The house on Otez Paisii Street was very humble. There were two rooms and a dark corridor. I don't remember if we used a gas lamp or a plate at that time as there was electricity in the house. We had a wood-burning stove for heating and my mother and grandmother used to cook on it as well. My mother was very hospitable and the house always smelled of coffee. I wanted to try it very much but my mother's friends told me that my teeth would get black.
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Displaying 11641 - 11670 of 50826 results
Anelia Kasabova
All my mother's sisters got married in Sofia without having any dowry because they were all very poor. After they moved to Sofia they all found jobs and contributed to the family's income. My mother wanted to have some qualification, attended a typing course and started work as a typist. She met my father at this course. They all lived in the house on Pirotska Street then. We didn't all live together on Otez Paisii Street anymore because some of my aunts had already got married. Only my mother, my grandparents and I lived in that house which was in an inner courtyard. All my aunts lived with their families.
My uncle Solomon Elazar, my mother's brother, went to France after the family had moved to Sofia. He started working with some firm in Sofia first. His boss highly valued his work and took my uncle to France with him when he was just 19 years old to work in a sock factory, Chesterfield. He made a fortune there and started to support the whole family. He supported my grandparents all his life, even after they went to live in Israel. Uncle Solomon never returned to Bulgaria. Maybe because he was aware of the fact that he hadn't served in the Bulgarian army.
My uncle had a very interesting period while he was in France. He used to hide for a few months in the basement of his boss's daughter who was in love with him. He was literally walled up there so that he couldn't be found. There was just a small opening through which he received his food. That's how he survived during the German occupation of France during World War II. My uncle didn't marry his boss' daughter; he married a Bulgarian Jew. He was a very noble man and, as I said before, he supported his relatives in both Bulgaria and Israel.
My uncle had a very interesting period while he was in France. He used to hide for a few months in the basement of his boss's daughter who was in love with him. He was literally walled up there so that he couldn't be found. There was just a small opening through which he received his food. That's how he survived during the German occupation of France during World War II. My uncle didn't marry his boss' daughter; he married a Bulgarian Jew. He was a very noble man and, as I said before, he supported his relatives in both Bulgaria and Israel.
I respected my father very much. He was left-wing. He was born in Svishtov and he used to organize the military actions of the resistance movement in Svishtov and that's why he was sentenced to 20 years of penal servitude in the town of Veliko Turnovo. My father had troubles with the authorities all the time, before and during World War II, because of his left-wing convictions and his anti-fascist activities. Inevitably, that influenced his relationship with my mother. My father was a communist and he was well-known in Svishtov district as the organizer of military actions against the pro-German policy of Bulgaria during World War II. [see Bulgarian legions] [3]
In 1932 my father was sentenced to twelve years of penal servitude in the town of Veliko Turnovo. He was released under an amnesty before 9th September 1944 [4]. He had a bad record and couldn't find work anywhere. He was requited after 9th September 1944 and he became an active fighter against fascism and capitalism. I kept in touch with my father all the time.
In 1932 my father was sentenced to twelve years of penal servitude in the town of Veliko Turnovo. He was released under an amnesty before 9th September 1944 [4]. He had a bad record and couldn't find work anywhere. He was requited after 9th September 1944 and he became an active fighter against fascism and capitalism. I kept in touch with my father all the time.
My mother was the only one of the sisters in the family that got married to a Bulgarian, my father Jordan Todorov Angelov. The fact that she didn't marry a Jew wasn't a problem for the family. They separated very soon after I was born, at the beginning of the 1930s - I don't know why.
In my mother's baptismal certificate it is written that she was born on 654, Gradetz Street in March 1906. My mother's parents rented a house there. Not many people had their own houses at that time. The house where my mother was born was somewhere near Hisarlaka [a hill in the central part of the town]. I don't know exactly where the house was situated because my mother's whole family moved to Sofia at the beginning of the 1920s. All her sisters and her brother were very young and most of them started working as shop assistants. They lived on Pirotska Street when they came to Sofia and afterwards they moved into a house on Otetz Paisii Street in the Jewish neighborhood of Iuchbunar [2]. There were many textile merchants and my mother and her sisters managed to start working in their shops. One of my aunts, my mother's sister Zelma Avramova, nee Elazar, married a textile merchant and went back to live in Kiustendil - their house was in the center of town. I remember that when I was a little child my mother used to take me to Kiustendil every summer to visit my aunt.
