Keys: A Troubled Inheritance

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.

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

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]

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

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 4 : NAZI JOURNALIST DEFIES JEWISH JOURNALIST

What do you say to an old Nazi? With this question, Mike Joseph’s daughter Asha opens an episode in which we hear what Mike does say when suddenly, in 1991 he encounters the Nazi who stole his mother’s house fifty years earlier. 

The old Nazi shouts him down. Then Mike finds that he is not the only voice in newly-reunited Germany refusing to return property stolen by the Nazis.

Episode 4 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 27 September 2023, and now available on all platforms.

 

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips, James Stewart

 

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

 

Images & music

Lilli Gold

Mike Joseph

Holger Jackisch

Sami Abu Salem 

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

Dresden Bombing: Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1994-041-07, Dresden, zerstörtes Stadtzentrum.jpg   Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1994-041-07 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483604

Licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

Foreign & Commonwealth Office main building.jpg, created: circa 2014 QS:P,+2014-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902

Public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

Klaus Kinkel: Tohma, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Helmut Kohl: © European Communities, 1996 / EC, Photo:  Christian Lambiotte

Otto Lambsdorff: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F046792-0029 / Wegmann, Ludwig / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons

Hinrich Lehmann-Grube: Axel Hindemith, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Brahms, German Requiem, The Holden Consort Orchestra and Choir http://ml.cs.colorado.edu/~ben/Brahms/

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

 

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

Daniel Ratthei as Burkhardt Kolbmuller [German]

Werner Bauer as Ralph Dippmann [German] 

James Stewart as Ralph Dippmann [English] 

Christel Stoecker-Danby voicing confiscation and conveyance to Dippmann [German], James Stewart [English]

James Stewart as Holger Jackisch and voices of UK Foreign Office, Leipzig City Council and Federal German Government, Daily Telegraph

Klaus Riekemann as Hinrich Lehmann-Grube and Christian Jacke

Bruno Bubna-Kasteliz as Klaus Kinkel and Otto Lambsdorff 

Christine Willison as Lilli Gold

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 5 : THE QUEEN AND THE CLAIMANT
Mike Joseph’s mother petitions the Queen for help to recover her Nazi-plundered house from a resistant Germany. The Queen’s response unlocks a wave of British government action, which escalates towards an international crisis. In this episode, a very personal family story becomes a highly political dispute.

Episode 5 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 4 October 2023, and now available on all platforms.


CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips, James Stewart

 

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

 

Images & music

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

Micha Wink 

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

Brahms, German Requiem, The Holden Consort Orchestra and Choir http://ml.cs.colorado.edu/~ben/Brahms/

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

 

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

Christine Willison as Lilli Gold

James Stewart as Robert Fellowes, voices of UK Foreign Office, Martin Gilbert, British Ambassador to Germany. 

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 6: UKRAINE’S INCONVENIENT HISTORY

Nationalism comes under the spotlight in Episode Six: Israel Gold, Mike Joseph’s grandfather, adds a four-kilo dictionary to his soldier’s kit bag in November 1917. We discover why. Then, without knowing it, Israel Gold becomes Ukrainian, an identity which will through time reveal the strengths of multiculturalism and the perils of ethnic nationalism.

Episode 6 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 11 October 2023, and 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 & music

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

Micha Wink 

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

 

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

George May as Israel Gold

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 7: BRITAIN BOOSTS ZIONISM

In Episode 7, when Nazi Germany excludes Jews from citizenship, Israel Gold, Mike Joseph’s grandfather, is forced to consider emigrating to Palestine. He learns Hebrew and Arabic, because his kind of Zionism seeks a bi-national state of all its inhabitants. But in 1937, the British Government reveals a different plan: a Jewish state, with its native Palestinian population removed by force. How will Zionism react, and what will Israel Gold do?

