALES FROM THE DARK
obvious - to scare the citizens of Bourgas, to prove that those in power
were stronger and to give a lesson to the followers of Nikola Petkov1.
The trial lasted several days. The prosecutor pleaded for the heaviest
punishment - death penalty or life imprisonment but as they were not
permitted by law he demanded at least 15 years of imprisonment. I was
sentenced to 8 years of close confinement. I filed an appeal against the
sentence and it was reduced to 4 years. After 2-3 months in the prison
in Bourgas I was moved to the prison in Rousse. I though it was for the
better to be away from Bourgas and the people who wanted my death.
What happened was more like out of the frying pan into the fire.
The prison in Rousse was an old two-storey building with thick
stone walls. There was nothing else in the cells but a long wooden
plank-bed - from the one end of the long cell to the other. The wooden
plank-beds were half a metre high. Twenty-five prisoners could be
accommodated in such a cell. We were 40 in a cell. The criminals
were kept in wooden huts at the end of the town. The plank-beds were
overcrowded and we used to lie under them on our blankets. The regime was extremely rigid. The director and the chief warder were beasts
with a bent for inquisition. They would mark down a political prisoner and would subject him to severe inquisition. When they called a
prisoner after the roll call in the evening we would hear terrible cries
and screams. The prisoner would be brought back later by two warders and thrown in the middle of the room. In some cases the maltreated prisoner could not recover for days.
Food was very bad. It was not good even for pigs. The parcels, which
we received every three months, were from 1 to 5 kilograms. They kept
them in the prison for some time so that the foodstuffs were usually
spoiled when we received the parcels. There was only one bucket in the
cell, which we used as a toilet. When it was full we had to use our mugs.
In the morning we threw away the urine and they put the food into the
mug. The lavatories and taps were in the yard. In the morning when we
were let to go to the lavatory and the tap the first thing we usually did
was to go to the rubbish bin and collect left-overs thrown by the people
in the kitchen - cabbage, carrots, leeks, etc. because we were very hungry.
One morning the chief warder came into the cell and said:
"Those who hear their names must pack up and go to the yard. We
are sending you to the quarry in the village of Pirgovo, district of Rousse."
1
The main opposition leader, executed by the Communists after a false trial.
$
YANKO DIMOV TOKMAKOV
Again only the names of political prisoners with heavy records were
called. I said to myself: "If it is a quarry it'll be a hard job but the air
will be fresh at least and maybe the food will be better."
We were transported in trucks under close guard. In half an hour we
reached the village of Pirgovo. We were put up in huts surrounded with
high wire-net. In the huts we saw the same wooden two-storey plankbeds. The place was heavily guarded. We were not allowed to have any
contacts with the guards. The chief warder was a sergeant from the
prison in Sofia. It was obvious that he was a very severe man with a
savage nature, on bad terms with any humane feeling - a typical beast.
He would not take any complaints. For him we were the worst Bulgarians who deserved to be hung. Later I understood that the same warder
was the man whom they called The Uncle in the prison in Sofia who
had put the rope round Nikola Petkov's neck and executed him.
Every morning we marched to the quarry. It was 500 metres away on
the bank of the Danube. So on the one side we saw the quiet Danube, on
the other side - stone walls in the form of a horseshoe, 15-20 metres
high. The political prisoners worked in the lowest part of the quarry.
After the blasts organised by their loyal people (whom we called "the
bombers" because they were the only ones allowed to use explosives)
we had to cut the big stones into pieces. We broke the stone into pieces
with the help of a pick, spade or hammer and arranged the pieces in
figures. Then we transported the stones to the barges, which stopped at
special places near the bank. The food was bad and the working conditions were bad too. One day we saw that the waves were driving a skinless horse towards the bank of the river. The horse had fallen from the
rocks. The owners had taken the skin and thrown the body into the
river. The waters of the Danube were driving the body along the bank.
We went to the bank, asked for permission and dragged the horse onto
the bank. We cut pieces from the horse (we were allowed to have with
us small pocket-knives), boiled the meat in empty tins and ate it. The
guards were standing on the high stone walls laughing at us:
"Eat, you dogs! This is more than you deserve!"
We had to carry on our backs 4-5 metre long beams at the distance of
500 metres - from the rafts to the huts. Those who refused were beaten
severely, detained and deprived of the right to receive letters and parcels. The regime became worse when two political prisoners, Angel and
Stoyan, escaped from the camp. They did not catch them. Then the
interrogations of the most suspicious people began - Stoyan Parashkevov
%
TALES FROM THE DARK
from Bourgas, who was G.M. Dimitrov's2 best man, and colonel Gergov,
from Nikola Petkov's court trial. It was a miracle that I was not interrogated. In the end the authorities said that no other people had been
involved and the two runaways had been on their own.
Before the winter came I was moved to the coal pit in Bogdanov Dol.3
I was put up in a hostel only for political prisoners. The notorious captain Gershanov was the chief. He was a short stout man, extremely cruel,
a beast. We worked in two shifts in the coal pit. The second shift was
very dangerous. Several times when I was leaving the pit I heard gunshots. They put the people that had been marked at the end of the line
and then, at "attempted flight", the worst happened. I spent the winter
in Bogdanov Dol. In the spring I was moved to the prison in Stara Zagora.
The regime there was better. The prison was like the one in Bourgas new, with better hygiene. In one of the wings on the second and the third
floors there were only two political prisoners in one cell. Before and
after lunch we were let to take a walk in the square of the prison. There
was even a volleyball playground and we used to stretch a net and play.
Perhaps the regime was softer for me because I had to stay only a couple
of months more to serve my sentence. I received parcels from my parents regularly. When I was allowed to see my father for the first time, I
was very upset by the news about my grandmother's death and the internment of my parents to the village of Ichera, district of Kotel.
My anxiety grew when I understood that many political prisoners
were directly sent to Belene4 without a court trial. We all had heard
about Belene. I was lucky again not to be sent to Belene. A month
before I was released from the prison where I had been isolated in a
room in the attic and had no contacts with the other political prisoners.
When I was leaving the prison they told me:
"You must go to the village of Ichera, district of Kotel. Your parents
and all your family had been interned there for an indefinite period of
time…"
An important opposition leader, who managed to escape and leave Bulgaria before the
Communists laid their hands on him.
3
One of the concentration camps.
4
The worst concentration camp.
2
&
5361 DAYS
Dimiter Stoev Dimitrov
It was four o'clock in the morning of 28 April 1948. In the stillness of
the night only a dog's barking or a cock's crow here and there proved
that there was some life in the village of Yankovo. All of a sudden the
silence was broken by the whirring sound of a truck, covered with canvass, and a jeep. They stopped in front of the Municipal Council building. A group of militiamen and State Security agents from the town of
Shoumen arrived in the village of Yankovo to arrest a group of peasants
who were suspected of being enemies to the official power -"counterrevolutionaries" as the authorities called them. It was a very cold morning because of the night frost. The gang of executioners was not thinking of the frost and was not afraid that it might touch the blossoms of
the fruit-trees. No, not them, I believe.
They were rather obsessed by the passion of hunters and were longing for the moment when they could professionally do the job that had
been assigned to them. After the break-up of the Bulgarian Agrarian
people's Union, which was a party in opposition and the hanging of
Nikola Petkov1 the population in Yankovo did not hide their heads. The
archive of the Agrarian Youth Union was in my house and I did not give
it to the authorities. We were about twenty men and we continued to
organise illegally our educational activities. We were fully aware of the
fact that it could not last long.
Our house, which was a small one, was near the centre of the village.
The house had only two rooms and a small corridor between them. On
that night only my parents and I were at home. Dobri, my elder brother,
was a prisoner in the Stara Zagora garrison prison and my younger
brother Boris was a student in the high school in Shoumen. That was
the night when I had to be arrested together with the other men in the
black list. The Communists who had been involved in conspiratorial
and terrorist activities all their lives, were waging a severe struggle against
their class enemies in 1948, four years after establishing their own power.
This was the time when democracy, personal freedom and freedom of
consciousness were pronounced demonstratively everywhere and with
all possible means. They proclaimed Bulgaria to be a country twice as
democratic as the other countries. At the same time they declared that
1
The main opposition leader, executed by the Communists after a false trial.
'
TALES FROM THE DARK
the existing system was a dictatorship of the proletariat and all those
who dared to challenge the benefits of the system won at a great sacrifice of life would be smashed without any mercy. Where they lacked
enemies, they created them artificially. On that night the marked peasants had to be arrested as enemies. They had to be punished as an
example to the others.
