WEBVTT - Part One: Robert Maxwell: How Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad Ruined Science 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:08.000 Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.800 about the very worst people in all of history, and 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.720 ladies and gentle them's we've got a real motherfucker of 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.200 a motherfucker for you this week. And to talk about 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.360 one of the most interesting sons of bitches we're going 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.759 to talk about on this series, I have one of 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.320 the most interesting guests that we've had on this show, 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.120 Adam Conover. Adam, Welcome to the program. Don't you hardly 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.400 need introduction, but obviously you were the host of Adam 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.199 Ruins Everything, and you've done I mean, you've been in 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.839 a ton of stuff since you were in BoJack Horseman. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.600 You serve on the board of the WGA, and you 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.120 have a podcast now right. 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.879 Yeah. I do a show called Factually on YouTube and 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.640 wherever you get your podcasts. And I also do video 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.000 monologues which don't really have a title, but it's sort 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.880 of the current evolution of what people know me for doing, 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:02.080 doing topical comedy about the world around, mostly about fascism. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:03.520 I'm doing a lot of weekly. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.880 Video a lot of that these days. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.720 About creeping fascism and what we can do about it. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.679 And yeah, yeah, trying to try to be a little 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.200 green shoot in the ashes of the entertainment industry and 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.200 you know, doing stuff online now having a great time. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:17.720 Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:19.800 It's it's interesting to be You and I both came 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:21.839 out of because you came out of college humor, where 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.959 you did a lot of your early work. I came 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.120 out of Cracked. So we're kind of like cousins in 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.720 digital media terms. Definitely, both of them started out doing like, yeah, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.000 pop culture commentary, and now it's it's just all fascism. 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:35.160 It's just a facism. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.440 Remember when there used to be websites, and yeah, on 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:44.640 the websites you could do comedy about various things history 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:49.440 or pop culture or just like you know, something about 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.680 dating college chicks, and people would check on that. You'd 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.200 get some money. And now you got to go on 0:01:55.400 --> 0:02:01.120 Elon Musk's platform and talk about how a judge was arrested. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.560 Yes, yes, Or you go on to Facebook and you 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:09.320 see a crudely AI generated image a soldier with no 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.919 arms and a face that just isn't quite right that says, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.320 nobody will share this image like it's great. I love 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.160 what's happened to media? This is so much better than 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:20.280 my friends having healthcare. 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.160 No one will share this image is the funniest trope 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.440 of viral Facebook boomer content. 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.560 I love it, I love it. I love it so good. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.560 So this is actually slightly relevant to the person we're 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:39.079 talking about today because our bastard this week is he's 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:41.560 the man who ruined science in a lot of ways, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.440 and he's also one of the major figures who helped 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.839 make media what it is. He was Rupert Murdoch's nemesis 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:52.560 for years. And the primary reason you're going to know 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.320 this guy, and I think everyone listening is going to 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.040 know this guy, is he is the father of Gilan Maxwell. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.840 We're talking this week about Robert Max. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:08.320 Well, do you know anything about Robert Maxwell. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.960 I know nothing about Robert Maxwell. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.040 This guy is so fucking weird. So part one of 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.680 this is going to basically be like inglorious bastards because 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.959 the first twenty something years of his life he is 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.880 a character from a Quentin Tarantino movie, Like he is 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.480 a righteous avenger fighting Nazis, and then he turns into 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.760 like a business monster who destroys the industry of scientific 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.440 publishing for quick profit. It's such like a weird heel 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:35.360 turn story. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.480 I was wondering how he was going to destroy science, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.200 and destroying scientific publishing is how you would view it. 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.280 And that has been done. I know this has been done, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:46.960 and so I know I'm interested to hear about the 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:47.880 bastard who did it. 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.200 Well, at first, he's going to be pretty sympathetic, although 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.440 he's also going to commit a lot of war crimes, 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:55.520 so it's going to be a mix of things happening here. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.200 But yeah, this is Gilan Maxwell's dad. She's obviously was 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.400 Jeffrey Epstein like right hand woman, was the only one 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.240 to get convicted for his crimes because of obvious reasons. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.840 And yeah, we're gonna be talking about her dad because 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.920 he's just so much more fucking interesting than her. People 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.160 would always refer to when you would, like when I 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.839 would read about, you know, what they had done, that 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.040 she was an heiress, and I had assumed she came 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:22.680 from like older family money. 