Niko Pardo and others from Hashomer Hatzair

Here are some friends from Hashomer Hatzair. Back row from left to right: Jakov Kalderon, Unknown, Leon Levi, Niko Pardo, Beno Testa, rest unknown. Jakov Kalderon went to Israel in the 1950s and died there in the last few years. He was married to Adela Faradji my wife's best friend from before the war. Niko Pardo was the son of a saraf, a Turkish money changer. Today when you say rich it is different. These were people who moved money around and made money. During the war Niko was deported from Bitola to Skopje. In Skopje he succeeded to escape from the camp. How he escaped I do not know. I think when everyone was getting up on the wagons he ran away. Afterwards he hid somewhere it seems to me maybe in Albani. And he survived the war and went to Israel. As a kid he was a real troublemaker, but not in a negative way. A rich kid, you know how. He was very social and he always had money. He did a lot of silly things. After the war he went to Sarajevo and from there he went to Split where he married a girl from Split named Lea. She managed to calm him down and smarten him up. She died in Israel. Beno Testa was killed in Treblinka. Leon Levi was Salvador Levi's brother.