SOMERTON MAN: WE HAVE A NAME Part 4. THE NOTE. Link between SM and the Camps found. Updated 28/08/16, 1900hrs

AN ADVISORY NOTE:

This and subsequent posts on this topic addresses the issue of suicide. It was a significant problem in those days and is a growing problem now. In fact here in Australia, last year we had 2800 suicide deaths comprising of 2180 men, 65 children, and 560 women. Bullying both institutionalised and personal, was a contributor in the majority of these deaths. Bullies themselves are also victims in a way, they have numerous issues, pain and pent up anger that they struggle to deal with and often project these feelings onto others. It behoves us all to be sensitive to the situations of others, we never really know what is going on in their lives. If you or anyone you know is in need of help, there are a number of organisations that can help. Here in Australia, we have Beyond Blue, 1300 22 4636 and there are others including Lifeline.

Acknowledgement:
We acknowledge the assistance and advice we have had from the good people at the Tatura Museum. Pay the site a visit and you can review some of their excellent information online. They are great people to deal with and we are following up on a number of leads from our discussions.

 Tibor Kaldor:  Last Written Words 

It is always a sad event when someone passes, made even more difficult to handle for those left behind when someone decides to take their own life.

Tibor Kaldor was a Jewish man, he had already lived through persecution in his country of birth, Austria, and then at the hands of the British when he was interned, loaded on to HMT Dunera, and sent to Australia as an Alien.

Prior to his arrest and deportation, he had lived at 65, Parliament Hill, Camden near Hampstead Heath, London and had a legal practice there, a significant improvement on life in Austria. Little is known of those years in the UK but perhaps a clue is given in his note that follows.

The note itself was recovered by Clive in Adelaide amongst other documents related to the case. The original note was faded and hard to read so it has been digitally enhanced. The image of the original is available on request. Clive and I have had numerous discussions by email and on the phone regarding this post and I acknowledge the significant effort he has put into chasing down every lead we could find, share and verify.

There are two pages so it is quite a long note given its purpose, a full transcript of the note with comments is below the images. I have formatted it as close as possible to the original document in relation to spacing, line lengths, paragraph beginnings etc. There were two words that I was unable to clearly identify but thanks to 'Annonymous', one has now been cleared up.

Transcript:

Page 1.

                                                                13/12/1948

Dear Sir,
             I am very sorry to cause some unavoidable in  -
convenience. I have decided to end my life and have
taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. The reasons
do not matter, but you will understand that nobody
would take such a decision lightly. There was no
other way out.

           I suppose the formalities will be fairly simple, and
I would like to ask you, as far as it  rests with you, to see
that the following arrangements are observed.

           I should like to leave my body to the University
for research or teaching purposes. If this is not possible
I should like to be cremated without any ceremony.
I leave my belongings to the Red Cross if something is
left after payment of expenses.

          No notifications are necessary as I have no relatives
and have informed a friend in London myself. I
should be particularly grateful if you could prevent the
incident getting in to the press as far as this is possible.

       I am enclosing one pound for my hotel expenses
and 10/- sh for distribution to the chambermaid and
others to whom I may cause inconvenience.

Page 2.

          I think this covers about everything. Once more

sincere apologies for the unpleasantness and best?

thanks for the trouble you are taking.

                                                 

                                                Yours Faithfully

                                                     

                                                               T Kaldor

             P.S. If you want to take any of my things

you are quite welcome.    There is an inventory

of  clothing  articles in  the  bigger  suitcase

 Initial Notes on Content ( Clive & Gordon)

1. The note itself is written in a neat hand, carefully constructed and without any spelling errors.

2. Grammatically perfect

3. The writing has a marked forward slope.

4. The form of the capital letter T was interesting, similar in style to the T found on the T Keane tie.

5. Paragraph one comment '...have taken an overdose of sleeping tablets'. Question, how would he have known how long it would take for the overdose to take effect? It could have prevented him from completing his letter. Also possible that he deliberately wrote it in the past tense prior to taking the overdose.

6. Tibor was Jewish, it is not an allowed practice to be cremated within that faith. However, as Byron pointed out, he was brought up in a family that apparently belonged to a Jewish Reform movement. Some Reform Movements endorsed cremation. Similarly, some movements disagreed with the practice of male circumcision. The latter point may apply to SM and that would explain the Jewish custom of stones at his grave site.

7. Last line first paragraph, '.. no other way out' will remain a mystery, we do not know what he was trying to escape.

8. Paragraph 3, line 4'... I leave my belongings to the Red Cross' No mention of items such as a wallet or a wristwatch.

9. Paragraph 4 page 1, '... have informed a Friend In London Myself' The phrase structure seems different to the rest of the letter, it seemed 'clunky'. Examined and found that the first letters of each of the 4 underlined words spelt out the word 'FILM' a code?. According to a mathematician friend, the probability of a word being spelt from the first letters of 4 consecutive words in this way is .0001. Was he telling us that there was a FILM hidden somewhere? Was it just coincidence? The last paragraph on page 2 may have an answer for that. 

10. Unusual to have a Post-Script and the contents tell us a little more than at first may be apparent. Notable he indicates that he had two suitcases, a larger one and by default a smaller one. Why would he have written an inventory of the clothing articles? Was this meant to be an indicator as to where the FILM referred to was to be found, was he hoping that someone, in particular, would read the note and inspect the belongings? No mention of the suitcases is included in the file recovered.
11. Is it some form of Acrostic code?

On the 17th December 1948  Prosper posted an advert: Lost, Tudor Gold Watch, Adelaide or suburbs.
The question is what that a real ad or a message? How often would you expect to get a response to an ad that looked for a very expensive watch? Tudor was a Rolex make.

We believe we have at least one solid link between the Somerton Man and the Tatura/Hay internment camps. Next post will be Tuesday 30th August.

This ends this edition of this post, it will be updated over the next few days.