Tag #139491 - Interview #88203 (Avram Aleksander Mosic)

I remember best the period between the two world wars. We played in Dorcol among ourselves and we did not care at all who was of which religion or nationality, in general we knew each other by nicknames. In the school where I studied in close proximity to the Sabor church there were a lot of Jewish students. Around 30 students were in the grade, and if someone was called Adanja, and someone Mosic or Bararon they were Jews, but as was said earlier we knew each other by nicknames and no one paid attention who was of which religion and we did all this playing in Kalemegdan. There were also harmless children's fights between the students of Realka and the First Male Gymnasium, but there were no injuries. That was how territory was possessed and they were child's play that is played in every neighborhood in every city and in retrospect it is very cute. I knew all the kids from my generation in Dorcol. Now I will tell you something about Dorcol, when Jews in the XVII century moved to Dorcol from Savamala, that is the Sava mahala, this is a Serbian and also Sephardic verbal contraction, it is then mala with a long »a« , they moved northward from Dusanova Street that is between Dusanova Street and the banks of the Dunav. Today this remains Jewish Street, once it was Mojsijev Street. It is between Tadeusa Koscuska  and Dubrovacka Streets. We have a picture in the Jewish Historical Museum of how it looked in the XIX century. However, after the Turks left in the second half of the XIX century an economic boom came to Serbia and to the Jewish communities. Those families that were poor moved into the middle class, they moved to the west from Jalija via Dusanova Street to the area called Zerek, slope from Uzun Mirkova Street to Dusanova. Today there are still Jewish residents on Strahinica Bana, Jovanova, Jevremova streets to Uzun Mirkova and Vasina streets. When I was a kid all the Mosics already lived in this part of town, therefore all the Mosics fell into the middle class.