Aron Ishakh in the City Council in Ruse

Here I am as head of the administrative department of the City Council in Ruse in the 1970s.

As head of the administrative department of the City Council in Ruse, I was one of the leading specialists in the country. From 1969 until 1973 I experimented in Ruse with a new system of citizens' registration, and adopted the Unified Citizen's Number. I followed the experience of Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary and created our own, Bulgaria’s new system of citizens' registration, which is still in use throughout the country. At that time, delegates from Germany and Mongolia came to learn from our experience. Then I started working in the District Council as chief specialist.

I come from a Sephardi family, whose roots reach back to Tsaribrod under Turkish rule. Unfortunately, I don’t have many concrete facts or emblematic family stories related to my ancestors. What I do know is that some time around 1917-18 Tsaribrod became Serbian territory and some of the Bulgarians living there together with some Jewish families moved to live in Bulgaria. One of these families was that of my paternal grandfather and grandmother. They moved to live in Ruse – the beautiful Bulgarian town on the Danube coast, famous for its flourishing Jewish and Bulgarian communities.

Honestly, I have not had problems with my origin at my workplace, because after 9th September 1944, right after I returned from the camp, I started to work for the police force and spent fifteen years there. I retired as an officer. But we, the Jews, had to work twice as hard as the others to prove that we are good and to keep our jobs.