Jack Solomon Albuhaire

This is my husband Jack Solomon Albuhaire, whom I got married to in 1945. The photograph was taken in the 1940s in Bourgas. My husband graduated from the business high school in Bourgas. During the Holocaust he was sent to forced labor camps. He had a certificate, issued by the Jewish community, listing all the camps he was sent to. Unfortunately I don't know to which ones. He worked in the big Bourgas flourmills and during World War II, despite the prohibition to hire Jews, the owner retained his position but took his sister Matilda instead. My husband had a younger brother named Mair and a sister, Matilda. My mother-in-law didn't let us marry for a long time because according to the tradition the daughter had to marry first. When we got engaged, his brother Mair was in a military school, while his sister worked as a teacher in the Jewish school in Sofia. We lived in one room, and my father-in-law, who was ill, and my mother-in-law lived in the other room. My husband provided for all of us. We lived for three months as a family but we were only engaged. In a small town people often gossip and they invent so many things. One day I received a letter from my mother, in which she told me that a rumor had spread in town that I was kept as a mistress and that they would get rid of me sometime, leaving me with nothing. I read the letter, smiling faintly, because we were so busy that this didn't even occur to us. When he read the letter, Jack got so upset that he took my hand and told me: 'Let's go and sign right now.' I told him: 'Please, give me at least a week to prepare myself!'