The arrests began. Two civilian agents carrying pistols suddenly rushed
into my room. I was so much taken by surprise that I only managed to
put my elbow on the pillow and I felt the cold handcuffs on my wrists.
From that moment on I became a witness of turbulent developments. I
was standing in the centre of the room and they were putting some clothes
on me. Some civilians entered the room. Two of them were Communists
whom I knew because they lived in our neighbourhood. They looked
more frightened than I did. I was standing with my face to the wall. The
agents searched the room, the attic and the yard as carefully as possible.
Each knot was untied, each thicker seam was undone and all the places
were checked with the greatest of diligence. Objects I had thought to be
lost were taken out of piles of long unused house furniture.
While watching them I was thinking of my mother and father. Did
they know what was going on in my room? Were they in the same
situation? What were my parents thinking at that very moment? Was I
alive? There was no noise, no bangs, only a quite bustle everywhere in
the house. "What have we done to deserve such attention?" thought I. I
heard my mother crying quietly though she was a brave woman. At
such moments mother's love is immense. Maybe she thought it was
only a bad dream. But it was not a dream. It was the reality in the
century for which so many hopes had been cherished. I was silently
watching the tragedy around me like a wolf caught in a trap. It seemed
to me that they needed what I detested. I never knew such a disorder in
our house. About 80 beams that had been prepared for the construction
of a new house were taken out of the barn and scattered all over the
yard. I thought that a lot of people had been involved in that work. The
hay and the straw in the barn, bricks, stones, the dunghill and the wood
shed had been searched in order to find "the thing". Maybe they were
looking for arms.
At last they found a large cannon shell. When the storm troopers saw
it they got panic stricken. Soon they came to their senses (a neighbour
told us) when they saw that the shell was empty. The informer probably
did not know anything about the shell and failed to warn his masters.
DIMITER STOEV DIMITROV
The trotyl and the squib had been taken out and the shell was not dangerous at all. Well, I agree that their disappointment did not equal that
of a group of archaeologists who at last had managed to uncover the
sepulchre of an Egyptian pharaoh to find out that it had been robbed
thousands of years before. Our "archaeologists" did not fall into despair. They took that shell to the court and it was used as material
evidence. Where did the shell come from? In 1945 the army warehouses
near the village of Smyadovo, which was 10 kilometres away from
Yankovo, exploded. After the explosion in the warehouses different types
of arms, all of them burnt and unfit for use, had been scattered in the
forest and the neighbouring fields. The population had been involved in
the gathering of the arms, which had to be buried. Some people had
hidden arms in their houses out of curiosity or necessity. We had taken
the squib out and thrown it in the lavatory. We had used the explosive at
the quarry to cut stones. The search was over within a couple of hours.
They filled a suitcase with the archive of the Agrarian Youth Union,
which had been kept by my brother Dobri, and some other "suspicious"
books. They confiscated a camera, binoculars, the family history book
and many photographs. Under armed convoy of uniformed and civilian
men they brought me handcuffed to the municipality building. My father Stoyu was behind me. All arrested men were put in the truck. I was
forced into the jeep. My mother Staika was alone at home amongst the
chaos and had to cope by herself. When they took me out of the house
I saw my mother. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Her farewell glance
was full of mysterious strength and will and reminded me of the eyes of
all saints walking to their Golgotha. All arrested men were taken to the
State Security in Shoumen. We were all put into cells and rooms.
My two brothers, Maniu and I were in separate cells. It should be
noted that from that moment on I started to live a new life in the empty
and wet cell, a life I had not known anything about before. The bustling
of the officials was a sort of triumph. They looked like people who had
uncovered and made inoffensive very dangerous enemies that had been
able to overtake their "people's" power. Who were we actually and what
were we? The richest of all was a man who possessed 15 acres of arable
land. Later he was declared a kulak2. One of us was a trader who had a
grocer's shop and the rest of us were poorer than they were. Nadya
Racheva was a teacher. My father had 6 acres of land. To make ends
An expression taken from the Bolshevik vocabulary meaning a rich agrarian owner,
synonym of exploiter.
2
TALES FROM THE DARK
meet he had to be a brick-setter, a carter. Those were the people arrested by the State Security, a father and his three sons. I was alone in
the cell and my thoughts were chaotic. I knew one thing for certain those who were not with the Communists were enemies and had to be
brainwashed or destroyed. An armed militiaman was on guard in front
of the cells and I heard his rhythmic clatter on the pavement. I did not
know what his psychic leaven was but he looked like an angry bull with
greenish-brown eyes.
I wondered whether the village people would learn about the activities and the guilt of the arrested people and whether they deserved their
cruel fate. We were all members of the Bulgarian Agrarian People's
Union and the Agrarian Youth Union, which were in opposition prior
to 1947 when they were banned. We believed that the Bulgarian peasants who had fought for their independence for centuries would not put
up with the ox-bow and the cornel joke pins. The present day farmers
are more aware of their position in society. They want to be independent and would hardly agree to be deprived of the opportunity to make
their own living. That is why the people in that village did not conceal
their beliefs and openly expressed them. We were arrested, tormented
and tortured by our executioners who used all known means, because
of the words of the informer. We were treated as an obstacle to the
implementation of further Communist measures in agriculture.
The investigation began. I had to be interrogated by two investigators. One of them was Bombov from Varna, a former expert in conspiratorial work. Half of the time he was swearing. He was a rude, rough
man and very cruel. He threatened me with a death sentence if I continued to deny everything. The time in detention passed very slowly. The
psychic tension was extremely high. I was put under the severest regime, which included standing in the cell near the small door window
(so that the guard could watch me not to sit down), beating, hunger and
thirst. I was not allowed at all to sit down or lie on the bed. I was only
allowed to lie on the wet floor and sleep there for some time fixed by
them. It seemed to me that we were taken out of the cells and brought
to the upper floor to be interrogated by the investigator according to a
special programme. After a short while I already knew in which cells
my brothers Dobri and Boris and my father were. Mid May was just
over. The investigation was crushing the last resistance of the miserable
arrested men. The arrested people endured the severe regime in a different manner. The old men gave in under the pressure and the young
DIMITER STOEV DIMITROV
ones wanted to live. In the end things developed in the way that was
satisfactory for the investigators. They ascertained that in the village of
Yankovo, district of Shoumen, there was an active illegal group of Agrarians, adherents to the opposition, to Nikola Petkov and counterrevolutionaries whose aim was to overthrow the legally established power in
the People's Republic of Bulgaria in an armed way. Dimiter Stoev and
Maniu Kolev were branded as the men who organised the group. I had
to answer the following questions:
- Do you plead guilty?
- Do you confess that you are the organiser of the conspiratorial
group whose task it is to overthrow the people's power?
- What arms are in possession of the organisation?
- Which foreign intelligence centre (they had in mind an U.S. centre)
had given instructions to you and what are your links with such
organisations and with Sofia?
- When have you been recruited by the U.S. intelligence, what activities have you carried out and how much have you been paid (for the
distribution of the grey worm in Bulgaria)?
- What are the plans and tactical actions of the organisation?
- How many illegal meetings have been organised, where and what
decisions have been made?
- What will be your official post after the victory of the counterrevolution in Bulgaria?
Those were the questions I had to answer so that a solid accusation
could be made for which death penalty was certain. According to the
frame-up at least two members of the group had to be destroyed as an
example to the others. The period of hard trial began. What would be the
impact of those eight questions on the body and spirit of an accused
person who was not in any way related to the accusations? I was so weak
that I rested on the walls when I was taken out for interrogation. I lost my
voice - I could only whisper. The time that was given for sleep, the food
and water was only enough to walk and talk. My legs soon became swollen. I could not put my shoes on and walked only in my socks.
Lack of sleep, no water and standing regime were the means of torture
they used. I was not beaten. Some people may say that the said means of
torture seem to be more humane compared to others, which we have
heard or read about. But I was like a man under hypnosis, a man who had
lost his ability to be normal. Coping under such a regime was possible
only if the wretched fellow preferred to die than become a toy in the hands
!
TALES FROM THE DARK
of his torturer. Or if he was a very religious man and life was a period of
transition for him, to believe that all the suffering was an honour to him.
After the tortures I gradually began to lose my identity.
