Is there ‘redemption’ for Shoah murderers?

SUZANNE BELLING

Kaplinsky says that growing up, he didn’t know much about the suffering of the Shoah. His parents did not speak about it, “only my father had nightmares and my mother would not open the door when the bell rang – or answer the phone.

“I assumed my background could be compared with those of my friends, but I started to realise it was not the same when my father was called to give testimony in a Nazi trial in Germany. It was all over the newspapers and my peers in Cape Town started asking me questions.”

He went to Herzlia School “because my parents wanted me to live a Jewish protected life”.

Kaplinski – who graduated with a BA (Honours) in psychology from the University of Cape Town, later attaining a Masters from Unisa – says he only later found out that offspring of Holocaust survivors were drawn to “helping” professions.

His first job was at Rondebosch Boys’ High School “where I became a ‘diplomat’ on Jewish-related matters”. He joined the staff of Herzlia High School in 1977, initially as a counsellor and later as principal of the High School, eventually heading up the United Herzlia Schools.

He lived in Canada, in both Toronto and Vancouver, before making aliyah in 2000, where he worked at the English desk of Yad Vashem and was involved in the development of its new museum.

Kaplinski’s hero in his book is a successful human rights American lawyer, who “performed many mitzvot, but his Nazi past came back to haunt him. He has visions of what transpired, says Kaplinski.

“My book presents the challenge – is there any redemption? – given the exemplary life he led in America.”The ending, he admits, “is controversial but I am not giving it away”.

Kaplinski, his wife Arleen and three daughters and nine grandchildren, live in Jerusalem.

* The book will be launched on February 23 at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre and is available on Amazon at $15 ($8,50 on Kindle) and R150 in South Africa.