A phenomenal, inspirational, true, and touching story, The Final Audit presents the thought-provoking tale of one man's attempt to explain his existence to his children, embarking on a portrayal of his life with Gulliver as his guide and mentor. Author Carnie Matisonn shares his fascinating history, including his lifelong wish to trace valuable artwork stolen from his family by the SS in Nazi-occupied Norway during World War II.

His tale starts with an impoverished childhood in a family devoid and incapable of love, leaving a twelve-year-old boy to survive in a rickety caravan on his own during the post-World War II era. Despite his circumstances, Matisonn peppers his narration with dry humour and irony. He recalls life in the cosmopolitan mining city of Johannesburg during the 1950s and fighting anti -Semitism in an effort to improve his situation through education and a high work ethic. As he achieves huge highs and terrible lows in both his career and marriage, he remains focused on the missing artwork, inadvertently becoming involved with Mossad in an attempt to hunt down a Nazi war criminal.

Matisonn finds himself duped into smuggling a Nazi descendent into South Africa by helicopter, flying sorties for the police force, and racing against time to recover treasures of artwork hidden in the cliff s of the Atlantic seaboard with the tide rushing in.

Through ups and downs, excitement and hard work, triumph and tragedy, Matisonn shares the story of a truly amazing life.

THE FINAL AUDIT

By CARNIE MATISONN

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Carnie Matisonn
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-9484-7

Contents

The Norwegian Blitzkrieg...............................................................................1Where do you come from Papa?...........................................................................5The Birth of a Life Ethic..............................................................................10Confrontation with Neo-Nazis...........................................................................21My Brush with Incarceration............................................................................33From Mrs K's Pantry to the Doldrums of Denver..........................................................40My Side of the Railway Line............................................................................51Self-Actualization.....................................................................................53My Foray into Business.................................................................................59The Convergence of Sanction Busting with the Pursuit of Pillaged Art...................................67The Lineage of Harry Abbot.............................................................................78Pilot of Fortune.......................................................................................85In Collaboration with the Nazis........................................................................90The Reappearance of one of Mossad's Most Elusive Sayanim...............................................97Mossad Israeli Intelligence Service....................................................................104My Encounter with Harry................................................................................108St Paul de-Vence.......................................................................................119Confrontation with the Embodiment of Evil..............................................................129The Secrets of a double-dealing Nazi...................................................................148Nazi Support from American Corporates and Politicians..................................................155The Treacherous World of Devious Bedfellows............................................................160The Theatre of Life: Act One An Illusion of Reality....................................................173The Theatre of Life: Act Two A Melodramatic Microcosm of "The State of the Nation".....................181The Theatre of Life: Act Three From Paradise to Purgatory..............................................194The Theatre of Life: Act Four Chaconne of the Lilliputians.............................................209Destruction of "The Temple"............................................................................216The Enigmatic Harry....................................................................................223Several Years Later....................................................................................245Villains of the Rubik's Cube...........................................................................248But for the Love of a Child............................................................................253The Final Audit........................................................................................266About the author.......................................................................................278References.............................................................................................279

Chapter One

THE NORWEGIAN BLITZKRIEG

My great uncle lived in Norway, a reclusive man of whom little is known other than that he qualified as a lawyer and harbored a lifelong passion for art and literature.

He was believed to have disconnected from his family, for no discernable reasons and favored living his life through the fertile imaginations of talented artists and creative literary minds.

I never did get to know him.

The 21st of February 1941 was a dark, silent night. The streets of Oslo were covered in snow. The rooftops of the houses in my relative's modest neighborhood were an undulating sea of white snowflakes gathering beneath a black, starless sky.

Hitler's Storm Troopers had the run of the city and struck fear in the hearts of its inhabitants.

Without warning, there was a hammering on the door of my uncle's apartment. Seconds later, before he could dislodge the latch, the hinges separated from the frame as six German soldiers kicked the door open.

