On one of these trips, in a pure coincidence in a bakery, somebody says: ‘Mr Schmeichel?’ This guy tells my father he was in the same concentration camp as [Tolek’s] mother.
After a remarkable career in which he won the Champions League, five Premier League titles and three FA Cups with Manchester United, as well as the European Championship with Denmark in 1992, Schmeichel speaks with the conviction which characterised his performances in goal.
Tolek’s father was killed on the day the second world war began and his mother was soon taken to a concentration camp – and Tolek never saw her again.
It sounds so devastating that I press Schmeichel for more insight into his grandparents – as well as his father because Tolek eventually became a double-agent to escape Poland.
“My father wasn’t great with information,” Schmeichel says, “but there was a clear moment when I took him to Berlin for a few days.