In the end an indictment was produced. It read that a group of adherents to the opposition, counterrevolutionaries from the village of Yankovo,
lead by Dimitar Stoev, Maniu Kolev and me have set themselves the
task of overthrowing the legitimate power and replacing it by the power
of the bourgeoisie with the help of the American imperialism. That was
what we were accused of and that is why we had to be deprived of our
freedom and lives. It was evident that the sentences would not be decided in court, that they would be determined by the State Security. I
was interrogated longer than the other men. The investigation continued
when I was transferred to the prison. They wanted me to tell them about
my links with other districts and Sofia. They wanted me to tell them
where the arms warehouses were and to acknowledge, to my surprise,
that I was an American spy. Perhaps the motive of these naive people
was my application for emigration in the U.S.A. in 1947. I was one of the
victims who were taken in by that provocation of the authorities. The
investigation was over. The State Security released my father and a few
other men. My father went back to our village distressed and frightened.
Later he was interned to the village of Chomakovtzi for a year.
We are already in the prison. In the beginning we were kept in isolation from the other prisoners because we were still awaiting trial. The
old building of the Shoumen prison was from the Turkish time in the
region of the barracks. The whole group, besides Nadya Racheva, was
locked in a room, which was separated from the main prison building.
The prison was one-storey building with thick stone walls. It had four
large rooms, which could accommodate up to 200 prisoners. In the
room where we were accommodated the people accused of involving
Bulgaria in the First World War had been awaiting trial. At that time
lawyers had private practice. Every one of us was allowed to hire a lawyer and pay his fees. We, the three brothers, did not have any money to
hire a lawyer and at the court trial we did not have one. We were given
an official solicitor. In the group we decided that we would reject all the
charges to be presented in the court as unreasonable since the evidence
was extorted by force in the State Security.
The court trial began on 12 June 1948, Tuesday, and lasted for four
days.
The judgement of the court was as follows:
"
DIMITER STOEV DIMITROV
1. Dimitar Stoev - 25 years of age - life imprisonment;
2. Maniu Kolev - 23 years of age - life imprisonment;
3. Ivan Kunchev - 25 years of age - 8 years of imprisonment;
4. Tzanju Ivanov - 26 years of age - 5 years of imprisonment;
5. Dobri Stoev - 22 years of age - 5 years of imprisonment;
6. Boris Stoev - 19 years of age - 5 years of imprisonment;
7. Dobri Grozdev - 20 years of age - 5 years of imprisonment;
8. Mitko Denchev - 19 years of age - 2 years of imprisonment;
9. Nadya Racheva - 22 years of age - 4 years of imprisonment;
10. Jordan Todorov - 31 years of age - 2 years of imprisonment;
11. Kolju Nikov - 70 years of age - 1 year of imprisonment;
12. Belcho Penev - 48 years of age - 6 years of imprisonment;
13. Angel Gospodinov - 45 years of age - acquitted;
14. Kuncho Radkov - 53 years of age - acquitted;
15. Kunju Iliev - 54 years of age - acquitted;
I cannot remember the members of the court but I will never forget
Kaschiev, the prosecutor. He was an agent of the State Security. The words
in the prosecutor's speech were thrown like bombs on the defendants'
heads. The prosecutor exaggerated the charges to prove in court that dangerous political enemies had been brought to trial. Yes, we were, because
we did not observe the law banning the Nikola Petkov Bulgarian Agrarian
People's Union and were not frightened by our leader's death. The threats
of the State Security men and the prosecutor showed clearly that they
would demand a death sentence for Maniu and me. In the end we got life
imprisonment under the charge of having restored the Nikola Petkov
Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union in the village of Yankovo. The life
imprisonment made me smile. My smile was accepted with anger by the
authorities and by the frightened relatives of some prisoners.
Long days and years of imprisonment followed one after the other.
Every single day in prison was full of suffering which is beyond me to
describe. Let writers describe it in their professional way. Maniu and I
continued our long journey from one prison to another in different parts
of Bulgaria. I had a life imprisonment until 13 March 1951. After that
date my sentence was reduced to twenty years of imprisonment. I spent
5 years in the prison in Shoumen, 1 year in the prison in Kjustendil, 8
years in the prison in Pleven and 1 year in the prison on the Island of
Persin, Belene. Almost fifteen years had passed and the total of 5361
days, until 1 January 1963 when I was released from the prison in Belene.
#
THE UNFINISHED CONVERSATION
Mimosa Dimitrova
Tears, tears,
so many tears
that it takes more than a life
to shed them.
VAL, 1944-46
This verse belongs to Valentin Georgiev and is written on the last page
of his "brief personal archive", a copy of which he had sent to the ACET
Centre.
His archive contained an application form for membership in the
Union of the Repressed after 9 September 1944, filled up by him personally. It contained a photograph of his father Georgy Atanassov
Kiumiurev, a decision of the regional political and civil rehabilitation
commission in Sliven of 10 November 1993 on the compensation for
"causing violent death for political reasons" to his father and a certificate for inheritance. It also contained a photograph of his mother Todorka
Atanassova Georgieva- Kiumiureva and a court decision relating to her
rehabilitation; a photograph of his brother Stephan Georgiev Kiumiurev
and the text of his sentence passed by the Bourgas people's court of 10
April 1945. Next came Valentin's photograph, one page of a typescript
entitled Additional remarks to the inquiry form of Valentin Georgiev
Atanassov and a certificate issued by the Lenin ward council of Sofia of
1 October 1996 that the person Valentin Georgiev Kiumiurev was identical with the person Valentine Georgiev Atanassov.
At the end of this small roll there was a drawing, made by him. Above
it there was an inscription Victims of Communism 9 September 1944
Chapel. There were also many other inscriptions referring to the places
on the memorial plaques where one could find the names of his murdered relatives on the memorial of the victims of Communist terror and
a separate page on which the words I have used as motto were written.
Besides his personal archive Mr. Georgiev had left with us a copy of
a report entitled Should We Forget the People's Court - a Satan's Court,
which he delivered to a meeting of the graduates of His Majesty's military schools, the School of officers of the reserve and patriotic army
representatives.
$
MIMOSA DIMITROVA
What is that period of two years from 1944 to 1946, specially referred
to under the verse, remarkable for in Mr. Georgiev's life? Let us start
with what he wrote in his brief personal archive:
"I participated in the operative zone of military action in the Second
World War. I was wounded and awarded a military cross. In the military actions I was a commander of a battery, which was part of 3rd
Balkan Drava division. When I came back from the front I found to my
surprise that my father had been killed without a court trial and a sentence on 16 September 1944. My mother had been also killed with no
court trial or sentence on 8 May 1945 and my brother (an army officer)
had been killed on 17 May 1945. My whole family has been murdered
within six months… Their tombs have remained unknown. Only their
names have been written on the memorial plaques on the Victims of
Communism memorial in Sofia."
What happened to the survivors in that family? Mr. Georgiev had a
sister who was ten years older than him and he was told at that moment
that she had been hiding at a "safe place" but he was not told where this
place was. In his personal archive he wrote about himself: "After the
medical treatment I went back to my regiment - 1st artillery regiment
in Sofia - as a staff officer. At the end of 1945 my office of a battery
commander was opened in spite of the combination lock. My personal
pistol, which was registered on my name when I served in the regiment,
was stolen together with a big radio set, left for safekeeping by Konstantin
Lipovanski, a soldier and the son of Lipovanski, a deputy to the National Assembly killed on 2 February 1945. The radio set was the only
keepsake of the soldier from his robbed family!
Todor Bogoev, the deputy commander of the regiment arrested me
and an investigation was organised. I was accused of having stolen the
pistol and given it to my friends and followers. The investigation lasted
for about 60 days. The sergeant major in my battery, that was from the
old army and kindly disposed to me, organised his own inquiry and
proved to the investigation that the thieves were two soldiers, Todor
Bogoev's informers. I was released. The investigation was over. The stolen articles remained with Todor Bogoev. I was strictly prohibited to be
silent (italics by the author) on that issue by the regiment and not to let
the news get about I was transferred to Samokov - 7th division artillery
regiment from where I was thrown into the street within several months.
In those years they gave no documents for the atrocities and the murders of soldiers they made! It was a terrible time! It was easier to kill
%
TALES FROM THE DARK
than to dig the graves for the dead!" I indicated in bold italic type an
unintentional error made by Valentin Georgiev in result of which the
prohibition to speak became a prohibition to be silent. In my opinion
that error was a reflection of the high tension and conflict between the
external requirements and Mr. Georgiev's internal values.
Tens of years later in his report Should We Forget the People's Court…
Mr. Georgiev wrote:
"In small Bulgaria in the 20th century at that the People's court
destroyed the elite of the nation! The People's court took away the
life of 63 000 people, not of 30 000. About 40 000 Bulgarians were
psychically destroyed and departed from this world very early! Communist propaganda has been trying to underestimate those massacres
and their number."
