Why are you doing this?

Many people are asking me why am I doing this. Often they do not specify what exactly they mean by "this", and they assume I know. But I do not know. By asking about "doing this" they probably mean to ask why am I interested in a story that has nothing to do with me. Why I made the film and why am I trying to write a book now.

I could answer very simply. Since the Czech police almost charged me with Charlie's murder - precisely, with not reporting a criminal act of murder, and with covering up for the murderer - my interest in the Jordan case became personal. Even though the crime I was to be charged with occurred five years before I was born, even though the charge was issued because I demanded the investigation of new leads I uncovered, I still felt offended and took it very personally. But it is not only Charlie's weird death that I am looking into, so this simple explanation could not be used.

I simply feel that by properly capturing the life story of Charles Harold Jordan, one can also capture the major turning points of twentieth century, with all the crushed hopes and political evil. His story seems to be of great educational value to me, the story of a scrap metal dealer eventually becoming the Father of the Refugees. It is the details of his transformation that I am missing the most, the correspondence with Europe and anguish of his own refugee years, the attempts to get his own family out of Europe, and his reactions to the very personal failure to do so.

This is why I am in desperate need of family data and stories. I hope one day the distant relatives in London will start talking to me again, so that I would be able to reconstruct the Hirschberg family tree. There may be a small family archive still left in America as well. There may be relatives of the Gecman/Jaworski family still living in Germany or Brasil, who may have something. There may be some Flato relatives in Russia or Israel. There may be personal papers of people who knew Charlie back in Germany that do mention him. There may be a million little stories that I do not want to miss, because without them the mosaic of a life would be imperfect.

I know that the five loyal readers of this blog deserve a piece of enigma at the end of this rather rambling post. Today's piece will feature the only other image of Charlie without glasses that I came across - or maybe not. Maybe it is not him. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Can you recognize him at all, or is it somebody else? Do you know who the other people are? I assume they are the Nemela family, but is that true?