(UPDATES BELOW POST)
...TIBOR KALDOR & WILLIAM SHER (WILHELM SCHLESINGER)
WERE RELATED...
The matched photos here are of Tibor Kaldor on the left and William Sher on the right. William as many would know had changed his name whilst living in Germany during times that were perilous, to say the least.
Tibor Kaldor was found dead in a first-floor bedroom of the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street Adelaide just two weeks after the discovery of the man on Somerton Beach. That man is now believed to be Charles Webb although we are still awaiting the findings of the SAPOL DNA examination.
The link according to Peter Davidson is that the Great Aunts of Tibor and William were in fact, sisters-in-law. That is close, Allow me to explain, I can relate to the relationship, he says half smiling. I am a great Uncle and I have in-laws who are great Aunts and Great Uncles, we keep in touch and we often discuss family matters.
In Tibor and William's times, it is not difficult to imagine that there were many conversations among the family. William was making plans to emigrate to Australia whilst Tibor was making plans to escape firstly to Italy, then through Switzerland and France before arriving in London. It was there that he and thousands of others were arrested, moved to the Huyton internment camp, and then aboard various ships including the Dunera, to the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia. One Canada-bound vessel, The Arandora Star was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic, of the more 1500 men on board including Italians, Germans, and British Seamen and Soldiers more than half lost their lives. A perilous journey indeed.
You can read more about the ex-internee Tibor Kaldor in a post here which includes the full Police FIle:
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2022/10/tibor-kaldor-police-file-downloads.html
Tibor was Dr. Tibor Kaldor having earned his PhD at Graz University.
What we now have is a most interesting situation. Carl/Charles Webb worked for Willam in his power tool company, Tibor Kaldor was related to William. Tibor lived not many minutes' walk away from William's business. Both Carl and Tibor are found dead in Adelaide within 2 weeks of each other. This blog wrote about Tibor in 2016, this was when Clive Turner had found a small article in the Adelaide Advertiser and passed it on to me. From there I was able to identify Tibor as a DUNERA Boy and an ex-internee. We both worked on the case discussing the various aspects of the life of internees and uncovering the use of microcodes within the Hay Internment Camp banknotes. In one post I had the distinct privilege of talking to Bern, an ex-internee. Read more about that here:
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-somerton-man-camp-pell-interview.html
We must of course ask the question, is this coincidence? My personal view is that it goes past that, whilst it is true to say that Tibor's name has cropped up a number of times in the case thus far, this takes it to a completely new level. It's a breakthrough and we have to now wonder, in light of this new information, what will come next? I think its reasonable to assume that the two men, William and Tibor knew of each other, it is not a big step to now say that it is likely that Tibor knew of Carl. Do we have 100% proof of these associations?
The short answer is 'No', what it will take is documentation of some kind, letters, employment records, newspaper articles, and all the usual and necessary corroborative evidence. But it is step by step becoming more and more evident that Tibor was a part of what happened at Somerton, either he knew precisely had what happened and that's why he had to die or, he suspected it.
The whole issue of Tibor's last letter with its acrostic code word, DANETTA has come to the fore.
There is more to follow but in the meantime, Peter Davidson at the moment is looking at the younger man, Erich Schlesinger, another ex-internee who may or may not be related to William Sher. We do not at this time have a date of death for Erich. I would like to thank Cathy Carley, a commenter on the Identifying the Somerton Man blog for doing the valued groundwork about Erich Schlesinger.
Is this a breakthrough, in my view yes it is and it's down to great communication and the teamwork of people who share a common goal of finding out just what happened at Somerton in 1948. David M. We are on the right track...
UPDATE: 23 October 22
Two items of importance to update, one is the Kaldor/Schon-Schlesinger family tree prepared by Peter Davidson, and the second is the beginning of the search for Erich Schlesinger to ascertain whether or not he was involved in any way with Mr. Sher's business, it includes a photograph of Eric in uniform which I think maybe his CMF days. Of interest is the fact that he was an electrical engineer.
