Tag #127946 - Interview #78014 (Matilda Israel)

My father met my mother by chance, at the kiosk where she sold cigarettes. Gradually, he persuaded her to marry him and together they moved to Karnobat taking my half-brother Haim with them. I suppose that my mother felt nervous about what she would find there, because she was the age of my father's daughters. At first they treated her quite distantly, but gradually she became part of the family.

I guess the news that my father was about to have both a daughter and a granddaughter at the same time was a big scandal during those times, but it is a fact that Mati, the daughter of my sister Buka, was born almost at the same time that I was. My other niece, Viki, the daughter of my sister Ana is also about the same age as me, and some time after my birth the two sons of my brother Sabetay, Leon and Misho, were born. We all grew up together. In the beginning I was also not accepted very warmly by the family, but gradually they became attached to me and they couldn't stop hugging me. I am named after the first wife of my father. My sisters insisted on that and my mother didn't mind.