Transcription
Rachel: This is my grandfather, with the girls, and here is my grandmother, yes, my grandmother with the girls.
Michalis: What's her name?
Rachel: Grandfather Rachel. And grandfather was... Mechen. Well, these are from Avlona and something was written. They were written. 1922. Ah, it says Corfu. Because they used to go... They were across and they went a lot, they had... liked it a lot, many relationships with... And these are also the same. From grandfather's and grandmother's family in Europe.
Michalis: Do you have your grandfather here, in some picture?
Rachel: My grandfather is here. And he's there somewhere. Yes, up there. On the left.
Michalis: You had said that you had this aunt in Somaton square.
Rachel: She was grandmother's sister. The only one who is here in Athens. She was here in Athens.
Michalis: Nice.
Rachel: The others were confined in Albania. We had no contact with them.
Michalis: Who is this gentleman?
Rachel: This is the only one of my mother's sisters who married a Christian. And they had... in some way, they had disinherited her. They had thrown her out of the house. And this is the only photograph I have. Of course at some point they reconciled. When the children were born. She has two twin sons too. But it was very... I didn't know him of course. It seems he was very good.
Michalis: Who is this lady there?
Rachel: This one. She's my aunt's friend. This is my aunt's album and she was a friend of hers. My aunt who... who came, left with us at first with her husband and then we separated and I went.
Michalis: Silver Mand.
Rachel: Yes. And these are the twin children.
Michalis: Of the Christian.
Rachel: Yes.
Michalis: In this album, which relatives do you have?
Rachel: This is my aunt's album. Silver Mand. Yes, with her husband. This is a brother of hers who died very young from tuberculosis. That is, brother of my mother and my aunt.
Michalis: Would you like to show me the uncle and aunt with their names?
Rachel: Yes, Erikos and Eftychia. Silver Mand. Silver Mand. Who lived in Sepolia.
Michalis: In Sepolia.
Rachel: And this is Samikos. And this is Astro. Who also died in Albania during childbirth. And she left, that is when she gave birth, she had puerperal fever then. They had no way to save her.
Michalis: From this lady.
Rachel: This sister of yours, the name.
Michalis: Her sister. No. And my brothers, yes. And her grandchildren afterwards. Because she had a son.
Rachel: Here, who was it. Ah, the girls are gone. This is Eftychia as a bride. And we are, that is, my parents with my sister. At the wedding it must have been. So, it's Zak. Zak and Estir and Astro. Above is my grandmother and my mother.
Michalis: How old do you say Astro is here?
Rachel: This must have been in 1937 when my aunt got married. She must have been 8-9. I'm this little one and here I am with my sister.
Michalis: Before the war here?
Rachel: Yes, of course. Before the war here. Let me see if I had a date. It must have been before the war here because I'm very small. Here is another sister of my mother, Anna. Who stayed there. In Albania, that is, I never met her. And here is again my mother's sister with her husband who stayed in Volos.
Michalis: Did you have the carnival parties with them?
Rachel: No. They're cut off in Volos, no.
Michalis: This is your grandmother again, eh.
Rachel: Yes, my grandmother with my mother. I see here dad, Astro, is your mother, Silverman. And my mother's two sisters. Three rather. Three sisters of my mother. My aunt's husband. Her husband and here my mother with my father. The two sisters and my brothers in the middle.
Rachel: Yes, here is the doctor who was Christian and a whole story has been made.
Michalis: These school photographs.
Rachel: The school ones. And this is a good photograph of your uncles, like that. Yes, my aunt and my uncle. And here is my aunt, younger. And here is my father with the military uniform. Something is written on the back.
Michalis: Is this from when your father was in the war?
Rachel: Yes, I don't know, maybe it's not impossible. It says a lot on the back, which is also Italian. It's my aunt. No, it can't be my father. Different, unrelated. My mother and I are here.
Michalis: From when are you in that photograph?
Rachel: In '50, aunt. I was fourteen.
Michalis: Was that when you had moved to Acharnon?
Rachel: Fourteen. Fifty-three. Yes, then yes. My mother, I am friends of my aunt. Because it's my aunt's. Here is my mother's brother. Her sister. They had gone to the nuns, some went to Corfu to study. Here we are small.
Rachel: This one was lost in the holocaust.
Michalis: Which child?
Rachel: Here.
Michalis: Which one, do you remember what they called him?
