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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the

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Speaker 1: very worst people in all of history. And before we

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Speaker 1: start our episode today, I wanted to make a note

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Speaker 1: of something. Those of you who have been watching on

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Speaker 1: the Netflix since we started recording from the new room,

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Speaker 1: which we're mainly doing because the old room, it's always

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Speaker 1: like 15 degrees colder. And I just got tired of

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Speaker 1: recording in those temperatures. But I've got some new wall art.

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Speaker 1: And you can see this piece here was made by

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Speaker 1: a very good friend of mine named Nova, who is

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Speaker 1: four years old, going on five. And I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to give a shout out to her and make sure

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Speaker 1: that everybody on Netflix got to see her wonderful art.

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Speaker 1: She's very talented.

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Speaker 2: Great job, Nova.

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Speaker 1: You know who else is talented? Our guest today, Kevin. Kevin,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the show. How are you doing, man? Good.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you

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Speaker 3: You're calling me talented. That's very special.

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Speaker 4: You are.

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Speaker 1: You are talented. We've been working with you for the

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Speaker 1: last couple of months now. You've been doing weeks. Months.

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Speaker 1: Time flat circle.

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Speaker 2: Months.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Months.

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Speaker 1: It's been more than two weeks. I know that. And

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Speaker 1: those are the only two time frames that exist in

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Speaker 1: my life is more than two weeks and less than

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Speaker 1: two weeks.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Fair enough.

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Speaker 1: Like Sophie and I have been partners for well over

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Speaker 1: two weeks.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So you've been helping us out on It Could

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Speaker 1: Happen Here, and you also have work of your own

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Speaker 1: that you're doing that I think you should plug right

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Speaker 1: now before we.

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Speaker 2: Get into the story. Yeah, plug your sub stack and shit, man.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, my sub stack is called Last Week in Hell,

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Speaker 3: I guess,. substack. com if it matters to people, but it's

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Speaker 3: got a cool logo of a gas mask, and I

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Speaker 3: write about politics and a bunch of activism things, and

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Speaker 3: then I also... Freelance with different places. And I guess

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Speaker 3: my pluggables is I'm at Kevin H. Foster on basically everything. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now, Kevin, I'm going to guess by the fact that

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Speaker 1: you're a journalist and you're a younger person that you're

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Speaker 1: a renter. Is that accurate?

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, yes.

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Speaker 1: Nobody likes being the worst 30 years of my life.

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Speaker 1: But if you if you take out the Oxford English Dictionary,

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Speaker 1: which I know you keep on you at all times, Kevin,

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Speaker 1: as do we all. I have I have the entire

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Speaker 1: OED tattooed on. That's why I never wear short sleeves.

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Speaker 1: It's nothing but words and very tiny font. It's unreadable.

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Speaker 4: It's like the full Ben Affleck back tattoo, but it's

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Speaker 4: your entire body.

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Speaker 1: It's my entire body. And it is on my back

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Speaker 1: in the shape of a phoenix like Ben's. But if

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Speaker 1: you take to the OED to find synonyms for the

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Speaker 1: phrase scummy landlord, you will encounter the real world word rockmanism,

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Speaker 1: which stands for the exploitation and intimidation of tenants by

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Speaker 1: unscrupulous landlords. Now I'm going to guess... At least half

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Speaker 1: of our audience has experienced Rockmanism in their lives.

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Speaker 4: I have. Why, yes.

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Speaker 1: I guess everyone else has on this call. We've all

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Speaker 1: had to endure some Rockmanism. And as I'm sure you've

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Speaker 1: concluded on your own, the term Rockmanism has its origins

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Speaker 1: in the name of a man whose last name was Rockman. Oh, no.

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Speaker 2: Sure as shit wasn't a woman.

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Speaker 1: No, it was definitely not a woman. His name was

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Speaker 1: Peter Rockman. And the most told version of his life

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Speaker 1: story is, is that he was such a scummy landlord

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Speaker 1: that after he died, and he's a UK fellow, or

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Speaker 1: he didn't grow up in the UK, but that's where

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Speaker 1: he was a landlord. He was such a scummy landlord

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Speaker 1: that after he died, his very name became a byword

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Speaker 1: for every other scummy landlord in the world.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 1: This is partly true. Wow. Peter Rockman was a real

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Speaker 1: slumlord in real life London during a brief stretch of

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Speaker 1: the post-war period. And he definitely counts as a bastard

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Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination. But there's also bigger

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Speaker 1: bastards in this episode because the only reason his name

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Speaker 1: became a watchword for scummy landlord, he was not the

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Speaker 1: biggest or the scummiest landlord of his era. He was

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Speaker 1: the one who happened to be a Jewish immigrant who

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Speaker 1: died young. And so they kind of pushed all of

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Speaker 1: the blame for being shitty landlords in England onto him.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, very classic, but all right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, not super surprising. He is more interesting than the bigger,

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Speaker 1: scummier landlords. I will say that. This guy has, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he fought in World War II. He's got some fun

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Speaker 1: stories that happened to him. But yeah, it's not entirely

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Speaker 1: fair to... put all of rockmanism on this one guy,

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Speaker 1: but he also wasn't innovator. Like one thing about him,

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Speaker 1: while he wasn't the biggest of the scummy landlords, he

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Speaker 1: was one of the more influential ones because he was

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Speaker 1: a really creative guy. He kind of have to be

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Speaker 1: coming into England as a refugee from the Holocaust.

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Speaker 4: Right? God.

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Speaker 1: So this is going to be a very British story.

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Speaker 1: And like all great British stories, it begins far away

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Speaker 1: in Lubav, which at this point in time, I think,

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Speaker 1: is in Poland. I don't believe it's there now. I'll

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Speaker 1: need to double check that, actually. I thought I had

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Speaker 1: that in my script. But it was a part of

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Speaker 1: Poland in 1919 when Peter was born, Perek Rachman, to

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Speaker 1: a Jewish family in Lubav on August 16th, 1919. Hey everybody,

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Speaker 1: Robert here. Lvov has actually been possessed by a bunch

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Speaker 1: of different countries over the years, but it is currently

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Speaker 1: part of Ukraine. It's also usually pronounced Lviv now, like

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Speaker 1: L-V-I-V instead of L-V-O-V. Anyway, there you go. Now, my

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Speaker 1: sources for these episodes include two biographies, one written by

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Speaker 1: Shirley Green in 1979 called Rockman, and another from like

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Speaker 1: this year by Neil Root called Slumlord. And up until

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Speaker 1: the release of Root's book, no one knew what Peter's parents'

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Speaker 1: names had been because he only ever gave one interview

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Speaker 1: in his life to the press. And record keeping in

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Speaker 1: Poland right around the mid-century was real poor for some

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Speaker 1: inexplicable reason. Yes. Not a lot of great birth certificates kept. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Root's dogged research has revealed that Peter's parents were likely

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Speaker 1: David and Golda Rockman, according to the application Peter later

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Speaker 1: filed for British nationalization. He would claim to friends and

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Speaker 1: colleagues that his dad had been a dentist, but Root

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Speaker 1: could find no Rockman registered as a dentist in that

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Speaker 1: part of Poland at the time. David Rockman is listed

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Speaker 1: in a 1935 to 1936 address book as a kupiak

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Speaker 1: or merchant, although given the realities of life at the time,

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Speaker 1: particularly for Jewish people in communities in Poland, he might

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Speaker 1: have been a dentist and they just marked him down

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Speaker 1: as a merchant because racism? I don't actually know. It's

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Speaker 1: entirely possible he actually was a dentist, and that's just

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Speaker 1: not how he got listed.

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Speaker 3: In the phone book. How do you go from dentist

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Speaker 3: to landlord? I guess we don't know, but.

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Speaker 1: That's that's the tale we're going to be telling the day.

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Speaker 1: He does at least initially try to become a dentist.

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Speaker 1: So Shirley Green's book claims that the Rockman children, Peter

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Speaker 1: and his unnamed brother, who may not have existed. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of this is a guy who when he

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Speaker 1: does talk about his life, he's lying a lot of

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Speaker 1: the time. So we don't know if he really had

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Speaker 1: a brother. It's not like unlikely, but there's no document.

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Speaker 1: There's no evidence at all that this guy ever existed.

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Speaker 1: But Peter and his unnamed possible brother grew up and

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Speaker 1: were expected to inherit and expand their father's dental office, right?

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Speaker 1: Like that was the expectation in the 1920s and 30s

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Speaker 1: when they were like becoming adolescents and turning into men, right?

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Speaker 1: Like that's just kind of what she did at the time.

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Speaker 1: Their mother came from a wealthy glassmaking family who were

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Speaker 1: in the vodka bottle business, which is a good business

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Speaker 1: to be in in Poland. So they had some money, right?

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Speaker 1: These are not poor people. Shirley writes of Peter's youth,

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Speaker 1: From all indications, Rockman went to an excellent school and

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Speaker 1: took full advantage of the opportunities it offered. He was

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Speaker 1: unusually intelligent, with a quick mind and a retentive memory

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Speaker 1: that made learning a pleasure rather than a chore. And

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Speaker 1: unlikely as it may seem, he was also physically attractive.

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Speaker 1: Although fat was to obliterate his features as an adult,

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Speaker 1: basically his nose was straight and fine, his mouth small

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Speaker 1: and well-shaped, his eyes slightly slanting and intensely blue. She

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Speaker 1: has a crush on him. This is one of those

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Speaker 1: weird biographies where you can tell the biographer kind of

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Speaker 1: wanted to fuck her subject because she talks about him

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Speaker 1: being hot a lot.

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Speaker 3: I just like how you were like, as unlikely as

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Speaker 3: it may seem. And I'm like, I don't exactly know why,

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Speaker 3: but that was definitely the vibe that I got from

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Speaker 3: hearing about.

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Speaker 1: Him for the past 10 minutes. When this guy grows up,

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Speaker 1: he will be compared to looking like a Bond villain

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Speaker 1: by Ian Fleming's wife, right?

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Speaker 3: Oh, wow.

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Speaker 1: Someone who's got some reason to say it. He's fat

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Speaker 1: and balding as a rich older guy, right?

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Speaker 3: Gotcha.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that in the 70s, he was a

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Speaker 1: more famous figure. So I think she's writing for those

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Speaker 1: people to be like, you won't believe this knowing the

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Speaker 1: pictures of him that you've seen, but he was a

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Speaker 1: good looking guy as a young man.

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Speaker 3: Is that what landlording does to you?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, landlording really wears you out. Yeah. there are only

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Speaker 1: four existing photos of rockman so basically and basically no

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Speaker 1: one who knew him in poland seems to have survived

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Speaker 1: the war everyone that this kid grows up with is

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Speaker 1: annihilated in the holocaust right so there's there's no way

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Speaker 1: to know what he looked like as a kid that's

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Speaker 1: the thing i find interesting about shirley's book is that

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Speaker 1: like you can't know that what is this based on

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Speaker 1: there's no pictures of him you didn't talk to anyone

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Speaker 1: who knew him back then right um I think, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know why she does this. We

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Speaker 1: have vanishingly few details.

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Speaker 3: I'm having flashbacks to learning about Henry Kissinger being just

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Speaker 3: a hot shot. And I'm like, I don't want to

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Speaker 3: know this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that he was a sexual icon for a period. No,

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Speaker 1: that's not helpful to me. That doesn't improve my ability.

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Speaker 3: Doesn't make me feel good about the world in any way.

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Speaker 1: It makes me feel, like, better about every time I haven't, like...

