Tag #141447 - Interview #78449 (Sonya Adolf Lazarova)

In our spare time we used to walk in the Borisova Garden with my friends from Maccabi; we also used to go to the cinema. We never spent our vacations outside Sofia and we never went on holiday. We most often went to the cinema. ‘Gloria Palace’ was right opposite our block of apartments. I used to buy tickets in the first row, which were the cheapest ones. I have watched all the movies of Charlie Chaplin. I remember the Soviet films, for example, ‘The Circus Princess.’ [Editor’s note: ‘The Circus Princess’ is an operetta by Hungarian-Jewish composer Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953). The interviewee is probably referring to the German film adaptation of 1929.] My passion for the cinema lasted until 1942. After that, during the anti-Semitic acts [20], I was afraid to enter the closed room of the cinema hall, because there was no way to escape from it. Thanks to my two elder sisters I used to visit all theater and opera performances for free. I never missed a performance with Gizela’s participation, yet unfortunately it’s hard for me to recall their names.

During the 1940s as young boys and girls, we used to gather in front of the Jewish community house. There were UYW [21] members among them also. In this company I met my big adolescent crush, Rafael Nissimov – Feto. It lasted for four years. After that he got married, but not to me, and later he settled in Israel. At that time he used to live close to the Jewish community house and was an active revolutionary. I fell under his influence and decided to join the UYW. He inspired me to read, to pursue my aims, to be strong.