Jack’s historic trip to Germany
Jack Mulheron, 15, from Raumati South, has two extra special reasons for flying to Germany tomorrow.
One is his great grandfather’s European premiere of a classical music composition and the other is his great great uncle’s football triumphs.
The events later this month are a strange amalgam of classical music and soccer.
Jack’s relatives were brothers, Richard Fuchs the composer and Gottfried Fuchs the football player.
Richard Fuchs was an esteemed classical composer and Gottfried Fuchs a successful German national football player who scored a world record 10 goals in a 1912 Stockholm Olympics international match against Russia — the record remained unbeaten until 2001.
But both were German Jews, persecuted by the Nazis and forced to flee their homeland and their respective careers.
Jack’s great grandfather Richard came to New Zealand with his wife and two daughters and Gottfried fled to Canada.
The German Football Association has invited the Mulherons to attend a concert in Dortmund in honour of Gottfried and Richard Fuchs.
Jack has also been asked to talk to a class of students about how his family was affected by the holocaust.
Jack is close to his grandmother Soni, Richard Fuchs daughter.
“It was very frightening for my grandmother,” Jack said.
“She told me about being on a tram and some Nazis asked her to say ‘Heil Hitler’.
“She said ‘My father doesn’t say Heil Hitler’. Afterwards she remembers Nazis coming to the house and later my great grandfather was put in Dachau Concentration Camp.” Jack’s grandmother is teaching him German so he can deliver a short speech.
“I wanted to learn German from my grandmother as I thought it would be a nice thing to do, but I didn’t know I’d have to be using it this soon.”
The Dortmund concert will be followed by another two concerts in Karlsruhe, the Fuchs’ home city.
Eighty-three years after Richard Fuchs’ most prestigious award-winning cantata, Vom Judischen Schicksal (The Jewish
Fate) was banned by the Nazis, it is now to be performed for the first time in Germany.
On January 28, the concert will commemorate the 75th Memorial Day for the victims of National Socialism. The Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe has seating for over a thousand people and will feature Richard Fuchs’ Vom Judischen Schicksal alongside works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Martinu, Mendelssohn and Bartholdy.
Works from the other composers have been chosen for their football themes in honour of Gottfried.
Jack is travelling to Germany with his father Johnny Mulheron and uncle, Wellington film and TV director Danny Mulheron, Danny’s wife Sara and daughter Florence.