Format: Download Slides with Synchronized Audio - MP4 Video File $9

Presenter: Paul Gardner

My mother was descended from the Badrians of Upper Silesia. Her family tree displayed a blank box representing her memory that her cousin Erna had a child in the early 1930s in Beuthen, Germany, but the child's gender, name and date of birth were unknown. She knew Erna had fled to Holland before the war. This presentation describes how this child's biographic details were uncovered, and tells of his life in hiding in Holland, the deaths of all his family, his escapes from imprisonment, his survival, his subsequent marriage and how his son was located. It also tells of extraordinary coincidences and chance events that allowed the jigsaw to be pieced together. The blank box became a person.