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This picture was taken in 1906. You can see my father, Haim Pardo, as an eight-year-old boy and his friends in Monastir (today Bitola).
He is the one on the right next to the dog statue. I don't know the names of the other children.
My father's family came from Portugal and they ended up in Monastir, a small town in Serbia.
My grandfather on my father’s side was named David Pardo and was married to Lea Kamhi. They had five children: my father and four daughters who were all born in Monastir.
My father was born in 1898. His mother tongue was Spanish. In addition to the German language, which he probably learnt at the German school he attended, he spoke French fluently and also Greek.
I don't know if he went to school for that, I think he learnt Greek by himself, but he spoke and wrote it very well. He was also very keen on learning, he was a philomath.
Sometime between 1914-1916 he moved with his family to Thessalonica. His father was probably sick because he started working and fighting for survival very early on in his life.
In Thessalonica my father started as an employee and then created his own business, a commercial shop, 'Pardiko,' on 28 Tsimiski Street. It was an electrical shop.
