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Our Story
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Our story begins with
Rachamim Comforty and his two wives. Rachamim means mercy or compassion
in Hebrew. Comforty is Italian for "comfort." The name worked
well.
This photograph was taken in
1925, a few years after Rachamim married his cousin Rosa.( left.) He
married her younger sister, Rachel, (right) only after Rosa died.
Rachamim and Rachel lived to a ripe old
age and never explained why they had this picture taken. But we know
it's from Bulgaria, the country so many know so little about.
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| In 1930 Rachamim and Rosa
built their home in Plovdiv. The city was no longer a great metropolis.
But it has always been home to many different peoples. Jews are believed
to have first arrived with Phoenician traders, and to have settled the
area along side followers of pagan religions and later, Christians and
Moslems. For millennia a complex ethnic and religious harmony prevailed.
It almost disappeared one cold spring day in 1943. |
Plovdiv
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| On March 10, 1943, Rachamim,
married to Rachel now, walked with her and two of his children to the
children's school. He looked back as he reached the corner to see how
the police sealed the front door of his house. He saw, as they proceeded
to the school yard, that they were joined by many neighbors who were
also ordered to report there. They all carried suitcases packed with
clothes and food for a long trip.
Treblinka and Auschwitz were to have been
their destinations. But they never reached them. After waiting all day
long in the school yard, they were simply sent home. Rachamim was my
grandfather, and because he was saved, I am here to tell the story.
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Confiscated radios of Jewish families, Sofia 1941.
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| The survival of the Bulgarian
Jews is one of the last untold stories of the Holocaust. Bulgaria was
the only country in Nazi Europe to save a large Jewish community. Every
one of the Jews within its borders survived. 50,000 people did not die
and few outside Bulgaria know about it and fewer still know why. What
was it about Bulgaria that was different? |
The Optimists, 1940 |
| The Optimists
is an intertwining of two story lines, the story of the Comforty family
and friends, and the story of the salvation of Bulgarian Jewry. Comforty
family members were amateur photographers in Bulgaria at a time when few
had cameras there. Thus, documentation of the time and place is readily
available through these images as it is from no other source. However,
while the Comforty family story anchors the film, the film is not about
the Comfortys per se. The Comforty story is used to explore broader
aspects of the story of the saving of the Jews and of Bulgarian
Sephardic culture. The personal stories make the historical facts more
accessible and dramatically alive. Jacky Comforty narrates the film and
leads viewers towards an understanding of culture of the Bulgarian Jews
and the differing opinions about the reasons for their survival. |
Niko Nissimov with a yellow star, 1942 |
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The Optimists is a
presentation of Comforty
Media Concepts and the Chambon
Foundation.
Produced and distributed by Comforty Media Concepts.
For
more information,
questions or comments please
contact
comforty@comforty.com
Last
modified: August 22, 2002
Copyright © 2001 Comforty Media Concepts
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