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My son, Yosif, was born after my graduation in 1951. When he was born my husband was still studying at the Institute of Technology. I was worrying all the time about how I was going to raise that child because I had already started work. I knew that I had to commit myself to my job but who was going to look after my child? Then my mother came and together we returned to Pazardzhik for three months so that my husband could take his final exam without anyone in his way. Our life in Pazardzhik was extremely hard because my son and I, my mother and my little brother were living in the same room. We didn’t have money.
After the third month had passed I had to start work. My mother made a great sacrifice: she moved to Sofia with my little brother in order to help me. Sami [Shemuel] started going to school. I started work. My mother, who was helping me and was busy with my child, couldn’t take care of her own child. We found out from some of his schoolmates that Sami wasn’t going to school. And my mother said that we would go wrong with the upbringing of the child.
He turned into the black sheep of the family and my mother decided to go back to Pazardzhik again. I decided to call upon some women to help me in the house. My son was often ill and I couldn’t send him to kindergarten. I begged my husband a lot to take some days off from time to time but he always said, ‘It’s the mothers who are praised in the novels, not the fathers.’ And that was the motto of our marriage. You can’t understand what that meant; I was somehow trying to move on. I sometimes had to do the night shift at the Institute. I had a lot of public activities to complete: I conducted different groups on Marxism–Leninism, on revolutionary poetry, etc. It seemed to me I was moving backwards and that thought was a torture.
After the third month had passed I had to start work. My mother made a great sacrifice: she moved to Sofia with my little brother in order to help me. Sami [Shemuel] started going to school. I started work. My mother, who was helping me and was busy with my child, couldn’t take care of her own child. We found out from some of his schoolmates that Sami wasn’t going to school. And my mother said that we would go wrong with the upbringing of the child.
He turned into the black sheep of the family and my mother decided to go back to Pazardzhik again. I decided to call upon some women to help me in the house. My son was often ill and I couldn’t send him to kindergarten. I begged my husband a lot to take some days off from time to time but he always said, ‘It’s the mothers who are praised in the novels, not the fathers.’ And that was the motto of our marriage. You can’t understand what that meant; I was somehow trying to move on. I sometimes had to do the night shift at the Institute. I had a lot of public activities to complete: I conducted different groups on Marxism–Leninism, on revolutionary poetry, etc. It seemed to me I was moving backwards and that thought was a torture.
Period
Location
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interview
Sofi Eshua Danon-Moshe