Transcription
Michalis: Mrs. Lili, was your husband from Thessaloniki?
Rachil: Yes, born there and lived there. His father had a goldsmith shop and was very well known.
Michalis: What was his name?
Rachil: Boton.
Michalis: And his father's name?
Rachil: Isaac, Isaac.
Michalis: Isaac, but what did we call him?
Rachil: Isaac Boton and he was married to... Makthilvi. She was Staporta. Staporta and Boton of course, later Makthilvi at the doors.
Michalis: Did Makthilvi have any other name?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: Now, you told us the story about how you met through Zolota's shop.
Rachil: Through Zolota. And so on.
Michalis: However, your husband was born in Thessaloniki.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: And did he spend the war there?
Rachil: No. His mother saw, she was very... afraid, meaning she had heard, she listened to radios that the Germans didn't have good intentions and she wanted to leave Thessaloniki at all costs. And she arranged it. His father had lost his morale at that time and was unable to make any decision. And she arranged and they paid something. And they left hidden on the train. By train from Thessaloniki and came to Athens to hide. And so they were saved.
Michalis: Remind me when your husband was born.
Rachil: In 1920. September 18th.
Michalis: Do you know if he was at Freedom Square when they gathered them?
Rachil: No, no. So some had already left. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know when that happened. I think... around '42. Yes, they had hidden or had left. I don't know. And they came to Athens.
Michalis: To Athens and hid here.
Rachil: Do you know the area?
Michalis: Somewhere in Exarchia.
Rachil: And they lived initially in different houses. That is, the mother lived with the two children and they kept the father separately because he had lost his morale very much. They didn't want him to betray them.
Michalis: Did your husband have a brother, sister?
Rachil: Sister, yes.
Michalis: Her name?
Rachil: Doli Nahmia. Doli Botom of course and later became Nahmia.
Michalis: Did they live with false identities?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Where did they get them from?
Rachil: Again, Embert must have supplied them. He had supplied everyone. And I heard the day before yesterday what his first name was called. I didn't remember and I heard the day before yesterday what he was called. He was called...
Michalis: The fake one?
Rachil: No, Embert's first name.
Michalis: Angelos.
Rachil: Angelos. Angelos. Yes, his father. Yes, Meltiam's. Yes.
Michalis: Did they all manage to survive in the end?
Rachil: Yes, all of them.
Michalis: And the father?
Rachil: And the father, yes.
Michalis: And after the war, where did they settle?
Rachil: They returned to Thessaloniki. Of course they found the shop looted. They found nothing left in the store. And the shop wasn't even theirs. It was rented. But they found nothing. Everything had been looted.
Michalis: How long did your husband live in Thessaloniki after the war?
Rachil: Until we got married, until 1959.
Michalis: And when did he move in 1959?
Rachil: Yes, then. That is, in 1959 he said, my mother asked him "will you take her to Thessaloniki." And he says, "no, I'll come to Athens."
Michalis: Was his father alive when you got married?
Rachil: No. He had died quite early, in 1950 I think. He had diabetes and they had lost him.
Michalis: So you mentioned that Mamfilti came with her son?
Rachil: Yes, of course. And I stayed on Kodiktonou Street. She had rented a house on Kodiktonou Street.
Michalis: And where were you living then?
Rachil: On 3rd September, very close. At 3rd September 159. And his sister, who married Nahmia, lived at the corner of Aristotelous and Agios Meletios. We were all within...
Michalis: Since you mention it, what was Nahmia's name?
Rachil: Moïs. Moïsis.
Michalis: Where was he from?
Rachil: Also from Thessaloniki.
Michalis: When you had your first child, did you send him to Jewish school?
Rachil: No, there was no Jewish school then?
Michalis: When was he born?
Rachil: In 1960. Because others in 1961, there was no Jewish school.
Michalis: So what was the children's relationship with their Jewish identity?
Rachil: Then we were much more connected than we are now. There was also the Club then. Which was on Karnaiadou Street if I remember correctly. And we had a very strong bond among us young people. So we socialized a lot with everyone. I remember we went on vacation with a couple that she also had. With the Alchanatis. We vacationed in Skiathos together. Because we arranged through the Club to leave together, to go on vacation together.
