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I graduated from high school in 1937, when, unluckily, Simeon [Saxe-Coburg-Gotha] [9] was born and then I don’t know why, all graduation balls were banned and they raised all students’ marks. That was the generous gesture of King Boris III [10] so that no student would have to repeat a grade the year that his son was born. To fill up the university with even more incompetent students! And since we didn’t have a graduation ball, the following year we gathered in the BIAD Restaurant in Sofia. I had a Bulgarian boyfriend, with whom I was platonically, but beautifully in love. But he graduated in law and went to Plovdiv, and so I was free. I don’t know if I was very pretty that evening in BIAD, but I was constantly invited to dance. We danced the waltz and tango. I received notes, flowers, and when I went back home – a serenade. My future husband was at that dinner with a cousin of mine. Josif Menahem Kohen – his nickname was Pepo – was born in Skopje [today Macedonia] on 11th June 1911. While they were talking with each other, Pepo asked my cousin to introduce him to me. I married him in 1939, but not because he was Jewish. If my former friend, the Bulgarian, hadn’t been so prejudiced, maybe I would have married him.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Tinka Kohen