368: Behind the True Story: Not a Real Enemy with Robert Wolf

00:04:08:10 – 00:04:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
We have a few movies to talk about today, but before we do that, let’s start by flipping things around a little bit. Normally here on the podcast, we talk about things that filmmakers change from the true story. But I know you’ve been working to get your book called Not a Real Enemy About Your Father urban story told into a movie.

00:04:26:22 – 00:04:43:03
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, we can’t predict the future to know when or if that will happen soon, but let’s hope for the best and say it is turned into a movie. So what’s one key thing that you want to make sure the filmmakers don’t change from the true story in the film adaptation?

00:04:43:06 – 00:05:01:18
Robert Wolf
Well, hopefully all of it, of course. But, that’s the easy answer. My dad’s for escapes or what? For example, my dad was a four time escape artist, and he missed an escape, too. He was fortunate, and he sports enough to go to the wrong train station under communist Hungary. And everybody made that train got arrested, including his, medical school classmate.

00:05:01:18 – 00:05:08:07
Robert Wolf
So all of that. I’d like to be, as accurate as possible as, cinematography. Cinematography.

00:05:08:10 – 00:05:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
Cinematography.

00:05:09:04 – 00:05:29:27
Robert Wolf
Yeah, yeah, as close as possible. Color movie, color in color. Obviously, a lot of the older movies are black and white, like Schindler’s List, which I hope we talk about a little bit more. That movie I just saw the movie and a resonates very, very much so with the story that I’m that we’re telling here. And then his upbringing, you know, it doesn’t have to be a long part of his upbringing.

00:05:30:00 – 00:05:49:23
Robert Wolf
And if I could cast a movie, it’d be Tom Hanks playing my dad and Tom, or that Tom Hanks Tom cruise. Tom Hanks plays one of the nicer, guards in the labor camp, a forced labor camp. A lot of the movie should cover the forced labor camp, the beatings, getting urinated on, getting shot at by Russian planes, all that kind of thing.

00:05:49:23 – 00:06:09:12
Robert Wolf
So there’s a lot of content. And, you know, of course, we wanted as close as possible, but any good producer writer screenplay would, would switch it up a little. I just hope they keep the, you know, as they keep the fidelity as much as possible. I mean obviously you got to make changes to capture an audience and hopefully that would be the case.

00:06:09:16 – 00:06:29:04
Robert Wolf
And you know the other thing is some people say could be a feature film. Some people say a documentary docu drama series. I wouldn’t care as long as they did a good job with it. There’s 40 chapters in our book, so, you could. I don’t think it’d be a 40, 40, show series, but certainly 10 or 15 would be, you know, one season’s worth at least.

00:06:29:04 – 00:06:45:15
Robert Wolf
So it’s always up to the producer, or whoever gets a hold of, the story. The it’s not in a screen stand in a screenplay yet, but, I, I leave that to the I leave that to Hollywood or whatever, discovers whatever we’re doing here. And if they do so it’s a, it’s a wing and a prayer.

00:06:45:15 – 00:07:02:01
Robert Wolf
And I know it’s a such a long shot. It’s easier to get into medical school, which I’m a position. I’m a radiologist, recently retired. It’s easier to get into medical school than to sell a New York Times bestseller. A bigger story and a movie, as we well know, nobody knew Schindler was, you know, 20, 30 years ago and nobody knew who.

00:07:02:01 – 00:07:18:29
Robert Wolf
And Frank was way back in the day. And, the, Life is Beautiful story I never wanted I mean, I never even think about, Italy and the Holocaust until I saw that movie and both of them the second time. Both great movies. And we could talk about those details and how they resonate with what we’re doing.

00:07:19:01 – 00:07:29:01
Robert Wolf
And I’m glad I saw them after I wrote a book regarding the Holocaust and beforehand to what a what a different viewpoint or what a, what a difference that makes.

00:07:29:01 – 00:07:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
Certainly we’re going to we’re going to talk about those for sure. But as we shift into some of the movies that that have been made, there are a lot of movies that are set before and during World War Two. So what I’d love to do is to get your take on some of those and how they compare to your family’s experiences that you talk about in your book.

