Selected text
We left this house when I was six years old because it was very cold and my mother suffered from rheumatism. I remember we didn’t have parquet, that is wooden flooring but tarpaulin, and as the wind, the northern wind of Thessaloniki called Vardaris, was blowing, we could see the tarpaulin pieces moving. So we left that place and went to live at my grandmother’s.
Their house was also close to the sea. First there was the sea, then Queen Olga Avenue, and right after it was Cyprus Street and the Archaeological Museum Street perpendicular to Cyprus Street and Queen Olga Avenue.
The street where we lived started at Archaeological Museum Street and ended at Karaiskaki Street. The area was called ‘Pate – Phaliro’ and where it was situated, I could get out of the house, on the balcony, and see the sea right in front of me.
Cyprus Street was not a big street. It was a residential street. It had nine or ten houses, and in every house on each floor lived one family. In the house next door, which had three floors, lived three families. Only in our house, on two floors, it was just us, while normally it could have accommodated two families. We stayed in this house quite a long time, almost all our life.
The house was facing Cyprus Street, but its back part, the garage where Uncle Jacques was parking his car, was facing the street in the back, Broufa Street. In the front was the good big door, which was the door we used to enter.
However, there was another door, a smaller one, with a corridor that led to the kitchen. This is the door that the grocer used when he was bringing us our shopping.
A characteristic of this house was the quantity of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle covered the two pillars on which the door was hanging, and there was so much that sometimes we had difficulties to fully open this door. The house was dubbed ‘the house with the honeysuckle.’ In the morning, when I was leaving for school, it smelled so intensely and from such a distance that I kept its smell in my nostrils all day long.
Upon entering there was a straight surface, on the left a small garden and the marble escalator with its handrail covered with honeysuckle. The house was full of its smell. One bedroom was facing this small garden and the other two bedrooms were looking at the back port. The kitchen was facing the yard where there was also honeysuckle.
Next to the garage there was a house where some friends of ours lived. They were Jews that lived in the city of Kavala. The father was a tobacco merchant and they would come for a few days and stay at his mother’s house in Thessaloniki. I met these people later in Athens and we became good friends.
With the older brother of this family – he does not live anymore – we were playing together. He died in a car accident. Back then we were playing ball. It was not usual at all, playing ball from balcony to balcony, we could have broken window-panes, of course, so the parents would shout at us, but it was fun.
Also, this home of ours shared a common wall with the home of my grandmother’s brother, which was also a two-story house. Inside our house on the wall, next to the escalator, we had opened a big hole in the wall, like a door, and we could come and go from our home to the home of my mother’s uncle and aunt.
Their house was also close to the sea. First there was the sea, then Queen Olga Avenue, and right after it was Cyprus Street and the Archaeological Museum Street perpendicular to Cyprus Street and Queen Olga Avenue.
The street where we lived started at Archaeological Museum Street and ended at Karaiskaki Street. The area was called ‘Pate – Phaliro’ and where it was situated, I could get out of the house, on the balcony, and see the sea right in front of me.
Cyprus Street was not a big street. It was a residential street. It had nine or ten houses, and in every house on each floor lived one family. In the house next door, which had three floors, lived three families. Only in our house, on two floors, it was just us, while normally it could have accommodated two families. We stayed in this house quite a long time, almost all our life.
The house was facing Cyprus Street, but its back part, the garage where Uncle Jacques was parking his car, was facing the street in the back, Broufa Street. In the front was the good big door, which was the door we used to enter.
However, there was another door, a smaller one, with a corridor that led to the kitchen. This is the door that the grocer used when he was bringing us our shopping.
A characteristic of this house was the quantity of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle covered the two pillars on which the door was hanging, and there was so much that sometimes we had difficulties to fully open this door. The house was dubbed ‘the house with the honeysuckle.’ In the morning, when I was leaving for school, it smelled so intensely and from such a distance that I kept its smell in my nostrils all day long.
Upon entering there was a straight surface, on the left a small garden and the marble escalator with its handrail covered with honeysuckle. The house was full of its smell. One bedroom was facing this small garden and the other two bedrooms were looking at the back port. The kitchen was facing the yard where there was also honeysuckle.
Next to the garage there was a house where some friends of ours lived. They were Jews that lived in the city of Kavala. The father was a tobacco merchant and they would come for a few days and stay at his mother’s house in Thessaloniki. I met these people later in Athens and we became good friends.
With the older brother of this family – he does not live anymore – we were playing together. He died in a car accident. Back then we were playing ball. It was not usual at all, playing ball from balcony to balcony, we could have broken window-panes, of course, so the parents would shout at us, but it was fun.
Also, this home of ours shared a common wall with the home of my grandmother’s brother, which was also a two-story house. Inside our house on the wall, next to the escalator, we had opened a big hole in the wall, like a door, and we could come and go from our home to the home of my mother’s uncle and aunt.
Period
Interview
Yvonne Capuano-Molho