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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119: Israelophobia: Jake Wallis Simons on the newest version of the oldest hatred
118: Edy Cohen: Can Saudi-Israel normalize? The tragedy of judicial reform, Swedes burn holy books
117: Jonny goes to the Knesset to meet governing Likud MK: judicial reform, Arab Israelis and Iran
116: Inside an Iron Dome staging post and crossing Kerem Shalom into Gaza: Jonny heads for Israel’s Gaza border
115: Lord Daniel Finkelstein: Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival
114: UAE's evolving diplomacy, what's the state of the Abraham Accords. Should Israel be worried?
112: Ronen Bergman: Rise and Kill First, Israel's secret history of targeted assassinations
111: Trevor Horn: Adventures in Modern Recording, Buggles, “whiz bang” hits and old Jewish jokes!
110: Sarah Idan: Miss Universe Iraq 2017, self-proclaimed Zionist, courageous Human Rights voice
109: Judicial Reform crisis: “If one side wins Israel will lose. We must stay Jewish, democratic”
108: Gary Lineker rushed back to air by the BBC, turning a blind eye to his toxic tweets
107: Brighton & Hove, actually: BNJC’s vision and ambition for a brand new community in Sussex
106: The Abrahamic Family House, UAE’s permanent expression of pluralism as they prepare for COP28
105: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs' Dan Diker: Africa seeks Israeli defense, judicial reform
104: Emily Schrader: everyday Iranians love Israel! Emily’s social media outreach resets the talk
103: Yoseph Haddad: Arab Israeli defending a Jewish and democratic State of Israel
102: The Greatest Comeback, Bela Guttmann’s Benfica glory with David Bolchover
101: Uri Geller: "Israel was the making of me"
100: John Ware: Three years. Three cases. Three wins.
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