Michalis: Mrs. Lina, when were you born?

Lina: 11/09/1950.

Michalis: And where were you born?

Lina: Thessaloniki.

Michalis: What were your parents' names?

Lina: Iakovos Tzako, Matilde Matika Soustiel, my mother Matika Matilde Meir Soustiel.

Michalis: Did you have siblings? Do you have siblings?

Lina: Yes, one brother, Raphael Soustiel.

Michalis: Where did you live in Thessaloniki?

Lina: In Thessaloniki we lived, when I was born, in my grandfather's house, which was located on Navarinou and Methonis street, in what is now called Navarinou square, a two-story detached house. With two floors, it faced towards the old Prince Nikolaou, or Polonias street, as they called it. It was a very beautiful house. Downstairs there were three separate residences, which they rented out, my father rented them out.

But the basic thing I want to say, let's start a bit earlier, is that this house already existed. Together with my uncle's family, Sam Soustiel. So as a plot, it belonged to the Soustiel family. The Soustiels.

My grandfather, from what they told me, was a cobbler. And he had his own shop on Athonos street. Where the market is now, where the tsouzeris are, on some corner, that was grandfather's shop. Which we knew and it still exists until now.

Michalis: What was his name, what did they call him?

Lina: Rofel Iakovos Soustiel.

Michalis: This means there must have been some financial comfort.

Lina: Now, to say a bit about the beginning, we Soustiels must have, we are from Apulia. We came from Apulia. The name Soustiel as a root, you should ask our cousin, Sam Soustiel, Makis Soustiel, in Thessaloniki, who has also made our family tree.

In this house upstairs, lived Rofel Soustiel, with the iron staircase, like that, which became very beautiful. He had a large living room, he had rooms. He lived himself with his family, my dad, Tzako Soustiel, Chaim and Alberto Soustiel, the brothers, and Hydra Esther Soustiel, the sisters.

My grandmother had the name Luna, from which I also took her name. Me, they actually call me Lina Soustiel, it's not my exact name, because my dad after the Holocaust, wanted to honor those who were lost, from the family. So my name is Luna Esther Ida. It's my grandmother and his two sisters. And my brother, Raphael Chaim Alberto.

For my brother an exception was made due to military service, so these two names were omitted, but at the Brit he was named Raphael Chaim Alberto. To honor his brothers.

Well, this house had three residences downstairs, the rooms probably, in which one my mother stayed. With her family. Matilde De Soustiel Meir, daughter of Vida and Isaac Meir, and with siblings Solomon, Judah, Bembo, Gabriel, and sisters, Chana and Zana.

It was fate that the Soustiels met the Meirs, I don't know that. What I know for sure is what my mother said, when Alberto came down, because my mother was the youngest and had a big age difference from her other siblings, he left his snack for her, because my mother was from a very poor family, they worked, the eldest brother was orphaned and the other siblings worked, and he left his snack at the window for her to go find it. If that's called his flirting, it might have been flirting.

If we start with the war years, we'll see that during the occupation years, my father, although very difficult, left the family and went up to the mountain and it was very difficult then, because really, the close families were the principle, that we are "en junto," we must all be together, wherever we go our fate together.

My father made the breakthrough, because, like my uncle, Deris Soustiel, and he from his family, Sam Soustiel's family, and Deris and she, both cousins hid. And with other names, we find my father on Olympus, first of all he hasn't talked to us.

This was the big problem with my father, that we knew about the mountain. But he didn't tell us details. Ever. And this was very bad for us today.

Suddenly we find in Hyslop's thread, the author's, the name Tzakos Soustiel, that he hid in the monasteries of Olympus, and that he was killed. Something that isn't true.

With Thessalonian friends, non-Jews, because we had very many non-Jewish friends, especially with one who is called Telemachos Kalvonakis, emeritus professor of the Polytechnic, who does the whole curriculum of his family and our family, because his uncle and my father met on Olympus, yes it was Olympus, and they became blood brothers. So the battle me, the two families, we were one.

And the battle at this moment is doing, trying to find the traces of Tzako's journey, his uncle, Kostas, up on Olympus.

There they begin, these things the battle tells me during my journey, we have photographs of my father in Athens, because he also studied at the University Higher Commercial, but he also finished the Konstantinidis school, the commercial school in Thessaloniki.

