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Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Hello, welcome back to Ridiculous Romance. Yeah, oh,

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Speaker 1: we got one for you today. Oh my god, Yeah

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Speaker 1: this has been Let's let's wait, hang on, let's take

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Speaker 1: a second before we get into that, and just take

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Speaker 1: a second to appreciate something. I don't know. How's your

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Speaker 1: how's your day? How are you feeling? How's the world?

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Speaker 1: Give me a good one, though not one of the

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Speaker 1: usual bad ones. I know, how's the world? I don't

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Speaker 1: think you want to ask about that. Um No, I

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Speaker 1: think it's fine. I think things are going good this week.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, weirdly not behind in all my work,

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Speaker 1: at least as bad as I was there for a minute,

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Speaker 1: so that's kind of nice. It's hard to more whelmed.

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Speaker 1: Did you say whelmed? I'm just whelmed, morewhelmed than overwhelmed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're feeling good, I think, relatively speaking. This time in January,

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Speaker 1: we took down the tree before it fell apart on

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Speaker 1: its own. That was something. Yeah, that's true. I was

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Speaker 1: sitting here, sitting of the tree last night and an

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Speaker 1: ornament just fell off and landed safely on the ground.

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Speaker 1: It was a very light little ball. That wasn't the

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Speaker 1: first one. I'll say another ball had fallen and I

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Speaker 1: had re hung it for some reason, Like I was

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Speaker 1: like put it back on the tree, like just package

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Speaker 1: it up anyway. Whatever. Yeah, But I went to Diana

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Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, overnight the rest of

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Speaker 1: these might come down hard, so we should strip the tree,

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Speaker 1: which we were already late doing. But we did it.

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Speaker 1: So that's nice that we've got. We've got all that

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Speaker 1: cleared out or ready for the new new year. I

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Speaker 1: guess of decorations, that's the thing. There's barely any holidays

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Speaker 1: between now and the fall. I mean you get your

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Speaker 1: your Valentine's and your Easters and things like that. My birthday, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a national holiday. Decorate the exterior of the house

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Speaker 1: for it. Well, maybe we should say that what color

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Speaker 1: lights for your birthday? Should we get some inflatables? An

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Speaker 1: inflatable crisp pine. I would like an inflatable crispine carrying

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Speaker 1: a bag of books. If we buy an inflatable crisp pine,

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Speaker 1: that thing is never going to be out in the yard,

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Speaker 1: That's true. I'll be holding onto him, Yeah, it'll'll be

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Speaker 1: snuggled on the couch I'll have Yeah, I'll have my

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Speaker 1: arm around him as we watch duck tales or something.

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Speaker 1: You and your inflatable crispine watching duck tails. Yes, well,

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Speaker 1: it's all fun and games until we get to the Holocaust,

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Speaker 1: Ain't that the truth? Yeah, guys, we we've got a

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Speaker 1: real episode for you today. And I will tell you

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Speaker 1: up front that this is a beautiful love story. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of wonderful things about it. And I can

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Speaker 1: tell you without spoiling anything, that this the woman who

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Speaker 1: is telling this story wrote her autobiography in two thousand

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Speaker 1: five in California, so we know that she survives her experience.

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Speaker 1: So if that gives you something to kind of make

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Speaker 1: it through this episode, then that's good. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: this is an experiment for us to a degree to

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Speaker 1: because this is definitely a ridiculous romance. It's definitely belongs

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Speaker 1: in the show, but you know, we like to keep

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Speaker 1: it loose. We like to goof around and joke, and

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Speaker 1: there's just there's not a lot of comedy here to

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Speaker 1: be found in, you know, the the Holocaust. And I

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Speaker 1: think that we know that going into it, and I

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Speaker 1: don't know what it'll be like. We had this conversation.

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Speaker 1: I know we've read over this story and it's been

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Speaker 1: a challenge. Um. It was a challenge to research. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's an important story to tell. Um.

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Speaker 1: I really hope that you love it, and I know

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Speaker 1: we'll love telling it in a different way than we

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Speaker 1: love telling some stories. But yeah, no, but it's really

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Speaker 1: important and like you said, it's powerful because it is

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Speaker 1: such a beautiful love story. So definitely worth hearing, definitely

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Speaker 1: worth telling. Yes, so let's do this. Yeah, Hannalore Wolf

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Speaker 1: is our is our heroine today. She was a young

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Speaker 1: Jewish woman in Germany who was sent to seven different

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Speaker 1: labor and concentration camps across Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust.

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Speaker 1: But amidst all the un speakable horrors that she faced,

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Speaker 1: she did manage to find the love of her life,

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Speaker 1: a Polish pow named Bernard Hillman. And there's not much

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Speaker 1: more to say before we get into the stories. I

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Speaker 1: would say, we just jump right in. Let's do it.

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Speaker 1: This is also so weird reading this as are like

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Speaker 1: fun poppy lead in music is playing, but here we are,

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Speaker 1: Hey their French, come listen, well, Eli and Diana got

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Speaker 1: some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips,

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Speaker 1: It's just about pridiculous relationships. A lover might be any

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Speaker 1: type of person at all, and abstract concept our concrete wall.

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Speaker 1: But if there's a story, were the Second Glance show

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Roles a production? If I Heart Radio? Laura Hillman

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Speaker 1: was born Hannelore Wolf on October sixteenth of nineteen twenty

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Speaker 1: three in Auric, Germany, and she was the third of

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Speaker 1: five children born to Caroline and Martin Wolf, a Jewish

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Speaker 1: couple who were proud and public about their Jewish heritage.

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Speaker 1: The Jewish in Germany at this time was already difficult,

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Speaker 1: but when Laura was nine years old in January of

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, Adolph Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany

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Speaker 1: and things quickly became worse. So I say we start

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Speaker 1: this episode with a quick fling with history. Can you

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Speaker 1: believe that Laura's father, Martin had fought in World War

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Speaker 1: One for the Germans, as did at least a hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand other Jewish soldiers. Now, despite many of these guys

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Speaker 1: fighting on the front lines, and despite over twelve thousand

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Speaker 1: Jewish soldiers dying during World War One in service of Germany,

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Speaker 1: many Germans, including Hitler, blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat.

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Speaker 1: They stereotyped them as cowards and falsely claimed that they

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Speaker 1: were neglecting their military duties. There were even conspiracies that

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Speaker 1: Germany couldn't possibly have lost the war and think that

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Speaker 1: was anything that could have happened, and that traders in Germany,

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Speaker 1: including an organization of Jews, had betrayed the country and

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Speaker 1: forced a surrender. It's just just an absurd thing from

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Speaker 1: people who were too proud to admit that they lost

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Speaker 1: and needed a scapegoat. And this was just among the

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Speaker 1: many things that Germans targeted Jews for after World War One. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we'll we'll say that, you know, the Great War

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Speaker 1: was not just Germany's faults. It was a lot of

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Speaker 1: many countries made many decisions to lead to that um

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Speaker 1: but they did have to take all of the blame

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Speaker 1: by because being the losers, I guess. So you can

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Speaker 1: kind of see where that mentality had been like, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't us, but we have to freaking deal with

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Speaker 1: everything and pay everything back. You can kind of see

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Speaker 1: why that would lead to kind of like a frothing

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Speaker 1: at the mouth mentality for a very long time. So

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Speaker 1: by the late nineteen thirties. With the openly anti Semitic

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Speaker 1: Nazi Party in power, it became dangerous for Jews to

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Speaker 1: just walk down their own streets in Germany. Then on

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Speaker 1: November a Polish German Jew named Herschel Greenspun walked into

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Speaker 1: the German embassy in Paris and assassinated the Nazi diplomat

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Speaker 1: Ernst vm Roth, and Hitler lost his damn mind. Nazi

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Speaker 1: propaganda minister Joseph Gebel's delivered a speech saying, quote, the

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Speaker 1: Fear has decided that demonstrations should not be prepared or

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Speaker 1: organized by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously,

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Speaker 1: they are not to be hampered. So the message was

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Speaker 1: clear to party leaders that they were to organize a program,

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Speaker 1: and a program is basically an organized riot targeted specifically

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Speaker 1: at a particular ethnic or religious group. And you will

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Speaker 1: see Jewish program put together many times in history and

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Speaker 1: fly so so insane that they that Gebels, who I

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Speaker 1: read that Gebels was trying to say face he had

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Speaker 1: actually was in some a little bit of trouble with

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Speaker 1: Hitler at the time, and that when Hitler stormed out

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Speaker 1: of the room and didn't give his speech after von

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Speaker 1: Roth was killed, Gebels took as an opportunity to step

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Speaker 1: up and say I'm going to do something crazy and

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Speaker 1: and earned the favor of Hitler back. And this to me,

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Speaker 1: I'm reading about this and it's like this was sort

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Speaker 1: of the launching point or a turning point when everything

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Speaker 1: went from this sort of like we're quietly subjugating people

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Speaker 1: horrifically too, We're going all out ballistic on these people

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Speaker 1: in a really horrible way, because within hours brown shirts, Hitler,

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Speaker 1: youth and other German just citizens took to the streets

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Speaker 1: and they shattered the windows of about seventy five hundred

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Speaker 1: Jewish stores and businesses and they looted their goods. Violence

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Speaker 1: against Jewish people hadn't been officially sanctioned, but people did

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Speaker 1: it anyway, and police were basically instructed not to interfere

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Speaker 1: except to protect foreign and non Jewish businesses. So whatever

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Speaker 1: you do to Jewish people, we're just gonna turn our heads.

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Speaker 1: If if it expands to other people, then will step

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Speaker 1: in and stop it. Very very similar to the race

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Speaker 1: riots of the twenties here in America, when white police

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Speaker 1: were like, go ahead, get rid of any black business

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Speaker 1: you want, but don't bother these white people. Twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours later, the streets of Germany were covered in broken

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Speaker 1: glass of Jewish shops, offices, and synagogues, and the pogrom

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Speaker 1: became known as Crystal Knocked or the Night of Broken Glass.

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Speaker 1: And this wasn't justin Berlin, this was all across Germany,

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Speaker 1: Austria and the Student Land. People were killed and more

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Speaker 1: than thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to

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Speaker 1: concentration camps. Over two hundred and fifty synagogues were destroyed,

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Speaker 1: including the one where Laura Wolf and her family were worshiping.

