Like Armageddon: survivors recall the Boxing Day tsunami

Dean Murinik took his parents to Thailand in December 2004, two decades ago this year, to recuperate after his father’s attempted suicide. On their first day in Phuket, they saw a tsunami coming towards them. While helping his parents escape, “I felt incredible strength come over me,” says Murinik. “I held onto them as we were swept into our hotel.”

At the last moment, the waters miraculously receded, allowing them to swim to stairs, and walk six floors to the rooftop. “The tsunami was a great leveller – people from all walks of life helped each other,” says Murinik. “You’ve never seen anyone fight harder to survive than my father. He never attempted suicide again.”

According to a 2005 article by South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) Associate Director David Saks, there were more than 2 000 South Africans vacationing in Thailand exactly 20 years ago this 26 December, when the tsunami hit. About 200 of those were Jewish. At least 10 South Africans died, including four Jews: Avadya Berman, Nicola Liebowitz, Paul Sender, and Morris Isaacson.

When Daniel Treisman welcomed a South African rescue flight to Thailand, he said it was “like Armageddon: a domestic airline coming into a war zone at 02:00 in the morning. It was possibly the first international rescue flight, an effort driven by South African Jewry.” At the age of 23, Treisman played a key role in bringing South Africans home, with the words, “Are you South African? Follow me,” famously written on his t-shirt.

Treisman and his girlfriend, Taryn, now his wife, were on holiday on Phi Phi island and threw themselves from their bungalow into the tsunami, which carried them to safety on a mountain. “The most dangerous part of a tsunami is when it pulls back into the sea, taking everything with it,” Treisman says, which is why he jumped as it came in.

The couple got on a boat to Krabi, alongside bodies. There, Treisman visited chaotic hospitals to find South Africans. As he walked into a ward, the first person he saw was Gabi Baron. She had been with Sender, Berman, and Liebowitz the day before on a boat trip, and still can’t believe they died the next day. They were staying on Phi Phi, where one in three died.

Baron (now Goldstein) says that Sender, her boyfriend at the time, thought the tsunami was a bomb, and pulled her into the bathroom for safety. “It sounded like something that was coming to wipe you out,” she recalls. The entire building crashed on top of them, and Sender died almost instantly.

“My head was pushed into the mud. I still don’t know how my rescuer pulled me out of there,” she recalls. Injured, terrified, and devastated, she lay on a door for eight hours before being airlifted to Krabi. She told Sender’s brother that he had been wearing a new watch and a bracelet from his uncle, which was how he was identified. She believes it may have been an Israeli rescue team who found his body, as they “combed the islands for remains”.

Surviving the unimaginable and leaving Sender behind was a “double trauma”, and Baron had survivor’s guilt, but managed to overcome it. “We will always remember Paul,” she says.

Treisman also visited makeshift morgues. “It was harrowing seeing photos of the dead, knowing friends were among them,” he recalls.

Berman and Liebowitz were two of those friends. Berman’s mother, Ellen Berman, says there are signs that have helped make sense of his death. For example, at a wedding before he went to Thailand, her son spoke about the couple’s love being like “a tidal wave”.

While he was travelling, he sent photos home with a friend – now a treasured keepsake. Just before the trip, he lost his passport and travellers’ cheques, but still went. “He made so many choices that ultimately led him to that point. One of the biggest gifts we gave ourselves was not to ask why,” says Berman’s sister, Tal Berman-Howarth. However, she still grieves her “incredible baby brother”, and how much her children would have gained from having him as an uncle.

Berman and Liebowitz’s bodies were found by family who went to Thailand to look for them. They had been near the pool of their hotel when the wave hit. Ellen says she received “extraordinary” support from the community and beyond, for example, the couple’s dentist came back from holiday to provide dental records which helped to identify them.

Rael Levitt was on holiday with Murinik, Isaacson, and his partner, Doloros Ribeiro, and David Gordon. “The ocean mysteriously receded as we gathered at the restaurant,” he recalls. “Moments later, a towering wall of water crashed ashore. I fled to higher ground, driven by survival instinct. The reality hit when Morris and Dolores couldn’t be found. Days of searching followed, culminating in the heartbreaking discovery of their passing.”

Levitt struggled with survivor’s guilt and the enormity of the tragedy. “However, the tsunami taught me that every setback holds opportunity for growth,” he says. Murinik agrees, saying that returning to Thailand to heal the year after the tsunami led him to meet his wife.

Shelly Gruskin was on holiday with her husband and young sons in Phuket when the tsunami hit. All four were separated, and almost died in the “black water”, as she remembers it. Last year, they made a cathartic return trip, now with their youngest son, born after the disaster. “We visited the hotel where we had stayed, and I just sobbed,” says Gruskin, realising the impact of the tsunami to this day.

Back in 2004, the SAJBD, Netcare, Discovery Health, and the department of foreign affairs chartered a Boeing 767 rescue flight, sharing the R2 million cost. Ezra, the Community Security Organisation’s (CSO’s) emergency medical response division, and Discovery Health sent five doctors, while Netcare brought 10 paramedics and five nurses, as well as equipment. The operation was named “Buyise Khaya” (Bring Home).

In Thailand, Treisman crossed paths with fellow South African survivor, Gavin Pearl, who was also looking for South Africans. “We put signs everywhere, telling South Africans where to meet,” recalls Treisman. “We had only a few hours. A Canadian asked me where their rescue flight was – they hadn’t had the same response.”

Pearl had been inland when the tsunami hit, saving him. Like Treisman, he was a longstanding volunteer for the CSO. “When the flight arrived, we led a team of doctors around Phuket. When we found South Africans, it was an incredible sense of achievement,” he says.

In South Africa, Michael Bagraim, SAJBD national chairperson at the time, recalls that at first, the government was unaware of the tragedy and it was the SAJBD that informed it. The CSO’s newly-implemented incident management system “enabled the CSO to assist in Thailand immediately, getting help from the government, Netcare, Discovery Health, and hundreds of volunteers”, he says.

“What the South African Jewish community did that December was nothing short of heroic,” says Pearl. “I’m still proud to have been part of that team. The South African Jewish community doesn’t know how lucky it is to have the CSO and Hatzolah.”