Mimi-Matilda Petkova's family with relatives

Mimi-Matilda Petkova's family with relatives

This photo was taken in Vidin in January 1929. This is our family with the brother and the sister of my father. The woman standing on the right is my mother, Sarah Pizanti, nee Lidgi, I am next to her, on the knees of my father Buko Pizanti. My sisters are sitting below: Liza Peneva, nee Pizanti is the first from right to left, next to her is Veneta Alhalel, nee Pizanti. Behind my father is his brother Israel Pizanti with his wife Berta. The man sitting on the left is my uncle Yoakim Bartish. His daughter Ani is sitting on his lap. The woman standing on the left is his wife Sarah, my father's sister. Later they had one more daughter. When the photo was taken, I was one year old and my uncle had come from Sofia especially for my birthday. My parents knew each other from early on, because they were neighbors. They dressed like the others. My mother told me that her brother bought her cheap high-heeled shoes. The other sisters wore slippers with heels. My mother was raised by her brother, who also raised his other brothers and sisters. The shoes she was talking about were a bit above the ankle, with laces. Once she cut them from top to the bottom with a knife and he made her sew them together again. Then she continued to wear them for quite some time. Uncle Yako, her brother, bought my mother her first nice pair of shoes when she got engaged. That made her very happy. My sister Veneta was born on 6th August 1925. She finished junior high school. She was a seamstress. Liza, my other sister, was born on 22nd January 1922. She finished her secondary education in Vidin high school. She had a college education and was a pharmacist. Both my sisters spoke Ladino. Liza knew Italian. I didn't go to kindergarten; my mother took care of me. I studied in a Bulgarian secular school. I loved two subjects: history and Bulgarian language and literature, because history was related to my ancestry and I simply love Bulgarian poems. I wasn't sent to a Jewish school, because my father was an atheist and I had already begun my studies in the Bulgarian elementary school in the village of Gradets, where I was born.
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