Tag #127160 - Interview #97664 (Yasef Romano)

My father died in Israel on March 2nd, 1988, and was buried there.  He had an open sore on his face for thirty years. He had skin cancer. He could not have that sore taken care of, once and for all.  The doctor said, don’t touch it, it will not bother you.  At the end it started penetrating under the skin. Since my older sister lived in Israel, my father went to Israel, had surgery and got rid of it.  He stayed with my older sister, he kept calling me, “my son, take me away from here, take me to Edirne, I want to stay in Edirne, and die in 
Edirne”.  It wasn’t meant to be, he died in Israel. I could not go to his funeral because my passport wasn’t ready, he was buried in Israel.  However it happened, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs got news about my father’s death. I received a phone call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They said, your father died in Israel, your father belonged to Turkey, we will cover all the expenses to bring his funeral to Turkey. Because your father was very useful to the government. I was not expecting something like this then, I could not answer on the spot. Then I thought, why should he come here, he is buried in the holy land, with requests and so on, he stayed there.