In that situation the 23 years old Valentin Georgiev was forced to run
away and find a hiding place though he was a veteran from the Second
World War. He could not go back to his native town as all his relatives had
been killed and his sister who was the only survivor was missing. His family name, which revealed his belonging to his family, became a threat to
his life. He had to give up his family name or not mention it at least.
Where did he find a shelter? In a mountainous coal-mining region at
the opposite end of the country. Prisoners and people like him - declared inconvenient by the new political power in the country - worked
in the mines. The working conditions were primitive and merciless to
the people. The load was enormous. Their bosses had to be "politically
reliable", i.e., not to lose control of the "enemies" and the criminals
who were equally treated by those in power. Professional track in the
coal-mining area of course was not among the recruitment criteria for
the people who were appointed at managerial posts in the mines. As a
result, Mr. Georgiev wrote, his chief of shift was almost illiterate and
could not maintain the records. He gradually assigned the "paper work"
to Mr. Georgiev and thanks to his accuracy, reliability and skills Mr.
Georgiev managed to convince the chief of shift that he could be useful
to him. He won the confidence of the chief of shift and in the mid-fifties
he helped him to obtain a permission to be accepted as an extra-mural
student in the Institute of Mining and Geology1. V.G. continued his work
in the mine and at the same time studied in the Institute.
Access to higher education was very restricted and discriminative especially at the end
of the 40-s and the 50-s of the 20th century. People of unreliable origin and biography
were not allowed to apply to and study in the higher educational institutions. This ban
1
&
MIMOSA DIMITROVA
At one of our meetings Mr. Georgiev told me that he had been so poor
that during his mandatory classes in Sofia he had to spend the nights in
one of the lecture-halls. This was possible due to the sympathy of one of
his lecturers whose respect he gained by studying hard and achieving good
results at the examinations. In 1960 he graduated the Institute as an engineer. Obviously his military education was absolutely useless. That is why
he wanted to get good educated and become a highly qualified professional. In his situation this was the best he could do.
The Meeting with Valentin Georgiev
Mr. Georgiev learnt about the ACET Centre from the ward organisation
of the Union of the Repressed of which he was a regular member and a
frequenter at its meetings. When he visited us he was 79. After the initial interview with our social worker he applied for admission to our
medical programme. He was admitted because his request was in line
with the mandate of the ACET Centre and he had the right to use the
medical services of the Centre. Besides the request he also had with him
the materials and documents enumerated above and he gave us copies
for our archive. At one of the regular monthly meetings where new
clients are introduced, our social worker briefed us on Mr. Georgiev's
case. As a result of the discussion we had we decided to invite him to
take part in our programme for survival evidence and meet the ACET's
psychologist (the author of this essay). Mr. Georgiev accepted our invitation and came to meet us at the appointed time.
The contact was not easy for one of the parties, i.e. myself. The very
moment when he entered my office I had the impression that I was
meeting a man of high respect. When we started to talk I had the feeling
that I was subject to a check. After the first meeting we had a number of
meetings at appointed time. They were an interesting combination of
expressed and suppressed things. The purpose of these meetings, which
was to make him accept our proposal to prepare a material on his father's
family doom and his own doom, was materialised in his words: "You
are a psychologist, you can do it yourself. I have given you all the materials you will need."
was lifted only under special conditions - many years of hard physical work and sufficient evidence that the person had inflicted no "damage" at their place of work. The
party leaders at the place of work issued a special permission document for admission to
the entrance examinations.
'
TALES FROM THE DARK
What did we speak about? In the first place Mr. Georgiev wanted
from us to perceive him as he wanted to be perceived - a very strict and
disciplined man, who maintained order in his house and in his everyday
life. He told us that his major work was to prepare a material on his
family doom that was intended for his close family alone - his children
and grandchildren and his sister's children and grandchildren. He was
openly happy with the fact that his only son's family had been established in Canada and he was proud when he spoke about his granddaughters and how he met them when they came to see him during
their vacations. Mr. Georgiev insisted on showing his respect for psychology and he told me that he had special interest in labour psychology and he had met one of the eminent Bulgarian experts in this field.
He also told me that he had tried to apply some things from psychology
when he worked as an engineer in the mine and was responsible for the
workers. The only thing he told me about his own family was that his
wife had died from cancer, that he was happy with his marriage and
with his son who was doing very well. Most of his time had been dedicated to the destruction of his parents' family. That was the reason that
made him come to our Centre. His story literally followed what he had
written in his personal archive and he did not add any new details. His
father had been chief cashier and a member of the BNB managing board
in Sliven. He had graduated a business school in Klouge. He had been
beaten and strangled during one day of arrest by the People's Militia.
On 16 September 1944, his body was given back to his family because
he refused the former guerrilla fighters who had taken the political power
an access to the bank safe without proper documents and power of
disposition.
His mother, a graduate of the French college in Plovdiv and a pedagogue had been severely beaten and sent to the psychiatric clinic in
Karloukovo in 1945 where she had stayed only for one month before
she died. She died from a violent death and there had been no medical
indications for accommodating her in a psychiatric clinic.
His elder brother, an officer in the Bulgarian army at the age of 32
had been sentenced to a "close life imprisonment" but was killed in the
prison soon after he began to serve his term of imprisonment.
On many occasions Mr. Georgiev emphasised that his entire family
had been destroyed within six months and repeated the words that it
was easier to kill than to dig the graves for the dead.
As to himself, he only briefly mentioned that when he was arrested as
!
MIMOSA DIMITROVA
a young officer under a fabricated charge for his personal pistol he had
his hands tied up with wire and he had to stand for hours with his face to
the wall. He said that his own generation and the people with the same
doom as his had been psychically destroyed. Many of them had died
from immature death. The survivors, relatives of dead and missing persons, refrained to speak because of fear and did not tell the truth about
the humiliations and sufferings they had been through.
Regarding the army officers, where he himself belonged, he said that
they had put their motherland in the first place and their families in the
second place. "Their dreams had not come true and their fate had been
destroyed." Many army commanders had been killed and some of them
had committed a suicide. Their relatives had been stigmatised as "scoundrels, fascists and enemies of the people". Mr. Georgiev several times
discussed an issue that was tackled by him in his report - how the relatives of killed and tortured people should up-bring their children.
Generally this is what I can remember from my conversations with
Mr. Georgiev. When we parted we agreed that I would try to prepare
a material on the basis of the materials he gave me and then I would
discuss it with him. I promised him that I would set to writing without
being fully aware at that moment of the complexity of the task and
my responsibility. After that the thought that I had undertaken a commitment was always in the back of my mind but I was forced by "necessitous circumstances" to postpone my work. I postponed it several
times until about eight months after my last meeting with V.G. when
Liuba Tzoneva, a member of the ACET discussion group of the repressed called. She informed us that her friend and our client V.G.
was having serious problems with his eyesight and was in poor health
condition. According to her words he was afraid of losing his eyesight
but he was extremely modest and would not ask for assistance in spite
of his poor health. I decided to call and ask him how he was feeling.
At the beginning of our talk I called him "Mr. Atanassov" - by the
family name under which he had been registered in our file but he
immediately corrected me insisting to be called Georgiev as this was
his father's name. I remembered that he insisted to be called by his
father's name so that he could hear his father's name whenever someone addressed him. Then he told me that he was happy that I was
calling and that his eyesight was really bad and he was feeling depressed. He explained to me that his poor eyesight was a result of all
the tears he had shed when he was young, of all the books he had to
!
TALES FROM THE DARK
read in order to graduate from two universities and of his work in the
dark mines. He told me that he wanted his words to be taken as sharing, not to be taken as a complaint because it was beneath his dignity
to complain. Then he mentioned that he had heard very good words
about the discussion group from a friend and that he wondered if he
could come to its meetings. Those were the last words I heard from
him. After that Mr. Georgiev died.
Our conversation did not end with his death. I specially invited "his
friend" Mrs. Liuba Tzoneva and continued the conversation with her. I
needed time and support to understand how to proceed with my work
under the circumstances.
I would not discuss here what was common for her biography and
that of Mr. Georgiev. She used to say that he had called her "a compassionate friend" - obviously the two of them had been aware that their
fates had been similar. I did not know if that had drawn them closer.
The gaps in Mr. Georgiev's personal story were the first thing she confronted me with. L.T. used to say that he had never really admitted her
to himself as he had never admitted anyone else. "He did not tell me
how he had been repressed during those 60 days of arrest or how he had
found his sister; whether the circumstances had forced him to be adopted
by someone and change his name; how he had started to work in a mine
and what it had cost him to send his only son to the other end of the
world." When she asked him about those things he usually said: "Don't
ask me, Liuba because my blood sugar would go high."