Rachel: Samikos it must be. Samikos. Ah, it's heavenly. Here. And it's Astraki.
Michalis: No, I am.
Rachel: Ah, you are. Ah, you can't see. So it's also after the war. Or not. Well, my mother doesn't remember. Anyway I remember he was lost. This is Samikos who died when he got tuberculosis. And Astro, who died in childbirth. With the twins, my mother's sister. This one is all from Albania. In Albania.
Rachel: I'm a baby and here the same. Ah, this is my last writing.
Michalis: You're all four there.
Rachel: I have it, yes. I have it somewhere. No, not up there. And here is her sister, she lived in Volos. She had come with her daughter and we took a family photograph. Here I'm a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding.
Michalis: Is your sister on the right there?
Rachel: Yes. I was young then.
Michalis: Are you here?
Rachel: Yes, here and you two. Here at some birthday. Here we are at the party with my sister and her son.
Michalis: Ah, tell us here who are these we see.
Rachel: My mother, my sister, my mother, my father, my sister, her husband, me and her son. That child. Here is my nephew we saw before, as a baby. I think at the Bar Mitzvah. I hadn't gone then, I couldn't go. This is in Israel.
Rachel: My mother always went, for Pesach, to Israel. My father stayed alone here and they would come and stay at our house.
Michalis: And when they came to your house, did you and your husband also do Seder?
Rachel: Yes, of course. No, no, he would leave the last week, before Seder he would leave and go to Israel.
Michalis: Ah, and father.
Rachel: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Who are these here?
Rachel: Here are his colleagues. Ah, here are my father's colleagues, in Thessaloniki.
Michalis: Is Mr. Mavrogiorgis here?
Rachel: No, I don't have him in any photograph. Here it's in Israel of course.
Michalis: Who are you?
Rachel: My sister, her husband and Joseph who went in his place. Ah, there are two Josephs here. Yes. In Israel. In Israel, they went to live, when they went in 1953, they went to Tzou Moshe. It's a bit further from Atanya. And Pepes married someone who was Swiss and for some years they stayed here. And then, because her father died, they went to Switzerland and went to Zurich.
Rachel: Here we are, let's say, my own family. On the balcony here, because here they lived in the house, my parents lived in my house, where I live now. They're taken on their balcony.
Michalis: So it's on this balcony here.
Rachel: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Tell us who are the people you see.
Rachel: It's Matilda, Aliki, me and this is a daughter of one of my father's colleagues from Italy. Here are the children, dressed up, watch and lipstick.
Michalis: Was there some reason they were dressed up...
Rachel: Yes, it was carnival. It might have been our own carnival too. One day it is, yes, this could be. I am.
Michalis: Ah, you are.
Rachel: Yes, yes. At school.
Michalis: At school? High school?
Rachel: No, it's elementary here, because I see Milios, we were in fifth grade. At school it was... Bounaraki it was called then, because later it became Chatzidaki. Ah, and here the same, yes. Ah, no, here is Zivorlokoulos, who was in sixth grade.
Michalis: Show us where you are.
Rachel: Here.
Michalis: Can you show us Ellisa Fycha?
Rachel: Yes, of course. Is it you? Yes, myself.
Michalis: When?
Rachel: 1959, how old were we, March 22nd.
Michalis: Can you read what it says?
Rachel: To my beloved parents, a small memento, of a great day. And here you are from the same day. Yes. Again I've dedicated it to my father and mother, whom we love so much. A little and no one. Chaim.
Michalis: What did you call your husband?
Rachel: Yes, Chaim he was. Chaim. But he also kept that from the occupation, he had changed it to no one, so it wouldn't look Jewish. Here.
Michalis: Who do we see?
Rachel: Yes, it's Aliki and Matilda. In which house. Well, it must be. One moment. It's at 159, in the other house. Here. Yes, yes.
Michalis: And why are they wearing white?
Rachel: For the bat mitzvah. It is, we had written them specially to Akis.
Michalis: How old are they?
Rachel: Well, when they were twelve, she was born in sixty, it happened in seventy-two I think. Seventy-one or seventy-two it must be.
Michalis: Well, and in two words, what is bat mitzvah?
Rachel: It's the coming of age for girls. Supposedly from then on they can vote, they can behave like women and it's considered that they're not children.
Michalis: And where does this take place?
Rachel: In the Synagogue.
