Farewell to Salonica: City at the Crossroads

Leon Sciaky

1946

Our classroom was on the upper floor and in the rear of the building. Its two large windows opened on a garden which, because it could be reached only by crossing M. Shalom’s apartment, was forbidden to the children. No one entered it, so that whatever treasure—pocketknife, sling, or cherished agate—was inadvertently dropped from the windows…

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Creator Bio

Leon Sciaky

1893–1958

Born in Salonika when it was still an Ottoman territory, Leon Sciaky was deeply committed to his hometown. Of Sephardic descent, his family had established themselves there as merchants after the Spanish expulsion, and they continued to speak Ladino at home into the twentieth century. In 1915, in the midst of the turbulence brought about by World War I, Sciaky’s family left for the United States and settled in upstate New York, where he worked as a history teacher.

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