Tag #125378 - Interview #77984 (Leontina Arditi)

Papa regularly attended Jewish gatherings in Bet Am [11] and especially so after 1944. My mother didn't. I haven't seen them going there together. I remember my father coming back home and my mother saying: 'What's up, walkie, what's there in Betama [Bet Am]?' And dad would say: 'Jidios, jidios, jidios - munchos jidios' [Ladino, 'Jews, Jews, Jews - a lot of Jews.'] I want to underline that after 1944 my father sent me to Bet Am, where the great Bulgarian stage director, Boyan Danovsky, also of Jewish origin, gathered young Jews for his class in acting. There I played violin in Mario Menashe Brontsa's orchestra. We had a wonderful big symphony orchestra. My first theater recital was held at the library club of the Jewish Center years after that.