Keys: A Troubled Inheritance

An epic journey to uncover a Holocaust inheritance leads relentlessly to discovering a Nakba inheritance: two catastrophes that are very different, but very connected. Can they both be heard and understood?

With personal testimony, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph.

Hosted online by the Balfour Project, and available on all leading podcast sites, KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance launched on September 6th, with the release of Episode 1.

There’s a new episode every Wednesday through to November 8th. The second season runs weekly through spring 2024.

How are relations with the Arabs?

Try getting along in peace and friendship.

It’s likely to be important!

Mike Joseph’s grandfather, writing in 1935

Watch the trailer

In the trailer for Keys, by remembering his family lost in the Holocaust, Mike Joseph encounters the Palestinian Nakba.

How do radically different histories connect?

Listen now!

Listen to all episodes below (new episodes released weekly).

Also available through Spotify, Audible, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, and Castbox.

A note on names

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.

In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian).

Three names, but one city.

Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.

Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian).

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the large Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.

Episode 1: Show notes

How are relations with the Arabs? 

Try getting along in peace and friendship. 

It’s likely to be important!

Mike Joseph’s grandfather writing in 1935

THIS EPISODE

In this first episode of Keys, by remembering his family lost in the Holocaust, Mike Joseph encounters the Palestinian Nakba. How do radically different histories connect? This journey uncovers many connections. But does it break too many taboos?

Episode 1 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 6 September 2023, and now available on all platforms.

KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance, Episode 1
One day in 2006, in a noisy café in Ukraine, Mike thought he had just met a survivor of the Holocaust massacre that destroyed his mother’s family. He turned out also to be a veteran of Israel’s War of Independence, now bitterly rejecting Israel’s occupation of Palestine, telling his family there was no hope and they should leave.

This incident, captured in sound, sums up the contradictions Mike discovers in this epic journey. Working to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, he is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out the two different catastrophes are very connected. But can they both be heard and understood? 

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph. 

CREDITS

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Amnon Neumann, Fatima Abu Salem, Sami Abu Salem, Lilli Gold, Rose Gold, Henryk Luft, Moshe Kolesnik, Yehudah ben Baruch, Itamar Shapira, Asha Phillips.

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Video sources

Lilli Gold, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. From the archive of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education  http://sfi.usc.edu/

Israel and West Bank locations by agreement with Boom Cymru TV Cyf.

Batorego Cemetery, Ivano-Frankivsk; Henryk Luft; Yad Vashem viewing platform; handmade Israeli flag © Mike Joseph

Zochrot Truth Commission session with Amnon Neumann by agreement with Zochrot

Images

Lilli Gold

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph   Producer

Zac Ware   Sound Editor

Jesse Lawrence   Video Editor

Micha Wink   Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor 

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

Michelle Alderson   Graphic Designer

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

CAST in programme order

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig Policeman

Werner Bauer as Ralph Dippmann

George May as Israel Gold

Andrea Brondino as Henryk Luft

Episode 2: Show Notes

How are relations with the Arabs? 

Try getting along in peace and friendship. 

It’s likely to be important!

Mike Joseph’s grandfather writing in 1935

THIS EPISODE
In the second episode of Keys, as the Second World War ends, people long for better times, and the United Nations does something about it, declaring genocide a crime against humanity, declaring slavery an abuse of human rights, declaring asylum and freedom of thought to be human rights, as well as the right to own property and not have it stolen. But two states immediately deny that right to refugees from their terror. Mike’s mother is one of many thousands, denied that right. 

Episode 2 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 13 September 2023, and now available on all platforms.

KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance, Episode 2
In this epic journey, Mike works to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are very connected. But can they both be heard and understood? 

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph. 

CREDITS 

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips, Lilli Gold, Rose Gold. 

 

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

 

Audio sources

The Hundred Year House, BBC 1999

Images

Lilli Gold

Mike Joseph

Holger Jackisch

Sami Abu Salem 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph   Producer

Zac Ware   Sound Editor

Micha Wink   Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor 

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

CAST in programme order

Terry Dimmick as Car Park Attendant

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig Policeman

Young Asha Phillips as Dorothea Gold

Wera Hobhouse as Marie Nummer

Zac Ware as Fritz Grunsfeld

James Stewart as Ralph Dippmann [English]

Klaus Riekemann as Leipzig Property Administrator [German]

Richard Tebboth as Leipzig Property Administrator [English]

James Stewart as Wolfgang Vogel [German]

Patrick Thomas as Wolfgang Vogel [English]

Episode 3: Show Notes

How are relations with the Arabs?

Try getting along in peace and friendship.

It’s likely to be important!

Mike Joseph’s grandfather writing in 1935

 

KEYS EPISODE 3:  RESISTING RESTITUTION

In 1943, while Mike’s mother’s family were being killed, a Nazi journalist obtained Mike’s mother’s home, the Leipzig house from which the SS had expelled them a few years earlier. 

In 1951, instead of returning the home to Mike’s mother, East Germany stole it again, and handed it back to the Nazi journalist. 

Now it is 40 years later, 1991, and Mike arrives in newly reunited Germany to try finally to recover his mother’s house. But he encounters official obstruction and resistance.

And then he discovers the Nazi journalist is still alive, and still holding his wartime plunder. 

Episode 3 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 20 September 2023, and is now available on all platforms.


CREDITS for this episode

 

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips.

 

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

 

Images

Lilli Gold

Mike Joseph

Holger Jackisch

Sami Abu Salem 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph   Producer

Zac Ware   Sound Editor

Micha Wink   Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor 

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

CAST in programme order

Wera Hobhouse as Marie Nummer

Christel Stoecker-Danby as Leipzig Housing Manager

Kerstin Barthelmes as Frau Jordan, Leipzig Property Claims Officer

James Stewart as Ralph Dippmann

Klaus Riekemann as Aron Adlerstein

Melissa Pawelski as Suzannah Kucharski

Clemens Hofer as Peter Kirsten

Christel Stoecker-Danby voicing confiscation and conveyance to Dippmann 

James Stewart voicing conveyance to Dippmann