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My grandfather constructed for my mother’s marriage in 1917 a set of very good furniture. And then came the big fire of Thessaloniki in 1917 [20] and all was burned. Of course the marriage wasn’t postponed. So after the marriage my grandfather made new furniture for his daughter.
When they got married they first bought an apartment overlooking the sea like in Venice. Right in front of it, the waters were deep, so my mother used to put us in a rowboat and we were going opposite to Alexander the Great, where the waters were shallow and people were swimming, and we would also swim with our mother.
I was born in the month of June and when I was two months old, Mother must have taken me into the sea to swim. Later both my sister and myself, when we had whooping cough, and as they said that the sea would be good for us, my mother kept on taking us swimming with the boat. At this particular house there was a common yard that we shared with the apartment next door. Jews, very good people. They do not exist any more.
Also, on the other side lived Sonia Petridou, whose origins were from Russia, divorced with two children, who wasn’t on speaking terms with us. I’m not sure whether she was divorced or not, but we never saw a husband. One evening she was very sick, so her daughter Milia, who was the same age as my sister, came to us and called in the night, ‘Mrs. Errieti, Mrs. Errieti, please come.’
And my mother called the doctor and stayed next to her continuously for two days until she got well. After that Sonia told her, ‘I never thought that you Jews were like that.’ She came from Russia and it seems they had anti-Semitism there. Anyhow, after that incident they became good friends.
When they got married they first bought an apartment overlooking the sea like in Venice. Right in front of it, the waters were deep, so my mother used to put us in a rowboat and we were going opposite to Alexander the Great, where the waters were shallow and people were swimming, and we would also swim with our mother.
I was born in the month of June and when I was two months old, Mother must have taken me into the sea to swim. Later both my sister and myself, when we had whooping cough, and as they said that the sea would be good for us, my mother kept on taking us swimming with the boat. At this particular house there was a common yard that we shared with the apartment next door. Jews, very good people. They do not exist any more.
Also, on the other side lived Sonia Petridou, whose origins were from Russia, divorced with two children, who wasn’t on speaking terms with us. I’m not sure whether she was divorced or not, but we never saw a husband. One evening she was very sick, so her daughter Milia, who was the same age as my sister, came to us and called in the night, ‘Mrs. Errieti, Mrs. Errieti, please come.’
And my mother called the doctor and stayed next to her continuously for two days until she got well. After that Sonia told her, ‘I never thought that you Jews were like that.’ She came from Russia and it seems they had anti-Semitism there. Anyhow, after that incident they became good friends.
Period
Interview
Yvonne Capuano-Molho