My friend Sergio Perelberg, who has died aged 80, was a civil engineer who led infrastructure projects around the globe. He was larger than life, kind, gregarious, political – and always involved in the world around him.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, he was the son of refugees who had fled to Brazil to escape the anti-Jewish pogroms in eastern Europe. Sergio’s father, Manoel, ran a construction business; his mother, Clara (nee Pochaczevsky), was a child psychiatrist, one of eight women in a class of 300 medical students. On weekdays, she worked in a public hospital in Rio; on Saturdays, their home was open for free medical consultations. Sadly, Sergio lost his mother when he was just 15, and his younger brother Mario (also a doctor) died at the age of 25.
