Tag #127418 - Interview #77982 (Regina Grinberg)

The Farhi family, as I have said, was well off. Food was always aplenty, and we always had a lot of clothes. Given this relative freedom, everyone was able to decide how much they wanted to study. All of my father's brothers and their families lived in four old family houses. My grandmother lived in the biggest house. I remember that we also lived there at first. Then we moved into the smaller house that was alongside it, and my uncle Yosif and his family lived with my grandmother. The small house had three rooms. My parents lived in one of the rooms, my sister and I in the living room, and my eldest sister was sent to study at the French College in Ruse. We also had a guestroom. The toilet was in the yard, a special building covered with bricks. It was used by those who lived in both the big and the small house. It had separate compartments for the men, the women and the children.

When a part of Uncle Yosif's family left for Palestine in the 1930s, we went back to the big house. I remember that Uncle Yosif, who could not bear the fact that his eldest son Yako - influenced by Zionism [9] - left for Palestine instead of inheriting the family business, died shortly thereafter. With his death, that of his wife Mika in 1934 and his daughter Estrea in 1935, my family moved into the big house. I lived there until I was eleven years old.

The furniture in the small house was stylish; Vienna chairs covered with red plush, large extending tables, wardrobes and chandeliers. We had electricity installed in 1928. We installed it the same year it was introduced in Shumen, and the gas lamps remained only as decorations. There was a piano in both the small and the big house.