Speaker 1: Diversion audio. A note this episode contains descriptions of violence
Speaker 1: that may be disturbing for some audiences. Please take care
Speaker 1: in listening. This series is based on historical characters and
Speaker 1: real events. Some dialogue has been imagined for dramatic purposes
Speaker 1: when no primary source material is available. The guy standing
Speaker 1: at the front desk claiming to be a spy looked
Speaker 1: like a teenager. His hair was disheveled, his trench coat
Speaker 1: was wrinkled and stained. He couldn't look the secretary in
Speaker 1: the eye, but whenever she got a glimpse, she noted
Speaker 1: how young he seemed to be. Still, he persisted, you
Speaker 1: don't understand this is a matter of national security. I
Speaker 1: need to speak to the ambassador. I have to know
Speaker 1: your name and affiliation before I can. More people will
Speaker 1: die if you sit on this any longer. Now, do
Speaker 1: you want to help the Germans or do you want
Speaker 1: to sit on your ass and read headlines about what
Speaker 1: you let happened. The secretary couldn't help but be shaken
Speaker 1: by the kid's intensity. She had signed up for the
Speaker 1: job at the embassy in Paris to do paperwork and
Speaker 1: schedule meetings, and now she was getting harassed by foreigners.
Speaker 1: Just hold on a moment. Who is it you need?
Speaker 1: I told you the ambassador well more moment. The boy's
Speaker 1: paranoia and anger grew as the secretary disappeared into a
Speaker 1: back office. He gazed around the embassy, pressed suits, nice furniture.
Speaker 1: Rage built inside of him as he looked at the
Speaker 1: details of this other world. What infuriated him the most
Speaker 1: was that it wasn't even considered luxury or excess. This
Speaker 1: was considered normal, and he'd never been part of a
Speaker 1: normal world. You may go in. His stomach growled as
Speaker 1: he pushed forward. He hadn't eaten all day, and it
Speaker 1: was getting harder and harder to focus. It's nice to yes.
Speaker 1: Then reality began to set in. He was now standing
Speaker 1: in the office of a German official. I ah, you,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Screaming? That's my secretary. They're busy here.
Speaker 1: I I have an important document for for the Nazis.
Speaker 1: So I stricles a man with a lot of patients.
Speaker 1: If you have something, give it to me and didn't
Speaker 1: get out of here, you fifty bus in the name
Speaker 1: of the twelve thousand tooth. Here's what I have for you.
Speaker 1: This is a special episode of Good Assassins. Back in
Speaker 1: episode one of this season, you remember I talked about
Speaker 1: Crystal Knock, the violent uprising against German Jews in November
Speaker 1: that historians regard as the opening to the eventual genocide
Speaker 1: of six million European Jews and then millions of others
Speaker 1: during World War Two. Today, we're delving into the story
Speaker 1: of a young man who is somewhat lost to history,
Speaker 1: but his story is right at the dead center of
Speaker 1: the Holocaust. This young man became an assassin, and the
Speaker 1: assassination he committed on November in Paris is the spark
Speaker 1: that set off the inferno that was the Nazi Holocaust.
Speaker 1: This man's name was Herschel grin Spot and he was
Speaker 1: just seventeen years old. I'm Stephen Talty and from Diversion.
Speaker 1: This is Good Assassin's Season two, episode ten, The Boy
Speaker 1: who shot the Nazi. Life was never easy for the
Speaker 1: grin Spond family. Parents, Sindel and Rivka, arrived in Hanover
Speaker 1: in northern Germany in nineteen eleven from their native Poland,
Speaker 1: hoping like many to make a better life for themselves.
