Time Out
“Ask anyone. The Brazil-Argentina 1982 World Soccer Cup match was unforgettable.”
1982 | Beirut, Lebanon | As told to MELODY AMSEL-ARIELI
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Lost and Found“While I occasionally toyed with fantasies of discovering long-lost family members, my mother obsessed about it. Without them, she felt incomplete. Worse, she felt that their absence was a legacy of horrors she’d passed on to her children. So she did the best she could do to compensate.” | Little did the Holocaust survivor know what was in store. The Power of 1,000 Suns“Suddenly, as the countdown reached its end, there was a blinding light visible, even though our eyes were tightly shut and our heads were buried in the safe harbor between our knees. Some said they could even see the bones in their arms.” | Then came the sound – a low rumbling, Gary remembers, almost like distant thunder. A Rose in Glass“Zita died the year that I was born, 1980, in a small Palestinian settlement in the West Bank, where she volunteered. She was 16. She had been beaten and raped by a gang of Palestinian boys.” | But wouldn’t hating those boys be a betrayal of Zita’s spirit? Crash and BurnIt was his dream to fly, Dad would tell anyone who’d listen, his dream from the time he first saw an airplane. In that chrysalis-cracking moment, eyes squinting into the sky, he saw some stick-and-rudder man’s silver chariot for a moment eclipse the sun, and he was forever dazzled. Almost BeautifulTo this day, they really don’t know what happened to Uncle Joe. Why the spark died and the anger crept in. No one does. It remains unspoken forever. What happened to his mind? The conversations, the furtive whispers, were all closed, but the casket … that was wide open. Journey to SomewhereThe older people just stood there, trying hard to smile. “Write to us,” Dad said from behind the barrier. “And don’t forget to thank the people who are going to look after you,” Mum added. Ten skinny, war-worn kids with big name tags and little suitcases filled each compartment. Girl SoldierNo one brought a camera. Most were late. He was not there. She had been to all his major events, watched him drop out of high school, join the military, and become top of his class in college. They spoke about how they hated that he was not there. She had failed again. Places in the HeartAll the luxuries her mother would have inherited were lost when the Nazis invaded Poland. Her mother’s family was sent, with all of the other Jews of Vilna, into the ghetto. Overnight they were forced out of their elegant villa and onto the street. She was 13 years old. Cessna DownSpeeding down the streets of Tan Son Nhut Air Base toward the flight line, they anxiously listened for additional details. The radio suddenly crackled: “Medic One, this is Saigon Tower. We have an aircraft crash on the grassy area just west of the active runway.”  |
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