Michalis: So even when you were married, you sought contact with the community.
Rachil: Yes, we had a lot of contact, not like now where it's only the cultural center where they gather. Athens was also smaller. We didn't have... everyone lived there, then they started leaving toward Kifissia and toward Psychiko and Filothei. Everyone was in the center.
Michalis: You had mentioned a special relationship your husband had with religion, with holidays.
Rachil: Not very much, he wasn't very much. My father was more so. Who continued to live in the same fear here. Yes, always here and we celebrated all the holidays here.
Michalis: With the children?
Rachil: With the children of course.
Michalis: So it was thanks to your parents that the children experienced these holidays?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And my younger daughter, let's say, still keeps it very much because she married someone who is also Abravanel. She keeps it more than the older one who moved away a bit from religion.
Michalis: When your daughters got married, where did they get married?
Rachil: One didn't have a ceremony. Because the groom wasn't Jewish, they made a cohabitation agreement which was quite rare at that time, in 1990. They made this cohabitation agreement and I remember very well that people asked me if she was married and I said yes. Because I was ashamed to say she made a cohabitation agreement.
Michalis: A civil marriage then?
Rachil: No. Cohabitation agreement. Yes, nothing. Cohabitation agreement. Which was rare at that time.
Michalis: Who was that one?
Rachil: Matilta. Matina. And Ali got married normally in the synagogue.
Michalis: Do you remember who married her? Let me give you two names and you tell me. Was it Arour or Mizan from the Rabbis?
Rachil: Mizak must have been. Mizak Mizan? Yes, yes.
Michalis: And do you remember that day?
Rachil: Let me remember. I remember nothing. I have to start from the photograph. And remember who it was. Yes of course. His mother was there too. Alex's mother was alive. Alex Abravanel's. Yes, none of my parents were alive. And my husband was alive because he died in 2004. And we didn't do anything afterward, I remember well. Oh yes, everyone had come home. That is, the family, not everyone. They had come to our house and I had prepared something. And we all ate something together.
Michalis: But do you remember having a chuppah?
Rachil: Yes, yes, normally of course. Yes.
Michalis: Did Alex step on a glass?
Rachil: Down, threw it. Maybe, maybe, I don't remember that. My daughter would remember better.
Michalis: Good. Now, let me ask you a bit. Astro got married first.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: And you said she went to Israel.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Do you remember when she went to Israel?
Rachil: In 1953. She got married in 1950. Bartzilai married her. And she went in 1953.
Michalis: Why?
Rachil: Because her husband, due to the fact that he had gone in place of his cousin to Ikaria in exile, when he returned he had a file that he was a communist and they wouldn't give him a work permit. Since he had studied to be a doctor, he wanted to practice his profession. And he was forced to go to the hospital, to Evangelismos. Then there was some administrator named Floros, if I remember the name correctly. And he liked him and took him with him. But he, that is, he was also paid well. He had good compensation, but he wasn't, he didn't practice, he wasn't a free professional. He wanted to become a doctor. And when people had come to Evangelismos from Israel to see how a hospital works, in 1950-1951, I don't remember. No, 1950 he got married. Maybe he was still working then. They told him, "what are you doing here, since over there we need doctors in our hospitals." And when he heard this, he jumped for joy.
Michalis: And you said they went to Tsur Moshe?
Rachil: Yes, they went once on a trip to Israel to see what the situation was like. They returned and then in 1953 they left and he went as a doctor to Tsur Moshe.
Michalis: And did they have their children there?
Rachil: Yes, the first was born in 1955 and the second in 1961.
Michalis: And just out of curiosity. How did Astro take this?
Rachil: She wasn't happy at all but she loved so much. Tzefi, she didn't even think about it. It didn't cross her mind not to follow him.
Michalis: You called him Tzefi.
Rachil: Yes, Tzefi. Tzefi. We called him from Joseph.
Michalis: Is this a nickname from Ioannina, let's say?
Rachil: Probably, yes, yes. And he was from Albania, he was from Albania.
