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I went to primary school at the Italian San Pietro school [Italian Catholic high school in Istanbul]. This school was beside the San Pietro Church in Kuledibi. I studied there for a year. From there I transferred to the Italian school [Italian Catholic high school in Istanbul] in Tophane and studied there until grade five, in other words I finished primary school there. These were all schools that belonged to the Italian government and they were free. Everything was free, not only the schools but the books and notebooks and uniforms, they gave all that for free. It was something really wonderful.
One of the lessons I liked most was mathematics. I liked it a lot and I was really very successful at it. I was always first in my class in primary school. From grade 2 till grade 5, I was first of my class every year. I was first of my class for 4 years. When I was in primary school I liked my Italian language teacher very much. He was a very nice man and he liked me a lot, too. There was also a gym teacher that I did not like very much; I did not hate him but I didn’t like him. He was a very strict teacher and I couldn’t do most of the exercises he wanted us to do. For example, there was jumping and I had difficulty doing those jumps and he used to get angry with me. Then there was climbing ropes but I couldn’t do that either, the rope used to slip from my hands and I couldn’t climb, so he would get angry again. I didn’t like his getting angry with me. So I went to his classes very unwillingly only because I had to. That is why I did not feel very nice towards that particular teacher.
At that time, in our school we didn’t know what antisemitism or such thing was. There was no differentiation between Jewish, Catholic or Muslims. We had students who belonged to all three religions but there was never a day when one told the other “you are like that, we are like this”. It was really very nice then.
I did not have any private lessons in music or languages. We had such lessons in school. We had lovely music lessons, we had singing lessons. We learned how to read music and we used to sing all together. We never learned to play an instrument though.
One of the lessons I liked most was mathematics. I liked it a lot and I was really very successful at it. I was always first in my class in primary school. From grade 2 till grade 5, I was first of my class every year. I was first of my class for 4 years. When I was in primary school I liked my Italian language teacher very much. He was a very nice man and he liked me a lot, too. There was also a gym teacher that I did not like very much; I did not hate him but I didn’t like him. He was a very strict teacher and I couldn’t do most of the exercises he wanted us to do. For example, there was jumping and I had difficulty doing those jumps and he used to get angry with me. Then there was climbing ropes but I couldn’t do that either, the rope used to slip from my hands and I couldn’t climb, so he would get angry again. I didn’t like his getting angry with me. So I went to his classes very unwillingly only because I had to. That is why I did not feel very nice towards that particular teacher.
At that time, in our school we didn’t know what antisemitism or such thing was. There was no differentiation between Jewish, Catholic or Muslims. We had students who belonged to all three religions but there was never a day when one told the other “you are like that, we are like this”. It was really very nice then.
I did not have any private lessons in music or languages. We had such lessons in school. We had lovely music lessons, we had singing lessons. We learned how to read music and we used to sing all together. We never learned to play an instrument though.
Location
Beyoğlu/İstanbul
Türkiye
Interview
Sami Schilton