Metodi Spasov

* 1926

  • How did I met her? It was in 1960... I was not this kind of Bohemian, fond of women, but I was having a joyful life. My mother was always repeating me: "Get a wife! Get a wife!" I am a big fan of piano music. I met her with another friend of mine in a gathering with music. She played me some pieces which I liked very much and this is how we got closer. After six months we got married.

  • Oh, then I had a very hard incident. I was studying at the Military School and was on leave. I was always wearing civil clothes back then. Just in front of the Postals a drunk Russian soldier stopped me. I was very blond. Looked like a German. He asked for my passport. I had forgotten it. He pointed at me with his gun, shut aside and escorted me to the Militia building near by. This was a horrible place. I am really sorry that nobody has described it yet. Every night there were tracks coming out full with dead bodies. We got inside and he introduced me to a group of female partisans. I said: "I am Bulgarian!" They were really aware that I was Bulgarian, I spoke Bulgarian perfectly but they were cheering at the Russian... On our way to the cell I met a friend of mine in the corridor and managed to explain him the story. He saved my life. I will not forget this guy - Milenkov. God was good then.

  • After graduating from the University I did not get a job. I spent three years working in a toy-workshop. This job was extremely dirty. When I think of it now... if they close you now we will consider it as an extreme punishment. Along with this I was very good in sports, in athletics. For a period of time I was in the national team. Thanks to my sport achievements (sportsmen were tolerated back then) I was able to find a decent job...

  • Then I became very cautious. I was very careful not to get involved in some kind of affair. I did not participate in any political movement after the 9th of September. I was a boy. But now back in nowadays when I took a look at my personal militia files it appeared that I had been surveyed for a whole period of 30 years since the 50ies. They had explored every step of mine. One of my class-mates war reporting on me but I was smart. How did I find out? We were not so close as friends but at a certain moment he became very interested in me. I told my wife then. I was able to find in the files reports about every single meeting we had with him. Another class-mate of mine reported too...

  • My elder brother, Boris Spasov studied in the American College in Sofia. He was a great man in number of aspects - first in school, in sports, very nice boy. He got sick and the communists finished him up. My brother-in-law, the husband of my eldest sister - he got a death sentence. The communists killed him. I was sent for a short period of time to the Belene Labour Camp but, praise the Lord, a mere chance saved me. I had a friend - Kiril Nikiforov, God forgive him! We were class-mates at the Deutsche Schule but he was also involved in a communist conspiracy before the 9th of September and he became one of the anti-fascist heroes... He loved me a lot. He saved me and let me out of Belene.

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Sofia, at his home in Ovcha Kupel, 20.05.2011

    (audio)
    duration: 01:54:41
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

I became very cautious then

Metodi Spasov
Metodi Spasov
photo: Spasov's personal archive

Born in 1926 in Sofia, Bulgaria in a mid class bourgeois family. His father was a self-made and small scale industrial producer. Mr. Spasov studied at the Deutsche Shule in Sofia and continued his mediate education at the Military Gymnasium in Sofia. He graduated in 1944 shortly after the communists came to power. Entered the Sofia University and thanks to his sport achievements managed to graduate as a lawyer.  In 1952 he was sent to the communist labour camp in Belene for a short period of time. Thanks to an old friend of his he was soon released. Most of his professional life during communist times he spent working as a jurist-consultant in minor trade organizations. For the whole communist period he was under close surveillance by the communist State Security. In 1983 his elder son was arrested for plotting against the communist regime and sentenced to jail for three years. Metodi Spasov was investigated too. After 1989 he became one of the founders of the Union of the Democratic Forces and directed for a period of two years the Commission on Religious matters, also a mayor of the district he lives now. He is member of the Union of the Communist Victims and of the Council for Human Rights in Bulgaria.