Decades of silence…

I grew up with a mixture of high praise and whispered discussions around my grandfather, Ari Leschnikoff.  The first thing I knew of him was when my father Simeon discovered his father had died and I found him silently sobbing into his hands very early one summer morning.  Approximately one year before my father would learn of his father’s demise, it seems that Ari’s sister Svetana had asked the Red Cross to trace my father because she didn’t have an address for him or my grandmother Delphine.  In the last of the letters we inherited from Delphine, it is quite clear that Ari had not heard from his first wife for many years before the 1970s.  We simply do not know if the letters we inherited from Delphine from Ari were ever answered, but she and also my father were very clear on one thing.  Never, EVER try to communicate with anyone in Bulgaria as it would be dangerous to that person and their loved ones and friends.  In fact, my grandmother was expressly told by the Foreign Office never to do this – and certainly they advised that neither she nor my father should ever attempt entry to the country – even on a British Passport, because of the risk of arrest and detainment.  My father, who was a Bulgarian citizen until his citizenship was revoked in the 1960s, would, according to British diplomats, be considered to be the property of the Bulgarian State, regardless of his national status.