They fell in love in Johannesburg. Bennie Hermer was the young resident
physician in Durban's King Edward VIII Hospital. Olda Mehr was a
concert pianist, pretty, 18, with glowing black eyes. When she won the
Royal Music Academy Award in 1938, she sailed for London, promising she
would come back in a year to be married. In London Olda was a sensation. Sir Henry Wood made her his orchestra's
soloist for the Albert Hall season in early 1939. Olda's parents went
to London and rewarded her with a Continental holiday. In Poland they
were trapped by the war and the Nazis. The Gestapo took Father Mehr to
one concentration camp, mother and daughter to another. Olda was put into a flooded dungeon.
For six weeks she was not allowed to change her clothes. Then the Nazis
said she was a spy. They put sharp tongs on her right arm and tore the
flesh. They refused her medical attention unless she gave up her
“military secrets.” From then on indecencies alternated with the
dungeon. She cleaned her wounds with the drip from the ceiling. After long months the Nazis brought word that Father Mehr had died.
Mother and daughter were allowed to attend the funeral, but not to open
the coffin to see what was in it. Mother Mehr's mind broke down. Then
the Red Cross intervened and got the Mehrs placed on the repatriation
list. They were allowed to live in a small hotel on Berlin's outskirts. Back Home. When war came, Bennie Hermer had joined the South African
forces and had been sent to the Middle East. In June 1942 he was
captured at Tobruk. He was taken to Benghasi to assist Italians and
Germans in hospital work. He wrote to Olda all the time. She received
two letters, one from the prisoners' camp in Libya, the other marked
“War Prison inf Italy.” After almost two years in Berlin, Olda and her mother were sent through
Vienna, Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria to Palestine. There Olda's mother
was put under medical care. Something impelled Olda to go straight on
to Cairo. At The Crossroads. In November, when the British Eighth Army began to
roll into Libya, the Italians told Bennie Hermer to prepare to leave
for a prison camp in Europe. That night he escaped, and next day he
joined advance forces of Montgomery's army pushing toward Benghasi.
The day Olda stepped out of the train at Cairo's main station, Bennie
arrived at the Cairo hospital from Benghasi. Next day, riding through Cairo, Bennie thought he saw a girl who looked
like Olda. He stopped his car, jumped out, confronted the woman. To the
astonishment of the crowd in an outdoor restaurant, she fainted and
Bennie began jumping up & down. Last week, in a Cairo newspaper: “Miss Olda Mehr and Captain Bennie
Hermer of the South African Medical Corps announce their forthcoming
marriage.”
