We were on good terms with our neighbors. We used to boil tomato puree or some kind of jam – from plums or apricots in our yard. Usually we would make 50 kg at least. My mother, my sister and I weren’t able to deal with all the stuff for one day by ourselves. So we would ask our neighbors for help. On the next day the brigade would move to their yard and would start cooking there, too. For instance I had never seen neighbors arguing for something or being on bad terms. I don’t have such a memory from my childhood, even those people were in one and the same business sphere, no matter what the competition theory claims. Now people would kill each other for nothing. I don’t remember such things.
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Displaying 39811 - 39840 of 50826 results
Victoria Almalekh
Most of the Jews were merchants. There were also exceptions – a sandal-maker named Bouko Farhi, a pharmacist – Izidor Lidzhi, two or three professional dressmakers whose workshops were in their houses. I remember the full name of one of them – Rebeka Moreno, but only the first name of the other – Bouka. There were a few physicians: Dr. Arie, Dr. Besan, Dr. Kokhinov-Koen. Sofka Pinkas is still alive and she’s in Sofia, God bless her. She is a second generation physician and Dr. Kohinov’s daughter-in-law. Dr Besan married one of Dr. Kokhinov’s sisters. There were also some tinsmiths. My cousins’ family name is Vagenshtain – they were tinsmiths. All the Vagenshtains in Bulgaria were tinsmiths.
I remember their shops. The shop of the sandal-maker was at the market place in Vidin and I can still see it in my mind. We were friends with the master’s daughter. The shop faced the big street which led the peasants to the market. The shop was their first step in business so to say. The owner had started a highly profitable business and had filled a market niche as we would say nowadays. There was an optical shop owned by Sara and Raymond Koen – the only opticians in Vidin. One of my cousins had a barber-and-hairstyle salon in the building of Izidor Lidzhi’s pharmacy. His name was David Moreno. Some people still continued with grain-trade. Anyway Vidin is a port and is located on the border and there were some Jews interested in grain-trade. But the big grain-trade families like my mother’s were no more. I don’t know why.
I remember their shops. The shop of the sandal-maker was at the market place in Vidin and I can still see it in my mind. We were friends with the master’s daughter. The shop faced the big street which led the peasants to the market. The shop was their first step in business so to say. The owner had started a highly profitable business and had filled a market niche as we would say nowadays. There was an optical shop owned by Sara and Raymond Koen – the only opticians in Vidin. One of my cousins had a barber-and-hairstyle salon in the building of Izidor Lidzhi’s pharmacy. His name was David Moreno. Some people still continued with grain-trade. Anyway Vidin is a port and is located on the border and there were some Jews interested in grain-trade. But the big grain-trade families like my mother’s were no more. I don’t know why.
The house where I was born was the house in which my mother was born. It was in the Jewish neighborhood right in front of the synagogue [An imposing building constructed in 1894 which impresses with its interior design] and near the Danube. Only few compatriots have stayed to live there nowadays, but in those days there were a lot of us living there. 200 metres away from the synagogue door was the Jewish school. Our street was on one of the sides of the synagogue and there were only Jewish houses there; on the other side there was another street – and there were only Jewish houses there, too. Behind the synagogue was the mezamel’s house – this was the person who was taking care of the synagogue and was guarding it. Right next to the street with the Jewish houses was the Vidin Prison. At the place where the building of the prison ended, from the houses there started the Kale – a neighborhood which could be entered through large gates called Kapii... So after crossing those two streets we would reach the Kale and go staright to the Danube… Apart from the Bulgarians and the Jews there were also Turks, Wallachians, Armenians and gypsies living in the town. There were no strictly differentiated neighborhoods. For instance in the Kale most of the houses were Jewish and near the synagogue, there was also a mosque. Some of my classmates in the junior high were Turkish girls. Some of my sister’s friends were Turkish girls, too. We were on very good terms with them. We cared for each other a lot and even nowadays we keep in touch with these girls. I remember for instance there was an old Turkish woman, who had two daughters. They used to have buffalo-cows and to supply us with buffalo milk. It was like that even during the Holocaust when such relationships could cause them trouble. In the beginning we had only Jewish neighbors. Gradually Bulgarian families would move to the Jewish neighborhood. This process started before 9th September 1944.