Michalis: But you also said before when looking at the photos someone you called Pepe?
Rachil: Pepe. Also Joseph.
Michalis: Good. So you called Astro's husband Tzefi and the other one Pepe.
Rachil: Good. Pepe stayed in Greece.
Michalis: Yes, of course.
Rachil: Didn't he have a file?
Michalis: No.
Rachil: OK. And where did he work afterward?
Michalis: He worked in a, he was a civil engineer and worked in a very well-known company, a foreign company.
Rachil: What relationship did your husband maintain with Thessaloniki after the war?
Michalis: From the beginning when I met him he told me that I want to leave Thessaloniki. He didn't have very good relationships with anyone. That is, although he had his friends there, I remember he had two very good friends, he was happy to leave Thessaloniki. I don't know, for some reason some hatred had remained with him. I don't know, because the Thessalonians didn't behave like the Athenians behaved, I don't know. I can't understand, that is, I imagine, I understand it but I don't know the deeper reason. He wanted to leave.
Rachil: Had your husband gone to school in Thessaloniki?
Michalis: No, he went to a French school at Alliance.
Rachil: And did he speak French?
Michalis: And he spoke French like a native language.
Rachil: In what language did he speak with his parents?
Michalis: French.
Rachil: But with his children, with your children?
Michalis: With my children we spoke Greek at home.
Rachil: I saw though that here there are some books from Thessaloniki.
Michalis: Yes, OK.
Rachil: And after the war.
Michalis: Yes, yes. He kept them, that is, OK it was his birthplace.
Rachil: Was there a pride though, at least from his mother, about being from Thessaloniki?
Michalis: From Thessaloniki. I don't know this because the whole family had some aversion after the war. I don't know why. That is, I understand why. Because they considered the city hostile to them. I don't know why. Maybe because so many left.
Rachil: Did he lose relatives?
Michalis: Not many close relatives. Some had left before and not, and they left afterward too. Many, very many of his relatives. They went to South America, to Mexico.
Rachil: Had other relatives from his family come down to Athens?
Michalis: I don't think so. But those who went to Mexico left before the war. I don't remember this.
Rachil: Do you remember how they lived during the occupation, how they made a living when they were hiding?
Michalis: Yes, how they lived. With what money, eh. They must have brought money with them because here they had no way to... to live otherwise. They must have had money with them.
Rachil: What attracted you to him as a man?
Michalis: At first when Lalaouni suggested I meet him, I saw him once and something, I don't remember what it was. Maybe I liked someone else at that time and I said I wasn't interested. And he didn't insist of course. But every time I went to the shop on Aiolou Street where we had our office on Kratinou Street with my father where I worked with him and he was on Aiolou Street where the National Bank is now. And every time I went he told me you made a mistake not getting to know him better. You made a mistake not getting to know him. And a year and a half later, I remember because I don't know why he says he pursued me for a year and a half, I said OK let him come. OK something cooled off with the other one I had a small relationship with, let's say nothing, we went out together and a little to get to know him. And he came, he came because he traveled all over Greece, he was selling his watches then and when he came we went out together for some time and we went together. And again he came again and again we went out and he was very polite and very well-behaved with very good manners. And this, that is, gradually I liked him and I said why not.
Rachil: Did you ever talk to each other about your experiences from the war?
Michalis: He told me much more. And because I was also very young we didn't discuss so much. Later I got the urge and said why don't I write what the story says and I tried to extract from my aunt and from my sister and from my mother and from my father the whole story and I very much wanted to write it sometime but I'm not very good at composition and that's why it remained like that.
Rachil describes how her family celebrated Passover and Hanukkah in Athens. On Passover, they would gather with the Nahmia family, reading the Haggadah and singing in Ladino, while the table was set with traditional foods such as matzah, charoset, chicken soup, and lamb. For Hanukkah, they lit the menorah every night. Although the children did not know Hebrew, they actively participated in the rituals, maintaining their connection to their Jewish heritage.
