Tag #127308 - Interview #97610 (Jak Rutli)

My friends outside of school were Jewish.  There was also a British girl, she was not Jewish.  Her name was Eillen Castle.  There was a house belonging to the British embassy, because this girl’s father worked at the embassy, they stayed in this house.  That’s where I knew her from, we would just meet with her.  We would go out when we were free, we would go to the movies, meet with the girls every day after homework, have fun with them.  There was Benhabib in Kuledibi, Izak Benhabib, he had a very beautiful voice.  There was a tallish rock under the tower, he would sit there and sing.  There was a famous singer called Tina Rossi, he would sing her French songs.  All the girls would come out to the windows around him.  We would tease and have fun.  We had this friend, Benhabib. Peyse Levi, Yonas Kohen, Lazar Arovas and one unlucky guy who drowned in Florya, I don’t remember his name.  One day we were going to go to Moda.  He made us get out of the boat at the last minute so we could go to Florya.  So we went ahead and arrived to Florya.  The water in the beach came up to your knees.  There were a few more beaches adjacent to our beach.  He suddenly turned towards us and said “I am going to the beach next door, I have a friend that I know” and he left and did not come back.  We looked and saw it is already 4-5 p.m., we will return in the evening, he still has not come. We searched and searched and could not find him.  In the end they found him in the sea, he drowned.  But the water is up to your knees.  Someone told us that sometimes there are potholes in Florya, one appeared in front of him, he was afraid of falling down so he held on to a woman next to him.  The man next to the woman punched him for holding onto the woman, and he fainted and died, they said.  Later on the police arrived and told us to go and inform the family.  The poor guy was lost.