Leon Kamchi helped the youth to get out of poverty.
To develop. These teenagers were worth everything.
They were intelligent.
Before the war, in Hashomer Hazair, we were 250 kids.
Most were poor. Very few were wealthy.
I always tried to give out as much money as possible to the poor children.
We had all different kinds of games and assemblies.
We even talked about Karl Marx’s book.
They would tell us about all of these things and we would discuss them.
We would go on hikes every few weeks.
There was a mountain five kilometers from Monastir called Perister.
It was a tall mountain. We would climb up to the summit.
There were two lakes there.
One halfway up, the larger one, and one at the top which was smaller.
The summit of the mountain was always cold and covered in ice.
We would swim in both lakes.
Narrator: "Did you work during this period?"
I didn’t work; I was in school.
Narrator: “How old were you at this time?”
I was 14 or 15.
We entered into Hashomer Hazair.
We rebelled against our parents. No more synagogue. Nothing.
It was as if it never existed.
My parents would get upset but it didn’t help.
Afterwards they got used to it, when they saw that it wasn’t just me
but that all of the youth were like this.
We experienced the life of the village, that all of the children were members of Hashomer Hazair.
Narrator: “What was your position in the movement?”
At the beginning I was young.
When I got older I became a counselor like everyone else.
In 1934 I left the village and moved to Belgrade.
There I was part of the local branch.
I had friends there who had arrived before me.
Instead of going to Hashomer Hazair they had joined Tchelet-Lavan.
The difference between the two was like here
between Mapam (United Workers’ Party) and Mapai (Workers’ Party of Eretz Israel).
We had a spiritual leader who was very holy and intelligent, Leon Kamchi.
He would often lead assemblies in the Jewish community.
He would explain to us what was happening in Europe.
He wanted as many Jews as possible to immigrate to Eretz Israel.
However, this wasn’t possible because there were no certificates available.
There was no permission to immigrate to Eretz Israel.
But Kamchi was very active on behalf of the Jewish youth.
He sent families with many children to Eretz Israel in the 1930s.
In 1933, after all of the troubles began in Germany, throughout all of the years he tried to send families,
ones with many children, who lived under difficult economic conditions,
so that they would come here with their children,
hoping that they would get along better in Eretz Israel.
He would obtain the certificates from the governments and thus many people came here.
My older brother Charlo was very impressive.
He would study and play the accordion.
His friends would come over and they would learn how to play the accordion.
They were very advanced.
Music was very important to them.
Every Sunday we would go on nature hikes.
I as a child didn’t often go; I went just with the youth movement.
But my brother Charlo would hike every Sunday with his friends.