SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR NEWS & UPDATE, ENTER MR.JEIDELS

Our man of mystery is Tibor Kaldor. Whilst the documents that we have of him are generally sound, he had clearly stated in an advert that he was a PHD from Vienna University. Clive has done some very thorough research and has contacted numerous Universities in Vienna, some of whom responded and some did not. The outcome is that, most importantly, Vienna University responded and were very clear on the fact that all of their records had survived the war and that there was no trace of anyone named Tibor Kaldor in their files. The other responses we had were also in the negative, no trace of a Tibor Kaldor. We cannot speak for those Universities that did not respond of course whilst ever that is the case, there is a slim possibility that Tibor had attended a University in that location.

ENTER MR. JEIDELS

Whilst researching on the topic of the Dunera Boys, I came across a book, 'The Dunera Internees' by Benzion Patkin. The book details the memories of a number of former Dunera Boys and also provided a number of photographs including two of an 'Internee' registration form for a Harry Jeidels. These forms were issued to every Dunera Boy when they arrived in Australia, I take that to mean that the men were processed first in Fremantle and that is where the registrations were completed. As an aside, within this book is a reference to the Myer Emporium in Melbourne and a special pricing deal that was arranged for clothing items for the internees, below costs to all accounts.

You will note that the form title has been altered from its original printed name of 'Certificate of Registration of Alien' to 'Certificate of Registration of Internee'. A minor difference perha[ps but for the keen researcher that could be significant, what if a search for the altered title turned up trumps?

As you can see, there is a decent sized formal photograph with fingerprints. You may also note the registration number on the photograph, a stylised X followed by 4 digits. I suggest that you file that away for future reference that will be made in an upcoming post.

You can also see that Harry was a Photographer, in fact, in Clive's research, Harry refers to himself as a 'High-Class Photographer' and, interestingly, he was also involved in Bakelite manufacture, possibly a process worker in Melbourne before he eventually took up his career of Photographer once again.

Below is a close-up and enhancement of the back of Tibor Kaldor's application for citizenship form, it shows the name of a Photographer but, sadly, it was another photographer of German birth based in Melbourne.

But it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Harry may have worked at the Mottek studio and certainly quite possible that he may have known Tibor whilst they were both interned at Hay and then Tatura camps.

Harry Jeidels died in 1987, Clive has taken on the task of further research.

So, there we have it, no sign of Tibor Kaldor having gained a PHD in Vienna and a 'new' form that we can pursue in our research on the Tibor Kaldor story.

We are still left with the fact that Tibor Kaldor turned up dead having apparently taken poison in a Hindley Street, Adelaide hotel, 2 weeks to the day after the finding of SM's body, also poisoned, on Somerton Beach.We have Tibor's last letter, unusually structured and which, when processed through an acrostic decoder turned up the name 'DANETTA'. A second pass through the decoder turned up the following phrase: 'AND SEE DANETTA AND SUITCASE DANETTA DANNETTA DANETTA'.

Many thanks to Clive for his ongoing commitment and research that continues to throw up more most interesting information.

There will be more posts on Tibor as we make progress with research as indeed there will be more on microcode now that we have a much-improved camera lens set up, the early results are amazing. There will also be more on Pavel Fedosimov and his part in the SM story as well as an intriguing potential link between the Dunera Boys and the Manhattan project.

UPDATE: 8th March 2019

Images from 'THE DUNERA INTERNEES' By Benzion Patkin