Despite the daily grind every Sunday the entire family would go on picnic in the nearby village of Sinyagovtsi (15 km away from Vidin). There was this carter who would give us a ride in his cart. The inside of the cart was covered with beautiful rugs. There were wooden stools placed on the rugs for us to sit. On reaching Sinyagovtsi we would take out the food that we had prepared in advance. In summer we used to go to Sinyagovtsi again but stayed longer – ten to fifteen days. Mamma and Papa used to look at the houses in the village beforehand to choose the one in which we would put up.
Rooster soup was quite greasy. I remember grandma used to put it to boil at dawn so it would be ready at noon. But, what can I say, up to now my home has never smelt of such soup like the soup my grandma used to make. She would also put dried tomatoes in the soup. No one would make tinned food in those days. We hadn’t dreamed of such stuff, we had never made any. Tomatoes used to dry split under the sun. After that they would be brought in and put into cheese-cloth bags. The green plums I’m talking about were put in the soup as they were, absolutely fresh. After that we would form an entire brigade. Grandma, my sister and I would form it to split those green half-ripe plums that had just started changing colour. They would be still sour but already with their colour changed. We would sit and split them one or two times each and arrange them on wooden trays. Grandma would keep the cheese-cloth bags till the next summer. Plums were used for sour seasoning of different meals. Because the soup I’m talking about used to be made in springtime when plums hadn’t ripened yet, it smelled of fresh plums, fresh lovage and fresh celery that was picked from the backyard. It used to be cooked with home-made noodles. Yes, fideus. It could be used for pilaf as well. The whole house would participate in making fideus. Grandma was not strong enough to roll out twenty to thirty sheets of pastry a day. She was already old. My mother used to roll out thin fine sheets. The entire house would be covered with white bed sheets so the pastry could be spread on them to dry a bit. After that the pastry sheets would be rolled up and grandma would slice them into really thin (about 2 mm wide) pieces. And that stuff would already be noodles after being sliced. After that the noodles would be spread on the same bed sheets. They would be left for a couple of days to dry out completely so they wouldn’t get mouldy. Then they would be put into cheese-cloth bags. We would have enough noodles for a year.
A part of my granny’s image is how she used to make rooster soup. Not only did she use to do the cooking but she also grew the necessary vegetables as well as the animals. Rooster soup was cooked once a year – when a new rooster entered the household. Usually this happened at the beginning of the summer when the old one was slaughtered. That time of the year would be the time when green plums would form their pits, celery and lovage would come up. Those used to grow in our little vegetable garden in the backyard. Actually it was not much of a vegetable garden. What kinds of vegetables Jews would grow for God’s sake. It’s more of a joke than vegetable production proper. My grandmother learned how to grow vegetables from her Bulgarian neighbors, not from handbooks and manuals. Probably they also taught her to take a bag of ash and to sprinkle tomatoes and peppers with it. She had vegetables enough to help herself with early morning cooking if the market hadn’t opened yet. She would just pick a couple of tomatoes and peppers. The garden couldn’t sustain our household and grandma always said: ‘This is your pastime’.
Bulgaria
Granny Vintoura used to keep a close watch on the order at home, because my mother was always at work helping my father with the store. Their store was at the market place. I remember when I was seven or eight years old my sister and I used to bring lunch to my parents. My grandmother used to cook the meals. She used to wrap the meal in a white cloth – meat, bread, salad, etc. As it was said above there was a distribution of duties in our family. Grandma would cook and deal with the chickens and vegetables in the yard, mother would do the laundry and clean guided by granny’s instructions. Granny used to grow flowers in the yard – we had beautiful roses. My sister and I used to help her. We accepted the requirements my grandmother had to us for keeping everything in order as something absolutely natural and never as a burden. Yes, she would observe the order, but I can’t say she’s ever been severe to us. She even would help us get away without getting our bottoms spanked by mum. We always knew the safest place is behind granny. And she had an unshakable authority in the family. Now I think, she probably had some misunderstandings with my mother. But this was never revealed. Grandma had the unshakable authority. I remember a case like that. My grandmother was completely illiterate. Even her Bulgarian wasn’t good. But she felt it was her duty to check how we prepared for school. One day I saw her giving an exam to my sister with the textbook upside down.
