This is a photo of my father, Raphael Molho, taken in Thessaloniki in 1910. At that time he wasn’t married yet.
My fathers’ father, Joseph Molho, worked for the Turks. He was responsible of a big agricultural exploitation [tsiflikas]. The same applied to my father, Raphael Molho.
When my grandfather was working for the Turks he was buying a lot of jewelry for my grandmother Esther, nee Ergas.
They even told me that when Grandfather Molho died, my grandmother, who had six sons said, ‘Whichever bride will give birth to the young Joseph will have all my jewelry.’
Well my mother had two daughters, my aunt four daughters, the next aunt two daughters, the other aunt one – only daughters.
It was the youngest of all, Uncle Alberto, when he returned from the concentration camps, who got married and had a son, and young Joseph was born. But Joseph came too late.
My father was the first of ten siblings. Both my father and his brothers and sisters graduated from the German School of Thessaloniki, which was a private school.
Out of my uncles four came back from the concentration camps in Germany, because they knew the German language. Before the war, the Jews of Thessaloniki were very fond of Germany.
Most families would get a ‘Schwester,’ that is, a sister/governess, in their houses from Germany. Of course this changed later….
My mother was friends with the twin sisters of my father, Lisa and Bella. This is how she got to know my father.