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Speaker 1: attractiveness is based on so many things that have nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with like anything, but the weird mores of

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Speaker 1: the time, right? Like, it's a, it's a bizarre, uh,

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Speaker 1: social construct that we've created. And you can really tell

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Speaker 1: that by the fact that people used to want to

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Speaker 1: fuck Henry Kissinger in large numbers.

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Speaker 2: I don't like being reminded of that. Thank you.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Popped in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of popping in, we have vanishingly few details about

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Speaker 1: Rockman's childhood and pre-war life. Even Root's book barely spends

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Speaker 1: a couple paragraphs on that stuff. Green argues that, quote,

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Speaker 1: Because he winds up losing everything in the war, the

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Speaker 1: fact that he starts off as wealthy doesn't really help

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Speaker 1: him much, right? This is a rich kid, but he

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Speaker 1: doesn't benefit from being a rich kid because the Holocaust happens, right?

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Speaker 1: So his only benefit is that he does grow up

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Speaker 1: with a cultured education that signposts him as someone of means, right?

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Speaker 1: Even though he's going to lose everything very shortly. Green

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Speaker 1: describes Peter as growing up unapologetically Jewish, but also considering

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Speaker 1: himself Polish more than anything. And as she describes it,

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Speaker 1: pre-war Lvov was an unusually open-minded place. Quote, There are

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Speaker 1: elements of truth to that. You will find other people

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Speaker 1: who write about Lvov somewhat like this. But that paragraph

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Speaker 1: alone does not fairly depict the racial conflicts in that

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Speaker 1: part of Poland or Poland as a broader thing. I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say they were fully integrated because, again, the Holocaust happens, right?

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Speaker 3: I don't know about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that might be putting it a little too far, right?

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Speaker 1: By the late 1930s, Lwów did host one of the

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Speaker 1: largest Jewish communities in Poland, which suggests it was a

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Speaker 1: lot safer than many other nearby cities for Jews, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it was safe or had a long

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Speaker 1: established tradition of tolerance. I'm going to quote now from

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Speaker 1: an article on Lwów for the Holocaust Historical Society. Following

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Speaker 1: the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of

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Speaker 1: World War I, this would have been right around when

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Speaker 1: Peter was born, and the Polish occupation of the area

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Speaker 1: on 22nd November 1918, the Jews of Lwów were targeted

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Speaker 1: in a pogrom in which hundreds of people were wounded

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Speaker 1: and approximately 100 were murdered. In subsequent years, Jewish relief

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Speaker 1: organizations worked prodigiously to rehabilitate the community. So right around

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Speaker 1: the time he's born, there's a pogrom, right? This is

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Speaker 1: a place that's a lot better to be a Jew

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Speaker 1: than many in the area, but I wouldn't call it safe.

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Speaker 3: That's bleak, man. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This is the good place? Yeah, this is genuinely one

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Speaker 1: of the better places to be, right? Yeah. Eastern European history,

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Speaker 1: the first half of the 20th century is a nightmare.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't get a lot better in the second half.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it does get a lot better, but it's

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Speaker 1: still not great.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think a more accurate read about the situation in

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Speaker 1: the city of Rockman's birth is that it did host

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Speaker 1: a huge Jewish population and there were open-minded citizens who

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Speaker 1: supported that community as well as bigots who wanted them

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Speaker 1: wiped out. In his book, Root cites the global home

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Speaker 1: for Jewish genealogy who note in their write-up on the city,

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Speaker 1: active anti-Semitism was widespread, one reason being that the Poles

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Speaker 1: and Ukrainians each accused the Jews of helping each.

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Speaker 4: Other, right?

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Speaker 1: There's a nationalist struggle between people of Polish and Ukrainian

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Speaker 1: descent and the Jews wind up Not just in the middle,

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Speaker 1: but blamed by both sides for like, well, you're secretly

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Speaker 1: in line with the Ukrainians. No, you're secretly in line

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Speaker 1: with the Poles, right? There's no winning.

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Speaker 3: This is fascinating. There's no winning. This is funny because

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Speaker 3: part of my background is Polish-Ukrainian, so it's just a

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Speaker 3: strange background.

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Speaker 1: There's not really many groups you'd have wanted to be

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Speaker 1: a part of in this part of Europe in this

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Speaker 1: period of time. But like being a member of the

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Speaker 1: Jewish community is certainly the toughest card to draw. Or,

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Speaker 1: you know, Roma too, right? I would put them both

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Speaker 1: in a similar, like it's just rough. It's just going

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Speaker 1: to be rough for everybody. Green notes that by 1937,

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Speaker 1: when Rockman is age 18, he had grown into a

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Speaker 1: good looking, confident and popular young man because she just

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Speaker 1: really likes talking about how hot he is. He is

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Speaker 1: noted as having loved the theater and also games of chance,

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Speaker 1: which he played regularly. Her book continues. He was a

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Speaker 1: born organizer, unable to sit idle for any length of

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Speaker 1: time or allow others to sit idle while he was around.

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Speaker 1: All his interests were active rather than reflective, and his

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Speaker 1: adolescence seems to have passed by without any of the

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Speaker 1: self-examination that might have stood him in good stead when

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Speaker 1: faced with colossal reversals of fortune. Life was for enjoying,

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Speaker 1: not analyzing, and he had no quarrel with the plans

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Speaker 1: that his parents had made for him, entering medical college

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Speaker 1: to study dentistry, just as his brother had done before him.

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Speaker 1: His future seemed assured, but like so many other promising futures,

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Speaker 1: it was about to be shattered. So this is a

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Speaker 1: kid where if the war hadn't happened, he probably would

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Speaker 1: have grown up to be like a fairly affluent dentist,

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Speaker 1: like his father. He and his brother would have both

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Speaker 1: been dentists. They would have been fine, right?

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Speaker 3: Can I... Can I ask, does games of chance mean

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Speaker 3: that he has potentially a gambling problem?

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Speaker 1: He's got a gambling problem. He's got a gambling problem.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if he has a problem. I think

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Speaker 1: he probably has a problem. I think he probably has

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Speaker 1: a problem.

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Speaker 4: To be fair, I feel like there was some report

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Speaker 4: that has stuck in my mind that said that there's

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Speaker 4: a very.

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Speaker 2: Very high rate of suicides.

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Speaker 4: For dentists so I don't know if he would have

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Speaker 4: been fine yeah I don't know if.

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Speaker 1: That was true back then too though like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah that's fair enough but every time I hear somebody

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Speaker 4: wants to become a dentist that article pops in my

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Speaker 4: head I'm like oh boy are you sure yeah wow

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Speaker 4: teeth are kind of gross I don't know mouths no

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Speaker 4: I don't.

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Speaker 1: Know I guess I've only ever had careers where there's

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Speaker 1: like a high suicide percentage in them so I'm not

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Speaker 1: a great judge on that sort of thing um Now,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately for Peter, 1937 was pretty close to the worst

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Speaker 1: possible time to become an adult as a young Jewish

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Speaker 1: person in Poland. In the years leading up to the war,

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Speaker 1: Germany had slowly pieced its army back together and annexed

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Speaker 1: Austria and Czechoslovakia with only token resistance at most from

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Speaker 1: the rest of Europe. And one of Hitler's enablers in

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Speaker 1: this period was Poland's foreign minister, Joseph Beck. From 1935

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Speaker 1: to 1939, Beck backed Germany's play against Czechoslovakia by complaining

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Speaker 1: about the mistreatment of Polish minorities there. which dovetailed to

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Speaker 1: German claims about the same mistreatment for ethnic Germans, right?

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Speaker 1: This is a big part of why Germany needs to

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Speaker 1: annex Czechoslovakia is there's so many Germans there and they're

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Speaker 1: not being treated well. It should be part of, you know, that's,

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Speaker 1: and Beck is backing Hitler's play because he thinks it'll

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Speaker 1: keep Poland safe, right? That like, well, maybe if we

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Speaker 1: feed Hitler, some of these, some of these smaller countries.

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Speaker 3: Classically worked out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't work out that way, right? Beck supports

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Speaker 1: Hitler during the Munich Agreement of 1938, which seemed to

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Speaker 1: work out at first since Poland was allowed to invade

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Speaker 1: and take Teschen, which was an industrial district in Czechoslovakia.

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Speaker 1: People do forget about this part of the run-up to

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Speaker 1: World War II, that when Germany takes Czechoslovakia, Poland gets

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Speaker 1: a little bit of it, right? This is going to

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Speaker 1: be kind of similar to what Hitler does with Stalin,

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Speaker 1: where he's like, yeah, we'll split Poland with you. Of course,

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Speaker 1: we'll never invade. Buddy, guy, come on.

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Why would I do that? So this is going

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Speaker 1: to be, like I said, something of a mirror of

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen next to the USSR. And this

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Speaker 1: does happen like the next year, right? Germany and the

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00:17:20,740 --> 00:17:24,720
Speaker 1: USSR invade Poland and, you know, split it between themselves.

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Speaker 1: Beck slightly redeems himself during the run-up to war. He

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Speaker 1: refuses to make Poland into a German puppet state and

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Speaker 1: hand over a bunch of territory to the Reich. But

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00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:39,199
Speaker 1: it was too little too late. When the Peter Rockman

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Speaker 1: was in Warsaw, where he'd recently enrolled as a medical student.

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Speaker 1: So his country gets invaded right as he's starting medical school, right? Now,

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Speaker 1: even with Neil Root's very welcome digging, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: about Rockman's life in this period we still don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't really know exactly what he did next, but

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Speaker 1: he leaves Warsaw and he flees eventually back to Lvov

365
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Speaker 1: to be with his family. In 1949 after the war,

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Speaker 1: he would claim that he and his brother had immediately

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Speaker 1: started working as partisans, fighting alongside the Polish military, taking

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Speaker 1: pictures and gathering information about troop movements and supplies. This

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Speaker 1: may have been true, although Green proposes he invented his

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00:18:18,859 --> 00:18:20,980
Speaker 1: own part in this as a result of his bruised

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Speaker 1: ego after the war. She says his brother probably was

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Speaker 1: working as a partisan because his brother is– And Green

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Speaker 1: seems to think this is probably true, but that Rockman

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Speaker 1: lies about having helped his brother because he feels bad

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Speaker 1: about the fact that he didn't do anything, right? That

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00:18:41,369 --> 00:18:42,669
Speaker 1: seems kind of believable to me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely seems possible.

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Speaker 1: Seems very human to me, although it's also very possible

381
00:18:47,750 --> 00:18:51,470
Speaker 1: he fought as a partisan, you know? Root's extensive research

382
00:18:51,510 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 1: has been unable to dig up any evidence that his

383
00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:56,399
Speaker 1: brother existed. However, again, we are talking about like a

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Speaker 1: young Jewish guy in East Poland in 1939. The fact

385
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Speaker 1: that there's not documentation of his life isn't weird. His

386
00:19:02,190 --> 00:19:05,190
Speaker 1: book cites research by the Jewish Historical Institute into the

387
00:19:05,230 --> 00:19:08,160
Speaker 1: destruction of records pertaining to Laval Jews during the war

388
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Speaker 1: and notes that in the spring of 1949, Workers in

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Speaker 1: the Muranow district in Warsaw found Jewish death certificates from

390
00:19:14,890 --> 00:19:21,520
Speaker 1: 1939 to 1941 from Lvov. The collection, compromising roughly 10,000 items,

391
00:19:21,619 --> 00:19:24,980
Speaker 1: is shocking evidence of often partly burnt, sometimes illegible documents

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Speaker 1: of extermination of the Jewish nation. So it's not weird

393
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Speaker 1: that we don't have– if his brother exists, we don't

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Speaker 1: have documentation of him because it was deliberately– they annihilated

395
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Speaker 1: the evidence of a lot of people that they killed, right?