As a matter of principle at the end of the winter every Jewish or Bulgarian house must be thoroughly cleaned, but the chores performed at home during Pesach can be narrated as a myth, because they can be described as extreme. For instance, in winter all clothes were regularly washed but during Pesach the so-called Simans di Pesach [the Weeks before Pesach in Ladino]. This means at least two weeks before Pesach granny would make mum take out all the night wear and underwear which was put in order in the wardrobe, wash it and iron it. The wardrobe would be emptied from A to Z and everything would be washed and sterilized. We used to have some huge copper vessels (about 100 kilos each). There was no way for anyone to lift them by himself. A bonfire would be started in the garden… All of this would be done outside. And all the clothes were sterilized in lye. We would take ash from the stoves for the lye. We had separate crockery for Pesach. No one would have meals in them during the year and we kept them aside. But on the last day it had to be sterilized as well. Nowadays I wouldn’t do such a thing even if they kill me. And I’ve never done it since I have my own home and a family.
We used to go to the public bath every Friday. There was an old Turkish bath [13] in the Jewish neighborhood, which was within the fortress walls. The people working there were Bulgarian Muslim women, from the so-called ‘pomatsi’ [Bulgarian Mohameddans].
I lived with my grandma Vintoura Levi till 1956. She lived with us (my mother, my father and my sister) in Vidin and is a standing image from my childhood. She had an unshakable authority in the family.
She was rather tall and thin, but she was well-built. She always wore black as a widow. That’s how I remember her. Her main task was to prepare Erev Sabbath, to cook all the meals, to take a bath, get dressed and go to the synagogue. Mum would invariably stay at home to make Sabbath. My grandmother used to stick to absolutely all of the norms when cooking - always kosher, always on her guard not to mix dairy products and meat. If somebody by accident mixed up the saucepans and put dairy products instead of meat, the saucepan itself would be thrown out, can you believe that? They were even different in colour. That was no game for her. We weren’t rich, but that’s how it was – the saucepan would be thrown out.
She was rather tall and thin, but she was well-built. She always wore black as a widow. That’s how I remember her. Her main task was to prepare Erev Sabbath, to cook all the meals, to take a bath, get dressed and go to the synagogue. Mum would invariably stay at home to make Sabbath. My grandmother used to stick to absolutely all of the norms when cooking - always kosher, always on her guard not to mix dairy products and meat. If somebody by accident mixed up the saucepans and put dairy products instead of meat, the saucepan itself would be thrown out, can you believe that? They were even different in colour. That was no game for her. We weren’t rich, but that’s how it was – the saucepan would be thrown out.
Stela Astrukova
My parents did not know about my illegal UYW activity. We had a special way of distributing the leaflets so that the police would not find us. Usually we went out in couples – a boy and a girl. The girl would put her back against the wall and glue the poster on the wall behind her. Meanwhile the boy would lean above her as if they are kissing.
One evening my father followed me and saw me with a boy, while gluing a poster. The boy was leaning over me but we were not kissing. My father did not realize what we were doing so we must have been really good. When I went home, he beat me hard and shouted at me, 'Are you going to be a prostitute?' I did not explain to him the truth because that was our secret.
One evening my father followed me and saw me with a boy, while gluing a poster. The boy was leaning over me but we were not kissing. My father did not realize what we were doing so we must have been really good. When I went home, he beat me hard and shouted at me, 'Are you going to be a prostitute?' I did not explain to him the truth because that was our secret.
Rumors were circulating that we would be sent to Germany to work there. My mother supposed that since I was young, I would be sent to work somewhere without them. I remember that we had some gold family jewels. She divided them into three parts – for her, for my father and for me and sewed them into the hems of our clothes.
In my winter coat she sewed a gold bracelet, a pair of earrings and a ring and told me, 'Sell these things only if you have nothing to eat.' Those jewels were not found during the arrests and searches later on and I had completely forgotten about them. But when I got home on 9th September, all my clothes had to be boiled in a big cauldron. My mother remembered the jewels and took them out.
We also had silver coins with the image of Boris I from 1942. My father also had a number of them. He took out the threshold board between the kitchen and the room, dug a hole in the ground and buried them in a metal box. After 9th September we found them there and by selling them we survived the first days after the Holocaust.
In my winter coat she sewed a gold bracelet, a pair of earrings and a ring and told me, 'Sell these things only if you have nothing to eat.' Those jewels were not found during the arrests and searches later on and I had completely forgotten about them. But when I got home on 9th September, all my clothes had to be boiled in a big cauldron. My mother remembered the jewels and took them out.
