Tag #126762 - Interview #78141 (Bina Dekalo)

Life in Yambol was very nice. We all lived very happily. But at the end of the 1920s the country fell into a grave economic crisis [see crisis of the 1930s] [9]. As a result, my father's business declined and he went bankrupt. He had to support his big family by himself and that wasn't easy. So in 1929 my father had to sell the house and our whole family moved to live in Rousse [a town on the Danube in Northern Bulgaria]. My father decided to build a factory producing bedsprings with the money he had left. He took for a partner an Ashkenazi Jew named Berkovich. I remember that he came to our house, which we had rented and we were impressed by the fact that he ate lots of sausages and threw their peelings on the floor. My mother would ask him politely not to do that. My father, however, understood nothing of this business and went bankrupt very quickly. This was a hard blow for him and he went down with a very serious sclerosis. After the bankruptcy our brothers supported us and we sold some more valuable things. My mother had a very nice gold necklace and a watch, which she sold. In the meantime, my brothers from my father's first marriage married and found work.