Downshire
is a relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a
lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of
Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the
Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the
beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the
Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light
infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in
the north but our story takes place in the southern town off Abbottsford which
was the biggest in Downshire, its administrative capital and the seat of the
Downshire government.
It
was also a place of learning thanks to the Downshire University, is home
to Abbottsford Town football club, and is a Cathedral City, and Abbottsford
Cathedral was the location of a multidenominational memorial service to mark
Holocaust Memorial Day and Benjamin Ozols was driving down to the City from his
home in in
the village of Tipton in the northern most part of the county especially for
the occasion.
It was a trip he had made
every year for as long as he could remember and one which he would continue to
make in the future, but this particular year the trip was even more special
than usual.
His earliest memory of the
trip to Abbottsford for the memorial was when he was 6 or 7 years old.
He went with a group of Ozols
headed by Ben’s grandfather, Isaac, who had escaped to Britain on the kinder
transport and was subsequently the only member of the Ozols family to escape
the Holocaust.
But over the years the numbers
dwindled and now there was only him, forty years old and no living relatives.
He was so angry when his
cousin Isaac and his family were killed in a car crash and he found himself to
be the last of his line, the last Ozols, and his anger cost him dearly, his
marriage fell apart, friendships shattered and his business suffered.
He even lost his faith, though
Rabbi Wolfstein never gave up on him and suggested he should travel to
Abbottsford with him so he could talk to others, either in his position or who
felt like him and listen to their testimonies.
After six months in a
self-destructive spiral he finally took his Rabbi’s advice and agreed to travel
with him to Abbottsford and hopefully find peace and reconcile his angry
feelings.
Outside the Cathedral Hanni
Badenhorst stood wrapped up against the cold, but she was happy, despite the
bitter cold and the solemnity of the occasion.
She too had suffered a
bereavement but hers had been in the previous year when her grandfather died
after a long illness.
Hanni was very close to him
and of all the grandchildren, she was his favourite, and he left her
everything, not that it amounted to much.
He didn’t own his own
property, so the onerous task of clearing out his rented cottage in Northchapel,
fell on her shoulders and it was while she was clearing out the loft that she
made the discovery that would change her life forever.
It was a small leather
suitcase in the furthest, darkest and dustiest corner of the attic.
She was immediately curios
when she got it under the light and brushed the cobwebs away but that curiosity
doubled when she discovered it was locked.
Hanni climbed down the ladder
with the case in one hand and took it to the kitchen and set it on the table.
She rummaged through the
kitchen drawer for something suitable for the task and set about the task of
popping the locks.
After twenty minutes she was
muttering and cursing
“They always make it look
easier than this in the films”
A minute later the first lock
snapped open and two minutes after that the second one was open.
She put down the knife and
slowly opened the case and was quite frankly disappointed when she saw it was
full of old documents, photographs and newspaper clippings, and the thing that
she noticed immediately was that they were in a variety of languages.
Hanni was bilingual and spoke
and read German, French and Spanish, and could make herself understood in
several other languages.
So she made herself a drink
and started to sort the documents into some sort of order.
Once she had everything
separated into half a dozen piles she began reading them in more detail and
within an hour it was revealed that her Great Grandfather Otto Badenhorst was
an officer in the SS.
That was an uncomfortable
discovery but she consoled herself with the notion that not everyone in the SS
was there willingly, but then she read on and it soon became clear that he was
not only a willing member but was an energetic one, especially in the
persecution of the Jews in Alsace, as noted repeatedly in his handwritten
journals, and he was hung for his part in the Holocaust at Nuremburg after the
second World War.
When she had finished reading
she sobbed for a full hour and then when she had gathered herself she phoned
her father, to tell him about her grim discovery.
“He was supposed to have
destroyed them years ago”
“What? You mean you knew?” she
asked in disbelief
“Yes, I knew” he snapped “and
I told him to burn the lot, and now I’m telling you to do the same thing”
“I’m not going to do that” she
said, and a bitter argument ensued and it seemed by the end of it that bridges
had been well and truly burned.
