A Bulgarian in Hitler's Berlin: The Bulgarian

By Francis M. Mulligan

In 1939, Toma Ivanian, a high school student in Sofia, Bulgaria, is awarded a scholarship to the Technical University of Berlin- the world’s finest engineering and science university. Being sixteen, he doesn’t think about the war clouds about to burst around him. He’s told by a fellow Bulgarian to get his degree in the shortest time possible. One road block after another interferes with his academic progress. Discoveries during a summer internship causes him to switch majors from chemical engineering to mechanical engineering. His country of origin, Bulgaria, because of the
trial of Bulgarian communists in 1933, adds another roadblock.
 
In September 1943, all academic obstacles to graduation have been removed. His studies are interrupted by the Royal Air Force in late November 1943. The University had sustained too much bomb damage for classes to continue. Foreign students, especially those on a full scholarship like Ivanian, have been persuaded by a German
military officer to aid Germany in its hour of need. He’s been told that Germany has had setbacks, but it will win the war. Ivanian decides to return to Bulgaria to tell his parents that he’s joining the German army. In the closing hours of the long train ride home, an SS Major sits beside him. The Major’s backs his decision, and lets others on the train car know about Ivanian’s devotion to Germany. At the Sofia station in their final minute together, the Major utters eleven life changing words to Ivanian.

With the help of a former teacher, he considers his next step. If he stays in Bulgaria, he’ll be drafted into the Bulgarian army - a German ally. If he returns to Berlin he might be hired as an engineer for the Berlin Water Department. He’s told by the teacher that Soviet spies have been seen in Sofia following the unexpected death of King Boris.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis M. Mulligan
• Release date: May 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386069379

Francis M. Mulligan

 Francis M. Mulligan graduated from St. Joseph’s College, now University, studied at Maryknoll seminaries in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, Bedford, Massachusetts, and Ossining, New York, graduated from Temple University (M.P.A.) and Temple Law School (J.D.), worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and law firms in Reading, Pennsylvania. He has written articles for the Berks Barrister, the Temple Law Quarterly, and Pennsylvania Bar Associations publications. His first novel, SPANISH MARKET centers on a Mafia/Cuban confrontation in Wilson County, Pennsylvania. His second novel, SWAMP BOAT reunites the psychic who solved the Woodside Park case in Wilson County with a former Asst. D.A. Twenty years later, Rose, the psychic, wants McCready to help save a troubled soul who confessed to killing a minister’s son in the bayou. A Bulgarian in Hitler’s Berlin traces the movement of a sixteen- year old Bulgarian who accepts a scholarship to the Berlin Technical University, the best science and engineering university in the world. Beginning in 1939 during his progress toward a degree, young Ivanian encounters a series of roadblocks ending with the destruction of the University’s Tower of Learning in November 1943. He’s shamed into agreeing to join the German army, but first he must discuss the decision with his parents. On the train home, he rethinks his decision. One passenger, an SS Major, applauds his decision, and as the train pulls into Sofia, Bulgaria, the Major makes a final life changing statement.

Book preview

Francis M. Mulligan (2017-03-01). A Bulgarian in Hitler’s Berlin

ISBN-13: 978-1545052334

When he found the pearl of great price, he sold everything he had and bought it. Matthew 13:46

1

WINTER, 1938-1939 / SOFIA, BULGARIA

The pearl of great price. Over and over sixteen-year-old Toma Ivanian repeated words he had heard from the gospel reading at Divine Liturgy. Normally, his mind wandered when the monk, Maximus read the gospel. But, two months ago, when he heard the words pearl of great price it summed-up what had been racing through his head the month before he heard the expression. That one sentence gripped him. His pearl had nothing to do with church. The desire to study at the Technical University of Berlin had been growing inside him since the day he took home a book from the Sofia Central Library.

From the photographs, Berlin looked magnificent. The Technical University of Berlin’s buildings, labs, and faculty took hold of his young mind. No other faculty could equal the geniuses teaching in Berlin. He wanted to be taught by Wernher von Braun, and Wilhelm Cauer - the Mathematics genius. The physicists, Dennis Gabor, and Karl Kupfmuller could teach anywhere, as could the thinker, Wolfgang Paul. He also read about Konrad Zuse whose life’s work remained in the experimental stage. He didn’t show the book to his parents. His mother, a pious woman, didn’t like Berlin or anything connected with Berlin. Other than what she said about a Bulgarian man who spent years in Berlin, she told her son nothing about why she had such ill feelings for a place she had never visited.

Being the son of working class Bulgarian parents would be a drawback. Thoughts about his dream he kept to himself. His parents, especially his mother, wouldn’t understand. Yana Ivanian, who distrusted the world outside Sofia, would have a fit if he told her where he wanted to spend his university years. He had already been offered a scholarship to a local technical college. His mother encouraged him to accept the free education two blocks away from his secondary school. He remembered what she said about Berlin.

