Aron Alkalai’s uncle Yosif Lazar and his wife Rashel

This is a photo of my uncle Yosif Lazar and his wife in Kyustendil, taken on 26th June 1921. He was a lawyer. His wife's name was Rashel. She played the piano and my uncle played the violin. After they married, they went to live in Plovdiv. I remember going to the fair in Plovidiv in 1937 and hearing them play a lovely melody by Mozart - he was on the violin and she - on the piano. My mother's name is Regina Alkalai and she had two brothers and two sisters. [Yosif was the eldest brother] Her other brother's name is David Lazar. He was a merchant and lived in Kyustendil. One of my mother's sisters was Buka and she married in Sofia. Her other sister was Matilda and she lived in Dupnitsa. Her husband's name was Konorti and he was a tailor. Unfortunately, that is all I know about them. My mother was a teacher in the Jewish school in Kyustendil. Probably she also worked as a teacher in Dupnitsa but for a short time. After she married, she stopped working under the influence of my father. He wished that she would only be a housewife. My mother knew French very well. She also played the guitar and knew songs in Ladino and in Bulgarian. I have seen her singing a melody and playing on the guitar to herself. In the evenings she would go on the balcony and hum a song for 'good night'. Times were more peaceful then and people were less demanding. We did not buy many clothes, did not rely on material things so much and people lived more peacefully than they do now.