But I find photographs during the war years, my father in Cairo. And he begins to say, the battle now in his search, because he's doing scientific research. It's not just what he remembers. Maybe your father was a liaison, because he spoke French, English, he knew languages, maybe he was a liaison.

We don't know. Anyway, we have photographs of my father during the war years in Cairo. A gap, a parenthesis.

My friend also, Diana Tonta Boussiou, in Thessaloniki, who we grew up together, also tells me that her dad, Kostas, Konstantinos Tontas, met, I give the call, met my dad on Olympus and he's the one who led him to the monastery.

We don't have much information. We know he changed his name.

Michalis: Do you know what the name was?

Lina: I think it was Lefteris.

But what I remember, that when I was finally born, and this is the funny thing about me, how can I remember these things which I'm recording now, as I told you, that I remember things that happened in front of... and things I heard.

That is, in my grandfather's house, upstairs, there was such a big table, there was a room that faced towards Prince Nikolaou, ours faced towards Navarinou square, the other room where we all played and was our sloping room, had suffered, apparently, a subsidence and had an old wardrobe, mother had put a table, there we ate, there she ironed, there I did my lessons, my first lessons.

Polo Levi came, Diana, Tonta, Mangos, Kalvouridis and we played in this sloping room or we made like ski sleds or we put chairs for cars and the oldest Mangos was the driver and we played in this room, we lived in this room.

There was the kitchen, there was also what we called cabinet or toilet inside the house. It had everything.

But what darkened the first years of my parents' life in this house was the cohabitation because there was the law of requisition I think, that while your family had left others had settled inside.

Among the last were Neranzou and Giovan.

Michalis: Were these people refugees?

Lina: I have no idea. She was a thin, dark-haired woman, must have been Turkish-speaking, Giovan. And I remember the fights with my dad coming from work and them fighting.

Now I understand why at his window he had put, he was a hashish user, he had put plants at his window. And of course my father wanted with teeth and such to get him out because the house was ours.

Anyway this was achieved, I don't remember it, but in my ears I have the fights with my dad to get them to leave the house. What do you want me to give you to leave the house.

Michalis: Were these people a couple?

Lina: They lived together.

Michalis: So there were only two strangers

Lina: Yes, two strangers upstairs.

Michalis: What year was your father born?

Lina: 1911.

Michalis: And mother?

Lina: 1924.

Michalis: Therefore, what year did they get married?

Lina: They got married 1946, December 22nd.

Michalis: Great. From this family, all who lived in the house on Navarinou, you've already mentioned that many were murdered.

Lina: In the camps.

Michalis: From this whole family, who were those who survived besides the father and mother who lived in that house?

Lina: From my mother's side, no one. From my mother's side, Solomon was saved due to Zionist ideology and then when they came to take young Thessalonians who were strong and could work at the port of Haifa. He worked in Jaffa. Uncle Solomon. Meir.

And his brother was saved, my mother's brother also, Gabriel, who took part in the Greek-Italian war and as a prisoner spent the occupation, let's say, of Greece in confinement, in camps in Italy

And Aunt Zana who in 1939 somewhere there, because now we're searching this story while she got married here with Varouch Mano Greek Jew also, in Marseilles for a better life after the economic upheaval of those years proven in Thessaloniki.

Very many Thessalonians emigrated to Italy, others to Paris, the richer ones and others very many to Marseilles. So Marseilles is a center of Sephardic Greek Jews and there they built their life and gave birth to a child our cousin Morris Mano.

Varouch Mano didn't escape death because he died in Sobibor when the French, reached Marseilles with the big La Grande Rafle and so Morris was orphaned and my aunt Zana was forced for reasons to be able to survive and start working, ironing, becoming a laundress. That.

So from mother's family were saved Solomon, Gabriel and Zana and herself.

Michalis: But from the camps the others, no one returned.

Lina: Only the mother.

Michalis: And when they started returning to Thessaloniki had they decided to marry earlier?

Lina: No, no, no. No relation. When I said the flirting it was Alberto. But my dad apparently also had something.

They must have met at Matanot Laevionim because there they gathered, it was the center where all the Jews went after returning for their registration from the camps.