Rachel tells Michalis the story of her late husband, who came from a Jewish family in Thessaloniki. His father, Isaac Boton, owned a well-known goldsmith's shop in the city. When the war began, his mother, Makthilvi, sensing the danger, organized the family's escape to Athens, where they hid with false identities in Exarchia. After the war, they returned to Thessaloniki but found their shop looted. The interview reveals the couple's life in Athens after their marriage in 1959, their relationship with the Jewish community, their children's choices regarding their religious identity, and the story of her sister who emigrated to Israel. It also highlights her husband's complex feelings towards Thessaloniki after his experiences during the war.
Rachel Alkalai (Botton)
Transcription
Michalis: Mrs. Lili, was your husband from Thessaloniki?
Rachil: Yes, born there and lived there. His father had a goldsmith shop and was very well known.
Michalis: What was his name?
Rachil: Boton.
Michalis: And his father's name?
Rachil: Isaac, Isaac.
Michalis: Isaac, but what did we call him?
Rachil: Isaac Boton and he was married to... Makthilvi. She was Staporta. Staporta and Boton of course, later Makthilvi at the doors.
Michalis: Did Makthilvi have any other name?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: Now, you told us the story about how you met through Zolota's shop.
Rachil: Through Zolota. And so on.
Michalis: However, your husband was born in Thessaloniki.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: And did he spend the war there?
Rachil: No. His mother saw, she was very... afraid, meaning she had heard, she listened to radios that the Germans didn't have good intentions and she wanted to leave Thessaloniki at all costs. And she arranged it. His father had lost his morale at that time and was unable to make any decision. And she arranged and they paid something. And they left hidden on the train. By train from Thessaloniki and came to Athens to hide. And so they were saved.
Michalis: Remind me when your husband was born.
Rachil: In 1920. September 18th.
Michalis: Do you know if he was at Freedom Square when they gathered them?
Rachil: No, no. So some had already left. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know when that happened. I think... around '42. Yes, they had hidden or had left. I don't know. And they came to Athens.
Michalis: To Athens and hid here.
Rachil: Do you know the area?
Michalis: Somewhere in Exarchia.
Rachil: And they lived initially in different houses. That is, the mother lived with the two children and they kept the father separately because he had lost his morale very much. They didn't want him to betray them.
Michalis: Did your husband have a brother, sister?
Rachil: Sister, yes.
Michalis: Her name?
Rachil: Doli Nahmia. Doli Botom of course and later became Nahmia.
Michalis: Did they live with false identities?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Where did they get them from?
Rachil: Again, Embert must have supplied them. He had supplied everyone. And I heard the day before yesterday what his first name was called. I didn't remember and I heard the day before yesterday what he was called. He was called...
Michalis: The fake one?
Rachil: No, Embert's first name.
Michalis: Angelos.
Rachil: Angelos. Angelos. Yes, his father. Yes, Meltiam's. Yes.
Michalis: Did they all manage to survive in the end?
Rachil: Yes, all of them.
Michalis: And the father?
Rachil: And the father, yes.
Michalis: And after the war, where did they settle?
Rachil: They returned to Thessaloniki. Of course they found the shop looted. They found nothing left in the store. And the shop wasn't even theirs. It was rented. But they found nothing. Everything had been looted.
Michalis: How long did your husband live in Thessaloniki after the war?
Rachil: Until we got married, until 1959.
Michalis: And when did he move in 1959?
Rachil: Yes, then. That is, in 1959 he said, my mother asked him "will you take her to Thessaloniki." And he says, "no, I'll come to Athens."
Michalis: Was his father alive when you got married?
Rachil: No. He had died quite early, in 1950 I think. He had diabetes and they had lost him.
Michalis: So you mentioned that Mamfilti came with her son?
Rachil: Yes, of course. And I stayed on Kodiktonou Street. She had rented a house on Kodiktonou Street.
Michalis: And where were you living then?
Rachil: On 3rd September, very close. At 3rd September 159. And his sister, who married Nahmia, lived at the corner of Aristotelous and Agios Meletios. We were all within...
Michalis: Since you mention it, what was Nahmia's name?
Rachil: Moïs. Moïsis.
Michalis: Where was he from?
Rachil: Also from Thessaloniki.
