At the top of our house

When we had this photo taken, we had recently moved to our apartment in Taksim [a district in the european side of Istanbul]. At the top of this apartment building there was a big terrace for the use of all the residents. My wife and I used to spend a lot of time on that terrace and it used to be really nice in nice weather. There was a very nice view on this terrace. We brought up our children in this apartment.

Suzan and I got married in the synagogue in Kuzguncuk, in May 1935. (not the one that is in use today, there was another one on the upper part of Kuzguncuk. I forgot its name.)

At those times, the weddings were not celebrated like today's ostentatious weddings. In the afternoon, as the whole family we went to the Novotni Garden, across Union Francaise in Tepebasi. We ate our dinner, and sat outside, as the season was favorable. It was very nice. We all returned home together, and went to work the next morning.
After we got married, we rented a flat from the apartment named "Belvu" [from the French "belle vue" meaning "nice view"] on Bankalar Street. These flats were so large that we rented it together with David Eskenazi and his wife, very close friends of ours who hadn’t had any children and who loved ours as their own. They had two rooms, and we had two rooms and a living room. We shared the kitchen and the bathroom. As a result of this solution we found, paying the rent was not that hard.

We moved to this apertment at Talimhane, Taksim in 1942 and raised our children. Then in 1958 we moved again, this time to Sisli [a district in the European side of Istanbul].