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:23.159 She is not. 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.039 The fortune just goes back to her dad like he is, 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.120 as he actually was a self made billionaire. 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:30.560 And I say that because he. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.080 Grew up deeply impoverished on like the Ukrainian step in 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.560 an incredibly poor Jewish village. In like the nineteen twenties, 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.080 so like not one of these guys, not like an 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.680 Elon Musk story. There's no Emerald minds in his background, right, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.280 this this guy comes from nothing and like all people 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:49.880 who would grow into because he is kind of a 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.680 con man. Robert Maxwell. That is not the name he 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:54.880 was born under, which you probably guessed when I said 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.880 he grew up in a steppe village in the Ukrainian steps, right, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.520 not the most Ukrainian name ever. He was born Abraham 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:08.120 leeb Hawk on June tenth, nineteen twenty three, in a 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:12.279 village called Slatinsky Doli and most modern and I just 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.520 said he was born in Ukraine. That's where his hometown 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.520 is located today. But when Abraham was born, it was 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.040 part of Czechoslovakia, right, because all of those borders move 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:22.839 around quite a bit in the first half of the 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.640 twentieth century, He wouldn't have grown up really identifying as Czech, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.760 partly because being Czech was like a thing that had 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.000 just really started, you know, in that period, like Czechoslovakia 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.640 was a new country after World War One. He would 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.560 have identified and most of the people around him as Ruthenians, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.479 which is kind of this isolated eastern portion of what 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.359 is then Czechoslovakia where his family grows up. Now, again, 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.760 Abraham's family was Jewish and the village that they came from, 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.960 Slatinsky Doli, was noteworthy because it's like it was close 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.800 to where all the pagrams were happening, but it was 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.039 the place that usually was relatively safe. Its entire history 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:06.040 and its population. There's almost like sedimentary layers of different 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.080 pagrams that occur over the course of the couple of 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.360 centuries before this, where like you'll get a new wave 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.479 of people moving to the village because everyone else in 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.320 the area they came from got massacred by the Cossacks 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.560 or whatever. Right, Like, that's the story of the village 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.279 that he grows up in. So you know, this is 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.760 again not a guy who comes from money. One of 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.160 my sources for this episode is a biography on Maxwell 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.080 by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, and here's how it 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.440 summarizes this village. It was a place where Jews were 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.800 allowed to sell their goods to their Christian neighbors. Some 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.640 even had licenses to offer alcohol that were permitted to 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.120 educate their children in the Judaic faith. And wear their 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.120 traditional dress and speak their own language, haunted by their 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.200 own cruel past. There was hardly a family in the 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.800 village that had not lost relatives to the Pagrams. They 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.440 lived frugal lives within the sanctity of their faith. That 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.800 says a lot right there. That Like a key part 0:06:57.800 --> 0:06:59.520 of this is like some of the residents are even 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.320 allowed to say alcohol, you know. 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.720 Yeah, they're allowed to. These people are allowed to wear 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.039 shoes and speak to one another, and they can walk 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:09.080 down the streets. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.360 Yes, yes, we let these Jews sell to Christians. Can 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.640 you believe it? How progressive? Not exactly easy living? 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.680 No, no, again, this guy comes from about as rough 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.920 a background as you get, and we're talking the life 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.240 he's born into. These are peasants in nineteen twenty three, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.800 But their daily life if you had pulled someone from 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.400 the same area in the sixteen hundreds into this village 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.280 in the twenties, it would have mostly been familiar to them, right. Wow, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.720 Like that, that's kind of how behind the rest of 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.800 the world and how isolated that they are now within 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.160 kind of Czechoslovakia. Abraham and his family are double pariahs 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.280 because they're Jewish and they're Ruthenian and ruth again the 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.640 kind of like regional racism that existed within Eastern Europe 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.680 at this time. Ruthenians were seen as like backwards and 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.360 almost less human by a lot of the rest of 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.640 the country. A travel guide to the region published by 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.080 the Czech government in like nineteen twenty praise the fresh 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:09.920 air and the wildlife in the area, but warned visitors 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.000 of the quote rather unintelligent Ruthenians, whose expression is almost 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.440 blank stare who sit in the marketplace side by side, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.640 gazing at the distance, seldom speaking a word or moving 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:21.160 a muscle. 