Selected text
On 9th September 1944 [21] the old government was overthrown. Around 20th September we decided to go back to Sofia. We boarded a train and returned. As far as I remember Sofka was the first to return and rented a house for us on 51 Sofronii Street. It had a yard and a couple of stairs which led to the house. It had a small corridor and two rooms. The toilet was outside, but there was a sink inside and a small kitchen, which you entered from the corridor. Sofka lived in one of the rooms and the rest of us lived in the other. We had no belongings. At first we slept on the floor. Someone gave us plank beds. We all slept on one plank bed: my mother and my sisters. When we returned after the internment, we had nothing and we had to find some work. Our identity cards had been changed again and we had our old names back. Since I was a member of the UYW, I was invited to start work at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I worked as a clerk for a short time. We didn’t receive money in the first few months, but there was a dining-room where we received food and rations. I carried them home for the others.
My sister Rashel went to work as a babysitter in a Jewish family. The family was rich. Their family name was Arie and they gave her clothes, money or food. She brought everything home. My mother no longer sewed because there were no orders. We lived like that until I started work at the editor’s office of the newspaper ‘Narodna Mladezh’ [22]. This happened in 1950. I was the secretary of the editor-in-chief. Then I was office manager. I had started studying in an evening high school so I finished my secondary education before I started work at the newspaper. I worked there until 1959. I was already a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Before the newspaper I worked for a short time in the Committee of Science, Arts and Culture in the personnel department and also in the publishing house ‘Medicine and Physical Education.’ I also worked for a short time with Radio Sofia as a program dispatcher.
My sister Rashel went to work as a babysitter in a Jewish family. The family was rich. Their family name was Arie and they gave her clothes, money or food. She brought everything home. My mother no longer sewed because there were no orders. We lived like that until I started work at the editor’s office of the newspaper ‘Narodna Mladezh’ [22]. This happened in 1950. I was the secretary of the editor-in-chief. Then I was office manager. I had started studying in an evening high school so I finished my secondary education before I started work at the newspaper. I worked there until 1959. I was already a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Before the newspaper I worked for a short time in the Committee of Science, Arts and Culture in the personnel department and also in the publishing house ‘Medicine and Physical Education.’ I also worked for a short time with Radio Sofia as a program dispatcher.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Adela Nissimova Levi