Tel Aviv, 2016
Barcelona was so… for us it was something very important
My name is Adina Sides. My maiden name is Gattegno. My father is Alberto Gattegno, my mother Vida Gattegno and we were three siblings, two brothers and me.
We were in Thessaloniki and as my grandfather was president of the Jewish Community we had very many acquaintances and we were always invited to very important places. At home we usually spoke French. With my grandfather and my grandmother on my mother’s side we spoke Ladino. With my grandfather, my father, we spoke French and when I went to school I spoke Greek, we were studying Greek. Then, unfortunately in 1943 the deportation of Jews took place. My grandfather unfortunately was taken, [he did not have Spanish nationality] he was deported [to Auschwitz]. It was really sad to see how they were taken from there. And then came our turn. We were, they took us, anyway you know everything that came about, until thank G-d in October of 1944, it was my fourteenth birthday, we were, it was the first day we arrived in Barcelona [from Bergen-Belsen]. Barcelona is so… for us it was something very important. And indeed, later on, that story was acknowledged, everything that happened.