Mico and Mary Alvo with the Kazazis couple

This is a picture taken at the ball of Anatolia College. Mari and I are with Filotas Kazazis (second from left), and his wife Sophia Kazazis (second from right).

Filotas Kazazis was a partner of Angel before and after the war. They had a factory that produced strings in Chalkidiki Street, close to our home.

I still remember Kazazis senior and Angel walking to King George tram stop to take the tram. The two together were like brothers, because they were of the same height and age. Their children continued the partnership.

Filotas Kazazis and his brother Kostas run the factory here and the Angels in Athens. Thanks to Angel, who was very active, they were exclusive agents of a famous Company, the Ferlon zips. These were the first plastic zips that were distributed in Greece. They made a lot of money.

But then, the two brothers broke with each other. The son of Kostas Kazazis married the daughter of Angel, acquired the majority of the company, threw Filotas out of the company and the end result was that the company went bankrupt.

After the war, we moved to the ground floor of our house around 1953. We made some general repairs in the top floor apartment and we rented it out. While we were repairing it, an old lady was passing by.

She rang the bell and asked us, "I see that you are repairing the apartment at the top floor. Are you by any chance thinking of renting it?" "Of course", I replied. "Oh", she says, "look.

We are a big family and I am interested about my son. Could you please give us a ring when it is ready?" She was grandmother Kazazi.

A month later the apartment was ready. We called her, and her daughter in law Sophia Kazazi came to see it. She saw it and liked it very much. We came to an agreement and we rented it.

They stayed in the house for thirteen years. We became very good friends. In the winter they would come down very often because we had a fireplace.

They would come, we would light the fire place and have a cup of tea. We really enjoyed each others company.

Later on, we brought them together with our other close friends, the Natsis. They all had the same way of thinking. So one would invite each other, one time in one house and then in somebody else's house. We would eat and have parties and celebrations.

Filotas is 88 or 89 years old. He was born on December 31, and thus every year he would hold a New Year's Eve party at his place. That's how we met many friends of theirs. Later on, however, Filotas and Sophia would come closer to our group of friends.

They would prefer it from theirs because we were younger. We used to be very close together until we had our daughter. After that, we lost a bit of contact.

Photos from this interviewee