Hana Gasic as a baby

This is me, Hana Montiljo, when I was about a year old, in 1941. The photo was taken in Foto Bozic in Sarajevo. I am the daughter of Menahem and Flora Montiljo. I was born in Sarajevo on July 27, 1940. I have one brother, Rafael, who was born during the war on March 22, 1943. We lived in a small home on Gornja Mandjija Street on the periphery of the city in an entirely Muslim neighborhood. It was a two-story house. Our family lived upstairs in an apartment with an entranceway, a kitchen, and one room where we all slept. My mother's sister, Rivka, lived downstairs with her children. After her husbands died she had difficulty supporting herself, and my parents let her live in our house and never asked her to pay rent. When I was about 12 years old my parents renovated our apartment and made a small room for Rafo and me. Despite the fact that we were relatively poor, my parents? apartment had an English water closet with indoor plumbing downstairs, and a laundry room, another room with running water, things that most of our neighbors did not have. Later, shortly before I married, my parents added a bathroom to our apartment upstairs. From the laundry room one could reach the small garden in the back where my father liked to spend his free time.