Tag #123963 - Interview #78792 (Harun Bozo)

I was in Urfa during the first years of World War II. Only we had a radio in the Jewish quarter of Urfa. The radio broadcast news of the world. The whole neighborhood would come to our house to listen to the news. Everyone wanted to know if the Germans were coming and if we were going to go to war. When I came to Istanbul in 1943, and the Germans had arrived at the borders of Greece and Bulgaria we got really scared. At that time some people who weren't from Urfa came to Urfa to be safe. There was no sugar, no bread. You could only get those things with a certificate. In those years, Kuledibi [district around the Galata Tower in Istanbul] was the Jewish neighborhood. When I looked out the window at night, I saw the city was really dark. All the windows were covered with black paper. Even though we were students, we were given bread certificates, too. My family was glued to the radio. We listened to a reporter called Nurettin Aslan on the radio. He used to report the war news. We felt terrible when we heard about what was happening to the Jews. We didn't have any family members who died in the Holocaust. I've never met any survivors. I've heard about the Struma ship [12] of course, but I don't know any details.