00:07:48:28 – 00:08:06:05
Dan LeFebvre
And the first movie that I’d like to start with is a classic film, The Sound of Music, and it tells the story of how life changes for the von Trapp family as Nazi Germany annexes Austria in 1938. And as we watch a movie like Sound of Music, it’s possible to see the warning signs when we watch the movie now.

00:08:06:05 – 00:08:26:00
Dan LeFebvre
But of course, anytime we’re watching a movie like that, we’re also looking at it through a historical lens because we already know what’s going to happen from history instead of being there in the moment. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Austria is like less than 100km from where your father grew up in Hungary, so he wasn’t that far from where the annexation unfolded.

00:08:26:03 – 00:08:30:24
Dan LeFebvre
What were things like in that region as Germany annexed Austria?

00:08:30:27 – 00:08:57:20
Robert Wolf
Well, as you know, the fact the rise of fascism almost simultaneously with the Great Depression, the Roaring 20s, were okay in Hungary and throughout the world. We think the war was over. Things were doing well. And meantime, of course, Hitler was it was a building, the military machine that he was, because Germany’s economy was, it was, that’s how they that’s that was their economy was the military, of course, 33 is where fascism was on a rise in 38, 1938.

00:08:57:20 – 00:09:17:28
Robert Wolf
And in Hungary, there were anti-Jewish laws were initiated. So you couldn’t on the radio, you could only go out at certain times. There was, no Jews or dog signs up, of course, Kristallnacht. If, I’m not mistaken, in Germany, Austria was 1938, a very big event. That’s where they started taking force.

00:09:17:28 – 00:09:39:06
Robert Wolf
Laborers, the men, the young men that were wealthy, they started to take them away to forced labor camps and, really didn’t affect Hungary. I mean, the anti-Jewish laws were there. So they were persecuted and shunned, if you will. But the the killings and the, the the the most of it didn’t really, happened in Hungary till 1943, 1944.

00:09:39:09 – 00:10:03:00
Robert Wolf
My dad ended up going to after his first forced labor camp in 1943 and October, and then his parents were taken away to Auschwitz, in 1944. So Poland got hit first, obviously in 1939, Kristallnacht before that, 1938. And then Hungary, a little bit later, what I’m told. And from when I’ve read Hungary had the fastest, the fastest pace of homicide, of genocide of any of them.

00:10:03:00 – 00:10:33:07
Robert Wolf
So, that includes Ukraine and Russia, which they were brutalized and the Polish, 1939 of the refugees went to Hungary. And, the Hungarian government sent the refugees back, unfortunately. And, and it really badly for them. And so this resonates with Poland, with the, with the Schindler idea too, because, a lot of similarities between that and what happened to Hungary, although we’re talking about 1941 versus 1943 and 1944, but it could be the same, the same idea that, you know, a little bit, a little bit different background, different scenario.

00:10:33:07 – 00:10:36:09
Robert Wolf
But, a lot of the common, a lot of common themes.

00:10:36:13 – 00:10:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Since you mentioned it didn’t really touch Hungary, but it’s touching all these countries around. And I’ve, I’ve never visited Hungary, but I can imagine that the proximity isn’t that far. I mean, there’s borders, you know, it’s technically a different country, but there’s these atrocities that are happening. What was it like for your your father as a child and your your grandparents?

00:10:59:15 – 00:11:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
And when they’re, when they’re seeing, I mean, they had been seeing in the news what’s going on where they.

00:11:04:15 – 00:11:30:29
Robert Wolf
Well, what a great question. Well, you say seeing in the news, we realize that my dad in Hungary and his parents never own a car. They never owned a TV. You bring up a great point. Jews were not allowed to have radios. So. And so they had a radio. He, his dad had enough courage to hide a radio, and they would quietly listen to the BBC, during the uprise of the uprising, with a lot of hope and a lot of prayer that that it end soon and relevant to that.

00:11:31:01 – 00:11:50:08
Robert Wolf
During my dad’s first escape toward. They thought it was the end of Lord, they don’t get much news that the forced labor camp, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, about near the Austria Hungary border. And even though they escaped, the Jews first of four, which some are remarkable, they didn’t know whether to flee to Budapest or stay in Hungary or go to Austria because they didn’t know who’s going to win the war.