After disconnecting the phone
she had a resolute expression on her face and a determination in her heart to
do something, but what?
There was no getting the genie
back in the bottle and she couldn’t un see what she had seen and it was not in
her nature to brush things under the carpet, she liked to meet things head on.
Hanni was a History Professor
at Abbottsford University but her field was the medieval period so 20th
Century was a little modern for her, but she knew someone who would find it
right up their Street.
Matheus Trojanovich was the
curator of the Downshire Museum of Modern History and he had a particular
interest in the Holocaust as he had three ancestors who survived the camps and
seventeen who didn’t.
Because she had broken the
locks on the suitcase she had wrap it in a heavy duty plastic bag and then she took
it to Gracefield where Matheus lived.
“Hanni!” he said after opening
the door, “it’s wonderful to see you”
“Well I hope you still think
that after you’ve seen this” she said and indicated the package she was
carrying.
They sat in the kitchen, Hanni
drinking coffee and Matheus sorting through the documents, the conversation was
sparse because the former was nervous and he was totally engrossed, and when they
got to the end she said.
“I’m sorry”
“You have nothing to apologize
for” he said and squeezed her hand.
“This is an amazing
collection”
“My dad wants it to be
destroyed, he thought it had been, and he was really angry that Grandad kept
it, but he clearly had a conscience” she said
“I think that’s why he left
everything to me, because he knew I wouldn’t bury it”
“So what do you want me do
with it?” he asked
“I want it to be used” she
said “I want it to mean something”
“Well it’s such a complete
collection and quite unique” he said “But…”
“But?”
“If it goes on public display
then it will be in the public domain” he said
“So?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course not, it’s what I
want” she said
After entrusting the documents
to Matheus, Hanni returned to her academic world and it was in the following
year before the subject of the Holocaust came up again.
It happened one Sunday morning
when she was enjoying the papers and the phone rang.
“Matheus” she said “How are
you?”
He responded that he was very
well and enthused that the exhibit had been very well received by his fellows
and it had been shared around the globe to interested parties.
“So much so that we are featuring
it at this summer’s Modern History Exhibition and at the seminar at the Regents
Hotel”
“The Regents?” she said “I’m
impressed”
“Your story is the feature
exhibit” he said
“That’s great” she said “I
hope it goes well”
“It would go even better if
you were one of the speakers”
“No, no, no” she responded
“It will help your profile” he
added
“It was never my intention to
benefit personally from the misery my Great Grandfather caused” she snapped
“Your presence will give the
exhibition context, you are greatly admired for what you did”
“I want no admiration,
recognition, veneration or respect, for what I did” she insisted “I did what I
did because it was the right thing to do, the fact that it has brought it back to
the public’s attention is enough for me”
“At least come to the Museum
and see what else is to be included in the exhibition” he suggested
“I think you’ll be impressed,
but if you still don’t want to be involved after you’ve seen it then I’ll say
no more about it”
“Well…”
“You know you want to”
‘You’re not going to shut up
until I agree, are you? She said
“No I’m not”
“Oh ok then” she conceded
It was around the same time
that Hanni had agreed to participate in the in the special exhibition at the
Modern History Museum on the Holocaust, that Benjamin Ozols told Rabbi
Wolfstein he would go with him to Abbottsford to see it, what he didn’t know
was that there was particular focus on Alsace, which was where the Ozols lived,
if he had done so it would have got his attention,
The exhibition was a great
success and was well attended, and apart from the exhibits on display there
were also visual and recorded testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust, many
of them from Alsace and Lorraine, and Benjamin was in tears as he watched the
grainy pictures and listened to the words.
In addition to the exhibition
at the museum there were also supporting seminars being held at the Abbottsford
Regent Hotel, and as Benjamin wiped his eyes Rabbi Wolfstein told him about
them.
“It will give you an
opportunity to talk to others who feel you and there are some good speakers who
are sharing their experiences of being heirs to victims and perpetrators”
“Perpetrators?” he asked
angrily and the Rabbi explained Hanni’s role.