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.760 This is their own government travel. 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:31.080 Yes, yes, this is I mean, visit Ruthenia where the 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:32.080 people aren't people. 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.800 Yeah, that makes sense. You know, if I was doing 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.439 a travel guide to La that's how I describe Santa Monica. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.120 So you know, they said people just staring off into 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:42.080 the distance, you know. 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.360 Yeah, yeah, there's a product of all of the weed 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:50.400 shops on Venice. But so Robert Maxwell rarely talked about 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.200 his early childhood. And again this guy grows into a 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.920 consummate liar, and so what he did say is seldom reliable. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.120 But there are some things we can infer based on 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.320 family lore, just our knowledge of the time. His family 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.720 last name Hach was not their original last name. That's 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.600 not really like again, this is not like a Germanic area. 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.360 These people are in like what's modern Ukraine. The whole 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.719 reason they have that last name is one day, back 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.960 when the Austro Hungarian Empire is in charge of the village, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.520 a government official comes to town to do a census 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.760 in this Jewish village, but he doesn't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.600 and so he's asking everyone what's your last name? And 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.360 Maxwell's ancestor I think it's his grandfather at the time. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.120 This official can't spell their original last name, so he 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.280 just writes down Hawk and calls it a day because 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.400 he speaks German. So he's like, yeah, fuck it, close enough, 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:39.960 that's what you're called now. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.840 In German, hawk means high right. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.720 Yeah, that sounds right. I don't I'm not good at German. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.800 Why why would he just what is just a funny 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.200 name to choose a common name? 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:57.600 I think he was probably making up a lot of 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.160 last names that day, just talking to all of these 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.480 people who speak like Yiddish. Primarily You're like, fuck it, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.559 I'm just gonna start writing stuff like I don't give 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:09.040 a fuck like the Austro Hungarian Empire great at governance. 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:09.880 So uh. 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.240 In nineteen nineteen, after the war, Slatinsky Doli, that's the 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.400 village stops being part of the Austro Hungarian Empire and 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.760 becomes part of Czechoslovakia, and the family last name ceases 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.000 to exist again because yet another At this point, a 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.040 Czech government official who speaks Czech shows up in village 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.560 and does another census and he's like, OK, that's not 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.520 a proper Czech name, and so he gives them a 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.120 new last name, Ludvik. 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:33.600 This just keeps happening. 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.559 That's the prerogative empire, right town, new names. 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:44.920 For new names for everybody. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:50.160 Yeah, you're Steve and you're a Bilbo. Oh man them out. 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.440 I'm gonna be honest, if I had that job, that 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:53.760 would be one of the perks. 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:56.960 Now I don't like I don't really like Mike. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.320 You know what, I'm gonna go to this, We have 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.440 a lord of the rings and give you an orc's name. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:03.440 Just make it fun. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.000 And in modern times, that person's relative now misspells people's 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:08.199 names at coffee shops. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.480 Yeah, the modern equivalent of these government officials is a 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:13.599 Starbucks barista. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.440 That's great. The Starbucks barista should be able to go 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.839 into a town and give everybody the names they think 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.160 you should have. Yeah, yeah, what if they were in 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:23.360 charge of the names. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.080 Yeah, we need to deputize them as judges. Give Starbucks 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:32.320 baristus the force of law. So Abraham's father, Mehl, was 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.840 known as Mehl the Tall because he's like the only 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.000 tall man in town. These people are not well fed, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.360 but for whatever reason, Mehl comes out. He's like a 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.640 brick shit, he's like six foot five and yeah, so 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.480 for like that's tall today these people are all starving 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:45.840 to death. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:46.720 He's a giant. 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.720 And famously so his job, he's like a small time trader. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.079 So his job, he walks from town to town with 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.160 like goods like pelts or whatever, deer skins, and like 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.200 trades or sells them. And that's kind of how his 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.839 family gets by. And the thing everyone knew about him 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.760 was that normally people who have this job travel in 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.960 groups in like caravans, because there's brigands. This is a 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.440 period of time where there's brigands. But he's like twice 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.240 everyone else's size, So he just walks alone with a stick. