Tag #123203 - Interview #95855 (Ida Alkalai)

The synagogue was near our house. Jews visited it regularly. There was a small stream with drinking water in the yard. Weddings were also done there. My father didn’t go to the synagogue as he wasn’t religious. He liked doing the shopping. He was very good at housework and his business. Even during the greatest crisis in fascist times [during World War II] he managed to support our family. Every year we prepared winter supplies: raw and boiled pickles, flat sausages from mutton and pork. When I was a child, there was a small building next to the synagogue and we took hens there to be slaughtered by the shochet. But sometimes my father put on an apron and slaughtered the hen in the sink at home. Later when I got married, we asked someone from our Bulgarian neighbors to slaughter the chicken.