Jonny Gould’s Jewish State circles back to a previous episode, uncovering startling new revelations. New details so rich, a bestseller has been updated to include them.
In episode 88, I sat down with my old friend, Jonathan Freedland to discuss The Escape Artist, the story of two young Jewish men who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of the horrors within. Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler’s 32-page report reached the desks of Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope and they warned Hungary’s Admiral Horthy to stop the deportation of his country’s Jews to Auschwitz - or they’d make him a war criminal.
On receiving this, Horthy panicked and stopped turning a blind eye to the death trains leaving from across Hungary. 200,000 Jewish lives were spared because of Vrba and Wetzler’s actions.
Dr. Bea Lewkowicz is a fellow member of my synagogue and one Shabbat morning, she told me that rather uniquely, she knew both Rudi and Alfred, who was her own Uncle Freddo.
But the contrasting post war fortunes of the two men was stark. Rudi lived a metropolitan academic’s life in Vancouver, but Fred was trapped behind the iron curtain in Czechoslovakia, constrained and ostracised by the repressive communist regime.
Bea is director of the AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees, where she creates and archives holocaust testimonies. She’s also a director of Sephardi Voices UK. So for the first time in the series, I’m more than delighted to hand over the interview microphone to Jonathan, in conversation with Bea.
If you’ve read The Escape Artist and invested in their remarkable story, you’ll love this. If you haven’t, this is a great place to start.
Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is proudly supported by Dangoor Education.
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149: Alex Deane: running in the General Election to be Finchley and Golder's Green's next MP
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148: #TheGazaYouDontSee: @imshin reveals the REAL Gaza: how Gazans see themselves through their own videos
147: Dr. Meir Javedanfar: What's it like for the Jews who STILL live in Iran?
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146: Neturei Karta: what are they for?
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145: Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis: "If you're a rabbi and everyone loves you, you're not a rabbi and if you're a rabbi and nobody loves you, you're not a mensch!"
144: Ruth Wasserman Lande: “Iran’s mullahs have held the Iranian people hostage since 1979”
143: Amichai Chikli: "October 7th has created a reset for world Jewry. There is an awakening of the Jewish spirit"
142: Emily Schrader in London: "shocked at tolerance of antisemitism" and Benedict Spence: "happy days ahead for Bibi?"
141: Col. Richard Kemp: "The UN, US and UK just threw the Israeli hostages under the bus"
140: Avi Issacharoff, Fauda co-creator: "October 7th has restored pride and understanding that antisemitism won't win this time. We're the good guys""
139: Einat Wilf in London: Israel SHOULD demand the Palestinians declare, “our war with Israel is over”
138: Loay Alshareef in London takes your calls on TalkTV and rejects claims of "Israeli land grabbing"
137: Loay Alshareef in London: "It’s bad news for the enemies of peace”
136: Nicole Lampert: I confronted Gary Lineker in public about his Palestinian tweets
135: Itamar Marcus: UNRWA, the worst thing that ever happened to the Palestinians
134: President Reuven Rivlin of Israel defies Poland's Holocaust Remembrance laws on Polish soil
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