Carolos and Mathilda Beraha in Venice

This is in Venice where my parents, Carolos Beraha and Mathilda Beraha, nee Saporta, eloped to; my father and my mother are already married in this picture.

They got married in 1923 in Milan and then traveled to Venice. This dress my mother is wearing still exists; my daughter probably has it in her house.

My mother lived in Paris from 1910 to 1915 where she studied to become a teacher, and then worked for a year in Casablanca, Morocco.

After that she never worked as a teacher again. She arrived at the port of Thessaloniki and the story has it that my father Carolos was thunderstruck. He saw her coming down the stairs of the boat, decided she was the one and they almost eloped.

Back then to get married one had to go through a whole procedure; he didn’t want to delay so he took her to Venice and it’s there the ketubbah was written and they got married.

It was exactly the opposite of an arranged marriage! They were married one year before I was born in 1924, and my mother got pregnant soon after they were married.

Photos from this interviewee