Griffin Madden, victim of Oakland warehouse fire, recalled as gifted and ‘luminous’ by UC Berkeley professors

Griffin Madden, victim of Oakland warehouse fire, recalled as gifted and ‘luminous’ by UC Berkeley professors

“He was probably the most memorable undergraduate student I’ve had in my years of teaching,” said Luba Golburt, an associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, recalling the young man who was among 36 people to die in Friday night’s horrific warehouse fire in Oakland.

Golburt had Madden in two classes: 19th century Russian literature and a seminar on the Ukranian writer Nikolai Gogol.

“He had a luminous away about him, a quest for knowledge, and an enthusiasm for learning things,” Golburt said, adding that her colleagues shared the sentiment.

“Our community is heartbroken at this news,” Matías Tarnopolsky, Cal Performances’ executive and artistic director, said in a message to colleagues.

When Madden, of Berkeley, couldn’t be found in the aftermath of the fire, friends created Facebook posts featuring his smiling face and tousled hair, and sharing their fears and their hopes.

“I remember tears swelling my eyes because the city was so beautiful and amidst of all the lights, I got to look at the brightest light of all, my sweetie,” she wrote.

[...] Tomioka wrote, “our community mourns,” and she hoped the photographer might somehow find a way to send her the “treasured memory that I’ll always keep in my heart.”