Tag #123566 - Interview #97435 (Albert Arditi)

Students attending universities also had to take a mandatory course pertaining to the military. The Architecture and Civil Engineering faculty took this class together with the faculties of Literature and Fine Arts in an amphitheatre. An army officer taught this class. When I was a sophomore in college, the officer in question began teaching us the Wealth Tax. [11] What I remember was that he was not teaching the subject in an objective manner, but he rather added his own subjective views. He would say “The Wealth Tax had to be implemented to save us from the non-Muslims. They nearly robbed us of all our businesses. Now we will have a chance to see what they can do without any capital.” When they heard this, all of my classmates began looking at me – wondering if and how I would respond. I remember smiling back at them in extreme sorrow because my family had personally been affected by the taxes as well. But, I believe that if there is one thing a person should not lose - no matter what - that is his honor and dignity.

After the Wealth Tax had been implemented, my father’s capital drained. My family went through very tough times. But, amongst all of those tough times, we were still able to find hope. The tradesmen, from whom my father bought wholesale goods for his store, came to the rescue, and embraced my family. They told my father “Whatever you see in our stores is yours. Take whatever you want, and you can pay us back whenever you can. This is what we have to do for you.” They encouraged my father tremendously. It was as if life had restarted for us…