Transcription
Lina: So far since we said we never had anti-Jewish... such. The only time... the only time I heard "you won't play because you're Jewish" is at grandfather's old house.
I was sitting on the steps, and I was very sickly because I had lymphadenopathy, so I didn't play with the children much and so I was at the age of first grade. So the children in the neighborhood knew me who were also my classmates.
It was the iron gate and had steps that went up to the iron railings above. I sat there and watched them and it was the first time I probably said I wanted to play? I don't remember if I said it. I always remember the answer: "no you won't play because you're Jewish."
It was the first and last time I heard anything about my religion.
Michalis: Did you tell this to your parents?
Lina: Maybe yes maybe no I don't remember.
Michalis: A question I always had for this generation. You played let's say with the... you understood well the Machos you mention that you played in the living room, is it the same Machos that you know has a lasting relationship with this now. These children who weren't Jewish, Jewish children like that? Did they know any Ladino?
Lina: No but there was such respect. Which could it be. Well, if you ask Diana, Sofoula who lives above us and the others they will say that there was such respect for the holidays that they would come on Rosh Hashana and bring us sweets. We would go to their name day celebrations and offer them something.
They would come with flowers on Passover. We know it's your holiday and you don't eat, that's why we bring flowers. They ate the matza. Machos still talks about the matza, about Mrs. Matika's food.
Lina: That is, people and folk, non-Jewish people passed through our house and my mother was such a good cook that you can still ask these friends. There are the red mullets "Lostekýres frýtos de Matíka" - mother's fried red mullets. The sardines cazandicas, the married sardines.
That is, mother was a terrible cook, housekeeper and our house was always open so everyone "ah these ah Mrs. Matika, what smells are these Mrs. Matika" the aromas, the honey fritters for my mother's Passover.
Everyone. These are nothing compared to my mother, that is what, it's a shame, but anyway so for the good. No. We ate they ate in our houses, we had no problem.
Lina: Of course we didn't have kashrut at that time so of course she didn't take pork and our friends knew it very well and in their houses they avoided when we were there. They didn't put pork so there was a wonderful mutual respect children.
We spent most of our lives with non-Jews in our groups. The Jews were another category, yes they were there present.
Michalis: Regarding kashrut in your house.
Lina: My mother kept kashrut, she put the meat. We had our butcher kerNikos, we had all our own in the sense our own butcher, our own cheese maker, our own poultry seller. And they called my mother Mrs. Dzakaina or Mrs. Dzako and me Dzakoudi.
Lina: So Panagiotis knew we wanted the best, tongues and so on because I tell you the finances were going better so our standard of living was always middle class and above. Which means you'll get the best fish, the best such, the best the best.
Well we went higher up was our poultry seller. Then on Athonos opposite my grandfather's shop which was the shoemaker, later became Kyrkostas, a Karamolis Kyrkostas took it, an amazing cheese maker. So our cheese was from Kyrkostas. Opposite was our butcher. We had all our own.
Lina: And below our house on Dimitriou Gounari was also the unique unique Jewish one. There was on Odomo Diano Daniel Omano who had the best products and Sadi. There was Sadi there in Loulouadika was Sadi's shop.
And Daniel Omano who also sold wonderful pipitikes, laspipí tikas, telontzidios, the roasted seeds and haminados eggs when the ladies got tired of making them, he also sold them.
Michalis: So in Thessaloniki when you were growing up there were Jewish products?
Lina: Oh of course, you could enter the little shops of course. Of course there was in Modiano, there were Daniel Omano who had fruits and such dry nuts. Sadi also had his own there were many. There was also Nathan of course, I forgot to say. Nathan his father was the butcher the kosher one of course there was opposite Modiano from where the old synagogue was.
Michalis: When you say the old synagogue which one do you mean?
Lina: The little one Azikaron.
Michalis: So you didn't eat pork at home. Was there something else let's say that you remember as a rule you had at home.
