This is a picture of my mother Solchi Levi in Israel in 1971.
This is a picture of my mother, Solchi Levi, taken in Israel in 1971.
My mother Solchi Levi (nee Danon) was born in the town of Burgas. This town was considered superior and far more sophisticated than Karnobat those years. She graduated from the high school in the town of Trigrad [in the Rhodopes Mountain]. There she lived in a boarding-house. All her lessons there were taught in French. She spoke French, Turkish and Greek fluently. She could read books in Spanish. Later when she left for Israel, she learnt Ivrit very quickly.
It is interesting that before that, in Bulgaria, my mother met a Russian Jew called Maer, and she married him at the age of 42. They went to Israel and they took my little brother as well. They lived happily for 10 years and then, her husband died. Soon she met the German Jew Freedman again and eventually she married him. My mother was unfortunate to outlive all her husbands and my younger brother as well. My brother lived in Bat Yam. He married twice. He had three daughters from his first wife Lea - Silvia, Sarah, and Anat. His second wife gave birth to two boys - Roi and Kvir.
My mother and brother went to Israel with Maer and his son in 1949. At first, they lived in poverty in bungalows. When they left, I had already met my husband. I married him a couple of months later. There was a tradition for the parents to make sure if their children were going to marry a decent person, so they investigated their children's future husbands or wives and their families. I remember my mother told me once that there was a nice boy who liked me and that she had already checked his family. She said it was a decent one. I married that boy in the same year 1949, soon after my mother had left for Israel.
