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We celebrated the Jewish holidays both at the orphanage and at school. For Purim we learned a lot of songs. For Pesach rich Jewish families would come and would take us to spend the whole eight days at their homes – for Pesach and then they returned us. I used to have relatives in Sofia but that was the organization. Each family would choose one of us. I remember the Baroukh family. The father was a representative of ‘Berakha’ Chocolate Factory in Sofia. I ate heaps of chocolates in that house. And not only at Pesach. They had a daughter who was as old as me. Her name was Nedka. In their house I saw a dressing table in the bedroom for the first time in my life and there were also chandeliers, splendid furniture. Once there was something of a misunderstanding. A first cousin of my mother’s whose name was Mari Chelebi Leveya wanted me to go to them for the holidays but by mistake I was taken to another family with the same name in Konyovitsa. [One of the oldest quarters in Sofia nowadays is Dras Mahala – near the freight depot and the other old poor quarter is Konyovitsa.] They were two nice old people, so kind, so cordial and dedicated to me although they were living rather poorly. They had a one-storey house in the middle of a big garden and there were houses in a line in the yard and every family lived in a separate house – like the gypsies. The old man would bring me a chocolate bar every day and said to me: ‘You’re such a midget, eat, eat.’ Such good people was this old couple, they were taking pity on me. So, after that, my mother’s cousin went to the principal and asked: ‘What happened to out girl, why didn’t she come to us?’ ‘What are you saying, I sent her to you!’ ‘Very far from the truth, she didn’t come to us…’
When I was in my second year at the orphanage my brother was already learning his craft in Sofia. They found a master for him whose name was uncle Boyan [a Bulgarian] with whom he studied dental mechanics. That master didn’t have children and they accepted him as their own child. He was taking my brother everywhere with his family – to the mountain or to the seaside. Whenever there was work for dental mechanics – there was my brother, together with uncle Boyan.
When I was in my second year at the orphanage my brother was already learning his craft in Sofia. They found a master for him whose name was uncle Boyan [a Bulgarian] with whom he studied dental mechanics. That master didn’t have children and they accepted him as their own child. He was taking my brother everywhere with his family – to the mountain or to the seaside. Whenever there was work for dental mechanics – there was my brother, together with uncle Boyan.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Margarita Kohen