The last meeting between Eshua Almalech and his father Aron Almalech

This is a photo from my visit to Israel in 1973. That was the last meeting between me [the tall man in the middle of the picture] and my father Aron Almalech - the first on the left. Next to him is the cousin of his second wife Luna, Bela Basan, next to her is their friend Reni. To the right of me is Bela's husband, Izako Basan, the old woman next to him is the second wife of my father, Luna. My father's second wife, Luna Almalech, lived in Sofia with us until 1954. Then my parents left for Israel and lived in Tel Aviv until my father died in 1977. Luna settled in an old people's home in Rishon Le Zion near Tel Aviv where she died in 1981. My father Aron Almalech was always an ardent Zionist. He was chief secretary of Mapai. He accompanied Ben Gurion when he came to Bulgaria for the first time in the middle of the 1940s. When the Israel state was founded in 1948, my father received an invitation by the Israeli government to become a ?shaliah?, i.e. chairman of Sohnuta in Bulgaria. One of the first diplomats, Ben Zur, ambassador in Vienna and responsible for the whole Eastern Europe, came to Bulgaria to hand him the invitation. My father exercised this duty until he left for Israel in 1954. I decided not to leave for Israel, but I believe that everybody has the right to make his or her own choice where to live. I have always kept in touch with them (my relatives) - by letters, visits. I went to Israel for the first time in 1957. I have visited them many times since then. We even sent our daughter Zelma, when she was 8 years old, to her grandparents Luna and Aron and my sister Roza for the whole summer in 1958. In 1960 my wife Nedyalka and my son Mony also spent the summer with them.