Boekevat and a Candle for Andries

<p><em><strong>Boekevat and a Candle for Andries Kunz</strong></em><br><em>By Ben Kunz</em></p><p>Some stories are written in blood others in silence - and a few are passed down through generations until someone dares to bring them home.</p><p><strong>Andries Kunz</strong> was a young South African Boer raised on the rugged plains of Elandsfontein a farm in the Eastern Transvaal that shaped the hearts of brothers and a sister and sowed the seeds of legacy. But love pride and doubt cast shadows on his life when the paternity of baby Louise - born to Anna his wife - was questioned. In anguish and disillusionment Andries left his homeland and fatefully signed a contract with King George to fight in a war far from South Africa... a war that would claim his life on Italian soil. First he was MIA after Tobruk. Then the Red Cross found him as a POW in a camp north of Rome. He and three friends escaped from a train moving them north as the Allied forces moved towards Rome in 1943 but was killed by German soldiers. The Kunz famaly recieved a letter and a photograph of his grave.</p><p>Decades later in 1996 <strong>Ben Kunz</strong> son of Andries' brother Jan discovers a faded photograph of the forgotten grave in Italy. Driven by longing and the need to heal a family wound never spoken of Ben embarks on a journey across time and the Department of Defence in SA's archive- not just to find Andries' final resting place but to bring peace to a father haunted by the loss of a brother and the silence that followed.</p><p>With his wife <strong>Wilna</strong> and his parents <strong>Jan and Hettie</strong> Ben travels to Rome. At the foot of a new tombstone in the Commonwealth War Cemetry in Rome beneath the Roman sun a broken circle is finally made whole.</p><p>A deeply personal tale of war love betrayal and reconciliation <em>Boekevat and a Candle for Andries Kunz</em> is more than a historical novel - it is a true South African family saga that spans nearly a century reminding us that memory is sometimes a battlefield and closure a quiet kind of victory even in death.</p>