"Hello, My Name is Amitai, I'm Your Brother's Grandson"

Visiting Albert and Natalie the rat was not in my plans. I arrived in Paris at the end of a family trip to meet a cousin who was preparing to give birth, and I didn't intend to visit anyone else. Yet, I found myself, during the hottest week in Paris's history (45°C / 113°F), walking with two heavy bags along Rue Saint-Martin and knocking on the door of a man I had never met.

The things one does to make Grandma happy.

Two days earlier, I called him once again, after a week of trying to reach him, fearing the elderly man was no longer alive. Finally, Grandma in Israel found another phone number, warning (again) that he was "not very polite." This time, a voice answered, and to my surprise, I felt deeply moved. "Albert?" I asked. "Yes, hello," he answered. "My name is Amitai," I said, "I'm your brother's grandson. I'm so glad I found you." "Max's grandson?" he asked, suddenly switching to Hebrew: "I'm finding it a bit hard to walk these days, but I'd be happy for you to visit. I'll introduce you to Natalie, too."

And so, 48 hours later, I found myself in a spacious apartment in the heart of Paris, its walls covered end-to-end with souvenirs from around the world. Standing beside me at a surprisingly tall height of nearly 1.90 meters was the 84-year-old man, with Natalie the rat perched on his shoulder. "Well, Grandma must have told you about my life, right?"

Turns out, she hadn't.

"Dad's Handsome Brother"

Grandma had told me about Grandpa's younger brother, who "looked like him, but in white." She was certainly being kind to my late grandfather. Even with Albert at 84, it's clear why my mother and her sister always referred to the blue-eyed uncle in photos as "Dad's handsome brother." Albert finds the comparison flattering. "I idolized him as a child," he says nostalgically. "Today I actually look a bit more like him, which is nice."

Like my siblings, I too knew Albert as "the boy from the letter." To this day, my mother zealously guards the postcard from 1943, on the back of which three sentences were written in French:

"To my beloved little brother Albert, I wish you a happy birthday. I hope that on your second birthday we will be happier than we are today. Your brother, Max."

The sad birthday greeting to his younger brother was written by my grandfather, Max, when he was 13 years old, in a side room inside a Nazi's apartment in Brussels where the family was hiding. "I was born very lucky," Albert says. "Right after I was born, the Germans started an Aktion [mass deportation] in our city. They took all the houses in the neighborhood to the extermination camps, and stopped right at our street."

Luck, it turns out, stayed on their side later as well. After the Rosberg family fled their home, the newborn's father spoke to him in Yiddish. "Suddenly a Gentile who heard him turned to him: 'Are you Jewish? Would you like a place to stay?' Out of options, the family accepted the offer, and later discovered a surprising truth: the head of the household was a 'Rexist'—a Nazi supporter. 'He always told Dad: "If we win the war, I'll turn you in. If we lose, I can say I protected Jews."' In the end, he didn't hand us over," Albert laughs. "It might have also helped that the underground resistance threatened to kill him if he informed on us."

What followed was less fortunate. The brothers were separated. Albert was handed over to the underground. Grandma says Grandpa Max was haunted by the memory of the day he and their mother handed Albert over. Max himself was later sent to an orphanage, and subsequently to a monastery. Albert: "They put me with a family that didn't treat me well. Later they transferred me to someone who was a real racist and antisemite."

So why did he take you in?

"He was probably more nice than racist," Albert replies in all seriousness, holding the white rat close to his head. "I kept meeting with him for many years until he passed away."

"The Man with the Rat from the Video is Your Grandpa's Brother"

Of all the new things I learned during this moving meeting, Natalie the rat was actually not a surprise. Except, perhaps, for her name. Why wasn't I surprised? A few years earlier, the French internet went viral with millions of views on a video of an elderly man riding the subway holding a rat, its head decorated with a pink ribbon, kissing it.

My younger brother stumbled upon the video by chance, sent it to our mother, expecting her to be touched by the animal as usual. But Mom was moved by something completely different. "This man," she wrote back to him, "is the brother of your late Grandpa Max, Albert."

A week before I flew out, when meeting Albert was still just a funny idea, my brother sent me the video: "You have to meet him," he wrote.

Albert, an animal lover, began his warm relationship with rats many years ago, and has been a fan ever since. "Until two years ago, I was still traveling the world most of the time. I couldn't get a dog. Someone recommended I get a rat, and since then I've always kept at least one. They're very sweet, they always kiss and never bite."

Natalie does indeed kiss, a bit too much for my taste, and also drops tiny drops of pee from time to time. But when he takes her back, I admit she is actually quite cute.

"They can also go with you to many places," he continues, "and when I travel, they know how to manage on their own." Albert says this in good Hebrew, switching to English or French when necessary. "I still remember Hebrew," he says. "I also still remember Yiddish, but today I only speak it with the rats. Right, meydele?"