Lina: There were no rules. Rules because we learned with these and continued with these. They didn't tell us don't don't don't. They didn't raise us with the don'ts but these we do these we are.
Now, in friends' houses there was no issue to ask why don't we have a Christmas tree? We just don't do it ex nihilo we didn't ask it because we knew I don't know we grew up like that. These are our customs we didn't need to say further.
But I went with Diana to Machos to decorate but we never asked why not us. Different there different here.
Lina: I went with Diana to all the... Diana went I went too. This doesn't mean I would cross myself or take the candle. And Diana never came to the house to kiss the Mezuzah. These were ex nihilo.
Michalis: Did you have Mezuzah in the house?
Lina: In all the rooms.
Michalis: Did you do something on Sabbath?
Lina: Sabbath was... look Sabbath we also had school first of all. So we went to schools is one of those where the compromises started. The compromises are that yes on Friday afternoon we would all go to the synagogue to do kabbalat Shabbat.
And all the children who gathered from these schools the 4-5 I told you, Rabbi Haham Mazaria, an amazing old man, wonderful person - he also married us - gave the children... my brother knew the kiddush and my brother said the kiddush at age 8-9 years old. Roulis Rafael said the kiddush.
He gave the children the floor. We went to synagogue on all holidays and then there was the Club.
Lina: The Club which we didn't go to very much because we had our own friends so we didn't need to go to the Club very much. But if it held a masquerade ball Club for Purim we went.
Then Passover on the second day of Passover or rather the third day because we all celebrated first and second, it offered the children a Seder meal, let's say peas with chicken because we Sephardim don't eat rice, don't eat potatoes, nothing of these.
Well, so it was and from there we have very nice photos and we have from other photos and my husband has very nice photos like that all gathered at the Club. Some spoke and we sat I don't know or at various tables.
Lina: Also Hanukkah our parents took us to Patano talavioner which is today's elementary school and there all the big holidays took place. And I have a photo of me with my coat and so on next to a wonderful Hanukkiah which however is not real, is not lit but is very decorated with beautiful flowers.
Michalis: You said, you did kabbalat Shabbat synagogue often but we also did at home. Did you light candles?
Lina: Not candles, we are of the oil lamp. It was Sabbath oil lamp. It was a little glass of water with oil and you put the wick on top and lit it. In the old days when there was no wick my mother put cotton, made the little tip and put it and this floated on top of the oil and this was our little Sabbath lamp.
Michalis: And this was a Thessaloniki tradition?
Lina: I think this was everywhere because there was no other way to light a lamp. Now I saw it at home, maybe her mother had it and my mother continued it from her mother. I don't know this, I have no other image. But many Jews continued it. But again at that time it was a mask and gradually it took a wick even that. We continue it.
Michalis: So every Friday afternoon you had the sense that it was a special day of the week.
Lina: Definitely it was my mother. Even until 2009 mother cooked for Sabbath too. She was all day that is from morning. The shopping had been done on Thursday. Friday was kitchen so she cooked for Sabbath too, lit the lamp and then there was the bath, the cleanliness bath of Sabbath, there was the preparation.
And then we said Shabbat Shalom that is dad also came to sit around the table to say kiddush, to do kabbalat Shabbat and say Shabbat Shalom.
Lina: I inform you when we were to take exams, we had tutoring for Panhellenic exams, they told us that either you won't go or for Friday if the lessons coincided because it's Sabbath time and you won't go you'll miss this lesson.
And then when we wanted to go out growing up there was no chance. We'll first do kabbalat Shabbat and then you're free. We had freedoms, we didn't have prohibitions. God forbid it won't work out, no it will happen with some compromise, with some other way it will happen.
Michalis: And how many times would you say as a child and as a teenager maybe later when you lived with your parents, how many times a year did you go to the Synagogue? We're talking about Thessaloniki, you're still a child.