00:11:50:11 – 00:12:04:24
Robert Wolf
And, you know, the Nazis won the war and they end up in Austria. They’re dead men. And if there’s a chance in Hungary, not Hungary proper, but the West, turns out it’s not the West. It was Soviet Union. If they win the war, maybe they’re better off in Hungary. It turns out either way, you know, you’re a Jew.

00:12:04:24 – 00:12:28:23
Robert Wolf
You’re screwed. I mean, those men, only 5% of the forced labor survived, in the in that process, including my dad, because he was on the run and hiding at the time. He wasn’t the. The rest of them that survived were treated as prisoners of war. Unfortunately. So 5% of forced labor, they had death marches. And that’s why my my dad and his friend Frank decided to, escape the first time because they thought they were on a death march.

00:12:28:28 – 00:12:59:27
Robert Wolf
And nobody knows about death marches in Europe. They don’t. I mean, historians might know. We all know about Okinawa and, the Pacific, but not a lot of people know. So when they thought you weren’t useful anymore, they killed you. So. And that was true at the Danube, very end of the war. Unlike Schindler, where the guards just go home, I, I’d like to talk about that for a few minutes, too, but, it’s a fantasy that these people, because the, guardians were treated and my mom and dad said that, that, the the Arrow Cross, for example, was like a Hungarian Gestapo and the the White Terror or the Red

00:12:59:27 – 00:13:17:14
Robert Wolf
terror or the the Nazis. The communists, they didn’t treat if you felt like if you’re Jewish, you were still scared of whoever was in charge. And, the Hungarians, the police and the military treated the Jewish people worse than the Nazis themselves. And that’s another thing that resonates with some of these movies, too. Women versus men.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:26:27
Robert Wolf
Women guards versus Benghazi, pets. A lot of the, you know, a lot of things, humiliation. There are a lot of compare, a lot of things to talk about that are that resonate, big time.

00:13:27:00 – 00:13:48:21
Dan LeFebvre
I love that you mentioned the the radio and the communications there, because that’s something that I think I kind of like what I mentioned before, you know, when we watch a movie, we’re looking at it with a historical lens. So we think of, oh yeah, you can get news from all around there. And in my question I ask, you know, seeing things, but there’s that there has to be that almost added level of fear.

00:13:48:21 – 00:14:06:13
Dan LeFebvre
I would imagine, of not knowing, like, you know, that there’s some bad things going on, but you don’t know the full extent of it. And you then there’s that fear of just not knowing, because then your mind would start to go make things up that, I mean, there were some horrible things, but I, I mean, and it’s something I have a hard time wrap my head around.

00:14:06:14 – 00:14:12:26
Dan LeFebvre
What, like put yourself in the historical context of what that must have been like. It had to have been just terrifying for your for your father.

00:14:12:28 – 00:14:31:13
Robert Wolf
Well, part of the reason. Yeah. No intervention for many, many years, after the war started, it, because the United States had the, for example, had the, had the, the duty to protect its own citizens. So getting involved with the war, it was, was tough communications. I couldn’t say it better. You know, the real cell phones there, no lawyers or no courtrooms.

00:14:31:15 – 00:14:50:23
Robert Wolf
The cops and the. And the military pointing guns. It. Yeah. And fortunately, in this country, we. That’s not happened yet. So there’s one thing. No communication, just the radio, which was illegal. It probably would’ve been shot and killed if they got caught with it. And, and forced labor camps out in the middle of nowhere, even less communication than we had a regular camp in the US growing up, you know?

00:14:50:23 – 00:15:11:04
Robert Wolf
So, word of mouth. So things got a little easier for the men? Not much. But as the their guards got bribed, dental treat, free dental treatments. But, yes, there was a dentist. Obvious, obvious threat to society, killed at Auschwitz and his mom as well. And Deb didn’t find out about two months afterwards. Another miracle, from an eyewitness.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:29:04
Robert Wolf
And, that’s another point that, the witnesses besides no cell phones, no video, a lot of photographs taken, as we know, the Nazis took many, many photographs. So denying the Holocaust and even communist Hungary just. There’s no way you can’t sell that. But the witness, the witness was the next victim is how it turned out.

