Aunt Sara, my father's sister, was born in 1911, in Ankara, Turkey, to Ester and Aaron Arav. She had three brothers (Itzhak-Isaac, Avraham and Yehuda) and two sisters (Lea and Fanny).

Aunt Sara married to Uncle Haim (Vitali) Abravanel, in 1931, in Ankara. They had four children: Yaakov, Ester, Carmela and Levana.

In 1934, the family adopted a new surname, in Turkish: Sunarli.

New family name in Turkish: In 1934, Turkey issued the "Surnames Law". According to this law, all families had to get a family name in the Turkish language. Consequently, Jewish families too had to accept new family names, in Turkish. The new family name Uncle Haim and his family received was SUNARLI.

Aunt Sara and Uncle Haim (Vitali)

Aunt Sara, Uncle Haim (Vitali) and the children immigrated to Eretz-Israel (Mandatory Palestine, under British administration), in 1943.  First, they lived in a temporary residence, in a "Beit Olim = House for Immigrants" (many families who just arrived in Eretz-Israel lived in such houses while sharing the kitchen and toilet room).
Aunt Sara, Uncle Vitali and the children stayed in "House for immigrants" in Nahalat Yehuda, a town near Rishon Lezion. A few years later, they moved to a better housing: to a private shack in Ezra Ubezaron, a suburb of Rishon Lezion (the authorities changed the name of this suburb to Ramat Eliyahu, in 1966).

In 1970, the family adopted a new, Hebrew surname: Nir.

Aunt Sara and my father, Yehuda

Aunt Sara widowed in 1981.

She passed away on May 15, 2007, in Ramat Eliyahu, Israel. Her grave is in Rishon Lezion, Gordon cemetery.

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