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I was born in 1926 in Dupnitsa. My real date of birth is 12th February, but the date written in the municipal registrar is 19th July. It’s different, because when I was born my father was working in Kyustendil. He came for a very short time when I was born and went back to work right away. He didn’t have enough time to write my name down in the municipality registrar. When he wanted to enter my name in July, he would have been fined if he told them the real date, so he wrote a date which was six months later.
I can’t say that Dupnitsa is a very beautiful town. It is located between two hills and was not very big; round 1938 it had around 10-12 000 citizens. What distinguished the town was the large number of tobacco warehouses, owned by ‘Nikoteya’ or Jacques Aseov. I was told about this man that he was very poor, but later he got rich; he studied in Sofia and made a fortune out of tobacco. That was the main livelihood of the people in Dupnitsa. Almost half the people in the town worked in these warehouses.
We had electricity and running water. Our house was small, made of sun-dried bricks of straw and mud [airbricks], but it was cozy. We had a larger room, which was for my parents and a smaller one, in which I, my sister, and my grandmother Klara, my father’s mother, lived. I remember that my grandmother and I slept in the same bed when I was a child. The room was small with a low ceiling. We had a garden. My father and my grandmother were known for doing farm work. They had an orchard garden in the town itself with peaches, plums and cherries.
I can’t say that Dupnitsa is a very beautiful town. It is located between two hills and was not very big; round 1938 it had around 10-12 000 citizens. What distinguished the town was the large number of tobacco warehouses, owned by ‘Nikoteya’ or Jacques Aseov. I was told about this man that he was very poor, but later he got rich; he studied in Sofia and made a fortune out of tobacco. That was the main livelihood of the people in Dupnitsa. Almost half the people in the town worked in these warehouses.
We had electricity and running water. Our house was small, made of sun-dried bricks of straw and mud [airbricks], but it was cozy. We had a larger room, which was for my parents and a smaller one, in which I, my sister, and my grandmother Klara, my father’s mother, lived. I remember that my grandmother and I slept in the same bed when I was a child. The room was small with a low ceiling. We had a garden. My father and my grandmother were known for doing farm work. They had an orchard garden in the town itself with peaches, plums and cherries.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Leon Mordohay Madzhar