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Speaker 3: Germans were not into archive.org.

397
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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no. People talk a lot about like

398
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Speaker 1: how much record keeping they did and that underestimates how

399
00:19:44,290 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 1: much record keeping they destroyed, which is also a big

400
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:53,190
Speaker 1: part of what the Nazis did. So at other points,

401
00:19:53,270 --> 00:19:55,469
Speaker 1: Peter would claim to have joined the Polish army as

402
00:19:55,510 --> 00:19:58,790
Speaker 1: a volunteer and fought briefly against the Russians. I think

403
00:19:58,890 --> 00:20:02,030
Speaker 1: this is untrue, though. What is undeniably true is that

404
00:20:02,090 --> 00:20:05,360
Speaker 1: Rockman's entire family is going to be interned in concentration

405
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,360
Speaker 1: camps and annihilated during the Holocaust. As far as we know,

406
00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:10,880
Speaker 1: he loses everyone. There are none of his relatives left

407
00:20:10,940 --> 00:20:13,560
Speaker 1: by the end of the war. As far as we know,

408
00:20:13,580 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: there's no one who knows him left alive from his

409
00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:17,879
Speaker 1: childhood by the end of the war. I mean, I'm

410
00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:20,620
Speaker 1: sure there were some relatives. But, like, he never makes

411
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 1: contact with anyone again.

412
00:20:22,020 --> 00:20:24,820
Speaker 3: Is this going to be one of those complicated ones

413
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:27,139
Speaker 3: where we have to decide? Yeah.

414
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,510
Speaker 1: Oh, no. It's hard not to be on this guy's

415
00:20:30,590 --> 00:20:33,150
Speaker 1: side and want things to go well for him with

416
00:20:33,210 --> 00:20:37,970
Speaker 1: a start like this, right? Peter is the only rockman

417
00:20:38,010 --> 00:20:40,710
Speaker 1: to survive the camps, and Shirley Green argues that he

418
00:20:40,750 --> 00:20:43,389
Speaker 1: only survived because he was, quote, too powerfully built for

419
00:20:43,430 --> 00:20:46,240
Speaker 1: his strength to be wasted. In other words, he's put

420
00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,020
Speaker 1: on a work detail and that allows him to survive, right?

421
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:52,100
Speaker 1: I think her wording here is a little weird and

422
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:53,880
Speaker 1: I chalk it up to the crush I think she

423
00:20:54,020 --> 00:20:54,450
Speaker 1: had on him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit.

425
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Speaker 1: Because she follows this up by acknowledging he was five

426
00:20:58,300 --> 00:21:00,410
Speaker 1: foot six with small hands and feet. So he's not–

427
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,580
Speaker 1: no one would call him– obviously, they're strong, short people,

428
00:21:03,900 --> 00:21:06,680
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't call that a powerful build, right?

429
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,060
Speaker 3: Did they say like his weight? Is he like stout

430
00:21:09,420 --> 00:21:10,679
Speaker 3: or like a small hand and feet?

431
00:21:10,700 --> 00:21:14,270
Speaker 1: He's certainly later in life. He does have wide shoulders, right?

432
00:21:15,050 --> 00:21:16,889
Speaker 1: And she says a heavy build, but she also describes

433
00:21:16,910 --> 00:21:18,850
Speaker 1: him as slender as a young man. I don't know

434
00:21:18,869 --> 00:21:20,830
Speaker 1: that she knows what he looked like as a young man.

435
00:21:20,869 --> 00:21:22,210
Speaker 3: This is weird, man.

436
00:21:22,430 --> 00:21:27,129
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird. He is conscripted into a road

437
00:21:27,190 --> 00:21:29,909
Speaker 1: gang and Green writes that he only managed to escape

438
00:21:29,950 --> 00:21:32,810
Speaker 1: the concentration camp because of this. And that is accurate, right?

439
00:21:32,850 --> 00:21:35,350
Speaker 1: That because he gets put into a work gang, he

440
00:21:35,410 --> 00:21:37,770
Speaker 1: doesn't wind up interned in a camp with his family.

441
00:21:38,390 --> 00:21:40,159
Speaker 1: He would later claim that during this time he would

442
00:21:40,180 --> 00:21:43,090
Speaker 1: occasionally see a German– and he's building a road into

443
00:21:43,150 --> 00:21:46,420
Speaker 1: Russia from Poland, right, as a part of this work gang.

444
00:21:47,730 --> 00:21:49,650
Speaker 1: One of the roads, in fact, that the German invasion

445
00:21:49,890 --> 00:21:52,650
Speaker 1: during Operation Barbarossa is going to go down. He would

446
00:21:52,690 --> 00:21:54,780
Speaker 1: later claim that during this time he would occasionally see

447
00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:57,700
Speaker 1: a German officer visit the road gang in his big

448
00:21:57,780 --> 00:22:01,340
Speaker 1: shiny staff car. Green writes, quote, instead of despising his

449
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,770
Speaker 1: captors as inferiors for dragging civilization back to the Dark Ages,

450
00:22:05,070 --> 00:22:06,869
Speaker 1: he is said to have sworn to himself that he

451
00:22:06,890 --> 00:22:09,410
Speaker 1: would own a car even bigger and shinier one day.

452
00:22:10,190 --> 00:22:13,060
Speaker 1: If that's true, that's a really weird reaction to seeing

453
00:22:13,100 --> 00:22:15,020
Speaker 1: a Nazi when you've been put on a work gang.

454
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:18,619
Speaker 3: I want to give him benefit of the doubt and

455
00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:22,010
Speaker 3: chalk it up and be like, you're experiencing some really

456
00:22:22,330 --> 00:22:23,610
Speaker 3: rough trauma right now.

457
00:22:23,630 --> 00:22:26,270
Speaker 1: I can't judge you for almost anything you would do

458
00:22:26,470 --> 00:22:28,550
Speaker 1: in this circumstance, but that is peculiar.

459
00:22:28,890 --> 00:22:30,389
Speaker 2: That would be, that's crazy.

460
00:22:30,430 --> 00:22:32,010
Speaker 4: That would be like if one of us was like

461
00:22:32,070 --> 00:22:35,479
Speaker 4: covering a riot and we were like, wow, that ice

462
00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:38,859
Speaker 4: officer's Jeep. Wow, that ice officer's car. Look at that

463
00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:41,500
Speaker 4: car that ice officer just got in after work. Wow,

464
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:45,940
Speaker 4: I really wish I'd have that one. No, it's fucking weird, dude.

465
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:49,410
Speaker 3: Andrew Tate's balaclava that he wears.

466
00:22:49,450 --> 00:22:51,609
Speaker 1: What a nice balaclava.

467
00:22:51,690 --> 00:22:55,810
Speaker 4: If only I had Andrew Tate's satin purple shirt and

468
00:22:55,910 --> 00:22:58,450
Speaker 4: capris he wore when he got arrested in Florida.

469
00:22:58,470 --> 00:22:58,540
Speaker 3: God.

470
00:22:59,260 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: I do feel like I could pull off Capri, Sophie.

471
00:23:01,859 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 2: I do, too. You know what else you can pull off, Robert?

472
00:23:05,980 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: An ad break?

473
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:07,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, buddy.

474
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:20,510
Speaker 1: Possibly. And we're back. So Green describes how the Germans,

475
00:23:20,650 --> 00:23:22,510
Speaker 1: during the time when he's in this work gang, also

476
00:23:22,609 --> 00:23:26,790
Speaker 1: forced him to, quote, undergo a sterilization operation. There's no

477
00:23:26,890 --> 00:23:29,889
Speaker 1: evidence for that last part, especially because, and this is

478
00:23:29,930 --> 00:23:32,110
Speaker 1: the weird part, Green talks about him and he would

479
00:23:32,150 --> 00:23:34,070
Speaker 1: sometimes talk about working on a work gang that the

480
00:23:34,130 --> 00:23:37,530
Speaker 1: Germans were manning. But the region that he lived in

481
00:23:37,570 --> 00:23:39,939
Speaker 1: during this period of time was taken over by the

482
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. And Root's book says that Rockman was conscripted

483
00:23:43,540 --> 00:23:46,620
Speaker 1: to forced labor by the Soviet Union, not the Germans,

484
00:23:46,980 --> 00:23:50,940
Speaker 1: which makes more sense because the Russians are occupying Lvov

485
00:23:51,020 --> 00:23:52,680
Speaker 1: at this point. And he does claim that he fought

486
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: the Russians. I don't know why Green makes it the Germans.

487
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,459
Speaker 1: And I think it's because Rockman would sometimes claim it

488
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,740
Speaker 1: was the Germans. He may have just done this because like, oh,

489
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: if I tell people I was like forced into a

490
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:05,149
Speaker 1: work gang by the Soviets, that'll confuse them because they

491
00:24:05,170 --> 00:24:07,190
Speaker 1: don't really know that much about the war. Everyone knows

492
00:24:07,270 --> 00:24:08,369
Speaker 1: Poland and Nazis.

493
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 3: So this is all during the war still and we

494
00:24:11,859 --> 00:24:12,640
Speaker 3: don't know if it was- Just.

495
00:24:12,580 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: The very start. Yeah. We don't know what work gang

496
00:24:15,260 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: he was on really. I think Root's probably right that

497
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: it was a Russian work gang because that was a

498
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: thing that happened too. And because Lvov was occupied by

499
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:25,460
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union during this period of time.

500
00:24:25,500 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 3: Wait, does that mean that the Russians built the road

501
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 3: into their own territory for.

502
00:24:30,260 --> 00:24:34,490
Speaker 1: I mean, the Russians were sending trains full of resources, fuel,

503
00:24:34,630 --> 00:24:38,050
Speaker 1: and raw materials to Germany. The last set of trains

504
00:24:38,210 --> 00:24:41,030
Speaker 1: going from the Soviet Union to Germany carrying raw resources

505
00:24:41,770 --> 00:24:45,070
Speaker 1: arrived the day of Operation Barbarossa. The Germans waited to

506
00:24:45,130 --> 00:24:47,790
Speaker 1: start until this last train came in because they needed

507
00:24:47,830 --> 00:24:51,740
Speaker 1: the shit. There were some bad decisions made by the

508
00:24:51,780 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: Soviet Union during this part of the war. Yeah.

509
00:24:55,790 --> 00:25:01,730
Speaker 4: Also really uncomfortable with, quote, undergo a sterilization operation, unquote.

510
00:25:01,810 --> 00:25:02,109
Speaker 2: Nope.

511
00:25:03,060 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: I don't know what that. Yeah. I mean, he never

512
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:06,780
Speaker 1: has kids. So people will write about like maybe he

513
00:25:06,820 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: was sterilized during the Holocaust or maybe like the privations

514
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 1: he endured rendered him sterile. I think it's just likelier

515
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,350
Speaker 1: he either was sterile or just never wanted to have kids.

516
00:25:16,490 --> 00:25:21,830
Speaker 4: That or some power it be was like one scummy

517
00:25:21,869 --> 00:25:23,330
Speaker 4: guy is enough.

518
00:25:23,470 --> 00:25:24,609
Speaker 1: One Rockman is enough.

519
00:25:24,750 --> 00:25:27,210
Speaker 2: One Rockman's enough. We don't need to keep that gene

520
00:25:27,230 --> 00:25:27,899
Speaker 2: pool going.

521
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:31,740
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's unfortunately close to what the Nazis

522
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:33,300
Speaker 1: were saying, Sophie, so I'm not going to go there.

523
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right.

