I hope the Australian customs will recognise the special occasion
display some compassion
and let the tub of ice-cream through to a dying man

"Durian ice-cream gift for dying German

BY CHOONG KWEE KIM
PENANG: Touched by the story of a dying German’s love for her coffeeshop’s durian ice-cream, a 75-year-old grandmother has made two tubs of the dessert to be sent over to him.

Tan Gaik Nooi, the widow of the former proprietor of Kek Seng coffeeshop in Penang Road, said her daughter told her that a dying man in Australia loved to eat their durian ice-cream.

“Most foreigners would run away at the very smell of the durian but I am touched that this man had often come back to Penang for our durian ice-cream,” Tan said yesterday as she helped her nephew’s wife to prepare two tubs of ice-cream to send over to Willi Hans Boehm in Australia.

Tan’s grandson, Sean Siew Yuen Kwang, 25, had called The Star after reading the story of forbidden love of Boehm, 86, and Agnes Vaz, 81, that was published in The Sunday Star.


Tan and Siew preparing the durian ice-cream for Boehm at the Kek Seng coffeeshop in Penang Road yesterday.
He had offered the unusual ice-cream “gift” as he was moved after reading that Willi Hans could not fulfil his last wish of coming to Penang as he was too sick.

Siew said: “The ice-cream is a goodwill gesture from us and we hope that the smell of the durian ice-cream will evoke old memories of Penang.

“I am worried that food is a quarantine product, but I really do hope that the ice-cream will get to him before it is too late,” said Siew, an assistant movie director who is working on a love cum action movie set in Penang.

The Sunday Star reported that Boehm, a former German navy officer, is dying of lung cancer in a hospital in Perth with weeks to live and his six sons are searching for a Penang and a German flag to drape over his coffin.

Boehm loved Penang island dearly because that was where he met his true love, Agnes Vaz, a Portuguese Eurasian whom he married in Singapore after the Second World War in 1946.

His Penang-born accountant son Willi Goya, 49, had searched for a Penang flag through the Internet which led him to The Star Online and arrangements are being made to send the state flag to him, courtesy of The Star.

A Malaysia Airlines representative called The Star on Sunday to offer to send the flag and when told about the ice-cream, she said MAS is willing to send the ice-cream if clearance is obtained from the Australian customs.

Local friends of the Boehm family also called The Star to try to establish contact with the family while an old friend from Butterworth thought of flying to Perth to visit the dying man.Friends and well-wishers can send messages to the Boehm family to north@thestar.com.my"

a short description of the real life love story of Boehm and his wife Agnes