Teachers at Tokai Forest murder victim Franziska Blöchliger’s school say her death has left a tangible void.
|||Cape Town - She fell in love with Franziska Blöchliger the first time they met.
Jasmina Osman, a teacher at Constantia Waldorf School and one of its directors, recalled the day she first saw the “petite” young girl when she and her parents visited the school in 2008.
“I can still visualise it,” she said.
Franziska joined the school the following year.
Read: Farewell to Franziska
Osman said the school is inter-denominational and it was her task to teach pupils about Islam.
She took burkas, prayer mats and rosary beads to school to educate them about Islam, and showed them a bit of written Arabic.
Franzie, her affectionate name for the teen, had been eager to learn and asked if she could teach her to write the script.
Read: Tokai murder accused ‘is son of prison warden’
Osman agreed to let her hold the chalk and guided her tiny hand as they formed the Arabic letters together.
“Since then we’ve had an even stronger connection... She really held true to the fact that we were all family spiritually,” she said, smiling as she spoke.
But her face quickly changed when she described what it felt like to know that the bright young teen was never going to return.
“You can feel the absolute void in our school,” she said.
The murder had also left her more concerned about the pupils Franziska had left behind, whose safety she said she worried about.
“We are not coping. I must be honest,” she said.
Osman described the teen as “amazing”, and loved by her peers.
She said the school held a service for the girl on Tuesday and had put up a photograph of her in the foyer.
Pupils had also started a message tree where anyone who had something special to say to the family or to Franziska could do so.
Osman encouraged anyone who wished to add a message to visit the school to do so.
She said pupils had been offered counselling and teachers at the school were working hard to help Franziska’s peers come to terms with her death.
Gregory Barghus, Franziska’s soccer coach, said she was good at the sport. He fondly recalled how he often had to find ways to encourage her because she was “a bit lazy sometimes”
“I was very close to her,” he said.
He has asked the team to observe a minute of silence for her.
Barghus took out his cellphone and went through a series of pictures he had taken of the spot where Franziska’s body was found.
“I had to do it,” he said, his eyes teared over as he spoke.
Barghus said he wished for the opportunity to come face to face with Franziska’s killers.
“There are certain things that go through the mind of a skollie (thug). They see you as an object that can’t respond,” he said.
fatima.schroeder@inl.co.za
Weekend Argus
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