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JUDY OPPENHEIMER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Natalio Slutsky: Survivor.

GARY PAYNE/GAMMA LIASION PHOTOGRAPHY

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atalio Slutsky's day began uneventfully that
July Monday. He woke up his 8-year-old son
Pablo who was staying with him over win-
ter holidays, made him breakfast, then
walked him down the street to his mother's
house. He kissed him goodbye — ever since
his marriage had broken up there had been
"a lot of affection" between them, he said.
He drove 20 minutes into the center of
town, reaching AMIA, the headquarters for
the Jewigh community, where he headed
the funeral records department, at 9:40 a.m.

He chatted briefly with co-workers about
soccer "like always," then went to his office.
At 9:53, he picked up his phone — and felt
the world shake.
Walls crumbled, window glass exploded,
dust filled the air, making it impossible to
see. Curiously, the noise was not that loud
— he was more concerned about the flying
glass than anything else. One shoe had
blown off; bizarrely, a single shard of glass
was impaled inside it, standing straight up.
A gas leak explosion, he thought, yelling

for everyone to follow him out the back of
the seven-story building, through a terrace,
into the building beyond. It was the right
move. The entire front of AMIA had been
destroyed. Had he stepped forward 15 feet,
he would have dropped straight to the street
below.
As soon as Mr. Slutsky and his group got
out to the terrace, they saw the extent of the
damage and realized the building had been
bombed. Some, with family members still
inside, struggled to return, trying to claw

