From time-to-time, we love to introduce some of our local talent to the community. We’d like to introduce Jarmila Turnovsky, a long-time Burnt Store Marina resident. She has written a memoir of her and her family’s history.
Jarmila and her husband, Robert Taud, consider themselves European snowbirds. They return to the Marina every year from Germany, and have lived through most of the development of our BSM Country Club and Marina since the mid-1990s. In those days, there was no Beacon, no social media, and very poor internet. The Beacon now introduces her recently published, very personal family memoir.
Leo, Jarmila’s father, a Holocaust survivor, finds refuge in Jamaica, but must live with the tragedy of his Solomonic decision to leave his baby daughter behind.
This riveting book is not only about Leo, the Czech Jewish father, who in his own life is a chemical engineer, an RAF bomber-navigator during World War II, and finally a chicken farmer in Jamaica, but also about Jarmila’s quest to find her heritage and answer—Where are you from?
With purely a scientific background, she didn’t feel up to the task of writing a book, but with the motivational support of another BSM long-time resident, Nancy Godina, and the COVID-19 lockdown, she finally plunged into it.
In her words…If I had been told years ago that I would become a writer, I would have said, never in a thousand years. But as the saying goes, never say never. I am now called an author! What a turnaround! Throughout my life, I have always been drawn to the sciences, and never to the arts. My educational background can be summed up as a physicist, geophysicist, and earthquake seismologist. For the Jamaican Government, I was employed as a geophysicist/seismologist. Then, later in Germany, I worked for Siemens – earthquake engineering in the nuclear industry.
I’m always being asked, “Where are you from?” but still can’t answer that most difficult of questions, despite all the searching. I was born in England, have Czech parents, talk with a Jamaican accent, and live in Germany. I speak three languages, have three nationalities, and am happy and at home anywhere my husband, Robert and I happen to be, and particularly at Burnt Store Marina.
Jarmila Turnovsky weaves historical facts and painful family events in her fascinating memoir – Ruptured Lives, available at Amazon.
