The Kiwi Who Was German: Search for Identity Reveals World War II Crime
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New Zealander George Jaunzemis spent 30 years searching for his true identity. Now, with the help of the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross, he finally knows who he is. But his story, which involves a World War II crime, turns up more questions than answers.
They were standing behind a rustic fence on a small street in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, men in ironed shirts and women in blouses, waving to George Jaunzemis as he got out of the car. He felt them touching his arms and slapping him on the back, and he heard their voices, which seemed nearby and distant at the same time. He looked around at these people he didn’t know, and yet many of them knew him.
They served traditional crumb cake on the patio behind the house. Jaunzemis ate some cake, answered questions and asked some of his own. He sat on the green artificial turf and held his glasses tightly in his hands. He looked around a second time. He didn’t recognize the house. But when he stood in the garden later on, surrounded by the fruit trees and with the wind blowing, he thought that perhaps he had been in this place once before.
He had spent half of his life without knowing where he came from, and without memories of his childhood days. In this garden in Magdeburg, some of it returned, but it was more like a distant, colorless memory, like something in a dream.
He says that he often had the feeling that something wasn’t right about the story that supposedly was his life. “I spent 32 years searching,” says Jaunzemis.
He had no birth certificate, no information — and no past. Then, in the 33rd year of his search, he received a brown envelope in the mail in Riga, Latvia, where he lives. It was the envelope that brought him to meet these people behind the rustic wooden fence.
The envelope is now lying in front of him on the coffee table in his apartment in Riga. Jaunzemis has entered the dates and places from the documents in the envelope into a timeline on graph paper: Riga, Magdeburg, Brussels, Munich, Christchurch. He wants to set things straight about his life.
The search is over, as is the desire to know. At 70, George Jaunzemis finally knows who he is.