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I kept in touch with my relatives, we wrote letters to each other and spoke on the phone, which was a luxury then. They called more often. I remember that one of the times my sister and her husband were passing via Bulgaria to go to a Romanian festival, and they called to tell us that they wouldn’t pass through Sofia, but through Gorna Oriahovitsa. They asked our mother to go and see them there. My mother was very worried there because she couldn’t find them on the platform. They were in a special wagon and weren’t allowed to go to Sofia. Those were special festival wagons. They weren’t much different from the others, but they were only for the participants in the festival and no other passengers traveled in them. There was some kind of problem and my husband took my mother home. At that time Ivan Bashev was in charge of the Bulgarian representatives in the festival and I was his secretary in ‘Narodna Mladezh.’ Later, he became Foreign Minister. So we called him and he did everything possible to find my sister in Romania and put her through to my mother so that at least they could speak on the phone.
The democracy in Bulgaria after 1989 [see 10th November 1989] [31] affected me very badly. If it hadn’t been so I would have visited Israel more times. Until 1993 I was thinking only about my husband. There were problems with his medicines. After that I went twice to Israel but my relatives paid for my expenses. Now I visit the Jewish community. I’m very happy there because I meet with people. And at that age I need contacts because I live alone. I went only twice to the synagogue: to see it restored and on a holiday to see how they celebrate it. Now I don’t receive financial aid. Some time ago we received 10-15 levs [around 10 USD] every month depending on the pension. I think that representatives of Joint [32] visited us. Now such aid is given only to the people with very small pensions. We receive a tranche of 500 dollars or something like that but I don’t know from where.
The democracy in Bulgaria after 1989 [see 10th November 1989] [31] affected me very badly. If it hadn’t been so I would have visited Israel more times. Until 1993 I was thinking only about my husband. There were problems with his medicines. After that I went twice to Israel but my relatives paid for my expenses. Now I visit the Jewish community. I’m very happy there because I meet with people. And at that age I need contacts because I live alone. I went only twice to the synagogue: to see it restored and on a holiday to see how they celebrate it. Now I don’t receive financial aid. Some time ago we received 10-15 levs [around 10 USD] every month depending on the pension. I think that representatives of Joint [32] visited us. Now such aid is given only to the people with very small pensions. We receive a tranche of 500 dollars or something like that but I don’t know from where.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Adela Nissimova Levi