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My paternal grandmother was from Solun [today Thessaloniki, Greece] and she didn’t know Bulgarian. My paternal grandparents were modern people, with no prejudices and they didn’t wear typical Jewish clothes. I spent some time in Pleven as a child, but I only remember that they lived in a beautiful house with beds, servants and everything was in the style of the times. Everybody apart from my grandmother spoke Bulgarian perfectly, which shows that they came to Bulgaria a long time ago. They exchanged a word in Ladino only when they didn’t want the children to understand what they were speaking about and so we never learned the language.
My father, Mois Iakov Moyseev, was born in Pleven in 1877. He graduated from high school there and around 1900 he came to Sofia, where he was a soldier and met my mother - I don’t know where and how they met. They had a religious wedding around 1900. My father worked as a clerk in the municipality in the beginning. When my uncle Marco Avramo built a factory in Troyan and then a textile factory in Sliven, he hired my father as an accountant. Before that Marco Avramov bought a house in Sofia and gathered the whole family there. Unfortunately, he died in 1932 and his wife sold the house. In 1940 she emigrated with her children to the USA and the factory was expropriated twice – the first time under the anti-Jewish laws, the second time during the communist rule in 1944 when it was nationalized.
My father, Mois Iakov Moyseev, was born in Pleven in 1877. He graduated from high school there and around 1900 he came to Sofia, where he was a soldier and met my mother - I don’t know where and how they met. They had a religious wedding around 1900. My father worked as a clerk in the municipality in the beginning. When my uncle Marco Avramo built a factory in Troyan and then a textile factory in Sliven, he hired my father as an accountant. Before that Marco Avramov bought a house in Sofia and gathered the whole family there. Unfortunately, he died in 1932 and his wife sold the house. In 1940 she emigrated with her children to the USA and the factory was expropriated twice – the first time under the anti-Jewish laws, the second time during the communist rule in 1944 when it was nationalized.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Tinka Kohen
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