From Stuff…
A widow breaks her silence and revelations emerge about why a skifield? dropped its founder’s name. CHARLIE GATES and KLAUS HILLENBRAND report on the Nazi past of a South Island pioneer.
Don Church met Willi Huber in 1974.
They worked together on Mt Hutt skifield near Christchurch in the 1970s during its pioneer years. Huber was the first manager of the field, and they were both directors of the company that ran Mt Hutt.
In their downtime, they would hit the slopes together. Church would often go over to dinner with Willi and his wife Edna at their home. His Austrian friend was warm, with a ready smile. Church loved his geniality. Their friendship lasted for 45 years.
The ski partnership lasted almost as long. They could still be seen on the slopes together in the 2010s, when Huber was in his 90s.
ut, Church knew that his friend had a past. One that was very different to their days at Mt Hutt.
Huber had fought for the Nazis in World War II. He was a machine-gunner in a tank division, and saw action on the notorious Russian front and in Nazi-occupied France.
When Church asked Huber about his war experiences, he would chat openly and show Church old photographs and files. He told Church about the brutality of fighting through a Russian winter, and showed him the scars on his wrists where lice had gnawed at his body.
But, when the conversation delved deeper, things took a turn. Church asked his friend if he had seen atrocities or evidence of the Holocaust. Huber, usually effusive, would go quiet.
Read the full article on STUFF here.