Speaker 1: Like many Jews who lived in the pale of settlement,
Speaker 1: the green Spawn family escaped the pogroms there to go
Speaker 1: to what they thought was and indeed was a more
Speaker 1: civilized place at the time in the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: to Germany. That's Joseph Matthews, the author of an historical
Speaker 1: novel about Herschel grin Spawn called Everyone Has Their Reasons,
Speaker 1: who spent a decade researching Grinspon's life. So the Grinspond
Speaker 1: family arrived in Hanover, they were considered not just second
Speaker 1: class citizens because they were Jews, but third class citizens
Speaker 1: because they were Eastern Jews, not German Jews. They were
Speaker 1: Polish Jews, fairly observant, and they immediately faced the hostility
Speaker 1: of Western Europe. Jews from the East, spoke Yiddish and
Speaker 1: often faced difficulty assimilating into German culture. Still, Zindel and
Speaker 1: Rivka made a family. Of the six children they had,
Speaker 1: only three of them managed to survive childhood, esther Mordechai,
Speaker 1: and their youngest born in Herschel. From an early age,
Speaker 1: Herschel was different from the rest of his family. He
Speaker 1: was passionate, emotional, artistic, and seemed to have a deep
Speaker 1: respect for his orthodox religious beliefs, but these were treated
Speaker 1: as quirks, especially by anti Semites, and Herschel wasn't wont
Speaker 1: to step down from a fight. He reacted to insults
Speaker 1: with his fists, and he was apparently prone to schoolyard
Speaker 1: tussles and sometimes violent outbursts, much to the chagrin of
Speaker 1: his parents. Prougrin Star. He has given Herschel multiple opportunities
Speaker 1: to better himself at school. Still he seems to insist
Speaker 1: on solving all his problems myth violence. I'm afraid he
Speaker 1: can do no more for him. Good luck to you. This,
Speaker 1: of course, was just one side of the story. Herschel
Speaker 1: was facing fervid anti Semitism in school. At a certain
Speaker 1: point in Herschel's schooling, Jews were moved to separate painted
Speaker 1: yellow benches in the schoolrooms author Joseph Matthews. Again, they
Speaker 1: weren't asked any questions by the teachers, they weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to speak school. You know, the other children began to
Speaker 1: violently beat Jewish kids. School became, you know, a place
Speaker 1: that was insufferable, and Herschel left at age fourteen. There
Speaker 1: was just no point in continuing. While Herschel dropped out
Speaker 1: of school at the age of fourteen, he wasn't unintelligent
Speaker 1: or unsocial. Herschel was a decent student, nothing special, very
Speaker 1: bright young guy. His parents sent him to Paris to
Speaker 1: live with his aunt and uncle and hopefully make a
Speaker 1: better life for himself, and the family understood that there
Speaker 1: was no future for Herschel in Germany. As you can imagine,
Speaker 1: it was a wrenching, horrible decision for the family to make,
Speaker 1: because they probably knew very well they'd never see Herschel again.
Speaker 1: Herschel grew insular in Paris, living among Yiddish speaking Polish
Speaker 1: Orthodox Jews and learning almost no French. He didn't return
Speaker 1: to school, he couldn't work legally, and instead opted for
Speaker 1: a life spent on the streets where he mostly kept
Speaker 1: to himself, wandering Paris and sneaking into movie houses. He
Speaker 1: apparently tried repeatedly to apply for French citizenship, who was
Speaker 1: continually denied, and became what the French called a clandestine
Speaker 1: and a legal resident and in danger of being expelled
Speaker 1: at any time. They and because he had a Polish passport,
Speaker 1: he would be deported to Poland, where he knew no
Speaker 1: one and he didn't speak Polish, so he had to
Speaker 1: keep his head under the firing line, and his uncle
Speaker 1: and Herschel continue to try to get papers regularizing his
Speaker 1: stay so that he could live there legally and work,
Speaker 1: and every at every step they were turned down. He
Speaker 1: didn't have training, he didn't have money. He you know,
Speaker 1: his aunt and uncle couldn't put up sufficient support for him.
Speaker 1: He did, however, remain religiously devout and proud of his
Speaker 1: Jewish heritage. But in discrimination against Jews was ramping up.
