Rashel Finanser

This is a picture of my aunt Rashel Finanser, my mother's sister. The photo was taken in Istanbul in 1946. Rashel Finanser had typhus at the age of two and a half. The terrible disease, with its very high fever, caused brain damage. She did not develop well mentally due to that, but was able to learn housework, which she did very well. She worked at home every day until noon and went to the Sari Madam Tea Garden in the afternoons. All the women of the neighborhood who frequented that garden were very fond of her. She was a good, simple person. Maybe because of that, she was our favorite aunt, when we were children, because she liked to play with us. Aunt Rashel lived with my grandmother, until my grandmother's death in 1962. Then she went to live with her younger brother Jak. Grandmother had made my mother responsible for Rashel's welfare after her own death. So, my mother arranged for all the brothers to contribute to her upkeep. Rashel was of great help at Jak's house, as she knew how to do housework, including cooking, ironing ... everything. She continued going to have tea at Sari Madam in the afternoons. But Jak died relatively young, of cancer. After that, still on my mother's initiative and with her organizational skills, all the brothers contributed to pay for her to stay at the Old People's Home at the La Paix French Hospital. She was already quite ill with diabetes. She lived for about two years at the La Paix and died there of diabetes, in 1976.

Photos from this interviewee