Albert Bourla Notebook
At the heart of the Easter story is the triumph of life over death, love over hate and reconciliation over resentment. The following story brings the message of that first Easter right up to date. Over 80 years ago, in Greece, 50,000 Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki. It was a valued and vibrant community. Most of these Jews worked in the port. To the point that port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday or Shabbat, the Jewish day when religion forbids working. Everyone hung out and liked each other. But on September 2, 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, this peaceful community would one day feel the terror of the Nazis. On April 6, 1941 Hitler invaded Greece in order to secure his southern front before launching the famous Operation Barbarossa and his huge campaign against Russia. Of the 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki, around 48,000 were exterminated at the Auschwitz Birkenau death camp in Poland. The massacre of the Jews of Greece was brief but intense. Very few escaped. Among the survivors there were two brothers of a family known as Bourla. Their parents and the rest of their siblings died in the concentration camps. The two boys escaped simply because they were not at home when the Nazi soldiers came to round up all the Jewish people.
Surviving
After the war, one of the surviving brothers Mois Bourla met another survivor Sara who had been within minutes of being shot by a German firing squad. A non-Jewish brother-in-law had paid a bribe to a Nazi soldier to spare her life. Mois Bourla married Sara and in 1961, a son was born into this miraculous family. His parents called him Abraham. He grew up and studied veterinary medicine in Greece. A brilliant student, Abraham got his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology at the veterinary school of Aristotle University in Salonika. At the age of 34, he decided to move to the United States.
He changed his first name Abraham to Albert and met a Jewish woman named Miriam who then became his wife. Together they had two children. In the United States, Albert was integrated into the medical industry. He progressed very quickly and joined a pharmaceutical company where he became ‘Head Manager’. From there, the road was short for little Abraham (Albert) to rise through the ranks to become Chief Operation Officer before obtaining his appointment as CEO of the company in 2019. Throughout 2020 Albert decided to direct all the efforts of the company to try to find a vaccine against a new virus which had just struck the world. He expended great financial and technological efforts to achieve his goal. A year later his work paid off and the WHO (World Health Organisation) and US government authorised his company to produce the long-awaited vaccine… Today this vaccine will be distributed in several countries including Germany, which counted thousands of deaths due to the pandemic. Ironically, this vaccine which will save the lives of millions of people around the world including many Germans was led by a Jew from Thessaloniki, son of Holocaust survivors, most of his people exterminated by Nazi Germany.
In memory of his grandparents, Israel was one of the first to receive the vaccine. Abraham Bourla known today as Albert Bourla: CEO of Pfizer!
Speaking in a recent interview about his family background Albert Bourla said: “You see, when my parents spoke of the Holocaust, they never spoke of anger or revenge. They didn’t teach us to hate those who did this to our family and friends. Instead they spoke of how lucky they were to be alive and how we all needed to build on that feeling, celebrate life and move forward. Hatred would only stand in the way.”
Master Covid
by Una M Collins
And – what – Master Covid, have you achieved?
A world subdued? A people humbled and afraid?
Many, many deaths….So much loss, and loss and loss!
Was this your aim Master Covid?
But did you know
That God would move through each of the above?
That a subdued world is also blessed?
That a humbled people would stop and learn
That they could reach out in love
That they could hold each other as you passed through?
Because, Master Covid, you will pass on
But God will still be here
And we have learned, and learned, and learned
To really care…
God be with the days when we had congregations in church
The red glow of the sanctuary lamp caught the eye of a distracted and bored child. She nudges her dad and whispers; ‘Da, when that light goes green can we go?’