Tag #141616 - Interview #98916 (Lilia Levi)

My husband worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He got discharged right after Stalin’s death. Many compatriots there at the Ministry had the same destiny. My husband was really very embarrassed, but later he was employed at NarMag short for Public store, state trade institution. He had started work very early, because my father-in-law had been ill [he had raised cows] and they hadn’t had enough money. My husband had a brother and two sisters – the three of them were twins. His brother was killed as a partisan together with his wife. His sisters are younger than he is. They all started work very early and they finished night school.

We have two children – a daughter and a son. Zelma Mois Levi and Yosif Mois Levi My daughter is a physicist, she works in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and my son is an engineer; he works in the Telecommunication Company.

Before the War [World War II], there were many religious obstacles for mixed marriages. If a Jew decided to marry a Christian, he had to convert. And I know people who have become Christians in order to get married. But later mixed marriages between Bulgarians and Jews have become something usual. It became more and more rare to see couples that are entirely Jewish. There are many people now who are not Jews who feel like Jews no less than their husband or wife.