My Statement to the Court II

Angela Murray, the second defendant in my father's murder pleaded guilty to Murder 2. She can't be convicted on Murder 1 since the other guy was already found guilty of that. My understanding is Murder 1 is "intent to kill" while Murder 2 is an event that happens within another crime but the defendant may not have been the one to actually do the killing. However, she is the one who had the relationship with my father and betrayed him.

Tomorrow she will be sentenced to 16 years to life. That means she is eligible for parole after 16 years, but there are no guarantees she may ever get out.

Here is my statement to the court that will be played tomorrow at her sentencing. You get to see it today.

(For details Google "Guido Felix Brinkmann")

Synchronistically I am in NYC and will be only a few blocks away performing a seminar so I made this 3 minute video: This video is in FLASH. For an iOS compatible version here.

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The Radio

My father Felix understood electricity at an early age. That's because his father Richard was an electrical engineer. At one point Richard left home for six months to help South Africa establish electric light. That is the level at which he played. So the  Brinkmann boys grew up around it. Felix also had a natural knack at fixing things.

When Felix was in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland he ran a telephone repair factory. One day in the spring of 1944, while tinkering at his work bench he connected a wire and a sound came out of a speaker. Suddenly he looked at what he was working on differently. He quickly scanned his workshop for parts and viola; he created a radio. A device that was highly prized and very forbidden in the ghetto.

It was early June when Felix and Simone were at a party when suddenly there was a knock at the door. The person on the other side informed everyone that the Germans were doing a sweep looking for radios and two people were already hanged. My mother and father quickly excused themselves and rushed back to their apartment. They took the radio from it's hiding place and turned it on one more time. The last thing they heard before taking it apart forever, was that the allies had landed.

Felix Brinkmann 1918-2009

"I feel I had a fortunate life. Even going through the three concentration camps, I somehow was able to make the best out of the worst. I never would have thought growing up as a boy in Riga, Latvia that I would end up in the greatest city (NYC), in the greatest country in the world (USA)." These are the words my father spoke to me two weeks ago, July 14th, when I last visited him in NY. My dad survived three concentration camps for 12 months, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Ebensee. He came to NY in 1947 with $5 in his pocket and unable to speak English. Eventually in 1971 he partnered with Mel Steir and Joe Cavalaro to open what would become one of the premier discotheques in NYC, the Adams Apple, (1st Ave and E 61st St.)

Last year my father was hospitalized for the whole month of July with Hepatits B.  I spent most of last summer in NYC caring for him. During the following month of August he couldn't even remember being hospitalized. I took him back to Oregon at the end of the summer. After 1 week of Naturopathic (holistic natural medicine) care at the Center for Traditional Medicine and Nature Cures, he could remember the date and time we were flying back to NY.

To illustrate the kind of guy he was, two months after being freed from the concentration camp he was crossing a bridge in Germany and was stopped by a Russian guard. My father who spoke Russian explained what had happened to him and that his family had been killed. Then another man tried to cross the bridge. The Russian stopped him and because he wore a German army coat pulled back the man's shirt to reveal an SS tatoo. He was an SS officer. The Russian soldier handed the machine gun to my father and told him to kill the German for my father's family. My father said, "No" and handed the gun back to him. The Russian then shot the SS man.

Last November my father celebrated his 90th birthday. (See pictures of the party and pictures here.) Although he didn't "have to" work he loved to work and managed a commercial building in the Bronx owned by his former partner (Mel Steir). He would drive there everyday, seven days a week. Working was one of his pleasures. Three weeks ago when his car was being repaired he walked 6 blocks to the subway station, took the train to the Bronx, walked another 3 blocks to arrive at work on time. In fact the "alarm" that something was wrong was sounded by the superindentent Julio at the buidling. When Felix didn't show up, Julio knew something was wrong. It literally took someone killing my father to stop him from going to work.

His end is certainly a shock to me, but at the same time I know my Dad and even if he survived this attack he would have had no complaints. He knew as I do that we all have to "go" sometime. He told me that, "when faced with death I simply choose life and never gave up." I know my Dad would not have been happy having to be cared for by someone or not being able to live his life functional (working) and independent. Even when I would try to get him to take a week off and come visit me in Oregon he would resist saying, "He didn't want to leave the United States." Going relatively quick is something he would have wanted.

For their amazing stories of survival see:

8/2/09 "Assholes & Angels" an audio of when my mother asked to die and hope came from an unexpected source

7/21/09 "Escape of Diana" (My mother's twin sister's escape from a death march.)

6/2/09 "Simone's Story of Escape and Survival" (My mother's escape from a death march.)

4/3/09 "Priorities in Black & White part 2" (My father's life and his 90th birthday party.

1/28/09 "Happy Birthday Mom" (my Mom, an identical twin survives being picked by Dr. Mengele)

9/11/08 "Priorities in Black & White part 1"

Link to movie about Felix Brinkmann's life made for his 90th birthday last November.

Quicktime version: The Felix Brinkmann Story (16 min) AVI version: The Felix Brinkmann Story (16 min)

Photo Gallery: http://gallery.me.com/dr_rickbrinkman#100088

Priorities in Black & White

“I could not llve the rest of my life knowing maybe I could have done something.” After escaping from a Nazi death march in 1945, these are the words my mother said to herself right before she purposely let herself get captured again, so she could tell her sisters about how they might escape. She found her sisters among the 1000 girls in the march, explained how to escape and the next day they all did.

She passed away earlier this year and I spent most of December and January living with her and enjoying her in Arizona. This July my father (also a concentration camp survivor) was hospitalized for a month with a life threatening disease. When he was released August 8th I thought I was going to be in NYC for 5 days to help him get set up. Now thirty three days later I am leaving him for the first time.

Luckily I had space in my schedule to be there for him, although even when I am not traveling there are still plenty of work prioities. Just in the creative category alone there was 5 articles, 4 blogs, 3 podcasts, and a Tele-seminar oh my. Unfortunately they didn't all get done. But what did get done is everything I could possibly do for my Dad. This included de-cluttering his apartment (a six day process), organizing his home so he can function even with impaired short-term memory, taking him to Portland for 2 weeks of concentrated naturopathic therapies, having great quality time with him, organizing home care support and a whole lot more. But today I finally had to leave. So I tagged his ear with radio transmitter and released him into the wild of NYC. ;-) And as I sit here on a plane bound for seminars in the United Kingdom I can hear my mother's words and know for certain that I can live the rest of my life knowing I did all I could. Sometimes priorities are simply black and white.

PS: During the second week following his release from the hospital my father and I went out to our local Chinese restaurant. My fortune cookie was the fortune you see superimposed on the picture to the left. His fortune was, "Forget the stock market, invest in family." So he bought dinner. ;-)