2023-12-18 03:35:00
Joelle Jacob today: some time ago she was able to travel to France and meet some relatives once more
Every December 18, International Migrant Day is commemorated, since the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the date in 2000. The testimony of Joelle Jacob, 66, represents an example of the many families who went up to a ship heading to America, practically alone with what he was wearing and endless hopes. She is French, born in Algeria, and her parents emigrated in the middle of the War of Independence, along with her siblings. The youngest was born on the high seas, and they all started once more together when they arrived in Uruguay. Some time later they moved to Argentina, and four decades later some family secrets came to light that guided her towards the search for her identity.
According to the UN, there are currently more than 280 million migrants globally. One of those people is Joelle, and in her case several life stories intersect from her origins. Each family member represents a piece of the puzzle, and went through many reflections before being able to put it into words. Today she lives in French, a town in the Buenos Aires district of 9 de Julio, with less than 800 inhabitants, which stands out for the celebration of the Puré Festival for 15 years. “I am slowly writing the book of my life, because I love writing, but they are things that hurt, because I remember a little and it continues to hit me; Only now that I am a little older and that I have a present with many beautiful moments, I am proposing to leave a record of my family,” she confesses.
She is a mother of three children and a happy grandmother of three grandchildren. The two youngest arrived in 2023 in a surprising way, and it filled them with joy. “My middle son became a father in May and my eldest son had been registered to adopt for more than two years and he had the great blessing that Antonella arrived, so I have a 2-year-old granddaughter and another 14-year-old granddaughter on my daughter’s side. ”, he details, before beginning the journey towards past times.
One of the photographs he keeps from the Christmas season in Algeria (Photos: Courtesy Joelle Jacob)
Joelle was born in Algeria on August 1, 1957, and is the third of four children. Her nationality is French, due to the sociopolitical context in which she came into the world: the war had begun three years earlier, in 1954, and would last until July 5, 1962, when Independence was declared. It was a period of struggle by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) once morest French colonization, which had begun in 1830, and the territory was called “French Algeria.” Shortly before the Second World War, anti-colonial sentiment had intensified, and added to the discontent of a large sector of the population, there was permanent tension.
“Some historians argue that it all started due to a diplomatic conflict at that time, others that it was because that route was convenient for France, but it was a very raw and bloody confrontation for more than seven years,” says Joelle. The descendants of his family had gone to live in Algeria during the French colonial period, and remained there for three generations. “They emigrated from France and dedicated themselves to the vineyards, and made citrus fruits, until the revolutionary war began, and we were not considered either French or Algerian, they called us ‘the black feet’ (Les pieds-noirs in French),” he reveals. he.
The ship they came on, the Theodor Herzl, as the postcard he kept says
Although there are few memories he has of those years, almost like flashes, he remembers visualizing his grandmother wearing a gray checkered apron, with her back turned, and suddenly yelling at them in French to hide with her brothers. “We stayed under the bed and we might hear the noise of the bombs being thrown, both by the Algerian Resistance and by the residents,” she says. Four months before the declaration of independence, they decided to face the exodus, which was already being announced due to the threatening climate of the time. “All the French had to leave Algerian territory, and they offered you only two things: ‘The coffin or the suitcase’, that was the motto, and that’s why in March 1962 we left at night fleeing like harbor mice,” he describes.
She was four years old when her grandfather took her and her parents and two brothers in a Citroën to take a boat to Argentina. “We all piled up to the port and there we said goodbye; It must have been terrible for my mother, because we had a kiss and a hug with my grandparents and we never saw them once more,” she expresses. Added to that atrocious farewell were the nerves prior to boarding, because her mother was heavily pregnant and if they discovered it, she would not be able to travel. “She always says that she put on a coat to hide her belly and she supported my younger sister on her belly, and fortunately she was able to pass, we climbed in and finally set sail,” she says.
Joelle with her two brothers on the ship on which they came to America: the newborn baby was in the cabin
They spent 18 days aboard a transatlantic ship, which seemed immense to them. “It had everything, even swimming pools and a small clinic, where my mother had my little brother, who was born on the equator line near Brazil, but they declare him born in Uruguay because he wrote it down when we arrived,” he says. His father had worked in a field in Algeria, and the same boss had received land to cultivate in Paysandú, and they proposed that she continue his work there. “We came on the boat with that family’s furniture, the bosses’ dog and a parrot; and we were just wearing what we were wearing,” he clarifies. With the newborn in their arms, they went down to dry land to begin life once more.
