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Only kosher was cooked at granny Rika’s house. Pork was never brought into the house, she didn’t mix meat with dairy products, she was cooking in separate pots and when visiting mum she was always carrying her own meal because my mum’s dishes weren’t kosher. I even remember that dad was bringing home pork. We would often eat bacon with garlic in the evening.
On holidays and at the weekend I would go to my parents. Before the Holocaust we were convening with dad’s family in the Big family house. One of the women would make leek balls, another – something else, everything was very delicious. There would invariably be some meat on the table – usually lamb. Everybody would cook and then the dishes were brought to the table around which we gathered. We, the numerous children, would have great time under the table.
I remember that at Purim ‘mavlacheta’ were being made – in the form of the letters and we would take the bagel with the letter that was the first letter of our names. At Frutas [2] we were given bags full of different fruit. I felt at home both with granny and with my parents but I think I felt better with my parents. They were living in the Upper Neighborhood which wasn’t far from the Lower one.
My father Ezra Israel Dzhaldeti (1904 – 1968) was a very energetic, very practical and resourceful person. He was quite wild when he was young. In 1923–24, during the September uprising [Events of 1923] [3], he used to be keen on anarchism. And during those riotous years he and two or three other men were sentenced to death as anarchists. But he succeeded in escaping to Turkey by using a fake passport. He lived in Turkey for a year and a half. Afterwards there was an act of grace. And later on, when things in Bulgaria settled down a little, he returned to Yambol. There, in Turkey, he worked as a shoemaker, an assistant-shoemaker, a journeyman and he managed to make a pair of tourist shoes with a hole for a gun in the sole and that was how he returned from Turkey – with a gun in the sole of his shoe. But when he returned to Yambol his brother Yeshua and his father, my grandpa Israel, were so sacred that they almost made him jump and hide into the lavatory.
On holidays and at the weekend I would go to my parents. Before the Holocaust we were convening with dad’s family in the Big family house. One of the women would make leek balls, another – something else, everything was very delicious. There would invariably be some meat on the table – usually lamb. Everybody would cook and then the dishes were brought to the table around which we gathered. We, the numerous children, would have great time under the table.
I remember that at Purim ‘mavlacheta’ were being made – in the form of the letters and we would take the bagel with the letter that was the first letter of our names. At Frutas [2] we were given bags full of different fruit. I felt at home both with granny and with my parents but I think I felt better with my parents. They were living in the Upper Neighborhood which wasn’t far from the Lower one.
My father Ezra Israel Dzhaldeti (1904 – 1968) was a very energetic, very practical and resourceful person. He was quite wild when he was young. In 1923–24, during the September uprising [Events of 1923] [3], he used to be keen on anarchism. And during those riotous years he and two or three other men were sentenced to death as anarchists. But he succeeded in escaping to Turkey by using a fake passport. He lived in Turkey for a year and a half. Afterwards there was an act of grace. And later on, when things in Bulgaria settled down a little, he returned to Yambol. There, in Turkey, he worked as a shoemaker, an assistant-shoemaker, a journeyman and he managed to make a pair of tourist shoes with a hole for a gun in the sole and that was how he returned from Turkey – with a gun in the sole of his shoe. But when he returned to Yambol his brother Yeshua and his father, my grandpa Israel, were so sacred that they almost made him jump and hide into the lavatory.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Berta Pando