Anna Danon with her friends from the choir

This is part of the choir of the Ilya Erenburg cultural organization. The photo was taken in Sofia in 1947. I am with my friends. I am third from left, the others are Lili (second from left), Erna and Mati. We were inseparable. Every summer Lili stayed with us from May onwards. The Ilya Erenburg organization was founded within the Jewish community after the end of WWII. It was not a school initiative - there were many people there who hadn't graduated high school. The organization had a choir, a theatre, a ballet ensemble , a sports group and other groups. We traveled a lot in the country [with the choir] and had many performances. There was a ballet ensemble, too. We were very enthusiastic about it and took part in a number of events. I don?t remember any particular town, as we used to travel a lot. We were a very lively and energetic group of young people. We had those uniforms with white shirts and skirts, and stars - these were not Jewish stars, but pentacles. At that time we didn't have any nationalist or Zionist sentiments. It was all about Bulgaria.