Читать книгу Black Man on the Titanic - Serge Bile - Страница 30

“The German sailor, Peter Gottlieb, was often seen in the Hamburg port, coming back with vivid stories of lands where anything could be undertaken. The Germans who settled in Haiti were welcome, and it seemed to him the ideal place to start a new life,” Christina Schutt explains about her ancestor.

Peter Gottlieb left gripping testimony of the earthquake39 that devasted Le Cap a year after his arrival, on May 7, 1842. The city had twenty-seven east-west streets crossing at right angles; nineteen north-south streets. The houses had two or three stories. The first floor usually served as a shop or stable. The upper floors were residences.

“I felt terrible anxiety and pain during the ten hours I was stuck under the rubble and beams. My left arm was completely buried, and my body was stuck under the stairs. A big rock on my chest threatened to stop my breathing,” Peter Gottlieb recounted. Nevertheless, he was able to free himself after tremendous effort.

“I finally got around four o’clock in the morning to the beach, where there was a crowd of people, some praying and others crying or screaming of pain from their serious injuries. The city was in total ruin and what had not burnt had been plundered. Indeed, the very first day, bandits appeared from the inner country. They stole everything they could find since military order had disappeared.”

Half of the nine thousand inhabitants of Le Cap perished in the catastrophe. Henri Laroche40, father of Euzélie and grandfather of Joseph, lost two children. Survivors fled to neighboring localities. But a year later, braving their fear, many of them came back. Little by little, Le Cap was rebuilt. Trade resumed gradually. The economy restarted.

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