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One day, when I was still 17 years old, my father said to me: “My dear son, you are the oldest of my three boys, I am already 56 years old and very tired; you finished junior high and learned French well, you are almost a genius in math, you took accounting lessons, you also speak Spanish, you are well educated, from now on please come and help me”. “But daddy, what are you saying? I want to study law” I replied but I could not defy my father and started in business.
With the money he got my father opened a new store in Mahmutpasa, on Rızapasa Yokuşu (Hill) [One of the oldest neighborhoods on the European side where wholesale commerce is done]. It was a fabric store and the first ones he sold were the leftovers from the old store. My father had such an honorable reputation in the fabric industry that the merchants who imported merchandise from England would prepare the bills and give them to us as consignment. We would sell these fabrics, calculate our money and make our payments within 1 to 1,5 months. There was no domestic manufacture of fabrics in Turkey, all of Anatolia would buy foreign fabrics from Istanbul, our business was doing well because supply and demand was quite high. In this store and in the old business, Rafael Levi and my cousin Eliya worked with us. Customers from outside Istanbul would come to our store to choose merchandise. We would pack these, warehouse them in Sirkeci [A neighborhood on the European side] and in the evenings truck them and send them to their destinations. I started working in the store when I was 17, I was in charge of accounting and the customers. My brother-in-law Henri’s (In Judeo-Espanyol we called him Haskiya, the husband of my sister Öjeni) father Nisim Surjon was sent as an ambassador to Italy by Padisah (Sultan) Abdülhamit [14]. Nisim Bey (Mr. Nisim) did not get along with his wife, she settled in France in the 20th. arrondissement [neighborhood]. At the time their son Henri was studying in Galatasaray Lisesi (highschool). It was a boarding school, when he graduated he tried to go to France to get a law degree but the Turkish bureaucracy did not give him a passport. That’s because Istanbul was occupied by the French and British then. Henri applied to them, and got the “Protégé orientaux” certificate and left for France, but the Turks rescinded his Turkish nationality. How unfortunate that the French also did not accept him as French. My brother-in-law finished his law degree with this certificate and married my sister Öjeni in 1932.
My father had transferred 20,000 Turkish liras to France as a dowry for my sister. With this money, the young couple opened the store “Bonneterie” on Rue des Pyrenees. My sister would stay at the store and my brother-in-law would go to adjacent cities to buy merchandise and take orders. The pleasant days unfortunately were short-lived because the world was on the edge of a new war.
With the money he got my father opened a new store in Mahmutpasa, on Rızapasa Yokuşu (Hill) [One of the oldest neighborhoods on the European side where wholesale commerce is done]. It was a fabric store and the first ones he sold were the leftovers from the old store. My father had such an honorable reputation in the fabric industry that the merchants who imported merchandise from England would prepare the bills and give them to us as consignment. We would sell these fabrics, calculate our money and make our payments within 1 to 1,5 months. There was no domestic manufacture of fabrics in Turkey, all of Anatolia would buy foreign fabrics from Istanbul, our business was doing well because supply and demand was quite high. In this store and in the old business, Rafael Levi and my cousin Eliya worked with us. Customers from outside Istanbul would come to our store to choose merchandise. We would pack these, warehouse them in Sirkeci [A neighborhood on the European side] and in the evenings truck them and send them to their destinations. I started working in the store when I was 17, I was in charge of accounting and the customers. My brother-in-law Henri’s (In Judeo-Espanyol we called him Haskiya, the husband of my sister Öjeni) father Nisim Surjon was sent as an ambassador to Italy by Padisah (Sultan) Abdülhamit [14]. Nisim Bey (Mr. Nisim) did not get along with his wife, she settled in France in the 20th. arrondissement [neighborhood]. At the time their son Henri was studying in Galatasaray Lisesi (highschool). It was a boarding school, when he graduated he tried to go to France to get a law degree but the Turkish bureaucracy did not give him a passport. That’s because Istanbul was occupied by the French and British then. Henri applied to them, and got the “Protégé orientaux” certificate and left for France, but the Turks rescinded his Turkish nationality. How unfortunate that the French also did not accept him as French. My brother-in-law finished his law degree with this certificate and married my sister Öjeni in 1932.
My father had transferred 20,000 Turkish liras to France as a dowry for my sister. With this money, the young couple opened the store “Bonneterie” on Rue des Pyrenees. My sister would stay at the store and my brother-in-law would go to adjacent cities to buy merchandise and take orders. The pleasant days unfortunately were short-lived because the world was on the edge of a new war.
Period
Location
Beyoğlu/İstanbul
Türkiye
Interview
Nesim Alkabes