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My daughter, Sima Davidova Evtimova [nee Levi], was born in 1949. She graduated in Spanish Philology, lives in Bulgaria, but is unemployed now. She is married to a Bulgarian and has two children: Alexander, who is 28 years old, and Adelina, who is 23. My grandson has a degree in management and works for his father and my granddaughter has a degree in computer graphics and photography. After the Ministry for Internal Affairs my husband started working for the ‘Trud’ [24] newspaper and then for the magazine ‘Balgarski Profsaiuzi’ [Bulgarian Trade Unions]. He had a degree from the Higher Party School [25].
In 1959 I went to work for the new newspaper ‘Literaturni Novini’ [26]. I was once again secretary there and I worked there until 1964. Then I went to the publishing house ‘Tehnika’ [‘Technic’: specialized in publishing technical and popular scientific literature] where I worked until I retired. At all the places I had worked nobody treated me badly because I was a Jew except when we worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs from which we were fired for that reason. Not because we were Jews, but because we had relatives in a western country. [Regardless of geographical location all non-Soviet Block countries, including Israel, were considered ‘Western,’ meaning capitalistic, before 1989.]
We lived with my husband’s parents. They observed some traditions, but we didn’t and neither did our daughter. We observed very few of the rituals. We didn’t pray, nor go to the synagogue. We married only before the registrar. We settled in our present home in 1968. My husband’s parents lived in one of the rooms, my husband and I in the other and my daughter in the living-room. Six months after we moved, my father-in-law died and when my daughter got married she lived here with her husband. In 1976 my grandson was born and my mother-in-law died in 1978. It was always very crowded at home.
In 1959 I went to work for the new newspaper ‘Literaturni Novini’ [26]. I was once again secretary there and I worked there until 1964. Then I went to the publishing house ‘Tehnika’ [‘Technic’: specialized in publishing technical and popular scientific literature] where I worked until I retired. At all the places I had worked nobody treated me badly because I was a Jew except when we worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs from which we were fired for that reason. Not because we were Jews, but because we had relatives in a western country. [Regardless of geographical location all non-Soviet Block countries, including Israel, were considered ‘Western,’ meaning capitalistic, before 1989.]
We lived with my husband’s parents. They observed some traditions, but we didn’t and neither did our daughter. We observed very few of the rituals. We didn’t pray, nor go to the synagogue. We married only before the registrar. We settled in our present home in 1968. My husband’s parents lived in one of the rooms, my husband and I in the other and my daughter in the living-room. Six months after we moved, my father-in-law died and when my daughter got married she lived here with her husband. In 1976 my grandson was born and my mother-in-law died in 1978. It was always very crowded at home.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Adela Nissimova Levi