Michalis: I want you to tell me in two words what Matanot Laevionim was before the war?

Lina: It was a center, I wouldn't call it an old people's home, but they cared for food and human welfare. Poor Thessalonians.

My mother returned from the camp via Czechoslovakia. Because from Auschwitz-Birkenau, first you know very well that the Thessalonians were taken in 1943. So she was until 1945 in camp, together with many other Thessalonian women and men.

Michalis: She was in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she left Auschwitz-Birkenau?

Lina: They took her from Auschwitz-Birkenau, for her good luck. My mother, in a selection that happens, twice is saved from death because she had scabies, So... The first time by chance

The second time is because they made a change with the one in front of her. It was so random and not, the first time was that her cellmate said "Matika, get in here inside a basement with broken glass" and she says "How did I have the courage, me, the coward" because really she was very cowardly, "To have the courage in front of this line, where everyone was there, they were guarding them, to jump into this broken glass and be saved."

This she remembered, this she said. I don't know exactly how it happened. The second time was for a position change. Front-back. Because they went, their hands went like this. Tak, tak, tak, tak. That is, you live, you die, you live, you die.

And because she had the scabies under her chest, it was very visible. She was saved only from that. That they didn't see, they didn't see her, because they had already chosen the previous one for death. By chance.

Michalis: How did she reach Czechoslovakia.

Lina: It's that they were looking for young girls, with very beautiful, thin fingers. And they transferred them to Czechoslovakia to the camp Zwai Wassen, which I found on Google, written with W. And there they made cables for radios, for telegraphs, for anything. And that's why they needed thin fingers.

From there she was liberated with other Thessalonian women, who were now sisters, because they made the whole journey of return together. And they returned to Thessaloniki via Czechoslovakia, via Red Cross. They reached Yugoslavia and from there they went to Kastoria, where they were hosted by some families who opened their homes to them.

Michalis: Christian?

Lina: Christian probably. Yes. And I remember they gave them blankets, they gave them clothes, they gave them underwear they didn't have. They took care of them and then they returned to Greece by truck again and to arrive with nothing to this center. There my dad also arrived. And he recognized her.

Michalis: Do you remember what month it was?

Lina: Of course 1955 now right?

Michalis: 1946.

Lina: Forty-five they must have returned but I don't remember which month because for them to marry in 1946 I'll tell you exactly why it must be 45 because my mother spent a year in a sanatorium in the sense not with... my dad because exactly showed his great love that pre-existed but apparently he stepped back because of Alberto

and because of the acquaintances from the mountain where everyone was scientists, worthy people he had a very large network of doctors. Who took her on, radiologists continuously, pathologists, everyone and the best for her was for my dad to rent a room in a house in Asvestochori, in a family and to eat, he wrote her letters which honestly are wonderful letters on cigarette papers, like that on what they call Chinese paper which we opened with my brother.

They are very beautiful love letters and we said with my brother that we have no right to read them.

Michalis: You didn't read them?

Lina: We read one-two pages, they are very private they express very great love and we have put them in a safe deposit box.

Dad didn't see her because he had to work he had started working to make her expenses to pay doctors, rent and all that and he told her to eat one oka of milk per day, butter. That is, whatever existed exquisite dad paid to save mother. And with this network of doctors he met for good luck up on the mountain mother was saved so December 22, 1946 they married and they had a house finally to stay because there was dad's house.

Michalis: Did your mother need all this treatment for some specific problem or the general ordeal you mentioned.

Lina: Tuberculosis.

Michalis: And I wanted to ask you when they got married did they return to this house?

Lina: And were Ioannis and Erantzo already there?

And downstairs dad then rented the houses to two families. One was orphaned Roula I think whose father, what did they call the rebels differently in Thessaloniki anyway, whom the rebels killed. Let's say it like that until the word comes to me.

Michalis: Were they victims of rebel attacks?

Lina: Rebel victims, they were rebel victims, yes. The father they wanted the rebels to kill.

Michalis: Now we're talking about when the civil war had started chronologically.

Lina: Yes. In another family Angel, where Annoula currently lives in Thessaloniki. Anna Angel and Ino Angel the siblings of the family. The mother Lella and the father Alberto Angel. And the other house where my mother used to live again in a Christian family again with such a past which I don't remember at all.