Speaker 1: The Nazis already in the mid thirties into ninety eight,
Speaker 1: we're coming up with all kinds of laws to exclude
Speaker 1: Jews from public and private life, to force Jews to
Speaker 1: leave Germany. They could to create a Jew free space
Speaker 1: in Germany in all different kinds of ways. A census
Speaker 1: taken in nineteen thirty three noted that over fifty seven
Speaker 1: percent of Jews living in Germany were Polish, a figure
Speaker 1: assumed to have grown by the Nazi Party took the
Speaker 1: increasing number of Eastern European Jews and fanned the flames
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism, erroneously claiming that they were being invaded
Speaker 1: by this new populace and culturally replaced. Thousands of Jews
Speaker 1: fled to surrounding countries. In response to the influx of
Speaker 1: Jews coming back to Poland, the Polish government passed a
Speaker 1: law in October requiring Polish citizens living outside the country
Speaker 1: to get an endorsement stamp on their passports by the
Speaker 1: end of the month, or they'd have their citizenship revoked.
Speaker 1: It was an absurd declaration with an impossible deadline, and
Speaker 1: it left nearly seventy thousand Polish Jews in Germany without citizenship.
Speaker 1: They became a people with no country, no rights, and
Speaker 1: almost no prospects. So now people like the green Spawn
Speaker 1: family were caught in this no man's land, which said, well,
Speaker 1: the Germans are going to expel you, but the Poles
Speaker 1: refused to accept you. What's going to happen And what
Speaker 1: happened in late October of Polish passport holding Jews in Germany,
Speaker 1: including all of Herschel's family, were rounded up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, put on box cars and shipped
Speaker 1: to the Polish border, where they were dumped unceremoniously onto
Speaker 1: the border. On October, Nazis invaded the homes at Bis
Speaker 1: This is of thousands of these Jews from the East,
Speaker 1: stripped them of their possessions, homes and money, and forced
Speaker 1: some twelve thousand aboard trains headed to Poland. When the
Speaker 1: deportees arrived in Poland, some were allowed back into their country,
Speaker 1: but the vast majority were rejected at the border for
Speaker 1: not having the passport staff that protected their native citizenship.
Speaker 1: These Polish Jews without a country were relegated to homeless
Speaker 1: camps along the border, where poor conditions, cold weather, and
Speaker 1: a lack of food dwindled their numbers. And among the
Speaker 1: Jews that were deported to this nomad's land the family
Speaker 1: of Herschel grin Spond. More than twenty years later, at
Speaker 1: the trial of Adolf eichman In, Herschel's father, Zendel grinch
Speaker 1: Spond described the Polish Jews forced deportation by the Nazis.
Speaker 1: The ss men used whips to hurry us across fields
Speaker 1: to the Polish frontier line. Those who founded stuck, blood
Speaker 1: spurred it, Bundles were grabbed from people's hands. M Herschel
Speaker 1: received a postcard from his sister on November three and
Speaker 1: learned of his family's faith. She begged him to help.
Speaker 1: So you wanted to help his family, and you wanted
Speaker 1: to send money and you had a big argument with
Speaker 1: his uncle who said, don't send money because the German
Speaker 1: well pocketed, and of course he was right. That's our
Speaker 1: man Furor, a journalist and historian who published a biography
Speaker 1: of greensponn in Germany in two thousand thirteen. But haswanta
Speaker 1: to do something, you know, so we wanted to set
Speaker 1: an example against the Nazis. Grinch Bond was outraged at
Speaker 1: how Germany and Poland were treating Jews, and he was desperate.
Speaker 1: He decided he'd take justice into his own hands. We'll
Speaker 1: hear how this goes horribly wrong after the break. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins. The folks
Speaker 1: that helped me bring you this show have just launched
Speaker 1: another podcast that we think you'll like. It's called War Queens.
Speaker 1: Every episode of War Queens tells the story of a fearless,
Speaker 1: powerful female leader from history from Elizabeth Tudor and Golden
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Speaker 1: Najinga's willingness to shed and occasionally drink blood to defend
Speaker 1: her kingdom, to endear Gandhi's war, to solve a refugee crisis,
Speaker 1: and so many more. These are super engrossing stories told
Speaker 1: by expert historians in a way that's accessible and interesting.