They adapted to the language, the culture, and dedicated themselves to working to progress. “My dad learned Spanish when we came here, he spoke six languages and he always said that he was the one who had the most difficulty; And at home, when we were kids, we had the obligation to speak French inside the house, but at the age of 15 we revealed ourselves, because it was a matter of speaking in French at home and outside the home in Spanish, we began to always speak Spanish, and Today I understand French perfectly but I can no longer engage in a fluent conversation,” he says.
One of the clippings from a French newspaper that Joelle keeps because it talks regarding the arrival of the French Algerians to Paysandú, Uruguay
With admiration, Joelle describes her mother as “the magical craftswoman,” because she remembers that although they did not have a single piece of furniture, she managed to create it with what she had. “She would grab drawers of vegetables and with that she would make the nightstand, she would throw some wood and put together a bed, with several boxes she would simulate the sideboard and that’s how she would put everything together, until a short time later we had the little house once more, because she was buying at a time. little things,” he explains. In 1974, when Joelle was already a teenager, they moved to Buenos Aires, where her father got another job opportunity in a field in Luján. Once once more we had to start from scratch, sell all the furniture and remake a home in another country, but the experience was much less traumatic.
“My mother always took care of giving us everything she might, we didn’t lack food, and even though we had the minimum, we were happy, I don’t remember it being lacking. She even made me rag dolls, which were beautiful, she made us new ones from broken toys, the end of the year came and she had prepared some surprise for us with gifts from Santa Claus, she was in each of those details,” she maintains.
Although when he remembers his childhood there are many happy moments, he confesses that there were also days when he felt that something didn’t fit. Something like a feeling that something was missing to be discovered, and he was not wrong. “Many times I was at the table with my little brothers, I saw my parents, and they were a loving family, but I said inside: ‘What am I doing here?’, it was like I mightn’t find myself, and the answer only came to me. 45 years,” he comments. When his mother was widowed she undertook a trip to France, and her stay extended longer than expected.
“She said that she had not seen some of her relatives for a long time, because a large part of our relatives were able to return to France following the independence of Algeria, and then she left to meet once more, but soon the letters she sent me no longer had the address. from my aunt’s house, they were from another house and I asked her where she was staying,” he says. One day the sincere answer came: “Daughter, I met my first boyfriend once more.” And to her surprise, when her mother returned, she came accompanied by that love.
Hans, Joelle’s adoptive father, in his youth, of German nationality
The impact was immense because there was a great physical resemblance between Joelle and Pierre, the man in question. “My husband told me: ‘He’s just like you, he’s your biological father’, but I didn’t realize it, I mightn’t believe it, until my mother had to speak up and tell the truth.” It turns out that her mother and the man of Moroccan nationality had started a romance when they were 20 years old, but their story was truncated and sealed for four decades.
“She was pregnant with me, and she went to live at a friend’s inn because her father was very angry because she was not married, so she was going to have a child out of wedlock, and Pierre went to look for her, but he told her to “I was going to go to Morocco to look for work and that took her by surprise,” she says. And he continues: “My mother didn’t think it was right, she told him that it was better that they get married and go away together, but he told her that it was better to first go alone to get a job and assured her that later he would come back to look for her. , then she decided not to tell him that she was pregnant and never receive him once more.”
Pierre kept his word and returned, but she did not open the door for him. She returned a third time, and there she opened the door, but this time with a baby in her arms. “When he saw me as a little girl next to my mother, he thought: ‘She’s done, I lost her forever’, and they didn’t see each other once more,” she concludes. He never imagined that that girl was his daughter, and he learned of her revelation at the twilight of her life. During her absence, Joelle’s mother met a German legionnaire at her inn, who fell madly in love with her. “She always told me that she sang behind a barrel so that he wouldn’t see her belly, but he loved her from the beginning with her belly and everything, and they lived together for 45 years,” she says.
Joelle and Pierre, her biological father, who was a parachutist for much of his life
This is how she learned that the person who had raised her was actually her adoptive father, and she was able to understand everything he had gone through. “He was a divine, loving father, my throat closes when I talk regarding him because he was wonderful, and he also had a hard story: he escaped from Germany when he was 14, to leave the Hitler school, abandoned his family and enlisted. in which the foreign legion, which traveled the seas and went following the wars, was in Vietnam in 1956 and in the war of independence of Algeria, until it ceased its activity and began to work in the field, which it did his whole life,” he summarizes. The times of war left consequences on her father’s upbringing, and she suffered from depression and alcoholism at various times.