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Speaker 1: Laura's school had been destroyed as well, and after Krystal Knocked,

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Speaker 1: Jewish children across Germany were not allowed into public schools anymore. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: Laura's older sisters Rose, Seoul and Hildegarde had been able

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Speaker 1: to leave the country for England in Jerusalem, and her

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Speaker 1: father found a school in Cologne, France for her younger

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Speaker 1: brothers to attend, although they had to live in an

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Speaker 1: orphanage in order to do so. As for Laura, her

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Speaker 1: father found Dr Frankel's boarding school for Jewish girls in

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Speaker 1: a suburb outside Berlin a little over three hundred miles

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Speaker 1: from their home in Are and life wasn't easy at

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Speaker 1: the school. She writes in her book that you know,

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Speaker 1: they had to have ration coupons to go get food. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, they couldn't really walk around Berlin outside of

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Speaker 1: the school votcating harassed. They did have to wear the

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Speaker 1: yellow stars on their arms at this time, and so

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Speaker 1: she even had some friends that were like, we'll just

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Speaker 1: wear a shawl and cover it up and then we

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Speaker 1: can go to this ice cream shop. And they would

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Speaker 1: like sneak out and do that a couple of times

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Speaker 1: until some she said, some Nazi youth younger than they

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Speaker 1: were saw them and said, you know why we're wearing

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Speaker 1: the shawl, and like took it off and saw it

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Speaker 1: and then chase them. They had to run back to

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Speaker 1: their home. They're like, fortunately the boys got distracted by

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Speaker 1: something and we made it back to school. Just horrifying,

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Speaker 1: freaking Nazi youth, you know what I mean. They're like, hey,

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Speaker 1: turn all the nine year old boys into total snitches.

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Speaker 1: Total nightmare. But she was safe in the school and

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Speaker 1: she made some really good friends there. But in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty two she received a letter from her mother. It

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Speaker 1: said that six weeks earlier, her father had been riding

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Speaker 1: his bicycle when the Gestapo stopped him and arrested him,

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Speaker 1: and they sent him to Bukenwald, which was one of

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Speaker 1: Germany's largest concentration camps. Just a few weeks later, her

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Speaker 1: mother received a letter postmark from Bukenwald and it said

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Speaker 1: quote Martin Wolf died of unknown causes on March fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: ninety two. Earn contains his ashes unknown causes exactly. I

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Speaker 1: mean they we're not gonna say. It doesn't matter, you

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Speaker 1: know her. She asked her mother at one point, why

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Speaker 1: did they arrest him? She said, well, they stopped him

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Speaker 1: when he was riding his bike because he was delivering

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Speaker 1: potatoes and had a knee injury from fighting for German

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Speaker 1: in World War One and couldn't walk, so he took

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Speaker 1: a bike. The gestopo pulled him over and said where's

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Speaker 1: your permit for riding this bike? And he said, I

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Speaker 1: didn't know a need a permit and they arrested him.

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Speaker 1: And she said, why didn't they just let him pay

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Speaker 1: a fine? And she said they're they're not. They're looking

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Speaker 1: for a reason to arrest him. They're making one up.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. They don't want you to get off.

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Speaker 1: They want to arrest you and send you these camps.

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Speaker 1: That is the goal. News of her father's death spread quickly,

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Speaker 1: and Laura's schoolmates brought her small gifts and treats. She

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Speaker 1: says small chocolates, cookies, and sugarcubes were very touching because

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Speaker 1: they had surely been saved for a really long time.

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Speaker 1: Treats like that were incredibly hard to come by at

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Speaker 1: this time, so they might have even been saving it

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Speaker 1: for a birthday or something and decided to just give

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Speaker 1: it to her, which it's really nice. And a few

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Speaker 1: weeks later things turned even worse when another letter came

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Speaker 1: from her mother, saying, quote, the Gestapo has notified me

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Speaker 1: that I am to be deported east, whatever that means.

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Speaker 1: And she wrote that her brothers in Cologne had received

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Speaker 1: the same orders and ended the letter, do what you

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Speaker 1: can to save yourself, my dearest child, When this is over,

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Speaker 1: we will be together again. Remember that no matter how

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Speaker 1: far away I am from you, I will always be near.

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Speaker 1: Now Laura couldn't bear the thought of her mother and

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Speaker 1: her younger brothers being shipped off alone to god knows where.

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Speaker 1: It's not like they gave you information. There was no

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Speaker 1: like destination stamped on your ticket, and no one to call.

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Speaker 1: If if a year went by and you never heard

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Speaker 1: from anyone who who cares? Let me just hang on.

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Speaker 1: Let me call the Gestapo hotline and see if they

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Speaker 1: can tell me where I'm headed next. Hello, I'd like

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Speaker 1: to speak to your manager. Didn't quite work like that,

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Speaker 1: not so much so. That night Laura, who was not

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Speaker 1: one to take anything just sitting down, she wrote a

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Speaker 1: letter of her own. It said, quote two Gestapo headquarters

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Speaker 1: in Weimar. I hereby apply for permission to travel from

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Speaker 1: Berlin to Weimar. My mother and my brothers are being

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Speaker 1: deported on May eighth from Weimar. I wish to accompany them.

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Speaker 1: How a or I mean this is basically I volunteers tribute.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she just said I would rather go with

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Speaker 1: my family than have them go somewhere unknown and be

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Speaker 1: relatively safe without knowing anything that's happened to them. And

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Speaker 1: you know, her friends like, we're thinking now, we're begging

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Speaker 1: her not to do this. They told her, you know,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't even matter if you go with your parents

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Speaker 1: and they put you on the same train, they're going

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Speaker 1: to separate you. You're not gonna be with them anyway,

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Speaker 1: and they told her, you know, your mother wrote in

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Speaker 1: the letters says right there, do what you can to

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Speaker 1: protect yourself. They even tried to wrestle the letter out

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Speaker 1: of her hands. I would be trying to set it

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Speaker 1: on fire. And the kind of mine is doing something

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Speaker 1: like that. I mean, I think I could. I guess

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Speaker 1: I could understand where they were coming from, right, but

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Speaker 1: it would feel very like, why would you put yourself

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Speaker 1: in harm's way like this? Although I guess it's stupid

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Speaker 1: to think that they're already in harm's way just by existing,

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Speaker 1: so you probably are like, fuck it, Just let me

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Speaker 1: go be with my family. And that's the thing she

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Speaker 1: told them. Quote sooner or later they will put us

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Speaker 1: all in transports and deport us all. So she felt like,

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Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't matter. We only think we're safe here.

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Speaker 1: She said that her father felt like he was safe.

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Speaker 1: He felt like after his military service after Crystal Knox,

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Speaker 1: and they didn't arrest him when they when they kicked

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Speaker 1: everyone out of that synagogue, he was one of the

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Speaker 1: only men who wasn't arrested, and it was because of

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Speaker 1: his knee injury. He just wasn't fit enough to be

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Speaker 1: sent to a work camp, and that's the thing that

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Speaker 1: saved him, and and they had an opportunity, her parents

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Speaker 1: had an opportunity to leave Germany a few times before

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Speaker 1: things got too bad, and he just felt like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's okay, We're safe here. So Laura knew at this

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Speaker 1: point nowhere was safe. So she felt like it was

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Speaker 1: better for her to go with her family than to

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Speaker 1: just stay here in the school and wait. And days

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Speaker 1: later the Gestapo responded, they granted her permission, and at

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Speaker 1: this point she was terrified and she even had second thoughts.

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Speaker 1: But on May second, now she was to travel from

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Speaker 1: Berlin to Weimar for deportation. Laura was reunited with her

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Speaker 1: mother and two brothers, and the Nazis sent them all

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Speaker 1: to Poland. We cannot in this episode spend too much

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Speaker 1: time on the horrors of the deportation process, but the

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Speaker 1: strip searches the floodlights, watching people beaten to death right

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Speaker 1: next to them for the slightest defiance, Trains packed so

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Speaker 1: tightly they could barely move, and then the windows would

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Speaker 1: be sealed shut. They were not comfortable journeys to understate

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Speaker 1: the matter, and it wasn't long before the prisoners were

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Speaker 1: separated by gender, and Laura and her mother were split

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Speaker 1: from her two younger brothers, and Laura assured her mother

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Speaker 1: that the boys were smart, they would find their way

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Speaker 1: home eventually, but internally, of course, she's terrified for them,

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Speaker 1: and they were placed in a ghetto in Lublin, Poland,

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Speaker 1: a sectioned off corner of the city where Jews were

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Speaker 1: made to work, and Laura's mother was assigned a job

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Speaker 1: at a lamp factory, while Laura, who had been training

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Speaker 1: to be a kindergarten teacher, was assigned to be a

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Speaker 1: nursemaid for an s. S. Family. She was told that

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Speaker 1: would keep her safe from deportation, which I mean, talk

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Speaker 1: about a contrast of feelings at that, because I mean like,

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Speaker 1: you're sending me to like work for directly for an s. S.

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Speaker 1: Soldier raised their children Nazis. Yeah, I ethically don't want

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Speaker 1: to do that. I'm personally terrified to do that. How

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Speaker 1: wrong could things go? But at the same time, she's

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Speaker 1: being told this is the safest place you can be.

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Speaker 1: You know what's Pippen in in Uh Lord of the

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Speaker 1: Ring says, it's the closer we are to danger, the

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Speaker 1: further way off. It's kind of like that. I was

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Speaker 1: about to say, you keep your enemies close because then

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Speaker 1: you can see what they're up to, I guess. But

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Speaker 1: it's very it's, as you say, incredibly difficult emotionally to

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Speaker 1: figure out how to freaking process that. And Laura ended

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Speaker 1: up working six days a week for them, and she

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Speaker 1: actually grew quite fond of the two children that she

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Speaker 1: was raising, and she hoped this was going to keep

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Speaker 1: her safe for a while. It did, but one day

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Speaker 1: the children's mother, who was none too kind, called the

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Speaker 1: husband home early from work, and Laura overheard their conversation.

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Speaker 1: And remember this guy is an s S officer. He's

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Speaker 1: a right, yeah, you're basic teddy bear, but a busy

331
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Speaker 1: guy nonetheless, and he's kind of piste that his wife

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Speaker 1: called him home early, and he's like, what, why do

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Speaker 1: you what do you want? What is it? And she

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Speaker 1: says that she's furious that her children seemed to like

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Speaker 1: Laura more than her at this point, like Laura was

336
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Speaker 1: too kind to them. She was ringing them over, she

337
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:30,160
Speaker 1: was turning the kids against her. But you have such

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Speaker 1: a sweet mother, Why why would you prefer this other lady? Well,

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Speaker 1: you prefer the kind nursemaid whose life is being threatened

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Speaker 1: to take care of you over the Nazi mom, you

341
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: who sounds like a real Karen. The father actually defended Laura,

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Speaker 1: and he accused his wife of being a drunk. He's like,

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Speaker 1: you're drunk again. Why did you bring you home from work?

