Our train ride from Thessaloniki in Greece to Dupnitsa introduced us to the country of Bulgaria. We were passing out of a country whose Jewish community was almost entirely wiped out, ethnic cleansed of Jews, to one where that same ethnic community was saved in its entirety from the goals of The Final Solution.

Crossing into the country was relatively uneventful, except that two stern looking heavy set officials came to our compartment door, looking serious, barked, “passports” at us. I pulled out my American Passport from my theft resistant handbag. I felt intimidated by their attitude and couldn’t help thinking of the terror our relatives felt every time an official interacted with them knowing and feeling they were enemies capable of killing any and all of them without cause at any moment. The words “Polisia” was in stark large yellow letters on the back of their shirts.  They carried guns in their holsters and rested their hands on the stocks of their weapons as they waited for us to turn over our passports, eying us coldly.   “Obama” we heard him say, which initiated a back and forth between us.  I wasn’t sure whether they were being playful or antagonistic.  We handed them our passports.

It was the longest train ride up until this point, six hours, but the time passed quickly in between gazing out the window at the passing scenery, cat naps, moments of levity between us brother and sisters, munching on snacks, writing blogs and journalling. We talked a lot but felt the absence of one. Our oldest brother had chosen not to join us on this trip into the past, and we missed him. He leaves a void in our lives, its painful for us, perhaps for him too.

In 1943, Greece and Bulgaria were enemies, and as such, there were no train tracks connecting the two countries, so once the deportees arrived at the border, rail tracks had to be laid in order for their journey to continue. They were unloaded off of the box cars, had to walk to the new tracks, and then reloaded onto the next set of train cars, this time narrower to fit the Bulgarian tracks and open box cars. There was not only less space causing conditions to be crammed even more, the live sparks from the friction on the tracks were blowing onto their faces and bodies, burning them painfully as they travelled. They arrived at Dupnitsa which was to be their home for ten to fifteen days.

Conditions in this temporary internment camp were deplorable and the treatment by their captors was inhumanly brutal. 1,500 souls were forced to walk from the train station to the tobacco warehouse in the center of the city, surrounded by homes in which townsfolk lived. Food and water was almost non existent and when some of the local Jewish population brought supplies to the prisoners, they was stollen by the Bulgarian police. They were subjected to ongoing body searches including internal vaginal searches in the hopes that jewelry and/or money would be found. They hung out of the high windows of the warehouse crying and begging for help from anyone passing by.

Today, the warehouse no longer exists; the space is an empty lot in between an apartment building and houses, one of which was there in 1943. We looked for the occupant to see if they might recall the events 72 years ago, but they had died and their daughter who was curious about 5 strangers circling her home taking pictures, stepped out. She could give us no information about the events of March 1943.

We walked around every corner of this dirty vacant muddy lot for an hour, breathing the air, feeling our still active grief, and wondering if they were propping us up.  I gathered some pebbles and stones, curiously I found unusual black stones that looked and felt like lava but were not. I found more and more, hadn’t seen them anywhere before, not even on the ground next door. Black porous stones, multitudes of them, on this ground, I cried, I wasn’t alone, twenty souls embraced me and held my hands.

Our new dear friend, Loni Hazdai, took us to visit his 87 year old grandmother, who was 15 years old at the time and remembered the events well but became upset when asked to speak of them. She was a witness to the horror, it was a privilege to meet her.  We are grateful to Loni for his warmth and friendship.