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🗓️ 2 June 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
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0:00.0 | It roamed the seas. It served an evil dictator. It survived a war. And only then did it make |
0:15.0 | its way to an auto repair shop's bathroom in Florence, New Jersey. We're talking about Hitler's |
0:23.3 | toilet. This is a story about how something innocuous can become something sinister, and |
0:29.7 | the power of a good one-liner. I'm Dylan Thoris, and this is Alice Obscura, an exploration |
0:39.8 | of the world's strange and unusual places. And today, we're headed to a New Jersey mechanics |
0:45.8 | bathroom. How exactly did this artifact end up there? And what does it mean? That's after |
0:54.7 | this. The ship was called the Aviso Grill. It was built in Hamburg in 1934 to serve a newly |
1:19.8 | powerful Nazi party. And over the next few years, it carried top-ranking Nazis, including Hitler |
1:25.3 | himself, around Europe. And for a time, it was the largest yacht in the world, one symbol |
1:30.0 | among many of the Nazis' frightful power and terrifying ambitions. When the Allied forces |
1:36.5 | won World War II, the ship was seized and came into American custody. Hitler's former yacht, |
1:42.5 | the Grill, has sailed her last voyage. Her last bell has been struck. The Grill is heading |
1:47.7 | to the scrap pile at Borden to New Jersey. This is from an old newsreel. The Aviso Grill |
1:52.8 | was a huge boat, almost 380 feet long. A close-up shows a bell on the deck bearing the Nazi emblem, |
1:59.3 | and the reel ends up showing an official in a certain tie, taking the ceremonial first torch |
2:04.8 | to the hole. From here, the Aviso Grill was taken a mild downriver to a salvage |
2:17.7 | yard in Fieldsboro, New Jersey, which is just a few miles from Florence. This much we know, |
2:24.5 | the rest is legend. The owner that I'd bought the garage off of Sam Caroni, he used to play |
2:35.7 | cards like every Friday night. There was a group of guys that played poker here at the garage. |
2:41.8 | That's Greg Kofelt. He's the current owner of Greg's automotive repair and Florence. |
2:47.1 | And Greg bought the shop from Sam Caroni, who took it over when it was already a really old shop. |
2:53.1 | So old that when it opened, it didn't have indoor plumbing. Shop was built around 1912 to 1914. |
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