They had noticed a Mezuzah in the shape of a scroll affixed to the entrance of his home, which confirmed it was the residence of a Jew.

The frightened man was immobilized with shock as the officious trigger-happy thugs moved from room to room, ripping paintings off walls and tearing furniture apart in a spree of wanton avarice and destruction.

An SS officer drew his pistol and shouted to the others to throw my uncle into the street. They pushed him out of the house and kicked him off the veranda.

He crashed down the stairs and felt the repetitive blows of jackboots cracking his ribs as he writhed in agony.

It ended as abruptly as it had begun, with a single shot to the head.

Norway had been unprepared for the German military invasion when it started on the night of the 8th of April 1940. Consistent with Blitzkrieg warfare, German forces attacked Norway by sea and air as Operation Weserubung was put into action, its aim to secure ice-free harbors to control the North Atlantic and to guarantee the availability of iron ore from mines in Sweden that passed through Narvik. The major Norwegian ports from Oslo northward to Narvik were occupied by advanced detachments of German troops. At the same time, a single parachute battalion took the Oslo and Stavanger airfields and eight hundred operational aircraft overwhelmed the Norwegian population. Oslo's effective resistance to the sea-borne forces was nullified when German troops from the airfield entered the city.

The Norwegian King Haakon VII and part of his government left for England on the British cruiser HMS Glasgow to establish a government in exile. Hitler garrisoned Norway with about three hundred thousand troops for the remainder of the war, and obtained naval and air bases from which to strike at Britain should they deem it necessary. From the moment Norway was occupied, it lost all its major trading partners and Norwegians were quickly confronted with a scarcity of basic commodities, including food.

At the beginning of the occupation there were at least 2 173 Jews in Norway. No less than 775 were arrested, detained and deported. Of these, 742 were murdered in the concentration camps and 23 died as a result of extra judicial execution, murder and suicide, bringing the total Norwegian Jews dead to 765, which constituted 230 entire households.

My great uncle's only legacy appears to have been his portrait painted by Edgar Degas in late 1898 and the possibility of locating and identifying other paintings owned by him. These valuable items were removed from his home in Oslo by his murderers.

It was my personal crusade to find these long-lost treasures.

Chapter Two

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM PAPA?

It is 2010 and I am sitting in the lounge of my modest condominium in Miami, with my petite, beautiful and indulgent Oriental wife, Amoi and our two daughters, Yakira and Kiana, aged ten and fourteen respectively. I remain fit, strong, creative and productive, notwithstanding my silver hair that no longer bears a trace of its original jet-black. This is my sixty- fifth year and I am starting my life as an immigrant at the first rung of the ladder in an unfamiliar environment, in the midst of a recession.

I relocated my little family from South Africa to the United States in September the previous year, in search of safety from the ravages of a country in a state of terminal moral decay as its ruling party mindlessly raped the coffers of the fiscus and embraced failed, communist- inspired ideologies, while eulogizing and emulating the worst practices of African despots.

Profligacy of the ruling elite with their hands on the treasury and their snouts in the trough, combined with repetitive indoctrination of a culture of entitlement by the newly empowered black ruling class, has sounded the death knell for productivity and entrepreneurship. These values have conferred upon the wonderful land of our birth, the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous country in the world, with a murder rate competing for top honors with Columbia.

Kiana and Amoi have had the misfortune to be attacked, robbed and brutalized by five armed gunmen in Johannesburg, while Yakira witnessed me being robbed with a pistol at my head when I refused to open the door to our home and expose my family to these vicious, bloodthirsty gangsters.

I have abandoned a life of privilege, achieved through the sweat of my brow, in exchange for the safety of my family.

Kiana is thoughtful." Why are you so eccentric and sometimes capricious, Papa? You are a gentle giant, a poet and a pragmatist. You are kind and strong, yet sensitive and compassionate. You are motivated and energized, but possess endless patience. You are an open book in your candor, yet some chapters of your life remain closed. We live a modest but elegant life, and our homes are treasure troves of art while your impulsiveness continues to pepper our lives with the unexpected. My friends find me different. Yakira and I feel that we are not the norm. Please tell me what it is that sets us apart."

