Cadik Danon, nicknamed Braca, was born in 1923 in Sarajevo. In 1934, his family moved to Belgrade. In 1941, when the war began, Cadik Danon and his family left Sarajevo and moved to his uncle’s residence in Tuzla, Bosnia. Danon’s grandfather Avram Danon lived in Bjeljina with his wife Sara. Both of them met at a party in Bjelina, and were married soon after. They loved each other very much and the fruit of that love was 13 children – eight sons and five daughters.

Cadik’s grandfather had a cepenal – a small Turkish space – in the market in the center of the town. This show was organized like a typical Turkish shop: during the winter there was a mangala, a wood stove, burning in the center; customers could pass by and immediately see everything in the store. Danon’s grandfather was an exceptionally hard-working man and a great father who supported 15 people.

The children grew up in a certain degree of poverty. My father told me how he never had his own clothing or new shoes, only hand-me-downs from his older brother. He would have to roll up the sleeves; they were never shortened by a tailor. As he grew, he would unroll the sleeves until he outgrew the shirt and passed it down to his younger brother. When Danon’s father, Isidor, was 13, he reached his bar mitzvah, the age, according to Judaism, from which a young man begins to fight for his own survival.