One man in Sofia ruined his life because of a perfumed German woman. Today, he’s a cripple. Never married. A lonely cripple.

***

The first-time Yana saw her son’s future history teacher; she couldn’t believe that the best secondary school in Sofia employed Grigor Bachev. That chance meeting happened in the fall semester when her son didn’t know Grigor Bachev. His first and only history course would be taken during the final months at the Technical School of Sofia - a school for students who passed a rigorous entrance examination. Neither her son nor her husband knew about Yana’s prior relationship with Bachev. His foolish desire to visit Berlin, a city at war, destroyed their chance of happiness.

***

Once young Ivanian’s final semester started in January, 1939, the time to apply would soon close. Until he read the Berlin book, he accepted his fate. He’d be studying at the building close to his secondary school. His obsession wouldn’t go away- he identified with the merchant. The man who risked everything. Yana and Davit, his father, couldn't afford tuition.  Train fare. They might be able to pay his train fare.

Sparks would fly if his mother found out, but he made up his mind. If he told his parents, his mother would take him to Fr. Maximus for a lecture on the evils encountered outside the Orthodox world. He guessed that his chance of receiving a reply as less than ten percent.

Many times, his mother said, Toma, how fortunate for us that we lived in Bulgaria during the genocide. We may have been one of the million who died at the hands of the Turks. Because many Armenians, like the Ivanians, were poor, he thought that his Armenian name and his rural country would put him at the bottom of the list. Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking: What if I could get in, and didn’t try? Regret it for the rest of my life. His mathematics teacher regretted not applying to a famous university. He never told his students the name of the university. Ivanian now thought it might be the one in Berlin.

After ending his internal debates, without telling his parents, he mailed the  application request to the Technical University of Berlin. If Berlin ignored it, no one would be any wiser. If he didn’t hear in three weeks, he’d accept the scholarship to the Technical College of Sofia.

The boy didn’t think about his far-away future. The next three or four academic years- that’s what he lived for. Marriage, friends and a career would come later. No one shared his dream. His parents wanted him close. His mother told him to make friends, but, because he spent so much time studying, he had no time to take fresh air with friends as his mother called it.

After he mailed the request for an application, he thought he wasted his time. The world’s most prestigious science and engineering university wouldn’t respond. So many brilliant Germans applying. What chance would an outsider from a poor country have? That satisfied him. He went back to school the following day with his mind free of the obsession that plagued him for months.

***

He knew little of the world outside Sofia. In his life, he had traveled no further than sixty miles from home. His parents had a radio, and his father read Trud- the local newspaper. Only recently did he find out that Bulgaria had no allies. During the Great War, his country allied with Germany. In 1939 his country stood alone in a world where close by nations had either been affiliated or discussing affiliation with one of Europe’s power states. The Soviet Union his mother and the Orthodox monk, Maximus, knew about. The devil in the Kremlin she spoke about often. Her spiritual guide, Maximus, whose every word his mother took to heart, preached constantly about the godless empire ruled by a former Russian Orthodox seminarian- Josef Stalin. Only recently had Maximus called the Soviet leader, Stalin. In earlier sermons, he called Stalin by his birth name – the one he used before he became Stalin- the Man of Steel.

***

Two weeks after Ivanian mailed his inquiry his mother handed him the package from the Technical University’s Admissions Office. With her saddest face, she asked him: Toma, did you ask for this without telling us? I'm hurt and your father will be when I tell him. We can’t afford to send you there. What made you do something like this? My God, son...Berlin of all places.

She handed him the package from the admissions office. For an instant, seeing how distressed she looked, he wanted to tell her that Berlin sent out the package without a request. He faced up to it.

Momma, my chances of being admitted are one in a million. I should have told you. I'm asking for a tuition, room and board scholarship. It’s something I had to do. Didn’t you ever do something that you felt you had to do?

Yana Ivanian shook her head rather than answer the question. Your father doesn’t need more bad news. I don’t know how long he can keep working. His coughing keeps getting worse. We thought you would accept the Sofia scholarship.

At dinner that night she didn’t mention the Berlin package to her husband. The boy’s comment about his one in a million chance gave her comfort.

***

The next day, with her son in school and her husband at work, Yana Ivanian put on her black winter coat, and walked to clear her head. She needed to free herself from the sadness she felt. Today, she didn’t think her only child had a one in a million chance. On the walk toward the shopping street, Yana couldn’t help thinking, it’s happening again. Grigor had to go to Berlin for a vacation before he proposed. She recalled what happened in 1915 to her recent university graduate. In 1920 he returned as a cripple with a child to support in Berlin. She remembered the passionate feelings that flooded her consciousness before he told Yana Ashjian he’d be back in two weeks.

