Berta Kamhi and her sisters Matilda and Liza

This is a photo of my mother Berta Kamhi, nee Koen and her sisters Liza and Matilda. My mother is standing first on the left, Liza is next to her and Matilda is in front of them. The photo was taken in Sofia in the 1920s. My mother was already married then. My mother had three brothers and three sisters. The eldest was Bohor Koen, who was a merchant and had six children. Next were Nissim Koen, whom I already mentioned, Miriam, Liza, who had an ironware store with her husband David, Matilda and David, who left for Palestine in 1926. They all had families and children but I have met only David’s son Yoske, whom I met during my visit to Israel in 1985. My mother home. She had a sewing machine and made handkerchiefs and singlets. We, the children, helped her. My brother Perets Albert Kamhi and I went to the central market and sold the so-called ‘ikonomia’ – very fine sand, which was used in dish washing. We offered it packed. We also sold toothpicks, paint and shoelaces. We sold them by going from house to house, and we got the goods from the merchants who owned shops. My mother’s parents lived in the center of Sofia in a two-story house. It was owned by my mother’s brother, Nissim Koen, who was relatively rich, because he had a factory for leather processing. Their living standard was higher than ours. My mother’s brother lived on the first floor and his mother on the second floor. My mother and I often visited them.