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When I came back from Czechoslovakia and started work in the Metal Cutting Machines Plant, the doctors’ plot [32] in the Soviet Union started. While I was still in Czechoslovakia, in Bulgaria started the trial against Traicho Kostov [33]. I was in the Pleven’s jail together with him, our cells were on the same floor. We used to walk together and we would often go to him to listen to his lectures. I knew Traicho Kostov in person and that turned into just one more suspicion against me. After I came back from Czechoslovakia, the trial against Rudolf Slansky [34] began – he was the general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Soon after it, in Romania was initiated the trial against Ana Pauker – one more strike against the Jewry. [see Ana Pauker-Vasile Luca-Teohari Georgescu group] [35] So – there was a certain negative reaction against the Jews on an international level. Almost all my friends moved to Israel after it was set up. I felt awkward about leaving, because I was sent to Czechoslovakia as a scholarship holder of the Bulgarian Government, so I decided to stay here. I also wanted to gain experience here.
My wife Yanka comes from Stara Zagora and her parents are from the town of Radnevo. She has uncompleted university education in a faculty of law. During the period the Jews were persecuted, her parents Dinka and Prodan Ovcharovi moved to Plovdiv to save the shop of a Jewish family. Prodan Ovcharov was a tradesman in Radnevo – a bit strange, Tolstoyist, vegetarian.
After I got married, we lived in a small rented flat that was destroyed later, and we were given an apartment, which we shared with other people. Then we moved to another place and finally I managed to buy a flat of 150 sq.m. (four rooms and a kitchen) from a friend in Maria Luisa Street in 1972. We still live there. My friend was fed up with this apartment, because there were tenants in it. We managed to move in 1975, but we continued with the law suits against the last tenant for three or four more years, because he didn’t want to move from there. Now only two of us live here – my wife and I - because my children have their own places now. One of my sons lives in Bulgaria, but has a separate flat, while the other is in Canada. My older son is Merkado – named after my father – he was born in 1960; the younger is Alfred and he was born in 1963 – both of them in Sofia. My son Merkado Mois Natan (this is the full name of my father, in the same way I carry the full name of my grandfather) is a lawyer and lives in Sofia. He has a family and a son, whose name is Mois Merkado Natan (that is also my name) and has just turned 17. His wife is a Bulgarian, and is also a lawyer. My younger son Alfred lives in Canada. He studied for two years at the Mechanical Electro-Technical Institute in Sofia and decided to move to Israel, and he set off for there without completing his university education in 1990. I didn’t agree that he should leave without finishing his education, but he did it. He was married to a Bulgarian in Sofia and he has a daughter from her, but he divorced and left for there. Four months later he came back, married his girlfriend and moved to live in Israel with her. After that they emigrated to Canada in 1993. He has two sons from his second marriage, the first one is 10 years old, the second one is 7. He attended a course for dental mechanics and now works as a dental mechanic. Both his children from the second marriage were born in Canada.
My wife Yanka comes from Stara Zagora and her parents are from the town of Radnevo. She has uncompleted university education in a faculty of law. During the period the Jews were persecuted, her parents Dinka and Prodan Ovcharovi moved to Plovdiv to save the shop of a Jewish family. Prodan Ovcharov was a tradesman in Radnevo – a bit strange, Tolstoyist, vegetarian.
After I got married, we lived in a small rented flat that was destroyed later, and we were given an apartment, which we shared with other people. Then we moved to another place and finally I managed to buy a flat of 150 sq.m. (four rooms and a kitchen) from a friend in Maria Luisa Street in 1972. We still live there. My friend was fed up with this apartment, because there were tenants in it. We managed to move in 1975, but we continued with the law suits against the last tenant for three or four more years, because he didn’t want to move from there. Now only two of us live here – my wife and I - because my children have their own places now. One of my sons lives in Bulgaria, but has a separate flat, while the other is in Canada. My older son is Merkado – named after my father – he was born in 1960; the younger is Alfred and he was born in 1963 – both of them in Sofia. My son Merkado Mois Natan (this is the full name of my father, in the same way I carry the full name of my grandfather) is a lawyer and lives in Sofia. He has a family and a son, whose name is Mois Merkado Natan (that is also my name) and has just turned 17. His wife is a Bulgarian, and is also a lawyer. My younger son Alfred lives in Canada. He studied for two years at the Mechanical Electro-Technical Institute in Sofia and decided to move to Israel, and he set off for there without completing his university education in 1990. I didn’t agree that he should leave without finishing his education, but he did it. He was married to a Bulgarian in Sofia and he has a daughter from her, but he divorced and left for there. Four months later he came back, married his girlfriend and moved to live in Israel with her. After that they emigrated to Canada in 1993. He has two sons from his second marriage, the first one is 10 years old, the second one is 7. He attended a course for dental mechanics and now works as a dental mechanic. Both his children from the second marriage were born in Canada.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Mois Natan