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BBC News
10-05-2025
- BBC News
Diary sparks mystery of Wolverhampton man helping WW2 Jews
The diary of a Jewish teenager from Austria has been uncovered, leading to a mystery about a man from Wolverhampton thought to be helping Jews escape diary was discovered by Eli Getreu's widow Barbro Gentele and featured entries written in 1939 as he was visiting his parents who were refugees in the city after escaping Nazi Daniel Lee, a reader in European History at Queen Mary University of London, said it offered a significant insight into life in Wolverhampton on the eve of also suggested a man called Isaac Brown living in the city had been helping Jews settle in the UK and Dr Lee is appealing for information about him. Mr Getreu moved to Denmark but visited his parents in Wolverhampton in May 1939, capturing in his pages the happiness and freedom he saw there before the outbreak of diary is handwritten in German and currently being translated by Mr Getreu's grandson Öyvind Vå includes letters to a girl called Vera, who Mr Getreu had been in love with. One entry on 27 May 1939 describes a fair in Wolverhampton "packed to the brim" with boys on dodgems and girls in make-up and silk stockings, and the laughter after two boys deliberately crashed their bumper Mr Getreu wrote: "I would have liked to have been as carefree that evening, but I was unable to. I was indeed sorry for something; I saw young girls everywhere in the arms of their boys, laughing, happy, and contented. I was jealous; I wanted to be so contented, too."Months earlier, he had described events in Austria during a wave of anti-semitic violence carried out by the is now referred to as the November Pogrom, formerly known as had begun in Germany and continued in Vienna on 10 November day, Mr Getreu documented soldiers searching homes, deserted areas where Jews would have previously gathered, religious scrolls thrown in the street, arrests, boarded-up shops, looting, an explosion and burned-down synagogues - and how he got home to be greeted by his mother "running out, crying joyfully, kissing me and being happy that I was there". Dr Lee, who was contacted by the family after they heard a BBC radio programme on the Holocaust, said: "It's amazing to think these boys and girls are having a lovely night, drinking and wearing make-up, but six months' later, they were in a very different place," he said."Some of those boys wouldn't even be alive. Women were going into factories."But here they are all having the time of their lives, with no idea of what was going to happen."He said Mr Getreu had been "a typical 18-year-old adolescent who did not have a crystal ball to inform him of what was around the corner" - who had paid as much attention to his personal thoughts as the horrific anti-semitism and violence seen on the streets of Vienna. Ms Gentele, who lives in Stockholm, described her husband's diary as that of a "young man who was madly in love" and a shy and sensitive teenager who was worried about his met him in 1973 in Sweden when he had become a psychotherapist working with families and Holocaust died in 2005 at the age of Gentele said she had no idea what he was going through in Wolverhampton, but believed he was writing about "a glimpse of what could have been".The family are now hoping to find out more about what life was like in Wolverhampton for Mr Getreu's parents, and whether they were part of a wider community of Jews who had fled said they wanted the journal to be published, not just as an account of war, but also as a way for young people to understand history, identity and empathy, and to "walk in another person's shoes". The diary has also led Dr Lee to discover more about who might have helped the family in said a man called Isaac Brown, living at 65 Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton, was supporting academic has found several documents backing up his theory, including a refugee card and information from a 1939 both the family and Dr Lee are hoping to trace anyone who knows more about Isaac Brown and the help he gave to those fleeing conflict and Lee said tens of thousands of Jews would have been seeking asylum in the UK at the time, and it was remarkable that Mr Getreu's parents found their way to the city at a time when borders were closing. He is seeking information on Mr Brown's role in facilitating this. The academic said the diary was significant because it revealed the routes some Jewish refugees took, adding: "They didn't always go to London, Paris or America, but rather followed family networks."He said Holocaust history was more commonly linked to places such as the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, and he added: "You don't think about Wolverhampton and the Jewish refugees who fled there."It was an important discovery, he added, because so much World War Two research had highlighted the voices of the Nazis and the perpetrators of the said: "There is still so much more to uncover about the Jews themselves." Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
USA Today
13-03-2025
- General
- USA Today
The historic Octagon House in Fond du Lac has been steeped in intrigue since 1856
