The Moshe family at the railway station of Thessaloniki

This picture taken in Thessaloniki in 1933.

On that day my uncle Mario Moshe and his wife Shellie, nee Sasson, left for their honeymoon and my family went to the railway station to say goodbye to them.

First from left is my aunt Esterina Florentin, fifth from left is my mother Erietta Molho, nee Moshe.

To her right is my grandmother Bienvenida Moshe, nee Florentin.

Next to her is my grandfather Leon Moshe. To his right is my sister Nina Frances, nee Molho.

Next to her is Shellie’s mother. In the upper row, in the center is Shellie’s sister Hedda Sasson.

Thessaloniki was a cosmopolitan city, a small Paris, and it was also the Jews that were offering a particular flair to it. All Jews were civilized people; they had not lived in villages.

Since they had no country of their own, as Israel didn’t exist then, they always lived in big cities. They had the particular radiation of the big cities.

I always happen to hear from friends, co-students etc., ‘I will go to my village.’ My village! Thessaloniki and later Athens were the only places I knew.

And the Jews in Thessaloniki were more numerous compared to the Christian Greeks, a balance, which, of course, later changed. Thessaloniki was a city that shone.

Photos from this interviewee