Twenty One

Untitled Part 5

                                                                                      Chapter Five

                                                                                      On Reflection

Rachel hid herself away for three days at her flat in Bristol trying to digest the information that she had just been given. My Father is a murderer, she thought over and over again, but not in his eyes. Her natural instincts were telling her to report everything to the Police in London. The drawback was her Father spending the rest of his life in Prison, and the disgrace that it would bring to her family. there lay her quandary. Jews on the other hand were systematically killing young men and women for the crimes of their forefathers, could there ever be any justification in this. The look on her Father's face that Saturday afternoon haunted her, and so fueled by the journalistic nature within her she decided to take the information given to her by her Father and investigate further.

Once again Rachel decided to look at each case individually, e-mailing her Father the names in the three cases she had chosen, and true to his word he answered quickly with details of all three.

For Franco Mendez he listed his great great Grandfather as Commander Claus Inge, responsible for the heavy movement of Jews to Extermination Camps mainly in Poland. Also for a short time he commanded the notorious Hettinger camp on the Polish/ Yugoslavian border.

Secondly, Madeline Mion. She was the great, great, grand-daughter of Field Marshal Hendrick von Strader, listed as a man with less compassion than a Hyena, sacrificing thousands of young men on the Russian front, while drinking Brandy in Berlin.

Lastly Sven Hilgard, his Great, great , Grandfather was Baron Fredrick Castle-burgh, a notorious hater of Jews, and as a personal adviser to Hitler was signatory to many exterminations in many Camps. Along with these details Peter Riesen had equipped his daughter with the names of off-shore Bank accounts and the names under which these accounts were held.

Rachel began with the German archives, entering the names into Google History. The details soon flooded in confirming in horrific detail her Father's story. Also their involvement in the confiscation of Jewish wealth and backing up that all three had disappeared after the War, presumed dead. Although this was a positive it was also a dead end. Next posing as a History student she visited the Jewish Remembrance Museum in London which held the worlds largest collection of Jewish Data outside of Israel. The Curator was all you would expect a Curator to be, a small black clad, black capped man tucked away in a book filled room reminiscent of a Charles Dickens story. With some reluctance he confirmed that all three men in question were presumed dead and therefore after the War ended the Allied Command had no further interest in them. They did however surface in the early 1960s during an investigation by a Jewish under-cover group in South America. all using assumed names and all appearing to be successful business men, and all with a lavish lifestyle.

"What is your interest in these men my dear" asked the curator.

Rachel knowing that she must be careful satisfied his curiosity by telling him that she was researching for a story she had been asked to write on the German High Command and inevitably its downfall, with a special interest in Senior Officers not accounted for after the War.

"Well my dear" said the Curator, "they were ruthless dangerous men, we must be thankful that at least now they are all officially dead"

"Then what of their families" asked Rachel, "is there any documentation of their children?

The Curator stopped for a moment obviously wondering why this young Jewish girl had such an interest in these men. "I will give you a name, and the last known address of an old friend of mine. I think if he is still alive you would find him very interesting" he said while shuffling through a note book he had taken from his jacket pocket, "His name is Benjamin Yottell, the last time I spoke to him, he was at this address" and he handed her a piece of paper. "Goodbye and good luck my dear, and for reasons not known to you I will deny if asked, that this conversation ever took place"