New Year’s eve

This photograph was taken in Maçka hotel on a new year’s eve, I do not remember the date.  There was a famous singer, used to sing songs in French, an old singer, I do not remember the name.  The ones in the photograph, me, Ceni, Zelda and Yomtov.  That night we had  a lot of fun, danced, ate till the morning, had a lot of fun and that’s it.

We developed a lot of great friendships during the years we lived in Elmadag.  Esti and Mordo Peres, Zelda and Yomtov Behar, and us, 3 families lived in Elmadag.  Also Süzi Izak Sarhon and Izi Süzet Levi would come.  We would meet every evening.  Esti could not sleep at nights, she went to bed late, so she invited us all the time.  The place we lived at was called Üftade sokak(street).  We would go to the movies.  We would have conversations, sing songs, play games, we had a lot of fun. 
We had beautiful friendships in Caddebostan where we spent our summers.  We would go with them to the sea as well as play games, and dance, we laughed a lot, our days passed wonderfully. I can tell you this, the friendships that I just mentioned with the friends from Elmadag, we never found again. 

This is how my wife and I met.  I had a friend, Izi Goldenberg who was the owner of Grundig radios and televisions.  He used to manufacture gloves before, gloves for men and women.  He was at Sultanhamam in the five fingers building.  We also founded Rutli-Goldenberg, an agency specializing in hardware but it did not work afterwards.  My current wife was working in a shirt store around there.  When Goldenberg was working on gloves, she came one day to buy a pair and we met there.  I helped her carry the package she bought, we took it to the store.  She was a beautiful woman, would you date me, I said.  Yes, I will date you, she said, but not alone.  I had friends, we went out together.  We went out one or two times.  Later we continued.  After a while she started asking about marriage.  I said, I cannot marry before my sister is married.  She told this to her mother.  Her mother said, ask if she has money.  She came to me and asked, does your sibling have money.  I told her that the older brothers that are in the United States and the ones here, they will all give.  She then told me I have a doctor.  If your sister gets engaged, I will enter your house too, I want to get engaged too.  I said, o.k.   We made a date at a bakery in Beyoglu, so they can meet.  My older sister came with my older brother, and I with Ceni, and doctor Sami Reytan came alone because he did not have a father or such.  He was a good man, later on he became an internist, they liked each other a lot.  They decided, came to our house, got engaged and later on married.  They got married and we got married.
The wedding went very well.  There was no evening party.  We got married, we immediately went home, undressed, changed, took a small suitcase and went immediately to the hotel. We went to Heybeli ada (the third one of the Princess islands, on the Marmara sea, south of Istanbul) for our honeymoon.  We stayed at a hotel there, Halki Palas, it was a nice hotel, the food was very good.