Matilda Mihaylova and her daughters

This is a photo of my mother with her three daughters. It was taken in the 1980s in Sofia. I am on the left, next to me is my mother Matilda Mihaylova, nee Kohen, then my older sister Luisa Alhalel, nee Solomonova, and my younger sister Soli Semova, nee Solomonova. When the photo was taken only my elder sister lived in Israel. My mother lived with me and my younger sister lived in Sofia with her husband. By the time of this photo I was a doctor at the Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Institute. My mother was still in good health and she did the housework. The photo was taken when my older sister Luisa came to visit us. I remember that 1957 was the first time we got in touch with my sister in Israel after the Mass Aliyah in 1948-49. That was the year when I was allowed to go to Israel. Before that I went to the police department many times asking for permission to go there. After that period in the 1970s my sister managed to come to Bulgaria. My younger sister graduated from pedagogy department of the Faculty of Letters, and worked as a teacher. When the photo was taken, she had not retired yet. She moved to Israel with her husband Mois Semov, who is a philosophy professor, in the beginning of the 1990s. They live in Haifa. Their two children, Nina and Mati, moved to Israel with them and work as computer specialists. My older sister Luisa Alhalel has been living in Israel since 1948. She married Shalom Alhalel in Bulgaria. They settled in Ramla. My sister worked as an assistant nurse in a hospital in Ramla. After her husband died, she has been living in a senior home. She has three children: Mihail, Uri and Bela. One of her sons is a physician - obstetrician in Jerusalem, the other is an engineer and her daughter is a pedagogue, working as a high school principal. My sister has nine grandchildren.

Photos from this interviewee