00:15:29:04 – 00:15:46:14
Robert Wolf
Like at the Danube walk and death marches. Or as we’ve seen, these mass burial, sites, in Ukraine for example, or in the concentration camps. So the witnesses were literally the next victim. So very, very hard to, to wrap my arms around that. And like you said, very hard to get information again.

00:15:46:20 – 00:16:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
I it’s it’s hard to wrap your head around, but but putting yourself in that context of what that must have been like, I, I love the like in your book when you’re when you’re telling that story, it, it it does a really good job of, of helping to put the, the reader in that place of what that must have been like in there.

00:16:07:07 – 00:16:23:18
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m curious because there are a lot of details of your, your father’s earlier life were those things that he that he told you specifically or were they things that you had to research after the fact? Or how did that part kind of come together for that story as you’re putting all these pieces together?

00:16:23:21 – 00:16:41:21
Robert Wolf
A little bit of both. I can’t imagine the boredom in living in quarters like that packed when with people or even hiding out in your own home, with, you know, yellow stars, yellow armbands, the anxiety, the depression, the fear. I can’t imagine that. And but like you say, you can feel it, like during my dad’s first escape.

00:16:41:21 – 00:17:00:02
Robert Wolf
So, Yeah, my dad. Mom wrote an autobiography. They wrote the his story, from World War one. The of World War one to the end of the Hungarian Revolution. So literally 1916, 19 1718 to the end of the Revolution, 1956. They wrote the story in the 1970s. They they wrote it as though it happened the previous day.

00:17:00:09 – 00:17:17:04
Robert Wolf
Sharp. Chris. And I turned into a biography many, many years later. Growing up, the first half of my life, not so much as I went to college and medical school at a career as a radiologist, family, all of that things. So I didn’t, but I did read the it went from paper and pencil to typewriter to computer to disk.

00:17:17:06 – 00:17:36:04
Robert Wolf
And, when it was a manuscript maybe 30 years ago, I read it once and didn’t think much of it and didn’t remember much except my dad’s first escape. But then when I reread it after my my dad passed and fortunately my mom, a historian friend, handed me the story on the disk, and I turned his autobiography to biography and, just doing that alone.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:52:25
Robert Wolf
Long story short, I went back to radiology, and that brought me to the book. And, long story short, the stories were so amazing. At least 20 miracles in my dad’s life and hungry for escapes and 20 miracles. I couldn’t leave it on a computer. I couldn’t leave it on a disk. I wanted to share it with the world and,

00:17:52:27 – 00:18:07:18
Robert Wolf
And so I did. And that’s been my that’s been my charge. That’s been my mission the last 6 or 7 years. The book’s been out a little while now, but, that doesn’t stop me from trying to fight antisemitism. So, this is my main thing, the why I’m doing this, and, but, yeah, it’s my own little corner.

00:18:07:18 – 00:18:23:07
Robert Wolf
I need help with that, obviously, but, no, my my mom and dad, they did this as though they knew I would like if you know me, six years ago, and my mom was a Holocaust educator, by the way. My dad, too, but he was an ObGyn, by the way, deliver 10,000 babies in the Detroit area, which is so a form of redemption.

00:18:23:10 – 00:18:41:06
Robert Wolf
That’s the punch line. It doesn’t bring back 6 million and doesn’t beat back 50 million that died in World War two. But at least he brought some life back in jovial and jolly. No PTSD. My mom to they they educated. They were well-rounded people. And the stories like I said, they were crisp and and then they had a lot of friends in the unlike what’s going on in the world now.

00:18:41:06 – 00:19:00:00
Robert Wolf
They had a lot of friends where I grew up in Michigan and throughout the world, from continental Africa, Asia had Indian friends, a muslim, Christian, Jewish, fellow Holocaust survivors. They shared the stories and, and I, I bought into it. I got a little burnout from it. And then, I brought it back to life, at least in my own legacy towards my family.

