Though most of the world’s attention has shifted away from the deadly explosion that rocked Argentina’s Jewish community last month, the families of the victims are as focused as ever on the tragedy.
The Buenos Aires Association of Psychology has been providing counseling to the families of the 99 individuals who perished, as well as to the lucky survivors of the July 18 blast that ripped through the seven-story building housing the Jewish community headquarters.
“One of the most common symptoms we find is paralysis, a lack of reaction,” Alicia Gamondi, the coordinator of the association, said of the survivors. “In these situations, there is no warning, nothing to prepare them for what is about to happen.
“We have had many cases with nightmares, which is a way of expressing anguish. Also many have felt pain and become ill, thus physically revealing the tremendous impact” the bombing had on them, Gamondi added.
In the wake of the blast, AMIA also provided psychologists, doctors, rabbis and priests to help the victims’ relatives.
These professionals were with the relatives when they were informed that a loved one had died, when they went to the city morgue to identify bodies, and when they returned home to mourn their loss.
Among the families continuing to mourn is the family of Noemi Reisfeld.
She was laid to rest in a tomb in section 121 at a local Jewish cemetery. Written on the tombstone were these simple words: “Noemi Reisfeld, Dead at 36.”
Reisfeld was among the 68 Jewish victims of the terrorist bombing that also claimed the lives of 31 non-Jews.
Before the explosion, Reisfeld had worked at the social assistance department of the AMIA, the Jewish community’s 100-year-old main social service agency, where she helped the aged and the handicapped.
LIVED IN ISRAEL AND MEXICO
In 1976, when the military dictatorship was in power in Argentina, Reisfeld had to leave the country because of her political views. She lived in Israel and in Mexico, got married and had two daughters. She returned to Buenos Aires when democracy was restored.
Life was not easy for Reisfeld. She was an employee in a government office, and in the evening attended university to become a social worker. She sold clothes on weekends to help make ends meet.
In spite of her financial difficulties, she maintained Jewish traditions and managed to send her children to a good Jewish school.
Following her graduation five years ago, she started her work at AMIA, where those she helped were later to be among the mourners at her funeral.
“She never wanted to be held up as an example,” said her brother Daniel. “She just wanted to live up to what she believed to be right. But now, looking back, I realize she was an example. But it’s too late to tell her.”
The children of the victims, in particular, have been under great emotional strain in the weeks since the blast occurred.
Gamondi said her organization has been organizing meetings with the children to give them a chance to talk openly about their feelings.
Among those being helped by AMIA psychologists is 22-year-old Nora Faigelson, who could well have been on the list of casualties.
She had lost her job on the Friday before the explosion. On the fateful day of the blast, she was at an employment office on the fourth floor of the Jewish community building.
After she left the office, Faigelson pressed the button to call the elevator. After two minutes had elapsed and the elevator still had not come, she started walking down the stairs. That was when the explosion ripped the building apart.
Some 20 hours passed before someone found her wandering the streets of Buenos Aires. She remembered neither her home address nor how she had gotten to where she was.
Faigelson, who had been on the list of those missing, now has little recollection of what happened when the bomb went off.
“After the explosion, a man signaled to me that I should follow him. So I did, trying to protect my head with my hands,” she said recently. “When everything had quieted down, I got out through a hole I saw in the rubble. That’s all I remember.”
Today, recovering at home from the state of shock she suffered, she is still at a loss to explain what happened. An AMIA psychiatrist and a doctor are assisting her on the road to recovery.
Fate was on Nora’s side because the elevator was slow to arrive. But others, like the Velazquez family, were not so lucky.
They lived across the street from the community headquarters, and by chance the mother and one of the children were having breakfast by the window when the bomb went off. The explosion put an end to their lives.
Horacio Velazquez, the father, and his two surviving children, Diego and Fernanda, lost two members of their family and their home.
“I only hope they find the perpetrators,” the grieving father said.
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