January 27th marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, which is also known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
My grandfather, Julio, escaped Nazi Germany in 1937. My great-grandfather, alarmed by the increasing restrictions and rules on Jewish life in Germany, decided it would be best to leave the country, taking along with him his wife and two young sons, Julio and Max. They decided to travel in a boat which crossed the Atlantic from Hamburg, Germany to Montevideo, Uruguay, leaving behind most of their family, their beloved home and business, and pretty much life as they knew it.
They arrived to Uruguay alone, with little to nothing to their names, not speaking a word of Spanish. It’s crazy, close to a miracle. As it would turn out, that boat journey turned out to be their chance to escape their extermination. The boat’s journey can be seen as captured by a children’s drawing, now kept in the Holocaust museum in Berlin.
I can’t help but think of this boat journey as a parallel to this week’s parasha, Beshalaj, where the Jewish people find themselves trapped between the Pharaoh’s army and the Red sea. G-d asks Moshe to elevate his crane over the sea, and the sea parts in half, allowing the Jews to cross and escape, to then close over the Egyptians. It’s a miracle, they’re saved.
However, their journey doesn’t end there. They still have to wonder in the desert in their journey to the land of Israel, and suffer from thirst, hunger, and many other challenges. The parting of the sea marks a before and after in their escape, but the story doesn’t end there.
My grandfather was born January 24th, 1928 in Barth, Germany. He escaped Germany in July 1937, as a 9 year old, to Uruguay. He spent most of his life in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he would grow up and become a successful engineer and businessman, a loving husband and father to four children, grandfather to thirteen grandchildren, and great-grandfather to six great-grandchildren (as of right now, we’re a growing family!). He, with my grandmother Luisa, created a united family, proud of our Jewish heritage and identity.
I was born January 24th 2002, on my grandfather’s 74th birthday. Maybe it was a coincidence, who knows, but it created a special bond between us, it was our day. Julio and Luisa moved to Barcelona when I was born, the 12th grandchild. I had the privilege to grow up and travel with them, celebrate, love and admire them.
Julio gave us history lessons every Sunday during family lunch in Italian and Uruguayan restaurants, quizzed our logic and math skills with riddles, would complain about politics and comment on the most recent soccer games. He celebrated my acceptance to medicine, my dream career, and believed in me when I faced my first exams. He shared his life stories over an orange juice and a croissant. He would call me year after year on my birthday and we would joke on who’s birthday it was, if mine or his.
During his last weeks of life, I had the privilege of spending hours and hours with him, and for the hundredth time, question him on all his life. It was easy, he had robust memory and very defined beliefs and values. In one of our conversations, he told me that his greatest pride was his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, That this had been his purpose in life, and that he had been fortunate to live a life full of joy, wisdom, travel, love and passion.
And it all goes back to that boat journey, to that miracle. But beyond that, it was his strength, perseverance, wisdom and passion that built a life filled with joy and love, and bits and pieces of his legacy remain in every single one of us, members of the Brenner family. I am proud of my family’s history and will keep explaining it to those who surround me, keeping his memory alive. And as we repeat never again year after year, I ask you to also keep celebrating our heritage, our values, our identity, and our joy as Jews, for our mere existence is proof of our resistance.
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