Lina: Thessaloniki we went on the big holidays. We went many times to Sabbath kabbalat that we went with school. Then when we went to high school no, it diminished.
Lina: Our parents here I must make a big parenthesis. They went to the Synagogue to do the melntados. Melntados is the memorial services, the memorial prayers.
They didn't tell us anything. Dad in February is the memorial prayer for all, for all the victims of the Holocaust who haven't been found, haven't been identified. It was the day dad did, when we grew up he told us. It was in February and dad went and did for the whole family a general melntado.
Lina: My father also at the cemeteries before holidays, because everyone considered him erudite that is a wise and very learned man, undertook to do hashkavot and if there were people to also do kaddish for friends who didn't have male relatives and so on.
Dad had a mitzvah to do hashkava for everyone or to say kaddish for people who asked him to do it.
Michalis: To say a little hashkavot is the memorial so..
Lina: Yes when there aren't 10 male people present. Kaddish is a memorial prayer which doesn't speak, isn't sad by its nature but requires the presence of 10 people for kaddish to be done and to suppose these.
Michalis: And so you went to the big ones. Let's say when you went I imagine to Yom Kippur.
Lina: At Yom Kippur I also write in the book, it's something exceptional. First of all it was the event. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were the event. So there all the ladies had to be sewn, everyone had to wear their best. On Yom Kippur they changed three times a day. We had to show all these clothes.
Lina: Indeed the Nata family, they had furniture on Tsimiski and their mother was from Volos very well-bred and raised her children, with her daughters in many ways to be comme il faut and very young.
These girls also wore lace gloves. She brought them and now if you see Efi for example she's unrecognizable and modern and such but their mother had them there Souza lest they escape from fashion or from what mother had in mind.
Lina: I don't know why I had an inclination to Judaism from the first years of my adolescence seeing my father raising this family while others were more liberal I became closer, I came closer and started reading because my father brought me books and I absorbed them.
And a very big book that also played a role in my life is Exodus. That is my Zionist inclination, suddenly I discovered Israel.
Michalis: The book about the ship you mean?
Lina: The book which was also a play, became a play. And the other was the great figures of Israel in first form. I also have books of uncle Moni which normally they bury, books are never thrown away in genizah.
Lina: This now reading about Jewish rights in communities I discovered that the only Jewish community that buried every year whatever old existed that shouldn't be thrown away is the community of Rhodes and they did it on Lag BaOmer ceremony like a procession with all their old books or vessels which were old and couldn't and the only genizah that existed was in Rhodes as I know reading and studying and searching right now for my second book.
Michalis: And why did these books have to be buried?
Lina: Because I think that these shouldn't because they are sacred they shouldn't be torn, they shouldn't be burned. Essentially burning is distant from Judaism. In essence you do a funeral for books that have the holy scripture.
Michalis: This is very interesting.
Michalis: How many people is estimated gathered at the synagogue?
Lina: At the synagogue and outside there were people, people didn't fit. In Thessaloniki there were also some seats for the... of the richer ones but.
Michalis: Are we talking about the ladies' gallery?
Lina: No no Monastirioton. Monastirioton.
Michalis: So Monastirioton filled up?
Lina: Yes. But it was a whole event this thing. The road closed from the Jews' coming and going, traffic stopped comparatively. This road in front we children played in the courtyard. There's a little fountain behind and so on.
Lina: And gradually growing up well my brother, everyone knew my brother's kicks. Everyone had bruises on their legs from my brother. As soon as you went to do something to him "aaa aa what are you doing take a kick." He was lively, charming with many friends and at noon mother... dad always stayed there.
Lina: I also write in the book but I'll tell you orally too that the beautiful image I have is of my father suited with ties. Next to him were Leon and Hauel and Isaac Hauel, the whole Caraso family, Pepo Caraso, Dzako Caraso were on this side of the synagogue from the left towards the window.
