Biafra Heroes Day: The young Jewish-American Biafrans will never forget

Bruce Mayrock

Tim Tochukwu (culled from Columbia Spectator of 1969)

For Biafra Choice Writers

 A 20-year old American student doused himself with flammable liquid in 1969, and set himself on fire in front of the UN building, in New York. He was demonstrating against the starving to death of more than one million Biafra Children and murder of more than three million adults.

"United Nations guards spotted the flames and chased the youth across the lawn with fire extinguisher. But Mayrock eluded the guards, racing in front of the North Lounge of the building before several hundred horrified delegates and onlookers. The student finally fell to his knees beside a statue bearing the Biblical inscription "Let us beat our swords into plowshares" and the guards extinguished the flames.

Mayrock was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where he was listed in critical condition with burns over most of his body and was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. At the U.N., guards found a large cardboard sign on the front lawn which said, "You must stop the genocide-please save 9 million Biafrans" At the bottom of the sign, a quotation read, "Peace is where there is an absence of fear of any kind."

Mayrock, who lived in Westbury, L.1., enrolled in GS and the Jewish Theological Seminary in September, 1967, but dropped out after one year and studied briefly at Hofstra University. He re-enrolled at GS last January. While at Columbia, Mayrock worked as a photographer for the Spectator sports department. Members of the youth's family stated Friday that he had worked actively to protest the war in Biafra, writing letters about the war to the President and leading government figures.

Mayrock

However, according to one rabbi,who said he was close to the family, the student believed that "no one was listening." "He was an idealistic young man deeply upset by the events in Biafra," the rabbi said. "People were being killed and he felt no one was doing anything. That's why he did what he did."