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Speaker 1: He told her, you know what I'm doing, and you

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Speaker 1: know that all the diamonds and jewels I bring home

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Speaker 1: for you are being taken from Jewish women, So maybe

347
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:04,960
Speaker 1: you ought to have a little more respect Like it's

348
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Speaker 1: weird for an s S officer to be like, you

349
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:10,000
Speaker 1: should be more respectful. I stole all their stuff. Stop

350
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Speaker 1: being so me. But the mother persisted, said you've got

351
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Speaker 1: to kick this girl out. I don't like her here anymore,

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Speaker 1: And she heard the father say that it didn't matter anyway.

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Speaker 1: He said, quote, the ghetto is being emptied of all

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Speaker 1: the Jews, and we will be going back to our

355
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Speaker 1: old lifestyle. I'll be out of a job, or worse yet,

356
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Speaker 1: sent to the Russian Front, which all Nazi. You know.

357
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Speaker 1: It's this is one thing that I saw in this

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Speaker 1: book over and over again, is that the thing these

359
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,040
Speaker 1: Nazis who worked in these camps were most afraid of

360
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Speaker 1: was being sent to the actual front. This was a

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Speaker 1: kush job for them, and I imagine and you actually

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Speaker 1: kind of learned through some of these higher ranking officers

363
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Speaker 1: that the crueler you were, the more likely you were

364
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Speaker 1: to stay there softer. If you were being soft on

365
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:01,720
Speaker 1: the Jews, you'd be one of the first guys to

366
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Speaker 1: go out to the army. So it just perpetuated that

367
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Speaker 1: horrible behavior. Well, I mean, how often have we seen

368
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Speaker 1: that some of the worst things people have done in

369
00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:13,600
Speaker 1: history they were doing just to keep a job, or

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Speaker 1: to make a boss happy, or to get a promotion.

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Speaker 1: It's never, not never, but a lot of times it's

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Speaker 1: not even malicious. You're not thinking about the end result

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Speaker 1: of what you're doing. You're literally thinking about how it

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Speaker 1: will affect you specifically and maybe maybe the people in

375
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Speaker 1: your family. But you know, that's it's really personal advancement

376
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Speaker 1: for a lot of people, more so than like, you know,

377
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:42,600
Speaker 1: some big ideals or whatever. Right, And it's no excuse,

378
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 1: it's just it's just showing how this brainwashing work. How

379
00:20:47,119 --> 00:20:49,720
Speaker 1: when you ask, how could they get so many people

380
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Speaker 1: to be so horrible, it's many, many things that go

381
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:56,120
Speaker 1: into that, and and this kind of level of psychological

382
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:58,800
Speaker 1: control is one of them, and it's it is happening

383
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:02,840
Speaker 1: all around us in many, many industries and stuff. That's

384
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:05,360
Speaker 1: what's happening. People really just trying to keep a job

385
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: or do better than that other guy they don't like.

386
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Speaker 1: So anyway, I think that's crazy. It makes me very

387
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 1: upset to know that, because it's like, where do you

388
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 1: battle that human instinct? So yeah, she overheard this conversation,

389
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,919
Speaker 1: and sure enough, within days the s s rounded everyone

390
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,800
Speaker 1: up to send them to other camps, and Laura and

391
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:27,480
Speaker 1: her mother were separated and Laura was sent away to

392
00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 1: a labor camp called bill Jitsa, and They're a friend

393
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 1: helped her get work as a nurse in the infirmary,

394
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 1: despite her not really knowing anything about nursing, but the

395
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 1: doctor was kind. It was probably the best place she

396
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 1: could be in bel Jittsa, which was described as quote

397
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 1: not bad as labor camps go, I mean underground, right.

398
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:54,439
Speaker 1: But after a few weeks she learned that bel Jetsa

399
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 1: was also being liquidated and everyone was to be sent

400
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 1: to Budson, which was known to be am the worst

401
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: of the labor camps. It was so interesting in this

402
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: book to read about how often prisoners were shuffled around

403
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:10,159
Speaker 1: because of this camp is closing or this one's overcrowded,

404
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: and we'll see that a lot in this story. It's

405
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:14,440
Speaker 1: also interesting to me, like she got this job in

406
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,359
Speaker 1: the infirmary, how much it reminds me of stories you

407
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:20,439
Speaker 1: hear about the prison system, where if you know the

408
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,240
Speaker 1: right people and you can like collect the right items,

409
00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 1: you can trade for a slightly less horrible existence. And

410
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people in the camps who

411
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Speaker 1: kind of worked the politics of the guards and the

412
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 1: prisoners and sort of had a little, you know, a

413
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:37,680
Speaker 1: little circuit going in terms of how they'd get maybe

414
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,199
Speaker 1: some extra food or a better job, um. And the

415
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: people who didn't know how to work that were really

416
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 1: in a way worse position. But before Belijitsa was shut down,

417
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 1: the commandant, which is the officer who runs the camp,

418
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 1: stepped into the infirmary. He was drunk, and he saw

419
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 1: Laura and he basically said, hey, girls, pretty, you should

420
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:03,439
Speaker 1: bring her with us. So she was brought to his place,

421
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 1: which was called Krasnik, instead of being shipped off to Budson.

422
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 1: She describes Krashnik as this really strange camp where Jews

423
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,399
Speaker 1: lived in kind of nice houses, and they walked the

424
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: streets a little more freely, and they shopped at stores.

425
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: It's a very surreal kind of place the way she

426
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: describes it. It was still this fenced off area of

427
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: a town. The s s still policed it, but it

428
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,639
Speaker 1: was a very affluent area, and basically all the money

429
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: they had allowed them to live a little more comfortably,

430
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 1: still under very oppressive conditions. The mink lined cell or whatever, Yeah,

431
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 1: it very much was. And when she got there, those

432
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: prisoners were very suspect of her and they didn't want

433
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,159
Speaker 1: her screwing it up for them, and so she had

434
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: a real hard time making friends in that place. How

435
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: interesting too, that the camps were so different, you know,

436
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: like I think I think too. When you learn about

437
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: the Holocaust, you know, you learn about like bergen billsit

438
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: and Auschwitz and stuff that were like the word ston

439
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: it's all gray and terrible striped pajamas and ashes everywhere.

440
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: But like, not all of them were like that. Some

441
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 1: of them were like this, And it was probably a

442
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: really kind of smart to do that because there's probably

443
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: plenty of people going, oh, I've been to one. It's

444
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: not that big deal. She was so afraid. It's not

445
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's just a work camp. It's nothing, nothing,

446
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:20,199
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about. And then

447
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: you end up at a smokestack place. Do you know

448
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 1: what it reminds me of is Twelve Years of Slave,

449
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 1: where you see him going to all these different plantations

450
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: in that movie, and one of them Benedict Cumberbatch's place,

451
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 1: which he was very nice, like he was trying to

452
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: be the good guy, and it made him actually kind

453
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: of the worst. And I think that about Kashnikor I'm like,

454
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: this is almost worse because it's like, no, this is fine,

455
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,239
Speaker 1: you're good. Here, I'm going to try and make you

456
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: forget that you're imprisoned, you know, which is in so

457
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: many ways, not in every way, but in so many ways,

458
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 1: a much worse thing to be doing to people. Yeah,

459
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: it camp can be. Yeah. I think with Bennet cumber Badge,

460
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 1: the problem was that you know it's wrong and you're

461
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: still do it. Yeah, exactly, But I totally agree. It's

462
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: it's like it's such a mind fuck. Yeah. So many

463
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: Nazis was the same situation with them. They knew what

464
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 1: they were doing was wrong. Course, I don't. I don't

465
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: feel too good about this, but I'm gonna make you

466
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, I gotta keep my job. I don't

467
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: want to have to go to the Russian front nightmares. Now,

468
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: the commandant of this place fortunately had forgotten completely about her,

469
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: because again he was drunk when he pointed to her

470
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: and said bring her along. So she just got lucky there.

471
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: But there was this other Nazi officer who was so

472
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 1: friendly to her that Laura started to suspect that he

473
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: might even be a Jew in disguise. And he offered

474
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 1: her one night a chance to sneak away. He could

475
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: get her fake Arian papers that would allow her total freedom.

476
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: That's tempting. It was very tempting, and she thought about

477
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: it for a minute. She's like, you know what, Yeah,

478
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna This is my best chance right now, and

479
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: I gotta do it. So she goes with this guy

480
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 1: late at night to sneak away, and he brings her

481
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: alone into this empty house and there, instead of giving

482
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: her anything, he beat her and he questioned her about

483
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: the commandant, who he thought that she had a secret

484
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,199
Speaker 1: romance with. He was like, why did he single you

485
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: out to bring you here? There? Must be something going on,

486
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: and this guy was vying for power. He was trying

487
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: to get the commandant kicked out, and looked like the

488
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 1: hero for it. But of course she knew nothing, and

489
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 1: she kept telling him I know nothing, at which point

490
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: he beat her again and he raped her, you know,

491
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: And there's not much to comment on. That not uncommon

492
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: for Jewish prisoners either. I think it's not something that's

493
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,719
Speaker 1: that's touched on as much, but it was certainly something

494
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: that any time you have abusive men in power with

495
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: a bunch of women helpless. Yeah. Yeah, of course after

496
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 1: this she was sent to Budson, a Polish concentration camp

497
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 1: and her third location. Remember they said that was one

498
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: of the first earlier, that was the place she was

499
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: trying to avoid. And yeah, this was a much more

500
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 1: difficult experience and much closer to the traditional depictions of

501
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 1: concentration camps that you've read about that you might jump

502
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,919
Speaker 1: to like I do in my mind. Constant grueling labor,

503
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: meager rations that kept everyone hungry, constantly, brutal assaults, random shootings.

504
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: But it was here that she met a man who

505
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: would make her dark days a little brighter. His name

506
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: was Bernard Hillman and we'll get to know him right

507
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: after this commercial break. Welcome back to the show, everyone. So,

508
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: Bernard Hillman was a Polish Jewish soldier who had been

509
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: captured by the Nazis and brought to Budson as well.