Mrs. Tzoneva reflected on his fear, a stamp he had left on all his
compassionate friends. He had made them suspicious towards the hostile and devastating environment. In order to protect themselves they
had to live in the realm of silence. The dead parents could not speak
and those who remained alive did not allow themselves to speak for
fear and in order to protect their children. Fear, according to Mrs.
Tzoneva, had an impact on man's intellect, which deteriorated when
not used. Fear was also a barrier to professional and social realisation "if you showed your worth they would start digging to understand who
you were and then anything could happen". I can develop further the
phrase "anything could happen" - you could be jeopardised by the fear
of repetition of fate: if your parents have been killed without a court
trial and a sentence it is only logical to put yourself in the place of those
who have to be destroyed. If you are not willing to accept this tacit but
real "sentence", you have to defend yourself in order to remain alive
!
MIMOSA DIMITROVA
and to protect your relatives from the existing threat - the repetition of
the fate of the previous generation.
We can only guess at the price that Mr. Georgiev had to pay in order
to survive. Mrs.Tzoneva considered him to be a very strong-minded and
modest person. He did not speak about himself. He willingly helped his
compassionate friends: he gave part of his pension to another repressed
man who was in a deplorable financial position because he had been in
camps for a long time and when released he had been admitted only to
jobs of low qualification.
As all the others in his position he had been under the influence of
the omnipotent fear, L.T. thought. It had shown in two ways. In the
limits he had put to his close contacts and had strictly observed and in
his attitude towards his son. L.T. repeated several times: "He had chased
his only son away to the other end of the world because he thought that
here it was not safe enough for him and for all the other members of the
family and would never become safe. In other words he wanted to rescue his son by chasing him away."
A Few Concluding Remarks
Going back to the question, which now I can put only to myself, as I
am the only party in this dialogue, what Mr. Georgiev expected from
me when he asked me to write about the murders of Georgi, Teodora
and Stephan Kiumiurevi, I think that he wanted from me to mediate
in his testimony before the world. He had started his cause as a witness before his compassionate friends, before the public in Bulgaria
(the names on the memorial and in Petko Ogoiski's book Notes on the
Sufferings in Bulgaria, v.3, p.251) and he wanted to continue it. To
become a witness - such a heavy load - must be shared sometimes, I
suppose. What was particularly painful was that the expected sharing
did not happen and the load on Mr. Georgiev's shoulders did not
become lighter. The dialogue between us stopped after it had just
started. It had stopped when Mr. Georgiev was alive because we had
failed to create an environment for asking the legitimate questions in
my own view "Who is the man testifying for the destruction of his
family? What was his fate? What was his life like?" Why did Mr.
Georgiev not allow me to discuss the question about the man that
lived with the memory of his destroyed family? Now I am aware of
the fact that there was no sharing because during our short contacts
!!
TALES FROM THE DARK
he transferred to me his feeling of guilt for having been a survivor. He
was feeling guilty for having been unable to rescue them and they had
been destroyed during his absence. His guilt made him think that when
talking about himself he would deprive the dead Kiumiurevi of the
place and time that belonged to them. The fear of which Mrs. Tzoneva
spoke was something negative, depriving, wearing out and even disabling. I think that the people like me, who work with people who
have survived in torture and repression, have to learn how to listen to
their stories. What is more, we have to create for them an environment for disclosing their real selves and thus break the realm of silence. Fear has different dimensions and meanings with different people
but only if we manage to render them in personal terms we can see
that fear is the protection where the individual has taken shelter.
I am really sorry that I did not discuss fear with Mr. Georgiev and
what his fear was like. This, however, is a conversation that will never
happen.
!"
SURVIVING UNDER TOTALITARIAN
REPRESSION
Dr. Krassimir Ivanov
I met the people, whose cases I will present in the second part of this
paper, a few days ago at the convention of people repressed by the
totalitarian Communist regime held in the former Belene Concentration Camp on the Island of Persin. The three of them had been in this
camp about 50 years ago, the three of them suffered through heavy
repression here and survived as if by magic. I realised that they were
very lonely at the convention and deeply absorbed by their memories.
Instead of being at the tribune of honour, they were walking in silence
around the places where some of their young years had passed, maybe
asking themselves what it was all for. The harsh and wild nature of the
island, on which the camp was located, unlike them, has not changed
much. Only a solitary modest cross could remind us that about half a
century ago this was the place where the moans of hundreds of martyrs
could be heard. Martyrs sent to exile by the totalitarian society, struggling to survive.
The psychological strategies for survival in heavy traumatic stress at
time of repression, torture, in concentration camps and of prisoners of
war have been studied profoundly and described in the specialised literature. Particular attention has been paid to surviving in concentration
camps during the Holocaust. Studies, dedicated to the survival of prisoners of war, are impressive for their depth and method. By contrast, in
Bulgaria such descriptions are rather scarce, especially those made by
specialists in mental health. This is why in the first part of this paper I
decided to make a short presentation of what was already written on the
topic in the literature accessible to me. In the second part I am presenting three cases of clients of ACET, whom I interviewed with the idea of
trying to describe the coping strategies employed by survivors in prisons and camps during the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria. In addition to
their stories I presented another story, published in the US State Department bulletin in 1950, which was used as an example in one of the
first descriptions of "brainwashing" made by the State Security in totalitarian Bulgaria.
Strategies for coping are usually defined in different ways. Some authors describe some unconscious mechanisms, which will be discussed
!#
TALES FROM THE DARK
further in the text. Lazarus and Folkman (1984)1 define coping as conscious cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage stressful demands
from the environment but also internal stressful demands deriving from
losses, inhibited goals and motives, and painful conflicts between them,
that are taxing or exceeding the resources of the person. This "taxation"
requires conscious efforts based on appraisal, i.e. evaluation of the desirable and possible action in the specific situation. The authors mentioned above divide coping strategies into two main forms:
Problem-focused coping strategies change the actual disturbed relationship between individual and environment. They are action-centred
forms of coping and aim to ameliorate the source of stress. This type of
coping is effective when the problem encountered by the person is solvable.
Emotion- focused coping strategies change the way in which the relationship is attained or interpreted. These strategies do not change the
relationship but rather its meaning and therefore the emotional reaction…
Similar understanding of the coping strategies has guided the authors of a study targeted at the victims of ethnic cleansing and a subsequent resettlement2. They have come to the conclusion that emotional
coping by escape avoidance and denial was connected to a greater number of mental health symptoms while problem-focused coping and realistic emotional coping constituted a higher level of psychological well
being. Obviously, a person cannot always have control over the situation he is in. The lower the control, the more the benefits of using emotion-focused coping strategies such as escape avoidance and denial.
Particularly detailed and profound description of the strategies for
survival and coping has been made by the researchers of the Holocaust3
The main goal, pursued by the Nazis in putting the Jews in concentration camps, was to break their psychological, physical and intellectual
resistance, stigmatise and depersonalise them in a monstrous and abominable way, which would ultimately make their extermination easier.
What coping strategies do people employ in a world where previous
moral and ethical values have been shattered, often forcing people to
Lazarus, R.S. and Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer
Publishing Company. (Öèòàò ïî 2)
2
Arcel L.T. et al. (1998) War violence, trauma and the coping process. Copenhagen,
Denmark: IRCT.
3
Solkof, N., The holocaust: Survivors and their children in Torture and its consequences,
Edited by Metin Basoglu (1992). Cambridge University Ptres.
1
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DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
act in ways that would have previously been repugnant to them; where
neither principles of causality nor logic determines events; and, where
death is a commonplace event determined by the caprice of others?
Thousands of people have described the strategies they employed while
in concentration camp. A most important condition, pointed out by all
of them was the chance to be at the right place at the right time. In
addition survivors describe a number of forms of behaviour and defences which they believe to have increased their chances to survive.