Leon, Joseph Salem who sang with Halegua, Haham Azaria at the Teva and Leon Levi and this Hazan who enchanted you. All these are voluntary along with the one we called Tsitsek.
Lina: Tsitsek was... the surname is Vazerlai. Vazerlai was the man's name. Tsitsek is carnation in Turkish I think. And these, I also taught Gabi this, to take a vaporizer with lemon cologne which my father also made and they did continuously to make the synagogue smell nice because the breaths were bad so a little to get rid of this thing.
Lina: And also a lady I remember amazingly tall with a turban on her head always very formal is Mrs. Cohen, wife of Salamon Cohen, very much from his physiognomy a wonderful man, long narrow face, I think he had blue eyes and he did the kohanut.
Lina: This kohanut I haven't experienced again, it was mourning. First you must be with socks only, not wear shoes. He prepared for what he did, he felt what he did and when he opened the hechal and we turned our backs and this, this voice came out mourning.
These if not... I don't know if others experienced them and forgot them, for me they have been imprinted and I also put these in my book that these images are indelible.
Lina: My brother tells me "you live with the past," I say "you live with the future, but I want to record this and I want to leave it." This image of our Thessaloniki that offered us so much.
This Thessaloniki that let us find ourselves freely, develop literarily, get educated. So many wonderful people, so many writers to have the luck to have amazing professors at university.
This opening of soul and spirit in this city I haven't experienced again. I'm very lucky I was born in Thessaloniki. In this synagogue it was something different, it was joy.
Lina: It's of people who lived the Holocaust and became human again, rebuilt families that we, who grew up with much care and much love and above all that's why they didn't speak so as not to sadden us, not to traumatize us.
The only trauma I remember from my mother was the darkness. She couldn't stand darkness, I couldn't stand German brands. No German brand entered our house. Dad only bought Hoover. We never went to German plays and no child went to German school.
Lina: Except now for Andrea Asael who is also the collector and made Karyes, the book Karyes, a wonderful book and a testimony to remain for the Jews who worked in Karyes during the German years. An exceptional collector and researcher.
Lina: That also which united us, which united us in this community the Club came gradually. Of course the Club was also the club, it wasn't called Club, it was the club, the club and it was "vamos a ir al club" to play "jogar carticas, las mujeres" to play cards.
Some gatherings started, some speeches. Very nice ones were made, I'll show you I'll take them out from 1978 I know which was called Israelite Club its sister and there Aser Moysis spoke.
Lina: So this Thessaloniki was a Jewish city potentially incorporated within the general whole which after the war at least we didn't see anti-Semitism. We didn't see... it was camouflaged maybe, I don't know.
But I think those who were to do harm did it and then started not pity, acceptance due to Holocaust. Not tolerance, two words that aren't mine. A mother at school told me: "our husband tolerates us but doesn't accept us as Jews."
Lina: And for us in Thessaloniki after the Holocaust tolerance became almost acceptance. When we went to shops with my mother and we went many, we finished lessons and I went for walks.
Just from the pronunciation and because I had started learning Hebrew, my brother understands but only now lately with the cousin in France he started speaking. I had this, I liked it and it was also a secret code.
And when we went "te plaze esto, te plaze la color" they immediately understood. They didn't say "are you Jewish?" "Ah I saved Jews, I had Jewish friends who were lost, I had little Esther, I had such and such." Lies or truth and I can't judge it.
Lina: But it was the slogan wherever we went. "Ah they didn't say are you Jewish?" This was a priori. "Ah you don't know how much I loved and how much I was saddened that the Jews were lost and I always had a neighbor, I had a friend." This was always the epilogue.
In the third part of the interview, Ms. Lina describes her unique experience of anti-Semitism during her childhood, dietary habits and kashrut at home, as well as the existence of Jewish shops in Thessaloniki. She analyzes the Sabbath traditions of lighting the menorah, observing the Sabbath, and the frequency of visits to the synagogue. She vividly describes the Yom Kippur holiday, the personalities of the synagogue, and the special atmosphere of religious ceremonies. He concludes with reflections on the post-war atmosphere in Thessaloniki, where tolerance towards Jews gradually turned into acceptance, and the silence of parents about the Holocaust in order to protect their children.