We also had silver coins with the image of Boris I from 1942. My father also had a number of them. He took out the threshold board between the kitchen and the room, dug a hole in the ground and buried them in a metal box. After 9th September we found them there and by selling them we survived the first days after the Holocaust.
When the orders for internment arrived, we were given only 3 or 4 days before the day of leaving. Pirotska Str. turned into a kind of an open market. The people took out their belongings and sold them on the street. They needed money and they were not allowed to take more than 30 kg with them.
Villagers on carts arrived from the nearby villages and bought a lot of things at extremely low price. I remember that my mother took out the woolen mattresses for sale. I sold one of them for 5 levs – the price of one loaf of bread. My mother was sorry at first that I had sold it for so little but then dismissed it with the words, 'We lost everything, so a mattress is not such a big deal'.
Villagers on carts arrived from the nearby villages and bought a lot of things at extremely low price. I remember that my mother took out the woolen mattresses for sale. I sold one of them for 5 levs – the price of one loaf of bread. My mother was sorry at first that I had sold it for so little but then dismissed it with the words, 'We lost everything, so a mattress is not such a big deal'.
We were renamed during the Holocaust. My name Stela was changed to Ester.
My mother's name Matilda was changed to Mazal, but my father's name Morduhay was not changed [35]. Then followed the curfew and the badges [yellow stars] [36]. The Jews were allowed to live in the Jewish quarter only – between Hristo Botev Str., Klementina Str. and the river. A kind of a ghetto was forming there.
My mother's name Matilda was changed to Mazal, but my father's name Morduhay was not changed [35]. Then followed the curfew and the badges [yellow stars] [36]. The Jews were allowed to live in the Jewish quarter only – between Hristo Botev Str., Klementina Str. and the river. A kind of a ghetto was forming there.
My mother kept on sewing. Only the three of us were at home and my father continued to work as an electrical engineer going to the homes of his clients. He repaired stoves, but he did not have much work because there were not many electrical appliances then. He could not make the electrical wirings of new houses – that was not allowed.
Then we had to declare all our property. [In 1941 the Law for Protection of the Nation [34] was adopted and included a variety of documents on the real estate and movable property owned by Jews, including bank savings. Jews had to declare all their possessions within a month of the adoption of the law.]
No one was allowed to hide anything. Using these declarations, they came and confiscated what they wanted. We were left our new house, but they took the rent we received from the old one. They took our radio sets and gave all Jews pink ID cards.
Then we had to declare all our property. [In 1941 the Law for Protection of the Nation [34] was adopted and included a variety of documents on the real estate and movable property owned by Jews, including bank savings. Jews had to declare all their possessions within a month of the adoption of the law.]
No one was allowed to hide anything. Using these declarations, they came and confiscated what they wanted. We were left our new house, but they took the rent we received from the old one. They took our radio sets and gave all Jews pink ID cards.
Then all Jewish property was confiscated [33]. They started with the manufacturing plants. Then they closed the shops, the factories, the ateliers. My father also had a shop. At first, they forced him to take a Bulgarian partner, then they made him transfer everything to the Bulgarian.
They wanted to leave the Jews without any means of earning money. We were only allowed to practice some craft from our homes, like sewing or mending shoes. The Bulgarians were banned to employ Jews and the Jews were banned to take Bulgarian girls as maids. Those were difficult and hungry years for our family because we were still paying our loan.
They wanted to leave the Jews without any means of earning money. We were only allowed to practice some craft from our homes, like sewing or mending shoes. The Bulgarians were banned to employ Jews and the Jews were banned to take Bulgarian girls as maids. Those were difficult and hungry years for our family because we were still paying our loan.
While I was studying in the high school, I felt the negative attitude of the Legionaries and Brannik girls among us. They spoke loud enough for us to hear them and disseminated rumors that the Jews were the reasons for the troubles because they were rich and ruled the nation and their riches were accumulated in dishonest ways.
Their anti-Semitism was especially strong at Easter. Then they directly attacked us with the words that the Jews drank blood and if a child went missing, we were the first to be blamed to have killed him or her to drink the blood. We, the UYW members, gathered and decided to resist the Branniks by explaining the truth to the Bulgarians who were not against us yet. We used every opportunity to talk to them.
