Juliet Yosif Saltiel on Varna's beach

This is my mother's family. These are my grandparents Djamila Samuel Baruh and Israel Samuel Baruh with their daughter Blanche (my mother), on the right. The others must be her brothers Avram and Haim. The little girl to the left from Israel Baruh is Rashel. The picture was taken in Vidin in 1896.

It is difficult for me to speak of my maternal and paternal grandparents because I have no information about them. However, I can tell interesting facts of my father Yosif Fridman's life story, who was a Russian Jew as well as the story of my mother Blanche Fridman (nee Baruh), who was a Bulgarian Jew.

All I know about my mother's relatives is that she is a descendant of a Jewish family from the Sephardim branch. Her father, Israel Samuel Baruh, was born in Vidin and his father, Samuel Baruh was an inn-keeper and had a total of four children. I know nothing at all about my maternal grandmother, Djamila Samuel Baruh, because she had died before I was born (that is before 1925) but I suppose she was also from Vidin and was most probably a housewife, staying at home and looking after her children, just like all the women of that time.

My mother's brothers and sisters were Samuel (called also Bucco as first born son, since this was the tradition in the Jewish families then), Israel Baruh, Avram Israel Baruh, Isak Israel Baruh, Haim Israel Baruh, and Berta Baruh. Of course, the least information I have about my uncle Avram, who died of some illness as a child, that is - before the Law for Protection of the Nation was introduced in Bulgaria [1941]. I remember that uncle Bucco was a cobbler, Isak worked together with my father as a trades intermediary, uncle Haim made paper packaging for seeds which he sold at the market, and auntie Berta was a housewife. Except for Avram, who died very young and Haim, who died also of an illness relatively young in 1948, all other relatives emigrated to Israel at one time or another (I don't know exactly when, but it was most probably after 9th September 1944 [the day of the communist takeover in Bulgaria]). Avram and Haim died in Bulgaria, while all others - in Israel. The name of my uncle Haim's wife was Margarita, but they didn't have children and didn't manage to go to Israel. The names of uncle Bucco's and auntie Berta's children are Isidor, Dora, Lora, Josef, Jana, and Albert. They left for Israel and I don't know anything about them. Uncle Isak and auntie Rashel Baruh had children whose names were Tiko, Rozhe, and Jacque. I have no information about them and their families. Berta and Morits Bokumski's children were called Frida, Ani and Zhori. I know nothing about them. However, as far as I know, Berta died in Israel in the early 1980s.

Photos from this interviewee