Tag #127082 - Interview #78448 (Eli (Eliyau) Perahya)

One of the important memories of my childhood was the famous fire in Haydarpasha. In the summer of 1922 I was a nine-year-old child playing football with my friends. On the evening after the day I had bought myself a beautiful new football a very big fire broke out in our district. Shortly after, it spread all over the neighborhood with the impact of the wind. Everyone was trying to evacuate their houses, and with the help of the relatives who came to help, our belongings were carried from the balcony of our house to the garden and from there to the shore of Haydarpasha-Kadikoy. The only thing I had missed in the hurry of saving our belongings was my new beautiful football. ‘Kada uno mete la mano ande le ruele.’ [Ladino for ‘One puts his hand where he is hurt’] The fire continued the whole night, and we spent the night at the shore like everybody else. The following day, when we headed back home to determine the losses, we found out that our house was the only one that had remained intact in the whole street. We moved the furniture back and started to live there again.