Yosif Benatov and Victoria Tadzher (nee Behar)

In this photo you can see my uncle Yosif – my mother Liza’s brother – and my sister Viky. They were photographed in a street in Plovdiv but I can’t say which that street was. There is an inscription in ink on the back of the photo: ‘Plovdiv, 17th November 1943’. There follows another inscription in pen that was obviously done in later years that says: VIKY. There is no stamp of a photo shop. My uncle Yosif used to live in Sofia but during the Holocaust he was interned to Plovdiv. There is an ink stain on his lapel. My sister Viky had erased with ink the badge that was obligatory for us at that time.

My sister Victoria Tadzher (1937) also finished the Bulgarian school and afterwards she studied at a vocational school of design. She is rather skilful, too – it obviously runs in the family. It seems to me she could have become an excellent designer. She is skilful but she doesn’t like this profession. She is capable of making a piece of clothing for you that would fit you perfectly. She worked as a designer but didn’t like it. She was a worker for some time and then she worked in the personnel department. She was head of a production shop for some time but now she has been a secretary of the Jewish organization ‘Shalom’ in Sofia for twenty years until she retired. Nowadays she is working as an organizer of club ‘Health’ where over fifty men and women practice some sport, celebrate their birthdays and make cultural programs. She is also working at the Day Rehabilitation Center of ‘Shalom’ Organization. We are extremely fond of each other. We talk on the phone every single day – I call from Plovdiv, she – from Sofia no matter that when we were children my brother had turned himself into her guardian. There is some gap between our interests because I am seven years older. When I started showing interest in girls, she was still keen on her toys. My brother had a big share in her bringing up. He replaced my father to a great extent because he died relatively early – when she was 22. She married in Sofia to the Jew Solomon Tadzher. She has a daughter – Ely and two grandchildren – Bozhidar and Monica.