Memories of El Salvador

In 2005 I was invited to join a medical mission to El Salvador as their photojournalist. It was, without exaggeration, a life changing event.

Clinic was held in an abandoned hacienda in the rural region of El Paisnal; it was estimated that in five days the doctors treated over 10,000 patients. The medical team also received a lesson in Salvadoran politics -El Paisnal was the center of insurgency and rebellion during the long and bloody civil war of the 1970's and 80's, and patients suffered from deep depression and had lost many members of their families. A poor region in a poor country, El Paisnal was infused with a lingering sense of sadness accentuated by its notoriety; this was the parish of Father Rutilio Grande, an activist priest and ardent supporter for the poor who was murdered by the military less than five miles from the clinic site. His brutal murder so enraged his friend, Archbishop Romero, that the Archbishop became a leading activist for the poor. He, too, was assassinated by the military, in church while saying mass.

This Friday I will be exhibiting a few of my El Salvador photos in a small photography show in downtown Tucson. Among the photos will be the face of Father Grande, along with the faces of Salvadorans whose eyes reflect the sadness, determination and resilience of their beautiful, battered and proud country

Search for Lost Relatives

Recently went for a routine doctor's visit, and once again was reminded of the gaping holes in my family history. I'm asked the usual questions, about family history of such and such or this and that, and I always have to remind them that, on my mother's side, I have little family to give a history of. My mother, her three brothers and her parents came to this country just before Poland was invaded by Germany at the onset of World War II.

They were the Rand family of Stryj. They were Jewish. As far as we know, those 6 people were the only members of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland that survived the holocaust.

My cousins and I have discussed this, and it seems to be true. No one has ever met anyone else from that family; no cousins, second cousins, cousins once removed, great aunts or great uncles. My grandmother and grandfather, their three sons and one daughter, they were the only ones who made it. They are all deceased now, so we 8 cousins and our children, now we are it. We are the only descendants of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland.

Or are we? That is the story of holocaust survivors. There's always that question in the air; did anyone else make it? You always hope to hear of a long lost cousin in a remote town in another country. My cousin Martha grew up hearing two rumors: one, that we were originally English (Rand is indeed an odd name for a Jewish Polish family), and two, that relatives of my grandmother made it out of Poland and ended up in Argentina.

We've never had any way of checking the truth of these rumors until now.

Right here in Tucson there exists an organization called the DNA Shoah Project. Their goal: to collect DNA samples form holocaust survivors and their children from all over the world and form a DNA databank. The staff of the project will keep information on file: names, family histories, etc. The DNA samples themselves are bar coded so the databank will see them only as a bar code, keeping individual identities anonymous. A computer will look for a match based not on names or pedigree but simply on DNA. If a match is found, the staff will inform the participants.

Wow!

I called the project and told them the story of the Rand family. The staff said, yes, we are exactly the kind of story they are looking for. I immediately sent an email to my cousin Martha in New York, daughter of my mother's brother Arthur. She was as enthusiastic as I was, and agreed to take a sample and talk to our other cousins (the more samples the better).

That's where we stand right now. I'm hoping to get at least 3 of the Rand cousins' DNA into the database immediately, with more to follow as we try and contact the other cousins (our family is not close and some members are estranged, which is oddly typical of families who survived the holocaust).

I hope one day I'll be writing a post about meeting another descendant of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland. That would be a lovely, lovely gift.

It's a new day

One week ago today was the greatest election day of my life. I partied all night and I've been partying ever since.

I started working for Barack Obama almost a year ago. My two sons were among those who convinced me to consider him as a serious candidate. The more I read about him (and by him, especially his first book) the more I realized that this was the leader our country so desperately needed. About 6 months ago I decided to concentrate my efforts where I thought they'd do the most good: I became a contributing writer for Huffington Post, reporting on the election and particularly on how the presidential campaign was going here in John McCain's state (I refuse to say 'home state;' he's not from here, and with upward of 10 houses I honestly don't know what state the guy calls home). Writing for Huff Post is one of the most intense, interesting and crazy things I've ever done, mostly because of the outrageously fast news cycle of this campaign. News changed hourly, and as a political blogger the onus falls on you to keep up or get swept aside. I kept up the best I could. First I wrote weekly, then twice a week, then once a day, and finally in the last weeks of the campaign I was submitting stories twice a day, all the while taking photos to accompany my blog posts. I interviewed professional pollsters, local politicians (including Arizona's governor, which was very cool I've got to admit), Obama for America staff, countless volunteers and Obama supporters, and even a few Republicans. I was gratified, humbled, and most of all shocked at the response: my blog received thousands of comments and hundreds of thousands of hits, my posts were picked up by websites of newspapers all over the world. It was astonishing. I wish I could send a thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed, and everyone who read my pieces, left a comment, or forwarded it to friends and family. It meant the world to me.

Now I'm taking a much needed break. Being a lifelong political junkie I'm still following the news but at a much more relaxed pace. I muse over a glass of wine every evening, quite happily wondering who Obama will pick for his cabinet, what his first decisions will be, and what kind of puppy those little girls will be getting. And for the first time in a long, long time I'm thinking about our country's future and I'm smiling. I'm thinking of my sons and their future, and I'm feeling optimistic. I'm feeling just what I felt nearly a year ago: Barack Obama is the leader our country so desperately needs in this very desperate time.

Hurray for Barack Obama! Hurray for us!