Speaker 1: It's great listening. Every episode of War Queens brings you
Speaker 1: the stories of extraordinary leaders, all of them legends. War
Speaker 1: Queens is out now. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: After hearing about the deportation of his family from Germany,
Speaker 1: Herschel grinch Bond became hyper focused on revenge. Assassination he
Speaker 1: believed would be the only appropriate method of enacting justice.
Speaker 1: The question then became who would be the target. There
Speaker 1: were some obvious choice is. Adolf Hitler would have been
Speaker 1: the optimal selection, but he was too powerful and locked
Speaker 1: behind the Nazi Party's highgates in Germany. Then there was
Speaker 1: Joseph Gebel's, the chief propagandist for the Nazis, who sat
Speaker 1: at Hitler's right hand. But do you imagined Gebel's was
Speaker 1: also fiercely protected in a country away, Herschel needed a
Speaker 1: closer target there in Paris. He settled on Johannes van Belchik,
Speaker 1: the German ambassador to France. He would be accessible in
Speaker 1: his Paris office, and his death would be consequential enough
Speaker 1: to attract the attention to the plight of the Jews
Speaker 1: that Herschel desired. Belichick was everything Herschel needed in a target,
Speaker 1: a rich Nazi from an aristocratic family. The two couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more opposite. I'd like to buy a gun.
Speaker 1: On November seven, nine thirty eight, just over a week
Speaker 1: after his family had been deported from Hanover by the Nazis,
Speaker 1: Herschel Grinshpond purchased a revolver from a Paris gun shop
Speaker 1: and took the train to the embassy. On the ride over,
Speaker 1: he wrote a postcard saying goodbye to his parents, assuming
Speaker 1: that after the assassination he'd be quickly executed by the Nazis.
Speaker 1: With God's help, my dear parents, I could not do otherwise.
Speaker 1: May God forgive me the heart bleeds when I hear
Speaker 1: of your tragedy and that of the twelve Jews. I
Speaker 1: must protest, so that the whole world here's my protest,
Speaker 1: and that I will do forgive me. He was never
Speaker 1: able to send it, as he placed it in his
Speaker 1: pocket right before entering the embassy. Upon entering, grinch Band
Speaker 1: realized a major problem. He had no idea what Johannes
Speaker 1: von Belichick looked like. Flustered, he approached the Secretary's desk
Speaker 1: and mumbled that he needed to see the ambassador immediately.
Speaker 1: He claimed to be a spy with intel that would
Speaker 1: help the Germans, but when pressed, he couldn't offer any
Speaker 1: details to what does the information PERTAINE? I cannot say
Speaker 1: who is in danger. I just need to speak to
Speaker 1: the ambassador. M Eventually, the secretary buckled to his demands,
Speaker 1: but Belichick had already left the office that morning for
Speaker 1: his daily walk. She instead passed grinchbonn off to a
Speaker 1: junior officer, Ernst Bombade, an ex paramilitary soldier in the
Speaker 1: Nazi Army who now worked at the embassy. It's believed
Speaker 1: that grinch Bond did not know who he was assassinating. You,
Speaker 1: filthy bus in the name of the twelve thousand jo,
Speaker 1: Here's what I have for you. Grinch Bond didn't put
Speaker 1: up a fight after the shooting. He was taken into
Speaker 1: custody by the French police and spent two years in
Speaker 1: prison while his trial was subject to review. But while
Speaker 1: the cogs of the court system turned slowly for grinch Bond,
Speaker 1: The Nazis quickly leapt at this new opportunity to incite
Speaker 1: violence against the Jews. The German official grinch Bond, had
Speaker 1: shot died two days after the attack. Nazi propagandist Joseph
Speaker 1: Gebel's wasted no time. Fanning the planes of Rod's assassination.
