The Antique Silver Box
Part Three: The truth
PART ONE: DISCOVERY
PART TWO: REVELATIONS
PART THREE: THE TRUTH
The contractors fixing Casey’s basement and attic had found an antique silver box under a loose floorboard in the attic containing forged American birth certificates and passports, a bag of various gemstones, medals, notebooks, and Nazi gold bars.
While Casey waited for her friend Gene, a graduate professor in German Linguistics, to arrive, she went through the papers again, trying to understand as much as possible despite her rusty German.
Marsha said her father left because he couldn’t bear the thought of having anything to do with a top-level Nazi. But if her grandfather was the terrible person her father believed him to be, why would he leave Casey with him? Did he worry about her or wonder if she was safe?
Casey hadn’t thought about her parents in years. She was in her 40s; they had been gone for over thirty years. She considered Frank and Marsha her parents. It had never occurred to her to look for her father before today.
Casey turned on her computer and googled her father’s name. Several hits came back. Clicking on the first link, she found an article naming her father as the new CEO of a jewelry company in Switzerland.
What? CEO of a jewelry company in Switzerland? Did the jewels she found in the small blue velvet bag have something to do with her father, whom she hadn’t seen, spoken to, or heard from in almost forty years, becoming CEO of a jewellery company?
The doorbell rang, rescuing Casey from thinking about her father.
“I’ll get it!” she yelled.
She glanced at herself in the hall mirror as she passed, stopping to adjust the few strands of blond hair that had come loose from her French twist.
She hurried to open the door. “Gene, it’s so good to see you!”
“Casey! You look fantastic!”
“Thank you. Come in! Let me hug you!” The two embraced as old friends do. Then she led him into the kitchen to see Marsha.
“Gene! You still look like the young man who spent hours in Frank’s office, poring over his books! You haven’t changed at all,” said Marsha, hugging him. “Go put your things in the spare room. Casey will show you where.”
“You haven’t changed a bit either, Marsha,” said Gene, hugging the older woman. “And which spare bedroom? Aren’t there like a half-dozen? he teased.
“Oh, you. Now, both of you get out of here. Dinner will be ready at 8 pm,” said Marsha, laughing. She shooed them out of the kitchen.
“Let’s put your things away and check what’s inside,” Casey proposed.
Showing him to the spare room next to her bedroom, Gene put away everything but the tools he needed.
In the study, Gene helped Casey move a big, cushiony chair beside the one already behind the massive desk. She sat beside him, opening the box and removing its contents.
“Let’s start with these.” Casey opened the small blue velvet bag with the gems, pouring them onto a sheet of paper in front of Gene.
“Oh my God!” Gene was stunned as he examined some of the gems individually, holding them up to the light and looking at them with a magnifying glass he brought. “I’m no gemologist, but these look flawless. They must be worth a fortune! Where did they come from?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” said Casey as she carefully put them all back in the small blue velvet bag, closing it tightly.“How about these?” She poured the medals out of the second small blue velvet bag onto the paper in front of Gene. “Any idea what these are?”
Gene carefully examined each one with his magnifying glass. He briefly looked at Casey. “These are SS and Nazi medals, some given only to Hitler’s top aides. How did you get them?”
“One of the contractors found the antique silver box under a loose floorboard in the attic,” Casey explained. “This is what was inside. Gene, a fluent German speaker, was ideal to review these documents and items, given my rusty German,” said Casey.
“Let me look at the loose papers first,” said Gene. He took the closest one, reading using his magnifying glass, his lips moving in concentration. When finished, he put it aside and picked up the next sheet. While Gene worked, Casey made coffee and updated Marsha about the medals.
“I told you Frank was one of Hitler’s top aides,” said Marsha.
“Let’s see what else Gene finds. I’ll bring in the coffee and see if he’s ready to share what he’s learned so far.”
When she put the coffee down in front of him, Gene looked up, startled. “I’ve become completely absorbed in these papers. You’ll never believe what I uncovered.” Seeing the look of hesitation on Casey’s face, he laughed. “It’s not bad. It’s astonishing!”
“Tell me, tell me!”
“Okay, so I went through all the loose papers. I found four birth certificates, two for each of your grandparents. The German birth certificates are real. The American birth certificates are excellent forgeries, essentially missing only the watermark. I also found a letter of commendation for Franz Schmidt signed by Hitler.
“How is my grandfather being a top-level Nazi incredible?”
“Wait a minute. I’m not done. I found receipts for significant donations to the Jewish National Fund and the American Red Cross. I also found a letter initially addressed to your father, but your grandfather had crossed out his name and filled in your name instead. It tells the entire story of how your grandfather was a traitor to the Nazis.”
The lists of names and numbers in the notebooks are the names of the Jews he helped escape to freedom. The number represents the amount of money the escapees gave him, possibly to hide from them or as payment for his assistance in avoiding the camps. I believe these asterisks mark the Jews he couldn’t find after the war. The amount of money is what he either returned or donated. He donated most of the funds from people he couldn’t locate. As far as I can tell, he saved almost 400 families.
Casey sat back in her chair, stunned. “There’s more that’s wild! Albert Goring, brother of Hermann Goring, and your grandfather, worked with the Underground, coordinating escapes. Frank was one of the officers in charge of the transportation of Jews to the camps via truck. He would alter the routes so they could drive through unoccupied territories. Freedom Fighters would stop trucks filled with prisoners on their way to the concentration camps, kill the guards, and give out work permits to those on the truck. Then they were set free. Albert would often forge Hermann’s signature, authorizing the rerouting of the transports. He used his influence as Hermann Goering’s brother to help German Jews escape.”
“Frank admits he used some of the money to come to settle here. He felt guilty having used some of the money from the Jews he couldn’t find to build this house. He also saw it as a fresh start where he could be Francis Spencer instead of Franz Schmidt.”
“Wow,” Casey said. “He was a war hero, not a Nazi. I feel so much better now.” She sighed, relieved.
Gene continued the story about Frank Spencer, Casey’s paternal grandfather, explaining Casey’s grandfather was previously Franz Schmidt, a Nazi war criminal, German traitor, and savior of Jews.
“Most Nazis fled to South America. Interestingly, Frank chose to come to the United States,” said Casey. “A move to the United States was risky. He could have easily been found and tried as a war criminal. His good deeds might not have outweighed his bad.”
Simon Wiesenthal knew your grandfather’s location, interviewing him on site shortly after the house was built. Frank had turned himself in. Wiesenthal came to interview him, but when he discovered your grandfather had saved so many Jews from the death camps, Wiesenthal decided not to have him arrested as a war criminal. Especially after your grandfather gave him detailed information about where other high-ranking Nazis fled.”
“So the greatest Nazi hunter ever chose not to prosecute my grandfather because of the Jews he saved?” asked Casey.
“He even allowed your grandfather to keep what he had taken from the Nazis after your grandfather made a sizeable donation to Wisenthal’s Nazi hunting. Your grandfather’s will is in here. He left you everything.”
“So, that’s where his will was. I searched extensively; however, it remained missing. But as his only living heir who could be found, I automatically inherited everything.”
“Which were his final wishes. He knew you would understand and forgive him, unlike your father, who couldn’t get past the fact his father had been a Nazi. There’s a letter here for your father; here, look,” said Gene, handing her an unsealed envelope with Frank Jr. written on the front.
Casey read the letter and felt her eyes fill with tears. Her grandfather had desperately wanted to reconcile with his son before he died. He was missing until this afternoon, when he suddenly appeared on Google as the CEO of a jewelry company in Switzerland.
TO BE CONTINUED…