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I had an older brother, Alberto, who was born in 1916, and whom we nearly lost during the mobilization because he was acting as if he was going to save Greece on his own. All of a sudden they came and took them and put him in a hospital that had a wing where they treated malaria patients for free. It wasn’t very much like a hospital, it didn’t have any medicine and he kept saying to everyone to be patient.
When my brother got married, he didn’t want to stay here and hide, so he and his wife decided to escape to Israel through Turkey. Silly of him, he took some gold liras with him and hid them in his boots. But he didn’t wear those boots; instead he had tied them up at the sack that he was carrying. The guy they had paid to take them took the money, took them to the island of Evoia and told them to wait there. A boat was supposed to come to pick them up. They waited and waited, but the boat wasn’t coming, so they understood that he had fooled them.
They started searching for another captain to ferry them over to the other country. They found someone, who took on his boat as many people as he could. But when they sailed, he realized that the boat was overloaded so he took the luggage and threw it one by one into the sea without saying anything to anyone. This way my brother lost his boots and his money with them, and even if someone found them they wouldn’t have known that money was hidden in them.
Eventually he got to Turkey with his wife, completely penniless. Luckily, there was an organized welcome by the Jews of Israel, then Palestine. The Turkish Jews took care of them and sent them to Palestine, where Jews already had set up their unions and they where trying to build their own army and create their own state. They took my brother as a postman. He later had two girls. A whole community of Greek Jews later on settled there.
My brother Albert fell in love with a girl that wasn’t of our class, you could say, but because he had gone through so much by then, and we thought we might lose him, we didn’t make a fuss about it. In the meantime there was the war going on, so we wouldn’t pay attention to such details.
His wife was the only one that didn’t go to the concentration camps. She was saved by her family. Her younger sister had gone to the concentration camps and came back, but unfortunately, due to the beating, she was deaf when she came back. I know that she later went to Israel, but I don’t know whether she is still alive or not.
When my brother got married, he didn’t want to stay here and hide, so he and his wife decided to escape to Israel through Turkey. Silly of him, he took some gold liras with him and hid them in his boots. But he didn’t wear those boots; instead he had tied them up at the sack that he was carrying. The guy they had paid to take them took the money, took them to the island of Evoia and told them to wait there. A boat was supposed to come to pick them up. They waited and waited, but the boat wasn’t coming, so they understood that he had fooled them.
They started searching for another captain to ferry them over to the other country. They found someone, who took on his boat as many people as he could. But when they sailed, he realized that the boat was overloaded so he took the luggage and threw it one by one into the sea without saying anything to anyone. This way my brother lost his boots and his money with them, and even if someone found them they wouldn’t have known that money was hidden in them.
Eventually he got to Turkey with his wife, completely penniless. Luckily, there was an organized welcome by the Jews of Israel, then Palestine. The Turkish Jews took care of them and sent them to Palestine, where Jews already had set up their unions and they where trying to build their own army and create their own state. They took my brother as a postman. He later had two girls. A whole community of Greek Jews later on settled there.
My brother Albert fell in love with a girl that wasn’t of our class, you could say, but because he had gone through so much by then, and we thought we might lose him, we didn’t make a fuss about it. In the meantime there was the war going on, so we wouldn’t pay attention to such details.
His wife was the only one that didn’t go to the concentration camps. She was saved by her family. Her younger sister had gone to the concentration camps and came back, but unfortunately, due to the beating, she was deaf when she came back. I know that she later went to Israel, but I don’t know whether she is still alive or not.
Period
Interview
Roza Benveniste