“He drowned his sorrows, they kicked him out of jobs when he had those crises, my mother went out to work, and so on until one day he reacted and went back to look for a job,” he recalls. When she learned that Pierre was her biological father, she was able to reconnect with him for 10 wonderful years. “Since she knew it was her daughter, she decided to come live in Argentina, we all spent beautiful moments together, I was even able to get my DNA done and confirm paternity; I enjoyed it until the last day of his life,” she reveals.
46 years ago, when Joelle was 20, she met the man who was to be the father of her three children. “My father was in charge of the dairy farm and I worked in the ranch office, writing letters and reports, and one day a truck driver came in to pick up the potato harvest, and we exchanged a look,” he says. From that moment on, the manager of the farm always told him: “There is a truck driver who says he is worried regarding you,” and he said the same thing to the boy, but in reverse: “The girl at the ranch is worried regarding you.” It sparked both their curiosity, and they started dating.
Six months later they married, and they are still together to this day. “This is how I found my destiny in French, I started my family, and here I plan to die,” she says. She took a yoga instructor course, teaches classes from time to time, and also became very involved with the town’s Development Society. “I provide my service ad honorem because I love the institution, I am also a catechist in the church and one of the tasks I do with great pleasure is helping at French’s grandparents’ house, where eight girls work and at this moment there are 13 grandparents in the residence; “As it is a non-profit institution, we have to lend a hand, but I am accompanied by a wonderful group,” she says.
Joelle with her husband, children, and grandchildren, as a family
Today she feels strengthened and complete. She underwent therapy to continue healing, and she realizes that for a long time she was more fond of nostalgia for what was not, than for the valuable present that she built. “It was an internal struggle that I had, it was difficult for me to interpret what happened because when I was a girl it was even romantic to feel French, to see the Eiffel Tower and think: ‘I’m from there’, but those of us who were in the middle of something, all the “We who have been in colonized countries often feel that they are not from one country or the other, and that is complicated,” he reflects. She even knew of other groups of “the black feet” who went through the same thing, and currently live in the province of Misiones and Corrientes.
“Over the years I understood that I feel much more Algerian than French, because my mother always cooked typical foods from that place, the aromas, the flavors, the condiments, the fabrics, everything makes me feel Algerian, and when I set foot Regarding my history, I found more identification with North Africa,” he says. Of course Argentina occupies an immense place in her heart, as it is the place where she formed her family. “Deep down one is from the country that receives it, I love this country that gave me children, and it hurts me a lot when they say atrocities regarding our country, because Argentina is a beautiful country that has no selfishness, and does not put any obstacle to receive immigrants,” he highlights.
A few months ago, the Moroccan ambassador Fares Yassir proposed a literary contest, where Argentine writers might participate with their own poems that were inspired by some paintings painted by Moroccans. Joelle was encouraged to send a text of her own, because when she saw the images the first thing that came to mind was her Moroccan biological father. “It was very emotional and even healing, and on top of that one of the winning poems was mine, and they put it in a book of the third edition of ‘Anthology of Morocco Argentina’, which they distribute in libraries to share their culture,” he says.
At the meeting with the ambassador of Morocco, Fares Yassir, along with the writers who won the literary contest (Photos: Courtesy Joelle Jacob)
He attended an invitation to the ambassador’s residence, who received them with great kindness and cordiality, and he was able to chat with other writers who had similar stories, all of them crossed by the exodus of war. “In that small Moroccan world I felt my roots. and I finally discovered them, to be able to strengthen my own life, take stock and be at peace,” she concludes. As a closing, she shares the writing, which is inspired by the bond with Pierre and the paths they traveled until they finally found each other.
THE MEN IN BLUE
By Joelle Jacob
Look at the sea and dream
that someday you will find the answer
to your inner child,
that years ago left that shore
of blue waters.
The pain was always silent,
without being able to discover what was happening
In his heart, he only knew that the sea
gave him an answer to his pain,
without words and with a lot of emotion.
The years kept passing
and the sea was still there
in his most emotional feelings.
The sand, the men in blue and
blue eyes, they were always…
As an adult, that feeling together
The sea continued to be his refuge,
an inexhaustible source of hope
which assured him that one day he would find it.
Watching the sand and waves
always wondered who he was
and, although no one might tell him,
I felt his presence somewhere.
The men in blue were their connection,
because he knew that he had crossed the same waters
in that tireless search
to find a destiny in the world.
His eyes fixed on the immensity of the sea,
He knew he was safe in that infinite blue,
in search of an answer,
that one day would finally bring him.
Until, finally, he brought him from that shore
the answer to the pain in your heart. Not knowing
the story, his soul always knew that,
the consolation of his agony would come.
And then, when we meet,
everything made sense:
the girl, the sea, the beach,
blue eyes and me.
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