"I Lived on a Kibbutz for a While"

"Where did you get your Hebrew?" I asked. "You know," he says, "I was in the youth movement and made Aliyah to Israel. I lived on a kibbutz for a while." Naturally, I didn't know this either. But I immediately understood that the movement was 'Dror', which later became part of 'Dror-Habonim', where Grandpa Max had been an enthusiastic member. That too was a late discovery in my life: in 10th grade, I became a counselor in HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (the Working and Studying Youth movement), and proudly told my grandparents. Grandpa was deeply moved and shared that he too had been in the movement. When he showed me with hands trembling from excitement a box full of badges and symbols belonging to another movement, HaMahanot HaOlim, I laughed to myself and tried hard not to betray the thought that Grandpa was getting a bit confused.

It was only after his death, a year later, that I realized Grandpa was far more informed than I was. He was a member and senior coordinator in the Dror movement, which abroad was a sister movement to HaNoar HaOved and HaMahanot HaOlim, and after which "Dror Israel"—the movement I am a member of to this day—is named. (Ah, how smart you think you are in 10th grade).

After the war ended, the family reunited in Brussels. "My brother went to the youth movement and was very prominent there," Albert shares. "From there he made Aliyah to Mishmar HaNegev. I followed him into the movement; I was a member and later a counselor." (In Mishmar HaNegev, by the way, Grandpa met my grandmother, Bracha, whom he enthusiastically introduced to Albert).

"When I was 14," Albert continues, "Max convinced our parents and me to send me to study at Sha'ar HaNegev. In the end, there weren't enough kids my age on the kibbutz for a school class, so they sent me to a different kibbutz. Later they also sent me to a counselors' course in Israel, and I had to commit to returning to Belgium to counsel for a year."

Unlike Grandpa, who stayed on the kibbutz until a later age, Albert's life took a different turn. "I was never a big ideologue. I'm pro-Zionist and all that, of course," he says, shaking his head and muttering something about antisemites, "but after that, when I was in Israel again, I was less enthusiastic about the kibbutz. And in any case, I had to go back to serve in the Belgian military, or I'd be considered a deserter."

After two years in the Belgian Navy, he returned to Brussels. "I was 20, and around that time I met a woman who was 24. Back then, that felt like a lot," he laughs. "She wanted us to settle down, but my mindset was completely different. I told myself: 'I want to go on a big trip like my brother, who traveled all the way to Turkey and Sweden.' Back then, that too felt like a lot."

"The Slide Case Was My Most Precious Possession"

Grandpa Max's love of travel was famous in the family. In my parents' home, a huge world map filled with dozens of colorful pins is still preserved to this day, marking every place Grandpa visited. Grandpa was the most well-traveled person I knew. Until I met his brother. "At first, I traveled a bit south into Africa," Albert recalls. "I heard about what were then called the 'Jewish tribes in Uganda'—have you heard of them? There are a few, each linked to a different tribe, no matter. I traveled among them, and also along parts of the West Coast. Afterwards, I returned to Israel, and then visited Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. Back then, Iran was a friend of Israel; I was at the consulate in Tehran and in all sorts of places in the mountains."

At first, he saved every penny for his travels. "I had no formal education, because in the youth movement they taught us that studying was bad, that one should simply make Aliyah to a kibbutz. So initially, I'd arrive in places and ask for food and lodging in exchange for stories. People were so enthusiastic that I started giving lectures. Around that time, slide projectors were coming into use, and I realized this could be a great arrangement. Everywhere I went, I carried a flyer advertising my lectures and a bag full of slides—it was my most precious possession. The demand was high."

Back in the present, Albert opens a large drawer packed tightly with slides organized by topics and lectures. "I'd arrive in places, mostly Christian seminaries, and offer them one of my lectures about tribes and cultures I'd encountered. They'd get very excited and pay quite a bit of money."

What about Jewish communities?

Albert smiles: "They would always ask: 'What, you won't do it for us for free?'"

A Frog from Malaysia, a Wandering Jaw from the Philippines

From Iran, he pressed forward on a journey that lasted decades. "I continued to Afghanistan, from Afghanistan to India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia…" At this point comes a list of tribes and countries that Albert describes at a scale that defies counting. His apartment—quite spacious by Parisian standards, designed as one giant room with walls covered end-to-end in souvenirs—testifies best to the sheer quantity and diversity of cultures he encountered. Despite the years that have passed since his travels, Albert's knowledge and enthusiasm for every culture he met remain unmistakably vivid.

"The frogs," he says of an orange, soft-to-the-touch frog, "were hand-taxidermied by tribes in Malaysia. They're also the ones who taxidermied the turtle. The tools are Nepalese, the print here contains parts of Hindu religion in Sanskrit, cast in iron for printing."

At times, his storytelling pace is too fast to follow. "The sculptures are from tribes in Central America, and these ivory statues," he points to two figurines, each showing a man and a woman in a complex sexual position. "This is from Myanmar," he says, "from the Kama Sutra. I was never able to do that."

Among the souvenirs hangs a strange jaw adorned with feathers. "That's a crocodile jaw with a religious decoration, from the Philippines," he explains. "It has great significance as part of the hunting ritual. And this jaw…" he points to a much smaller jaw, "well, they had a headhunting legacy there that they revived during the Japanese occupation," he shares with a mischievous glint. "One of them gave it to me, saying he took it 'personally' from a Japanese soldier in the World War."