Lina Herrera
Transcription
Lina: So far since we said we never had anti-Jewish... such. The only time... the only time I heard "you won't play because you're Jewish" is at grandfather's old house.
I was sitting on the steps, and I was very sickly because I had lymphadenopathy, so I didn't play with the children much and so I was at the age of first grade. So the children in the neighborhood knew me who were also my classmates.
It was the iron gate and had steps that went up to the iron railings above. I sat there and watched them and it was the first time I probably said I wanted to play? I don't remember if I said it. I always remember the answer: "no you won't play because you're Jewish."
It was the first and last time I heard anything about my religion.
Michalis: Did you tell this to your parents?
Lina: Maybe yes maybe no I don't remember.
Michalis: A question I always had for this generation. You played let's say with the... you understood well the Machos you mention that you played in the living room, is it the same Machos that you know has a lasting relationship with this now. These children who weren't Jewish, Jewish children like that? Did they know any Ladino?
Lina: No but there was such respect. Which could it be. Well, if you ask Diana, Sofoula who lives above us and the others they will say that there was such respect for the holidays that they would come on Rosh Hashana and bring us sweets. We would go to their name day celebrations and offer them something.
They would come with flowers on Passover. We know it's your holiday and you don't eat, that's why we bring flowers. They ate the matza. Machos still talks about the matza, about Mrs. Matika's food.
Lina: That is, people and folk, non-Jewish people passed through our house and my mother was such a good cook that you can still ask these friends. There are the red mullets "Lostekýres frýtos de Matíka" - mother's fried red mullets. The sardines cazandicas, the married sardines.
That is, mother was a terrible cook, housekeeper and our house was always open so everyone "ah these ah Mrs. Matika, what smells are these Mrs. Matika" the aromas, the honey fritters for my mother's Passover.
Everyone. These are nothing compared to my mother, that is what, it's a shame, but anyway so for the good. No. We ate they ate in our houses, we had no problem.
Lina: Of course we didn't have kashrut at that time so of course she didn't take pork and our friends knew it very well and in their houses they avoided when we were there. They didn't put pork so there was a wonderful mutual respect children.
We spent most of our lives with non-Jews in our groups. The Jews were another category, yes they were there present.
Michalis: Regarding kashrut in your house.
Lina: My mother kept kashrut, she put the meat. We had our butcher kerNikos, we had all our own in the sense our own butcher, our own cheese maker, our own poultry seller. And they called my mother Mrs. Dzakaina or Mrs. Dzako and me Dzakoudi.
Lina: So Panagiotis knew we wanted the best, tongues and so on because I tell you the finances were going better so our standard of living was always middle class and above. Which means you'll get the best fish, the best such, the best the best.
Well we went higher up was our poultry seller. Then on Athonos opposite my grandfather's shop which was the shoemaker, later became Kyrkostas, a Karamolis Kyrkostas took it, an amazing cheese maker. So our cheese was from Kyrkostas. Opposite was our butcher. We had all our own.
Lina: And below our house on Dimitriou Gounari was also the unique unique Jewish one. There was on Odomo Diano Daniel Omano who had the best products and Sadi. There was Sadi there in Loulouadika was Sadi's shop.
And Daniel Omano who also sold wonderful pipitikes, laspipí tikas, telontzidios, the roasted seeds and haminados eggs when the ladies got tired of making them, he also sold them.
Michalis: So in Thessaloniki when you were growing up there were Jewish products?
Lina: Oh of course, you could enter the little shops of course. Of course there was in Modiano, there were Daniel Omano who had fruits and such dry nuts. Sadi also had his own there were many. There was also Nathan of course, I forgot to say. Nathan his father was the butcher the kosher one of course there was opposite Modiano from where the old synagogue was.
