Rebeca Assa

This is a photograph from the time when I lived in Plovdiv in the 1930s. I am sewing on a machine here. I started work when I was thirteen. I wanted to study at the Commercial High School because I loved maths. My mother wanted me to become a dressmaker instead, but I opposed that, and found myself a job in a shop in the main street where I started to clean the finished shirts of extra threads. Later, I started to sew with a machine and sewed 17 shirts a day. Of course, the work was shared between the different workers - I used to sew the collars, the other workers, the sleeves or the cuffs, and so on. The owner of the dressmaker's workshop was a Jew and his name was Baruh. There was a butcher shop, Manevi Brothers, just opposite the place where we worked, and we used to have lunch there. The owner, Mr. Manev, even gave us food for free.