My grandfather was born in the village of Sovoleno near Kiustendil in 1875 and he traded with chick-peas. I've heard stories that the courtyard of his house was filled with sacks of chick-peas that my grandfather sold. My mother told me that once she stumbled over those sacks and twisted her knee badly. She recalled that a popular healer fixed the knee with just one touch. My grandparents' family lived quite poorly. They had seven children - six daughters and a son, who went to France when he was only 19 years old and never returned to Bulgaria. My grandfather was the only one who provided for their living. My grandmother was a housewife. Later on my grandfather became a chazzan at the synagogue in Kiustendil until the whole family moved to Sofia. All my relatives from Kiustendil went to Israel after 1948. My grandfather was religious, but he wore civil clothes. He had many books in Hebrew, and he also had the Talmud and read prayers all the time.
Bulgaria
My maternal ancestors came from Spain five centuries ago after Queen Elizabeth had ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Spain [1]. The language and the typical Sephardi cuisine originate from that country. My maternal grandmother, Ester Elazar, nee Beraha, was born in the town of Nish in today's Serbia in 1879. She had a big family there and she kept in touch with them until World War II. Unfortunately all her relatives were deported and killed in the death camps. She was really lucky that she went to the town of Kiustendil when she was 16. She got married to my grandfather, Josef Elazar, who was born there. They had six daughters and a son.
Anna Danon
Our family often moved from one house to another because our parents weren't able to pay the rent regularly, and the contracts were usually suspended. The new house needed to be cleaned up and whitewashed.
My father had a nice job as a bookbinder. Every Sunday he used to go out, quite often without my mother. It was my mother's mistake. Instead of wasting 4 or 5 leva on the weekend, she preferred to save for the household for the rest of the week and therefore stayed home. She had a little stool that she used to put in front of the door so that she could to sit and chat with the other women. When I was old enough I began to feel sorry for my mother that she didn't go out on Sundays. But it was not only my father - all men used to behave like that. My parents' circle of friends was Jewish. All my father's friends were Jews. My mother also had a circle of some 4 or 5 Jewish women friends. We, the children, didn't choose - most of my friends were Bulgarian and were either neighbors or from school. I still remember their names and we still keep in touch.
I think my father had fought in all the wars [Balkan wars and WWI]. He was captured by the Italians during one of them. He often told us stories. He was very witty and amusing, always telling jokes. His elder brother, Iakov Isak, a pharmacist, was a military officer while my father was a simple soldier in the same army detachment. My father always tried to get away, and once he caused a great havoc. One day at firing practice they were given blank cartridges. Somehow my father found a live one. When the practice began, the sergeant major immediately realized from the sound that somebody had used a ball cartridge. They checked, and found out that it had been my father. He was punished and brought to the officer for the joke. My father told us that when Uncle Iakov saw him, he hit him so hard that one of his boots remained between my father's legs. But that was my father - 'zulumdjia' [a troublemaker].
My father Haim Iakov was born in 1895 in Sofia. My mother Rebeka Aladjem was also born in 1895 in Kiustendil. My parents married in 1919. They probably had an arranged marriage because he was from Sofia and she was from Kiustendil. I don't know who arranged it, but it was common practice in those times. In my opinion my mother made a mistake. They had different interests and mode of living. My father was a handsome man, always very tidy, always carrying three handkerchiefs in different pockets. He devoted considerable time to his morning toilette - teeth, ears, nose: everything. He was really good-looking and his nose was of the 'Jewish kind' - a big one. My mother was just the opposite - a humble woman, neat and simply dressed. She didn't pay attention to those things. My father was an experienced man. He was fond of music. I knew the overtures of several operas through him. The Barber of Seville was his favorite. As soon as he got up in the morning he started whistling. He adored music. I don't know how he had learned them, but he knew all the overtures.
