Alfred Yuda and his wife Matilda Komforti

The photo, taken in Dupnitsa, shows Alfred Yuda Komforti, brother of my mother, Buka Yuda Madzhar (nee Komforti), with his wife Matilda Komforti, when they got engaged around 1936-37. My mother had four brothers and three sisters. They were eight children in all - Samuel, Rufel, Nissim, Alfred, Mois, Sterina, Rebeka and my mother - Buka. They had one more sister, but she drowned very young in the river, poor thing! No one from my mother's family had any formal education, but each of her brothers had his craft. The eldest one, Samuel, was a tobacco expert in the warehouses and bought tobacco. Rufel was a retailer. He had a grocery store, then a greengrocery, which he also set up in Sofia together with his father. Nissim was a hatter. He made bowler hats and had a workshop and a shop in Sofia. Alfred was a mechanic. Mois also had a grocery store. So although they were poor, they had their small businesses. My mother was the eldest, which is why she was named Buka. She told me that they were so poor that they didn't even have beds. When she got older, her father bought her a bed and she was the only one in the family to have one. Only Ladino was spoken at home. They also knew Bulgarian, although my grandmother didn't know it very well. I don't know whether they knew any other languages.