Tag #123550 - Interview #97435 (Albert Arditi)

I cannot say there was a lot of anti-Semitism in our neighborhood. We all grew up together, like brothers and sisters, regardless of religion. In some cases, children from outside our neighborhood would come to ours to pick a fight – mostly with the Jewish children - but they would generally return disappointed. According to them, we were this neighborhood’s Jews. In this respect, we were part of our neighborhood, and we could not be touched by others. If kids from other neighborhoods ever made a pass to our girlfriends, we would strike back, hard. I think there was a stronger sense of solidarity among everyone back then. For example, the village headman for Yeldegirmeni was a Jew named Haribi Nesim. My point is that back then even Jews could govern neighborhoods, towns, etc…