Strawberries with the Fuhrer at the AGM

Its AGM time again.  During the AGM we will be showing the locally produced documentary “Strawberries with the Fuhrer.”

Four years in the making, the documentary “Strawberries with the Fuhrer” tells the true story of Helga Tiscenko, whose father was a Nazi SS General, and the ongoing impacts of her traumatic and violent family legacy.

Growing up in Nazi Germany, Helga understood only that her parents were loving and intelligent people. She likens her experience of being chosen to present Hitler with a bunch of forget-me-nots at his birthday celebration one year to what it would feel like for a child of today to meet a pop star. They ate strawberries and ice cream together; Helga shared her parents’ unquestioning devotion to the Nazi regime.

As the Third Reich collapsed, the reality of its atrocities was fully exposed. Helga fled the Allied advance, barely escaping with her life. Her father was executed as a war criminal. Helga and her Russian husband escaped Europe for a new life in South Canterbury, New Zealand – and rarely spoke of the past.

In her 70s, Helga finally decided to break the silence and write of her life’s upheavals and of the near impossibility of reconciling how two honourable and caring people like her parents could have come to be so involved in the Nazi regime.  “She now sees vividly how economic hardship, social upheaval and social deprivation can spawn despotic leaders like Hitler and the dangers of mass hysteria,” says Amy, who travelled to Germany and Slovakia to further research Hermann Höfle’s war-time role.

The material uncovered was relayed back to Helga’s daughter Katerina, who grew up largely ignorant of her grandparents’ Nazi connection. “She has been an amazing part of this documentary. I believe that talking about it has been the best thing for her, and I also found the younger generation I met in Germany, with a similar family history, to be very forthcoming, ” said Amy O’Connor, who made the documentary.

Be sure to send us your nominations for the Committee to arrive a week before the AGM.