Speaker 1: He made inflammatory speeches, leveraging grinch Bond to quote demonstrate
Speaker 1: why every Jewish Man, woman and child in the world
Speaker 1: was a deadly enemy of the Third Reich unquote, and
Speaker 1: called on German citizens to take back their country against
Speaker 1: what he referred to as the Jewish problem. When news
Speaker 1: of Rod's murder reached Germany, the Nazis revolted violently against
Speaker 1: Jews residing in the country. Hours after Rod's death, they
Speaker 1: formed up a grome that grew in size and power
Speaker 1: and swept through German streets and obliterated Jewish homes and
Speaker 1: businesses with arson and gunfire. It was an unstoppable blood
Speaker 1: bath and the first major defining outbursts of mass violence
Speaker 1: against the Jews. In the period from November nine to
Speaker 1: November ten, Crystal knocked left bodies strewn in the streets.
Speaker 1: Nearly thirty thousand Jewish Men were ripped from their families
Speaker 1: and deported to concentration camps. Almost a hundred were violently murdered,
Speaker 1: some in their synagogues. German police and fire fighters were
Speaker 1: ordered not to engage in any rescue attempts. The Jewish
Speaker 1: parts of the country were meant to be burned to ash.
Speaker 1: They took everything out they could. They started making fires
Speaker 1: in the synagogues and the next day they came and
Speaker 1: they took all the community, well known people. They had
Speaker 1: a clean up that would put signs on them jew
Speaker 1: and would put on all the stores signs on that
Speaker 1: nobody was of leuten uh judicious a chef, that nobody
Speaker 1: should come in and buy anything or do any business restricts.
Speaker 1: That's Herman Kompinski, a Holocaust survivor and former president of
Speaker 1: the Society of the Survivors of the Riga Ghetto, a
Speaker 1: predominantly German Jewish group. Reflecting on his own experience of
Speaker 1: Crystal Knockt, Kompinski empathizes with greenspond after experiencing severe anti
Speaker 1: Semitism his own childhood. He was also outraged as parents
Speaker 1: have been deported from Hanofa. I believe it's like you
Speaker 1: like me, and I could understand. If I would have
Speaker 1: lived in Palace, maybe I would have shot the whole embassy,
Speaker 1: even at the age of ten years. But I was
Speaker 1: too young, and I think I didn't have the college
Speaker 1: or the paper thing. The Nazis had succeeded in turning
Speaker 1: the country completely against the Jewish people, and they had
Speaker 1: used Herschel grinche Bond to do it. Americans are and
Speaker 1: should be indignant at the caramel out break of Jewish
Speaker 1: persecution in Germany and the drive against Christian faiths as well.
Speaker 1: It represented our breakup rural intolerance, which has no parallel
Speaker 1: in modern history except possibly the destruction of religious worship
Speaker 1: in Russia by the Boatman. While American leaders condemned the
Speaker 1: violence at the hands of the Nazis, they feared major engagement.
Speaker 1: The United States immigration laws at the time strictly barred
Speaker 1: masses of German and Polish Jews from coming into the country.
Speaker 1: It seemed as though all American leaders were willing to
Speaker 1: offer with sympathy. Yeah. Meanwhile, grinch Bond was held in
Speaker 1: French custody for more than a year, but was eventually
Speaker 1: turned over to the Nazis directly in While he waited
Speaker 1: behind bars. He tried to get a read on what
Speaker 1: the Nazis planned to do in his trial. Joseph Gebbels
Speaker 1: was hoping to use the teenager as a perpetual symbol
Speaker 1: for his quote Jewish problem. A high profile trial could
Speaker 1: result in dozens of crystal knocks, and that seemed to
Speaker 1: be exactly what Hitler wanted. The dryer was supposed to
Speaker 1: start exactly at the time when the first German extermination
Speaker 1: camps and in Poland where being big. So the trial
Speaker 1: was intended to justify this extermination of millions of Jews.
