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Elspeth glanced at Alex, then Sarah, but didn’t answer their questions. ‘He saved them, you know. He came back during the war to find Alena, but he found two children instead – Joseph and Miriam.’
‘What’s this got to do with stolen art?’ Ray asked, repeating Alex’ question.
‘Otto was an art officer.’
‘What is an art officer?’ asked Lili.
Ray told them about Hitler’s obsession with valuable pieces of art and the officers whose task it was to find and confiscate those paintings from the Jews.
Elspeth stepped in when Ray had finished. ‘You must understand, during the war it was the only way he could think of to return to the Ionian Islands to find her – to find Alena. He didn’t know he had a child until he found Joseph and Miriam hiding with the family’s servant in the house while he was valuing and having the paintings removed. Joseph had recognised Otto. He told Otto that Alena had lived with him and his parents for many months at the summerhouse in England and that Miriam was going to be his sister.’
Elspeth looked around the room. ‘That’s when he guessed the truth – that he had an illegitimate daughter.’ Elspeth continued, ‘The servant, hiding with the children, told Otto that the other members of the family had been rounded up and shipped off the island. So he used his position as an art officer to smuggle the children and the servantto a neighbouring island, on a boat in crates full of artefacts.’
‘Zakynthos,’ said Lili.
Elspeth smiled. ‘That’s correct. He went back after the war to continue his search for Alena, never giving up hope that she had evaded the death boats and was still alive, but he never found her. Or saw his daughter again. A Greek family on Zakynthos had taken in his daughter, Miriam. By the time he returned, after the war, they had left the Ionian Islands. He didn’t know where they were.’
‘Israel.’
All eyes were on Lili.
Lili explained, ‘A lot of Greeks settled in the then newly created state of Israel.’ Lili stared at Elspeth for a long moment. Her mouth dropped open when it hit her. ‘Are you saying my great-grandfather, Otto, was a German art officer – aNazi?’
‘Yes, but he was also a young man caught up in a conflict, trying to find the woman he loved.’
Sarah commented, ‘So, he saved my father and the little girl, Miriam, Lili’s grandmother?’
Elspeth nodded. ‘That’s right.’
Lili noticed that Elspeth had fallen silent. There was something she was holding back.
Ray glanced at Lili. ‘What happened to him, the German art officer?’
That question had been on the tip of Lili’s tongue.
Elspeth stared at the photo in her hand. ‘He lived a long and innocuous life. Along with saving the two children, he also saved Alena’s family’s incredible art collection, worth millions today. I suspect it was the largest collection of art looted from one family by the Nazis outside of the Rothschilds, and the largest collection of confiscated art in a private collection today.’
Elspeth sighed. ‘Despite sitting on all that wealth, the sad part was he’d amassed a substantial fortune, but he never found the most precious thing in the world to him.’
Lili knew what it was. ‘Alena.’
Ray asked Elspeth, ‘How do you know he lived a long and innocuous life and he kept hold of that art?’
Elspeth turned to him. ‘I thought you would have guessed.’ She took a deep breath before she revealed what she had been building up to. She looked at the photo. ‘His name was Otto, but…’ Elspeth held up the image. ‘You all knew him as George.’
Sarah looked at the photograph, then at her mother as if she’d gone stark, raving mad. ‘But that’s granddad.’
‘Not exactly.’
Nate stepped in. ‘What do you mean, not exactly?’
Ray glanced around the old summerhouse at the hooks on the wall where all the artwork, taken by the police, had hung. Sarah was doing the same. Their eyes locked in silent, shocked understanding. They had spent decades looking for artefacts belonging to Jews which were confiscated by the Nazis during World War Two. It had been their life’s work to find some of that art, confirm its true provenance, and return it to the Jewish families it had been plundered from. Neither Ray nor Sarah could get over the irony. All this time, one of the biggest collections of stolen paintings was right on their doorstep, along with the Nazi officer who had taken them.
Ray fixed his gaze on Elspeth. ‘But where did all this come from?’ he asked, referring to the works of art that had hung on the walls.
‘Some of the pieces were hidden with the family in Zakynthos who took the children in, and he shipped them back to England after the war. The rest he accumulated over time, looking out for when they resurfaced – sometimes they were sold by private individuals, and others came up for sale at auctions around the world.’
Ray looked from Sarah to Elspeth. The news was incredible.
