Tag #127546 - Interview #98039 (Izak Sarhon)

I was the last child of the family.  I had an older brother, Albert Sarhon and an older sister, Anjel Sarhon.  There had also been another brother before me, Nisim Sarhon, who died.  I do not know anything about him.  Our eldest, Albert left for France when he was 20, came back for his military service, then left again and settled in France.  He got married there and died there.  When World War II started, he was in France; and then the Germans invaded France.  He was in danger and had to hide.  He couldn’t write anything to us at that time.  There was a girl he knew there, a Christian girl who lived in Avignon.  She took him out of Avignon, to a village where her relatives were.  She hid and protected him throughout the war.  When the Germans came, even the little children in the village came to warn him to hide and not be seen walking around.  My brother was saved thanks to that girl.  He spent all the years of the war in that way.  Then after the war, he married that girl, Raymonde Charhon. [Charhon is the french spelling of the Turkish Sarhon] He owed his life to her.


My brother used to sell textile products at a market place in France.  They used to sell coats and things like that.  They owned a tent at that market place.

My brother had two children, Patricia and Alain.  They all live in France.

My older sister, Anjel, lived in Istanbul all her life.  She went to a French, catholic school, but I don’t remember which one.  She then worked at a firm called “Arditty”.  She used to do office work there.  She got married, then separated.  She never had any children.  None of my siblings are alive today.