00:19:00:00 – 00:19:15:00
Robert Wolf
So, I got this app, you know, Superman’s Kryptonite. You just sort of called out to me, you know? It’s summoned me back in me. So. And so I’m doing it, and I. I couldn’t leave this on a disc. I couldn’t leave it on computer. And so that’s why we’re sharing it. But, very well done by my mom and dad, you know.

00:19:15:00 – 00:19:16:09
Robert Wolf
So.

00:19:16:11 – 00:19:43:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, I’m glad that you are telling that story to to because the world does need to know. And the part that kind of made me think that was when you talking about the the photos and things like the Nazis and the Soviets took. But again, putting yourself in that perspective, a difference from watching a movie today versus versus being there when you like the people that took the photographs to document a lot of that, those wouldn’t be photographs that you’re parents and grandparents would have had access to because they were taken by the people doing a lot of it.

00:19:43:12 – 00:19:53:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not something that they’re going to show. So I was very curious how that story then survives despite trying to be suppressed.

00:19:53:09 – 00:20:12:02
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, but very, very little, belongings left over, from my dad’s side of the family. My mom saved a lot of photographs, and somehow they were preserved, by my mom. So it was a little less harrowing. My mom was in hiding, you know, with her mom, grandma, uncle, grandfather who’s different, you know, on farms and sometimes in Budapest.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:35:14
Robert Wolf
So she was able to preserve more things. And as a and she also was into genealogy. And I wish I followed it a little bit more, but I do at least have back to World War one. I can’t go back there beyond that. But no, it’s unimaginable. The fear that my mom must add in hiding to and and the fear my dad must have had every day competing and starving and and doing forced labor for hours from, you know, dawn to dusk.

00:20:35:16 – 00:20:52:07
Robert Wolf
Can’t. I can’t imagine it. So, the reality and also photographs. So the Nazis were they took a lot of photographs. They, they sent them home to their families, let them know what they’re doing. And I have a collection of about 18,000 photos on my phone, and some of them are exceptionally disturbing. The last guy surviving in Vilna.

00:20:52:09 – 00:21:18:00
Robert Wolf
They’re about to kill him, and he’s surrounded by, mostly Nazi, officers. And there’s a gun pointed aside, and he knows he’s next. Reminds a little Schindler to you, but he’s the last survivor. They’re a very disturbing photo. I haven’t shared it because they’ll probably kick me out of X and meta and LinkedIn. If I were, were to, the, you know, the burning synagogue is another one, the smashed in homes, the burning homes, one disturbing one.

00:21:18:05 – 00:21:40:09
Robert Wolf
Well, they’re marching off the Jewish people. And I’m thinking, well, who’s taken a picture of all of this and not helping? You know, and these people lived in fear, of course. Another, disturbing photo. I’ve got some from juror. My dad’s home town. Very, very few, very few available. Another one is Kristallnacht. Whether the business, the glass is all broken up and the lady’s walking by the business smiling, I mean, I.

00:21:40:10 – 00:22:00:02
Robert Wolf
How do you smile when she got what? Are you, Jewish? You’re not smiling. If you’re Christian, you smiling, then, Well, I, I guess I know what party you’re in. You’re in the Nazi party or the Christmas party are very sadistic. Some and Christians were afraid for their lives, too. So the ones that helped the Jewish people or the gays, you know, almost sexual, LGBTQ, disabled, they’re there to be loud.

00:22:00:02 – 00:22:15:03
Robert Wolf
It, including guys like Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg is another one that comes to mind. So a lot going on. I can’t imagine being so remote and, and, secluded from the truth, let alone the news.

00:22:15:06 – 00:22:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movies you mentioned life is beautiful, and that’s another movie I want to talk about. That one starts in 1939, just after the annexation of Austria. And it follows the story of how life changes around a Jewish man named Guido before and during the rise of fascism in Italy. And the movie, it starts off with everyday life, but one of the key differences between life is Beautiful and the Sound of Music that we talked about before is that Life Is Beautiful shows how life changes for the main character because he’s an Italian Jewish man, whereas the Von Trapp family in the sound of Music, they’re not so well.

