Letter: Sir Tom Stoppard obituary

My doctor in Nairobi, Dr Gellert, also Jewish, told me a story about this. He had been a friend and colleague of Sträussler in Czechoslovakia. The chief executive of Bata shoes, Jan Antonín Bat’a, gave Gellert a ticket for his family to go to the Bata factory in Singapore, and he gave Sträussler a ticket for his family to go to Nairobi, to another Bata factory. Thinking that Singapore sounded more interesting, Sträussler offered to swap tickets with his friend. Gellert agreed and the fatal exchange took place.