2021.03.26 20:03
A beautiful story and irony of fate:
More than 80 years ago, in Greece, 60 thousand Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki. It was a vibrant and valuable community, with most of these Jews working in the port. So much so that the port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday, Shabbat.
Everyone hung out and liked each other. But on September 2, 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, it was in this glorious community that Nazi terror would suddenly erupt. On April 6, 1941, Hitler invaded Greece to secure his southern front before launching the famous Operation Barbarossa and his great offensive against Russia. Of the 60,000 Jews in Thessaloniki, around 50,000 will be exterminated in the Birkenau concentration camp in sad record time. The massacre of the Jews of Greece was brief but intense.
But among the survivors was a family known as Bourla. And after the war, in 1961, a son was born into this miraculous family in the fields. His parents named him Israel, Abraham. He grew up and studied veterinary medicine in Greece. A brilliant student, Abraham will earn his Ph.D. in reproductive biotechnology at the veterinary school of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.
At 34 he decided to move to the United States. He changes his first name from Abraham to Albert and meets a Jewish woman named Miriam and later his wife. Together they will have 2 children. In the United States, Albert entered the medical industry. He progressed very quickly and joined a pharmaceutical company where he became "CEO". Little Abraham (Albert) rose through the ranks and got his appointment as CEO of this company in 2019.
Throughout the year Albert decides to direct all the efforts of the company to try to find a vaccine against a new virus that has just attacked the world. He makes great financial and technological efforts to achieve his goal. A year later, his work paid by him to the WHO (World Health Organization) validates the authorization of his company to produce the long-awaited vaccine. His vaccine will be distributed in several countries including Germany, which has thousands of deaths from the pandemic. Ironically, this vaccine that will save the lives of millions of people around the world, including many Germans, was directed and promoted by a small Jew from Thessaloniki, the son of Holocaust survivors of whom most of his people were exterminated by Nazi Germany. And that is why Israel became the 1st country to receive the vaccine. In memory of his grandparents and his parents who gave birth to Israel-Abraham Bourla, known today as Albert Bourla: CEO of Pfizer !!!!!
BB Lee
P.S. One of my colleagues sent me this news. So I attach two memorabilia/photos I took while I visited Salonika to share.
Such a shocking and moving story along with this tragedy.
2021.03.26 20:20
2021.03.26 20:30
CBS 60 M: How the PFizer-BioNTech COVID19 Vaccine was developed
I watched this in December, but I did not know who Pfizer CEO Bourla
really was. You can see him interviewing in the program.
2021.03.27 03:47
It's so good to know a little bit of this pharmaceutical history while we enjoyed(?) the Pfizer shots.
I had the second shot on the 25th of March, just two days ago, and feel just fine and normal without side effects.
Thank you, BB and CEO Albert Bourla.
2021.03.27 09:33
Glad you all enjoyed the story! Indeed it is ironic Germans who created Nazi are also the benefactors of this Jew they failed to get rid of through the Salonika massacre, I happened to have learned through the visit to their museum at Salonika years ago, one of most impressive and saddened landmark tragedies, any normal human being with empathy cannot help but helplessly weep!!!
BB
P.S. The problem is we don't learn the lesson from history so that sadly we see the repeat again and again through the history! Who knows Asian Americans would become another victim of this racial hatred like Jews by the white trash here in the U.S. down the road?
2021.03.27 12:15
Not that we don't learn the lesson from history, it is that we don't want to learn.
The honor, profit, pride, and other realities in front of the nose take the priority over history.
Therefore, our action is to do "the repeat over the repeat".
2021.03.27 12:48
Sadly true, doc! Refuse to learn through the mistakes!! Human nature?
BB
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It is fantastic story. My wife and I completed 2nd shot of Pfizer vaccine.
We had no side effects. I thank Albert Bourla!