Brother, Sister--A Family Again

When Edith Martin stepped off the plane from France this weekend, and saw for the first time in 42 years the brother with whom she had endured wars and revolutions, she screamed “Dad! Dad!”

It had been too long, she was too excited, and he looked so much like their late father. But by the onset of the reunion party in Anaheim Saturday, Martin, 69, had adjusted to her brother’s changed appearance.

“I don’t mind,” said a smiling Nilo Lipiz Sr. 64, a retired window maker from Anaheim.

All that mattered to him was that he and his sister finally were in the same country.

The two have spent much of their lives as refugees, fleeing imprisonment and enemy armies, through upheavals in Cuba and Spain and World War II in France. And at the end they lost each other.

“In Spain we were known as that ‘Cuban’ family,” Lipiz said. “In France we were known as that ‘Spanish’ family. When we went back to Cuba we were know as that ‘French’ family. In a sense, we’ve never belonged anyplace.”

Their lives began in Cuba, where in the aftermath of the 1934 revolution, their family of 11 was deported.

“Our father was a university professor who was opposed to the government,” Martin said. “Because our parents were Spanish citizens, we were all sent back to Spain.”

They arrived there just as the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936. A brother who was a soldier in the war was killed.

Their family supported the republican government that eventually lost the war to the fascist forces of Francisco Franco, so they spent much of their time during the revolt fleeing advancing armies from city to city.

“I remember once we were walking down the road with other refugees and remnants of the republican army, when a plane flew overhead,” Lipiz said. “The pilot announced that the civilians should separate from the army because he was going to start strafing and bombing.

“We started running, and I was able to get to cover in time,” Lipiz said. “A lot of people didn’t. They got killed. It was a horrible thing to see.”

When the government fell in 1939, most of the Lipiz family fled to France. A sister, who was a nurse, was ordered by authorities to stay behind.

“I haven’t seen her since then,” Lipiz said. “That’s been nearly 50 years.”

To handle the 1 million Spaniards who fled across its borders, the French government set up relocation camps.

“The men, the women and the children were sent to different camps,” Martin said. “So when we got to the border, our family was separated and sent to camps miles apart.

“My mother couldn’t stand the thought of being separated from her children,” Martin said. “She had a nervous breakdown.”

They arrived in France just six months before the start of World War II. During the war, the family was reunited.

But the nine Lipiz family members were

crammed into a small, three-room house. “Our landlord was mean, always cutting off the water and heat,” Martin recalled.

Two months after the end of World War II, their father, Vincente Lipiz died. Their mother, Adelaida, decided to return to Cuba in 1946 and persuaded most of her children to go with her.

Martin remained in France. She was married, and her husband, who was Spanish, wanted to live there. Martin saw her family off as they left by ship. She was not to see her brother again for 42 years.

In Cuba, Lipiz ran a thriving grocery store. But it was all lost when Castro came to power in 1959.

“The worst mistake I ever made in my life was going back to Cuba,” Lipiz said.

He was not allowed to leave Cuba until 1968. He moved to Orange County with his wife and two children.

He often talked about seeing his sister. But Lipiz, who did not become a U.S. citizen until last year, was concerned in the early years that if he left the country he would not be allowed back.

“And he had to put me through college,” said his son, Nilo Lipiz Jr., a 34-year-old high school teacher who hosted Saturday’s celebration at his home.

Last year, Martin’s husband died. “It was then that I realized that it was now or never for me to see my brother,” she said.

With the blessings of her two adult sons, she left her small town outside Lyon and arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday for a visit of possibly several months.

Martin, a retired factory worker, said she had never been on an airplane and had not been out of France in more than 40 years.

“But I followed my heart,” she said. “And I’m glad I did.”