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At that time, 1948 – 1949, all my brothers went to live in Israel. One day I came back from work and was having a nap. My wife's relatives lived opposite us: her parents and the whole family. And that evening I overheard a conversation of the two in-laws: my mother and Granny Olga. I was in bed and they thought I was asleep. So they were talking: Granny Olga said, ‘Dear neighbor, what are we going to do? We have to think. If you intend to go to Israel soon, what are we going to do? From our family nobody wants to go to Israel. What will you decide?’ I heard this and laughed to myself. And my mother answered, ‘It’s up to them to decide what to do.’
I didn’t have any intentions to leave the country. I had discussed that issue with Roza. We felt so exhausted from all the suffering and had already made our home, we had work and had simply got used to the way of living we had achieved with so much effort. We had decided that we wouldn’t go, at least for the time being and at that time the emigration wave was rather serious. We knew that travel was ahead, that nothing would be arranged and so on. My mother was ready to stay and, apart from that, she had become very devoted to our new family and Olga’s relatives. My brothers had had their own lives for a long time; their paths were different from ours. I even discontinued my relations with my brothers in Israel because the authorities made us, as communists, put a stop to our relations with our kin abroad because they were believed to be Zionists, chauvinists and so on, in Israel.
I didn’t have any intentions to leave the country. I had discussed that issue with Roza. We felt so exhausted from all the suffering and had already made our home, we had work and had simply got used to the way of living we had achieved with so much effort. We had decided that we wouldn’t go, at least for the time being and at that time the emigration wave was rather serious. We knew that travel was ahead, that nothing would be arranged and so on. My mother was ready to stay and, apart from that, she had become very devoted to our new family and Olga’s relatives. My brothers had had their own lives for a long time; their paths were different from ours. I even discontinued my relations with my brothers in Israel because the authorities made us, as communists, put a stop to our relations with our kin abroad because they were believed to be Zionists, chauvinists and so on, in Israel.
Period
Location
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interview
Leon Yako Anzhel
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