Speaker 1: So it was very important for the Nazis and for
Speaker 1: the Nazi proper gun enowl. He was of govins Armid
Speaker 1: Purer again, the German journalist and historian. Yeah, but Hasher
Speaker 1: was a very tough and smart guy. I mean he
Speaker 1: was eight, but he was a very smart guy. He
Speaker 1: recognized this plan and he destroyed it with a trick.
Speaker 1: Gritchpan claimed that arms arm Rod was secretly a gay
Speaker 1: man and the murder was the result of a lover's quarrel. Well,
Speaker 1: when this news got back to Gebel's and to Hitler,
Speaker 1: they blewe refused. That's Joseph Matthews again, the author, even
Speaker 1: if they could show that this wasn't true factually, just
Speaker 1: having it raised in international trial that this guy varm Wrath,
Speaker 1: when they had turned into a hero of Germany, was
Speaker 1: gay and had a gay relationship with a miner who
Speaker 1: was a Jew, well, you know, this was incredible, and
Speaker 1: Herschel actually brought the entire German propaganda machine to a
Speaker 1: screeching halt following grinch Bond's claim in prison, the Nazis
Speaker 1: not wanting their martyr labeled as a homosexual. The Nazis
Speaker 1: abhorred homosexuality and violently persecuted gay people. Ultimately decided against
Speaker 1: a trial. Grinchmond was shipped off to a concentration camp
Speaker 1: where he was summarily executed. At least that's what most
Speaker 1: people believed for more than seventy years. But in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen, our men furor the German journalists we spoke to,
Speaker 1: made an amazing discovery. I'll tell you about it after
Speaker 1: the break. Ultimately, there are many things we don't know
Speaker 1: about Herschel grinch Spond. No one can say for certain
Speaker 1: if the claims about vom Rot and some kind of
Speaker 1: relationship prior to the assassination were based in fact, or
Speaker 1: if this was just a fabrication invented to protect the
Speaker 1: teenager in court. While most historians believe that Greenspond wasn't gay,
Speaker 1: some reports at the time of bomb Rod's death do
Speaker 1: seem to allude to his sexual orientation prior to when
Speaker 1: grins Bond made his defense, but these have been hired
Speaker 1: to authenticate. Intriguingly, there's a longstanding mystery as to what
Speaker 1: happened to grinch Bond once he was sent off to
Speaker 1: the camps. For decades, most believed he was another victim,
Speaker 1: one among the six million murdered by the Nazis, but
Speaker 1: there were always rumors in the fifties sixties uh that
Speaker 1: he survived and lifted the Peris or lifted in Edinburgh,
Speaker 1: but there was never any proof of it. Throughout the
Speaker 1: post war years, eyewitnesses continue to make claims of Herschel
Speaker 1: grinch Bonds sightings in France, in Israel, even in Germany.
Speaker 1: None of these claims were ever substantiated, and eventually, in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty greens Bond was declared legally dead. Popular consensus
Speaker 1: settled on his likely execution in ninety two at the
Speaker 1: hands of the s S. The last official confirmation of
Speaker 1: his existence until almost seventy years later in May sixteen,
Speaker 1: that was invited to give a lecture an Hashort in
Speaker 1: Vienna again arm in Fur. And after this lecture a
Speaker 1: woman approached me. My name was the Stop Polkish, and
Speaker 1: she was the director of the archive of the Jewish
Speaker 1: Museum in Vienna, and she was very interested in this
Speaker 1: Hashort story. And she had read many books I was
Speaker 1: thinking more than me. But she saw that they were
Speaker 1: all bad because most of them didn't work with documents,
Speaker 1: which is true, and they copied from each other. So
Speaker 1: she said, the first book that convinced her was my book,
Speaker 1: because I used thousands of documents and I found, for example,
Speaker 1: in in Unique, I found four thousand pages of new
Speaker 1: documents that were completely unknown until then. And so she
Speaker 1: asked me what do you can Can you come tomorrow
Speaker 1: to my office and I said okay, and I went
Speaker 1: there the next day and she showed me a photo
Speaker 1: without any comments. I immediately explained, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is Harshal, this is hactual Gridge span and she said, yes,
Speaker 1: I think too. So this photograph Armed Feurer finds in
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen is taken after the war, and it
Speaker 1: seems to show grin Span demonstrating with other Holocaust survivors
Speaker 1: against being barred from emigrating to Palestine, which would fit
Speaker 1: what we know of grinch Bond. The photo, taking in
Speaker 1: when he would have been twenty four, has been the
Speaker 1: subject of debate among historians, with some claiming the similarities
Speaker 1: between the man and the photo and grinch Bond are
Speaker 1: too great to ignore and some seeing only a passing resemblance. Purer, though,
Speaker 1: is completely convinced. I really I don't have any adults
Speaker 1: that treative, Purer says. The photograph confirms something that took
Speaker 1: place during a trial in nineteen sixty when vom Rat's
Speaker 1: family suited. Journalists would accuse the diplomat of being gay.
