An unusual news item came in last week, which triggered a disturbing memory.
According to the BBC, the grave of Gestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich was found open. The grave, located in Berlin, is purposely unmarked to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. This was standard policy after WW II.
As I was discussing this with a colleague — boom — I recalled the time I happened upon the headstone for one of the top-ranking Nazis, indeed the very Nazi who signed Germany’s instrument of surrender on May 7, 1945.
Over a decade ago, I was touring the idyllic Fraueninsel located on Bavaria’s Lake Chiemsee. Suddenly, there it was: a headstone for Alfred Jodl, one of Hitler’s closest circle who was hanged following the first Nuremberg trial. I was shocked.
In 2015, as part of a delegation to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau, I visited the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, where we were informed by the guide that none of the 10 executed after the first trial were laid to rest in a cemetery.
I was obviously confused. I myself had seen Jodl’s headstone at Fraueninsel. The guide informed me that there are no remains there, trying to imply that it’s not a real gravesite.
I did some research and learned that Jodl’s remains were disposed of in the Isar river, but if the point was for Nazis not to have a burial site, why was Jodl granted a proper place of rest, complete with his military rank as if he were a person of honor? Does it matter that his actual remains aren’t there? Nobody seeing the headstone would ever know this.
In 2015, I drafted a letter to the convent that occupies most of Fraueninsel, but now, four years later, cannot recall if I sent it or not.
I’ll be doing so this week.
Shana Goldberg maybe reached at [email protected]
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