Michalis: And in which Synagogue did the bat mitzvah take place?
Rachel: In Melidonos.
Michalis: And what did they do when they were inside the Synagogue?
Rachel: I think they all sang together and each one separately said some prayer.
Michalis: In what language?
Rachel: In Hebrew. They learned Hebrew. They had given them special lessons.
Michalis: Who gave them lessons?
Rachel: Bartzilai was then at the Synagogue.
Michalis: Did they read from somewhere or say it from memory?
Rachel: They both read and said and they had learned it by heart.
Michalis: Do you remember what they read from?
Rachel: I don't remember at all.
Michalis: All these girls, who are they?
Rachel: Not one by one.
Michalis: Why are there so many girls?
Rachel: These are the girls who turned twelve that year.
Michalis: And why are they holding flowers?
Rachel: Yes because supposedly it's like a small wedding let's say. And they have to hold something. It's of innocence. And here we see they've also put flowers in their hair. Afterwards. They put those on afterwards.
Michalis: Do you remember where this is?
Rachel: Again outside the Synagogue this is. Yes it's the Great Synagogue.
Michalis: Did you do something afterwards?
Rachel: I think yes if I remember correctly. We had also invited here at home. That is at the other house where we lived. We had invited the whole family. And we all ate something together. You had. And something sweet for the good.
Michalis: And who else were at the Synagogue that day?
Rachel: The whole family was there. My cousins, my sister of course couldn't come. But the whole family was there. Who came afterwards to the house to see. Do we have any photograph from there.
Michalis: So it was an important day.
Rachel: Of course. I still remember it. I think I've still kept their dresses. As a tradition. My grandmother here. My grandmother and my grandfather. With, Astro who is above. Tili, Defteri and Victoria. Three sisters who were first. Grandfather Menachem. And it's in Avlona. In Avlona, yes. And the bottom two photographs from the wedding. My mother and my father at their wedding. And here at their engagement with my grandmother. With Rachi.
This interview focuses on the presentation of family photographs and memories from Albania and Greece. Rachel presents photographs of her grandparents Menachem and Rachel from Vlora, as well as relatives who remained in Albania or emigrated. Special mention is made of her aunt Eftychia, who married a Christian and was temporarily disinherited. The interview also includes school photos and memories of the bat mitzvah of the girls in the family, which took place at the Melidoni synagogue with the teaching of Barzilai.
Rachel Alkalai (Botton)
Transcription
Rachel: This is my grandfather, with the girls, and here is my grandmother, yes, my grandmother with the girls.
Michalis: What's her name?
Rachel: Grandfather Rachel. And grandfather was... Mechen. Well, these are from Avlona and something was written. They were written. 1922. Ah, it says Corfu. Because they used to go... They were across and they went a lot, they had... liked it a lot, many relationships with... And these are also the same. From grandfather's and grandmother's family in Europe.
Michalis: Do you have your grandfather here, in some picture?
Rachel: My grandfather is here. And he's there somewhere. Yes, up there. On the left.
Michalis: You had said that you had this aunt in Somaton square.
Rachel: She was grandmother's sister. The only one who is here in Athens. She was here in Athens.
Michalis: Nice.
Rachel: The others were confined in Albania. We had no contact with them.
Michalis: Who is this gentleman?
Rachel: This is the only one of my mother's sisters who married a Christian. And they had... in some way, they had disinherited her. They had thrown her out of the house. And this is the only photograph I have. Of course at some point they reconciled. When the children were born. She has two twin sons too. But it was very... I didn't know him of course. It seems he was very good.
Michalis: Who is this lady there?
Rachel: This one. She's my aunt's friend. This is my aunt's album and she was a friend of hers. My aunt who... who came, left with us at first with her husband and then we separated and I went.
Michalis: Silver Mand.
Rachel: Yes. And these are the twin children.
Michalis: Of the Christian.
Rachel: Yes.
Michalis: In this album, which relatives do you have?
Rachel: This is my aunt's album. Silver Mand. Yes, with her husband. This is a brother of hers who died very young from tuberculosis. That is, brother of my mother and my aunt.
Michalis: Would you like to show me the uncle and aunt with their names?
Rachel: Yes, Erikos and Eftychia. Silver Mand. Silver Mand. Who lived in Sepolia.
Michalis: In Sepolia.
