Tag #124390 - Interview #95940 (Victoria Almalekh)

My husband Yosif Samuil Almalekh was born in Varna in 1923. He was a marine officer – chief commander in politics (CCP). In December of 1955 he suffered the Geneva dismissal – the first dismissal in the army after 9th September. He was out of work and got hired as a manager of two of the hotels in the Druzhba resort [Some big and famous sea resorts built at that time – Drouzhba, Albena, Golden Sands, Varna, Sunny Beach]. He worked there for two years and a half. When Sami was a year and a half old – in other words the summer of 1957 – they set him up. They accused him of obstinately going to dinner with the ambassadors of Switzerland and Israel, who were guests at the hotel. In a week he was fired from Balkantourist [a state business enterprise established in 1948 with the main task to organize the international tourism in Bulgaria and the trips of Bulgarian citizens abroad] and expelled from the [communist] party. He was unemployed for thirteen months. At that time I hadn’t started working either. I was looking after my child. My husband didn’t earn anything because he was chased away, fired and expelled from work. I don’t know what to tell you – we went through a difficult period. At one point an acquaintance of my old father-in-law’s from the harbour found him a job in the cereals warehouses, which were across from the harbour. That’s how he started dealing with accounting as an economist. He changed a few places afterwards. He worked as an economist till the end of his length of service.