Our grandparents on both sides spoke Ladino with each other. We only spoke Ladino with our mother, and spoke Bulgarian with our father.
Bulgaria
I can describe my maternal grandparents' house because during the Holocaust we were interned to Kiustendil and we lived there, and I also visited it later. It was on Alexandrovska Street [the central street in Kiustendil]. Alexandrovska Street was paved. It passed through the whole town from one end to the other. Kiustendil's market was very close to our house. It was a large market, and I don't remember what day of the week it was that lots of the village people used to gather. I remember the town vividly: it had a fountain with hot flowing mineral water at every crossroad and we went there with buckets to fill them for use at home. It was an old house with two floors, with an internal staircase to the second floor and had a balcony facing the street. It was still there a few years ago. There was water and electricity but there wasn't a yard or any animals.
Bulgaria
In 1933 a few days after my granny's death - according to an old Jewish custom, I guess - all my mother's siblings gathered; there were 7 altogether. My mother took me there. I was very small but I remember everything because I was dumbfounded. We entered a big room and we sat on the floor in a semicircle. My granny's things had to be divided among her children. Of course, there were no quarrels among them. They all gave the greater part of their inheritance to my mother's younger sister, Rashel Fransez, who was a widow at the age of 22. Most of them said: 'This is for Rashel because she is the most embarrassed.' Her husband, Riachi Fransez, was arrested in 1925 for his socialist convictions and was beaten black and blue by the police. Within a year or two he died of tuberculoses - probably because of the traumas and hardships he had to endure during his lifetime.
I don't remember my maternal grandfather, Mordehai Aladjem. He died in 1930. We rarely saw my maternal grandmother, Ester Aladjem, because she lived in Kiustendil (where she was born), and we lived in Sofia, where my mother had settled after she married. We sometimes visited her. She seemed to be a village woman - she used to wear a bruchnik [the skirt of the Bulgarian national folk costume] and a kerchief, which she called 'shamia' [the Turkish word for kerchief].
My paternal grandmother Venezia Iako-Isakova was born to a large family in Sofia. She was a very domineering woman. She didn't wear a wig and dressed in a worldly manner. Before, during and after the internment she lived with us - in Sofia. It took a while before we found her a separate lodging. She died in 1946. I know that both of my paternal grandparents were religious and observed the kashrut and Sabbath. I can't say whether they visited the synagogue every Friday - but they were definitely not Jews of the Orthodox stream, demanding that everything be strictly observed.
I have no information about my ancestors and I know just a few things about our family tree. I don't remember my paternal grandfather, Iakov Isak Grinberg as he died when I was a little baby. He was rather old, and basically the family was more engaged in looking after me because his days were already coming to an end. He was born in Russia. A picture of his hometown was hanging on the wall in our house with the name 'Kravishon' written on it. I suppose it is today's Kishinev [capital of Moldavia]. I have no idea how he had come to Bulgaria and where he had passed through.
The year 1989 brought a difficult change for us. We can't put up with many things, even now. I have been a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party (now called Socialist Party) since 1948 and I hold firmly to that. Democracy didn't lead to anti-Semitic manifestations, though lately signs have started to appear in the synagogue and in the Jewish school. Currently Jewish life is more intense, with many more activities. Events happen on a daily basis - artists and writers come.
My sister Klara moved to Israel in 1948 because she didn't approve of the communist regime. We, under Ester's influence, stayed here to build up the new Bulgaria. At first we had difficulties in contacting our relatives in Israel, as it happened through letters. Now it is much easier via telephone, and we communicate almost every day.
The first time I went to Israel was in 1959. I was so happy. My sister, my brother-in-law as well as my friends also came here, though they had to face many more formalities.
The first time I went to Israel was in 1959. I was so happy. My sister, my brother-in-law as well as my friends also came here, though they had to face many more formalities.
