Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no.2 op.18 – Anna Fedorova – Complete Live Concert – HD.mp3
“Did you ever meet someone who actually knew Hitler personally?” Vera asked her best friend, Anca.
“No. Did you?”
“Yes! Charles’ father! Colonel von Beck.”
“Really?”
“He was in the same room with him. During the war, his father was one of the aristocrats who had tried to overthrow and kill Hitler at a meeting in East Prussia. That was OperationValkyrie. The coup failed and the aristocrats, who were secret members of the German Resistance, were discovered and executed. All but Charles’ father and his best friend, Ally. They left the meeting several seconds before the detonation and were able to escape.
“Soon after, they made their way to Lyon and joined the French Resistance.
“The Resistance needed translators from German to French; so, Charles’ father and Ally, who were fluent in both languages, were recruited to decipher codes that were being transmitted from Fascist Headquarters in Berlin to France.
“After the war, Charles’ father and mother went to Bolivia.”
“Bolivia?” Anca said in a puzzled manner. “True, many Germans after the war went to South America…. Some to hide.”
Vera continued her story.
“After several years, we decided it was a good time to immigrate to the States. I applied for a research program in Cardiology at New York Hospital, and Charles applied for a grant at the Rockefeller Institute. With the help of his well-connected, German professor in Munich, he was quickly accepted.
“Charles has created a reputation for himself in the field of chemistry by researching the possibility of nitrate’s dual capabilities: for domestic – as in medicine and in military. The military uses nitrates for dynamite and explosives.”
Vera looked down as she said these words. Anca moved in her chair and ordered another glass of wine. Anca was wondering why Vera had told her this detail. Sounded secret.
As Anca was talking, she kept thinking about the mysteries that Vera was confiding in her about Charles, the love of her life, and his travels to Bolivia.
What did Anca know about Bolivia? Such an unknown country, landlocked in South America. Didn’t Bolivia share with Chile that fantastic, magical Atacama Desert? Or was it completely in Chile?
Anca remembered reading something about Klaus Barbie living in Bolivia – Barbie, the French war criminal – the Butcher of Lyon – the right-wing German Fascist monster who had committed so many atrocities in occupied France during the war. When he was Head of the Gestapo in Lyon, he had tortured and strangled thousands of dissidents with his own hands, wringing their necks like he was choking chickens. That’s how he got the name, the Butcher of Lyon.
Barbie, had to escape Germany, went to Lyon where he killed thousands. Then hid in Bolivia.
Bolivia…. Anca tried to recall… Wasn’t the revolutionary, Che Guevara, assassinated in Bolivia? Could Barbie have had something to do with that? Klaus Barbie and Che Guevara in Bolivia at the same time. What a coincidence of History. Had Barbie and Che known each other? Had Charles or his father known Barbie or Che?
Anca said to herself, “Coincidences just don’t happen. And when coincidences happen, they continue happening in the most mysterious, secret way.”