When Benjamin heard that the
great granddaughter of a man who was pivotal to the extermination of the Jewish
inhabitants of Alsace and by extension his own ancestors he was enraged, and
Rabbi Wolfstein had to physically restrain him from running to the hotel to
confront her.
“This whole exhibition is as a
direct result of her donating the very documents that have so incensed you,
because she wanted it known that her family had blood on their hands and she
further wanted them washed in the cold light of day” the Rabbi explained
“She has brought your story to
the fore”
At which point Benjamin
completely broke down and sobbed uncontrollably on the Rabbi’s shoulder.
When he finally composed
himself they walked calmly out of the museum in the direction of the Hotel and
when they reached the Regent, they walked inside as people were filing into the
largest of the function rooms, so they joined on the end.
Once inside they found the
room full to capacity and a polite ripple of applause went around the room as
Hanni Badenhorst walked in and took her place at the lectern.
She was 37 years old and was
still
a very attractive woman, tall and slim, soberly dressed befitting her academic
standing with her straight blonde hair in a French plait, and that blonde hair
along with her blue eyes betrayed her Arian heritage.
She
stood at the lectern and smiled to the audience before her and introduced
herself just before the lights dimmed and she began her presentation, which
involved an introduction to her great grandfather and graphic images of the
German campaign to commit genocide, finally the lights came back up and Hanni
began her concluding oration.
“I feel ashamed for two very different reasons, firstly
that a man of my blood, bearing my family name, participated, and relished in
that participation, in the removal and transportation of thousands of Jews, in
the full knowledge that he was sending them to their deaths, but secondly that
the surviving members of his family, who left Germany and settled in England,
chose to keep his crimes a secret, not only from the wider world but also the
subsequent generations of his family”
Hanni paused to take a drink
before continuing
“My own father told me it was
not my secret to tell, and that the dark stain on our family name should be
kept hidden, but I believe you must shine a light into every corner where
darkness dwells, because if not, the darkness will multiply and once again
attempt to extinguish the light of reason, thank you”
Rapturous applause followed
her final word and a question and answer session followed when the applause had
subsided.
The Q and A lasted for 15
minutes until Rabbi Wolfstein asked
“What would you say Professor,
if you were to meet a descendent of the Alsace Jews?”
“I would apologize
unreservedly” she responded before adding
“Is there one here, today?”
The Rabbi nodded and she
scanned the crowd expectantly and then Benjamin stepped forward and approached
the lectern and Hanni moved from her place to meet him and there was absolute
silence in the room and a palpable anticipation as if they were all holding
their breaths.
“I am Benjamin Ozols and I am
the last living descendent of the Alsace Ozols” he said proudly and Hanni
responded thus
“I apologized for the actions
of my Great grandfather for his heinous crimes and for those of his descendants
for hiding the truth and in their receipt their implied denial of the events in
Alsace, I do this unreservedly, as a gentile, as a Badenhorst, and as a human
being”
When she stopped speaking the
silence continued until Benjamin nodded his acceptance and then embraced her
and the silence was broken by enthusiastic applause.
Over the following few months
a friendship developed between the unlikely couple which had deepened by the
turn of the year and turned into something very different by the time January
came around when Hanni Badenhorst was stood wrapped up against the cold outside
Abbottsford Cathedral, and she was happy, despite the bitter cold and the
solemnity of the occasion.
It was solemn because
Abbottsford Cathedral was the location of a multidenominational memorial
service to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and happy because Benjamin Ozols was
driving down to the City for the occasion from his home in in the village of
Tipton in the northern most part of the county.
It was a trip he had made
every year for as long as he could remember and one which he would continue to
make in the future, but this particular year the trip was even more special
than usual.
When he arrived on the plaza he felt elated when
he saw her standing at the top of the steps and when she looked across the
plaza and saw him she smiled broadly and rushed down the steps to meet him and
they hugged before passionately kissing.
