Matilda and Salvator Israel's wedding day

My husband, Salvator Israel, and me on our wedding day in Karnobat in 1942. Also in the photo on the left side is Misho (son of my brother Sabetay and his wife Liza), Victoria and Felicita (daughters of my sister Ana). We are in front of their house. During the war [WWII] there were no clothes to be bought in the shops. I was young and wanted to dress as a bride according to the traditions. I borrowed a dress from a friend, and the groom also borrowed a friend's suit. We looked quite funny. Salvator had hemmed the trousers, because they were too long and the bowler hat, which belonged to his father, was also too big for him. Two days before the wedding my brother invited relatives and friends. On the wedding day we left from the house of my sister Ana, which was close to the synagogue and we were accompanied by some Turkish and Roma people from the nearby neighborhood, who knew us. After the ritual in the synagogue we gathered in Sabetay's house. It was summer, June, and we celebrated in the yard. We had a marvelous time. The next day we went to the village Nevestino where my husband worked as a physician. This was our honeymoon. The people there welcomed us very warmly, but they didn't like me at first. They thought I was ill, because I was very thin and pale and villagers generally think that healthy people should be more plump and ruddy. Gradually, they took to me and loved me very much. We also had a wedding celebration there. There was a Turkish woman who was a very good cook and had prepared two enormous baking tins with baklava and we treated the whole village for the occasion. They gave us a lot of presents. It was a wonderful day, from which I keep some very dear memories. The celebration at the village seemed to me even warmer than that in Karnobat.

Photos from this interviewee