UK schoolboys’ fatal hike remembered in Black Forest 90 years on | Germany

However, it was the Hitler Youth Organization that would take responsibility for the action by carrying out a propaganda coup with a ceremony next to the coffins of the five children who lost their lives in what the locals called “The Attack”. Englandforgetfulness (English Misfortune) before being transported to London by trains. Those images occupied the agenda headlines and traveled the world.

Douglas Mortifee’s daughter, Jenny Davies, arrived at the farmhouse in shorts and sandals when she was 17 – dressed the same as the other boys when they set out from the boarding house with just two buttered rolls and nothing to drink – to say it was finally time to pay homage to the Hofsgrund villagers and set the historical record straight once and for all.

At the anniversary commemoration ceremony attended by the local priest and the village band, he made an emotional speech from the church podium on behalf of the relatives of five of the 22 survivors and the nephew of one of the dead, saying, “Without your help, we would not be here now.”

His take on the narrative that the Nazis were able to feign friendly feelings towards Britain was supported by supporters of British appeasement efforts to prevent the Second World War.

This also allowed the boys’ teacher, Kenneth Keast, then 27, off the hook. Armed with a small 1:100,000 scale map and a compass he didn’t know how to use, he set out for a walk despite minus temperatures, snowfall, and repeated warnings from weather-savvy locals to turn back.

The charges were later dropped in Germany and British newspapers portrayed him as the “man of the hour” without whom more boys would have died; but UK authorities banned him from taking any further school trips abroad.

Ninety years later and in better weather, relatives and villagers followed part of the boys’ route along a mountain path to visit an ornate, rune-style monument erected by the Nazis, as well as a modest stone cross on a grassy hillside near the spot where Jack Eaton, 14 years and 10 months, collapsed and died a few feet from the village.

This cross gradually became known as the genuine monument to the boys of the Strand school in Brixton Hill, south London. It was commissioned by Jack’s father, the school’s boxing champion, who flew to Germany to find out who was responsible for the death of his only son.

Jack’s niece, Nancy Whelan, visited for the first time on the anniversary and touched the lichen-speckled inscription while fighting back tears. “My grandmother [Jack’s mother] and my mother, Jacqueline, who was named after Jack, said they always said they just wanted the truth to come out. The empty space on the cross indicates that Nazi authorities forced Jack’s father to remove words incriminating the teacher because it went against the official narrative.

Ewald Lorenz welcomed the children’s relatives to the Dobelhof farm, where Douglas Mortifee and RGS Farrants sought help. Their grandparents, Elisabeth and Bernhard Lorenz, had brought the hypothermic children into the safety of their wood-paneled living room, urging them to stand some distance away from the dark green ceramic oven that still dominated the room so they didn’t overheat too quickly.

Everyone in the village has their own story to tell about that night. “We know we always have to have an open door and an open mind,” Lorenz said.

After the walk, locals and families exchange stories in the wooden-beamed village hall. Among the rescuers was Bruno Lorenz, the village cobbler, and as his son Kurt recalled, Lorenz said of that night: “The snow and the wind were terrible.”

Marius Buhl, a local person journalistHe said that he wished he had had the chance to ask his grandfather, Reinhold Gutmann, about his role in the rescue, but that the village only truly understood the significance of the incident after the publication of research by him.Bernd HainmüllerA retired teacher from near Freiburg who spent 26 years uncovering the true story behind the tragedy. “We lived with the monument rising in front of our noses, but it took an outsider to really bring the story to our attention,” Buhl said.

“The rescuers didn’t talk much about it,” said Paula Gnaerhrich, whose grandfather Ignatz Schäb carried the children into the valley on a horned sled. “But it was always something that interested us young people. We often thought about children, and it always amazed me that the teacher had ignored the warnings of the Black Forest natives, who would always learn of their situation. heimat and no matter how clever he thinks he is, he has better airs than a visiting Londoner.”

Russell Petty’s daughter, Vanessa Barton, who was 16 at the time, quoted her father’s account of the march and how “the wind and snow together knocked down small trees.” He said: “On family holidays he wouldn’t take us anywhere where it snowed, especially not in the mountains.”

Julia and Lucy Warner brought with them He took the penciled diary of their grandfather, Ken Osborne, the youngest survivor, and donated it to local people. museum along with the postcard he sent to his family after the event. “We were lost. It might have been in the papers, so we were told to write and say I was pretty safe,” he said..

A long reading published shortly after the Guardian’s 80th anniversary brought Hainmüller’s work to a wider audience and brought many relatives of schoolchildren into contact with him; these connections eventually led to the memorial meeting. Research by the Guardian’s Richard Nelsson in the UK archives has also uncovered a document that is now central to understanding the events.

On coffee and kuchen families shared stories, shared photographs, letters, diaries and newspaper clippings; They pieced together details like who carried others down the mountain and where and when the boys later served in the war. Russell Petty had carried Peter Ellerkamp, ​​one of those killed. Stephen Hearn said he was pretty sure his father, Norman Hearn, had put youngest boy Ken Osborne on his shoulders.

“My dad would only give us little tidbits when we were little,” Hearn said. “He told us that he almost lost his fingers to frostbite while trying to save a child on top of a mountain.”

Just 27 years after his father’s death, Hearn looked at two boxes of documents about his life, found the Guardian article via a web search and “realized what I had stumbled upon”. In October 2024, he sent the information to Hainmüller, who helped him put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Like another survivor, Stanley Few, Norman Hearn refused to fight against the Germans when the war began, insisting that it was the Germans who had saved their lives. Both were sent to Asia instead. It was also noted that several of the rescuers went to war and never returned, two of whom were killed in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Kevin Mitchell, who visited the Hofsgrund with his father Max, whose late brother Hubert survived the march, said he felt a great sense of satisfaction. “Most of us were seeing the big picture, but the joy was in the details we were able to share.”

Debra Cadee, daughter of Donald Hooke, one of the survivors, said in a video message from Perth, Australia: “I remember my father telling us ‘the ringing of the bells saved us.'” He said he suffered from the effects of frostbite for the rest of his life.

Local mayor Klaus Vosberg promised that the inscription written by Jack Eaton’s father “their teacher failed at the hour of the trial” would soon be re-engraved on the monument.

“Ninety years later, I feel like my family’s painful efforts to get to the truth have finally paid off,” Whelan said.