Tag #123130 - Interview #90453 (Nesim Alkabes)

Among my cousins, Eliya, we used to call him “Liyaciko”,  studied in a Turkish school in Balat. However Liyaciko never liked his school and one day when he was 9, he ran away from school. The police were notified and they found Liyaciko in Silivri [It is one of the summer destinations on the European side now. Even now with all the highways that were built it takes 2 hours to get there from the center of Istanbul] and returned him to his family. I don’t know how he went there, the police brought us Liyaciko. Following this event, Uncle Moiz placed Liyaciko as an apprentice in my father’s store. In 1948 he married Ernesta Fresko, the sister of Sabetay Fresko who was a merchant of ready-made clothing in Sultanhamam, they had a girl and a boy (Mose). While everything was going well, he was stressed by the 6-7 September events [7] in 1955, and was feeling bad about the political climate when the brother of his spouse Ernesta who was settled in Milan said to him:
“My dear sister, we were very sorry to hear about the events in Istanbul. You can come here whenever you want, we will help you in any way we can” and Eliya took his whole family and moved to Milan. He opened a fabric store there and raised his family. Their daughter (I don’t remember her name) is an educator and currently works at a Jewish school in Italy. His son Mose is a gynecologist, I know that both his chilren are married, that he even has grandchildren, but because they are far away, I don’t have detailed information about them.