Episode 7 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 18 October 2023, and 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

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

 

Music

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

Ba’a M’nucha, Nathan Alterman & Kurt Weill – Gail Stewart soprano, Mike Joseph piano

 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

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

George May as Israel Gold

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

Richard Tebboth as David Ben Gurion

 

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 8: 2nd CLASS IN POLAND, 1st CLASS IN PALESTINE

In 1938 Britain and the USA call an international conference to rescue Jewish refugees from Hitler. The world refuses to open its doors, a humanitarian disaster that clears the way for Hitler’s Final Solution. But astonishingly, Zionists attending the conference see this as an achievement. How could that be?

Episode 8 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 25 October 2023, and 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

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

 

Music

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

 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

James Stewart as Joseph Goebbels and voice of Der Stürmer

George May as Israel Gold

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

Andrea Brondino as Monsignor Giuseppe di Meglio

Richard Tebboth as David Ben Gurion

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

Alice Gold as young Lilli Gold

Mick Napier as Henryk Ehrlich

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig policeman

 

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 9: HOW TO BECOME A REFUGEE

How do people become refugees? What’s it like? Mike Joseph’s aunt became a refugee on her 10th birthday. This is the story of comfortable family life transformed in an instant, narrated by the family’s only survivors. Yet even refugees are not the most unfortunate. Some are trapped, unable to escape, awaiting their fate. 

 

Episode 9 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 1 November 2023, and 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

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

 

Music

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

 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

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

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig policeman

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

George May as Israel Gold

 

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 10: CAN HOLOCAUST VINDICATE OCCUPATION?

This double episode closes the first season of Keys. 

With the Hamas invasion and massacre of October 7 2023 leading to the 2023 Israel-Gaza War, this episode brings its historical understanding to the cruel events that are unfolding as we work. We reveal that the horror that fills the news every day has its roots deep in the history of Israel-Palestine. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reminded the world that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. This special episode shows how the deeds and decisions of the past are projected on to the screen of today. If we know our history, can that help us to escape it?

Episode 10 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 8 November 2023, and now available on all platforms. All episodes of the first season are now available.

BONUS: URGENT GAZA REPORT

Release of Episode 10 in November 2023 coincides with the intensive Israeli bombing campaign of Gaza. Gaza City is encircled and cut off from south Gaza. Gaza journalist Sami Abu Salem, who works with us to narrate this double story of Nakba and Holocaust,  is an enforced witness, who occasoinally manages to send reports when internet service is briefly available. This is his report from November 5th. 

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

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem 

 

Music

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

 

Sources

Eulogy for Ro’i Rothberg by Moshe Dayan, Avnei Derekh, Tel Aviv 1976, p191; q. in Zertal, Idith, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press 2005, p180

Universal International News, 6 August 1956, Suez Crisis

Theodor Meron, A life of learning, American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper No 65, Pittsburgh, 9 May 2008. Memorandum by Legal Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Theodor Meron) to Political Secretary to the Israeli Prime Minister, 18 Sep 1967

Israeli Kahan Commission Report is main source for the Israel-Falange history. Its Appendix can be accessed at: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4887715-Kahan-Commission-Appendix-Complete-English.html

Ben Gurion, speaking to the Israeli Cabinet, May 24, April 26, May 7, 1953, Israel State Archives; quoted in Tom Segev, A State at Any Cost, 2018, p512

 

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

 

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

 

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

Sami Abu Salem, interviewed by Mike Joseph

James Stewart voicing Moshe Dayan, Theodor Meron, BBC World Service Newsreader, Baruch Ben Meir

Rabbi Dr Gerhard Graf voiced by Mark Levene

Lilli Gold voiced by Christine Willison

Hoda Khoury, interviewed by Mike Joseph

Primo Levi voiced by Andrea Brondino

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General 

Gilad Erdan, Israeli Ambassador to UN 

CREDITS for this episode

Reporter   Sami Abu Salem

Presenter   Mike Joseph 

Images

Sami Abu Salem 

 

Music

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