524
00:25:34,820 --> 00:25:39,110
Speaker 4: Let's not compare Sophie to the Nazis in video and audio.

525
00:25:40,869 --> 00:25:43,859
Speaker 1: So Root writes that he escaped a stint doing forced

526
00:25:43,900 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: labor for the Russians but was found and taken prisoner

527
00:25:46,380 --> 00:25:49,619
Speaker 1: by Russian forces and transported to the notorious and deadly

528
00:25:49,660 --> 00:25:53,540
Speaker 1: remote Siberia, where, as he wrote in his British naturalization application,

529
00:25:53,580 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: he was made to do forestry work. And this is

530
00:25:55,859 --> 00:25:57,890
Speaker 1: why I think Root was right is we do know–

531
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: one thing we know about him is that the Russians

532
00:26:00,270 --> 00:26:02,570
Speaker 1: sent him east to Siberia, and he worked in like

533
00:26:02,609 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 1: a gulag, right? We know that about him. And that

534
00:26:05,940 --> 00:26:07,899
Speaker 1: makes it a lot likelier that he was working on

535
00:26:07,940 --> 00:26:09,889
Speaker 1: a road gang that the Russians were operating. Because if

536
00:26:09,910 --> 00:26:11,850
Speaker 1: he was working on a Nazi road gang, how would

537
00:26:11,890 --> 00:26:15,730
Speaker 1: he have gotten transport? The Germans weren't sending people to Siberia.

538
00:26:15,750 --> 00:26:17,380
Speaker 3: No.

539
00:26:18,340 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: So this was not a nice experience. The gulags were

540
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,930
Speaker 1: not nice places. But being sent to one almost certainly

541
00:26:24,010 --> 00:26:27,010
Speaker 1: saved his life, right? Because as awful as gulags were,

542
00:26:27,390 --> 00:26:29,910
Speaker 1: and many people did die in Siberian camps like this,

543
00:26:30,340 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 1: they weren't death camps. The USSR was not trying to

544
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: murder every Polish Jew or even everyone they sent to

545
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: these camps. And so while Peter's experience there was horrific,

546
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: it was also survivable, right? It was way more survivable

547
00:26:42,580 --> 00:26:45,239
Speaker 1: than staying home would have been, right? Yeah. Because his

548
00:26:45,330 --> 00:26:47,909
Speaker 1: family stays back home in Lvov and they wind up

549
00:26:48,109 --> 00:26:49,190
Speaker 1: in the camps, right?

550
00:26:49,210 --> 00:26:49,950
Speaker 3: Yeah.

551
00:26:50,609 --> 00:26:53,050
Speaker 1: In the worst case. I guess for an idea of

552
00:26:53,130 --> 00:26:56,210
Speaker 1: how bad his situation is, being sent to a gulag

553
00:26:56,350 --> 00:26:59,510
Speaker 1: is like a break of really good luck for this guy.

554
00:27:00,410 --> 00:27:03,450
Speaker 1: Forced labor in Siberia is a win. Yeah.

555
00:27:03,470 --> 00:27:05,980
Speaker 3: Are you going to be around the trees, maybe?

556
00:27:06,580 --> 00:27:07,020
Speaker 4: Yeah.

557
00:27:07,100 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. At least there's trees.

558
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 4: I don't know.

559
00:27:09,300 --> 00:27:09,820
Speaker 1: I guess.

560
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 3: Hopefully.

561
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: He would go on to make some pretty horrific claims

562
00:27:13,859 --> 00:27:17,450
Speaker 1: about his experiences as Root's book outlines, quote, bitterly cold

563
00:27:17,550 --> 00:27:20,149
Speaker 1: and along with many others facing near starvation, Rockman would

564
00:27:20,190 --> 00:27:22,830
Speaker 1: later account that he was forced to eat excrement to survive.

565
00:27:23,190 --> 00:27:25,570
Speaker 1: He reportedly qualified that by saying to people he knew

566
00:27:25,630 --> 00:27:28,149
Speaker 1: in London, I never ate German shit. At least no

567
00:27:28,230 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: one can say I ever ate that.

568
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:37,199
Speaker 3: That's kind of badass, honestly. That's a pretty, like, bad statement.

569
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: I did look into this a little. I haven't run

570
00:27:39,900 --> 00:27:42,070
Speaker 1: into any other stories. I've run into allegations of, like,

571
00:27:42,109 --> 00:27:44,310
Speaker 1: cannibalism in the gulags and even in, like, some of

572
00:27:44,330 --> 00:27:46,570
Speaker 1: the camp. People who are starving will do almost anything.

573
00:27:46,910 --> 00:27:49,150
Speaker 1: I have not ran into other stories about eating poop

574
00:27:49,310 --> 00:27:52,429
Speaker 1: to survive. The research, I don't think that that would actually,

575
00:27:52,510 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: it might fill your belly though. So maybe if you

576
00:27:54,390 --> 00:27:57,100
Speaker 1: were really that starved, it doesn't have much nutritional value

577
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:58,620
Speaker 1: because it's shit, right?

578
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,180
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say, do you know, have

579
00:28:01,220 --> 00:28:02,740
Speaker 3: you thought about this?

580
00:28:03,980 --> 00:28:06,419
Speaker 1: I mean, I've read a lot of concentration camp and

581
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: other like narratives of people who have wound up in

582
00:28:08,859 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: horrible starvation situations. And I have read a lot about

583
00:28:11,220 --> 00:28:13,939
Speaker 1: like people literally eating dirt or leaves that had no

584
00:28:13,980 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: nutritional value just to like fill their stomachs or ice

585
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: or like snow just to like fill their stomachs. So

586
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,780
Speaker 1: stuff like this does happen, right? It's not going to sustain.

587
00:28:23,820 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 1: Don't take this as a survivalist tip, kids. But yeah,

588
00:28:28,220 --> 00:28:30,750
Speaker 1: stuff like that definitely does occur. I don't know. Maybe

589
00:28:30,790 --> 00:28:33,150
Speaker 1: he made that up because it was a really good

590
00:28:33,390 --> 00:28:38,810
Speaker 1: anecdote to tell. I don't know. Yeah, this is first

591
00:28:38,890 --> 00:28:41,350
Speaker 1: reported in Shirley Green's book, and she is repeating a

592
00:28:41,370 --> 00:28:43,130
Speaker 1: story Rockman told to a bunch of his friends and

593
00:28:43,170 --> 00:28:45,250
Speaker 1: girlfriends while alive that said, I don't know why he'd

594
00:28:45,330 --> 00:28:48,940
Speaker 1: lie about this, right? It's a good anecdote, but it's

595
00:28:48,980 --> 00:28:51,290
Speaker 1: also not like, It's not like a cool thing to

596
00:28:51,310 --> 00:28:51,990
Speaker 1: brag about.

597
00:28:52,010 --> 00:28:52,890
Speaker 3: Bark or something.

598
00:28:52,910 --> 00:28:52,990
Speaker 1: Yeah.

599
00:28:53,030 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'd really want to be like

600
00:28:55,660 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 3: kind of human set up eating myself a little bit. Yeah.

601
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: I don't know that I'd lie about that if it

602
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: hadn't happened.

603
00:29:01,300 --> 00:29:04,530
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'd talk about if it did happen,

604
00:29:04,570 --> 00:29:05,170
Speaker 3: but you know.

605
00:29:05,250 --> 00:29:05,490
Speaker 2: Yeah.

606
00:29:05,590 --> 00:29:06,850
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would talk about it if

607
00:29:06,890 --> 00:29:08,910
Speaker 1: it did happen, but Rockman clearly does.

608
00:29:10,050 --> 00:29:11,150
Speaker 3: Good on him, I guess.

609
00:29:11,670 --> 00:29:15,170
Speaker 1: Yeah. Root notes that Rockman's girlfriend later in life claims

610
00:29:15,190 --> 00:29:17,730
Speaker 1: he told her many stories about his frenzied efforts to

611
00:29:17,770 --> 00:29:20,380
Speaker 1: maintain some sort of hygiene when he was interned by

612
00:29:20,420 --> 00:29:23,580
Speaker 1: the Russians. He's a very hygienic guy after the war.

613
00:29:24,140 --> 00:29:26,460
Speaker 1: And part of it's because he kind of goes a

614
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: little crazy at how, like, filthy everything is when you're

615
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,290
Speaker 1: in a fucking gulag. His girlfriend, relating the stories he

616
00:29:33,330 --> 00:29:36,130
Speaker 1: told her, said he used to delice himself and throw

617
00:29:36,210 --> 00:29:38,710
Speaker 1: in the insects on the fire listening to them pop

618
00:29:38,750 --> 00:29:41,350
Speaker 1: as they exploded in the flames he made clothes and

619
00:29:41,410 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: shoes out of newspapers so this is a win again

620
00:29:46,020 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: this is lucky but it's really bad.

621
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 3: I feel like i keep hearing these things and i'm

622
00:29:55,050 --> 00:29:57,250
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't know if I would have told

623
00:29:57,330 --> 00:29:58,970
Speaker 3: this story, but you know, fair enough.

624
00:29:58,990 --> 00:30:01,950
Speaker 1: For this to be the only reason you survived, like

625
00:30:01,970 --> 00:30:04,710
Speaker 1: that really shows what a nightmare it was to be

626
00:30:04,990 --> 00:30:06,350
Speaker 1: a fucking Jew in Poland this.

627
00:30:06,230 --> 00:30:07,010
Speaker 4: Period of time.

628
00:30:07,030 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, this was like a really lucky break. Green

629
00:30:11,100 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: notes that he claims to have been beaten regularly by

630
00:30:13,860 --> 00:30:17,060
Speaker 1: guards and by other prisoners, and he would argue that's

631
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,610
Speaker 1: what made him sterile. Uh, one poll that she interviewed

632
00:30:20,670 --> 00:30:22,870
Speaker 1: who knew him during this period of time claimed by

633
00:30:22,890 --> 00:30:26,450
Speaker 1: the time they'd finished with him, he was practically a eunuch. Um,

634
00:30:26,770 --> 00:30:28,530
Speaker 1: so maybe that's it. Maybe he was just like beaten

635
00:30:28,590 --> 00:30:31,370
Speaker 1: badly enough that like he was not able to have kids.

636
00:30:31,390 --> 00:30:32,610
Speaker 3: However, that's dark.

637
00:30:33,470 --> 00:30:35,950
Speaker 1: I don't know. Like whatever damage he suffered to his,

638
00:30:36,380 --> 00:30:38,930
Speaker 1: you know, reproductive organs during this period of time, he

639
00:30:39,020 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: is going to have a lot of sex later in life.

640
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: So it doesn't do that.

641
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,820
Speaker 3: Good for Rockman. That's a good name for. Yeah. Good.

642
00:30:48,910 --> 00:30:51,260
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to make that joke right now.

643
00:31:04,540 --> 00:31:07,780
Speaker 1: Within days, German and Ukrainian forces spread lies that Ukrainian

644
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,740
Speaker 1: political prisoners had been murdered by Jews in the NKVD's

645
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: dungeons in Lvov. This was used to justify a pogrom,

646
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: which between June 30th and July 3rd, 1941, cost 4,000

647
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,740
Speaker 1: Lvov Jews their lives. Rachman's parents and family may have

648
00:31:21,780 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: died then. Surely some of them did. They also may

649
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: have been sent to the Janowska concentration camp, where 35,000

650
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: to 40,000 Jews would be murdered later in the war.

651
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,090
Speaker 1: It's also possible they were sent to Belzec and murdered there.