Speaker 1: During the trial, and Writtness claimed that Hasherd was alive
Speaker 1: in one and that he could also appear in the
Speaker 1: court room. He also said he saw a photograph, and
Speaker 1: he described the exact photograph found in the photographs election.
Speaker 1: At the time of the photos discovery, the Alreadian wrote
Speaker 1: a face recognition test on the photograph, taken on July
Speaker 1: three in a camp for displaced persons in Bamberg, Southern
Speaker 1: Germany returned a nine likelihood, considered the highest possible match.
Speaker 1: But that being said Joseph Matthews, who has also researched
Speaker 1: the subject extensively, doesn't put stock in the photo. I
Speaker 1: don't make much of it. The idea that Herschel survived
Speaker 1: the war and never got in touch with his family
Speaker 1: seems utterly absurd given what we know of how much
Speaker 1: Herschel was dedicated to his family. And secondly, there was
Speaker 1: no evidence after about nine two or forty three of
Speaker 1: Herschel's continued existence, so we don't have any records, and
Speaker 1: remember the Nazis were meticulous record keepers that he survived.
Speaker 1: The picture was taken in a relocation camp in southern Germany,
Speaker 1: which is a place he was never imprisoned anywhere near there,
Speaker 1: so the idea that he somehow was relocated there doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And finally, this matching of the photographs,
Speaker 1: all they had were newspaper photos from when he was
Speaker 1: sixteen years old seventeen years old to compare with a
Speaker 1: grainy photograph of a guy in a relocation camp. This
Speaker 1: is not like comparing high resolution photography, where facial recognition
Speaker 1: has a much higher degree of accuracy. So, you know,
Speaker 1: for so many reasons, it's just and the story quickly faded.
Speaker 1: None of the historical serious historians of Herschel's story um
Speaker 1: took it seriously. When we spoke with armand Furrer, we
Speaker 1: explained Matthew's point of view. Fur though remained steadfast in
Speaker 1: his belief that the photo was indeed of Herschel. Grin
Speaker 1: spond that that maybe some angry Jews would kill him
Speaker 1: because some of them, many of them, thought that he
Speaker 1: was responsible for the whole of course, but of course nonsense.
Speaker 1: But many many Jews people said so. In other words,
Speaker 1: Grinchman might have stayed away because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: endanger his family, or perhaps he did make contact with
Speaker 1: his family and they kept a secret in order to
Speaker 1: protect him. In any case, Matthew's infurior agree on one thing.
Speaker 1: To be absolutely certain that Herschel survived the war, we
Speaker 1: need more evidence, and for for I don't know. If
Speaker 1: we do not find any other stuff which tell us
Speaker 1: that hasn't really really survived, we can't say for one,
Speaker 1: you know, so whether Grinchmond did indeed survive the war
Speaker 1: or perish in a concentration camp or somewhere else is
Speaker 1: still unknown, but more importantly, Herschel grinch Bond's place in
Speaker 1: history will also continue to be a topic of debate.