Yakira lends credence to this observation. "I have always known that my friends and their parents look upon us through different eyes. You radiate the warmth of the midday sun and your charisma is electrifying. I too would like to hear your answer. All of the art in this one apartment is surely many times more valuable than the condominium itself. We live comfortably, of course, but in a small unit, filled with art, music and literature.

"Who are you, Papa, and where do you come from? Your friends treat you with unparalleled respect, if not reverence.

"Your helping hand reaches beyond the limits of sound judgment and touches the lives of so many people."

There is a long pause as both sets of searching, piercing eyes focus on my face, studying every wrinkle etched into my brow, anticipating the slightest flicker of an eyelid.

After contemplating the puzzled looks on their angelic faces, I reply, "Of this time, of that place, of some parentage, my dear children. What does it matter? There is no short answer, as I am as much a product of my background and experiences as parents of your friends undoubtedly are of theirs."

"It does matter, Papa," answers Kiana, "and it tells me that it is a vastly different road that you have travelled."

"We want to know," adds Yakira. "You cannot be introverted and extroverted at the same time. Something must have been a catalyst in your life to produce a musician, pilot, entrepreneur, academic, lawyer, lecturer, architect, interior designer, producer, businessman and philanthropist; a caring and sensitive recluse, living on the fringes of society and never wanting to step inside."

I become resigned to the inevitable dredging of old bones that had been lying dormant, beyond the reach of my conscious mind, for so many years.

"I come from a poor family far removed from the life you know. My parents grew up during the Great Depression. Many of my mother's uncles died in the pogroms in Poland. Her father and one surviving brother arrived in Pretoria and worked as tailors. Neither of them had ever attended school. Although my mother only completed Standard six (our Grade eight), she later qualified as a speech and drama teacher and learnt to play the piano and organ, becoming a competent musician.

"My paternal grandfather was born in Osfolk, Norway. He immigrated to South Africa at the age of twenty-one after his uncle banished him from their home for arriving late for dinner at the commencement of Sabbath as the sun set on Friday night.

"My father, Natie, spent his early years on a maize farm until one dreadful day a black cloud of locusts descended from above. Within thirty minutes, thousands of acres of crops nearly ready for harvest were demolished. The results were devastating and my grandparents faced financial ruin when the banks inevitably foreclosed on the farm.

"These misfortunes precluded Natie from attending university. Notwithstanding his graduation from school with distinctions in Mathematics, English and Latin, he considered himself fortunate to obtain a menial job as a blockman in a butcher's shop. Throughout his life, his frustration at having failed to realize his ambitions haunted him, and molded his personality from the affable raconteur to an actor steeped in a world of make-believe, ultimately descending into an alcohol-induced twilight zone of self-destruction.

"Natie initially made a name for himself in Yiddish theatre. As the use of the language died out in South Africa, he applied himself as an English-speaking actor. We often attended dress rehearsals, where I developed a passion for the performing arts. Eva played the piano and I played the violin, while Natie sang.

"We never really spoke to each other. We simply congregated for soirees.

"While the fridge and the cupboards were bare, the latest non-fiction bestseller would appear at Natie's bedside.

"His books covered a wide range of subjects and many of them were purchased on the black market as a result of oppressive censorship legislation at the time.

"There were rows upon rows of books in the entrance hall, along the passageway, in the dining room, even in the toilet.

"Das Kapital by Karl Marx sat alongside The Kinsey Report and Churchill's twelve volumes on World War II. Strategic and political perspectives were balanced by excursions into The Scourge of the Swastika, Mein Kampf and Hitler: A Study In Tyranny.