Rachel: And this is Samikos. And this is Astro. Who also died in Albania during childbirth. And she left, that is when she gave birth, she had puerperal fever then. They had no way to save her.
Michalis: From this lady.
Rachel: This sister of yours, the name.
Michalis: Her sister. No. And my brothers, yes. And her grandchildren afterwards. Because she had a son.
Rachel: Here, who was it. Ah, the girls are gone. This is Eftychia as a bride. And we are, that is, my parents with my sister. At the wedding it must have been. So, it's Zak. Zak and Estir and Astro. Above is my grandmother and my mother.
Michalis: How old do you say Astro is here?
Rachel: This must have been in 1937 when my aunt got married. She must have been 8-9. I'm this little one and here I am with my sister.
Michalis: Before the war here?
Rachel: Yes, of course. Before the war here. Let me see if I had a date. It must have been before the war here because I'm very small. Here is another sister of my mother, Anna. Who stayed there. In Albania, that is, I never met her. And here is again my mother's sister with her husband who stayed in Volos.
Michalis: Did you have the carnival parties with them?
Rachel: No. They're cut off in Volos, no.
Michalis: This is your grandmother again, eh.
Rachel: Yes, my grandmother with my mother. I see here dad, Astro, is your mother, Silverman. And my mother's two sisters. Three rather. Three sisters of my mother. My aunt's husband. Her husband and here my mother with my father. The two sisters and my brothers in the middle.
Rachel: Yes, here is the doctor who was Christian and a whole story has been made.
Michalis: These school photographs.
Rachel: The school ones. And this is a good photograph of your uncles, like that. Yes, my aunt and my uncle. And here is my aunt, younger. And here is my father with the military uniform. Something is written on the back.
Michalis: Is this from when your father was in the war?
Rachel: Yes, I don't know, maybe it's not impossible. It says a lot on the back, which is also Italian. It's my aunt. No, it can't be my father. Different, unrelated. My mother and I are here.
Michalis: From when are you in that photograph?
Rachel: In '50, aunt. I was fourteen.
Michalis: Was that when you had moved to Acharnon?
Rachel: Fourteen. Fifty-three. Yes, then yes. My mother, I am friends of my aunt. Because it's my aunt's. Here is my mother's brother. Her sister. They had gone to the nuns, some went to Corfu to study. Here we are small.
Rachel: This one was lost in the holocaust.
Michalis: Which child?
Rachel: Here.
Michalis: Which one, do you remember what they called him?
Rachel: Samikos it must be. Samikos. Ah, it's heavenly. Here. And it's Astraki.
Michalis: No, I am.
Rachel: Ah, you are. Ah, you can't see. So it's also after the war. Or not. Well, my mother doesn't remember. Anyway I remember he was lost. This is Samikos who died when he got tuberculosis. And Astro, who died in childbirth. With the twins, my mother's sister. This one is all from Albania. In Albania.
Rachel: I'm a baby and here the same. Ah, this is my last writing.
Michalis: You're all four there.
Rachel: I have it, yes. I have it somewhere. No, not up there. And here is her sister, she lived in Volos. She had come with her daughter and we took a family photograph. Here I'm a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding.
Michalis: Is your sister on the right there?
Rachel: Yes. I was young then.
Michalis: Are you here?
Rachel: Yes, here and you two. Here at some birthday. Here we are at the party with my sister and her son.
Michalis: Ah, tell us here who are these we see.
Rachel: My mother, my sister, my mother, my father, my sister, her husband, me and her son. That child. Here is my nephew we saw before, as a baby. I think at the Bar Mitzvah. I hadn't gone then, I couldn't go. This is in Israel.
Rachel: My mother always went, for Pesach, to Israel. My father stayed alone here and they would come and stay at our house.
Michalis: And when they came to your house, did you and your husband also do Seder?
Rachel: Yes, of course. No, no, he would leave the last week, before Seder he would leave and go to Israel.
Michalis: Ah, and father.
Rachel: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Who are these here?
Rachel: Here are his colleagues. Ah, here are my father's colleagues, in Thessaloniki.
Michalis: Is Mr. Mavrogiorgis here?
Rachel: No, I don't have him in any photograph. Here it's in Israel of course.
Michalis: Who are you?
