Tag #125048 - Interview #95978 (Stela Astrukova)

My parents left for Palestine. They traveled by steamboat. I was one month old. Leon, my mother's elder brother, welcomed them there. He had been living there with his wife Simha for two years. She worked as a midwife and I do not remember what he did. My cousin Yafa was born in Palestine.

My uncle and aunt remained a little longer in Palestine but eventually returned, I do not know why, probably because of the harsh climate. My parents, however, did not manage to settle. My mother did not work, because she looked after me and my father could not find work as an engineer, because there was no construction at the time.

They lived in a wooden shed and slept on the floor. My mother said that one night she heard me moaning and got up to check on me. She saw that a snake – a boa – had wrapped itself around me and was suffocating me. She panicked and woke up my father.

A short while after that I got a very severe eye infection, probably because of the dirt and the miserable conditions. They returned to Bulgaria and lived in a small brick house together with my grandparents on Morava Str., present-day 75 Zheko Dimitrov Str.