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I started participating in activities in the Jewish organization at some time in the spring of 1990. Stella Ilel, who chaired WIZO [34], invited me to the Jewish organization. I first became a member of WIZO, the women’s organization, and after that I was drawn into the town union. I started to contribute regularly to ‘Evreiski Vesti’ (Jewish News) [This is the only Jewish newspaper in Bulgaria which has existed for seventy years.] And when my mother died it seems to me that this organization gave me moral stability, the stability to know I have where to communicate because my mother’s death was a great stress to me. There was another fateful event. On 7th November 2000 I survived a car accident. I woke up in Pirogov Hospital. Later it turned out that I had a concussion, my two legs were broken and my pelvis was cracked. My body was a ruin to put it in a few words. My friends from club ‘Health’ at the Jewish Center [Bet Am] immediately took matters in hand. Sofka Danon and Morits Assa asked from the administration and Robert Dzherasi that, after being discharged from hospital, I should be put up for some time at the Home of the Parent, until I recover. The rehabilitation, the people who looked after me so much, helped me recover to a much bigger degree. In fact, my comparatively quick recovery was due to my physical preparation at club ‘Health’ before that because I acquired the things shown to me by the rehabilitator very quickly. It seems to me that I wouldn’t have recovered at all if it wasn’t for the Home of the Parent. Even now I am a member of Club ‘Health’. Sometimes I show the exercises. I go there every Monday and Wednesday. Every Tuesday afternoon I go to club ‘Ladino’. Every Thursday I go to a philharmonic concert – I have a subscription. Every Saturday afternoon I am in the ‘Golden Age’ club. On Sunday my friend David Kohen and I usually take a walk to Pancharevo. Once a week I find the time to visit my aunt Rebeka. I keep in touch with Sarah Meyuhas’s family in Israel. We talk on the phone. I am in a correspondence with a first cousin of my friend Viska Lazarova – Violeta Mendel. I also write to Florentina Presenti who lives in Canada. I have an active life. And I am very happy to have joined the Jewish organization.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Reyna Lidgi