652
00:31:34,500 --> 00:31:37,110
Speaker 1: They may have even died in March of 1942, when

653
00:31:37,130 --> 00:31:40,590
Speaker 1: German forces executed 5,000 Jews who were too old or

654
00:31:40,650 --> 00:31:43,550
Speaker 1: sick to labor. We don't know, and Rockman would never

655
00:31:43,610 --> 00:31:45,510
Speaker 1: learn of his family's fate. This is something that haunts

656
00:31:45,550 --> 00:31:46,970
Speaker 1: him the rest of his life, is that he can't

657
00:31:46,990 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: find out what happened to his mom in particular. And obviously, like,

658
00:31:49,860 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: that would haunt you. Yeah. In July of 1941, Peter's

659
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: internment ended. General Sikorski, the leader of Poland's government in exile,

660
00:31:58,700 --> 00:32:03,130
Speaker 1: made a deal with Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky. The Sikorsky-Maysky

661
00:32:03,190 --> 00:32:07,340
Speaker 1: agreement saw 250,000 Polish prisoners of war released from Russian

662
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: custody so that they could fight against the German invasion.

663
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: Things are so bad in the early days of Operation

664
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: Barbarossa that Stalin was like, yeah, man, get them out

665
00:32:17,620 --> 00:32:19,380
Speaker 1: of the gulags and put a gun in their hands.

666
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,170
Speaker 1: We have no other options. Things are very bad.

667
00:32:22,180 --> 00:32:24,420
Speaker 3: Do they even have guns for all of them? Like?

668
00:32:25,060 --> 00:32:26,860
Speaker 1: Probably not because I think they're going to get armed

669
00:32:26,900 --> 00:32:29,370
Speaker 1: largely by the Brits. I'm not 100% sure where their

670
00:32:29,420 --> 00:32:31,870
Speaker 1: weapons come from during this period of time. I know

671
00:32:31,910 --> 00:32:34,770
Speaker 1: that once he's mobilized with a bunch of other Polish

672
00:32:34,810 --> 00:32:38,310
Speaker 1: former POWs, he travels to Tashkent where he joins the

673
00:32:38,330 --> 00:32:41,870
Speaker 1: Polish army in exile under the command of General Władysław Anders.

674
00:32:42,430 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: This force left the USSR, passed through Iran and Palestine.

675
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: And while it was in Palestine, which again is part

676
00:32:48,300 --> 00:32:51,780
Speaker 1: of the British mandate, right? The British are governing Palestine

677
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:56,110
Speaker 1: at this point in time. it's integrated into the British army, right?

678
00:32:56,210 --> 00:33:00,310
Speaker 1: So even though this had been part of the Russian resistance,

679
00:33:00,330 --> 00:33:03,490
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it's decided these forces would be better

680
00:33:03,650 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: off fighting as part of the integrated British military forces.

681
00:33:07,950 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: So they're integrated into the British army and renamed the

682
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,020
Speaker 1: Polish Second Corps. I don't fully know the reason why

683
00:33:14,060 --> 00:33:16,310
Speaker 1: these guys are sent to Palestine to fight under the

684
00:33:16,330 --> 00:33:19,370
Speaker 1: Brits rather than the Russian front. But also Peter wouldn't

685
00:33:19,410 --> 00:33:22,650
Speaker 1: have been known, right? Nobody's explaining this to these guys, right?

686
00:33:22,690 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: They're just going where they're sent.

687
00:33:24,110 --> 00:33:25,630
Speaker 3: Were the Soviets just like, we don't want to deal

688
00:33:25,650 --> 00:33:26,430
Speaker 3: with this right now?

689
00:33:27,130 --> 00:33:29,230
Speaker 1: It may have been that they didn't trust these guys

690
00:33:29,310 --> 00:33:31,990
Speaker 1: enough to want them in a crucial part of their front,

691
00:33:32,130 --> 00:33:35,490
Speaker 1: but also 250,000 guys is 250,000 guys. If we give

692
00:33:35,790 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: them to the British, it'll put pressure on the Germans

693
00:33:38,380 --> 00:33:40,940
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and that will still help us, right? It

694
00:33:40,980 --> 00:33:41,700
Speaker 1: may have just been that.

695
00:33:41,980 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 3: I suppose if you had people in the gulag, you're like,

696
00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 3: I don't know if we should really put these next

697
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 3: to our.

698
00:33:47,860 --> 00:33:51,020
Speaker 1: I don't know if we want these guys in Stalingrad, right? Yeah.

699
00:33:54,090 --> 00:33:57,170
Speaker 1: Green writes that Rockman was elated to have escaped Russia

700
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,020
Speaker 1: and have a chance to fight for the Poland he

701
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: still loved. However, his patriotism, and he seems to have

702
00:34:01,740 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: been a very patriotic guy at this point, is very

703
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 1: quickly quashed by the anti-Semitism of his comrades, which has

704
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,450
Speaker 1: not been reduced at all by the fact that they're

705
00:34:10,489 --> 00:34:14,509
Speaker 1: fighting the Nazis. Although most Poles deny it, there seems

706
00:34:14,590 --> 00:34:16,910
Speaker 1: little doubt that the regular officers of the Polish army

707
00:34:16,969 --> 00:34:20,069
Speaker 1: regarded all Jews as cowards and incapable of fighting. They

708
00:34:20,110 --> 00:34:22,230
Speaker 1: constantly disparaged them in front of the other men. And

709
00:34:22,310 --> 00:34:24,750
Speaker 1: so successful were they in belittling their abilities that when

710
00:34:24,770 --> 00:34:27,710
Speaker 1: the second corps passed through Palestine, about 80% of them

711
00:34:27,750 --> 00:34:30,989
Speaker 1: melted away into the local population, right? That like, they're

712
00:34:31,030 --> 00:34:33,090
Speaker 1: just like, I just, I don't want to be in

713
00:34:33,130 --> 00:34:35,290
Speaker 1: this situation. This isn't that much better, right?

714
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:36,530
Speaker 3: Yeah.

715
00:34:37,010 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: Rockman stays though, which says something about him, right? Although

716
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: all this abuse saps his morale and Green writes that

717
00:34:43,460 --> 00:34:47,320
Speaker 1: he withdrew into himself, inwardly seething with anger and bitterness.

718
00:34:47,910 --> 00:34:51,469
Speaker 1: She describes how his horizons narrowed to sheer self-interest and

719
00:34:51,510 --> 00:34:54,180
Speaker 1: that the effect of this rejection may have influenced his

720
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: behavior far more than any physical hardships. He did receive

721
00:34:58,060 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: the Polish War Medal for his service, which was issued

722
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 1: to anyone who served for a set length of time.

723
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,820
Speaker 1: But Peter did not end the war with any cool

724
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: stories or any vengeance. You know, we talked about Robert

725
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: Maxwell's youth, right? Gill and Maxwell's dad, which like. There

726
00:35:11,260 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: was a period of time where he's basically living in

727
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:18,180
Speaker 1: glorious bastards. He's committing war crimes against the Nazis. Peter

728
00:35:18,219 --> 00:35:20,580
Speaker 1: doesn't get that kind of, to the extent that that

729
00:35:20,620 --> 00:35:22,940
Speaker 1: provides any catharsis, he doesn't really get it, right?

730
00:35:22,980 --> 00:35:27,219
Speaker 3: All he got was the eating shit thing. That's, damn,

731
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 3: that sucks.

732
00:35:28,820 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: You would have hoped he'd gotten to kill at least

733
00:35:30,660 --> 00:35:34,230
Speaker 1: one of them, right? Yeah, goddamn. I mean he may have–

734
00:35:34,260 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: he fights in Italy for a while and he gets

735
00:35:36,380 --> 00:35:40,460
Speaker 1: promoted to cadet officer in 1945. But Green– and I

736
00:35:40,500 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 1: think his– the thing he was useful at was not

737
00:35:42,940 --> 00:35:46,029
Speaker 1: his fighting, right? Green writes that what he managed to

738
00:35:46,090 --> 00:35:49,270
Speaker 1: do well– and he managed to prove himself indispensable to

739
00:35:49,310 --> 00:35:52,770
Speaker 1: his comrades by using his powers of organization to gather

740
00:35:52,830 --> 00:35:56,310
Speaker 1: luxury supplies like chocolate and soap and coffee– and provide

741
00:35:56,330 --> 00:35:58,850
Speaker 1: them to his comrades, right? In other words, he was

742
00:35:58,930 --> 00:36:01,370
Speaker 1: really good at logistics and like the shady kind of

743
00:36:01,410 --> 00:36:07,430
Speaker 1: logistics where you're gathering and requisitioning stuff from the civilian population.

744
00:36:07,770 --> 00:36:10,950
Speaker 1: Maybe you're handing them some guns. Maybe you're just taking it, right?

745
00:36:11,230 --> 00:36:15,530
Speaker 1: It's probably not sketchy what he's doing to get this stuff.

746
00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:18,029
Speaker 3: He will become a landlord later.

747
00:36:18,390 --> 00:36:23,860
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing the landlord breaking through. He makes himself

748
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:26,540
Speaker 1: so useful providing luxuries to his comrades that he gets

749
00:36:26,580 --> 00:36:28,580
Speaker 1: a private room while most of his unit is still

750
00:36:28,620 --> 00:36:30,620
Speaker 1: camped out in tents, right? Like a room in an

751
00:36:30,739 --> 00:36:34,700
Speaker 1: actual like building. Wow. As Green describes it, by the

752
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:36,770
Speaker 1: end of the war, Rockman had made a place of

753
00:36:36,810 --> 00:36:39,390
Speaker 1: acceptance for himself in the unit that had initially been

754
00:36:39,430 --> 00:36:43,150
Speaker 1: very bigoted against him. Quote, he was genuinely popular, provided

755
00:36:43,170 --> 00:36:45,790
Speaker 1: he kept his place. Everything about him was regarded with

756
00:36:45,930 --> 00:36:49,290
Speaker 1: friendly condescension. When he dished out the canteen rations, if

757
00:36:49,350 --> 00:36:51,330
Speaker 1: any of the Russian soldiers in the unit complained, his

758
00:36:51,370 --> 00:36:53,609
Speaker 1: voice would squeak with emotion as he would shout, go

759
00:36:53,650 --> 00:36:55,430
Speaker 1: back to your German friends then. If you think you'll

760
00:36:55,469 --> 00:36:57,410
Speaker 1: get better from Hitler, go back and get it from him.

761
00:36:57,950 --> 00:37:00,710
Speaker 1: This hatred provided something of a stock entertainment. So did

762
00:37:00,750 --> 00:37:03,750
Speaker 1: his Jewishness, which brought him in for nonstop teasing, apparently

763
00:37:03,790 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 1: taken in good part. If that sounds cruel, it was explained,

764
00:37:06,890 --> 00:37:08,739
Speaker 1: you must remember that it was the Jews themselves who

765
00:37:08,780 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: created the atmosphere. They never thought of themselves as Polish,

766
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,739
Speaker 1: and they always thought that we Poles despise them. This

767
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:15,860
Speaker 1: is a quote from one of his comrades. So I

768
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:18,299
Speaker 1: don't know if we should take that literally, right? This

769
00:37:18,340 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: is somebody after the war trying to explain why he

770
00:37:20,940 --> 00:37:22,790
Speaker 1: was such a racist to the Jews in his unit.

771
00:37:22,810 --> 00:37:26,549
Speaker 3: I was going to say, this sounds like definitely an anti-Semite.

772
00:37:26,690 --> 00:37:28,790
Speaker 3: You know, it's actually still the Jews' father.

773
00:37:28,910 --> 00:37:30,590
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if they brought it on themselves.