Michalis: When you say the old synagogue which one do you mean?
Lina: The little one Azikaron.
Michalis: So you didn't eat pork at home. Was there something else let's say that you remember as a rule you had at home.
Lina: There were no rules. Rules because we learned with these and continued with these. They didn't tell us don't don't don't. They didn't raise us with the don'ts but these we do these we are.
Now, in friends' houses there was no issue to ask why don't we have a Christmas tree? We just don't do it ex nihilo we didn't ask it because we knew I don't know we grew up like that. These are our customs we didn't need to say further.
But I went with Diana to Machos to decorate but we never asked why not us. Different there different here.
Lina: I went with Diana to all the... Diana went I went too. This doesn't mean I would cross myself or take the candle. And Diana never came to the house to kiss the Mezuzah. These were ex nihilo.
Michalis: Did you have Mezuzah in the house?
Lina: In all the rooms.
Michalis: Did you do something on Sabbath?
Lina: Sabbath was... look Sabbath we also had school first of all. So we went to schools is one of those where the compromises started. The compromises are that yes on Friday afternoon we would all go to the synagogue to do kabbalat Shabbat.
And all the children who gathered from these schools the 4-5 I told you, Rabbi Haham Mazaria, an amazing old man, wonderful person - he also married us - gave the children... my brother knew the kiddush and my brother said the kiddush at age 8-9 years old. Roulis Rafael said the kiddush.
He gave the children the floor. We went to synagogue on all holidays and then there was the Club.
Lina: The Club which we didn't go to very much because we had our own friends so we didn't need to go to the Club very much. But if it held a masquerade ball Club for Purim we went.
Then Passover on the second day of Passover or rather the third day because we all celebrated first and second, it offered the children a Seder meal, let's say peas with chicken because we Sephardim don't eat rice, don't eat potatoes, nothing of these.
Well, so it was and from there we have very nice photos and we have from other photos and my husband has very nice photos like that all gathered at the Club. Some spoke and we sat I don't know or at various tables.
Lina: Also Hanukkah our parents took us to Patano talavioner which is today's elementary school and there all the big holidays took place. And I have a photo of me with my coat and so on next to a wonderful Hanukkiah which however is not real, is not lit but is very decorated with beautiful flowers.
Michalis: You said, you did kabbalat Shabbat synagogue often but we also did at home. Did you light candles?
Lina: Not candles, we are of the oil lamp. It was Sabbath oil lamp. It was a little glass of water with oil and you put the wick on top and lit it. In the old days when there was no wick my mother put cotton, made the little tip and put it and this floated on top of the oil and this was our little Sabbath lamp.
Michalis: And this was a Thessaloniki tradition?
Lina: I think this was everywhere because there was no other way to light a lamp. Now I saw it at home, maybe her mother had it and my mother continued it from her mother. I don't know this, I have no other image. But many Jews continued it. But again at that time it was a mask and gradually it took a wick even that. We continue it.
Michalis: So every Friday afternoon you had the sense that it was a special day of the week.
Lina: Definitely it was my mother. Even until 2009 mother cooked for Sabbath too. She was all day that is from morning. The shopping had been done on Thursday. Friday was kitchen so she cooked for Sabbath too, lit the lamp and then there was the bath, the cleanliness bath of Sabbath, there was the preparation.
And then we said Shabbat Shalom that is dad also came to sit around the table to say kiddush, to do kabbalat Shabbat and say Shabbat Shalom.
Lina: I inform you when we were to take exams, we had tutoring for Panhellenic exams, they told us that either you won't go or for Friday if the lessons coincided because it's Sabbath time and you won't go you'll miss this lesson.
And then when we wanted to go out growing up there was no chance. We'll first do kabbalat Shabbat and then you're free. We had freedoms, we didn't have prohibitions. God forbid it won't work out, no it will happen with some compromise, with some other way it will happen.
