The wedding of Bucco and Klara Kohen

This is the wedding day of my parents Klara and Bucco Kohen in Nova Zagora in 1915. Berta and Henry, the children of my mothers' sister Sara Assa, are sitting in the front row. Behind them, from left Aunt Rakelucha is sitting, next to my maternal grandfather and grandmother - Aron Mori and Mazaltov Aron Mori, my parents, as well as my paternal grandparents - Luna and Yuda Kohen. In the back row are Rosa Kohen, who is the wife of my father's brother Solomon Kohen; Yakim, the son of my mother's brother Isak Aron Mori; Alegrika Hobesh; Samuil Kohen; Alegrika; Mois Kohen and Ester Kohen - my father's brother and sister, and David Kohen, another brother of my father who died during World War I. My mother's relatives are from the left, my father's relatives are from the right.

My paternal grandmother and grandfather, Luna Kohen and Yuda Kohen, were grocers in Plovdiv. My maternal grandfather, Aron Mori, was engaged in production of confectionery in Nova Zagora. I have heard my father bantering with my mother, Klara Kohen, that her family promised to give him a wagon of sugar in dowry, but he never caught a glimpse of that wagon. Of course, there was no such wagon at all. It was just that my father had a very good sense of humor.

My father married my mother in Nova Zagora in 1915. My mother was born in 1889. At one of the annual meetings of Balkan Sephardi Jews, I mentioned her family name and one of the participants exclaimed that there was a family carrying the same name in Adrianople. I can't say where my mother was born for sure. Maybe she was born in Nova Zagora, where she lived with her parents and where she met my father, but it's also possible that she was born in Adrianople, where her parents had moved from.