Tag #124373 - Interview #97985 (Samuel Coyas)

I started school at the 45th state Jewish elementary school in Kuzguncuk in 1929. The school changed its building three times. Finally, it moved to the very big house of Marko Pasha [9], which was situated in the upper part of Kuzguncuk. Turkish grammar was the subject which I liked most and was most successful at in school. I was a good student, in general. Our next-door neighbor, Madam Viktorya, taught me French for free. I owe the little bit of French I speak today to her. We didn’t have much of a regular reading habit. There were only religious books in French and Hebrew, which had been left from my grandfather, at home. Later on, as I grew up, I started reading novels by writers like Alexandre Dumas [(1802-1870): French novelist and dramatist], and Michel Zevaco [(1860-1918): French novelist, professor and filmmaker] in Turkish. I even used to read one page to my mother each night. She liked this very much.