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I graduated high school in 1946. I applied to the university in 1947, but I wasn’t admitted. I managed to enroll in 1948. I became a student in medicine in Sofia. [As a student] I lived together with another girl in lodgings. It was a tough period for me - there was a problem with heating, we could use only a limited amount of wood, coal etc. Moreover, there was a rationing system. If our parents hadn’t sent us some food, we would have been lost. The rationing was canceled in 1952. When I was a third year student, my brother enrolled in the university too and from then on we lived together. My father kept sending money to us and we did our best to survive with it, while Mum used to send us some food.
As my father hadn’t succeeded to take a specialty before the War, he signed up for a course after the War. I was a student in the 4th year then, and he had enrolled a course in internal diseases and was sitting in our classes. My colleagues would tease us that “father and daughter were studying together.” He passed the exam and became a chief of the internal department and then head physician at the hospital in Dupnitza.
I graduated in 1952 and I got married the same year. My husband Mois Rahamim is from Sofia. I had a colleague at the university who got married before me. Her husband had some friends. We started to go out together, most often for a walk in Vitosha Mountain. That is how I met Mois. Practically almost every boy from that group got married to a friend of mine. And we kept our contacts afterwards. Our children became friends too. Unfortunately some of them are now dead. But I still meet their wives. When our children were little we were inseparable, our children grew up together and they are still friends. And now the “Zdrave” club in the Jewish cultural house provides us a wonderful opportunity to see each other more often.
As my father hadn’t succeeded to take a specialty before the War, he signed up for a course after the War. I was a student in the 4th year then, and he had enrolled a course in internal diseases and was sitting in our classes. My colleagues would tease us that “father and daughter were studying together.” He passed the exam and became a chief of the internal department and then head physician at the hospital in Dupnitza.
I graduated in 1952 and I got married the same year. My husband Mois Rahamim is from Sofia. I had a colleague at the university who got married before me. Her husband had some friends. We started to go out together, most often for a walk in Vitosha Mountain. That is how I met Mois. Practically almost every boy from that group got married to a friend of mine. And we kept our contacts afterwards. Our children became friends too. Unfortunately some of them are now dead. But I still meet their wives. When our children were little we were inseparable, our children grew up together and they are still friends. And now the “Zdrave” club in the Jewish cultural house provides us a wonderful opportunity to see each other more often.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Lilia Levi