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Besides my mother and father, who had lived in Egypt, when they wanted to say something between themselves, so we wouldn’t understand them, spoke in Arabic. They didn’t speak any other languages.
In the Jewish families it was the French language that was used widely then, , more so among the rich Jewish families. I remember in high school an incident that the French teacher asked me to read and when I took the book, I started spelling out the words. ‘But how is this possible?’ another Jew called out. ‘Sir, he is from a wealthy Jewish family.’ I replied, ‘I come to school wearing my sister’s shoes. I am poor, I cannot be part of the French speaking elite, as all the rest of the Jews of the school.’ You see, in my class there were only two of those. I know both their names, and they both spoke French. They used to live at Egnatia Street or at the large street of Agia Triada, while we were living in a poor neighborhood.
In the Jewish families it was the French language that was used widely then, , more so among the rich Jewish families. I remember in high school an incident that the French teacher asked me to read and when I took the book, I started spelling out the words. ‘But how is this possible?’ another Jew called out. ‘Sir, he is from a wealthy Jewish family.’ I replied, ‘I come to school wearing my sister’s shoes. I am poor, I cannot be part of the French speaking elite, as all the rest of the Jews of the school.’ You see, in my class there were only two of those. I know both their names, and they both spoke French. They used to live at Egnatia Street or at the large street of Agia Triada, while we were living in a poor neighborhood.
Period
Interview
Moshe Burla