Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Those who stand up for their convictions are often remembered
Speaker 1: for their dedication and bravery. Well, not everyone is remembered
Speaker 1: that way exactly, people like French philosopher and writer Francois
Speaker 1: Marie Aroway. Although you probably don't know him by that name,
Speaker 1: he's better remembered by his pen name Voltaire. And Voltaire
Speaker 1: wrote a lot to paraphrase a popular musical about a
Speaker 1: certain founding father, writing like he was running out of time,
Speaker 1: composing everything from plays, novels, poems, essays, and even scientific papers.
Speaker 1: By the time he died in seventeen seventy eight, Voltaire
Speaker 1: had written tens of thousands of works, and although he'd
Speaker 1: found popularity both domestically and overseas, he was not universally liked.
Speaker 1: While he was still alive, the Roman Catholic Church loathed
Speaker 1: him for referring to Christianity as propagandistic. He also perpetuated
Speaker 1: a number of myths about the Church. For example, he
Speaker 1: claimed that they had cut the number of Gospels down
Speaker 1: from fifty to four. But Christianity and the Church weren't alone.
Speaker 1: Voltaire seemed to aim his pen in any direction he
Speaker 1: deemed worthy of criticism. He was also wildly anti Semitic
Speaker 1: in his writings about Judaism and the Jewish people, and
Speaker 1: also lobbed a heavy amount of vitriol toward Islam and
Speaker 1: people of color. He disagreed with the idea of Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve as represented in the Bible, and suggested that
Speaker 1: each race came to be through various means across the globe,
Speaker 1: rather than descended from one couple. But in the same
Speaker 1: breath he would disparage black Africans as possessing less natural
Speaker 1: humanity than white Europeans. Voltaire was the embodiment of cognitive dissonance,
Speaker 1: perhaps best expressed in his stance on slavery. Scholars argue
Speaker 1: as to whether he actually opposed the slave trade itself,
Speaker 1: nor simply the harsh and violent conditions to which enslaved
Speaker 1: people were subjected. Regardless and a bit surprising. He was
Speaker 1: more enlightened than others on the subject, and that got
Speaker 1: him into hot water with the powers that be. His
Speaker 1: body of work, although problematic and downright offensive at times,
Speaker 1: made him wildly popular, especially among his fellow writers. Victor
Speaker 1: Hugo once said, to name Voltaire is to characterize the
Speaker 1: entire eighteenth century. Depending on who you were, that could
Speaker 1: either be a good thing or a very bad thing.
Speaker 1: Napoleon Bonaparte admired him, as did Frederick the Great, but
Speaker 1: those ringing endorsements don't exactly endear him to us today.
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler insulted Frederick's conversations with Voltaire while outlining his
Speaker 1: plans for world conquest during World War II. The racist
Speaker 1: and nationalistic rhetoric within Voltaire's works have led to a
Speaker 1: backlash today. In fact, a statue of the philosopher that
Speaker 1: once stood in Paris was torn down back in August
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. His legacy is tainted, some might say
Speaker 1: it's cursed. After Voltaire died in seventeen seventy eight, a
Speaker 1: French polymath by the name of Beaumarche purchased the rights
Speaker 1: to as much of his back catalog as possible from
Speaker 1: his old publisher, but Voltaire's work had been banned in France,
Speaker 1: so in seventeen ninety nine beau Marche printed the manuscripts
Speaker 1: in Germany instead, but he lost a lot of money
Speaker 1: on the venture and his life. He died a mere
Speaker 1: three months after he started publishing a complete collection of
Speaker 1: Voltaire's writing, and then in the early eighteen hundreds, another
Speaker 1: publisher put out a sixty volume edition of Voltaire's works.
Speaker 1: The endeavor practically bankrupted them. Over the next seventy years,
Speaker 1: at least eight publishers went broke by releasing complete Voltaire collections.
