Sofi Uziel with classmates

This is a photo of me as a high school graduate and my classmates. I am the fifth from right to left, next to the teacher. The photo was taken in Sofia in the 1930s. I didn't study at a Jewish school. The youth in my time was progressive. I felt bad about not going to a Jewish school, but the two Jewish schools were quite far from my place and there was nobody to take me to and from school. Later on, when I grew up, I liked it in the Bulgarian school. It was then that I got introduced to communist ideas, which were progressive at that time - I was a member of the UYW the young communists' organization. I graduated from the First Girls High School. We were poor girls. A group of ten girls, including me, used to play hookey, but otherwise I was an excellent student. There were Jews at the school but I wasn't friends with them - they were children of wealthy Jews, while I was the child of poor Jews. I managed to finish school thanks to Aunt Sofi's money and the allowance I used to receive from the War Invalids' Society because my father was a World War I war invalid.