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My husband had some money on him and he didn’t know whether to take it with him or not. We were in a quite poor neighborhood. We would also see the men wearing masks who would turn people in, and no one was sure of anything, that is, who they were going to turn in next.
So all the men left, and I took my mother-in-law, who didn’t know any Greek, and put her in bed and told her not to speak at all, not even move. She couldn’t remember any names and she would ask my son to remind her of people’s names.
As I told you before, our house was right opposite the building plot which was used for executions. One day a young man was running because he was late, and they stopped him on the way. They asked him why he was late and said that he was writing on the walls so they shot him right there. You weren’t allowed of a second chance about anything.
My son was watching that from the window. That same day an army general comes in and asks us where we keep the guns. ‘We don’t keep any guns, you can look everywhere and check,’ I reply. So he looks in front of him and sees this sideboard here and looks at the glasses and the things inside, things that weren’t common for that area.
So he asks me, ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘From Kavala,’ I reply. So he asked me if I knew a man called Yannis in Kavala. So, I asked him if he knew Kavala, and he replied that he had served in the army there. So I say to him, ‘Look our father was very poor and he was selling clothes by the sea to raise us’ – and I was thinking, poor father if you hear me now, what am I saying about you.
So all the men left, and I took my mother-in-law, who didn’t know any Greek, and put her in bed and told her not to speak at all, not even move. She couldn’t remember any names and she would ask my son to remind her of people’s names.
As I told you before, our house was right opposite the building plot which was used for executions. One day a young man was running because he was late, and they stopped him on the way. They asked him why he was late and said that he was writing on the walls so they shot him right there. You weren’t allowed of a second chance about anything.
My son was watching that from the window. That same day an army general comes in and asks us where we keep the guns. ‘We don’t keep any guns, you can look everywhere and check,’ I reply. So he looks in front of him and sees this sideboard here and looks at the glasses and the things inside, things that weren’t common for that area.
So he asks me, ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘From Kavala,’ I reply. So he asked me if I knew a man called Yannis in Kavala. So, I asked him if he knew Kavala, and he replied that he had served in the army there. So I say to him, ‘Look our father was very poor and he was selling clothes by the sea to raise us’ – and I was thinking, poor father if you hear me now, what am I saying about you.
Period
Interview
Roza Benveniste
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