My daughter Raia Danon was born in 1961. She graduated in Spanish philology and currently works as a Spanish teacher at the Spanish high school in Sofia. We didn't really raise her in the Jewish traditions. In socialist times we kept Sabbath mostly because of my mother (even after her death also), as she respected and insisted on that. But I must say that we weren't that strict and we didn't keep the kashrut, like in prewar times. But we often told Raia about the Holocaust. She simply grew up in such a circle; all our friends are Jews. She has developed a sense of belonging to the Jews without being a maniac. Her husband is Bulgarian. She often brings her children to Betam, the Jewish cultural house. Lately there have been many activities there - many clubs - for children, for pensioners, etc. They also organize children's summer and winter camps. My grandchildren attend the events when they can. My daughter considers herself a Jew, but my grandchildren do not. My granddaughter Anna often tells me that she is not a Jew, but a Bulgarian. I have to explain to her that she is a half-Jew also. She considers that being a Jew is not a very good thing.
I met my husband Shimon Danon in the synagogue's reading room - the central one. Now it has been reorganized. There used to be a reading room there, which was very useful indeed. First of all, it had heating. Every day they lit the stove, and it was pleasantly warm there. Secondly, they had a large library, including specialized sections in literature, medicine, engineering, mathematics, etc. We used to read there, and were always very disciplined. My husband was a librarian there, earning his living while studying. We had breaks at certain hours, during which we talked. That's how we met and then married. It was a love-match and we married for love. There weren't any religious motives in that. We had a civil wedding. It was a very modest wedding. My husband gave me a cloth for a blouse as a gift and I sewed myself a skirt from a pair of old trousers. We were both poor students.
I graduated from high school in Sofia after the war. During the internment in Kiustendil I tried several times, but I wasn't allowed to study. In 1948 I began studying medicine and I graduated in 1953. First I worked in Krainitsi village. I wasn't married at that time. My husband was a soldier, as they took him after he had graduated law. For three-four years I worked in Pernik and after that in Sofia. I was a doctor until my retirement. During the last three years I worked at the Ministry of Health. I was responsible for the instruction of college medical specialists.
The most difficult thing for us after the war was to find a house in Sofia. The one we lived in before the internment had been given to other people. Iosif Kamhi's family gave us a room on Vladaiska Street. We lived in that room for quite a long time.
We had a large gate in the yard, which we locked at 8 in the evening in order to protect ourselves from possible attacks or things like that. The day that Ester left it was 8, and she still wasn't home. Mother started to cry. She persuaded us not to lock the front door, as our sister was only running late and would turn up soon. My father began to reassure her. At the time appointed by Ester, when I was completely sure that she had already left town, I told them. And then Klara started again: 'That stupid little... She knew everything, yet she didn't tell us. Look what they brought to us.'
From that day onward we lived in constant fear. We were afraid that they would find Ester, or that they would come here looking for her. And our fears were justified. Within a month or two, the entire family of Iosif Kamhi - who had joined the partisan detachment with my sister - was sent to the Kailuka concentration camp in Pleven. [6] We were horrified. They were sent there because their son had become a partisan. Anyway, they [the authorities] didn't touch us. I don't know why. Perhaps a good angel had saved us. There were no victims from our family. But the camp was set on fire and our friend Iosif's mother burned to death there. Another story - one evening he came across my sister holding paint and a brush. She had written anti-fascist slogans on the walls. Instead of provoking a scandal, he simply told her to be careful, because it was a dangerous work.
From that day onward we lived in constant fear. We were afraid that they would find Ester, or that they would come here looking for her. And our fears were justified. Within a month or two, the entire family of Iosif Kamhi - who had joined the partisan detachment with my sister - was sent to the Kailuka concentration camp in Pleven. [6] We were horrified. They were sent there because their son had become a partisan. Anyway, they [the authorities] didn't touch us. I don't know why. Perhaps a good angel had saved us. There were no victims from our family. But the camp was set on fire and our friend Iosif's mother burned to death there. Another story - one evening he came across my sister holding paint and a brush. She had written anti-fascist slogans on the walls. Instead of provoking a scandal, he simply told her to be careful, because it was a dangerous work.
