Eli and Vilma Finanser's wedding

This is a photo from the wedding of my uncle and aunt, Eli and Vilma Finanser. Here you can also see my maternal grandparents. The photo was taken in Istanbul in 1949. My maternal grandmother, Ester Benezra Finanser, nee Levi, was born in Istanbul. She was 14 years old when she married Moshe Benezra. They had children immediately, twins, who didn't survive. A year later, my eldest uncle was born. My grandmother was 15 then. They had eight more children in the following years - seven boys and two girls in all - quite an achievement for my grandmother who was her parents' only child. This prompted my mother to say about her mother, 'I don't remember a time when she wasn't pregnant!' My mother was the third child, but the eldest girl. My mother had eight siblings. As she was the third child, she saw her mother pregnant most of the time and helped raise many of her siblings. She took so much care of her brother Eli, who was 18 years younger, that she loved him more like a son than a brother. She would tell me, 'He is not your uncle, he is your brother.' As I was an only child, this is how I came to have an uncle/brother. Eli Finanser attended the St. Benoit French School. He had a wholesale business of pharmacy equipment. He was married to Vilma Bubic and had two daughters, Etel and Rozi, both of whom attended the Ste. Pulchérie French School. Rozi then went on to the St. Michel Lycée and the Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied Textile Designing. Eli died in Istanbul in 1997. His wife and daughters still live here.

Photos from this interviewee