Practically all agree that for the inmates in concentration camps the
most important precondition for survival was to avoid reaching what
was called a "Muslim stage", characterised by extreme apathy, bordering on stuporousness, which would mean instant death. In 1974 Dimsdale
described nine ways in which inmates coped with camp life:
1. Looking for small pleasures, e.g. gazing at the sunset or smelling a
flower;
2. Investing survival with a purpose, e.g. to bear witness to the atrocities;
3. Distancing oneself from the horrors through such defensive
behaviour as intellectualisation (focusing on the theoretical and
philosophical aspects of mortality and immortality), isolation (controlling all emotional expressions), and gallows humour;
4. Mastering the environment in even such minor ways as finding a
blanket or extra peace of food for co-inmate;
5. Hoping, sometimes fuelled by denial, e.g. this cannot go on forever,
once the world knows about our ordeal, help will be forthcoming;
6. Forming two-person friendships even it is prohibited by the rules
in the camps;
7. Trying to gain the sympathy of the guards and other inmates;
8. Relying on the fate or becoming dependent upon others, so that
stress was experienced passively;
9. Identification with the persecutors.
The strategies enumerated above or various combinations thereof
cannot be universal for all victims of the Holocaust. Although previously learned defences against anxiety may have provided some basis
for current coping behaviours, even those were rendered ineffective
by the unprecedented intensity and duration of stress experienced by
the inmates. The studies among thousands of Jewish survivors of the
Holocaust suggest that those who employed some sort of emotional
distancing and psychic numbing could maintain a semblance of equi!%
TALES FROM THE DARK
librium in life-in-death situation, thereby enhancing the probability
for survival.
Important observations and experience have been accumulated in
the practice of the rehabilitation centres for victims of torture. They
reveal some aspects of the survival strategies employed by the victims4.
Given a certain minimum chance of survival, torture victims will adapt
to atrocious circumstances in order to survive, and in the process preserve as much as possible of their personalities, including their standards and values, their believes, and the integrity of their emotions. It is
a well-known fact that the intention of the torturer is to try to breakdown the personality of the victim. On the other hand, the victim's
personality structure is of decisive importance for maintaining the
victim's integrity. Of course, we need not fall into illusion when discussing the victims' ability to survive, get adapted, maintain their personality organisation and minimise the consequences of torture. If the
trauma is heavy enough, and it is so when torture is carried out systematically, we have to bring to our minds Eitinger's eloquent definition
(Eitinger, 1971)5: "If one rids a bicycle over a flower bed, some of the
flowers will be broken, others not; but if one drives a heavy bulldozer
with caterpillar wheels over the same flower bed, there is little likelihood of any of the flowers ever recovering".
Adaptation efforts of torture victims may be categorised into four
coping strategies: intransigence, re-establishment, introversion and cooperation:
Intransigence
As a rule, this is the first used strategy. The victim's goal is the total
rejection of the influence of the totalitarian institution, the preservation of relatively unchanged identity, and the conservation of his or
her values. This strategy is rather conscious, but is based on defence
mechanisms marked by disconnection between thoughts, feelings and
actions.
4
Vesti, P et al. (1992) Psychotherapy with torture survivors. Copenhagen, Denmark:
IRCT.
5
Etinger, L. (1971). Acute and chronic psychiatric and psychosomatic reactions in concentration camp survivors. In L. Levin (ed.) Society, Stress and Disease. New York:
University Press.
!&
DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
Re-establishment
Intransigence is a strategy difficult to maintain. The victim soon comes
to a state, which we can conditionally call re-establishment. He or she
is convinced of his or her own political and social importance because
the torturers are punishing him or her so severely. Repentance as a kind
of repayment for the victim's confessions or reactions during torture;
an emotional distance from and selective amnesia about the outside
world in order to accept separation from it; irony and humour which
may take sardonic proportions; avoidance of complete passivity by the
conservation of the ability to make at least some of one's decisions;
refuge in fantasies and dreams of escape…
Introversion
This strategy includes more pronounced isolation from the other prisoners; ideological thoughts and religious activities which become of
utmost importance; daydreams… In extreme cases the victim can develop a psychotic breakdown and become stuporous, losing contact with
the real world, refusing to take food and water and finally dying (the
above mentioned "Muslim stage").
Co-operation strategy
It is a result of regressing to childish helplessness. At this state the persecutors become omnipotent parental figures who hold the power of
life and death. The victims start to follow the rules and obey the executors' commands blindly often developing admiration and respect for
their executors. It may end up with the complete picture of the Stockholm
syndrome.
War psychology, based on studies among repatriated prisoners of
war, adds a different interpretation of the strategies for coping, based
on determining the Locus of control6. It is guided by the assumption
that individuals who are less susceptible to the perpetrators' hostility
are less likely to be predisposed to suffer from feelings of guiltiness and
Hunter, E.J. Prisoners of War: Readjustment and Rehabilitation. In Gal, R and
Mengelsdorff (1991). Handbook of Military Psychology. New York: Wiley.
6
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TALES FROM THE DARK
lowered self-esteem, after being set free. The studies show that people
with internal locus of control are better able to resist an interrogator's
attempt to gain information. Locus of control is linked to perception of
the individual whether the control over his well-being comes from within
him or from others.
Internal orientation presupposes that the individual perceives himself
as possessing control over these aspects of the surrounding environment
which are supporting him, while the individual with external orientation
perceives the support as being controlled by the others, or simply by lack
or fate. In survival training, conducted in the US military, they examined
the influence of locus of control on susceptibility at time of interrogation
under pressure. It was ascertained that individuals with internal locus of
control were more stable to hard pressure at time of interrogation. However, in the conditions of soft pressure their stability was not so high.
Other studies among prisoners of war7 have shown that surviving
depends to the greatest extent on the presence of injuries at the moment
of seizure and also on availability of water, shelter and medical care in
captivity. In the psychiatric perspective it turns out that personality's
flexibility raises the potential for survival while rigidity is less adaptive.
It is not certain however, to what extent the effective survival skills in
captivity are precondition for less mental health problems among the
prisoners of war after their discharge. In the table on the next page a
summery of the strategies for coping, attributed to prisoners of war, is
given.
A study among 1200 US servicemen, survivors from captivity in the
Pacific war theatre during the World War II, has pointed to the following qualities, which helped them to survive: strong motivation for life;
good general intelligence; good constitution; emotional insensitivity or
well-controlled and balanced sensitivity; preserved sense of humour;
strong sense of obligation to others; controlled fantasy life; courage,
successful resistance; opportunism; military experience; good luck…
Before presenting the cases of the people, whom I interviewed, I will
describe in a nutshell what was called conditioning or brainwashing applied to some of the political detainees in Bulgaria. In this "procedure"
the hapless and helpless victim is likely to be constantly bombarded by
interrogation, with no rest, with limited food, and with no water. Operators work in shifts, often around the clock. An endless assault is main7
Ursano, R.J. at al, The prisoner of war. In War Psychiatry (1995) Washington: DoA
"
DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
PRISONER OF WAR COPING MECHANISMS
Emphasising the Greater Good:
Caring for another
Feeling closer to God
Focusing on the good
Loyalty to country and family
Motivation for life
Survival for some purpose
Psychic defences:
Denial
Humour
Intellectualisation
Obsessive thinking
Relationship to Captors:
Collaboration
Cultivating relationships with captors
Resistance
Study guards' habits and use the
knowledge to gain favour
Withdrawal
Conscious efforts:
Acceptance of fate
Control of panic
Discipline
Flexibility
Maintenance self-respect
Realistic expectations
Physical fitness
Rituals
Self-development activities
Imaginary "Talking to family"
Well-controlled sensitivity
Will to live
Psychological/Fantasy:
Apathy
Dissociation
Fantasies of retaliation
Fatalism
Hope
Idealised expectations of
post-release life
Introversion
Passive-dependence
Personality flexibility
Psychological regression
tained, with ceaseless battering psychologically. The victim's will to resist is slowly beaten down. The burdens of fatigue and loss of sleep are
added. Threats and demands alternate with promises of better treatment. Herein bellow is the description of Mr. Shipkov's case of brainwashing as presented in the literature8. It is not indicative of an efficient
strategy for coping of the victim but is rather an example of how the
operators can defeat all defences of the victim.
8
Lauglin, H.P. (1997). The Neuroses. Washington: Butter Worths
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TALES FROM THE DARK
Brainwashing of Mikhail Shipkov
Mr. Shipkov was a man of intelligence, education, and high ethical standards. Nevertheless, when detained by the totalitarian Security police he
was quickly induced to accede to the demands of his inquisitors. Though
overwhelmed by a crushing sense of guilt after that, he managed to write
up the story of the sufferings and brainwashing he went through and
handed it to a representative of the US Embassy in Sofia. This is how his
story was published in the US State Department bulletin.
