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This is me with my husband Pepo Kohen in front of the White House in Washington in September 1982. We stayed in the USA with our relatives - Jews who had moved there from Israel.
In principle it wasn’t a problem during socialism to visit the so-called capitalist countries, as long as there was a guarantee that the people visiting wouldn’t emigrate there. The problem was not for the country which the people visited, as it is usually the case, but for Bulgaria. The socialist countries didn’t want their citizens to emigrate and tried to stop them. Now, however, the situation is different and the problem lies with the country you want to visit. To that purpose during socialism it wasn’t allowed for whole families to leave, the children had to stay in Bulgaria as ‘hostages’. The parents were allowed to go, because they had no choice but to come back to their children.