Michalis: So your parents moved...

Lina: Still for the first time to the upper floor as married.

Michalis: Great. And I wanted to ask you now. 1924 which means 1944 and both of course had completed their school studies before.

Lina: My mother first finished Talmud Torah.

Michalis: Really.

Lina: Yes. And then she didn't tell me exactly. She didn't finish it all. She had high school because she didn't have time. I think she went to first or second high school and that was it if it was. She didn't have time. She was very young.

And she had this very great dream that I could become, I could study. That she couldn't complete her studies. This was a disadvantage. A disadvantage which she created for herself. A feeling of inferiority. In that she didn't speak French very well like the others spoke. Our mother. That.

And dad told her. You have me. You have me. Don't cry about it. And this lasted. Until the last moment this was her dream. That and she sat then what's impressive is that when I went to school again I started school with me. To remember again all her knowledge.

Eh... She was... A wonderful woman. Strong, dynamic. She could... She always said that if I had the opportunity I could manage a whole store. Because she's very good at mathematics, in her mind. What we say in Spanish. Tenia gironde me ogio. Clever. And this she taught us. Be clever. It doesn't work out here. It will work out somewhere else that is. If it wasn't for the Holocaust. If we didn't have this gironde we couldn't survive. If we were. Since fate wanted it. This we'll do so like that.

Yes but also my dad. My dad's motto correspondingly in Greek. With Athena and hard work. That is, they were two people. With different. Perceptions. I don't know of life. But we reached the same conclusion. That. You also move your hand. Don't expect everything ready. It was very important for us.

Michalis: Therefore your mother spent her first school years at Talmud Torah?

Lina: Which was the traditional school. She finished elementary. And there somewhere in first high school. She had to. She stopped it. Probably. I don't know more. Because if we put it age-wise. 1924. How old was my mother in 1924. She was 19 years old. She was 19 years old. So she must have done the first grades. And then stopped. For some reasons. If it's livelihood. Now it comes to me. Because she learned sewing That.

Michalis: While your dad had finished.

Lina: First he had finished. This higher commercial school. Konstantinidis. Which was among the most famous. In Thessaloniki. But he continued to higher. He came to the higher commercial. Of Athens. Because we also have photographs from Athens. And that's why. He stood out. From his peers. Or from what. First he had inclination. He was very educated. He read a lot on his own.

He had socialist ideas. He's the one who for us. First. Became an instructor for us. But positive. In Russian literature. And in the. In the Russian. Writers. Rosa Luxemburg. All these passed through our house. Which were hidden. Poems.

My father made very good friends. On the mountain. If he was saved. In the sense of imprisonment. It's that. I remember. That the Soustiels had given Their things. To a neighbor. Near us. I don't remember his name. But his daughter. Was called Aphrodite. Aphroula. And she's still an active member. In KKE. In Thessaloniki. Sometimes the surname comes to me. And sometimes I forget it. And I have her surname written somewhere. Because I've heard her on television. Talking about the. Junta.

He took our things. And didn't give them back. And denounced. My dad to the police. As a communist.

Michalis: Aphroula's father?

Lina: Yes.. And... I remember...

Michalis: Did this happen before the occupation?

Lina: The denunciation. No after. After the war. After the war. After they returned. And... There the names that came and went to our house were police chief Vardoulakis who saved him. Probably my father must have signed. Probably my father must have signed. Probably my father must have signed. Aha... Skrivanakis. Agreement is definitive. Vardoulakis was police chief. I searched it myself and found it. Skrivanakis.

And one more... Anyway these surnames were constantly in the phraseology not the daily, the first year, yes I remember it.

Michalis: So we're talking about after the civil war.

Lina: Yes, must be.

Michalis: The 1960s for you to remember them.

Lina: For me to remember them, it could be yes even 55, you don't know. Yes, correct. No, I remember them, I remember very well.

Michalis: Your dad had gone to an Alliance school before.

Lina: Probably he went, because he knows French very well.

Michalis: And here I wanted to ask you something I always ask. At home, the parents, what language did they speak between themselves?

Lina: Ladino.

Michalis: And did they keep this forever?

Lina: Forever. And my grandmother Vida, from what my mother told me, also knew Turkish.