Speaker 1: One went blind, while another was killed by a woman
Speaker 1: he accused of stealing. It appeared that whenever someone tried
Speaker 1: to publish a full series of Voltaire's portfolio, they met
Speaker 1: an unfortunate end, either financially or mortally. Voltaire was a
Speaker 1: controversial figure when he was alive. His opinions alienated almost everyone,
Speaker 1: and he was no stranger to having his work cursed
Speaker 1: by his contemporaries. What no one realized, though, was that
Speaker 1: the twenty thousand letters and two thousand books about religion
Speaker 1: and other cultures that he left behind might actually have
Speaker 1: been cursed. Some fictional characters are so iconic that they
Speaker 1: almost feel real. Think about Michael Scott from the Office
Speaker 1: or Walter White in Breaking Bad. I'm not embarrassed to
Speaker 1: admit that I can quote those guys verbatim, and I
Speaker 1: know their personalities like the back of my hand. The
Speaker 1: best characters are able to take on a life of
Speaker 1: their own, and some of them are even based on
Speaker 1: real people. In fact, one twentieth century writer created a
Speaker 1: character that became so popular he has since been the
Speaker 1: subject of a number of books and movies, and rumor
Speaker 1: has it he's based on an actual person whose story
Speaker 1: is as interesting as the fictional tales he inspired. Let
Speaker 1: me set the scenario for you. It was June of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, right in the midst of World War Two,
Speaker 1: and our real life hero was in Germany trapped at
Speaker 1: the Nazi run Bukenwald concentration camp. He was there to
Speaker 1: be executed. You see, he had been charged with terrorism.
Speaker 1: Most Nazi officers knew his background too. They even had
Speaker 1: a nickname for him, the White Rabbit. For the last
Speaker 1: year and a half, the White Rabbit had worked with
Speaker 1: the British Air Intelligence Agency. He parachuted into Nazi occupied
Speaker 1: France three different times and set up a central resistance
Speaker 1: quarters in Paris. When his work was discovered, the Gestapo
Speaker 1: put a bounty on his head, and he spent the
Speaker 1: next eight weeks on the run before escaping back to
Speaker 1: his home country of England. As soon as he crossed
Speaker 1: the border, he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Speaker 1: to request more weapons for French resistance fighters. In February
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty four, four months before he landed in Buchenwald,
Speaker 1: he re entered France to supervise those weapons shipments, but
Speaker 1: things didn't go as planned. Someone betrayed him, and three
Speaker 1: weeks later he was captured by the Gestapo. The Nazi
Speaker 1: police hoped to get some valuable information out of the spy,
Speaker 1: but his lips were sealed. They spent the next four
Speaker 1: months subjecting him to every kind of torture you can imagine,
Speaker 1: but he never cracked. Frustrated, the Gestapo shipped him off
Speaker 1: to a concentration camp to die, but the White Rabbit
Speaker 1: didn't go down without a fight. He managed to befriend
Speaker 1: and probably bribe a German guard. Together they came up
Speaker 1: with an idea to save our hero's life give him
Speaker 1: a brand new identity, which was actually easy than you
Speaker 1: might think. The German guard pretended to execute him, then
Speaker 1: gave him an ID card that belonged to a Frenchman
Speaker 1: who had already been killed at Buchenwald, and just like that,
Speaker 1: the White Rabbit had a new name, Maurice Chaquette. Still,
Speaker 1: Maurice hadn't really saved himself. He'd only bought some time.
Speaker 1: Less than a year later, in April of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: he was shoved onto a train filled with other prisoners
Speaker 1: from Buchenwald. They were bound for an extermination camp in
Speaker 1: Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. At one point, the train had to
Speaker 1: make a stop, and the White Rabbit jumped. On his
Speaker 1: chance to escape, He and a small group of other
Speaker 1: prisoners fled into the surrounding woods. Many were killed immediately,
Speaker 1: but the White Rabbit spent the next eight days hiding
Speaker 1: in the woods before being recaptured. Still going by the
Speaker 1: name Maurice Chaquette, he was placed in a camp for
Speaker 1: French prisoners of war near the Czech border. He was
Speaker 1: only there for two days before hatching another escape plan.
Speaker 1: He managed to make a convincing disguise and broke out
Speaker 1: of the camp. But if if you can believe it,
Speaker 1: he still wasn't free. He had to make it across
Speaker 1: a literal minefield to reach the American Army. Only at
Speaker 1: that point, after months of torture and two daring escapes,
Speaker 1: was the White Rabbit finally going to be safe. Now,
Speaker 1: this is just one of the stories of the White
Speaker 1: Rabbit's incredible exploits. After World War II, he was awarded
Speaker 1: thirteen Medals of Honor for his various contributions to Allied intelligence,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen forty five, an author received a copy
Speaker 1: of a letter the White Rabbit had written while in Buchenwald.
Speaker 1: This letter contained the spy's real name, Forrest Jo Thomas.
Speaker 1: I won't fault you if you've never heard that name before,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you would recognize the name of the author,
Speaker 1: Ian Fleming and the character that he created after reading
Speaker 1: this letter. The name was Bond, James Bond. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.