Santo Avramov Solomonov

This is my father Santo Avramov Solomonov as a soldier in World War I. Featured on this picture is a photo of his brother Mordo, who died during the war, on 19th October 1918. My father was born in 1896 in Nova Zagora. He graduated from the commercial school in Burgas. My father had two brothers: the first one, Mordo, died after the war [WWI], while the second one, Solomon, is over 80 years now and lives with his son in a kibbutz in Israel. My father also had a sister named Joia, about whom I know only that she used to live in Israel. Mordo, my father's elder brother was the most intelligent one among the siblings, who took my father to study in Burgas. My father served as a telephone operator during World War I. He knew the Morse codes. Unfortunately Mordo died early. He fought on the front and after he returned he died of the Spanish flue. My father took an active part in the September uprising of 1923 and held the power for seven days in the village of Koniovitsa in Nova Zagora district. When the uprising was suppressed, he was taken on foot from Koniovitsa to Nova Zagora. He was beaten not only for being a communist but also because he was a Jew. My mother was engaged to him at that time. She went to the place were he was kept under arrest in order to take him with her to Stara Zagora. It was then that he broke contacts with the Communist Party because he had been severely beaten. After he returned to Stara Zagora he became an accountant in the bed factory and cut his ties with the communists. He did this because of his family. After 9th September 1944, when the communists took power, he enrolled in the Bulgarian Communist Party again.