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Thanks to the contacts of my two sisters Gizela and Lili, who communicated with the artistic circles, we used to read a lot of fiction books at home. I remember ‘Gone with the Wind’ [by Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)], and ‘From Heraclitus to Darwin’. I was most interested in the medical books. While the others were playing with dolls I used play ‘doctors and patients.’ I dreamed of healing people.
My parents’ friends were both Jews and Bulgarians. They kept relations with the Jewish community also. A Bulgarian friend of mine, whose name was Victoria, often visited us. She had become part of our family. We used to share everything with each other: we went to the cinema, we studied together, but as soon as we offered her something to eat she always declined the invitation. Only after 9th September [1944] [13] she admitted to us that she had been told that Jews prepared their food with human blood. She felt really sorry about that and about all these missed opportunities to taste our delicious food. My mother used to cook quite well but I can’t say she was a great cook. I don’t remember any of her recipes. The whole family used to gather around the table every evening. At lunchtime we were always busy and we weren’t able to have lunch together.
At that time people visiting your home wasn’t such a common practice as it is now. The most important thing for a housewife was keeping the household and bringing up the children. We were six kids and practically my mother didn’t have any free time at all for meeting with her friends. We used to gather with my maternal family mostly during the high holidays. My mother had two sisters. The elder one, Liza, had four children, and the younger one Erma, had one daughter. Later, during the Holocaust, Erma burned to death in a camp near Pleven [Kailuka camp] [14], set on fire by the Branniks [15], while she was helping to save people.
My parents’ friends were both Jews and Bulgarians. They kept relations with the Jewish community also. A Bulgarian friend of mine, whose name was Victoria, often visited us. She had become part of our family. We used to share everything with each other: we went to the cinema, we studied together, but as soon as we offered her something to eat she always declined the invitation. Only after 9th September [1944] [13] she admitted to us that she had been told that Jews prepared their food with human blood. She felt really sorry about that and about all these missed opportunities to taste our delicious food. My mother used to cook quite well but I can’t say she was a great cook. I don’t remember any of her recipes. The whole family used to gather around the table every evening. At lunchtime we were always busy and we weren’t able to have lunch together.
At that time people visiting your home wasn’t such a common practice as it is now. The most important thing for a housewife was keeping the household and bringing up the children. We were six kids and practically my mother didn’t have any free time at all for meeting with her friends. We used to gather with my maternal family mostly during the high holidays. My mother had two sisters. The elder one, Liza, had four children, and the younger one Erma, had one daughter. Later, during the Holocaust, Erma burned to death in a camp near Pleven [Kailuka camp] [14], set on fire by the Branniks [15], while she was helping to save people.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Sonya Adolf Lazarova