510
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: He was among the Jews who were forced by the

511
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: Nazis to be an intermediary between the soldiers and other prisoners.

512
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: This is a very complicated thing that you know, isn't

513
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: us to go into too much here, um, But a

514
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: lot of Jewish people were forced by the Nazis to

515
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: work for them, and some of them were awful and

516
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: they were They were also tried as criminals and traders

517
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: and it was horrible. Um. This guy, at a very

518
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: minor job, was basically just the escort between the camp

519
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,439
Speaker 1: and their labor area. Um. And he got out of

520
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 1: it as quick as he could. Another mind. Yeah, by

521
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: the way, So Laura met him when she was being

522
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: brought to the woods for her assigned work to dig

523
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,239
Speaker 1: a mass grave, and they immediately locked eyes and they

524
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: were totally entranced by each other. Now, he told her

525
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: to meet him in a small room behind the kitchen

526
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: at night, and when they met there that night, which again,

527
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: amazing that she was trusting enough to do this after

528
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: her last experience. He gave her stolen sweetened coffee, and

529
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: he brought and food. It was like nothing she'd had

530
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: in weeks. And there he asked her how she came

531
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: to Budson, and she just blurted out everything she told

532
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: him about volunteering to go with her family, about losing them,

533
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: and even the rape she endured in Krasnik. Then he

534
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: told her of how he arrived in Budson. He had

535
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: been drafted into the Polish Army in nine Before long

536
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: his unit was captured and sent to a German pow camp,

537
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: and he was there for three years, barely surviving a

538
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: case of typhoid fever. And he said after he recovered,

539
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: he made an attempt to escape, but he was captured

540
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: and the Germans beat him so badly that he could

541
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: not sit for weeks. At the pow camp, nobody knew

542
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: he was Jewish. He didn't hide it deliberately, but when

543
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: he saw Jewish prisoners singled out for punishment and the

544
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: Nazis making them walk barefoot in the winter, he told Laura, quote,

545
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: you can see why I didn't own up to who

546
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: I was, and one day the Germans made the prisoners

547
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: an offer. He announced all Jewish prison ers were free

548
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: to go home. He was eager to get back to

549
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: his mother and his sisters, but just like Laura and

550
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: the officer at Kreshnik, of course, this was a lie.

551
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: As soon as he and the other Jewish soldiers stepped forward,

552
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: they were herded onto trains awaited by men from the

553
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: s s and that was what brought him to Budson.

554
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: It's so weird because it feels in retrospect, it just

555
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: feels like why why would you believe them? Ever? But

556
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,479
Speaker 1: at the time, this isn't history yet, is it? Just

557
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:31,239
Speaker 1: you don't even know what's going on outside of your

558
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: own prisoner camp, right, You're in the bottle, and all

559
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: you can do is is what's the bottle doing? I

560
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: can't even care what the what anything else is happening

561
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: outside of this bottle. If you even know what, you

562
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: probably don't even know. Yeah, it's just like, let me

563
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: just take the best option available to me at any

564
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: given time. And again, their mind fucker's so they probably

565
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: sometimes would tell the truth, and some people wouldn't you

566
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because that would lead to more trust,

567
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,719
Speaker 1: which means, oh, I'm gonna get It's like putting out

568
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: at it and getting more fished. You know. Laura wrote

569
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: that as soon as he finished telling this story quote,

570
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: it was at that moment that I realized how deeply

571
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: I had fallen in love with him. Can you imagine

572
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: love at first sight in a concentration, love at first

573
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: sight standing over the mass grave you're digging, you know,

574
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I only barely believe it in regular life.

575
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: It seems wild to be able to have like hearts

576
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: and stars kinds of feelings when you're in the midst

577
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: of such heavy, horrible circumstances. I imagine the contrast must

578
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: be even greater though, you know, like again, just a

579
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: light in a dark place, like a nice cold drink

580
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: of water in a desert. Yeah, um, you know. And

581
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: at this point she definitely gets into it. In her book,

582
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: she's kind of has to find ways to reconcile with

583
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: what she's doing, because if you do that or you

584
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: or you die, Because if you're not keeping up the

585
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: pace of your work, you die. If you're being defiant

586
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: or despondent at all, they decide you're not worth their time.

587
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: It was very easy to get yourself killed, because that's

588
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do in the first place. So

589
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,479
Speaker 1: you've got to kind of erase what you're doing a

590
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: little bit um and try not to think about it.

591
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: And that's definitely a mentality that she describes again and again.

592
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: Hillman revealed that he had managed to get out of

593
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: his duty as an underling for the Nazis and he

594
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: was going to go work in the camp kitchen. His friend,

595
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: the cook had arranged it. Again, you know the right people,

596
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: even in a concentration camp, there's some strings you might

597
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: be able to pull, and then it's a gamble as

598
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: to whether or not that's going to work out for you.

599
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny? That's the world over, no matter what

600
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: situation or circumstances you're in, if you know the right person,

601
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: you can pull the right string. So weird, and it's

602
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: scary because some of these strings were like, if you

603
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: pull the wrong one, you're debt, you know, and anyone

604
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: who was willing to help you out was taking a

605
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: huge risk to themselves and maybe the people they cared about.

606
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: Every few nights, Laura and Hillman managed to meet up

607
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: in their secret spot where he gave her this warm,

608
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: sweetened coffee and food, and she said, quote the anticipation

609
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: of seeing him each day made getting up at dawn

610
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: not nearly as bad, but of course not nearly as

611
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: bad as relative when you're going to concentration camp. She

612
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: was still working at the mass grave. One day, a

613
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: woman next to her collapse to the ground. When Laura

614
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: tried to help her up, a soldier put his gun

615
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: in her chest and said she'll get up on her own.

616
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: The woman struggled and cried, so the Nazi shot her

617
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: dead right next to Laura. Meeting with Hillman again that night,

618
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: he gave her a hot bowl of vegetable soup and

619
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: a sweater and a pair of warm boots. And she

620
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: could not believe this gift. I do want to interject

621
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: here at this point, at this camp, that was kind

622
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 1: of okay, like you had some of the clothes that

623
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: you brought with you, and she if she had these

624
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: warm boots, she could wear them. You know at this

625
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: particular camp that that'll change elsewhere, but but at least

626
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: you know she had if you had warm clothes, you

627
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: could wear them, and that was a huge thing. So yeah,

628
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: she could not believe this gift. It was like heaven

629
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: sent and she asked why he would risk so much

630
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: to make her feel better, and he replied, you should

631
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: know by now why I'm doing this. Cute and his

632
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: friends called him Dick, so she started to call him

633
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 1: Dick as well. That night, in the dark of the shed,

634
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: they shared their first kiss. He asked what she remembered

635
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: most about home, and she told him, quote, a lilac tree.

636
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: It bloomed every May, around the time of Mama's birthday.

637
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: Papa would stand under the tree and sing songs of

638
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: lilacs and love to her. And he smiled at her

639
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: and replied, quote, one day, when this is over, I'll

640
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: plant you a lilac bush. Perhaps it will grow and

641
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: become a tree like the one you remember. And the

642
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: title of Laura's autobiography is I Will plant you a

643
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: lilac tree. Over the next few months, things started to

644
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: change in Budson. Younger soldiers were being swapped out for

645
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: older ones, which Dick explained to Laura was because the

646
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: war wasn't going well for the Germans, so the younger

647
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: men who had been working at the camps were being

648
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: sent to the Russian front, and she asked him over

649
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: and over again. Where he was getting all this information,

650
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,959
Speaker 1: because he knew a lot more than anybody else did,

651
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 1: But he refused to tell her, and he actually started

652
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: to withdraw a little bit. She saw him less and less.

653
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: Soon he disappeared entirely, and Laura started to get incredibly worried.

654
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: She learned from a friend that Dick did have some

655
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: connections to an underground movement outside the camp. Somebody knew

656
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,879
Speaker 1: about this and had been blackmailing him, but eventually that

657
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: fell through and he was turned over to the SS.

658
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: Now the commandant was away, so the soldiers that brought

659
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: him in and imprisoned him couldn't do anything until he

660
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: got back. This guy was in Berlin taking care of

661
00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: some business, so he just sat there. In Three days

662
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: passed and Laura had no word from him. And then

663
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,839
Speaker 1: while she was walking to her job, a prisoner came

664
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: up behind her and whispered, quote, keep walking, good news.

665
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: Hillman is free. He's in bad shape, but we'll get

666
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: him back on his feet. Meanwhile, Laura discovered that one

667
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: of her little brothers, Sally, was also at Budson, but

668
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: he was emaciated and weak. He had been beaten to

669
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: the point of his lung collapsing a few weeks earlier,

670
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: and she knew that if he was too weak to work,

671
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: the Nazis would kill him. When she heard that a

672
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 1: group of weakened Jews were to be walked to the

673
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 1: woods for execution, she dared to confront the camp's new commandant,

674
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: Joseph Leipold, a ruthless killer, and tell him that her

675
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,479
Speaker 1: brother was on the list mistakenly and that he could

676
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: still work. Leipold was pleased that she spoke fluent German

677
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: because they were in Poland again, so it's not a

678
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 1: lot of people spoke German. He probably just liked hearing,

679
00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: you know, the sounds of home. So she was shocked

680
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 1: when he ordered her brother to be taken to the infirmary,

681
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: fed double rations and not to be disturbed. But unfortunately

682
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: he still died a few days later. It's so bizarre,

683
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: and they talk about this in the book a lot too,

684
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: that the SS is so unpredictable, and like you said,

685
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: like you just never know when to trust them or not.

686
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: They commented that Laura's mother was sent her father's ashes.

687
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: That was many people did not get such a quote

688
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: unquote courtesy from the Nazis, and that was so bizarre.

689
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 1: They were never able to figure it out. They asked

690
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 1: over and over again, why would they do it like this?

691
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: Why are they doing this? Why are they showing this kindness?

692
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,720
Speaker 1: Why are they being that cruel? There was no answer.

693
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: I mean again, I really think it's psychologically like we

694
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: are torturing you. You just will never know where you

695
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 1: stand and never know what to do, how to move.

