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remember Bitola as a very cultured city. Bitola was an elite city, even more so than Skopje. It was called the city of the consuls. There was this French school. Not every city had one. French women, nuns, taught in the school. It was a modern city. When you went out on the promenade you were dressed up. Everyone went. Life wasn't divided into the religious and the non-religious. We all lived together. Religion was honored in the kal, in the church [synagogue]. Life was all together. There were a lot of poor people and a lot of traders who were well off.
There were two sections of the Jewish quarter, 'la Tabane' and 'la Kalaze', plus a section for the poor, called Ciflik. There were no markers separating the neighborhoods but everyone knew where they were. Someone would ask, 'Where do you live?' and the other would reply, 'a la Tabane' or 'a la Ciflik'. Ciflik was like a ghetto. Everyone had one room. There was a basement. Maybe forty people lived there. There was a communal toilet and kitchen. The residents raised donkeys and went around to villages trading things. They were porters. The lower class lived there. I lived in the neighborhood called la Tabane.
La Tabane had its kal; Kalaze had its kal. In Tabane, where I lived, there were three temples. I don't remember their names. There were bigger and smaller ones, but the biggest was in la Kalaze, Aragon.
There were two sections of the Jewish quarter, 'la Tabane' and 'la Kalaze', plus a section for the poor, called Ciflik. There were no markers separating the neighborhoods but everyone knew where they were. Someone would ask, 'Where do you live?' and the other would reply, 'a la Tabane' or 'a la Ciflik'. Ciflik was like a ghetto. Everyone had one room. There was a basement. Maybe forty people lived there. There was a communal toilet and kitchen. The residents raised donkeys and went around to villages trading things. They were porters. The lower class lived there. I lived in the neighborhood called la Tabane.
La Tabane had its kal; Kalaze had its kal. In Tabane, where I lived, there were three temples. I don't remember their names. There were bigger and smaller ones, but the biggest was in la Kalaze, Aragon.
Location
Bitola
North Macedonia
Interview
roza kamhi