Balkan Jazz is the first in a trilogy of documentaries that covers a wide spectrum of the Jewish experience in Bulgaria and the Balkans during the 20th century and world war II.
The movie tells the story of Bulgaria’s Jazz pioneers. The story is told by the band star, Niko Nissimov, his brother Harry and by his band mate David Eskin. Niko is an optimistic cheerful and spirited person who throughout his life kept creating, playing music, taking initiatives and surviving all possible hardships, troubles and stress.
Niko was born in 1913 and grew up in Sofia. In the thirties he studied to be a pharmacists in Strasbourg. While being a student he used to play in the hottest jazz clubs of the French city. In those clubs he met and heard Django Reinhards and Stephan Grapelli, Louis Armstrong and many other stars of the era.
Upon his graduation he returned to Sofia. During the day he worked in the family pharmacy and pharmaceutical laboratory. At night he used to jam with his high school buddies. The band developed into Bulgaria’s first Jazz band and became very popular so that Niko and his friends quit their day jobs to become musicians.
Stardom was sweet, but WWII interrupted the course of their careers and transformed successes into hardships. Bulgaria became an ally of Nazi Germany, and imposed anti Jewish laws, professional limitations, taxes and curfew, so that the Jewish members could no longer attend concerts and the band had to stop performing.
The conditions under the Nazi laws continued to deteriorate. Niko David and Harry had to wear yellow stars, were not allowed to work in their professions, their properties were confiscated, their rights stripped. Harry and David were drafted and sent to build train tracks and roads in forced labor camps in south Bulgaria. Niko was drafted as a pharmacist to serve in a hospital in the former Greek territory of Thrace, invaded by the German army and given to Bulgaria who annexed it.
In the hospital Niko enjoys a correct treatment from all the medical and military personnel. Every month he sends half of his salary to Harry who is poor and hungry.
One day in March 1943 Niko and all the other Jewish Medical personnel in Thrace are arrested. Together with all the Jews of the region they are loaded on trains destined for Treblinka. The trains loaded with human cargo pass by the Jewish labor camps along the rail tracks. As the train with Niko in it passes by one of the camps, harry spots his brother inside one of the horse cars.
Harry is besides himself not knowing what to do. Miraculously he is sent by the camp commander on a leave to Sofia where he alarms two of Niko’s friends who mange to locate where Niko is, visit him and manage to have him and another 10 Jewish doctors and pharmacists by getting transfer papers for them to serve in other places. The eleven Bulgarian doctors and pharmacist are taken off the transport which continues hours later towards the Danube and from there by river boats via Vienna to the death camp of Treblinka.
Off the transport Niko is sent to serve in a pharmacy for a few weeks where he hears on the radio news of the war that gives him hope it will end soon. a month later Niko is drafted and sent to the same labor camp where some of his closest friends serve. Together with a friend they write a play: a parody on the operetta Helene the Beautiful by Offenbach. The inmates put together a show and invite in addition to the laborers, the commanders and personnel of the camp. The show is a big success and the Jewish laborers are encouraged by the positive feedback of the camp commander.
It takes another year before Bulgaria is liberated/ occupied by the Russian army in September 1944. Bulgaria declares war on its former ally and it’s troops chase the retreating German troops. Niko, David and other members of The Optimists Jazz band are drafted to serve as a “Front Theater” to entertain the Bulgarian soldiers. On the chase after the German army they go through, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria. The end of the war finds them in Hungary. David Eskin can finally fire his pistol – celebrating the war’s end.
Back in Sofia The Optimists start performing again and restore their star status. Now American soldiers who are stationed in Italy come by plane to Sofia on the weekends to listen to the Jazz of the Optimists at the fanciest hotels and clubs.
in 1947 Niko decides to immigrate to the holy land. The British navy stops the boat and send all sixteen thousand refugees on board to be interned in Cyprus for 8 months.
The founding of the Jewish state marks the end of Niko’s interment. Niko arrives in Israel and gets his first gig as a musician. His career elevates and he gets to play with world stars such as Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kit and many others. parallel he is working as a pharmacist. Niko sees his life a cycle of ups and downs, of danger and despair but also great enthusiasm, creativity and a spirit that allows him to find something good in every situation and to try to make the most out it.