Argentine man meets wife and daughter who survived Hamas attack: “We are reborn”

Mario Sinai There is ArgentinaAcademic Doctor and Holocaust Educator. A few days ago he was invited to participate in a free virtual AMIA conference organized by Wat Hackhilot, where he gave his testimony. He moved there when he was 15 years old Israel Along with his parents, he later married his teenage sweetheart, an Argentine. They had two children and were married for four decades. On October 7, when they were in different places, the Hamas attacks: His wife was alone on the seventh floor of their building, his daughter was sheltering in their house with two children, his son-in-law was at an electronic horror party, and his son-in-law was working at the airport. They all managed to survive. “We cannot explain Miracles We had more than the hand of God,” Sinai says Infobay, From the city of Ashkelon.

Mario, 62, found out what was going on a week later with 30 students on a Holocaust memorial study tour in Europe. Can be found again with his family. “We were touring Belgium and Holland and the morning we learned that Hamas had entered Israel, I couldn’t communicate until my wife left the security room, luckily she was there. Our building was directly affected“, account.

The couple lives on the seventh floor and their apartment was destroyed. “The entire water system of the building is above the roof of our living room, that’s where the impact was, all the windows were broken, parts of the walls, but my wife was not hurt, she was beyond personal trauma. A neighbor who knew she was alone went to look for her. Seeing the devastation made one realize the extent of it impact,” he says. He ruefully admitted that it had become a tradition to enter the shelter every time the alarm went off, which could happen up to three times a month.

“I don’t know how to get used to being shot at, knowing they’re throwing missiles at us, and we don’t wish that on anybody, and Unfortunately death knocked at our door”, he laments. When he finally got on the phone with his wife and assured her he was fine, he thought about returning home immediately, but there were no flights to Israel, and even though the airport was open, no flights were flying. Military personnel had priority when they began allowing travel. “I am a rational person and I understood that there was nothing I could do but continue to communicate with her and our children and I had a responsibility to all the students in my care and I could not return until October 13,” it said. .

For Mario, seconds and hours did not pass until he saw his family again in person. “My daughter Mithal He lives in Moshav, the closest neighborhood to the Gaza StripThe border of the wall, and Hamas entered through the air, and it is balanced out there 21 people died; She was able to survive because she was Locked for 12 hours In a safe room, without electricity, alone with her two children, my 2-year-old, one-month-old grandson. With terrorists outside“Until I heard the sightings, took refuge with a neighbor and waited for my son-in-law, who works nights at the airport,” he recounted.

When his daughter’s partner found out what was happening, he got into his car to rescue them, but he didn’t reach his destination. “As he approached his house, he was surrounded by 25 motorbikes They shot the entire car; At first he thought they were from the Israeli army, but when he saw that they were wearing different clothes and had headbands, he realized that they were Palestinians and that it was an ambush, but I can’t explain how he got out alive.“He can’t explain that either,” says Sinai, who considers himself an agnostic, but can’t find any other word for the matter than “miracle,” especially after seeing the state. Total destruction and every bullet hole recorded in the car.

There is one more case from his family that they can only explain through faith. “My nephew Yahar was at the electronic party“He was 28, had just graduated as a lawyer, and when he heard the alarm about the first projectile falling at 6:30, he knew it was time to leave and got into a car with two friends,” he says. . The boy put the address into the GPS system and the suggested route took him directly to where the terrorists were, but he had no way of knowing. “I chose another way without knowing why, and when I came to an entrance where there were two kibbutzim, one on the right, Biri, and on the left, Kibbutz Saad, both immediately. He invited him to join them. Entered: He chose the caste, and Not all of Peary’s chosen comrades made it out alive“, he reveals.

On Friday, October 13, she was reunited with her family, where there were hugs, tears and feelings beyond words. “We are born againI looked at them to see that they were all whole, and what a crazy world we live in, we have to thank God that one’s family is alive, and I thought we were very lucky because our case was not there. Families of the majority of people; We have 1300 deadThis represents 1,300 broken families filled with pain, in addition to the 199 abducted Israelis,” he says, expressing helplessness and the certainty that October 7, 2023 will be a back and forth in the history of the Middle East.

“I fought Lebanon War in 1982“My son and maybe my grandson who reached the age of one month will have to continue fighting in the Second Lebanon War in 2006,” said Mario, upset by his lived experiences and analysis of what was happening. . “We have never had such a misfortune in the land of Israel. From the War of Independence in 1948,” he explains.

After the reunion, she traveled to Athens with one of her daughters so that she could process a visa at the US embassy, ​​because in 12 hours she had taken care of her two children under security. In the room, she decided to leave Israel with his partner. “They were well received at the embassy, ​​first they were given an appointment for June, but they understood the situation and were able to get visas immediately, so they are already on their way to North America and we are. It is sad that they are leaving us, but we understand it. There is no safe place in Israel now.“, he reveals.

Mario returned to the apartment where he lives with his wife and went in to clean up some of the damage, but a civil engineer still needs to attend to determine if the roof is at risk of collapse in the future, and in the meantime they are staying with their other daughter, her two grandchildren, a nephew and a brother, a A total of eight people live together in the small house. “Both of our grandchildren sleep in the safe room 14 days with his father, it was terrible, when the alarm goes off we all go there, but it is a very small place, only eight of us enter, standing side by side,” he explains.

As they pass their neighbors, they exchange silent glances, and they tell each other everything. “There is a line of sadness on their faces, no joy, only sadness, feelings are very difficult because something should not happen and should not happen. They killed animals, beasts, raped them, cut the throats of children, shot men with their hands, burned parents alive in front of their children; It is a massacre, an act against humanity“That is, not just Israel and the Jewish people, but all of humanity should feel victimized by this attack,” he says.

These days he hears the phrase more than once: “It’s the Holocaust all over again,” and based on his research and experience, he offers a reflection. “I have fought all my life against the trivialization of the Holocaust, I have spent my time taking study groups to concentration camps to talk about the subject, and I have always argued that no event in the world can be compared to the Holocaust; however We are in the national consciousness of a genocide“National grief, and that paradigm has been destroyed, I have no choice but to say that we are in a truly desperate situation, because we have faced to this day, and after that we can consider the darkest day in our history. The Holocaust” argues.

“We have no control over what happens militarily, and while I have no doubt that the government’s objectives will be achieved and Hamas will be destroyed, the alternatives we will face will be the same or worse,” he says worriedly. “There are very strong attacks in the north, they are evacuating people to the south, but they are also evacuating where we are and further south, 40% of people who do not have safe rooms, which means our destination is in the hands of God”, he concludes.