774
00:37:30,630 --> 00:37:33,529
Speaker 1: I think you guys were just assholes. I think you

775
00:37:33,550 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: guys were huge dicks to these people for no real reason.

776
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,180
Speaker 3: Yeah, just racism, you know.

777
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: Just racism.

778
00:37:40,410 --> 00:37:40,609
Speaker 3: Yeah.

779
00:37:40,890 --> 00:37:43,070
Speaker 1: By the end of the war, he'd had no contact

780
00:37:43,090 --> 00:37:45,850
Speaker 1: with any of his family. And for obvious reasons, Rachman

781
00:37:45,910 --> 00:37:49,290
Speaker 1: is not eager to return to post-war Poland. Who can

782
00:37:49,310 --> 00:37:54,310
Speaker 1: blame him? I wouldn't want to go back either. And unfortunately,

783
00:37:54,330 --> 00:37:57,450
Speaker 1: this is like another, I guess you could call it

784
00:37:57,510 --> 00:38:02,170
Speaker 1: like one of the Nazi successes in this war is

785
00:38:02,190 --> 00:38:05,010
Speaker 1: that even among the Polish Jews who survive, a lot

786
00:38:05,070 --> 00:38:05,810
Speaker 1: never want to return.

787
00:38:06,290 --> 00:38:06,509
Speaker 3: Right?

788
00:38:06,590 --> 00:38:08,720
Speaker 1: Because they saw all of their neighbors turn against them

789
00:38:08,930 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: and murder a lot of their family.

790
00:38:10,500 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 3: Members, right?

791
00:38:11,020 --> 00:38:15,140
Speaker 1: Why would you go back, right? Since he'd served in

792
00:38:15,180 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: the British army, he was stationed in Britain after the

793
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:21,399
Speaker 1: end of the war. And in November of 1946, he

794
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: transfers to a unit in the British military that's called

795
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,260
Speaker 1: the Polish Resettlement Corps, right? This is a special British

796
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,540
Speaker 1: military unit made up of Polish forces who wanted to

797
00:38:31,620 --> 00:38:34,219
Speaker 1: resettle in the United Kingdom after the war. There was

798
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: an understanding that like, A lot of you aren't going

799
00:38:36,660 --> 00:38:39,819
Speaker 1: to want to go back for obvious reasons. And you

800
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,060
Speaker 1: did fight for the British Empire, so we should probably

801
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: make a place for you here, right? Technically a stateless refugee,

802
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: Rockman received an alien registration certificate. And after this point,

803
00:38:50,620 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: he becomes, in essence, a permanent legal resident of Britain.

804
00:38:53,900 --> 00:38:57,569
Speaker 1: But he's never a citizen, right? Like he has– he's

805
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,810
Speaker 1: not even naturalized. Like he's a– he's got like a

806
00:39:01,870 --> 00:39:06,510
Speaker 1: permanent visa, right? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. alien resident

807
00:39:06,530 --> 00:39:08,290
Speaker 1: visa or something like that, I guess you'd call it.

808
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,100
Speaker 1: During this next period of his life, he bounces around

809
00:39:11,140 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: a few normal jobs. He works as a trainee toolmaker,

810
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,020
Speaker 1: and then he's a laborer at an aircraft production factory.

811
00:39:17,540 --> 00:39:19,580
Speaker 1: And this is what takes him to East London for

812
00:39:19,620 --> 00:39:21,110
Speaker 1: the first time. He's going to be in East London

813
00:39:21,140 --> 00:39:23,110
Speaker 1: for a while before he winds up on the West side.

814
00:39:23,690 --> 00:39:26,710
Speaker 1: Peter Rockman was ultimately discharged from the Resettlement Corps in

815
00:39:26,810 --> 00:39:31,180
Speaker 1: February of 1948. So his serviced the military does last

816
00:39:31,219 --> 00:39:33,380
Speaker 1: a few years after the war and it's here that

817
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:35,540
Speaker 1: I should zoom out and talk a little bit about

818
00:39:35,580 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: how post-war Great Britain looked because as Americans we have

819
00:39:39,020 --> 00:39:41,100
Speaker 1: a tendency when we think about the post-world War two

820
00:39:41,180 --> 00:39:44,100
Speaker 1: period it's a time of like affluence and hope it

821
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,060
Speaker 1: was a real boom period for us and And that's

822
00:39:47,100 --> 00:39:49,660
Speaker 1: because the U.S. ended World War II with literally half

823
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: of all of the wealth on Earth, right? Just in

824
00:39:52,140 --> 00:39:54,830
Speaker 1: our country. I didn't pull that out of my ass,

825
00:39:54,850 --> 00:39:57,489
Speaker 1: that the actual statistic is about half of all of

826
00:39:57,550 --> 00:39:59,690
Speaker 1: the wealth on the planet was in the United States

827
00:39:59,750 --> 00:40:01,940
Speaker 1: at the end of the war. England is not doing

828
00:40:02,020 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: so well, right?

829
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:03,460
Speaker 3: No.

830
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 1: The country is devastated by the wars. And not just

831
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: because she'd had to spend a catastrophic amount fighting the war,

832
00:40:10,410 --> 00:40:13,450
Speaker 1: but because her greatest cities had still been heavily damaged

833
00:40:13,510 --> 00:40:17,010
Speaker 1: by years of German bombing and rocket attacks. Bomb sites

834
00:40:17,050 --> 00:40:21,210
Speaker 1: were still being cleared and bombs removed well into the 1950s.

835
00:40:21,630 --> 00:40:24,330
Speaker 1: Many thousands of Britons lost their home during the fighting.

836
00:40:24,670 --> 00:40:27,170
Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, after the war, they experienced

837
00:40:27,210 --> 00:40:30,169
Speaker 1: a baby boom, just like the US did. So Great

838
00:40:30,210 --> 00:40:33,010
Speaker 1: Britain has the baby boom without any of the money

839
00:40:33,530 --> 00:40:37,070
Speaker 1: and without any of the massive construction of housing. Initially,

840
00:40:37,290 --> 00:40:39,910
Speaker 1: they're going to have to do that. But this causes

841
00:40:39,969 --> 00:40:43,190
Speaker 1: a huge issue in the country. There's just not enough

842
00:40:43,489 --> 00:40:47,029
Speaker 1: housing for everybody, right? Peter Rockman is spending a lot

843
00:40:47,050 --> 00:40:48,910
Speaker 1: of this in these group homes.

844
00:40:48,930 --> 00:40:50,110
Speaker 3: Well, that feels familiar.

845
00:40:51,190 --> 00:40:51,390
Speaker 2: Right.

846
00:40:51,489 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The end result of all of

847
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:57,359
Speaker 1: this is that Peter Brockman enters a Britain in which

848
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 1: huge numbers of people are homeless. The government estimated at

849
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,989
Speaker 1: least 750,000 new homes would need to be built to

850
00:41:04,050 --> 00:41:07,370
Speaker 1: address the crisis. After the war, Parliament passed the New

851
00:41:07,450 --> 00:41:10,810
Speaker 1: Towns Act in 1946, which led to the construction of

852
00:41:10,850 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: a ton of precast reinforced concrete homes. These were much

853
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: faster to build than traditional dwellings, but even that was

854
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,170
Speaker 1: not enough to alleviate the crisis. Many Britons moved into caravans,

855
00:41:21,190 --> 00:41:24,810
Speaker 1: which are basically RVs or trailers, right? And again, Rockman's

856
00:41:24,850 --> 00:41:27,330
Speaker 1: living in like group homes and dormitories for a big

857
00:41:27,410 --> 00:41:30,630
Speaker 1: chunk of this. The UK Science and Media Museum also

858
00:41:30,690 --> 00:41:33,990
Speaker 1: notes that, quote, neglected or cheap and disused vehicles such

859
00:41:34,030 --> 00:41:37,140
Speaker 1: as railway carriages or trolleybuses were used as homes. They

860
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,620
Speaker 1: were weatherproof and comfortable and must cheaper than running a

861
00:41:39,660 --> 00:41:44,259
Speaker 1: conventional built home. So people are like, desperate enough that

862
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: they had to get creative. They're living in like decommissioned

863
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:52,089
Speaker 1: trolleys and trains because there's just no housing, right? You're

864
00:41:52,130 --> 00:41:54,750
Speaker 1: seeing how the situation is being created in which a

865
00:41:54,790 --> 00:41:56,089
Speaker 1: landlord could do very well.

866
00:41:56,850 --> 00:41:59,430
Speaker 3: I just keep having these feelings of like, look how

867
00:41:59,510 --> 00:42:01,109
Speaker 3: far we haven't come from.

868
00:42:02,630 --> 00:42:04,529
Speaker 1: Oh, at the very end, we're going to have a

869
00:42:04,810 --> 00:42:06,830
Speaker 1: stat dump that really makes that point.

870
00:42:07,150 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 2: Oh, man, Robert, don't tell us that.

871
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,830
Speaker 1: It's okay. This is mainly bad for our friends over

872
00:42:12,870 --> 00:42:14,870
Speaker 1: in the UK, so obviously it doesn't affect us at

873
00:42:14,950 --> 00:42:16,509
Speaker 1: all because the world's not interconnected.

874
00:42:17,610 --> 00:42:19,570
Speaker 2: You know what is interconnected, though, Robert?

875
00:42:20,350 --> 00:42:23,770
Speaker 1: The sponsors of our podcasts? Yes, yes. They're deeply connected

876
00:42:24,030 --> 00:42:26,819
Speaker 1: to everything in the story, especially the Third Reich, you know?

877
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:31,540
Speaker 1: Which is why I'm a big fan of Mercedes. You know, Mercedes.

878
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: If you need engines built for a bunch of tanks

879
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: and armored vehicles that you're going to use to invade Russia...

880
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,489
Speaker 1: I mean... It didn't work the last time, and it

881
00:42:40,510 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: probably won't work when you do it, but I don't know.

882
00:42:43,940 --> 00:42:52,670
Speaker 1: Use Mercedes anyway. And we're back.

883
00:42:53,690 --> 00:42:53,830
Speaker 3: So.

884
00:42:54,730 --> 00:42:57,290
Speaker 1: Rockman couldn't help but notice the fact that there was

885
00:42:57,350 --> 00:42:59,770
Speaker 1: not nearly enough housing to go around and that it

886
00:42:59,830 --> 00:43:02,549
Speaker 1: was easily the most valuable commodity in the country after

887
00:43:02,570 --> 00:43:05,049
Speaker 1: the war. Next to like, well, fresh meat was also

888
00:43:05,090 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: a pretty valuable commodity, right? The fact that there was

889
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:10,819
Speaker 1: not enough housing would have been obvious during his own

890
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: struggles to find a home, but it would also have

891
00:43:12,660 --> 00:43:16,060
Speaker 1: been a constant topic in the news. In 1950, Clement

892
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,380
Speaker 1: Attlee's labor government committed to build 200,000 new homes. Churchill's

893
00:43:20,420 --> 00:43:24,350
Speaker 1: conservatives chose to up that to 300,000 And by 1953,

894
00:43:24,350 --> 00:43:27,810
Speaker 1: that many new homes were being constructed per year. The

895
00:43:27,830 --> 00:43:30,350
Speaker 1: housing boom in Great Britain would last more than a decade.