Their anti-Semitism was especially strong at Easter. Then they directly attacked us with the words that the Jews drank blood and if a child went missing, we were the first to be blamed to have killed him or her to drink the blood. We, the UYW members, gathered and decided to resist the Branniks by explaining the truth to the Bulgarians who were not against us yet. We used every opportunity to talk to them.
The anti-Semitic attitudes started around the 1940s. I remember the Legionaries [Bulgarian Legions] [30] and Branniks [31] on Klementina and Pirotska Str. and how they attacked the Jewish shops there [The Night of Broken Glass] [32]
[Editor's Note: the interviewee is mistaken – no Branniks took part in that incident because their organization was founded in December 1940]. Then they wanted to attack the houses but the UYW organization consisting of both Bulgarians and Jews put up a resistance. We even had help from the Bulgarians from other quarters of the town.
[Editor's Note: the interviewee is mistaken – no Branniks took part in that incident because their organization was founded in December 1940]. Then they wanted to attack the houses but the UYW organization consisting of both Bulgarians and Jews put up a resistance. We even had help from the Bulgarians from other quarters of the town.
I became a UYW when I was 16 years old and it happened through the Jewish chitalishte [24]. When I learned how to read, my father took me to the chitalishte because he was not able to buy me books. He showed me how to select my books. The first chitalishte was 'Hristo Botev', next to my school so I did not have to cross the street.
When I was second or third primary grade I became a member of another chitalishte – 'Emil Shekerdzhiiski' [25]. It was on Klementina Str. between Sredna Gora Str. and Opalchenska Str. It had a number of names before 9th September – 'Aura', 'Shalom Aleyhem' [26], 'Bialik' [27] It also had a central office on Lege Str.
The librarian there was the famous Jewish writer Haim Benatov [writer, lived in Iuchbunar, author of the novel 'This long road...'] The librarian in the office on Klementina Str. was Elena Kehayova, a communist. She used her job in the chitalishte to introduce us to the UYW movement and its ideology.
The first UYW group was at the Jewish chitalishte. At first there were groups of sympathizers at the chitalishte. They were UYW groups. We became members of some of the groups as sympathizers. The first years there were educational groups.
We had meetings before which everyone had to read a book. That is why, I say that UYW educated us not only politically but also culturally. We read Erenburg, Gladkov, Pushkin, Lermontov [28], Tolstoy [29]. We discussed their books at our meetings. We had literary debates in the form of trials.
For example, we debated whether it was right for Martin Eden to commit suicide [a character of the novel 'Martin Eden' by Jack London]. We also had discussions about love. Some of the members defended the position of Elena Kolontay [the first woman diplomat of Soviet Russia] on free love, the others were against. Most of us, the girls, were against.
When I was second or third primary grade I became a member of another chitalishte – 'Emil Shekerdzhiiski' [25]. It was on Klementina Str. between Sredna Gora Str. and Opalchenska Str. It had a number of names before 9th September – 'Aura', 'Shalom Aleyhem' [26], 'Bialik' [27] It also had a central office on Lege Str.
The librarian there was the famous Jewish writer Haim Benatov [writer, lived in Iuchbunar, author of the novel 'This long road...'] The librarian in the office on Klementina Str. was Elena Kehayova, a communist. She used her job in the chitalishte to introduce us to the UYW movement and its ideology.
The first UYW group was at the Jewish chitalishte. At first there were groups of sympathizers at the chitalishte. They were UYW groups. We became members of some of the groups as sympathizers. The first years there were educational groups.
We had meetings before which everyone had to read a book. That is why, I say that UYW educated us not only politically but also culturally. We read Erenburg, Gladkov, Pushkin, Lermontov [28], Tolstoy [29]. We discussed their books at our meetings. We had literary debates in the form of trials.
For example, we debated whether it was right for Martin Eden to commit suicide [a character of the novel 'Martin Eden' by Jack London]. We also had discussions about love. Some of the members defended the position of Elena Kolontay [the first woman diplomat of Soviet Russia] on free love, the others were against. Most of us, the girls, were against.
Another memory of the way Sofia looked then is from a later period when I was already a member of the UYW. I remember that the winter of 1941 was very cold. The temperatures in Sofia fell as low as -25, -26 degrees C. My friends from the UYW group and I decided that we should by all means buy tickets for 'Carmen' starring Ilka Popova [23].