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.720 I love a brigand they're much better than bandits, you know. Yeah, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.360 bandits are like level one. Brigands are level three. You 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.040 gotta be a little stronger. They've got studded leather armor. 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.720 Exactly, exactly, yes, exactly. I'm glad we both remember our 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:35.360 third edition D and D source books. So Abraham's mother, Hannah, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.000 or she's also called Chunka, which I think is just 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.920 Hannah's just sort of like the gramatization of her Hebrew name, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.720 I'm guessing, is what's going on there. As best as 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.760 I can tell. The unusual thing that you hear about 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.760 her is that she was learned and intelligent, and people 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.880 did not describe women in villages like this that way 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.640 very often. Right, given the nature of the time, we got. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.760 A family with a tall guy and a learning woman. 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:02.040 Right, that's his parents. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.360 These people must have been ruling the town. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.360 Not really, they were like fairly prominent citizens in this 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.240 town where no one has any money. Yeah, And her 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.839 kind of defining trait that people would remember later is 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.840 that she would like scavenge newspapers from everyone else in 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.520 town because she just was so interested in reading. She's 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.080 going to be when they're when for the very first 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.320 time there's a Democratic Socialist party that starts up, and 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.480 someone comes to this town that had been ruled by 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.520 an emperor, you know in her childhood, and it's like, hey, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.200 there's politics now, and here's there's this party. She's like, yes, 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.640 democratic socialist is exactly what I am. Right, she kind 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:42.960 of sounds rad okay. 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.160 So she's like a college educated leftist who's like reading 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.880 Fucou and annoying everybody at the at the DSA meeting. 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.480 Yeah, yeah, she she's that, except for obviously there's no college. 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.840 She's just able to read. Yeah, she's the equivalent in 0:13:57.840 --> 0:13:59.440 the same way that it sits. And a half foot 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.440 tall man is an eight foot tall man. Someone who 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.840 has read page a four of the newspaper is like 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.360 has high falutint knowledge. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:09.680 Yeah. 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.040 There's one description of her I found that described her 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.600 as an exception in the village because she read books. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.320 She was almost an intellectual. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.920 Ah, she sees spot run. This woman is so full 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.520 of herself. She's basically got a bachelor's right now. 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.840 Maxwell would later say regularly that his mother was a 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.680 committed Zionist. This is not impossible given the time. It's 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.720 also he becomes that later in life, and we don't 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.680 really we have no direct quotations of anything that she said. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:41.560 And this is the thing he starts saying in the eighties, 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.040 So who knows, but it would not have been like 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.080 wildly out of like step with what a lot of 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.120 folks in that situation believed at the time, given the 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.160 realities of life in Eastern Europe for poor Jewish families. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.440 Thanks to his mother, Maxwell grew up aware of the 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.320 injustices that suffused his early life. Thomas and Dylan that 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.680 she was quote a woman who was outspoken about the 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.360 injustices of their life just because there were Jews. The 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.640 images of her which would survive would come much later 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.720 from Maxwell. He described her as intelligent and well informed, 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.400 different from other local women. She was passionate about the 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.520 need to improve the masses for greater social justice. And 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.000 again this is stuff he says decades later. Some of 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.800 this is probably like myth making, especially the factor he's like, 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.040 none of the other local women cared about this, Well, 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.680 maybe they did. Maybe you just are kind of want 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.000 your mom to seem like she was the only one, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.640 because it, you know, burnishes your own story. Yeah, we'll 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.120 never know, but Hannah and Mehel had the standard number 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.560 of kids for that period of time, which is a shitload. 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.800 Abraham was the third of nine, two of whom died 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.400 in infancy from something only described at the time as 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.800 a bad cold. You know, it's just what happened with kids. 