896
00:43:30,630 --> 00:43:32,790
Speaker 1: But even so, it is not keeping up with the

897
00:43:32,830 --> 00:43:36,070
Speaker 1: growing population. These are huge numbers of houses to be constructed,

898
00:43:36,130 --> 00:43:38,549
Speaker 1: and they're still behind, right? They're still behind the eight

899
00:43:38,570 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: ball every step of the way. Green describes Rockman's living

900
00:43:41,930 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: situation at the end of the 1940s, working at a

901
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:48,460
Speaker 1: veneer factory and living in, quote, Dickensian rooms that were

902
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: still lit by gas and destitute of any floor coverings.

903
00:43:51,770 --> 00:43:54,850
Speaker 1: Their bedsitters had no facilities for washing or cooking, and

904
00:43:54,870 --> 00:43:58,250
Speaker 1: beyond empty grates, no facilities for heating. He and his

905
00:43:58,310 --> 00:44:01,730
Speaker 1: roommate would steal cast-off cuts of veneer from the factory

906
00:44:01,790 --> 00:44:05,259
Speaker 1: and burn them for warmth. So they're like burning, which

907
00:44:05,300 --> 00:44:08,980
Speaker 1: is like this fucking paint style. It can't have been

908
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: good for you to just be burning this stuff and

909
00:44:11,739 --> 00:44:14,899
Speaker 1: inhaling these fumes. But that's how poor they are, right?

910
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: Is that they're like burning veneer for warmth?

911
00:44:17,780 --> 00:44:19,580
Speaker 3: God, you get out of the gulag. I shouldn't be laughing.

912
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:20,100
Speaker 1: It's rough.

913
00:44:20,570 --> 00:44:23,469
Speaker 3: You go to war and then all of a sudden you're, Jesus,

914
00:44:23,730 --> 00:44:25,110
Speaker 3: this guy just can't catch a break.

915
00:44:25,570 --> 00:44:26,550
Speaker 1: No, not yet.

916
00:44:26,730 --> 00:44:27,330
Speaker 3: Not yet.

917
00:44:27,870 --> 00:44:30,649
Speaker 1: He leaves this last job after eight months and leaves

918
00:44:30,690 --> 00:44:33,620
Speaker 1: the East End for the West End, where London historian

919
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,940
Speaker 1: Gary Powell writes that he, quote, became involved in Soho's

920
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: crime and prostitution rackets. And there's some missing here. We

921
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:42,739
Speaker 1: don't get him explaining it. I think what happens here

922
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: is he's like, you know what? A sucker's game is

923
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:49,890
Speaker 1: working for money. That's bullshit. I'm going to get into

924
00:44:49,950 --> 00:44:51,549
Speaker 1: gambling and pimping. Game's a chance.

925
00:44:52,010 --> 00:44:52,509
Speaker 3: Game's a chance.

926
00:44:52,530 --> 00:44:58,140
Speaker 1: Game's a chance in pimping. Yeah. And it was, Gary

927
00:44:58,180 --> 00:45:01,540
Speaker 1: Powell alleges, this illicit money that first allowed Rockman to

928
00:45:01,580 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: start purchasing properties, which he funded by working as a pimp.

929
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:08,690
Speaker 1: This matter is up for some debate. Neil Root describes

930
00:45:08,730 --> 00:45:11,989
Speaker 1: him as taking a more acceptable route. taking a job

931
00:45:12,050 --> 00:45:16,150
Speaker 1: at a property management office in late 1950 and working

932
00:45:16,190 --> 00:45:18,910
Speaker 1: his way up to a management position by 1952 when

933
00:45:18,930 --> 00:45:20,630
Speaker 1: he saves up enough money that he's able to buy.

934
00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 1: He's buying what we would call today distressed properties, right?

935
00:45:25,060 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: And it's definitely true that he works in this place.

936
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,779
Speaker 1: It's also almost certainly true that some of the money

937
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: he's making to buy these houses comes from money he's

938
00:45:32,260 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: making illicitly, right? Both of these things are accurate. Root

939
00:45:36,060 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: makes it clear that Rockman was heavily involved in the underworld, too,

940
00:45:39,300 --> 00:45:42,669
Speaker 1: although in a somewhat different way than Powell describes it. Quote,

941
00:45:43,310 --> 00:45:45,950
Speaker 1: It's around this time that Rockman became close to Gloria,

942
00:45:46,110 --> 00:45:48,989
Speaker 1: a tall, redheaded prostitute, as detailed by Shirley Green in

943
00:45:49,030 --> 00:45:51,830
Speaker 1: her biography. A police officer, now deceased, who was working

944
00:45:51,870 --> 00:45:54,250
Speaker 1: in Notting Hill during Rockman's time, compiled a report of

945
00:45:54,270 --> 00:45:56,310
Speaker 1: what he had learned about him, and this was supplied

946
00:45:56,370 --> 00:45:58,410
Speaker 1: as research for this book by the writer and journalist

947
00:45:58,450 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: Mark Olden. The policeman thought that Gloria's surname was Davenport,

948
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,140
Speaker 1: but this could not be verified, and Gloria may well

949
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,460
Speaker 1: not have been her real name. In any event, Rockman

950
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: seems to have been associating with prostitutes, but there was

951
00:46:08,660 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: no evidence that he worked as a pimp. As the

952
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,460
Speaker 1: report states, it was at that time that he started

953
00:46:13,500 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: to befriend prostitutes, not only availing himself of their services,

954
00:46:16,660 --> 00:46:18,820
Speaker 1: but also trading with them and even lending them money.

955
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,470
Speaker 1: He was well-liked by the Frail Sisterhood, who report that

956
00:46:22,510 --> 00:46:25,330
Speaker 1: his main catchphrase was, don't worry when they were late

957
00:46:25,370 --> 00:46:27,890
Speaker 1: with rent or repaying loans. There was never any evidence

958
00:46:27,910 --> 00:46:30,710
Speaker 1: that he took earnings of prostitution from any prostitute as

959
00:46:30,750 --> 00:46:34,310
Speaker 1: a ponce. A ponce is an old-timey Britishism for pimp, right,

960
00:46:34,390 --> 00:46:37,310
Speaker 1: in this period of time. So at least from that era,

961
00:46:37,630 --> 00:46:39,430
Speaker 1: it's less that he was, he was definitely making some

962
00:46:39,469 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: money gambling, but he wasn't a pimp so much as

963
00:46:41,910 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: he was just like his entire social circle was prostitutes,

964
00:46:45,260 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 1: which is a cooler guy.

965
00:46:46,500 --> 00:46:50,100
Speaker 3: That's kind of like, not so bad, you know, pro

966
00:46:50,180 --> 00:46:54,900
Speaker 3: sex work, maybe hopefully helps out with the hope, maybe.

967
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:58,610
Speaker 1: Yeah. You get mixed reports about whether or not he

968
00:46:58,620 --> 00:47:02,299
Speaker 1: was really helping with the rent, so to speak. Um,

969
00:47:02,739 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: Gloria's pimp was a West Indian guy, right? Uh, and

970
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,029
Speaker 1: he fell in love with her and suggested, and she

971
00:47:09,070 --> 00:47:11,129
Speaker 1: suggested at least the story he would tell us that

972
00:47:11,469 --> 00:47:13,890
Speaker 1: he falls in love with this, this prostitute. And she's like,

973
00:47:13,930 --> 00:47:17,180
Speaker 1: you should start like buying and renting out homes, right?

974
00:47:17,219 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: Because you're a white respectable looking guy who can buy

975
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,460
Speaker 1: property and you could sublet it to all of my

976
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,750
Speaker 1: friends who are also sex workers. and have trouble finding

977
00:47:25,910 --> 00:47:29,930
Speaker 1: a landlord who's not an asshole. That's one version of

978
00:47:29,969 --> 00:47:32,190
Speaker 1: the Rockman story. We don't actually know what's true here.

979
00:47:32,510 --> 00:47:35,790
Speaker 1: It is entirely possible that he's basically working as a

980
00:47:35,810 --> 00:47:39,299
Speaker 1: pimp for these people. But, you know, at least Root's

981
00:47:39,390 --> 00:47:42,370
Speaker 1: research suggests it's something a little more nuanced. In an

982
00:47:42,430 --> 00:47:44,670
Speaker 1: article for the New York Review of Books, Carol Phillips

983
00:47:44,710 --> 00:47:47,710
Speaker 1: gives an account that sides somewhere between these two versions

984
00:47:47,790 --> 00:48:08,470
Speaker 1: of what happens. She writes, And British law at this

985
00:48:08,590 --> 00:48:11,649
Speaker 1: time considered two girls doing business out of the same

986
00:48:11,770 --> 00:48:14,930
Speaker 1: flat to be a brothel, right? So they would crack

987
00:48:14,989 --> 00:48:17,350
Speaker 1: down if there was more than one girl working out

988
00:48:17,370 --> 00:48:20,009
Speaker 1: of the same apartment. But one girl working out of

989
00:48:20,190 --> 00:48:23,509
Speaker 1: one flat could pass without incident if her neighbors didn't complain.

990
00:48:23,930 --> 00:48:26,030
Speaker 2: That's incredible, Robert.

991
00:48:27,250 --> 00:48:31,529
Speaker 1: British laws are crazy. Recent changes to policy had led

992
00:48:31,590 --> 00:48:34,469
Speaker 1: London police to aggressively arrest and crack down on both

993
00:48:34,550 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: brothels and streetwalking, right? For the first but not the

994
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,340
Speaker 1: last time, Peter Rockman took a look at these laws

995
00:48:40,450 --> 00:48:43,250
Speaker 1: and found a place for himself to make a fortune. Quote,

996
00:48:44,210 --> 00:48:47,069
Speaker 1: and this is Carol Phillips, Rockman's girls paid him their

997
00:48:47,110 --> 00:48:49,830
Speaker 1: official rent and then handed over additional cash in payment

998
00:48:49,870 --> 00:48:52,430
Speaker 1: for this consideration, which allowed them to work more safely

999
00:48:52,489 --> 00:48:55,069
Speaker 1: off the streets. Although Rockman certainly had sex with some

1000
00:48:55,090 --> 00:48:57,990
Speaker 1: of his girls, though according to his biographer Shirley Green,

1001
00:48:58,050 --> 00:49:00,340
Speaker 1: never against their will nor in lieu of rent, he

1002
00:49:00,380 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: was unsentimental about it. Mandy Rice Davis, his ex-girlfriend, or

1003
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: his ex-girlfriend, claimed, Sex was not a passion with him,

1004
00:49:06,980 --> 00:49:10,299
Speaker 1: but something functional, like drinking a glass of water. Now,

1005
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,030
Speaker 1: I think that kind of neatly explains the discrepancy between

1006
00:49:14,070 --> 00:49:15,750
Speaker 1: was he a pimp or was he just a friend?

1007
00:49:16,070 --> 00:49:19,350
Speaker 1: He's not directly a pimp, but he's the landlord to...

1008
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:23,250
Speaker 1: basically an apartment building where everyone there is a prostitute

1009
00:49:23,410 --> 00:49:25,690
Speaker 1: and they're paying him out of their cut of their earnings.

1010
00:49:26,330 --> 00:49:29,030
Speaker 1: So it's kind of pimping with like an extra step.

1011
00:49:29,750 --> 00:49:33,859
Speaker 3: This feels like an abusive love bomb type thing where

1012
00:49:34,780 --> 00:49:37,800
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, yeah, don't worry, it will be good.

1013
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 3: This isn't really sexual to me. I'll take care of you. Yeah,

1014
00:49:42,460 --> 00:49:46,220
Speaker 3: I own this building where you're, yeah, just sounds bad.

