1954We grew up in Lima, Peru. Our family numbered 5 people, our parents and us three boys... we had no uncles, no aunts, no cousins, only us five. Of course we were surrounded by this funny speaking people (they spoke Hungarian) that used to gather from time to time in our living room and talk... I never new for sure what they talked about.
My parents were survivors of a terrible era in the history of humanity and specially in the history of the Jewish people: the Holocaust. The events that took place in Europe between 1935 through 1945, will have its effects felt for many generations to come. All of us members of the 2nd, 3rd and sometimes 4th generation will continue bearing the scars that closed the wounds received by all Holocaust survivors.
And that is why we grew up without grand parents, without aunts and uncles and without cousins...
In 1989 while in Israel, I drove my parents to a wedding ceremony in Haifa. A Salamon was getting married. The wedding hall was a very large one and full of people I hardly knew. I mingled around looking at those strange faces, knowing that most of them were family and me hardly knowing but some of them. Suddenly I saw my father sitting in a corner with a sad look on his face. "...what is the matter?" I asked him "...I just realized I am the "Doyen" of the family, I am the oldest member of the Salamon family...". He said.
That conversation struck a cord within me, and I started asking around, who are you? how are we related? and the sensation of solitude that had impregnated most of my life started to feel different. The feeling of bitterness started dissolving into a faint sweetness, as I started discovering my family, I started digging into my roots, ...and it felt good.
I am a father now, and we are also five among us, and I am making sure that my children grow in the knowledge that there are plenty of people that have a special bond that unites them, they are the "family". This work is for my children, for their cousins, uncles and aunts, actually for all of us, so that we should always be conscious of what we have in common, know who is "mishpacha" (family in Hebrew), so that in our constant going around whenever one of us might be in a strange town and know that somebody from the "family" lives there we should go and knock on his or her door and tell them "do you know we are related?...".
I consider myself very fortunate in that I am also a member of even a larger family than just the Salamon family. I am Jewish. I am part of the Jewish family, and my roots go back thousands of years, and that is something very special... Our ancestors created a tradition which has been passed on from generation to generation and has made and continues making a very deep mark in the history of humanity. My parents z"l passed that tradition to me and I am passing it on to my children, and I am sure that they will keep going on... Because it is good...
Peter SALAMON,
Chile, Hungary, Israel, México, Peru, USA, ...
1997