Rachel: My sister, her husband and Joseph who went in his place. Ah, there are two Josephs here. Yes. In Israel. In Israel, they went to live, when they went in 1953, they went to Tzou Moshe. It's a bit further from Atanya. And Pepes married someone who was Swiss and for some years they stayed here. And then, because her father died, they went to Switzerland and went to Zurich.
Rachel: Here we are, let's say, my own family. On the balcony here, because here they lived in the house, my parents lived in my house, where I live now. They're taken on their balcony.
Michalis: So it's on this balcony here.
Rachel: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Tell us who are the people you see.
Rachel: It's Matilda, Aliki, me and this is a daughter of one of my father's colleagues from Italy. Here are the children, dressed up, watch and lipstick.
Michalis: Was there some reason they were dressed up...
Rachel: Yes, it was carnival. It might have been our own carnival too. One day it is, yes, this could be. I am.
Michalis: Ah, you are.
Rachel: Yes, yes. At school.
Michalis: At school? High school?
Rachel: No, it's elementary here, because I see Milios, we were in fifth grade. At school it was... Bounaraki it was called then, because later it became Chatzidaki. Ah, and here the same, yes. Ah, no, here is Zivorlokoulos, who was in sixth grade.
Michalis: Show us where you are.
Rachel: Here.
Michalis: Can you show us Ellisa Fycha?
Rachel: Yes, of course. Is it you? Yes, myself.
Michalis: When?
Rachel: 1959, how old were we, March 22nd.
Michalis: Can you read what it says?
Rachel: To my beloved parents, a small memento, of a great day. And here you are from the same day. Yes. Again I've dedicated it to my father and mother, whom we love so much. A little and no one. Chaim.
Michalis: What did you call your husband?
Rachel: Yes, Chaim he was. Chaim. But he also kept that from the occupation, he had changed it to no one, so it wouldn't look Jewish. Here.
Michalis: Who do we see?
Rachel: Yes, it's Aliki and Matilda. In which house. Well, it must be. One moment. It's at 159, in the other house. Here. Yes, yes.
Michalis: And why are they wearing white?
Rachel: For the bat mitzvah. It is, we had written them specially to Akis.
Michalis: How old are they?
Rachel: Well, when they were twelve, she was born in sixty, it happened in seventy-two I think. Seventy-one or seventy-two it must be.
Michalis: Well, and in two words, what is bat mitzvah?
Rachel: It's the coming of age for girls. Supposedly from then on they can vote, they can behave like women and it's considered that they're not children.
Michalis: And where does this take place?
Rachel: In the Synagogue.
Michalis: And in which Synagogue did the bat mitzvah take place?
Rachel: In Melidonos.
Michalis: And what did they do when they were inside the Synagogue?
Rachel: I think they all sang together and each one separately said some prayer.
Michalis: In what language?
Rachel: In Hebrew. They learned Hebrew. They had given them special lessons.
Michalis: Who gave them lessons?
Rachel: Bartzilai was then at the Synagogue.
Michalis: Did they read from somewhere or say it from memory?
Rachel: They both read and said and they had learned it by heart.
Michalis: Do you remember what they read from?
Rachel: I don't remember at all.
Michalis: All these girls, who are they?
Rachel: Not one by one.
Michalis: Why are there so many girls?
Rachel: These are the girls who turned twelve that year.
Michalis: And why are they holding flowers?
Rachel: Yes because supposedly it's like a small wedding let's say. And they have to hold something. It's of innocence. And here we see they've also put flowers in their hair. Afterwards. They put those on afterwards.
Michalis: Do you remember where this is?
Rachel: Again outside the Synagogue this is. Yes it's the Great Synagogue.
Michalis: Did you do something afterwards?
Rachel: I think yes if I remember correctly. We had also invited here at home. That is at the other house where we lived. We had invited the whole family. And we all ate something together. You had. And something sweet for the good.
Michalis: And who else were at the Synagogue that day?
Rachel: The whole family was there. My cousins, my sister of course couldn't come. But the whole family was there. Who came afterwards to the house to see. Do we have any photograph from there.
Michalis: So it was an important day.
Rachel: Of course. I still remember it. I think I've still kept their dresses. As a tradition. My grandmother here. My grandmother and my grandfather. With, Astro who is above. Tili, Defteri and Victoria. Three sisters who were first. Grandfather Menachem. And it's in Avlona. In Avlona, yes. And the bottom two photographs from the wedding. My mother and my father at their wedding. And here at their engagement with my grandmother. With Rachi.