Tag #126988 - Interview #97701 (Albert Ozlevi )

I was in the Sirkeci synagogue the morning of the bombing in November of 2003 [12]. There was a rumor of a bombing for a while but no one quite understood what happened. Our usher, Yusuf Reyna tried to finish the tefila(prayer), saying nothing happened. I normally keep my phone turned off but that day I forgot to and my phone rang, my son said where are you, I said I am at the temple. How can you still stay there, two synagogues were bombed, he said. We left the tefila halfway and went out. In reality, it was wrong for the usher to try and finish the tefila, something could have happened here too, we should have evacuated rightaway. Of course we were very upset with the events.