Alfons Berger
By Marika Somogyi
When we first arrived at the house we still live in now, 54 years later, a lovely lady knocked on our front door. She had a freshly-baked cake in her hands. Welcome, she said, my name is Gondica and we live across the street. We have a swimming pool and you are welcome to use it whenever you like. She and her husband grew up in The Netherlands, which explained the slight accent she had.
That friendship lasted for over forty years until she passed away about ten years ago.
They had four children. We had two, about the same ages.
They had a swimming pool. We had a large lawn to play ball.
At least twice a month, we had dinner together, either in their house or in ours.
Her husband became our family physician.
My friend was the ninth child in her family. Needless to say, they were religious Catholics, but religion was never discussed. They celebrated Christmas, and we celebrated Hanukkah, Easter there, and Passover here.
This went on for twenty years. When her mother or sisters came to visit, they were invited to our house for dinner.
Then, when one of her many sisters had dinner in our house, she mentioned that the next month she would go to a memorial in a Nazi concentration camp–the place where her brother was murdered.
What??
Oh, she said, you didn’t know about Alfons?
No, I said, dumbfounded.
Well, he helped Jews to escape the Nazis. He guided many groups across the border to freedom. Then, one day, the Gestapo found out about his activity and took him to a concentration camp, where he was killed. He was twenty years old.
I looked at my friend Gondica. How come you never mentioned him? Her answer was simple. She didn’t want our friendship to be influenced by this fact, so that I would think I owed her anything.
Soon after her sister left, I asked for a photograph of Alfons.
A few months later, I created a memorial for him.
I used Dutch newspaper articles from the time of the German occupation, cast them in bronze, and combined them with the portrait of Alfons. He has a huge wing protecting the people escaping under his watchful eye. I found out later that he wanted to become an ornithologist, so the huge wing has more than one meaning.
I gave the bronze memorial to my friend Gondica. I gave the cast bronze portraits to her sisters and brother.
Now, the medal is in the collection of a museum in The Netherlands.
You don’t have meaningful friendships like this many times in your life.
I treasure her memory.