Mr. Shipkov's interrogations were held by three alternative teams of
two persons each that worked on shifts and the detainee was given no
chance for rest. Most of the time he had to assume a forced pose standing
with his face to the wall at a distance, which allowed him to touch it only
when he stretched his forefingers. Then he was made to move 20 to 30 cm
backwards and ordered to rest on the wall only on his outstretched index
fingers. He was kept in this pose for hours and at the same time exposed to
endless questions, demands and attempts to gain admissions. Fatigue and
pain, caused by this pose, reduced his resistance and speeded up the procession procedure. Noted for that situation is the hypnosis-like effect and
loss of contact with reality due to the pose, psychic "bombardment" with
questions and demands, pain, sense of misery and fatigue, thirst and no
sleep. Mr. Shipkov wrote: "They are not interested in what you are telling
them. It turns out that the ultimate goal of this brainwashing is to utterly
break you down completely and deprive you of any strength of will, pride
and self-respect, which they manage to achieve extremely quickly. It appears that what is significant for them is to achieve repentance and selfcondemnation, manifested only after the prisoner is broken down." Additional factors, which contributed to Mr. Shipkov's breakdown, were his
preceding experiences - fear, the time spent under arrest and the sense of
misery. To quote his words: "The depression is intensified by a sense of
helplessness and desperation, the lack of any hope to escape, the lack of
any hope to get support and defence…"
The Case of H.K.
Mr. H.K. is 70 years old. He has been involved in political activities
against the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria since his teens. He had been
arrested many times and twice put into prison for different periods of
time. He had been subject repeatedly to interrogation and torture. When
"
DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
asked about surviving in detention and imprisonment he said he had
applied different strategies at different times:
One of these strategies he borrowed from Jack London's hero Darrell
Stending in the Star Rover9. In a single cell and motionless he learned
how to use self-hypnosis and managed to be carried away in his fantasies to remote worlds thus alleviating the hardships of his prisoner's
fate. H.K. said that he did the same thing when he was in the lock-up.
Most of the time he managed to be "outside himself" and this is how he
withstood hunger and deprivation.
He learned also another way of coping from his observations of the
behaviour of other detainees. He noticed that those who replicated the
warders and stood up for their beliefs often drew down the warders'
anger upon themselves. Conversely, Mr. H.K. realised that he was facing killers and there was no sense in arguing with them, there was no
sense in convincing them that he was right. So he remained silent and
avoided a lot of trouble.
Though he was very young at the time, he managed to make use of the
skills of a number of experienced political functionaries with whom he
was staying in the political ward of the prison. These people felt inclined
to give advice to their younger fellow-inmates. One of them was A.
Pramatarov, former deputy chief of the police. He advised him on how to
avoid being recruited as a secret agent by the State Security. Years later,
Mr. H.K. made use of his advice when he was imprisoned for a second
time. This strategy was based on the fact that the Special Services were
not interested in co-operation with people of poor memory and low intellectual level. Mr. H.K. pretended to be a simple village boy of low education and poor memory. This protected him. According to him, in the
recruitment campaign three groups of prisoners could be traced out. The
first group was very firm and utterly unbending, but most of the people in
it were bent, some of them paying with their lives. The people in the
second group bent and signed. In the third group were the people who
dropped as unfit. Mr. H.K. saved himself by placing himself among the
latter. H.K. thinks that those who consented to co-operate felt very depressed after they were released from prison, maybe because of their guilt
feelings, and never managed to fully recover.
The case described above is indicative of several things. In the first
place comes the idea that some of the strategies for surviving could be
9
London, Jack. (1915). The Star Rover
"!
TALES FROM THE DARK
borrowed from literature and experiences of knowing prisoners and even
could be taught. In the second place, behaviour in detention and torture
does not depend solely on the victim's personality but also on the victim's
assessment of the situation. For example, the understanding that you
are facing killers and you need not proving anything to them can save
you a lot of trouble. A question arises also whether coping of people,
who have been involved in the resistance for a long time and repeatedly
put into prison, is characterised by growing proficiency and control of
part of the emotions manifested by inexperienced people. So assessments of one's own surviving could in a way be idealised.
The Case of I.B.
Mr. I.B. has suffered through numerous detentions and interrogations
and has been put into a camp for the total of 60 months and has also
been forcefully displaced. When he was in a camp for the first time, his
father was killed for political reasons without a court trial and a sentence. During the investigation he was interrogated and tortured, including by being hung with his head downwards.
He was asked to describe some of his strategies for surviving, which
he used in arrests and camps, and he shared some specifics of his
behaviour, which varied according to the situation:
During the investigation he adopted the tactics of not confessing anything, no matter what happened. Even hanging with his head downwards he did not bent and at the same time he was very careful not to
make any incriminating admissions. When asked how he was feeling in
that situation, Mr. I.B. said that he became accustomed to it and did not
feel any fear.
He said that later in the camps he was very careful when he expressed
opinions. He realised that his father had already died in this fight and
he had to survive at any price. When he was asked about his political
beliefs, he tried to give answers satisfying the camp authorities. He admits that he was not among the firm prisoners who used to confront the
warders no matter the price.
Surviving in camps, according to Mr. I.B., was a problem of coping
with heavy physical labour while undernourished. Since he came from
a village and was much more practical than the people from the city, he
managed to get involved in work for which he was fit. At the same time
he looked after some prisoners in the camp who were closer to him. He
did not care so much for how they fulfilled their work norms but rather
""
DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
how to provide his friends with food. On the other hand, belonging to a
friendly group made him feel better protected and understood.
When they attempted to recruit him as an informer, Mr. I.B. behaved
in a paradoxical way. He declared with enthusiasm that he was willing to
serve the authorities not as an informer but as a regular serviceman. They
answered that he did not have higher education and this is why they
could not appoint him. Then he answered that he was afraid that for the
same reason he would not be able to cope well with his obligations as
informer and he refused. He admitted that it was one of the hardest trials
for him in that period, and taken the extremely heavy circumstances, this
was the only possible way for him to get out of that situation.
Mr. I.B. is aware that the many years of persecution have made him
very suspicious. It was manifested not only when he was in the camps
but also at the time of his forced displacement and later, when he was
released.
In the presentation of this case several specifics stand out as regards
the strategy for surviving. First, it should be noted that behaviour, which
can be accepted as adequate and leading to salvation in preliminary investigation and interrogation, is no good in the camps. What is needed is
flexibility dictated by circumstances. Mr. I.B. pointed to his village origin
as further advantage in surviving which is probably due to the nature of
camp requirements. Next, his determination to survive at any price did
not allow him to be firm. He justified his determination by the fact that
his father was killed for political reasons. But it is not clear what that fact
meant for him, whether it meant that punishment for political activity
could be very severe or it motivated him to survive and help his relatives
and in particular his mother, whom he felt very close. In the last place, I
would note Mr. I.B.'s higher suspiciousness of which he was fully aware.
It is difficult to say if it were help or impediment in his life after he was
released but it helped him to survive in the camps and in exile.
The Case of D.K.
Mr. D.K. is in the middle of the seventh decade of his life. He was
sentenced to death on a political charge and later acquitted. In addition
to the detention while awaiting trial, he was placed consecutively in
four prisons. He says he suffered torture with electricity and heavy beating, the latter being more painful for him, as painful as psychic harassment and torture. After he was released from prison he experienced
substantial difficulties in being integrated into society both in terms of
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TALES FROM THE DARK
finding a job and in his family relations. In the presentation of this case
I want to introduce something which is not directly related to surviving.
Presently Mr. D.K. lives in a home for elderly people, because he has
no relatives alive. There he feels very uncomfortable and admits that
the staff's attitude is similar to that of the warders in the prison.
As regards the ways of surviving in arrest and in prison, he said that the
conditions and coping in arrest while awaiting trial differed from those in
prison. In arrest he was unable to hold back when they offended him and
he paid like for like. This embittered the interrogators against him and
they would severely beat him through until he had no strength left (in his
own words, until he was reduced to a rag). Then they would drag him to
the cell where he lied for hours before he could recover.
At the beginning he did not think that he was in serious danger. He
trusted the law and thought that he did not commit a serious crime.
When he understood that people with the same charges had been sentenced to death, he began to be afraid.
They say that people who are sentenced to death experience the heavy
agony of waiting and uncertainty. He had a death sentence for only 1-2
months, which made his situation easier. He shares that when you hear
that people are taken out of the cells to be shot, it is easier for you to
bear it if you don't know them. When they start to take people out of
your cell, things become more tragic. Though in such a situation, Mr.
D.K. was able to help another prisoner, who had no relatives.
He thinks that young age is conducive to surviving. Young people, in
his opinion, are more enduring physically and less susceptible to despair.
When he was moved to prison, he said, things became much more
difficult. He thinks that if prisoners are treated like animals they gradually begin to behave and feel like animals - scared, submissive…
Sometimes surviving was a matter of chance. In the prison in Belene
it happened that people, who had done nothing wrong, were killed "They were 'hit' by chance". To be recruited as an agent was also a
matter of being "hit". They tried to choose susceptible prisoners.
In the presentation of this case several aspects of surviving stand out.