1015
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,259
Speaker 1: And again, that doesn't mean, he may also have been,

1016
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,340
Speaker 1: because he seems to have been very popular with a

1017
00:49:51,390 --> 00:49:53,650
Speaker 1: lot of people who lived in kind of the underclass

1018
00:49:53,690 --> 00:49:54,930
Speaker 1: of London in this period of time. So it may

1019
00:49:54,969 --> 00:49:57,750
Speaker 1: have been that he was still a better option than

1020
00:49:57,790 --> 00:50:00,509
Speaker 1: they had from anyone else. That can be true, and

1021
00:50:00,530 --> 00:50:02,890
Speaker 1: it can also have still been not a great situation

1022
00:50:02,910 --> 00:50:03,060
Speaker 1: for him.

1023
00:50:03,300 --> 00:50:08,530
Speaker 3: Ethically lesser of two evils the harm reduction right pimp.

1024
00:50:08,370 --> 00:50:11,090
Speaker 1: He's their version of getting sent to the gulag instead

1025
00:50:11,110 --> 00:50:12,810
Speaker 1: of a death camp where it's like well, this is

1026
00:50:12,910 --> 00:50:20,009
Speaker 1: better Now again When you read kind of some of

1027
00:50:20,030 --> 00:50:21,710
Speaker 1: the versions of this where he's just like hanging out

1028
00:50:21,730 --> 00:50:24,089
Speaker 1: with all of these Prostitutes and like helping him out

1029
00:50:24,530 --> 00:50:27,290
Speaker 1: He can seem like dangerously close to being a cool

1030
00:50:27,330 --> 00:50:30,350
Speaker 1: guy in an article for unseen histories Neil Root makes

1031
00:50:30,410 --> 00:50:32,489
Speaker 1: it clear that this was not the case and Rooms

1032
00:50:32,510 --> 00:50:34,549
Speaker 1: were also rented to sex workers, and these women were

1033
00:50:34,590 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: charged the highest rents, which they sometimes would have to

1034
00:50:37,180 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 1: pay to have an inside space to do business. But

1035
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:44,140
Speaker 1: they were also sometimes intimidated and victimized. So Ruth will

1036
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:46,819
Speaker 1: also note that he wasn't directly a pimp, but he's

1037
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:51,390
Speaker 1: also not always nice to his tenants, right? He couldn't

1038
00:50:51,410 --> 00:50:53,430
Speaker 1: be harsh when he needed to, and he was also

1039
00:50:53,530 --> 00:50:55,710
Speaker 1: charging them the high end of the scale because they

1040
00:50:55,750 --> 00:50:59,250
Speaker 1: were working from home, so to speak, right? Yeah. So

1041
00:50:59,270 --> 00:51:02,029
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call this a great moral sitch, even if

1042
00:51:02,070 --> 00:51:03,830
Speaker 1: it is like a better deal than they were getting

1043
00:51:03,850 --> 00:51:04,850
Speaker 1: from anyone else, right?

1044
00:51:05,380 --> 00:51:05,720
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1045
00:51:06,180 --> 00:51:08,779
Speaker 1: Now, London in this period also had very strong rent

1046
00:51:08,820 --> 00:51:11,760
Speaker 1: control laws. And these made it basically impossible to raise

1047
00:51:11,860 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: rents or evict tenants, right? If you live there and

1048
00:51:14,140 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 1: have been living there, you pay the same rate that

1049
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:18,219
Speaker 1: you've been paying and you can't be evicted. And this

1050
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,100
Speaker 1: is great for the people, right? But it makes rental

1051
00:51:21,140 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: properties a terrible investment. Unless... you can find a way

1052
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: to force your tenants to move. Then you can charge

1053
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,730
Speaker 1: the new folks whatever the fuck you want, right? And

1054
00:51:31,790 --> 00:51:34,589
Speaker 1: so as he's buying these distressed properties that he's going

1055
00:51:34,630 --> 00:51:37,230
Speaker 1: to fill with sex workers, they're all filled with other

1056
00:51:37,310 --> 00:51:41,129
Speaker 1: people who have a rent control situation, right? So he's

1057
00:51:41,170 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: got to force other people out of these buildings before

1058
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,100
Speaker 1: he can fill them with his quote unquote friends. Andy

1059
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,540
Speaker 1: Edwards summarized in an article Rockman's first home purchase this

1060
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,660
Speaker 1: way and how he cleared out the former tenants. Seven

1061
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:56,140
Speaker 1: of the eight rooms were already occupied by rent-paying tenants

1062
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,860
Speaker 1: who were protected by the current rent controls and therefore

1063
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: immune from eviction. Rockman is alleged to have rented out

1064
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 1: the one unoccupied room to a party of eight West

1065
00:52:04,219 --> 00:52:07,290
Speaker 1: Indian musicians who were encouraged to party. This led to

1066
00:52:07,310 --> 00:52:10,210
Speaker 1: the white tenants quickly terminating their tenancies and being replaced

1067
00:52:10,250 --> 00:52:13,310
Speaker 1: by West Indian immigrants who were charged higher rents, right?

1068
00:52:13,350 --> 00:52:15,410
Speaker 1: In other words, and when we say West Indian, we're

1069
00:52:15,430 --> 00:52:17,669
Speaker 1: talking about like a lot of people from like Jamaica, right?

1070
00:52:17,710 --> 00:52:21,489
Speaker 1: The Caribbean. And these are generally black people, right? And so-

1071
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:23,739
Speaker 1: What he realizes is that if I move a bunch

1072
00:52:23,780 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: of black people into the only spare space or one

1073
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,899
Speaker 1: of the spare spaces in this building and I tell them–

1074
00:52:28,930 --> 00:52:30,670
Speaker 1: sometimes he would like– he's alleged to have like paid

1075
00:52:30,710 --> 00:52:32,530
Speaker 1: them or given them a break on rent to party

1076
00:52:32,730 --> 00:52:36,370
Speaker 1: late at night. It will make everyone else want to leave, right?

1077
00:52:36,390 --> 00:52:37,170
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1078
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: You know, he's kind of just taking advantage of the

1079
00:52:40,140 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: racism of these white tenants. That is a big part

1080
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:44,660
Speaker 1: of what's happening. Although it's also fair to say, you

1081
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:46,340
Speaker 1: might just want to leave in if you're not a racist,

1082
00:52:46,380 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: if someone's paying like a band to play music at

1083
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,320
Speaker 1: all hours of the day inside of your apartment building.

1084
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,060
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to say only racism leads to

1085
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:56,380
Speaker 1: these people leaving, but a lot of it is racism.

1086
00:52:57,860 --> 00:53:01,700
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because I think probably what Green says

1087
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,410
Speaker 1: is accurate, that this is a guy who because of

1088
00:53:05,450 --> 00:53:08,430
Speaker 1: his life experiences is not at all judgmental about people.

1089
00:53:08,630 --> 00:53:10,950
Speaker 1: He doesn't really think that he doesn't have a moral

1090
00:53:10,989 --> 00:53:14,049
Speaker 1: issue with prostitution and he's not a bigot, right? He's

1091
00:53:14,090 --> 00:53:17,020
Speaker 1: not like a racist against these black people or any

1092
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: of the non-white people that he's moving into these spaces,

1093
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,350
Speaker 1: but he understands racism. And he's very willing to take

1094
00:53:23,390 --> 00:53:26,350
Speaker 1: advantage of it to profit, right? And this is going

1095
00:53:26,370 --> 00:53:28,670
Speaker 1: to contribute, as we'll talk about in part two, to

1096
00:53:28,690 --> 00:53:32,069
Speaker 1: this kind of like boiling undercurrent of racial resentment from

1097
00:53:32,150 --> 00:53:37,710
Speaker 1: white people against West Indian immigrants, right? Because he's deliberately

1098
00:53:37,790 --> 00:53:40,569
Speaker 1: putting them in a situation to have conflict with these

1099
00:53:40,630 --> 00:53:41,509
Speaker 1: white people, right?

1100
00:53:41,590 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1101
00:53:43,090 --> 00:53:45,540
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that and what happens later in

1102
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: part two. But we're done with part one. Are you feeling, Kevin?

1103
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,430
Speaker 3: Good, good. I'm doing what I can to keep up.

1104
00:53:54,570 --> 00:53:59,750
Speaker 3: I'm like so immersed in this piece of shittery that

1105
00:53:59,810 --> 00:54:04,020
Speaker 3: is also has such a like... Crazy origin. It's always

1106
00:54:04,060 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 3: tough when the origin is literally the worst possible thing

1107
00:54:07,500 --> 00:54:08,530
Speaker 3: you could have happen to you.

1108
00:54:09,230 --> 00:54:11,750
Speaker 1: Like, you want this guy to succeed and do well,

1109
00:54:11,969 --> 00:54:12,969
Speaker 1: and then it's like.

1110
00:54:13,270 --> 00:54:19,830
Speaker 3: Ah, but not like that. He's a few steps away

1111
00:54:19,910 --> 00:54:22,689
Speaker 3: from being on Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff for

1112
00:54:22,710 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 3: being a pro-sex work awesome dude that was helping people

1113
00:54:26,489 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 3: out after going through hell, but he seems like a

1114
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:31,959
Speaker 3: piece of shit.

1115
00:54:31,980 --> 00:54:34,969
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's tough because there are– you will get

1116
00:54:34,989 --> 00:54:38,180
Speaker 1: a lot of quotes from like West Indian immigrants too

1117
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:40,380
Speaker 1: who are like Rockman was like the only guy who

1118
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:42,460
Speaker 1: would rent to us because all of the other landlords

1119
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,820
Speaker 1: were so fucking racist, right? And so there are a

1120
00:54:45,820 --> 00:54:49,810
Speaker 1: lot of people that like legitimately got by and were

1121
00:54:49,830 --> 00:54:52,230
Speaker 1: able to make a life for themselves because Rockman offered

1122
00:54:52,250 --> 00:54:54,029
Speaker 1: them a place. But he wasn't doing it out of

1123
00:54:54,050 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 1: the goodness of his heart. And he was deliberately stoking

1124
00:54:56,380 --> 00:54:58,820
Speaker 1: racial tensions in order to make more money for himself

1125
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:00,859
Speaker 1: in a way that's going to cost some of these

1126
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: people quite dearly later on. So we'll talk about all that.

1127
00:55:05,540 --> 00:55:08,020
Speaker 1: You got any pluggables to plug before we roll out here?

1128
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:11,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. Check me out on Substack at Last Week in

1129
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,530
Speaker 3: Hell and Kevin H. Foster on all the social things.

1130
00:55:16,610 --> 00:55:20,730
Speaker 1: Excellent. All right. Well, we will be back in– On Thursday,

1131
00:55:21,370 --> 00:55:23,230
Speaker 1: except for everyone on this call, we'll be back in

1132
00:55:23,250 --> 00:55:25,710
Speaker 1: like five minutes because that's how we actually record these things.

1133
00:55:26,010 --> 00:55:26,410
Speaker 4: Figured.

1134
00:55:27,030 --> 00:55:30,250
Speaker 1: But yeah, pretend it's otherwise, you know, and wait for us.

1135
00:55:30,630 --> 00:55:31,109
Speaker 1: We'll be there.

1136
00:55:31,130 --> 00:55:32,209
Speaker 3: All right.

1137
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:38,100
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media.

1138
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,980
Speaker 4: For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com.

1139
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,040
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1140
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,700
Speaker 4: or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of

1141
00:55:48,739 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every

1142
00:55:51,540 --> 00:55:54,180
Speaker 4: Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind Me on Netflix so you

1143
00:55:54,219 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 4: don't miss an episode. For clips and our older episode catalog,

1144
00:55:57,739 --> 00:56:01,650
Speaker 4: continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash at

1145
00:56:01,690 --> 00:56:06,390
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.