Sonya Lazarova in the medical school

This photo was taken in 1946 in the Medical School in Sofia in which I used to study after the Holocaust, during lectures. I?m in the second row, second from left to right. I can?t remember my colleagues' names. After the war we came back to Sofia. We rented a new lodging on Moskovska Street and 11th August Street. First we were given one room. All of us were accommodated in it: my mother, my siblings Fridrich, Hilda, Lili and I. My sister Zivi had already married and she stayed with her husband. My eldest sister Gizela and her husband also rented a house somewhere but I can't remember where. Nothing had remained from our belongings. We began collecting old furniture from our friends: Jews and Bulgarians, which they presented to us. We had a landlady. She was quite unmanageable and she didn't behave very well. But not because we were Jews but because of her temper. Her daughter was very kind to us. Life had a new beginning. I decided to make my dream come true: to cure and take care of people. I enrolled into nursing classes. My family wanted me to become a doctor yet this seemed very difficult for me. In the medical vocational school, where I graduated from, I made many new friends. I had a colleague, very beautiful, from the village of Buzovets. She introduced me to my future husband, who was born in the same village. She decided to take me for a holiday there. For the first time in my life I not only visited a village but traveled in a certain direction. In order to reach the place I had to change trains. When I entered the railway station I didn't know how to ask for the tickets. Otherwise the holiday in the village was a very merry one. We danced various dances and horo, the Bulgarian national folk dance, we sang, we ate and we laughed. My future husband Yoncho Lazarov was also present there. This experience made our relationship even closer and more spontaneous.