Todorov Aleksandar & Blaga

Todorov, Aleksandar Todorov, Blaga Aleksandar Todorov and his wife, Blaga, were close friends and business partners with Aaron and Rivka Behar in Skopje. The Behars’ young daughter Bienvenita (Betty) spent a lot of time with the Todorovs. The situation for Jews deteriorated with the legislation of anti-Jewish laws following the annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria in 1941, until, by the end of September 1942, they were forced to wear a yellow badge. Aleksandar obtained false identity papers for the Behar family that would enable them to flee to Albania. However, on the way to the border, Aaron feared that the border guards would arrest them and so they returned to Skopje. On March 10, 1943, when Betty was four, she was at the Todorovs’ home when her parents received an order to report to an assembly point, from where they would be sent to a labor camp. Believing they would not be gone for long, they left Betty and her belongings with the Todorovs. The Behars were sent to a nearby transit camp, and then deported to Treblinka, where they perished. Betty stayed with the Todorovs. They changed her name to Kristina and loved her as their very own daughter. When rumors began to circulate that the Todorovs were sheltering a Jewish child, they decided to send her to relatives in the villages nearby. After the war, Betty remained with the Todorovs and believed they were her parents. In the 1950s, Betty discovered that the Todorovs had saved her life, but were not her parents. Betty was determined to rejoin her people and at the age of 13, she decided to immigrate to Israel. The separation from Aleksandar and Blaga, and especially from Sergei, their son, born in 1947, was very difficult, because they were the only parents she had ever really known. Upon arriving in Israel, Betty Behar (later Ezoory), joined a kibbutz, from where she maintained contact with the Todorovs for many years. On January 6, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Aleksandar and Blaga Todorov asRighteous Among the Nations.