"I had long since been exposed to literature dealing with the injustices of the past and their impact on the premature demise of many of my ancestors. But the looted art endured beyond my uncle's grave and I was determined to pursue all avenues to locate it. The key to the mystery of where it might be, lay in locating the portrait of my great uncle painted by Degas in the late 19th century. The painting was one of many thousands that had been pillaged by the Nazis."

And so I began my story — a journey into the past.

Chapter Three

THE BIRTH OF A LIFE ETHIC

The enigmatic journey that I was to follow was born out of my humble origins as the son of a Yiddish-speaking Norwegian-Russian father, a Polish mother and the experiences, coincidences and opportunities that punctured the road to my date with destiny.

The house of my birth was a ramshackle, poorly constructed dwelling in a rural area beyond the municipal boundaries of Johannesburg. We lived in a "peri-urban" area surrounded by cattle ranches and peach farms at the foot of Aasvoëlskop, which later became known as Northcliff Hill.

The small three-bedroom home offered unsuitable accommodation for a family of seven. I slept on a bed in the dining room and contended with the sound of my mother's typewriter or sewing machine grinding on until the early hours of the morning.

At the age of twelve, after working through many school holidays and on Saturdays at the local outfitting shop, I cobbled together enough money with which to purchase a wooden box on wheels for $10, measuring 6 feet by 5 1/2 feet with a 6 foot ceiling and described in the advertisement as a "caravan". It became my home until I completed my schooling at the age of sixteen. I parked my mobile bedroom in the garden and sourced electricity using an electric cord straddled between the exterior wall of the house and my very own place of solitude. I painted the interior walls a pale shade of lilac and contrasted the wooden support beams with black enamel.

Perhaps it was during these formative years of living alone in an unstructured environment with a sense of isolation and alienation that I encountered my alter ego.

Parental contact was limited, due to my father's itinerant existence occasioned by long absences from home in search of employment and in pursuit of an unrequited dream to relocate to the east coast of South Africa.

My mother, with the demeanor of an imperious despot, had her hands full with her four other children living in the house under a leaking roof. She contended with a daily battle to put food on the table and fend off the sheriff's writs of execution against her paltry possessions.

I was always an irritant to her, from the time I was a colicky infant stubbornly rejecting Eva's notion of "a well-behaved baby" until I moved into my caravan. Her disdain for my idiosyncrasies endured throughout my pre-school years, during which she avoided all physical contact with me. Almost as soon as I had made friends at primary school, I refused to return home until after dark, in order to lessen the number of wooden hangers she was so fixated on breaking over my head. I often wondered at what cost she obtained her regular supply of domestic weapons.

It struck me as odd that other children being collected from school were embraced by their parents, whereas I was unfailingly ordered into the rear seat of the car. Our relationship oscillated between cordial and resentful, for reasons I was never quite capable of understanding. The only insight I had into her motivation for discriminating against me was from comments she made about my less than attractive physical appearance, as well as her own background at having been persecuted by her mother, who sadly departed this world some years after having been certified insane.

Eva's father had ended his marriage to her mother some years previously by jumping off the sixth-floor balcony of the general hospital.

I started playing the violin at the age of ten after being fortunate enough to acquire a discarded small three-quarter violin from my maternal uncle. I took lessons for a short while with a neighborhood violinist before attending a dress rehearsal of a fifty-two piece orchestra one Sunday morning under the baton of Dr Solly Aronowsky. At interval he enquired about my interest in music and asked whether I played an instrument. I somewhat foolishly stated that I was a violinist. Solly requested a member of the orchestra to lend me a violin so that I may play for him. I was taken totally by surprise and started to play the opening bars of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Solly recoiled in disbelief and shouted for me to stop immediately. "Mozart was not a gypsy! He did not look like a gypsy and his music was not meant to sound like a Hungarian folkdance. Instead of falling asleep on the violin with your eyes closed, you should hold it in front of you, straighten your back and lift your arm!" he bellowed.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE FINAL AUDITby CARNIE MATISONN Copyright © 2011 by Carnie Matisonn. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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