The variety of souvenirs is dizzying, some of surprising size and weight. "You see this elongated gourd?" He hands me a long, white, smooth-to-the-touch bone-like object. "You wear this in Bali," he says, pointing to a photo where he is standing and shaking hands with a group of locals wearing nothing except such gourds over their genitals.

"And here," he points, "I arranged all the pipes from various tribes. These long sticks belong to tribes in Vietnam who smoke opium. Want to guess what these two are used for?" He shows two elongated, hollow wooden objects from a separate pile—one with a round opening facing upward and the other with a long slit. "Smoking?" I ask, and he laughs. "In the markets along the Silk Road, Samarkand, for example, they put this on a baby's private parts so they can urinate outside the playpen. This one's for a boy, that one's for a girl. You see the Arabic writing? That's from a children's madrasa in a Muslim tribe in Niger. They call it a luah, like in Hebrew, and on each one a surah from the Quran is written."

Among all these, standing strangely on the floor, is a small, modern zebra plush toy beside a large, black-and-white rug. "Ah, I used to have a zebra skin rug from the Kalahari Desert here, but it wore out, so I replaced it with cowhide," he smiles, "and put the zebra toy as a keepsake."

How did you carry all these souvenirs?

"Every time, I would send my father, via the Belgian consulate, a souvenir I was excited about. He wasn't really interested; he was a very pragmatic man. Every time he went to the consulate, he received another box ('Your son sent another gift'). Most of them he didn't even open."

My mother, on the other hand, was thrilled. "As young girls, Albert would bring a gift from a different place every time—completely wild, each item unique. It was very exciting and cool."

"A Real Journalist Travels to Write; I Wrote to Travel"

After long travels in Asia, years of wandering through the Americas, and finally living in New York ("It was great fun there, before AIDS"), Albert decided to enter the tourism business. "I realized I could give lectures in Europe and then take people to those places. I partnered with a travel company and brought them tons of tourists. That's how I kept traveling for many years."

In addition to the vast knowledge he accumulated, he was served by a press card he obtained through articles he sent to newspapers in Brussels. "I'd write articles about all kinds of things I saw, and they'd send me money, which I used to keep traveling." The press card, he says, was particularly useful. "In those days, governments in those countries deeply respected journalists, and they helped me reach any location or ship I wanted."

He still keeps a brown leather album containing articles he wrote and articles written about him over the years—ranging from his life story to groups he encountered and events he visited, like neo-Nazi demonstrations at the White House.

How about that—did you know I'm a journalist too?

Albert laughs. "Well, but I wasn't a real journalist. A real journalist travels to write; I wrote to travel."

"That's How I Met Florence"

After many decades of travel, he bought a home in Paris. "After my parents made Aliyah to Israel, I realized I had more clients here. So I found this place. Today it's a very central street; back then it cost pennies."

The press card and connections weren't his only assets. A look at various photos immediately makes clear that the man who, at 84, still maintains an impressive mane of hair, was a handsome man, to say the least. In family mythology, Albert was synonymous with a sought-after bachelor.

"Until age 65, I never settled down; I didn't believe in commitment—I wanted to travel all the time," he admits with a broad smile. "Only after I met Florence did I suddenly start believing in it."

He met Florence, who inherited a pet shop from her father, 19 years ago. "I used to go to the store often to buy food for whichever rat I had at the time, or to adopt a new rat. That's how I met Florence, and we've been together ever since." She is nearly two decades younger than him. "We got married two years ago, would you believe it?"

"I Lived at the Right Time"

When the travel company he worked for closed down, he told himself: "'You know the suppliers, you know the locations.' So I found a marketing company to direct tourists to me, and I started guiding trips myself. It worked wonderfully. I was lucky there, too. I lived in an era when human connections were very important, and I had connections."

He spent his 40s and 50s running his travel business. Some people would use a successful business to settle down. Not Albert. "I thought to myself: how great, now I can take people where I want to go instead of where they want to go." Thus, he continued guiding trips well into his 70s, after meeting Florence. "Only in the last two years did I stop traveling, because of my illness. Today it's hard for me to walk more than a few dozen meters. I'm glad I reached this age," he says, looking out the window, "but getting old is no fun."

Albert spends his days reading and hanging out with Florence, who just returned from the market with fresh meat sandwiches, which he eats with appetite. "Today the tourism world isn't what it used to be, everything is with computers. I don't want computers or cell phones in my home; it completely drains people. I worry for people like you, the young people today. I'm glad I lived a long life, but I'm also glad I won't have to deal with the problems you'll face forty years from now."

He laughs, then sighs: "In the end, I had a lot of luck—being born when I was born. I was born on exactly the right street and at exactly the right time not to die. I was only one year old during the Great War; I barely survived. And then there were many years when the world was open, when there were still many places you could go and meet indigenous people and different cultures. Today it's no longer like that. I lived at the right time."