As we were very restricted in our activities in those years, we didn't have much opportunity to observe the Jewish holidays and we marked them symbolically. For a year or so I worked in a ladder mending atelier in Kiustendil. This is how I made a living. Ester became a partisan. It was a real tragedy at home because it happened in the most difficult years, in 1941/42. My mother cried for days and days while my father said that perhaps the partisan-communists would bring us something better. He tried to reassure my mother that Ester would return. After the war he often used to joke that he was also a socialist, having sent his daughter to be a partisan. My eldest sister Klara cried and lamented for she already had a baby: 'She will burn our family, and my child will suffer because of her.' Ester trusted me very much, as I was engaged in the RMS [Revolutionary Youth Union] [5]. She confided in me that she intended to join the partisan detachment: 'We'll leave with a group of partisans from Kiustendil. The connection has already been made. Don't say a word at home. I'll only leave you my ID card. Give it to mum as soon as you know that I've gone.
The first town that we were ordered to go to was Vidin. We didn't know anybody from there. I remember the sad picture from the station to the Jewish school (they took us there) - a long train of wretches and children. It was really tragic, like in the movies. The rooms of the Jewish school were large and several families were put up in each one. To keep simple order they outlined borders with chalk to show each family where it had to settle, with beds arranged on the floor, and so on. We got food from a common kitchen, which I reckon was organized by the synagogue. They used to cook there with margarine that smelled of soap - it had nothing to do with what we have nowadays. I have always been a poor eater and thin. I couldn't even touch that food. It was so terrible. But we went to the kitchen with our mugs. We had to eat after all.
Later we moved to Kiustendil. It was better in Kiustendil because we settled in my mother's house. We had a whole room, and more space. My father took a part-time job - per day, even per hour - whatever he was able to find. We, the children, were bigger, so we went to the town's agricultural school every day and we were given tasks there. The masters of the school, especially the woman, were very kind. She always gave us something to eat and to take home. I remember my eyes being wide open when I saw that the other children were eating slices of bread with real butter. I have always loved butter very much but I could only watch. Our food usually consisted of a slice of butter with plum jam, which I hate even now.
Later we moved to Kiustendil. It was better in Kiustendil because we settled in my mother's house. We had a whole room, and more space. My father took a part-time job - per day, even per hour - whatever he was able to find. We, the children, were bigger, so we went to the town's agricultural school every day and we were given tasks there. The masters of the school, especially the woman, were very kind. She always gave us something to eat and to take home. I remember my eyes being wide open when I saw that the other children were eating slices of bread with real butter. I have always loved butter very much but I could only watch. Our food usually consisted of a slice of butter with plum jam, which I hate even now.
Before the Holocaust there were various manifestations of anti-Semitism (beyond the governmental policy). For example, relatives of ours from Kiustendil were complaining that a boy who was a Brannik [4] was constantly harassing them. But here, in Sofia, in our close circle of people, there was no such thing. When a rumor spread that Jews were gathered in camps, enormous fear, actually paranoia, rose among us that something very bad was about to come. We received letters - orders for internment - that stipulated on which day, at what time, with how much luggage and where we had to report ourselves. A real tragedy took place on the streets of our quarter. My eldest sister, Klara, was about to be married and she had prepared a dowry for herself. But it had to be sold with the rest of our house and household goods. We took everything out to front of the house and the neighbors and other people bought it. We were only left with a few bundles.
My second sister Ester took especially good care of me. She always took me with her when she went to organized school excursions. She introduced me to the theater. Ester was a very clever child and an excellent student. When she finished 3rd grade my father said that she would also have to start working. Her teacher came home to beg our father not to stop Ester's education, as she was an extremely smart kid. So she continued her education, although my parents could not support her financially. Ester graduated high school by correspondence, only after World War II.
Bulgaria
My eldest sister Klara, poor girl, started working in a tailor's atelier as soon as she finished the 4th grade, at the age of only 11 or 12. She was already a grown-up girl. She spent her money on clothes, saved some for home and bought me presents also. On 24th May [3] I had to be the color- bearer of the school. I was very happy - it was such a great honor; but I had to wear a uniform - a navy one, with white gloves. My parents couldn't buy it from anywhere. I started crying about not being able to go to the ceremony. And then one day Klara brought me a pair of beautiful white gloves. She had bought them especially for me! We borrowed the rest of the costume.