The historic Octagon House in Fond du Lac has been steeped in intrigue since 1856 The living room was discovered to have a false fireplace with a small wooden stairway behind it. Show Caption Hide Caption First-time home buyer? These four tips could make the process easier From manufactured houses to community land trusts, homebuyers could find great deals in untraditional housing markets. The Octagon House in Fond du Lac was built in 1856 and is one of the few remaining examples of its kind in Wisconsin. Secret tunnels and rooms fueled rumors of a connection to the Underground Railroad, though historians largely debunked this theory in 2017. The house gained a reputation for being haunted after its owner reported paranormal experiences. After facing foreclosure in 2017, the Octagon House most recently served as a transitional housing facility. Amid Fond du Lac, Wisconsin's historic buildings is one steeped in architectural wonder and mystery. Former Fond du Lac mayor Isaac Brown built the Octagon House in 1856 after his time in office. Its address is now known as 276 Linden St., but at the time, that area was very sparsely occupied. Its design was based on trending octagon-shaped homes from the mid-1800s that was sweeping the U.S. and Canada, according to FDL Reporter archives. Because of its architectural significance, the Octagon House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and in the State Register of Historic Places in 1989, as it's one of the few remaining examples of an octagon house in Wisconsin. It also has a grout wall construction, which was innovative and uncommon for its time. The 1970s marked strife for the Octagon House's fate Fond du Lac was close to losing the Octagon House in the 1970s, after the state chose the site for a new Wisconsin State Employment Service in 1970. City officials objected to the plan the next year, though the planners' defense was the fact that the city and county were in discussions for a joint complex to the north — though this was not yet in the planning stages — which would make the new employment office conveniently placed. "Because of the fast-changing pattern of growth in Fond du Lac, it is difficult to know precisely what is going to happen," an editorial read in the Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter in 1971. "So while the state acted in good faith in seeking to find the best site for its new office, it has, quite innocently, penetrated a long-standing residential area," the editorial continued. "Scheduled to be torn down, in fact, is the historic old stucco octagon house that dates back to Civil War days. So what can be done?" More historic homes: Home of Indy 500's second winner Joe Dawson up for sale for nearly $1 million One of the earliest options was to move the Octagon House off its original property, particularly to the Galloway House grounds, but while the state was willing to donate the house, it was not willing to fund the move. A "Save Octagon House" project was born by the end of the year to raise money for the move, including a dedicated week for the house with public tours and a bake sale. Wisconsin Gov. Patrick Lucey even donated $2,000 from the demolition fund to the preservation fund, but fundraising still came up short by the January 1972 deadline. Additionally, surveyors discovered the house was grout and not stucco after all, raising the price tag considerably for moving because it was heavier than expected. However, Lucey didn't sign the building contract anyway that would have permitted the house's demolition, willing to authorize a project on a different site. The Octagon House made it onto the National Register of Historic Places by that November, but its fate was still in flux for a few more years. Moving it was deemed unfeasible by 1973, so another option was to buy it back from the state. Finally, Marlene Hansen bought the property in June 1975, promising preservation and public access to the house after some necessary restoration. The state built its job service office on North Peters Avenue instead. Secret tunnels fueled mystique on the property Within the first 40 years that followed Hansen's acquisition, the notoriety of the Octagon House grew. She took care of the house for that time but would never recover the money she invested into it. The Octagon House soon gained a reputation for being haunted, after Hansen and other visitors claimed to feel a "presence," as well as a sensation of getting shoved. Hansen has also said she saw the ghost of Ruth Pier, wife of the late Edwin Brown, the original owner's son. The living room was discovered to have a false fireplace with a small wooden stairway behind it, as well as a secret room adjacent to a second-story bedroom, with a cryptic message carved in the lath that presumably dates to 1888 and appears to give directions to a secret meeting. These finds and an underground tunnel leading to a log cabin on the property fueled a rumor that the property was a stop on the Underground Railroad, but that was never definitively proven. Local historians Rick Whaley and Sally Albertz even debunked the rumor in 2017, citing that the house was nowhere near escape routes to Canada, and the writing carved into the wall dates to 20 years after the Civil War ended. However, Whaley and Albertz said it was possible the secret tunnels and rooms were used to store and move alcohol during Prohibition, as Fond du Lac did have a proven bootlegging reputation. Hansen and other residents held onto the Underground Railroad theory, based on testimony from old neighborhood tenants. Fond du Lac's connection to abolitionists preceded the Octagon House's construction, including visits from Lewis Washington in 1847 and Frederick Douglass in 1850. As the Octagon House survived into the 21st century, Hansen spent many years trying to sell it, even writing to the show "American Pickers," which involved hosts Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz looking for hidden antique gems across the country. The crew filmed in Fond du Lac in 2010, but it didn't help Hansen sell the house. Hansen closed the property to the public in 2015 after she started renting it out privately. Almost two years later, BMO Harris Bank foreclosed on the house. Most recently, the Octagon House was home to the Walton Recovery House for Men transitional housing. "Remember when ..." is a bi-weekly column from Streetwise Reporter Daphne Lemke that looks back at businesses of Fond du Lac's storied past. Tell her what you'd like to see next by emailing dlemke@