At four o'clock in the morning and -25 degrees I queued in front of the National Theater in order to buy tickets when the booking office opened at eight o'clock. I was so cold that had no strength to get back home. My aunt Reyna, my father's sister, lived somewhere close and I visited her to get warm. My aunt put my feet in hot water and made me tea. I remember going back along Pirotska Str. and seeing stoves with charcoal placed outside so that people would warm themselves.
At four o'clock in the morning and -25 degrees I queued in front of the National Theater in order to buy tickets when the booking office opened at eight o'clock. I was so cold that had no strength to get back home. My aunt Reyna, my father's sister, lived somewhere close and I visited her to get warm. My aunt put my feet in hot water and made me tea. I remember going back along Pirotska Str. and seeing stoves with charcoal placed outside so that people would warm themselves.
There were three tramlines in Sofia. Tram No4 passed along Klementina Str. and tram No3 passeed along Pirotska Str. Tram No5 went to Knyazhevo. The other means of transport were carts and carriages. The people living in a house next to ours had a carriage. One of the brothers who lived there was a cabman.
He would go to the station to wait for passengers. When he came back home from work we, the children, would wait for him on Opalchenska Str. and he would take us all home on the carriage. It was a lot of fun.
He would go to the station to wait for passengers. When he came back home from work we, the children, would wait for him on Opalchenska Str. and he would take us all home on the carriage. It was a lot of fun.
When I finished junior high school with excellent marks, I wanted very much to continue studying although my mother thought it was unnecessary for a girl.
My father intervened. 'She will go to high school and that's it!' So, they enrolled me in the Second Girls' High School, which was private. It was in a number of buildings on Dunav Str. and Iskar Str. The fourth and fifth grade studied on Dunav Str.
A short distance along the street was another house where the sixth graders studied and on Iskar Str in a yellow building studied the higher grades. There were four Jewish girls in our class – Fani Avramova, Linka Natan, Beti Ashkenazi and I.
My father intervened. 'She will go to high school and that's it!' So, they enrolled me in the Second Girls' High School, which was private. It was in a number of buildings on Dunav Str. and Iskar Str. The fourth and fifth grade studied on Dunav Str.
A short distance along the street was another house where the sixth graders studied and on Iskar Str in a yellow building studied the higher grades. There were four Jewish girls in our class – Fani Avramova, Linka Natan, Beti Ashkenazi and I.
During the holidays we stayed in Sofia. My mother made me help her with the housework. She had more clothes to sew during the Easter and the Christmas holidays and I had to help her.
I often had to sew the hems and I hated that. But my mother would say, 'You are a girl, you should know how to sew a blouse or a skirt.' And I would tell her, 'I will not become like you, sewing all day on the machine.' I never wanted to learn how to sew.
I often had to sew the hems and I hated that. But my mother would say, 'You are a girl, you should know how to sew a blouse or a skirt.' And I would tell her, 'I will not become like you, sewing all day on the machine.' I never wanted to learn how to sew.
There were operettas in the town performed on the stage of Odeon Theater at the place of the Musical Theater. We did not go there very often and neither did we go much to the theater. Once we went on an excursion by cart. We were like the gypsies – the whole cart was full of children, relatives, baskets of food.
I think we were heading for Vladaya but I am not sure. I was an obedient child, but at that afternoon, when the horses were released to rest, I decided to mount one of them, he was startled and hurled me to the ground. I was hurt very badly. I remember that everyone panicked and my parents brought me back to town.
But there were no serious consequences from the fall. We went on excursions and picnics very rarely.
I think we were heading for Vladaya but I am not sure. I was an obedient child, but at that afternoon, when the horses were released to rest, I decided to mount one of them, he was startled and hurled me to the ground. I was hurt very badly. I remember that everyone panicked and my parents brought me back to town.
But there were no serious consequences from the fall. We went on excursions and picnics very rarely.
My parents kept in touch with the Jewish community – they paid araha [a kind of a membership fee paid by the members of the community in the synagogue] and were members of the community, although they were atheists and did not go to the synagogue.
My mother was not able to take part in the women's organizations of the Jewish community, because she had much work to do and had no time. My father was not a member of any organizations or parties. He was against party membership because he thought that the aligning with one party or point of view led to sectarianism.
