Two Brothers (78 page)

An incident which I had hoped to include in my fictional narrative but could eventually find no place for concerned my Uncle Heinz and the death of my great-grandmother. In October 1941, she was still living in her home town of Kassel when the German authorities began a final round-up of Jews there.

Her grandson Heinz very bravely visited the Kassel Gestapo in his army uniform and asked that his adoptive grandmother, who was close to death, be allowed to die in her bed. ‘
Lassen Die mir die alte Judin in Ruhe
,’ was his appeal. ‘Let that old Jewess alone.’ Perhaps his appeal was successful, because Emilie Ehrenberg did die in her bed soon after. She was spared the nightmare of transportation in a cattle truck to a death camp, but not that of having seen the country in which she was born in 1859 descend into insanity and barbarity without parallel.

Like Wolfgang Stengel, my family also had some experience of the pre-Holocaust SA concentration camps of the 1930s. My grandfather’s other brother, Hans, was a Christian pastor, having been converted while he was a student. He was sent to Sachsenhausen Camp, where his good friend Reverend Martin Niemoller, the great anti-Nazi cleric and author of
First They Came
…, was also an inmate. Hans was eventually released, due largely to the efforts of the Bishop of Chichester.

He came to England, where, like the brother in my story, he was interned as an enemy alien, although, also like him, he did not resent it. Great-Uncle Hans returned to Germany after the war in an effort to continue his ministry, but my father and his family were happy in Britain, grateful for the safe haven and the opportunities this great country afforded. Having arrived as penniless refugees, they eventually prospered and made their mark. Both my father and my uncle married English girls and both became professors. My father held chairs in Physics and later in Higher Education, and in 2005 was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Times Higher Education Awards.

My uncle became a historian and Regius Professor of English Constitutional History at Cambridge. In 1986 he was knighted for his services to the study of history.

Geoffrey died in 1994, but at the time of writing my Uncle Heinz and my father are still alive; they still correspond and met quite recently. Heinz has even met my Australian wife, Sophie – at Geoffrey’s funeral, in fact, making a connection that spans time, distance and history. I myself have been to Germany many times, where my plays are sometimes performed and also as director of the musical
We Will Rock You
. I have made true and lasting friendships there and have nothing but happy memories of the country of my father’s birth.

Ben Elton, May 2012

About the Author

Ben Elton
is one our most provocative and entertaining writers, author of thirteen internationally bestselling novels. His multi-award-winning TV credits include
The Young Ones
,
Blackadder
and
The Thin Blue Line
. His stage hits include the Olivier Award winner
Popcorn
and the global phenomenon
We Will Rock You
.

He met his wife Sophie in 1986 while touring Australia as a stand-up comedian. They have three children and call both Britain and Australia home.

Also by Ben Elton

Stark

Gridlock

This Other Eden

Popcorn

Blast from the Past

Inconceivable

Dead Famous

High Society

Past Mortem

The First Casualty

Chart Throb

Blind Faith

Meltdown

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TWO BROTHERS
A BANTAM PRESS BOOK: 9780593062050
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781409080497

First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Ben Elton 2012

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