In the picture you can see me on the left and my friend Eti Rahamimova - a Jew, who now lives in Israel and works there as a doctor. Here we are in the second grade of the primary school - we are wearing our school uniforms and peaked caps. The photo was taken in front of our home on 2 ‘Makriopolska’ street. On the back of the photo it is written in pencil - the last photo taken by papa (Papa - this is what I called my dad. ) The photo was taken in the autumn of 1940. My father died in 1941.
Eti Rahamimova was one of my two closest friends. Our families were close friends too. Her mother - Flora - was the one to tell my mother about the vacancies for electricity collectors after my father's death and my mother started work there shortly after his death. Her father Marko Rahamimov taught my mother accountancy after dad died.
[After dad’s death] mum started to look for a job. Robert Kohen's family, who was an acquaintance of uncle Mois Beniesh and owned a haberdashery in 'Pirotska' street, helped her initially. He gave her 2, 000 leva, somebody anonymously bought us coal and wood for the winter, then she got some other aid again, but the situation was terrible because mum was still without work. After dad died a neighbor, Marko Rahamimov, my friend Eti Rahamimova's father, taught her accountancy. She had helped my father while he was still alive but she didn't know accountancy. The knowledge she acquired was of help later.
Soon after dad died, while she was still without work and the situation seemed desperate, she thought of leaving a letter to my uncle Isak. She had a plan - to get up earlier and to jump under the tram because she couldn't see a way out of her awful situation.
I will tell one of her dreams after dad's death, which she told me on waking up and from which, she believed, she got information about the future course of our life. She dreamt that my dad and granny Sarah came near her bed and told her, 'Come with us.' She was in her night gown and while walking on a way she said, 'I can't…'. There were torns. She then saw a bloody trace in front of her, but he told her to continue and they reached the bank of a river. He said, 'We will go to the other side and will throw something for you.' And then she saw a big fish in the air but the fish fell into the water. Granny Sarah shouted from the other side 'Don't worry, we will throw something again.' And they threw a small fish. She woke up. And she woke up later than the possible time at which she could wake to throw herself under the tram. And she told me the dream then. And I smiled and said, 'Well, Mama…', can you imagine to say that, at the age of twelve, 'Mama, this is just wishful thinking.' At that moment, and this is really strange, it is difficult to believe in these things, so at that very moment a neighbor, the wife of Rahamimov - the person who taught her accountancy, came to look for her. She said, 'Elvira, I read that they are looking for electricity collectors.' And mum, using the information from the advertisement, took an exam for electricity collectors in Sofia. The exam was very difficult, but she passed all the exams and they hired her in the electricity company. The situation was complicated, but as the company was international, they could hire her even though she was a Jew. They had that right and then again some strange force helped her. She started going round Sofia and taking down the indications from the electric meters.
