A Jewish
refugee arrived penniless in England in 1938, one of the last escapees of the
Nazi regime; the family members remaining in Germany were all killed in the
camps. In time he set up a business and it prospered. When he died recently most
of his considerable estate was divided among his widow and his son and
daughter.
He had also made
provision to leave several millions of pounds to a charitable foundation that
he had started many years earlier, founded, as he said, against any future
Holocaust, where the money might be used to assist other refugees.
His son, an
accountant, and daughter, a barrister, have filed a claim in court against each
other, to recover the foundation money for themselves. It seems that the
daughter was willed a considerably larger portion of the inheritance than the
son, who took the revelation badly, and so chose to challenge the legitimacy of
the off-shore account in which the foundation funds are kept; leaving the
daughter no option but to defend her position.
The legal
costs now exceed the value of the foundation money. The case continues.
__________________
In an
antiques emporium in Portsmouth, England - a warehouse, really - where displays
of wooden ship models, World War I German helmets, paintings of battles and
other military related items are offered for sale, there is a locked cabinet.
In the cabinet there are valuable medals, coins, maps and other ephemera.
On the second
shelf down, tucked in amongst the Death's Head rings and swastika-tipped
daggers, is a pale translucent green vase. The tag informs the curious that the
vase was recovered from Hitler's bunker in Berlin in May, 1945 by a British
officer, a few days before the end of the Second World War.
We are
further informed that the vase was found
still containing a bouquet of flowers, and that a German prisoner had confirmed
that the flowers were Eva Braun's, used in her wedding ceremony to Adolf Hitler
on April 29, 1945, the day before their suicide in the same room where the vase
was found.
On a separate
tag, the letters PoA (Price on Application).
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