sydney | Two young Jews missing since the Southeast Asian tsunami struck were buried side by side in Johannesburg this week.
Nikki Liebowitz, 30, of Sydney, was formally identified by her boyfriend’s cousin and brother-in-law on the Thai island of Phi Phi after a positive DNA test.
The body of her boyfriend Avadya Berman, 31, was also found. Both Berman and Liebowitz will be buried in South Africa.
Berman had planned to move to Sydney at the beginning of February to be with Liebowitz.
The couple had been working in their native Johannesburg before Liebowitz moved to Australia in July.
Liebowitz left Sydney at the beginning of December to attend a friend’s wedding in Johannesburg, where she met up again with Berman. From there the couple traveled to Asia for an extended vacation before planning to settle in Sydney.
A three-day scuba-diving holiday on Phi Phi was a scheduled highlight, but those plans came to a tragic halt on Dec. 26.
Liebowitz and Berman had just finished breakfast with South African friends Ilana and Gary Sweidan. Berman headed for the pool and Liebowitz headed for Ilana Sweidan’s room. Ilana Sweidan stopped in the lobby of the Phi Phi Princess Hotel to make a phone call.
Tanya Bensimon, 29, and Leonard Hammersfeld, 37, of Melbourne, who had just announced their engagement two days earlier, were sitting by the pool and gazing out at the normally still waters of the lagoon.
“Suddenly there was this one wave in the middle of the lagoon … such a strange sight that people were laughing … but the locals looked quizzical,” Hammersfeld said. “Then my mobile rang. A friend from Melbourne was holidaying in Phuket where the tsunami had already struck, to warn us of the imminent danger.
“The wave hit the beach, sweeping everything in its way. It sounded like a jet. Twenty of us headed for the roof of the building, but five didn’t make it,” he said. “We were stuck there for three hours and watched the other five tsunamis hit the low-lying island. For those down on the beach, there was no escape.”
Back at the hotel, the first wave of the tsunami had struck. Ilana Sweidan struggled to keep her head above the water flooding the lobby.
When the wave receded, Liebowitz was nowhere to be found. When the second wave struck, a stranger dragged Ilana Sweidan to higher ground. The Sweidans spent hours looking for their friends, to no avail.
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