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My mother was strongly against our marriage. My parents talked negatively about him and about Bulgarians as a whole. Then they stopped talking to me for seven or eight months. I would come back from work and go straight to bed. If they wanted to tell me something, they put notes in my bag or sent someone else to tell me.
I insisted that this time I wouldn’t listen to them, ‘I obeyed you about not making aliyah with my friends in 1948. I obeyed you about not leaving you alone on graduating from high school. Marko’s parents came and you didn’t let me go. I wanted to study in the Agro-economical Institute and you didn’t allow me once again. This time I’m doing what I want!’ I think they wanted me to do only what they decided was good for me.
My family’s resistance was very strong and lasted eight months. In 1952 I left home. I got married in 1952. We were married by a registrar in front of two witnesses only: my husband’s boss Ivan Keremidchiyski and a colleague of mine, Dochka Arykova. Before that my father had met Todor a couple of times to persuade him to leave me, because I was a spoiled girl, we wouldn’t have any children, I had a weak heart or they would leave for Israel and I would decide to join them sooner or later.
Todor always said, ‘I haven’t chained her to myself. If she decides, I am ready to do anything for her, but I can’t keep her by force.’ Todor is a very tolerant man. He reacted calmly to the attitude of my parents towards him and towards Bulgarians. You can rarely meet such a man. He didn’t feel angry towards them. He would only say, ‘They are your parents, this is what they think is right for you. We have no right to judge them.’
Even after we got married I told him that it wasn’t accepted among Jews to call your parents-in-law grandmother and grandfather, and he should call them ‘mama’ and ‘papa.’ And he addressed them in this way. When welcoming my mother into our home, he literally bowed to her. He indulged her every wish and brought her everything she wanted.
I had a wonderful mother-in-law.
I insisted that this time I wouldn’t listen to them, ‘I obeyed you about not making aliyah with my friends in 1948. I obeyed you about not leaving you alone on graduating from high school. Marko’s parents came and you didn’t let me go. I wanted to study in the Agro-economical Institute and you didn’t allow me once again. This time I’m doing what I want!’ I think they wanted me to do only what they decided was good for me.
My family’s resistance was very strong and lasted eight months. In 1952 I left home. I got married in 1952. We were married by a registrar in front of two witnesses only: my husband’s boss Ivan Keremidchiyski and a colleague of mine, Dochka Arykova. Before that my father had met Todor a couple of times to persuade him to leave me, because I was a spoiled girl, we wouldn’t have any children, I had a weak heart or they would leave for Israel and I would decide to join them sooner or later.
Todor always said, ‘I haven’t chained her to myself. If she decides, I am ready to do anything for her, but I can’t keep her by force.’ Todor is a very tolerant man. He reacted calmly to the attitude of my parents towards him and towards Bulgarians. You can rarely meet such a man. He didn’t feel angry towards them. He would only say, ‘They are your parents, this is what they think is right for you. We have no right to judge them.’
Even after we got married I told him that it wasn’t accepted among Jews to call your parents-in-law grandmother and grandfather, and he should call them ‘mama’ and ‘papa.’ And he addressed them in this way. When welcoming my mother into our home, he literally bowed to her. He indulged her every wish and brought her everything she wanted.
I had a wonderful mother-in-law.
Period
Year
1952
Location
Plovdiv
Bulgaria
Interview
Sarina Chelibakova