Michalis: When you had your first child, did you send him to Jewish school?
Rachil: No, there was no Jewish school then?
Michalis: When was he born?
Rachil: In 1960. Because others in 1961, there was no Jewish school.
Michalis: So what was the children's relationship with their Jewish identity?
Rachil: Then we were much more connected than we are now. There was also the Club then. Which was on Karnaiadou Street if I remember correctly. And we had a very strong bond among us young people. So we socialized a lot with everyone. I remember we went on vacation with a couple that she also had. With the Alchanatis. We vacationed in Skiathos together. Because we arranged through the Club to leave together, to go on vacation together.
Michalis: So even when you were married, you sought contact with the community.
Rachil: Yes, we had a lot of contact, not like now where it's only the cultural center where they gather. Athens was also smaller. We didn't have... everyone lived there, then they started leaving toward Kifissia and toward Psychiko and Filothei. Everyone was in the center.
Michalis: You had mentioned a special relationship your husband had with religion, with holidays.
Rachil: Not very much, he wasn't very much. My father was more so. Who continued to live in the same fear here. Yes, always here and we celebrated all the holidays here.
Michalis: With the children?
Rachil: With the children of course.
Michalis: So it was thanks to your parents that the children experienced these holidays?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And my younger daughter, let's say, still keeps it very much because she married someone who is also Abravanel. She keeps it more than the older one who moved away a bit from religion.
Michalis: When your daughters got married, where did they get married?
Rachil: One didn't have a ceremony. Because the groom wasn't Jewish, they made a cohabitation agreement which was quite rare at that time, in 1990. They made this cohabitation agreement and I remember very well that people asked me if she was married and I said yes. Because I was ashamed to say she made a cohabitation agreement.
Michalis: A civil marriage then?
Rachil: No. Cohabitation agreement. Yes, nothing. Cohabitation agreement. Which was rare at that time.
Michalis: Who was that one?
Rachil: Matilta. Matina. And Ali got married normally in the synagogue.
Michalis: Do you remember who married her? Let me give you two names and you tell me. Was it Arour or Mizan from the Rabbis?
Rachil: Mizak must have been. Mizak Mizan? Yes, yes.
Michalis: And do you remember that day?
Rachil: Let me remember. I remember nothing. I have to start from the photograph. And remember who it was. Yes of course. His mother was there too. Alex's mother was alive. Alex Abravanel's. Yes, none of my parents were alive. And my husband was alive because he died in 2004. And we didn't do anything afterward, I remember well. Oh yes, everyone had come home. That is, the family, not everyone. They had come to our house and I had prepared something. And we all ate something together.
Michalis: But do you remember having a chuppah?
Rachil: Yes, yes, normally of course. Yes.
Michalis: Did Alex step on a glass?
Rachil: Down, threw it. Maybe, maybe, I don't remember that. My daughter would remember better.
Michalis: Good. Now, let me ask you a bit. Astro got married first.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: And you said she went to Israel.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Do you remember when she went to Israel?
Rachil: In 1953. She got married in 1950. Bartzilai married her. And she went in 1953.
Michalis: Why?
Rachil: Because her husband, due to the fact that he had gone in place of his cousin to Ikaria in exile, when he returned he had a file that he was a communist and they wouldn't give him a work permit. Since he had studied to be a doctor, he wanted to practice his profession. And he was forced to go to the hospital, to Evangelismos. Then there was some administrator named Floros, if I remember the name correctly. And he liked him and took him with him. But he, that is, he was also paid well. He had good compensation, but he wasn't, he didn't practice, he wasn't a free professional. He wanted to become a doctor. And when people had come to Evangelismos from Israel to see how a hospital works, in 1950-1951, I don't remember. No, 1950 he got married. Maybe he was still working then. They told him, "what are you doing here, since over there we need doctors in our hospitals." And when he heard this, he jumped for joy.
Michalis: And you said they went to Tsur Moshe?
Rachil: Yes, they went once on a trip to Israel to see what the situation was like. They returned and then in 1953 they left and he went as a doctor to Tsur Moshe.