Michalis: And how many times would you say as a child and as a teenager maybe later when you lived with your parents, how many times a year did you go to the Synagogue? We're talking about Thessaloniki, you're still a child.
Lina: Thessaloniki we went on the big holidays. We went many times to Sabbath kabbalat that we went with school. Then when we went to high school no, it diminished.
Lina: Our parents here I must make a big parenthesis. They went to the Synagogue to do the melntados. Melntados is the memorial services, the memorial prayers.
They didn't tell us anything. Dad in February is the memorial prayer for all, for all the victims of the Holocaust who haven't been found, haven't been identified. It was the day dad did, when we grew up he told us. It was in February and dad went and did for the whole family a general melntado.
Lina: My father also at the cemeteries before holidays, because everyone considered him erudite that is a wise and very learned man, undertook to do hashkavot and if there were people to also do kaddish for friends who didn't have male relatives and so on.
Dad had a mitzvah to do hashkava for everyone or to say kaddish for people who asked him to do it.
Michalis: To say a little hashkavot is the memorial so..
Lina: Yes when there aren't 10 male people present. Kaddish is a memorial prayer which doesn't speak, isn't sad by its nature but requires the presence of 10 people for kaddish to be done and to suppose these.
Michalis: And so you went to the big ones. Let's say when you went I imagine to Yom Kippur.
Lina: At Yom Kippur I also write in the book, it's something exceptional. First of all it was the event. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were the event. So there all the ladies had to be sewn, everyone had to wear their best. On Yom Kippur they changed three times a day. We had to show all these clothes.
Lina: Indeed the Nata family, they had furniture on Tsimiski and their mother was from Volos very well-bred and raised her children, with her daughters in many ways to be comme il faut and very young.
These girls also wore lace gloves. She brought them and now if you see Efi for example she's unrecognizable and modern and such but their mother had them there Souza lest they escape from fashion or from what mother had in mind.
Lina: I don't know why I had an inclination to Judaism from the first years of my adolescence seeing my father raising this family while others were more liberal I became closer, I came closer and started reading because my father brought me books and I absorbed them.
And a very big book that also played a role in my life is Exodus. That is my Zionist inclination, suddenly I discovered Israel.
Michalis: The book about the ship you mean?
Lina: The book which was also a play, became a play. And the other was the great figures of Israel in first form. I also have books of uncle Moni which normally they bury, books are never thrown away in genizah.
Lina: This now reading about Jewish rights in communities I discovered that the only Jewish community that buried every year whatever old existed that shouldn't be thrown away is the community of Rhodes and they did it on Lag BaOmer ceremony like a procession with all their old books or vessels which were old and couldn't and the only genizah that existed was in Rhodes as I know reading and studying and searching right now for my second book.
Michalis: And why did these books have to be buried?
Lina: Because I think that these shouldn't because they are sacred they shouldn't be torn, they shouldn't be burned. Essentially burning is distant from Judaism. In essence you do a funeral for books that have the holy scripture.
Michalis: This is very interesting.
Michalis: How many people is estimated gathered at the synagogue?
Lina: At the synagogue and outside there were people, people didn't fit. In Thessaloniki there were also some seats for the... of the richer ones but.
Michalis: Are we talking about the ladies' gallery?
Lina: No no Monastirioton. Monastirioton.
Michalis: So Monastirioton filled up?
Lina: Yes. But it was a whole event this thing. The road closed from the Jews' coming and going, traffic stopped comparatively. This road in front we children played in the courtyard. There's a little fountain behind and so on.
Lina: And gradually growing up well my brother, everyone knew my brother's kicks. Everyone had bruises on their legs from my brother. As soon as you went to do something to him "aaa aa what are you doing take a kick." He was lively, charming with many friends and at noon mother... dad always stayed there.