Two weeks became five years. When Bachev returned, he didn’t visit her.  The letters he wrote from Berlin she tore to pieces. His last letter written a month after he left Sofia told her that he met a girl in Berlin, and wouldn’t be coming back. Feelings of betrayal lasted so long. She assumed Grigor married the Berlin lady. Bachev’s mother who visited Yana on a Sunday afternoon told her that her son might never return. She told Yana to make a life for herself. His grieving mother told her, He’s in the German army. You can’t linger in a foreign country during wartime. He hasn’t written home in six months.

The meeting began her recovery. On her mother, Lucy Ashjian’s advice, she considered the convent, but decided to stay at home, and continue giving support to her family. She told herself, I’ll never fall in love again.

Walking in the shopping district, thoughts from long ago flooded her consciousness. She didn’t want her heart broken twice. After putting aside thoughts of marriage, she went home after work on a winter night, and saw a young man sitting inside her parents’ kitchen drinking wine with them. Her father, who said little and rarely drank wine, brought home, Davit, an apprentice from the cabinet shop where he worked. The young man from the far-off city of Ruse stayed for supper. A year later she married the cabinet shop sander, Davit Ivanian.

Walking in the shopping district, she greeted the few women of her acquaintance she passed on the sidewalk. She didn’t carry on conversations with  them. How could she tell them? I fear that my boy will go to Berlin and never return.  Nothing changed she told herself. Hitler won’t stop with Czechoslovakia. A more welcome thought came to her. What are the chances of a poor boy who can’t afford the costs of a Berlin education? She couldn’t bring herself to ask a man who might know. She wouldn’t stoop to ask Grigor Bachev about her son’s chances.

She regretted giving her son the application package. If she tore it up, and put it in the trash, the boy would never have known. He would not have asked her if a package from Berlin came in the mail.

***

For the balance of the week, no more was said about the application. Toma read and reread the lengthy application, and began filling in the blanks. He arranged with his school for his transcript to be sent, and asked his science and math teachers to recommend him- the future chemical engineer. 

During a tortious week for Yana Ivanian, she asked Toma if he sent the application back to Berlin. His father’s eyes, usually buried in the newspaper, were on him. He raced upstairs without answering her. A half-hour later, sitting at the dinner table, he brought his parents up to date.

Mother. It's almost finished.

His mother spoke in the harsh tone she used when the package arrived.

We want you to get this over with. If it's one in a million why don't you finish it, and put it in the mail.

His chances had improved. The chemistry teacher, who over the years had placed three students in the University, spoke as if Toma had a good chance. If his parents knew the revised odds, it would add to their anxiety.

His mother told him something she heard a few days ago.

Toma, I found out that Berlin’s very cold in winter. Not as pleasant in the spring and summer as Sofia.

He didn't ask how she knew. Talking to women at church. Maybe Father Maximus. He assured her, I'm not applying because of the weather. Moscow's far worse I have been told.

Yana screamed, Oh my God. Don't mention Moscow. So much Orthodox blood has been spilled by Satin’s disciple in the Kremlin. Don't mention Russia in my presence.

He shouldn’t have said it. His mother prayed every day for the Orthodox living under Stalin’s oppression. Mentioning Moscow brought his father into the conversation.

Why would a Bulgarian want to live in Berlin after what the Nazi party tried to do with the Bulgarians they accused in the Reichstag Fire?

Toma, who lived for the future, didn’t know about the Reichstag fire.

Father, I don’t remember that.

"You were how old in 1933?  Not something children know about. Trud covered the trials. Not guilty said the German court. The Bulgarians on trial ...three Communists, Popov and Dimitrov were two of the names...exiled to the Soviet Union. Our Bulgarian government didn’t want them back. Afraid they may start a revolution as Lenin did in Russia."

His father said very little about matters outside the home. He asked his father: Why do you mention it?

"Because of the story in Trud today. I think the editors put it on the front page to make us laugh. A headline in a German paper. Know what it said?

No, Father.

"Fierce Jew Attacks Zoo Lion."

His father didn’t think it a laughing matter.

Maybe it is a misprint. the boy said.

Let’s hope so. Disliking Jews is one thing, but this story makes Hitler and his government look insane. I almost started to laugh when I read it. If I did, I’d have a coughing fit.

He wanted to reassure his father.

I’m asking the Technical University for a full scholarship. Tuition, room and board. Why would they give me a scholarship with so many bright Germans asking for the same thing? Qualified Germans have been rejected. My teachers told me that. Why take an outsider like me when many Germans are denied entry?  I’ll pay for the postage. When they reject me, I won’t apply to other German schools. This University is the best in the world. It’s a dream.