My mother was not able to take part in the women's organizations of the Jewish community, because she had much work to do and had no time. My father was not a member of any organizations or parties. He was against party membership because he thought that the aligning with one party or point of view led to sectarianism.
Bulgaria
On Sundays my parents and I went out on a walk to some of the parks and on our way home we went to a confectionery. My father bought us cakes, boza [19], ice cream. When we had no money, my mother would joke with my father in Spanish [Ladino], 'You bought me nothing on the way to the park and back.
Why should we bother going out at all?' My parents loved going to the theater and to the opera. My father told us a lot about the theater performances of Sarah Bernardt [1844-1923, a famous French actress] and a play by Victor Hugo he had seen. I remember that the famous singer Hristina Morfova [20] was singing in the 'Magic Flute' [by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart] and we went to see her.
I was around 8 or 9 years old. It was very interesting but I could not understand the plot. I started asking my father. He told me, 'You will see the 'Magic Flute' many times in your life, but only once will you have the chance to listen to Hristina Morfova. Remember that.' She played the part of the Night Queen and I still remember how she was lowered on the dark stage, all illuminated. She was very impressive, a tall, big woman with a scepter in hand...
We went to the cinema regularly – once a week. We went to the movies starring Shirley Temple and I loved her. She is the prodigy child. Although my parents were not rich and highly educated, they had a broad culture.
Why should we bother going out at all?' My parents loved going to the theater and to the opera. My father told us a lot about the theater performances of Sarah Bernardt [1844-1923, a famous French actress] and a play by Victor Hugo he had seen. I remember that the famous singer Hristina Morfova [20] was singing in the 'Magic Flute' [by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart] and we went to see her.
I was around 8 or 9 years old. It was very interesting but I could not understand the plot. I started asking my father. He told me, 'You will see the 'Magic Flute' many times in your life, but only once will you have the chance to listen to Hristina Morfova. Remember that.' She played the part of the Night Queen and I still remember how she was lowered on the dark stage, all illuminated. She was very impressive, a tall, big woman with a scepter in hand...
We went to the cinema regularly – once a week. We went to the movies starring Shirley Temple and I loved her. She is the prodigy child. Although my parents were not rich and highly educated, they had a broad culture.
I have wonderful memories from my teachers. They loved their profession. When we were in the third primary grade one of the teachers took us on an excursion to Pernik [a city in Southwestern Bulgaria, 25 km from Sofia] by train. We went to the mines to see how coal is dug.
He must have had very progressive [here the word is used in the meaning of ‘leftist’] views because he made us learn the poem by [Hristo] Smirnenski 'Quarry Boy' [16]. That was the first time I left Sofia. In my junior high school we also went on an excursion to Veliko Tarnovo [a city in North-Central Bulgaria, 195 km from Sofia].
He must have had very progressive [here the word is used in the meaning of ‘leftist’] views because he made us learn the poem by [Hristo] Smirnenski 'Quarry Boy' [16]. That was the first time I left Sofia. In my junior high school we also went on an excursion to Veliko Tarnovo [a city in North-Central Bulgaria, 195 km from Sofia].
Our life was very hard. Our way of life during the internment was very miserable, but it did not get better after 9th September because the whole town was destroyed. The houses which survived the bombings were occupied by two or three families.
Our house was not big. One part was let out even before 9th September but there was no forced accommodation in it. All members of our family came back to Sofia. Everyone was alive. The house of my other grandmother was also preserved. It can be seen even nowadays.
Our house was not big. One part was let out even before 9th September but there was no forced accommodation in it. All members of our family came back to Sofia. Everyone was alive. The house of my other grandmother was also preserved. It can be seen even nowadays.
My father's shop had been confiscated. During the Law for Protection of the Nation we had to hand it to a Bulgarian. Some of the Bulgarians were very honest people and gave the shops back to their owners. But my father received nothing back and he continued to work as an electrical technician.
After 9th September I worked and studied. It was possible the first two years because the teachers did not check if everyone was present at the lectures. We were 2 000 people, gathering in the Moderen Teatar [Modern Theater] [51] in the hall of the Student's Home – its stage. Then I started work in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. I was head of the human resources department until 1951. When my studies at the university got harder, I had to stop working.