Lina: I also write in the book but I'll tell you orally too that the beautiful image I have is of my father suited with ties. Next to him were Leon and Hauel and Isaac Hauel, the whole Caraso family, Pepo Caraso, Dzako Caraso were on this side of the synagogue from the left towards the window.
Leon, Joseph Salem who sang with Halegua, Haham Azaria at the Teva and Leon Levi and this Hazan who enchanted you. All these are voluntary along with the one we called Tsitsek.
Lina: Tsitsek was... the surname is Vazerlai. Vazerlai was the man's name. Tsitsek is carnation in Turkish I think. And these, I also taught Gabi this, to take a vaporizer with lemon cologne which my father also made and they did continuously to make the synagogue smell nice because the breaths were bad so a little to get rid of this thing.
Lina: And also a lady I remember amazingly tall with a turban on her head always very formal is Mrs. Cohen, wife of Salamon Cohen, very much from his physiognomy a wonderful man, long narrow face, I think he had blue eyes and he did the kohanut.
Lina: This kohanut I haven't experienced again, it was mourning. First you must be with socks only, not wear shoes. He prepared for what he did, he felt what he did and when he opened the hechal and we turned our backs and this, this voice came out mourning.
These if not... I don't know if others experienced them and forgot them, for me they have been imprinted and I also put these in my book that these images are indelible.
Lina: My brother tells me "you live with the past," I say "you live with the future, but I want to record this and I want to leave it." This image of our Thessaloniki that offered us so much.
This Thessaloniki that let us find ourselves freely, develop literarily, get educated. So many wonderful people, so many writers to have the luck to have amazing professors at university.
This opening of soul and spirit in this city I haven't experienced again. I'm very lucky I was born in Thessaloniki. In this synagogue it was something different, it was joy.
Lina: It's of people who lived the Holocaust and became human again, rebuilt families that we, who grew up with much care and much love and above all that's why they didn't speak so as not to sadden us, not to traumatize us.
The only trauma I remember from my mother was the darkness. She couldn't stand darkness, I couldn't stand German brands. No German brand entered our house. Dad only bought Hoover. We never went to German plays and no child went to German school.
Lina: Except now for Andrea Asael who is also the collector and made Karyes, the book Karyes, a wonderful book and a testimony to remain for the Jews who worked in Karyes during the German years. An exceptional collector and researcher.
Lina: That also which united us, which united us in this community the Club came gradually. Of course the Club was also the club, it wasn't called Club, it was the club, the club and it was "vamos a ir al club" to play "jogar carticas, las mujeres" to play cards.
Some gatherings started, some speeches. Very nice ones were made, I'll show you I'll take them out from 1978 I know which was called Israelite Club its sister and there Aser Moysis spoke.
Lina: So this Thessaloniki was a Jewish city potentially incorporated within the general whole which after the war at least we didn't see anti-Semitism. We didn't see... it was camouflaged maybe, I don't know.
But I think those who were to do harm did it and then started not pity, acceptance due to Holocaust. Not tolerance, two words that aren't mine. A mother at school told me: "our husband tolerates us but doesn't accept us as Jews."
Lina: And for us in Thessaloniki after the Holocaust tolerance became almost acceptance. When we went to shops with my mother and we went many, we finished lessons and I went for walks.
Just from the pronunciation and because I had started learning Hebrew, my brother understands but only now lately with the cousin in France he started speaking. I had this, I liked it and it was also a secret code.
And when we went "te plaze esto, te plaze la color" they immediately understood. They didn't say "are you Jewish?" "Ah I saved Jews, I had Jewish friends who were lost, I had little Esther, I had such and such." Lies or truth and I can't judge it.
Lina: But it was the slogan wherever we went. "Ah they didn't say are you Jewish?" This was a priori. "Ah you don't know how much I loved and how much I was saddened that the Jews were lost and I always had a neighbor, I had a friend." This was always the epilogue.