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We the children used to play a lot. I was together with my cousins. Aunt Ester, who used to live in the lower neighborhood, had five daughters – Rebeka, Gratsia, Sofi, Berta, Meriam. The second and the third sons of uncle Yeshua – Shimon and Israel were almost my age. We used to play all sorts of games. We liked to play ‘chilik’, hide-and-seek, play tag, ‘long donkey’, ‘short donkey’, we were hopping over each other. There were some vegetable gardens that were called ‘bakhchi’. We were taking walks in the ‘bakhchi’, climbing trees, picking plums, picking mulberries…The Toundzha was nearby so we used to go there to wade into it…Our parents didn’t control us at all, nobody was taking care of us… There were neither cars nor any other dangers. If a cart went by, we would jump at the back until the people chased us away. I lived with granny until I turned thirteen and started the junior high school.
Granny was religious and used to take me to the synagogue. It is a very beautiful building in my childhood memories. Downstairs there was a hall with a dome decorated with tainted glass. There were a lot of seats in it. That light coming from above hued in different colors seemed magnificently beautiful to me… The men would sit downstairs and the women upstairs on the balcony. There was also an entrance-hall from which the women headed for the balcony and the men remained downstairs. The women were wearing their newest clothes and were always with kerchiefs on their heads. Granny didn’t have a lot of dresses – only one formal and she used to wear it every Friday. Men would put on ‘kippah’. I was feeling very important but just the first fifteen minutes after which I used to get bored and started fidgeting on which granny would tell me to go to the yard. There was a large yard that surrounded the synagogue. There was a separate place for slaying animals. There was another separate building where the ‘shammash’ used to live – that was the person who was taking care of the building of the synagogue.
Granny was always fasting at Kippur. She was trying to make me follow suit but whenever I started crying because of being hungry she would give me something to eat. Taanit would end with a mass in the synagogue. On returning home we would first have a little slice of bread with a pinch of salt and then we would sit at the table where a lot of delicious dishes were served – I don’t exactly remember if there were leeks balls but I recall that the dishes were extremely tasty.
Granny was religious and used to take me to the synagogue. It is a very beautiful building in my childhood memories. Downstairs there was a hall with a dome decorated with tainted glass. There were a lot of seats in it. That light coming from above hued in different colors seemed magnificently beautiful to me… The men would sit downstairs and the women upstairs on the balcony. There was also an entrance-hall from which the women headed for the balcony and the men remained downstairs. The women were wearing their newest clothes and were always with kerchiefs on their heads. Granny didn’t have a lot of dresses – only one formal and she used to wear it every Friday. Men would put on ‘kippah’. I was feeling very important but just the first fifteen minutes after which I used to get bored and started fidgeting on which granny would tell me to go to the yard. There was a large yard that surrounded the synagogue. There was a separate place for slaying animals. There was another separate building where the ‘shammash’ used to live – that was the person who was taking care of the building of the synagogue.
Granny was always fasting at Kippur. She was trying to make me follow suit but whenever I started crying because of being hungry she would give me something to eat. Taanit would end with a mass in the synagogue. On returning home we would first have a little slice of bread with a pinch of salt and then we would sit at the table where a lot of delicious dishes were served – I don’t exactly remember if there were leeks balls but I recall that the dishes were extremely tasty.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Berta Pando