Matilda Albuhaire -- A Sephardic Family Story

Centropa's first film produced by the award-winning Bulgarian Photographer's Association.
Here is a story that begins in Istanbul in the 1850s and ends in contemporary Sofia.
After the death of his wife, Matilda Albuhaire's grandfather traveled with his young son to the Black Sea port of Bourgas, where he opened a small shop in a town filled with Greeks, Turks, Jews, Muslims and Bulgarian Christians. Matilda became a teacher in the Bourgas and Sofia Jewish schools, and when war came, waited with the other Bulgarian Jews for their deportation "to Poland," not knowing what awaited them there.
But Bulgaria's Jews were not deported - the accompanying study guide provides articles and essays describing this remarkable incident.
After the war, most Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel; Matilda remained, and after the fall of Communism, once again became active in her Jewish community.