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One day, an assistant of hers from her previous job saw her and asked her, ‘Mrs Lidgi, what are you doing here?’, ‘Well, I am here at work.’. This work involved going round the streets, to measure and calculate the indications from the electric meters. And this woman went immediately to Mr Kastermans, a director of the electricity company, and said, ‘Mr Kastermans, I want to take Mrs Elvira Lidgi in my department, as my employee.’ and she actually went there, to a better position in the accountancy department of the electricity company.
And after that, just think about that dream! - one day she met the very director of the insurance company ‘Asicurazione Generale’, where my mother had worked until I turned four. He asked, ‘Mrs Lidgi, why are you in mourning?’, because mum was wearing black from head to toes after my father’s death. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ ‘Well, I remained a widow.’ ‘Do you have a job?’ She told him where she worked, after which he offered her a job – much better and well paid. In this way she changed her job for the third time after my father’s death. So she started work there, it must have been in 1941 and stayed there until our internment.
We received a subpoena that we had to leave for Vratsa and, additionally, one of dad’s cousins, his uncle Izidor Lidgi’s son, who regularly sent us a check to help us, sent us a letter at that moment saying that mum had to do everything possible so that we could leave for Vidin. Mum started preparing, she went to different commissariats and in the end succeeded in obtaining a permission for traveling to Vidin. We were allowed to take anything we wanted but this meant transportation and more money. Mum simply had to sell the furniture and part of our belongings. While mum was trying to get the permission, I had to pack the luggage. We loaded everything up the train. At the station we were seen off by Robert Kohen (who had given us 2, 000 leva) and my favorite teacher in Bulgarian, Nadezhda Dragneva. We had a close relation because I was a good student. She visited us often, she wasn’t afraid that we were Jews, my mother and I had also visted her home. She had two sons. We kept in contact even after 1944 and, now, without being afraid, she had come to the station to see us off despite the risk she was taking in that way. Uncle Mois’s family was interned to the town of Ferdinand [now Montana], and uncle Miko’s – to Sliven. Granny Dzhamila was still in Bulgaria but I don’t have information how she survived the Holocaust. She was probably interned to Ruse. My mother’s problems after dad’s death were so many that obviously granny Dzhamila was in the background.
And after that, just think about that dream! - one day she met the very director of the insurance company ‘Asicurazione Generale’, where my mother had worked until I turned four. He asked, ‘Mrs Lidgi, why are you in mourning?’, because mum was wearing black from head to toes after my father’s death. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ ‘Well, I remained a widow.’ ‘Do you have a job?’ She told him where she worked, after which he offered her a job – much better and well paid. In this way she changed her job for the third time after my father’s death. So she started work there, it must have been in 1941 and stayed there until our internment.
We received a subpoena that we had to leave for Vratsa and, additionally, one of dad’s cousins, his uncle Izidor Lidgi’s son, who regularly sent us a check to help us, sent us a letter at that moment saying that mum had to do everything possible so that we could leave for Vidin. Mum started preparing, she went to different commissariats and in the end succeeded in obtaining a permission for traveling to Vidin. We were allowed to take anything we wanted but this meant transportation and more money. Mum simply had to sell the furniture and part of our belongings. While mum was trying to get the permission, I had to pack the luggage. We loaded everything up the train. At the station we were seen off by Robert Kohen (who had given us 2, 000 leva) and my favorite teacher in Bulgarian, Nadezhda Dragneva. We had a close relation because I was a good student. She visited us often, she wasn’t afraid that we were Jews, my mother and I had also visted her home. She had two sons. We kept in contact even after 1944 and, now, without being afraid, she had come to the station to see us off despite the risk she was taking in that way. Uncle Mois’s family was interned to the town of Ferdinand [now Montana], and uncle Miko’s – to Sliven. Granny Dzhamila was still in Bulgaria but I don’t have information how she survived the Holocaust. She was probably interned to Ruse. My mother’s problems after dad’s death were so many that obviously granny Dzhamila was in the background.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Reyna Lidgi