Moshe Avram Seliktar and Rahel Leon Seliktar with their two sons, Albert and Leon

Moshe Avram Seliktar and Rahel Leon Seliktar with their two sons, Albert and Leon

Here are my father Moshe Avram Seliktar and my mother Rahel Leon Seliktar with us - their two sons, Albert and I (in the baby cot) around 1929 in Sofia.

My father was a very kind, educated and intelligent man. He had a degree in finance from Vienna. He was very honest and that is why he didn't become rich, although he was one of the first chartered accountants around. I remember that when he endorsed the balance sheet of a merchant and he signed it, it was considered final and wasn't checked by finance or tax inspectors. My mother was a nice woman and a housewife and she looked after us. When she was young, she worked as a clerk or a secretary. Then she stayed at home. My father was born on 8th August 1888 in Sofia and my mother on 15th August 1898 in Sofia. She had secondary education and my father a university education. Their mother tongue was Bulgarian, but they also spoke French and Spaniolit [Ladino]. My father also knew German. They first met in the neighborhood. Their houses were on opposite sides of the same street. They had a religious wedding in Sofia. There were no other kinds of marriages at that time. They dressed according to the fashion of the time.

I was born in Sofia on 11th September 1927. My brother Albert was four years older than me. I went to kindergarten. It was called nursery then. We went to it one year before we started school. At that time we started school at the age of eight, so we went to the nursery at the age of seven. Before that our mother looked after us at home.

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