Military Service at Denizli

The other people in the photograph: In front a friend of mine called Musevi Aslan. The other one a soldier friend from Edirne. I was a soldier here for 4 to 5 months. But I met him there and he opened his arms to me as a Jew. He was in the cafeteria then, he took me to work with him. I had a comfortable military service until my discharge. I was in accounting. I was discharged, I even put my discharge back by 15 days, I was so content. I cried when I left there. I had such a good time there. I was born on August 6th, 1938. I did not go to preschool. My mother took care of me. My first education was in the Ismet Pasha elementary school where I was president for 30 years. The name of the school was later changed to Shehit Asim school. I finished junior high and highschool in Edirne highschool. All were public schools. I loved social studies, history and geography most. I hated physics. My bar-mitzvah took place in 1951. We were very wealthy then. It was a nice bar-mitzvah. It left a nice impression with me. The piece that was written had really affected me. I don't remember exactly. They had given us a piece of writing both at the temple and the day we celebrated. That we had to be respectful to our mother and father, that we would not sin against G-d, it really affected me. We were very emotional. We had celebrated the evening in our home in Edirne. It was crowded, the whole community came because of my father's duty. My wife's older brother Menahem Razon was my friend. We had parties amongst ourselves. We gathered in houses on Sundays. We visited relatives in their homes on holidays. I liked soccer and music. They provided me with private lessons because I liked music. I did not play any instrument, I only took tonality lessons. We had stone records. We had a gramophone. We did not take vacations that much in my childhood. We would go to Karaagach on the weekens in Edirne with my family. We had a house there. In my childhood, there were two or three taxis in the city. We went to Karaagach every Friday at lunch time with my mother. My father stayed in Edirne because he had to be in the temple on Saturday. My father would come on Saturday in the evening. I did my national service in Denizli during 1959-60. While I was in the military, I got engaged on May 27th, 1960. I returned to Edirne in 1962. Before I left for the military, I was working in my father's business. I got married and started working. I took over the business which was the sale of auto tires in 1962 completely. I still do this work. We also had a franchise for Mobil. Later my father retired.