Rahela Perisic's mother Luna Albahari

The picture of my mother, Luna Albahari, was taken in 1919 in Sanski Most She was born in 1899 in Kladan and finished a women's college for girls, then for some time worked as servant. After her parents, Haim and Flora Levi, died from Spanish fever, my mother moved to Sanski Most where her sister Rena lived with her husband Jakob Albahari. At that time her sister was alone with her six children because her husband was a prisoner on the Russian front. There my mother met Jakob's brother David and very soon after she married him. They were married in the synagogue in 1919. My mother told me that it was a big celebration. In two family homes, one next to the other, lived my family and my uncle Jakob's family. We had three rooms upstairs and on the ground floor there was a mixed goods store which was owned by both my father and my uncle. Unfortunately the store did not earn enough money to support two families and my parents decided to move to Lusci Palanka, twenty kilometer from Sanski Most. In Lusci Palanka we were the only Jewish family which did not bother my parents because they were very social people and very quickly became beloved. My mother was considered a very well educated and capable woman. She taught her fellow townswomen about how to keep a modern home, the correct way to care for children and many woman happily came to her for advice. Despite the fact that we were the only Jews in Palanka, my parents celebrated all the Jewish holidays. My whole family went to relatives in Sanski Most for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and sometimes for Pesach. Then it was obligatory to go to Temple. I remember that we children were most excited about Hanukkah because of the candle lighting. When we celebrated holidays in our home my mother made an effort to prepare everything on time. I know that for Pesach she would take the dishes to the yard and cook them and we children helped her with this. Even though there was no Temple in Palanka, we were dressed nicely every Shabbat. My parents made an effort, even though we were the only family in Palanka, to regularly celebrate all the holidays.