Elementary school souvenir

Elementary school souvenir

I was born on May, 8th, 1924 in Istanbul as the child of a middle class family and grew up facing a lot of challenges.

I lost my mother when I was 3 years old. Even though my father remarried, he raised me and my older sister himself.

I am 7 years old in this photograph. It is a souvenir from first grade. I was studying in Okchu Musa elementary school, on Okchu Musa street in Kasimpasha, close to our home.

This was a Turkish school. The lady teacher in this photograph was our only teacher from first to fifth grade.

I would go around 8:00 in the morning, and return home at 4:00 in the afternoon. I walked there since it was close.

Among these children, the two girls sitting in front, in the center were twins.

They are no longer alive today, I think. The only thing I remember, the name of the girl sitting in first row, on the left was Klara.

There were 6-7 Jewish kids along with me in this class. The rest were Muslim.

Since our elders spoke Judeo-Spanish at home, I learned Turkish in school.

I spoke and read Turkish quite well when I was around 8 - 9 years old.

When they spoke Turkish at home though, I made fun of my elders because of their pronunciation.

I was a child of the streets and I ditched school very often to play. My favorite class was Turkish class.

I loved reading a lot. My last teacher was Mr. Nurettin. We had a single teacher.

There were classes such as geography, history, Turkish, social studies and math. There were no religious studies and foreign language education then.
I liked all my teachers a lot in general.

I never had a long-term friendship from my school years.

When I was 11 years old, in last grade, I used to spend time together with the most beautiful girl in class, during lunch break.

I think her name was Beki. We were usually together on the way to and from school too.

Open this page

Centropa Collection acquired by USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. 

USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". Please contact collection [at] centropa.org.