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.120 One of Maxwell's earliest experiences would have been watching his 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.440 parents bury their kids, and that's a pretty normal life 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.880 experience for people back then. Starvation would have been a 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.520 regular thing, like not to death, but they would have 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.920 gone hungry regularly throughout the year. That was pretty normal 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.880 for people in this time, in this village. When he 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.800 was still a baby and still named Abraham, his mom 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.480 and dad had to register him with the Czech authorities, 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:14.960 who advised them it would be better for everybody. They're like, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.720 you want to call him Abraham. Look, lady, I don't 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.000 know if you got the news, but we're Czechoslovakia now 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.320 and Abraham is not a Czech name. And let me 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.520 give you some advice. People here are pretty racist. Your 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.960 kid might have an easier time in the days ahead 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.320 if you give him an undisputably check name. And like, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.760 this sounds pretty bad. It's also maybe what saves his life, 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.800 because very soon it's going to be really good to 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.160 be an Eastern European Jew who has a name that 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.360 does not sound Jewish, right, And his parents take this 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.240 guy's advice and they change his name from Abraham to 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.280 Jon Abraham Ludvik, which would be changed yet again later 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:57.240 in his life to Jan Ludwick Himan Binyamin Hawk. But yeah, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.000 he goes through a lot of different names. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:16:59.640 This guy the. 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.040 Least Jewish name you could possibly the most Germanic. 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.800 Yeah, Yan, we'll call him Yon. That seems safe. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:09.600 Yan is the name you want to be giving at 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.800 check points and the not too distant future here. So 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.840 the first job that the future Robert Maxwell had would 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:18.840 have been helping his family with the annual harvest, which 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.560 he would have done from infancy on up. A highlight 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.600 of the year. This is described in every book about 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.840 it I've read, was the hay harvest. And it was 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.160 a highlight because their beds were just like cloth stuffed 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.600 with hay. And by the time you do the harvest, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.359 the hay is like matted, and it's riddled with lice 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.960 and moldy. And so the day when you get to 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.000 replace the gross old hay with fresh new hay. Is like, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:41.920 that's the best day of the year. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:43.399 The best day of the year. 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.440 Yeah, that's the highlight of year year. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.040 Hey day, the amount of life. I'm like itchy thinking 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:50.480 about it. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.720 Oh yeah, I mean everyone's got a lot of lice. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.040 It's basically a medieval village. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.640 Most of the time. Though. Harvest time is nice because 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.119 you get a good meal because that's when the food 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.280 comes in right and you get But like the idea 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.119 that harvest is the best day of the year because 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.040 you get a slightly better bed to get to it. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.480 For an idea of where we've gone in a hundred years, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.440 we've gone from my most exciting time of the year 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:16.720 is the hey harvest to yeah, once a year, I 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:23.760 get a new phone. Although none of these people again 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.800 have to know Twitter. So who's better off? 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.639 Do you think like we do with phones? Any of 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:31.240 them were going like, you know what, I can wait 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.400 one more year before I have a refilled my bed. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.920 I'll yeah, I'm going to really hold out for a 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:36.600 nextra year. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.040 Nanna, I hear bed five has all this spyware on it. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:45.960 I don't really want to get into that. By age five, 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.040 Yan had proven himself an advanced student, which in his 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.159 world meant that he was learning to read and to 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.560 memorize prayers. By ten, he was a better writer than 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.720 his father. Although Mehel the Strong was not renowned for 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.560 his brain, he was quick enough that the town rabbi 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.679 recalled decades later his analytical ability and uncanny aptitude for 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.560 learning and retaining what he was taught. He could become 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.880 a rabbi. And at that time and place, if you're 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:12.600 saying this kid could be a rabbi, that is the 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.040 same as like today being like you could be a physicist, right, yeah, 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.919 Like that is the highest intellectual achievement for people in 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.800 this strata, right, kids aren't really like it's not likely 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.320 that kids are just going to go to college to 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.720 learn things, you know, not in this far off the 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.280 beaten path. So Yan grows up large. Robert Maxwell is 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.600 a big man. He's going to be like six foot 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:34.240 something too. 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:36.919 He loved by the way that his name at this 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.240 point has been changed seventy four or five times and 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.480 it has not gotten any closer to being Robert Maxwell. 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.200 This is where we know it's going to end. 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.199 We have at least four more name changes before we 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:48.680 get there. 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.400 By the way, the amount of ground this guy's name 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:58.280 covers nuts he's good at soccer because again he's twice 0:19:58.320 --> 0:19:59.200 the size. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:19:59.760 Of everybody else. 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.720 And I did look it up the local kids in 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:04.920 this town, when I say they, and obviously they called 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:05.480