Matilda Israel with her friends

This is a photo of me (second from left) and my friends from my school years in Karnobat in 1935. When I was in high school I had both Jewish and Bulgarian friends. While I was young, all my friends were Jews, because I didn't go out of the Jewish neighborhood, which we had formed out of our own will. In my class in high school, however, I was the only Jew. At that time I was also a member of Hashomer Hatzair, the Jewish youth organization. We spoke only in Hebrew during our meetings and I learned the language there. We often went to a hut near Karnobat, where we spent some days playing and having fun. We often played the following game: We had to find an object that had been hidden by someone. The person who hid it directed us by giving us hints, which we tried to figure out. I learned the Morse code then. I suppose that our games were similar to those of the present-day scout organizations.