Michalis: And did they have their children there?
Rachil: Yes, the first was born in 1955 and the second in 1961.
Michalis: And just out of curiosity. How did Astro take this?
Rachil: She wasn't happy at all but she loved so much. Tzefi, she didn't even think about it. It didn't cross her mind not to follow him.
Michalis: You called him Tzefi.
Rachil: Yes, Tzefi. Tzefi. We called him from Joseph.
Michalis: Is this a nickname from Ioannina, let's say?
Rachil: Probably, yes, yes. And he was from Albania, he was from Albania.
Michalis: But you also said before when looking at the photos someone you called Pepe?
Rachil: Pepe. Also Joseph.
Michalis: Good. So you called Astro's husband Tzefi and the other one Pepe.
Rachil: Good. Pepe stayed in Greece.
Michalis: Yes, of course.
Rachil: Didn't he have a file?
Michalis: No.
Rachil: OK. And where did he work afterward?
Michalis: He worked in a, he was a civil engineer and worked in a very well-known company, a foreign company.
Rachil: What relationship did your husband maintain with Thessaloniki after the war?
Michalis: From the beginning when I met him he told me that I want to leave Thessaloniki. He didn't have very good relationships with anyone. That is, although he had his friends there, I remember he had two very good friends, he was happy to leave Thessaloniki. I don't know, for some reason some hatred had remained with him. I don't know, because the Thessalonians didn't behave like the Athenians behaved, I don't know. I can't understand, that is, I imagine, I understand it but I don't know the deeper reason. He wanted to leave.
Rachil: Had your husband gone to school in Thessaloniki?
Michalis: No, he went to a French school at Alliance.
Rachil: And did he speak French?
Michalis: And he spoke French like a native language.
Rachil: In what language did he speak with his parents?
Michalis: French.
Rachil: But with his children, with your children?
Michalis: With my children we spoke Greek at home.
Rachil: I saw though that here there are some books from Thessaloniki.
Michalis: Yes, OK.
Rachil: And after the war.
Michalis: Yes, yes. He kept them, that is, OK it was his birthplace.
Rachil: Was there a pride though, at least from his mother, about being from Thessaloniki?
Michalis: From Thessaloniki. I don't know this because the whole family had some aversion after the war. I don't know why. That is, I understand why. Because they considered the city hostile to them. I don't know why. Maybe because so many left.
Rachil: Did he lose relatives?
Michalis: Not many close relatives. Some had left before and not, and they left afterward too. Many, very many of his relatives. They went to South America, to Mexico.
Rachil: Had other relatives from his family come down to Athens?
Michalis: I don't think so. But those who went to Mexico left before the war. I don't remember this.
Rachil: Do you remember how they lived during the occupation, how they made a living when they were hiding?
Michalis: Yes, how they lived. With what money, eh. They must have brought money with them because here they had no way to... to live otherwise. They must have had money with them.
Rachil: What attracted you to him as a man?
Michalis: At first when Lalaouni suggested I meet him, I saw him once and something, I don't remember what it was. Maybe I liked someone else at that time and I said I wasn't interested. And he didn't insist of course. But every time I went to the shop on Aiolou Street where we had our office on Kratinou Street with my father where I worked with him and he was on Aiolou Street where the National Bank is now. And every time I went he told me you made a mistake not getting to know him better. You made a mistake not getting to know him. And a year and a half later, I remember because I don't know why he says he pursued me for a year and a half, I said OK let him come. OK something cooled off with the other one I had a small relationship with, let's say nothing, we went out together and a little to get to know him. And he came, he came because he traveled all over Greece, he was selling his watches then and when he came we went out together for some time and we went together. And again he came again and again we went out and he was very polite and very well-behaved with very good manners. And this, that is, gradually I liked him and I said why not.
Rachil: Did you ever talk to each other about your experiences from the war?
Michalis: He told me much more. And because I was also very young we didn't discuss so much. Later I got the urge and said why don't I write what the story says and I tried to extract from my aunt and from my sister and from my mother and from my father the whole story and I very much wanted to write it sometime but I'm not very good at composition and that's why it remained like that.