Kraim Budawa Issa Benghazi recalls his close relationship with the German military Marshal Rommel. Tells it, 70 years later, the young butler today nonagenarian living in his apartment in Benghazi, the capital of the rebel government that challenges Gaddafi.
British command in late 1941 landed in secret on the east coast to kill the Libyan Desert Fox was wrong. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, head of the German army in North Africa campaign, did not sleep in the headquarters of Al Baida, in the center of the Italian colonial province of Cyrene, but in a secret residence next to the ruins Apollonia Greek: Susah village, bordering the Mediterranean. Therefore
saved. He slept there, accompanied only by a military aide, Officer Alex Ulrich, and his personal assistant Libyan Kraim Budawa Issa. Alternating
Italian, English and Arabic, tells her story. When it came to the world, Libya was an Italian colony since 1911 and the rebel leader Omar Mokhtar led the resistance against the metropolis from the Green Mountain, the land of Issa. But he was brought up with the Italians and joined the colonial administration.
" Apolonia was born in in 1919 or 1920. I worked as an employee of the municipality until 1940. That year began World War II in February 1941, the Germans came to support the Italians against the Allies. I was the supervisor of Rommel's secret residence in Apollonia. Went everywhere with him when he was at the front. I was eating, drinking, was responsible for the house, could enter his room when he slept, he translated. But for several months there knew it was him, "says Issa.
" At first he was dressed in civilian clothes and German officials told me I was a journalist, a teacher or a military adviser. I wanted to meet Rommel and did not know working with him, "recalls former butler, who took six months to realize.
" A British command 60 men landed on the coast to kill Rommel. As its administrative headquarters, believed that slept there. But no, Apolonia slept with me! Was the November 18, 1941. Some officers German and I went to Al Baida. We saw three Germans of the guard and the England captain dead. In the afternoon came Rommel, military dress. Then I knew it was him .
Issa then had his left arm bracelet the swastika. But do not leave your mouth words of admiration for the Nazis. Their assistance was professional. And the worship of their leader Rommel, personal, not political.
" He had never fear. It was a brave man. Very clever. No smoking, no drinking alcohol. Made no distinction between officers, NCOs, soldiers and Arabs were all equal to him as a family. Respected us as if we were their children. And also respected the Allied POWs. "Issa and Rommel
communicate in Italian. He developed friendship so that the general went to his wedding and he confided to family intimacy, and that his wife wanted to come and visit with your child , "but he would not see the duration of the war."
The British, to arrest or kill Rommel would have done better to recruit Issa: "I went in his room when he slept, he had no gun or rifle at home .
Rommel wanted to bring their tanks to the other side of the Suez Canal. But the British offensive at the Battle of El Alamein he was stopped. It was a point inflection and the Germans began to retreat. One day in late 1942, Rommel took leave of Issa. He gave her a signed photo of him that still holds.
" is over, we lost North Africa," he said then, before returning to Germany, where in 1944 he was forced to commit suicide after being implicated in the plot to kill Hitler.
Issa ended up working for the British Meteorological Office Benghazi, where he remained until his retirement in 1986. Quiet now attends the new revolution. All passed and he's still here, with his wife and eight children.
Gaddafi What do you think? " At first the people loved him. It was good. But lately, the people were not happy. Only this I can tell." Word of the survivor.
Tellagorri
Libyan Butler rommel
0 comments:
Post a Comment