Sophie Pinkas with relatives

On the photo I am with the family of a first cousin of my uncle Samuel Pinkas. He lived in Sela at that time and then in Tel Aviv. Next to me on my right is my cousin Beti, we called him in this way, although his name was Avram. Next to me is his daughter, then his wife Rivka and their son. I don?t remember the names of the children. I don?t remember what kind of job he had, but I know that he is retired and now he is actively involved in protecting animals and more specifically birds, cats, dogs etc. His wife works as an accountant in a company. During that visit, we walked around Vidin, where Beti was born. We took him to see the house where he lived as a child. They lived in the house of a Turkish family in Kaleto [the Jewish quarter in Vidin]. They got on very well with that family. We also went to the synagogue, which is decaying more and more. This is the front facade of the synagogue. My husband put a lot of effort into trying to convince authorities to restore the synagogue in Vidin, but without success. Even during communism he made a lot of presentations and wrote many letters. He even went in person to the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, but they always said that there was no money. After the changes, in 1990, when I went to Israel with him, he went to some Bulgarian-Israeli committees, but at that time they were raising money for the Sofia synagogue and they said they couldn't spare more money. In fact, all the money went for the restoration of the Sofia synagogue and the Vidin one fell into decay. One of the ideas of my husband was to turn the synagogue into a concert hall or a gallery.