Speaker 1: Some have unfairly placed the blame of the Holocaust squarely
Speaker 1: on his seventeen year old shoulders, while others believe his
Speaker 1: actions were justified and that he was a young freedom
Speaker 1: fighter of the highest degree. The Nazis were always planning
Speaker 1: an extermination of those they deemed undesirable, and grinch Bond
Speaker 1: is one of many who stood up to the threat
Speaker 1: of the Third Reich. It's simple to make grinch Bond
Speaker 1: a scapegoade for the evils of the Holocaust, a misguided
Speaker 1: way to compact a horrendous genocide into a neat, digestible timeline.
Speaker 1: As Hannah A. Rent once wrote on the conditions of tyranny,
Speaker 1: it is far easier to act than to think. But
Speaker 1: I like to think that this young man was instead
Speaker 1: a desperate hero, acting in the only way he knew how,
Speaker 1: fighting the enemy he saw so clearly in front of him,
Speaker 1: and refusing to bend to the whims of racism of fascism.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kirsch is the author of The Short Strange Life
Speaker 1: of Herschel Grins bond, a boy avenger, a Nazi diplomat,
Speaker 1: and a murder in Paris. Kersch explained in an interview
Speaker 1: with the Los Angeles Review of Books that Herschel carried
Speaker 1: out the first act of armed Jewish resistance against Nazi
Speaker 1: Germany under remarkable circumstances that really entitle him to be
Speaker 1: regarded as a hero. And yet he has really been
Speaker 1: written out of history and his acts of heroism have
Speaker 1: been suppressed. Herschel Grinspond's story is a reminder of every
Speaker 1: individual's place in this world. One day he was living
Speaker 1: on the fringes of Paris, a cast away from society,
Speaker 1: with no nation to call home, and the next day
Speaker 1: he was making headlines that change the course of history.
Speaker 1: And then I also try to grapple with some of
Speaker 1: the larger issue shows, the most uncomfortable and awkward of
Speaker 1: which is uh with so much emphasis placed on finding
Speaker 1: evidence of Jewish resistance, of answering the question why did
Speaker 1: so many Jews seemed to go so passively to their deaths.
Speaker 1: Why was this young man who didn't go passively, who
Speaker 1: was willing to fight back, Why was he overlooked in
Speaker 1: the history of resistance to the Holocaust. It's fascinating to
Speaker 1: think of the ripple effects of our actions, both big
Speaker 1: and small, and how quickly one life can be thrown
Speaker 1: into the limelight, where their humanity has suddenly taken on
Speaker 1: a new enormous form. While we may never know what
Speaker 1: really happened to Herschel Greenspond he etched his name into history,
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old assassin who took justice into his
Speaker 1: own hands and became the pond of an international war machine.
Speaker 1: If you have questions for us about Good Assassins or
Speaker 1: any comment on the podcast, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Please email us at Good Assassins at Diversion Audio dot com.
Speaker 1: Make sure you spell assassins correctly. Again, that's good Assassins
Speaker 1: at Diversion Audio dot com. We'll try to answer your
Speaker 1: questions on a future episode. Find us on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Diversion Pods. Good Assassins is a production
Speaker 1: of Diversion Audio in association with I Heart Podcasts. This
Speaker 1: season is hosted by Stephen Talty and written by Cede Carpenter,
Speaker 1: Produced and directed by Kevin Thompson for Real Jet Packs Productions.
Speaker 1: Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman.
Speaker 1: Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by
Speaker 1: Tyler Cash, featuring the voices of Nicola Esquerdo, Raphael Corkill,
Speaker 1: Lenna Klingerman, Brandon mckinness, John Pirkas, Andrew polk Or, Locassidy
Speaker 1: Mono Felciano, Sean Gormley, and Steve Rautman. Sound design, mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Paul Goodrich, Sound editing by Justin Kilpatrick.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for
Speaker 1: Diversion Audio Diversion Audio S