Today Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the entire country takes time out to commemorate the darkest period in the history of the Jewish people and the acts of exceptional courage and bravery that were committed on their behalf. Moran Alberman, the sister of Maccabi Tel Aviv senior squad member Gal Alberman, spoke to the club's official website about the emotional bond between their family and this significant occasion.
Alberman's Boots / Moran Alberman
My grandfather, Oleg Alberman, was born and raised in a small village in Galicia in the southeastern corner of Poland. Whenever he travelled to the big city, he would always go barefoot for fear of wearing out his boots. Only after arriving would he put his thus protected boots back on. After the Nazis overran Poland in the autumn of 1939, the Jewish residents of the village, including my grandfather's family, were persecuted and murdered by their Polish neighbours and friends. As a young man my grandfather was conscripted into the Polish army, as cannon fodder. He survived on his wits and a multiplicity of gadgets he devised. "Golden hands", they called him. He managed to escape and roamed the lengths and breadths of Europe. Somewhere along the way he met my grandmother, Rochel. They married in Italy and sailed on a coal vessel loaded down with illegal Jewish immigrants on their way to Palestine. When they arrived, the British sent them off to a detention camp in Cyprus, but not before my grandmother had tried to fight them off with every tin of preserves she could find. My grandfather fought to the very end. Moving from camp to camp, their first son was born in Cyprus. My uncle. After the establishment of the State of Israel, my grandparents were allowed to make "aliyah" to Israel, where two more sons were born, three in all. My grandfather's name was changed from Oleg to Asher, but the surname Alberman stayed the same.
Israel, 2014. Two weeks ago, in Jaffa, Bloomfield Stadium, the 92nd minute against Maccabi Haifa, 10,000 Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters shouted out the name "Alberman, Alberman". Alberman's boots had scored the winning goal.
My grandfather is no longer with us, but he is the winner. Without a shadow of a doubt.
In the photograph on the right – Grandpa Oleg and Grandma Rochel (courtesy of the Alberman family)
