Jorge Weill IV: The War Years

Despite the dramatic transition to married life in El Salvador, Jorge continued working and Anny, his bride, learned Spanish very quickly with the help of community member Perla Meissner. This excerpt describes Jorge’s experiences during the war including his kidnapping in 1980.
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(And you had your first child pretty soon after?)

Sandra was born about a year and a half after we got married. She was born October 1980. And at the time, we had gone to Miami because around June of 1980 the situation was getting very tough in Salvador and we decided it was better for Anny to stay in Miami because we didn’t know if there was going to be a state of siege. You are not allowed to leave your house after a certain time. The doctor told her that he’d have to induce her to make sure that she’d have the proper care, because if there was a state of siege, we wouldn’t be able leave the house at night to get to the hospital.

(So she decided not to—?)

We all decided in June that it was better for her to stay in Miami. I was commuting back and forth between Miami and Salvador.

(But she stayed in Miami, then?)

She stayed in Miami. My parents were in Miami. My father had cancer. He was also being treated in Miami.

(Sandra is born in October. Then you decided to stay in Miami?)

And then what happened was, my father was sick, but we were going to come back in January after Sandra was born. And in December Anny called me to tell me that my father was very sick and that he had been taken to the hospital. I asked her if I could come three days later, and unfortunately about two days after I called her, I was kidnapped. I was kidnapped until the end of the month of January of ’81, a little under a month and a half. And then I went back to Miami and we decided to stay in Miami.

(Are you willing to discuss the kidnapping?)

To me, that’s something that—it’s an experience—I’ve gone through and I have no resentments but I’d prefer not to discuss it. It was a very difficult situation because Anny was in Miami and my daughter had just been recently born and my father was in the hospital. Unfortunately he never came out of the hospital. But the good thing is I was able to see him after I was released.

(Does anyone know who kidnapped you?)

Yes, I know who kidnapped me. It was a splinter leftist group.

(Do you think it was—last question—motivated for—?)

It was purely motivated for money, and I was relatively well treated compared to other kidnappings.

(So when you were released, you went immediately to Miami?)

I was released and that same day I flew to Miami.

(And you saw your father?)

And I saw my father, which was very important. They had maintained him alive, and he lived for about a month more.

(Had he known what had happened to you?)

He knew what had happened to me. He was having some troubles, because he had uremia which causes you to lose a certain amount of your consciousness, but he was very well aware of what had happened and we were able to talk.

(And you decided to stay in Miami until the end of the war?)

And then I decided to stay in Miami, and after a year, a year and a half, I started commuting back and forth to Salvador and at one point in time Anny told me we had to make a decision, we couldn’t continue that way. So we decided to come back to Salvador in 1984, which is a decision I don’t regret at all.

(So when you decided to come back, you didn’t have any anger towards the situation, you were ready to come back?)

I was ready to come back. I never had any anger or resentment about the kidnapping. When you go through an experience like that, you can have certain feelings, like resentment and jealousy, which are terrible, and I don’t have any of those.
I came back and I started getting established, again with a little bit of difficulty. And from then I went on and I really enjoyed it.

(How was life here during—until the peace accords were signed?)

As a matter of fact, until the peace accords were signed, there was obviously some anxiety, there was a lot of uncertainty, but probably if you look back, life was a lot less dangerous than now, with the gangs and everything else. I feel life has changed because of the crime rate in Salvador. And there was a tremendous community spirit. There was community spirit within the Jewish community, there was community spirit between all cross-sections of society. There was an enormous sense of comradeship at the time.

(And services went on?)

And services went on. There was a big effort. Everybody made a point of going to synagogue so there would be minyan. And Claudio Kahn had a tremendous hand in it. He was a real motivator, he would motivate people who never came to synagogue to go to synagogue. He used to say that he had a “credit and debit system” whereby when we were more people than necessary for minyan, they would count for the times that there weren’t enough people.

(Who would lead services?)

Max Sztarkman would lead services. And later there was an Israeli fellow living in Salvador who had a very good voice and had come to Salvador for the national orchestra, and he led services. Very often there were people from the Israeli embassy who would help out.

(And I understand that there was an ark on wheels?)

Yes, there was an ark that was on wheels. That’s before we bought Jean Paul Joseph’s house, where the synagogue is now, because at one point in time they didn’t have a permanent place to go to, so they would go from one house to the other and they would take the ark on wheels so they could hold the services.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.