Tag #124203 - Interview #97985 (Samuel Coyas)

When he was doing his military service in Tekirdag [a city in the Thrace region, where many Jews lived], he met Merkada Saltiel, the daughter of one of the rich families of the city. They fell in love and got married. They immigrated to Cuba in 1924, due to unemployment, after their three daughters – Estreya, Vida and Fortune – were born. There, they had a son, whom they named Izak. They stayed in Havana for six years, and returned to Istanbul in 1930, when the circumstances over there also got worse. I remember the day on which they arrived, on a big ship, at the Istanbul Port, very well. We – my mother, my uncle and I – went to meet them. They settled down in Azap Kapi [a district on the European side of Istanbul] later on. His wife was a dressmaker. My uncle, on the other hand, never had a decent job all his life. He did everything, but never stuck to any of his jobs. At some stage, he even opened up a hamburger-shop in Persembe Bazaar [a trade center in Karakoy].