Sultana and Mois Yulzari's silver wedding

This is a picture of my silver wedding in Ruse, in 1965. We gathered with my husband's brothers and sisters-in-law to celebrate the event.

Fani and Hazmonay Yulzari, my husband's elder brother are sitting from below. They lived in Pleven. On the utmost left is Rafael Yulzari, his other brother, who was imprisoned for political reasons before 9th September 1944. This means he was in the underground opposition to the fascist regime in Bulgaria during the Law for the Protection of the Nation. Next to him is his wife, Buka Yulzari. They, on their turn, lived in Varna. She was a great communist. All people in the picture, except me, have already passed away.

My husband was born and grew up in Pleven. The truth is that I didn’t know him long before our wedding. We hadn’t been friends beforehand. We didn’t have common things from our past, nor did we have common friends.

Our marriage was arranged. Our matchmaker was one of my cousins from Pleven, who understood he was a good boy and decided to recommend him to my parents. It was not for me to say then. So we got engaged. And we married four months later. That happened in 1940.

We had a religious wedding; there were no civil marriages then. My husband was a communist, but despite that he entered a synagogue in order to marry me. The wedding was nice. But the things got worse after that; my husband was mobilized 75 days after our marriage as a frontier guard at the south border, near the village of Lyubimets. Thank Goodness he came back alive and well.