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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161: Irit Lahav, Survivor of the Kibbutz Nir Oz massacre on October 7th: "I love the ground, the soil, the place, the people"
160: Joe Walsh: the lifelong Republican who wants Kamala to win and wishes "to retire and die in Israel"
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159: “Iran is a paper tiger, we must eliminate Hezbollah”, Benjamin Anthony, veteran of the 2006 Lebanon War.
158: Fleur Hassan-Nahoum: Israel's wartime economy with the Trade & Innovation Special Envoy. Coping with wars on seven fronts.
157: Tuvia Tenenbom's Careful, Beauties Ahead! A year with Israel's ultraorthodox communities
156: Paul Martin: "I knew Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader assassinated in Tehran. He jailed me in Gaza".
155: Major (Ret.) Andrew Fox : "Iran could have FIVE nuclear warheads in THREE weeks". So what's stopping them?
154: Ivor Perl: Auschwitz and Dachau survivor, "I paid a terrible price for being Jewish, but how can I break the chain?"
153: Manuel Valls, France's former Prime Minister describes the threat of extremist politics to the French Jewish community (en Français)
152: Imshin returns: "Hezbollah isn't Hamas, it's much stronger. As a family, we're planning for war”.
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151: Dean Furman and Michael Sweetney: fighting antisemitism and racism in sport with the MAX Project
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150: Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus: #AllEyesOnRafah: How has the world been reduced to this?
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149: Alex Deane: running to be Finchley and Golders Green's next MP on July 4th
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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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