His mother at the stove joined in.

This will be the only place in Germany?

Yes, no other place in the world has the brains that Berlin Technical has. I know that you don’t know the name Dr. von Braun. He’s a genius, and he teaches there.

His father nodded. Not a familiar name to a man who worked as a sander and polisher in a cabinet shop. His father wanted the household tension ended.

Still one in a million, Toma, and you will have no other German applications.

Father. I’ll end up studying in Sofia.

Davit spoke for Yana. End it tonight.

He went to his room to review his application one more time. Confident that his German answers would be acceptable, he sealed the envelope. His German teacher, who looked at it, told him to make no changes. The boy, at the top of his class in the most prestigious secondary school in Sofia, made one change in the application. In the blank space provided he wrote that, if asked, he would be willing to tutor. He mailed the application before Yana pleaded with him to tear it up.

He knew nothing about what had been happening inside Germany. He didn’t know anything about the war threats Hitler had been making, or Hitler’s prior threats regarding Alsace Lorraine or the Sudetenland. It had not been taught in school. His parents saw an enemy, but it wasn’t Hitler. Their enemy lived in Moscow, and he murdered millions, and exiled many Orthodox to Siberia.

2

SPRING, 1939 / SOFIA, BULGARIA

Yana Ivanian feared the world outside Bulgaria. Her son’s world view couldn’t be her vision. His parents talked frequently about the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks. A more powerful enemy now worried his mother. Godless Communism. She never said Communism without prefacing it with Godless. She couldn’t help herself. Fr. Maximus reinforced her hatred of everything Lenin and Stalin created in Russia. Yana knew from the monk’s sermons that churches in Moscow had been turned into museums dedicated to atheism. Maximus blamed the world’s troubles on the unholy trinity of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky.

His parents didn't like Hitler. Their only child, who wouldn't be seventeen until September, said little about such matters because as he told his parents, I believe in science. The ones in charge use Hitler to stir up the people.

His mother snapped at him. Did Bachev teach you that?

What he said angered his mother.

Mother, Mr. Bachev has been teaching about Napoleon in European History. He sticks to his course material. One of the science teachers, not Mr. Bachev, thinks that Hitler will be replaced by the army soon. He didn’t say how soon because he was retired last week.

He never told his parents that science and technology, not religion and politics, would dominate the world's future. While applying to the Technical University of Berlin, he thought about what Father Maximus said. The Orthodox monk speaking about the pearl of great price said no risk it too great. He couldn't tell his mother what he thought because she would chastise him for misunderstanding the true message. 

Yana, who previously considered her only child too young to be interested in girls, after his Berlin application arrived, talked about the nice girls in the neighborhood. A month before when her son mentioned a girl’s name, his mother said, Time enough for that later. Now, she changed the subject to warn her innocent son.

Toma, I don't want you trapped by a perfumed German girl. That’s what happened to Mr. Bachev. He ruined his life with his romantic foolery.

Annoyed at the mention of a faculty member who hadn't taught him until recently, he wanted her to understand.

Mother, I don’t converse with Mr. Bachev outside the classroom. I don't know why you mention him as much as you do.

His mother looking for someone, other than her son, to blame for the boy’s Berlin fascination suspected one man- Grigor Bachev. She thanked God their paths crossed only once in recent years. Her school friends she met on market day told her about the child Bachev fathered during the Great War. Last year she was stunned when she saw him after so many years. The history teacher with an artificial leg, greeted her in the school auditorium during a parent / teacher meeting she attended.

***

On the first Monday in May 1939 the mailman delivered a thick envelope from Berlin.  Yana suspected the worse. She couldn’t tear it up. She wanted to, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It waited for the boy on the three-legged table where she put it. When he came home from school, he starred at the thick envelope before opening it. With the envelope in his hand, he thought about the application he’d be making to the local college. Before he opened it, he could accept defeat. One in a thousand he told himself. Scholarship, room and board. Too much to ask. Why did they wait so long? His mother retreated into the kitchen.

Congratulations the letter began. He didn’t have to read any further. His heart pounded. Then, it came to him. He’d be in Berlin if he paid. He sat down and read on. You have been awarded a full scholarship with tuition, meals and board. His hands shook as he read it slowly a second time. Acceptance is contingent upon a response  in writing by May 10.

The pearl of great price. He couldn’t get the words out of his head. Berlin...I’m going. Maybe, I’ll see von Braun in the hallway between classes.

His mother anticipated the worst. He went into the kitchen, and handed her the letter. Then, he took it back. German. She can’t read German. She stood up, and placed the pot of peeled potatoes on the stove.

Mother, it says I have everything I asked for.

She didn’t