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The Turks would treat us badly in Urfa. Sometimes we were scared to even go out into the streets. They would swear at us because we were Jews and they would throw stones at the girls. I got beaten up many times as I was going to school. However, even though rarely, there were times when we went into partnership with non-Jewish families. There were two sorts of families in Urfa, the Kurds and the Arabs. We usually did business with the Arabs. The Arab villagers were very nice people. When these people came to the city they used to stay at our house. We used to cook for them. They would eat and then they would purchase goods from my father. These Arabs were poor but good people. The city people, on the other hand, always looked down on the Jews. They regarded us as flies and this hurt our pride really badly.
My father also had a neighbor called Hasan Demirkol. When I was seven or eight years old, he was probably 50-60 years old. He was supposedly my father's best friend. One day on the street, he took a stone in his hand and came at me crying, 'Jew.' After many years, when this man came to Istanbul, he did some shopping at my father's store as if nothing had happened. I cannot forget the bad personality of this man. One day in Istanbul, this man came to our shop and started shouting at us. I told him, 'Hey, this is not Urfa, so you'd better be careful.
My father also had a neighbor called Hasan Demirkol. When I was seven or eight years old, he was probably 50-60 years old. He was supposedly my father's best friend. One day on the street, he took a stone in his hand and came at me crying, 'Jew.' After many years, when this man came to Istanbul, he did some shopping at my father's store as if nothing had happened. I cannot forget the bad personality of this man. One day in Istanbul, this man came to our shop and started shouting at us. I told him, 'Hey, this is not Urfa, so you'd better be careful.
Location
Urfa/Şanlıurfa
Türkiye
Interview
Harun Bozo