696
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 1: That's a great way to in prison, effectively in prison

697
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: an entire population without ever putting them behind bars. You

698
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: can very easily limit someone's movements like that, and then

699
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: if you're doing it while they're also behind bars. It's

700
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: so sad too about her brother, because she was this

701
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: whole time. It's not the focus of this story, but

702
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: if you read her book, and you really really should,

703
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: she's looking for her family. She does not know where

704
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: they are, what happened to them. Ever, this her brother, Sally,

705
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,760
Speaker 1: is the first one she's seen in months and um

706
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: and then he died there and she was relieved that

707
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: he died in the infirmary, you know, as opposed to

708
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 1: something more horrific, But that he died at all, of course,

709
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: was tragedy in its own right now. Over the weeks,

710
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: Budson was growing too large with prisoners, and eventually they

711
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: had to relocate them, hundreds at a time to other camps.

712
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: They started shipping out prisoners and Laura was placed on

713
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: a new train, being separated by gender. Of course, she

714
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 1: had no idea if Dick was also being sent away,

715
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:54,760
Speaker 1: or if they were going to go to the same place.

716
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 1: Just no information again, no hotline, right, and it's not

717
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: like they and be like, all right, everybody, let me

718
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: tell you exactly what's going on, so that you won't

719
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: be nervous. When the train stopped and she paused briefly

720
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: just to look to the other doors and see if

721
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 1: she could see him, one of the s S soldiers

722
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,839
Speaker 1: beat her in the head. They all lined up and

723
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: the commandant from Budson, Joseph Leipold, was there and he

724
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 1: announced to them, quote, the easy days of Budson are

725
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: over here. You'll learn what work means, which is one

726
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: of the worst things I've ever heard someone say. Me

727
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: is God. At first, Laura got another nursemaid job. She

728
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: went to go work for Leipold himself as the nurse

729
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: maid to his children. Again. Because of her German he

730
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, you know this girl, I'll keep an

731
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: eye on her and I'll keep her close. You know.

732
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 1: It was good to have his students with the German nursemaid,

733
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:52,280
Speaker 1: but once again his wife hated her. Who are these

734
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: Nazi bitches? Oh my god? I wonder again if that's

735
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: not just part of the program. Maybe it's part of

736
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: the design. Although I'll say in the book she said

737
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: she met another girl at the camp who also was

738
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: her nurse made for a while and they got along fine.

739
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Again, maybe it's the by design.

740
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it's all part of that trust play that

741
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: they're doing. Yeah, I don't know, but he didn't like her,

742
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: and Leopold, unlike the previous officer, was not standing up

743
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: for Laura at all. Apparently speaking German didn't only went

744
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: so far, and he tormented her until she failed, then

745
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: blamed her for it and sent her to work in

746
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: the salt mines, shoveling salt into the backs of trucks,

747
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: which was brutal physical labor, and she got very sick

748
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: while she was doing this as well. I mean, being

749
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: sent to the salt mines is is basically shorthand for

750
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: here's a horrible job you have to do and you'll

751
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: probably die from it. She learned while she was in

752
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: the Minds that Dick had been taken to the concentration

753
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: camp at Plajof after he'd smuggled letter to her begging

754
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: her not to volunteer to come be with him there,

755
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: saying their commandant Aimon Gerta was quote a sadest of

756
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: the worst kind. And you may have heard of Amon Gurta.

757
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: He is the worst of the worst. I mean, this

758
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: guy was a monster and he was definitely hanged after

759
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: the after the war, finally some good news. Yes, absolutely,

760
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,879
Speaker 1: but he was a monster. If you've seen Schindler's List,

761
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,240
Speaker 1: that's the character that Raye finds plays in the movie.

762
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: So you just know what a bastard he was. He

763
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: was really a monster. Just he would, allegedly he would

764
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: just stand at the bottom of the hill while prisoners

765
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: were walking up to their job in the minds, pull

766
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 1: out two pistols and just start shooting for fun. I

767
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 1: mean this, this is the seriously sadistic in a way

768
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: that I've I don't know if I've ever heard anyone

769
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: has been since. So when Dick said, please don't do

770
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: what you did with your family and volunteer to come

771
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: here because it will not be worth it. She did

772
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: not want to go to Plajof, but it was not

773
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:05,800
Speaker 1: long before she was transferred there anyway, her fifth camp.

774
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: This place was huge, with wooden barracks extending for miles.

775
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: Laura wrote quote, I saw skeletons who resembled human beings

776
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: walking from one end of the barbed wire complex to

777
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: the other. She and the other transfers were forced to

778
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: kneel while their hair was cut off. Her long shiny

779
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: hair was reduced to uneven stubble. Her clothes were taken,

780
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: including the warm boots Dick had gotten for her, and

781
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: she was given an ill fitting gown and wooden boots.

782
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: Everything about her identity was taken from her. She was

783
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: reduced to just a number, and she received her assignment

784
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: once again at a mass grave. Prisoners were made to

785
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: even out the ground to hide the evidence of the atrocity. Yeah,

786
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: this one was already a grave. It was full, and

787
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: they were just smoothing it out so that you couldn't

788
00:42:55,960 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: tell what it was. That is horrible. And as her

789
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: line of workers passed by a line of men, she

790
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: heard a familiar voice say, I can't take it anymore, No,

791
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: Lilac Tree. It was dick, but he looked bad. A

792
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,439
Speaker 1: few days after she saw him again, and each time

793
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: they met eyes he looked worse. One day, a smuggled

794
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: note came to her, quote, little one, our dream of

795
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: being together is fading rapidly. I can't fight any longer.

796
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: If only I could hold you in my arms once more.

797
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: She read it over and over, wondering how this man

798
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 1: who had risked his life so many times willingly to

799
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: help others, could have sunk into such a depression. And

800
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 1: we will learn what was going on with him for

801
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: a little teaser for you right after this, and we

802
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: are back now. What Laura was finally able to meet

803
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: with She learned what had broken his spirits since his

804
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: arrival at Plajaov. His job was to pull bodies out

805
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,760
Speaker 1: of the pit, rip the gold teeth from their mouths,

806
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: and toss the bodies into a fire. Laura wrote, quote,

807
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 1: I knew of the beatings and hangings that went on,

808
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 1: but I didn't know about the mass graves, of these proportions,

809
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: or of violating the dead by removing their gold teeth.

810
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: All I could think was that the world had gone mad,

811
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: but in this dark moment, Dick gave her a glimmer

812
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: of hope. He said, quote, a man by the name

813
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: of Oscar Schindler is taking eleven hundred Jews out of here,

814
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,399
Speaker 1: if only we could go with them. All right, now,

815
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: you've heard of the infamous Schindler's List, and you've probably

816
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: seen the movie. And seeing as how Oscar and his

817
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: wife Emily saved over a thousand Jews from being murdered,

818
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: you'll probably be hearing their episode on this show one day. Yeah,

819
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: I would like to do that, absolutely, um, But if

820
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar, just real quick. His factory employed Jewish workers,

821
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: where he would regularly intervene on their behalf using bribes

822
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: and personal diplomacy quote, both for the well being of

823
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: Jews and to ensure that the s S did not

824
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: deport his Jewish workers. According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum,

825
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: in October of nineteen forty four, Schindler opened an armament's

826
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,320
Speaker 1: factory and drew up a list of twelve hundred prisoners

827
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: that needed to work in the new factory. That list

828
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: was eight hundred Jewish men and four hundred Jewish women

829
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: from the murderous camp of Plajof. A few days later,

830
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: Dick and Laura met through a chain link fence separating

831
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: the men from the women, and whispered to each other.

832
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,919
Speaker 1: Dick was in better spirits than she'd seen him since

833
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: they first met, and he said he had great news

834
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: in defiance of Aim and Gerta himself. Schindler had a

835
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: list of Jews he would be taking from Plashoff to

836
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: his camp in Czechoslovakia, and Leopold would be the commandant

837
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: of the camp. Dick was among fifty Polish POWs that

838
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: Leipold submitted to the list, and Laura was so happy

839
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 1: for him, but also worried because Leipold, you know, had

840
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: been mad at her when she failed as his children's

841
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: nurse maid. But while she worried, Dick blurted out, Leipold

842
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: asked for you by name. She could not believe any

843
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: of it, not that a man like Oscar Schindler would

844
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 1: do such a thing, or that Leopold would select her personally.

845
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 1: So they promised each other in that hopeful moment that

846
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: no matter what, they would not give up on each other.

847
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: Days and days went by and she didn't see Dick.

848
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 1: She did she didn't see Dick. Dick, damn it. Days

849
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: and days went by without her seeing him. But soon

850
00:46:57,640 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: she and some of the other women in her barrack

851
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: received an order. They were going to Shindler's camp in Brunlets.

852
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,800
Speaker 1: The women were shoved into another train, but Laura said, quote,

853
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: even when the iron bar was placed across the door

854
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: of the cattle car, it was not as traumatic as

855
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: it had been on previous journeys. This trip was still terrible.

856
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: There was a single bucket for a bathroom, which soon overflowed.

857
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 1: They could barely move, barely breathe. She said, you know

858
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: it was desperate to get some real estate by a

859
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: crack in the wall. Yeah, And they would start to

860
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: get mad at each other. This person doesn't have enough room,

861
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 1: this person has too much room. Just a really horrible journey.

862
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 1: They had virtually no food or water for days as

863
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:46,840
Speaker 1: they traveled across Poland. Finally the train stopped and the

864
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: doors opened. A group of men came up and rushed

865
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: them out of the train with even more urgency than usual,

866
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: and Laura felt like something was wrong. This was not Brunlets.

867
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: She asked one of the men where they were, and

868
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: he whispered back to her, this is Auschwitz now. Laura

869
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: wondered if there had been a mistake, but as we've said,

870
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: there's no one to register a complaint with or ask

871
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 1: for anything. She even thought about her said, I thought

872
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 1: about going to one of the guards and saying, excuse me,

873
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on Oscar Schindler's list. And she said, you

874
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: know that she might get herself killed just by asking that,

875
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: just for just for asking the question, So you just

876
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: don't ask. And the guards marched them for hours from

877
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: the train station until they finally reached the gates of

878
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: the camp. Some still had hope, knowing that Oscar Schindler

879
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: would save them, but Laura had lost any optimism. She

880
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,839
Speaker 1: saw smoke billowing from a towering chimney, and a girl

881
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,720
Speaker 1: near her explained, there are showers here with no drains.

