Yvonne Capuano-Molho and her family on a walk around the White Tower

Every Saturday morning, my family went out for a walk.

This picture was taken in the park of the White Tower in Thessaloniki in 1935. First from right is my grandmother Bienvenida Moshe, nee Florentin.

To her left that’s me and next to me is Dolly Florentin and her mother Esterina, who was married to Jacob Florentin, my grandmother’s brother.

First from left is my mother, Erietta Molho, nee Moshe.

My grandmother always dressed elegantly. She wore European clothes as my grandfather. She was very coquette and fatty as was in fashion at the time.

Her dresses were all embroidered and her hats had feathers. My grandfather was wearing a bow-tie and later he walked with a walking-stick.

All my family wore European clothes as they were rather progressive.

The only person I remember wearing traditional clothes when she left the house was the mother-in-law of the brother of my grandmother, who was visiting wearing a Kofya, a traditional headgear for Jewish women, which was all knitted with pearls.

What my mother told me is that when she was young every Passover, Pesach, and every New Year’s Eve, Rosh Hashanah, my grandfather bought for each of the kids a fez [7].

Thessaloniki was the last city to be liberated from the Turks in 1913. When I see on television the recent Turkish series’ and when I visit Turkey I hear many Turkish words that I am familiar with.

Words I heard from my grandfather and my father because they lived in the Ottoman Empire.

Photos from this interviewee