Victoria Behar with her parents Ester Bohoracheva and Iacob Bohorachev

Here I am with my parents, photographed in 1932 on a walk in Sofia. On this photo my mother is pregnant with my sister Elvira. My father didn't complete his university studies in economics, but he nonetheless worked as an accountant in a knitwear factory. My mother graduated from a junior high school, but she didn't work so that she could look after my sisters and me. I'm their eldest daughter. I was born on 1st June 1928. Elvira is the second oldest; she was born on 5th April 1932. My youngest sister, Devora, was born on 11th December 1936. We were all born in Sofia. We spoke Bulgarian at home and Ladino only when my grandmothers came to visit. We lived in the Jewish quarter near Bet Am and the Great Synagogue, but then there were smaller synagogues, too. We had a house with a yard in which there were only flowers, and my friends and I played mostly there. Our house had three rooms. We had running water and heated the house with coal and wood. My mother did all the housework by herself. My parents kept in touch mainly with their relatives, as our kin was quite big, and most of their friends were Jews.