882
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: Instead of water, gas comes out and the bodies are

883
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: burned in that crematorium. Laura didn't believe it until she

884
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: smelled it, and soon she and several other girls were

885
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:07,240
Speaker 1: led into a large tile room with shower faucets overhead.

886
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,239
Speaker 1: She was terrified. For several minutes, nothing happened, and she

887
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 1: prayed that if she were going to die, then at

888
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: least it would be quick. Then miraculously, water came pouring down,

889
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: and the girls laughed and cried, and they hugged each

890
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: other in that moment. But things were worse at Auschwitz

891
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: than anywhere she had been yet, She wrote, quote, my

892
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: hunger was so intense I started to lose touch with reality.

893
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 1: I dreamt of Dick and our happy stolen moments. Was

894
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: he safe in Schindler's camp? Or had he too been betrayed?

895
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,240
Speaker 1: The plans we made, the planting of a lilac tree,

896
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: Those dreams were all that sustained me. Now she learned

897
00:49:55,560 --> 00:50:00,719
Speaker 1: that they were actually in Birkenhew Himmler visited Auschwitz and

898
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: ordered that it be expanded, and burkn Now was created.

899
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: Auschwitz as a whole could now hold a hundred and

900
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:12,320
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand prisoners who were subjected to daily torture,

901
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: hard labor, meager rations, and even medical experimentation. Some were

902
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: given diseases like spotted fever for vaccination research. A Nazi

903
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: gynecologists tested absolutely horrific sterilization techniques on women in the

904
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 1: camp that we're just not going to go into in detail.

905
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: And Joseph Mangela practiced unneeded blood transfusions and dissections on

906
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: Romani's who were there who had either twins or had

907
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: any kind of disability. From its construction in May of

908
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: nineteen forty to its liberation by the Russian Army in

909
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: January of nineteen forty five, over one million, one hundred

910
00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 1: thousand people were killed just at Auschwitz. Soviet soldier Ivan

911
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: Martin Noutchkin told The Times of Israel that when the

912
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: Red Army invaded at Auschwitz, quote, we knew nothing. Then

913
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: we noticed the people behind the barbed wire. It was

914
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,800
Speaker 1: hard to watch them. I remember their faces, especially their eyes,

915
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 1: which betrayed their ordeal. At first, these prisoners were frightened

916
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: of the Russians and they didn't believe they were being freed. Again,

917
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 1: we've talked about how they play with your trust here.

918
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,879
Speaker 1: All in all, there were only seventy living people when

919
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: the Russians got there. I think it's telling too that

920
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: this Russian soldier said, we didn't know anything about this.

921
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 1: How many of them didn't. I mean that shows you

922
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:45,160
Speaker 1: how closed off the news loop was. People really had

923
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: no idea the extent of what was happening at these places,

924
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 1: and there might have been rumors, but it would be

925
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,320
Speaker 1: very easy to discount them because they were so wild,

926
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:59,440
Speaker 1: Like why would you I'm not sure you'd believe. I mean,

927
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: we have people today that don't believe it happened, but

928
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: especially at the time, without seeing it for yourself, it

929
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,720
Speaker 1: would be really hard to believe that anyone was capable

930
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:11,719
Speaker 1: of that. And among the deaths at Auschwitz, suicide was

931
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 1: not uncommon. This probably doesn't surprise anybody listening to this story. Um,

932
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:22,359
Speaker 1: some people threw themselves against electrified fences. Laura considered, as

933
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: many had done before, just stopping work and letting a

934
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,360
Speaker 1: soldier do the rest. But in these dark moments, she said, quote,

935
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: in my mind, I took leave of all the people

936
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: I had loved in life. Only when it came to

937
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: saying goodbye to Dick did I hesitate. Had we not

938
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 1: promised each other not to give up? So she chose

939
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: instead to save her own life. One day, she was

940
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: selected with another group of prisoners for what she knew

941
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 1: was going to be execution in the gas showers, and

942
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,960
Speaker 1: when she saw a group of heavy laborers walking by,

943
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: she slipped out of her own line and joined them.

944
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: She broke and lifted rocks the rest of the day,

945
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: with only an inconsequential hold up when the Nazis counted

946
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 1: one too many workers in that group. And when she

947
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: returned to her barracks that night, she was punished by

948
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: her bread rations being taken away, and Laura wrote, quote

949
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 1: a small price to pay for my life. Seriously, I

950
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 1: mean again, just another ballsy move, crazy moment to try

951
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: and save your own life. If she hadn't thought to

952
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: do that, that would have been it. And it was

953
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 1: something that she also spoke about a lot. Uh, you

954
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: had to really keep up your appearance as a healthy worker.

955
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,799
Speaker 1: You never wanted to be in the infirmary for longer

956
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: than a few hours. They would come in. If somebody

957
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 1: was there for more than two days, they'd come in

958
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: and say, all right, if they would have inspections um

959
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: every morning and evening, and they would pinch their cheeks

960
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: to look rosier, they looked more alive. Some girls would

961
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:00,760
Speaker 1: even prick their fingers and rubbed it into their cheeks

962
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 1: like they used to do for you know, for rouge,

963
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:07,440
Speaker 1: just to look healthier. Because they would just pull people

964
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:09,320
Speaker 1: out and execute them right there in front of everyone.

965
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 1: As the weeks turned to months, and autumn turned to

966
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: a cold, brutal winter. Three women who were on Oscar

967
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 1: Schindler's list rarely mentioned his name anymore. Then one night

968
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: Laura thought that she was dreaming when she heard a

969
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:28,720
Speaker 1: pounding on the door. A soldier shouted, quote Schindler. Women

970
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:32,399
Speaker 1: up and out. Their names were read out, one by one,

971
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: and then she heard it hannahlore Wolf. Now, at this

972
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 1: point Laura was barely surviving. She was skin and bones,

973
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: and she could barely make it to the train. And

974
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: this journey was even more difficult than the fake ride

975
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 1: that took them to Auschwitz, since they were so much

976
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 1: weaker Now. Finally they arrived at Brunelitz. Someone shouted, look

977
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: that man in the hat, that's Oscar Schindler, And Laura

978
00:54:57,200 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: said she expected this like little portly man, but she

979
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 1: saw this dashing, tall, charismatic guy who assured them all

980
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 1: that they had nothing more to worry about. He pointed

981
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: to a large building and told them that hot soup

982
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: and bread were waiting for them. When they went inside.

983
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: There was a balcony above the dining hall where men

984
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: stood waving and calling out to the new rescued women.

985
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 1: Above all their voices once stood out to Laura, shouting quote,

986
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: little one, I've been looking all over for you. But

987
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: Laura was too weakened and embarrassed at her current state

988
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 1: to respond. She even thought she might be hallucinating, so

989
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: she ignored it. No, God, can you imagine that this again? Trust?

990
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: After all, this, after every every Nazi and Oscar Schindler

991
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:49,879
Speaker 1: technically as a Nazi, and how many of them have said,

992
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 1: you're safe here, this is the best place you Canna,

993
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: I got food for you, pointed at a large building.

994
00:55:57,520 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 1: I'm it would be so hard to do it. It's

995
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:03,320
Speaker 1: the balance of like, how can you trust anyone anymore?

996
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:05,880
Speaker 1: And at the same time, you just have to trust

997
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 1: everything because you never because something someday is going to

998
00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: kill you, and you might as well just say, all right,

999
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:15,959
Speaker 1: if you say so, I'll go with this one. Maybe

1000
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:18,000
Speaker 1: this will be the thing that kills me. Maybe this

1001
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:20,399
Speaker 1: will be the thing that saves me. I just can't

1002
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,960
Speaker 1: imagine having to live with that mentality. Its insane. And

1003
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: you know, another thing worth remembering is that sometimes you

1004
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:33,800
Speaker 1: question people's choices as if they have a good choice

1005
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: to make. A lot of times you just have a

1006
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 1: lot of shitty options, and you have to pick one,

1007
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: and after the fact you can say as stupid they

1008
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 1: were whatever, But there's really no there's no knowing. Joseph

1009
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: Leipoldt was the commandant at Schindler's camp, but Schindler was

1010
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 1: having a difficult time controlling him. The male prisoners told

1011
00:56:57,120 --> 00:56:59,839
Speaker 1: the women that they had overheard him saying his goal

1012
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: was to exterminate every Jew. But when Schindler established the camp,

1013
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:08,280
Speaker 1: he ordered that his workers were not to be harmed,

1014
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 1: and he had to place constant bribes to keep them alive.

1015
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,360
Speaker 1: He was arrested three times by the Nazis, but the

1016
00:57:16,440 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 1: charges never stuck. He was very well connected, very wealthy.

1017
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: It's crazy, and again we'll do the Schindler episode eventually,

1018
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,240
Speaker 1: but or we'll get more to this. But he kissed

1019
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: a Jewish girl on the cheek and they arrested him. Yeah, yeah,

1020
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:33,200
Speaker 1: and but he was always able to get out. This

1021
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,000
Speaker 1: guy spent he was very wealthy, and he spent so

1022
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: much money keeping these people alive. So much of it

1023
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 1: was bribery. Two nights later, after her arrival, through the

1024
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: fence that separated the men and women, she saw Dick.

1025
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: They touched their fingers through the chain link. He had

1026
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 1: secured her a job in the kitchens, where he could

1027
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 1: again bring her sweetened coffee and extra food as he

1028
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 1: had done in Budson, and the relative freedom of brinlets.