In the first place, there was certain negation at the beginning before he
realised that he was really endangered by the situation. At the same
time it should be noted that Mr. D.K. most probably belonged to the
group of the "firm" as we called them in the previous cases. In interrogation he was provoked by the offences and on his turn he behaved
provokingly, this ending up with severe beating every time. The death
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DR. KRASSIMIR IVANOV
sentence was probably a very heavy trauma for D.K. and when we asked
about it, he defended himself by the rationalisation that he only had a
death sentence for 1-2 months. It should be noted that the conditions
and the attitude towards the prisoners in Belene were such that the
prisoners' sense of dignity was broken, their will for resistance was
crushed and they experienced strong fears. It is possible to assume that
it was achieved by deliberately rude and inhuman behaviour of the warders and the prison authorities and by the feeling of insecurity, caused by
the murders by random "hits".
In conclusion, I would only add that discussing our clients' strategies
for surviving, we have to remember that they went through detention and
torture about 50 years ago. Then, in the course of decades they lived in a
totalitarian society, which treated them as enemies and rejected them. In
another publication I have already written that this type of chronic trauma
has a lasting effect on the personality of the repressed person, which we
must take into account10. Undoubtedly, the type of trauma, the long time
distance from the persecution and torture and the old age of the interviewed are explanatory for some biases in the information provided. In
spite of them, the main strategies that have been outlined correspond
significantly to those depicted by literature. Perhaps, the most essential
difference is that "professional" fighters with many detentions and placing in prisons and camps seem to have fallen among our cases. They
usually develop some proficiency for surviving, which was not possessed
by most groups of people, depicted in the literature, who suffered through
trauma. Furthermore, another source of learning strategies for survival
has been outlined - advise from more experienced prisoners.
I presume that a more comprehensive study of the living conditions
in Bulgaria (not in the camps alone) during the former totalitarian regime would bring forth valuable information on the cultural specifics of
strategies for surviving in persecution and torture. However, my work
on those cases confirmed my conviction that torture is something you
can never cope with, no matter what strategies you use, if the executioner is skilful enough and decided to destroy your personality. This
would be like bringing a dead man back to life.
Ivanov Kr., Two Generations Victims of Political Repression and Torture: A Case
Study, Paper presented to the VIII International symposium on torture: Torture as a
challenge to the health, legal and other professions, 22-25 September 1999, New Delhi,
India
10
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ABOUT WORDS:
IN LIEU OF CONCLUSION
Vesselka Makarinova
The publication of this book took some two years of contemplating on its
messages, content and ends. It is based on the stories of the repressed
persons about the tortures they suffered during the Communist regime in
Bulgaria. The events described have taken place some 30-50 year ago, but
they have turned upside down the lives of so many spirited and bright
people. This constitutes at least one generation in a small country like
ours. These people have witnessed the repulsive face of repression.
The book also contains papers by specialists involved in the rehabilitation of torture victims and looks into their professional challenges. Though
it is founded on the experience from the work with the repressed persons
accumulated in the last six years, it is far from being a guide for diagnostics and medical treatment of torture victims. And though it presents
stories of suffering, it is not just a documentary of the repression.
From Narrative to Rehabilitation
Throughout the years of work with repressed people in the country, we
have been constantly receiving and keeping the stories of the victims.
This is a part of our rehabilitation programme's procedure and in no
way a end in itself. As the experience of the professional team of ACET
providing counselling grew, this record became an important element
of the rehabilitation process.
From a procedural point of view, the recording of stories of tortures
legitimises the rehabilitation work with each concrete person. This provides us with grounds for including this person into our programme.
Behind the procedure, however, are a number of points that, if left unnoticed and disregarded, would minimise the chances for revisiting the
trauma experience and recovering from the sequences of torture. In
fact, the discussion on the meaning and role of the torture story is about
these chances.
So far, we have not written down a single story of repression without
feeling the pain of it. Moreover, from almost every case we work on, we
remember some very specific detail of the torture described; quite of"&
VESSELKA MAKARINOVA
ten, the presentation of a story of repression evokes feelings of distress
in the team. Despite one's professional experience, there are hardly ways
to fully shield the specialists from the pain.
Nor has a victim ever told us his or her story of repression without
feeling the extreme pain of it. There were cases in which the story of
repression would begin, slowly and painfully, only after the second or
third meeting. The narrative is almost never presented completely or in
a chronological order; almost always it is fragmented and unfinished.
Sometimes it is even difficult to be spelt out. Recently, we received a
letter from a repressed person who has found out about our rehabilitation work with torture victims five years ago but has never called us. It
is quite natural to ask ourselves why it took him so much to write this
letter. How many are those who will never write it? And what would
motivate the victim to tell his or her torture story?
I would wish to hear the answers to these questions though I have my
own explanation based on the practice during all these years. This is the
institutionalisation of the work with torture victims and the specific
role it plays. Gradually, a set of skills and specialised knowledge for
carrying out the rehabilitation has been accumulated. But if this set of
skills is not fully professionalised in order to go beyond the procedural
necessity of recording stories of repression, even the meagre chances
for rehabilitation will be jeopardised. After all, no one can play back
history's record and delete the injustice of the state that had shattered a
human life.
It is therefore most important to fully consider the torture victim's
story without simply reducing it to a structured procedure and interviews. Repression stories become an important integral part of the rehabilitation process when they take their due place in the work with
torture victims by accounting for such elements as the emotional impact of the story, the repetition or omission of events, avoiding a topic,
presenting other's stories as one's own, etc. To achieve this level, however, the understanding of the specialists in the field and a comprehensive policy of the care-providing institutions are strongly needed.
From Narrative to Testimony
One's life is accompanied by a series of negative events - loss of a relative, disappointment by a partner, failure in competing with somebody
else. Many people need or just like to talk about these events.
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TALES FROM THE DARK
As regards torture, however, we have never received with ease a narrative about repression. It has always been accompanied by the sufferer's
difficulty to tell it. In some families, this has never happened, in others
- it became possible only after the democratic changes in the country.
Of course, there are quite a few cases in which close relatives of the
victims have known about the repressions suffered, but this has always
been a family secret. How is it then possible to overcome the trauma of
past events if we do not talk about what has happened; and if we cannot
draw lessons and keep record of the bitter experience in order to avoid
going through it again?
The issue of torture - one of the most brutal violations of human
rights, is not on the main agenda. Even today, a number of democratic
states are inclined to justify the use of torture in extreme situations, e.g.,
in the fight against terrorism, despite the fact that this is absolutely
inadmissible according to the established human rights standards. Is it
then about determining the delicate boundary of what could be described as an "extreme" situation, which is at the discretion of the state
only?
Torture victims are unable to influence events because they are confronted by the whole state whose policy is repressive or at least tolerates such kind of behaviour. They have no eye-witnesses: on he one
side are the almighty perpetrators acting on behalf of the state, on the
other - the victims who dared oppose them. There is no third party at
all - be it occasional witnesses or some public. This is why the difficulty of telling a story of torture, not to mention writing it down, is
not surprising.
In this case, the victim's narrative is the only evidence of the torture
suffered. Moreover, it is only on rare occasions that the narrative is
supported by other evidence, such as physical ones. And what if the
repressions had occurred so many years ago as is the case with the
stories told in this book? Obviously, the stories of the repressed people
themselves and their careful recording are the only strong weapon against
oblivion. However, this process involves at least two sides. Telling one's
story of repression can be done only by the victims themselves no matter how difficult and painful this might be for them. In this book, we
have included exactly such stories. But to stop the incessant repetition
of such repressive events, these sufferings need to be heard and accepted exactly as they stand, as the victims themselves have presented
them.
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VESSELKA MAKARINOVA
The narratives are presented as we have received them. These are
stories of repressed people that had happened some 30-50 years ago but
have destroyed their whole lives as well as the lives of their families.
Stories by people at a respectable age when the only thing left is their
words. These words have to be caught up before they have flown and
died away forever.
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SILISTRA
VIDIN
RUSE
MONTANA
RAZGRAD
PLEVEN
VRAZA
LOVECH
TARGOVISTE SHUMEN
SLIVEN
PERNIK
KUSTENDIL
PAZARDJIK
VARNA
V. TARNOVO
GABROVO
SOFIA
DOBRICH
ST. ZAGORA
YAMBOL
BURGAS
PLOVDIV
BLAGOEVGRAD
HASKOVO
SMOLJAN
KURDJALI
TALES FROM THE DARK
Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors - ÀÑÅÒ
Sofia, 2003
Editor E. Genchev
Cover pages V. Makarinova
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