Lili

Lili

This is me, I don’t remember exactly the year when this picture was taken.

I graduated high school in 1946. I applied to the university in 1947, but I wasn't admitted. I managed to enroll in 1948. I became a student in medicine in Sofia. [As a student] I lived together with another girl in lodgings. It was a tough period for me - there was a problem with heating, we could use only a limited amount of wood, coal etc. Moreover, there was a ration system. If our parents hadn't sent us some food, we would have been lost. The rationing was canceled in 1952. When I was a third year student, my brother enrolled in the university too and from then on we lived together. My father kept sending money to us and we did our best to survive with it, while Mum used to send us some food.

My mother has always told us that we should have our own profession and be independent. There was another thing that she kept on telling - never to live with my children when they are already married. She told me always to do my best to help them but live separately. My father was strict and tough, but he had never raised his hand to beat me. We have always taken his opinion into consideration, but he was smart and he has never tried to work his will. For example, he has never meddled when we had to choose profession, although both of us [Lili and her brother] became physicians.

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