1029
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 1: Dick could tell her all about his connections to the

1030
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: Czech partisans who were helping. They were providing the Jews

1031
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: with food, a radio, and even guns quote for when

1032
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:16,880
Speaker 1: the time comes to use them, and he knew it

1033
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 1: was only a matter of months before the Russian army

1034
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: would arrive. Leipholt was their only obstacle. One evening, Dick

1035
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 1: told Laura to close her eyes, and when she opened them,

1036
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: he was holding out an apple. This was incredible. She

1037
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 1: said that she was like a child with a piece

1038
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: of candy, and her strength came back to her as

1039
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: she ate fuller and better meals. And while working in

1040
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: the s s kitchens wasn't pleasant as you can imagine,

1041
00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:46,680
Speaker 1: she believed Dick when he said that she had nothing

1042
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 1: to fear. She said of the soldiers she fed quote,

1043
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 1: they were sullen men from humble backgrounds. Now that they

1044
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 1: had been put into positions of power, they suddenly felt

1045
00:58:56,440 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: self important. They treated her with disdain and complained about

1046
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 1: the food she served them. And I don't know if

1047
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: any of y'all have ever worked service industry in a restaurant,

1048
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 1: but it's already like that with just a normal person

1049
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: who comes in and is like, I have a position

1050
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 1: of power. Now, a lot of people in restaurants don't

1051
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:18,080
Speaker 1: act like themselves. They get a little worse. Now, imagine

1052
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 1: those people are actually Nazis. I mean, that's why, you know,

1053
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: if you're going out on a date, it's great to

1054
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 1: see how the person treats the serving staff, because that's

1055
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: how they treat people who they think of in any way,

1056
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: shape or form is being a little bit less than them,

1057
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 1: at least in this particular place. Someone who has to

1058
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:39,080
Speaker 1: serve me and they have to do what I say,

1059
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: and how you act in that situation says a lot

1060
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 1: about your care. And these guys were awful, these characters. Occasionally,

1061
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:52,160
Speaker 1: Oscar Schindler himself would come into the kitchen and he'd

1062
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: say something very nice to her. She said she was

1063
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,440
Speaker 1: He was always very kind, and he would loudly ask her,

1064
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: are they treating you right? Like yeah, that was awesome. Yeah.

1065
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: Otherwise Schindler would be gone from the camp for weeks

1066
01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: at a time, but they knew that his absences were

1067
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:13,560
Speaker 1: related to their survival. Again, he was often out just

1068
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: making bribes, wheeling and dealing to make sure, No, you

1069
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 1: can't ship these people out of my camp. I need them.

1070
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 1: They're very valuable. A lot of the workers in Schindler's

1071
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 1: camp would have been killed somewhere else, like they were

1072
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 1: not skilled laborers, they were not very healthy, strong people.

1073
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: And he said, no, I specifically need these people. You

1074
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: cannot take them away. Give me some more if you

1075
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:37,560
Speaker 1: got him. And it cost him a lot of bribe money.

1076
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's so amazing too because he probably knew, like, well,

1077
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 1: if they do have a skill, they're probably being spared anyway,

1078
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:48,880
Speaker 1: because we need you know, Germans need the skills. So

1079
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:51,880
Speaker 1: if they're unskilled, that's who I need to say, right,

1080
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: so I gotta find a way to make them looking useful.

1081
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: Like that's really amazing. But when Oscar Schindler did not

1082
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 1: return for months, the prisoners started to worry. Dick noticed

1083
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:06,560
Speaker 1: that Leiphold was spending more time on the factory floor

1084
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: with inspectors. He thought they were going to send word

1085
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:12,480
Speaker 1: to Berlin that Schindler's factory wasn't efficient enough, and that

1086
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: can undermine his power. This is so crazy to think about, Like,

1087
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: you're so close, you're there, You're at Schindler's Camp, the

1088
01:01:20,160 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: safest place you can be in this world, and still

1089
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: the threat is constantly there. And can you imagine being like,

1090
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:31,000
Speaker 1: I have to survive this because I'm so close to

1091
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 1: the end, And how scary that would be. God, No,

1092
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 1: because you have so much more hope here than anywhere else.

1093
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: You know, in other places people just have lost the

1094
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: will to live, and here you're being given like, we

1095
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 1: just have to make it through the war and we're

1096
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. But then there's this guy there, this

1097
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:53,240
Speaker 1: power crazy lunatic who loves to hurt and kill people.

1098
01:01:54,040 --> 01:01:59,959
Speaker 1: Oh God, But fortunately in April of nine, Oscar return

1099
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 1: earned for his thirty seventh birthday. He gave kind of

1100
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: a drunken speech on the factory floor to workers and

1101
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: soldiers alike, telling them that the Third Reich was soon

1102
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: coming to an end and that the s S men

1103
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: here were now the prisoners of Brunlets, which would be

1104
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: a dope speech to hear. I have to say, I

1105
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: feel like that would really fill me with a lot

1106
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: of joy that I'd be like, am I a bad person? No?

1107
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 1: I'm a good person. Fuck you, but unlike me. This

1108
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 1: speech frightened Laura and Dick because they've been through a lot,

1109
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: so for a drunk guy to pull out right at

1110
01:02:36,280 --> 01:02:38,600
Speaker 1: the end there, you know, that's what Laura and Dick thought.

1111
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: They were like, if Leipold heard about this speech, he

1112
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:44,800
Speaker 1: could take extreme action, and we know what extreme means

1113
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 1: when it comes to Nazis. But later that night a

1114
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 1: friend approached them, shouting, this is important. Leipold has left Bruletts.

1115
01:02:53,760 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: He is on the way to the Russian Front. It

1116
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: was Oscar Schindler's doing. I love what I'm saying right

1117
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:01,960
Speaker 1: to the place, and not of them want to go

1118
01:03:03,000 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 1: so deserved. Sorry, bitch, deal with the Red Army now.

1119
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:08,880
Speaker 1: And I don't know. It's hard to find stuff about

1120
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: Leopold specifically. I don't know if he died there or

1121
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:13,919
Speaker 1: was tried later. But we did not have to deal

1122
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 1: with him anymore. Bye bye. So a little over a

1123
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: week later, Schindler assembled the workers and announced, quote, what

1124
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 1: I have to say is important. Germany has unconditionally surrendered.

1125
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,480
Speaker 1: I have just listened to the BBC and to Churchill's

1126
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: victory speech. We've been through a lot together. What we

1127
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 1: hoped for has finally happened. And within days the Russian

1128
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:43,080
Speaker 1: army came to the camp. Dick grabbed Laura's arm and

1129
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:45,880
Speaker 1: ran her outside, where the Russian officer on horseback walked

1130
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:50,360
Speaker 1: through the gate. In Russian, Dick called out, welcome, our liberator.

1131
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: The Russian officer teared up and told them, quote, I

1132
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:57,600
Speaker 1: am a Hebrew like you. You can walk out of

1133
01:03:57,640 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 1: here at any time. And for a brief moment, there

1134
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: was a great silence and then an eruption of cheers

1135
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:10,480
Speaker 1: and cries in a half dozen languages, all saying the

1136
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 1: same thing, we are free. Laura's autobiography ends here, but

1137
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:22,680
Speaker 1: she and Dick were married on October twenty two in

1138
01:04:22,720 --> 01:04:27,760
Speaker 1: Bavaria by a Jewish Army chaplain. She learned that her mother,

1139
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: both her brothers, and sixty three members of her extended

1140
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:38,440
Speaker 1: family had all been murdered in the Holocaust. Only her

1141
01:04:38,480 --> 01:04:42,920
Speaker 1: two older sisters, who we're already living outside of continental Europe,

1142
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:47,720
Speaker 1: had survived. In seven she and Dick came to America

1143
01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: and started a new life in New York City, and

1144
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:53,480
Speaker 1: eventually they settled in Los Angeles, California, where they had

1145
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:58,040
Speaker 1: a son, Rob Hillman, in nineteen fifty four, and there

1146
01:04:58,520 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: Dick kept his promise and planted her Lilac bush in.

1147
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:08,800
Speaker 1: Dick Hellman died of heart disease. Laura ended up working

1148
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: as a docent at the Long Beach Museum of Art

1149
01:05:11,360 --> 01:05:13,720
Speaker 1: and traveled to high schools across the country to tell

1150
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:17,800
Speaker 1: stories about her experiences and spoke publicly about the dangers

1151
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:24,040
Speaker 1: of bigotry, bias, and prejudice. In nine, her son Rob

1152
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:28,080
Speaker 1: took her to see Schindler's List at the theater. He

1153
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:31,680
Speaker 1: said in an interview quote, she kept whispering to me

1154
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:35,640
Speaker 1: about how accurate the movie was. When we left, a

1155
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:38,880
Speaker 1: woman who had been sitting behind us berated my mother

1156
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:42,360
Speaker 1: for talking throughout the movie, saying it was not being respectful.

1157
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,560
Speaker 1: My mother replied, oh, I just wanted to tell my

1158
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 1: son about my experiences in the concentration camps. The woman

1159
01:05:51,720 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 1: was so embarrassed she could have sunk into the floor. Goes,

1160
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. I mean, oh my god. So anyway,

1161
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 1: stuff talking ship. She's keep it to yourself. Mind your business,

1162
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 1: mind your business, Schindler's List, Mind your business at Sindler's List.

1163
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:16,360
Speaker 1: If I saw an old woman whispering to her grandson

1164
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:20,280
Speaker 1: during Schindler's List. My first thought is, Oh God, did

1165
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 1: she survive the Holocaust? Okay, either she's Nazi or Jewish,

1166
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:26,160
Speaker 1: and I'm not want to hear it either way. I

1167
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:31,920
Speaker 1: don't want to interrupt. Oh my god. Laura said it

1168
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: was always painful for her to relive her memories from

1169
01:06:34,200 --> 01:06:37,600
Speaker 1: the camps, but she said in an interview quote, it's

1170
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 1: very important to understand one another that we are not prejudiced,

1171
01:06:41,480 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: that we don't condemn people who don't look like us

1172
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:46,920
Speaker 1: or have a different religion. We will never have peace

1173
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: in the world until we learn this. Laura died peacefully

1174
01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:56,280
Speaker 1: in her home in Orange County on June four, at

1175
01:06:56,360 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 1: ninety six years old. Oh wow, man, can you imagine

1176
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:04,160
Speaker 1: being in one of those camps and trying to imagine

1177
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 1: or California or the next day. I mean, it seems

1178
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:14,120
Speaker 1: like um so much that you have to really make

1179
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 1: your days very small. You know, it's really minute by

1180
01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:21,640
Speaker 1: minute more so than like what's happening tomorrow or next week.

1181
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:24,280
Speaker 1: But you also kind of have to think about that

1182
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 1: in a way like there, you know, like this guy,

1183
01:07:27,680 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 1: this leaphole thing, they're like, oh, is this speech going

1184
01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:32,760
Speaker 1: to do? What's he gonna do? You know, but it's

1185
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:36,280
Speaker 1: still very small. Your world is so shrunk. Oh man,

1186
01:07:36,360 --> 01:07:41,600
Speaker 1: this story Uh yeah, I mean, but how how nice beautiful?

