Gift of friendship that survived Nazi terror
A book shared by two men over the years shows the present has a past all of its own, says Antonia Leslie
Sunday December 27 2009
WITH the nostalgic time of gift-giving it seems like the best time to tell the extraordinary tale of the adventures of a simple leather-bound book which was given as a present a long time ago.
My mother Agnes Bernelle was born in Berlin in 1923. She was still in her teens when the Second World War broke out. As she was the daughter of famous Jewish theatre producer and actor Rudy Bernauer, who owned some big theatres in Berlin and wrote musicals and Thirties 'pop songs', she lived a very charmed and materially extravagant life.
Naturally, with Hitler's rise to power, it all fell apart. Rudy lost everything and was lucky to escape with my mother, on a Hungarian passport (as he had been born in Hungary) to England. Once in England, he and my mother were given refugee status. Twenty-nine members of his extended family weren't so lucky at Auschwitz and Belsen.
My mother's mother, Emy, stayed behind and tried to get out later. She managed to escape the SS who tried to recruit her as a spy. They abducted her in a car and pressed a wad of cash into her hand, but she managed to get out and scattered the money, causing enough diversion to give her a chance to make a run for it. She got to a railway station and jumped on a train, like in an old black and white movie. She arrived at Dover a day later in a mink coat and diamond earrings, with a thick German accent and nothing else, claiming political asylum.
She was Protestant, not Jewish, so it was probably a hard story to swallow but they believed that she, too, was running for her life and allowed her in.
But before the big escape, there had been many years of prosperity and my grandfather's partner Karl Meinhardt, who co-wrote the musical The Chocolate Soldier with him, had received a gift from Rudy. It was a yellow leather-bound book of prints.
Forgetting that Rudy had given it to him, Karl gave it back to Rudy on his next birthday. Rudy said nothing and thanked him for his lovely gift and on Karl's next birthday he had a diamond encrusted in the cover and gave it back to Karl.
Karl, of course, now realised what had happened and said nothing but on Rudy's next birthday had a ruby encrusted in the cover and gave it back to him.
Every year, the book went back and forth between the two men and soon had a great collection of precious and semi-precious stones in the cover.
Karl Meinhardt was also Jewish so you might be wondering who had the book when the Nazis took over?
I don't know; but it, along with everything else, was taken. Meanwhile, Karl survived the Holocaust and escaped to Argentina.
My mother would sometimes remember the book but never thought she would ever see it again.
Once in England my mother got involved in the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA. She was asked to become a spy for them and, unlike her mother, took up the offer of espionage and ended up working in Woking on what was known as 'black radio', broadcasting secret coded messages to English and Allied Special Forces, behind enemy lines.
The story is she got a German U-boat commander to surrender by congratulating him on the birth of twin sons -- he'd been at sea for two years.
She met my father in London. He was a spitfire pilot, on leave at a party. Once again, it was all like a very old black and white movie, with tight pin-curled hair, vaselined lenses and twee BBC accents.
Thirty-five years later, my mother was in New York and a good friend who lived there told her one day that he was taking her to the Central Synagogue. She wondered why because she wasn't a practising Jew and had converted to Catholicism in England.
When she got there her friend stood her in front of a glass case which contained the 'jewel book' with the story of Karl and Rudy on a silver plaque. An American GI had recovered it from a stash of Nazi treasure and not knowing whether Rudy or Karl had survived the war had taken it home to the US and donated it to the synagogue.
When I was 13, my mother took me to New York and the synagogue and I remember seeing the book in the glass case. On a later occasion, when my mother had gone back again to look at the book, a rabbi came over to her and asked why the special interest in the book?
She replied: "I'm the daughter of Rudy Bernauer!"
The synagogue was delighted she was alive and well and insisted on handing the book back to her in a big televised ceremony. When my mother died 11 years ago, she left the book to Sean, my oldest brother. It has been in a safe in the bank until two weeks ago when my brother decided to move it and, as I had been the executor of her estate, I had to go in and get it for him.
I had forgotten how beautiful the book was and felt huge pangs of nostalgia for my mother and grandparents when handling it.
The book is worth a few bob in itself but it's the story and the emotional value of the book that is the real value -- just an interesting little story of what started out as a simple little gift.
- Antonia Leslie
Originally published in