1187
01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:44,720
Speaker 1: She got her Lilac Bush and they got to be together,

1188
01:07:45,080 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 1: and that goddamn Lilac Bush gets me every time. Oh

1189
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: my god. And I was like, I didn't even cry

1190
01:07:51,720 --> 01:07:54,080
Speaker 1: when she's getting raped and stuff, But as soon as

1191
01:07:54,080 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: I read that Lilac Bush, I started stop. Yeah. I mean,

1192
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:01,400
Speaker 1: there's a real beauty too it because if you you

1193
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:04,480
Speaker 1: can just see the love that human beings are capable

1194
01:08:04,520 --> 01:08:10,520
Speaker 1: of despite any circumstances, and that's magical, that's wonderful. I

1195
01:08:11,160 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 1: seriously wish we could stop creating these circumstances for ourselves

1196
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:19,080
Speaker 1: to have to find love in, you know, like why why?

1197
01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:22,559
Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know. It just hits so

1198
01:08:22,640 --> 01:08:25,519
Speaker 1: hard and you really need to read this book. It's

1199
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:29,160
Speaker 1: very interesting story. It's very different from other sort of

1200
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: holocaust and concentration camp literature you've read, and it's shocking

1201
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,240
Speaker 1: and it's unbelievable. And I think even today, as we

1202
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:42,679
Speaker 1: see horrible things happening and people treating each other horribly

1203
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 1: and prejudice and bigotry and all this. Um, even knowing that,

1204
01:08:48,200 --> 01:08:51,559
Speaker 1: it's still hard to believe how something like this could happen.

1205
01:08:52,479 --> 01:08:56,080
Speaker 1: But um, and well, you just want to do whatever

1206
01:08:56,120 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 1: you can to stop that from ever happening again. And

1207
01:08:59,280 --> 01:09:02,360
Speaker 1: I don't know that something at this scale, this organized

1208
01:09:02,400 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 1: could happen in in the modern world. But at the

1209
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:09,680
Speaker 1: same time, this was eighty years ago. Yeah, this was

1210
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 1: very recent. Historically speaking, the time between World War One

1211
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 1: and World War Two is like from nine eleven to now,

1212
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 1: That is not a long time. That was like a

1213
01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:28,560
Speaker 1: that was like a pause, practically right, it is crazy.

1214
01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:30,720
Speaker 1: And then of course people, you know, get out of

1215
01:09:30,760 --> 01:09:32,800
Speaker 1: World War One and go, well, we'll never do that again.

1216
01:09:33,080 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 1: A terrible idea. We're all so fucked from that war.

1217
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:39,720
Speaker 1: And I'm sure, well obviously that led to a lot

1218
01:09:39,720 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 1: of isolationism and people going I'm not getting involved in

1219
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 1: all that ship that y'all are doing over there in

1220
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:46,880
Speaker 1: Germany for a long time. But but I think also

1221
01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:49,200
Speaker 1: there was a sense of naivete of like, well, it's

1222
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:52,439
Speaker 1: how could the whole world be in conflict again? I

1223
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:56,240
Speaker 1: can't that can't happen twice in a lifetime. That's wild.

1224
01:09:56,880 --> 01:10:00,280
Speaker 1: Who would expect that? Well, I think we've kept you

1225
01:10:00,320 --> 01:10:03,600
Speaker 1: in the Holocaust for long enough. Yeah, I think I

1226
01:10:03,640 --> 01:10:05,880
Speaker 1: think just to yeah, lighten it up a little bit.

1227
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:10,080
Speaker 1: As you said, it's just really wonderful to see the

1228
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:14,200
Speaker 1: humanity come through in times when it would even seem

1229
01:10:14,320 --> 01:10:18,520
Speaker 1: to be smarter to abandon your humanity just for survival,

1230
01:10:18,920 --> 01:10:21,120
Speaker 1: to be like he put himself at risk to help

1231
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: her and other people, Oscar Schindler did it, you know

1232
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:27,400
Speaker 1: what I mean, It would make more sense logically to go,

1233
01:10:27,520 --> 01:10:30,120
Speaker 1: We'll funk everybody else but yourself. And once you're out

1234
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 1: of this situation then you can start being a good

1235
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:35,160
Speaker 1: person again. Being a good person is a luxury of circumstance,

1236
01:10:35,760 --> 01:10:39,320
Speaker 1: but particularly the Holocaust has so many incredible stories like

1237
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:41,360
Speaker 1: this where you see people going, you know what, No,

1238
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:45,040
Speaker 1: I'm going to do the hard thing, and that's really

1239
01:10:45,320 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 1: very inspiring and beautiful, even though it's it is hard

1240
01:10:49,040 --> 01:10:53,360
Speaker 1: to tell the story without being very sad. You know

1241
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:56,719
Speaker 1: this story in particular, and again, the book is called

1242
01:10:57,080 --> 01:10:59,519
Speaker 1: I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman,

1243
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:02,800
Speaker 1: and God damn, the lilac to got me again, and

1244
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:05,880
Speaker 1: it is an amazing story, And I think that's a

1245
01:11:05,880 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: big part of it is there's so many instances. You know,

1246
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:12,559
Speaker 1: we just isolated her and Dick's story in here mostly,

1247
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,280
Speaker 1: but there's so much else going on, and so much

1248
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,559
Speaker 1: of this story is the people who stuck their neck

1249
01:11:17,600 --> 01:11:20,559
Speaker 1: out to help her, and the times that she stuck

1250
01:11:20,560 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 1: her nuck out to help other people. She saw this

1251
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:25,680
Speaker 1: girl who had been kind of living it up in

1252
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:28,799
Speaker 1: one of the camps, like really did okay for herself,

1253
01:11:28,840 --> 01:11:31,679
Speaker 1: again relatively speaking, but she was getting all the food

1254
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:34,439
Speaker 1: she you know, extra food and kind of special treatment

1255
01:11:34,479 --> 01:11:37,080
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then when they all got to Auschwitz,

1256
01:11:37,520 --> 01:11:41,559
Speaker 1: she had none of that, and she was broken and miserable,

1257
01:11:41,600 --> 01:11:44,800
Speaker 1: and she got real mean and kind of like got

1258
01:11:44,840 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: really nasty to the other prisoners. And at one point, Laura,

1259
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:52,759
Speaker 1: when they were on the train with the with the

1260
01:11:52,760 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 1: bathroom bucket, Nazi came in and told this girl that

1261
01:11:57,240 --> 01:11:59,400
Speaker 1: she had to go empty it, and the girl didn't move,

1262
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:03,280
Speaker 1: and Laura immediately stepped up, grabbed the bucket and did

1263
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:05,840
Speaker 1: it herself. She knew if I didn't do that, they

1264
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:08,559
Speaker 1: would have killed her and maybe somebody else, but the

1265
01:12:08,600 --> 01:12:10,720
Speaker 1: fact that I stepped forward to do it. You know,

1266
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:12,960
Speaker 1: at least someone was doing it and they just didn't care.

1267
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:15,559
Speaker 1: But she ended up spilling it all over her dress

1268
01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:17,080
Speaker 1: and had to take the rest of the train ride

1269
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:20,120
Speaker 1: like that. Like you know, again, just an example of

1270
01:12:20,160 --> 01:12:22,479
Speaker 1: somebody really putting themselves at risk for someone else. And

1271
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:25,280
Speaker 1: there's so much of that through that story that there

1272
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 1: is a lot of beauty to it. Um it's tough read,

1273
01:12:28,439 --> 01:12:32,000
Speaker 1: but it's short reads, like two pages. Really worth it though,

1274
01:12:32,560 --> 01:12:36,040
Speaker 1: And speaking of the lilac bush that keeps getting getting

1275
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 1: me right in the gut. What a simple thing, a

1276
01:12:40,200 --> 01:12:44,600
Speaker 1: simple thing to want, a simple gesture really of And

1277
01:12:44,640 --> 01:12:46,959
Speaker 1: it must have felt so good to say, I'm planting

1278
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:50,200
Speaker 1: something because we're here, We're going to be here, not

1279
01:12:50,400 --> 01:12:54,759
Speaker 1: moving around. I'm not worried about what's happening. I feel solid,

1280
01:12:55,760 --> 01:13:02,559
Speaker 1: Like just that alone would be such a pleasure. Man,

1281
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:06,760
Speaker 1: if everybody in there didn't deserve a nice retirement house

1282
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 1: in Long Beach, California, you know, I'm all somewhere to

1283
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:16,160
Speaker 1: live in Orange County. Oh well, look, thank you all

1284
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:18,000
Speaker 1: for listening to this one. I know it's it's a

1285
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:20,760
Speaker 1: slightly different than what we usually do, but again, a

1286
01:13:20,840 --> 01:13:26,600
Speaker 1: story worth telling. Help you enjoyed it in whatever definition

1287
01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:29,559
Speaker 1: of that you want to take. Yeah, maybe it didn't

1288
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:32,120
Speaker 1: leave your role it on the floor laughing, but hopefully

1289
01:13:32,160 --> 01:13:35,360
Speaker 1: you still get to get something valuable out of this story,

1290
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:39,360
Speaker 1: some enjoyment. It's some kind If any of our Polish

1291
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:41,639
Speaker 1: Polish listeners want to write in and tell us how

1292
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:46,760
Speaker 1: we butchered the name, you know, but but please reach

1293
01:13:46,760 --> 01:13:48,960
Speaker 1: out regardless, we'd love to hear from you your thoughts

1294
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,719
Speaker 1: on this really challenging story, um on any other episodes

1295
01:13:52,720 --> 01:13:54,360
Speaker 1: we've done in the past, or if any ideas you

1296
01:13:54,400 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 1: have in the future, Shoot us an email Romance at

1297
01:13:56,920 --> 01:13:59,760
Speaker 1: I heart Media dot com right or slide into the

1298
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:03,080
Speaker 1: d ms on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Dyanamite boom,

1299
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:05,519
Speaker 1: I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is

1300
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,719
Speaker 1: at ridict Romance. Don't forget to drop us a review

1301
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:12,599
Speaker 1: at the podcast or remember Spotify you can rate now.

1302
01:14:12,640 --> 01:14:14,360
Speaker 1: So if you're listening on Spotify, go and drop us

1303
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:17,000
Speaker 1: a five star. We'd love that and we will catch

1304
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:20,519
Speaker 1: you next week with more exciting episodes. Cannot wait. Take

1305
01:14:20,600 --> 01:14:24,320
Speaker 1: care so long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks so

1306
01:14:24,600 --> 01:14:28,760
Speaker 1: listening to our show. Tell your friends names Uncle Sandance

1307
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:31,400
Speaker 1: to listen to our show Ridiculous well Nance