00:22:50:28 – 00:23:12:22
Dan LeFebvre
I, I we see little signs here and there and Sound of Music. We can see the signs in life and beautiful. Life is beautiful. Those signs are clearly the rise of anti-Semitism. They’re going on in Italy now. In particular, there was a scene where Guido pretended to be an inspector of Rome teaching children in school how they are pure Aryan, the superior race.

00:23:12:25 – 00:23:34:00
Dan LeFebvre
He doesn’t have very comical way in the movie, similar to later in the movie, when Guido’s young son just reads a sign in business window that says no Jews or dogs, and Guido makes a joke about there’s just saying. There’s also a drug store nearby saying that I’m not going to let Chinese in with kangaroo. Right. And he’s making a joke out of out of this very serious situation.

00:23:34:03 – 00:23:49:21
Dan LeFebvre
And that storyline in like Life Is Beautiful is a fictional one. Guido is not a real person, but how old do you think life is beautiful? Did showing signs of anti-Semitism slowly growing in everyday life before the outbreak of World War two?

00:23:49:24 – 00:24:06:05
Robert Wolf
Great question. I mean, that’s an our answer, but fantastic movie. Beautifully done. The cinematography is outstanding. I’m glad you mentioned that scene, because to me, that’s the turning point in the movie. The better part of the first half of the movie is about It’s a Beautiful Life. It’s a wonder it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life.

00:24:06:05 – 00:24:27:20
Robert Wolf
That’s a different, fantastic movie, too. But life is beautiful there. He falls in love with this lady. He’s on the bicycle. It’s a lot of humor. I mean, a lot of humor in that movie. Even to the end. And, you know, it’s admirable how he hides the truth from his son throughout, but, yeah, that’s the turning point in the movies when he’s up there talking about the the perfect race or our rewards it.

00:24:27:27 – 00:24:45:01
Robert Wolf
And then the poor, his relatives horse getting painted, I think was green and purple. I forget the color. Maybe green. That’s good. And. Yeah. And and that’s the turning point there. And then all of a sudden, boom, they’re, they’re in prison and they’re going off to, to concentration camps, different some different things.

00:24:45:09 – 00:25:04:29
Robert Wolf
Some of the similarities with my, my parent, they don’t talk about women that much, but both that movie and similar, the, the women, the women guards, especially at Auschwitz and then in these concentration camps were to me more sadistic and more brutal to the prisoners than, than otherwise. Interestingly, a lot of Nazis, the people that were guarding them were the Germans, the Nazis.

00:25:04:29 – 00:25:22:27
Robert Wolf
So where were the Italians? That’s that’s a little bit different than Hungary, I think, because the Hungarians were the ones who keep an eye on the force. Laborers, and child, my dad’s parents were taken from their home. That was, that was a Nazi. Blue striped pajamas. Interesting. It’s a, you know, we don’t know what color stripes they have in general because black and white movie, but it’s blue stripes.

00:25:22:27 – 00:25:39:21
Robert Wolf
But we all know that, you know, outfits in other places, they were, red stripes. So that was, another thing that, that was those was a familiar, but, or different, I should say. I thought, one thing similar with the both of those movies is the language was a little fast for me. It’s in subtitles.

00:25:39:24 – 00:25:56:13
Robert Wolf
Well, I think they just talked a little bit faster. Was a little. Because, you know, we can read fast, but it just won’t have the pace or the how they talk. Maybe at the very beginning, speed it up because it makes the humor, the humor scenes a little more humorous, so to say, so to speak. But, yeah, they kind of slow that down a little bit, too.

00:25:56:15 – 00:26:12:21
Robert Wolf
What else are we? Yeah. I mean, that’s, just a fact. The met the end was unbelievable. The way the they say, do they want or try? They’re playing in a game to win a tank and they won. You know, the kid survives, but he doesn’t. The mom survives. Was a Dora. And, you know, of course you gets shot.

00:26:12:23 – 00:26:31:18
Robert Wolf
He gets shot for warning. The ladies, including his wife, as are being hauled away in a truck. So another thing that may not be realistic is the son and the father in the same bunk. Because the kids were separated, like in Auschwitz and other places, and like a and Schindler, you know, the kids are all the way, in bundles.

00:26:31:18 – 00:26:52:14
Robert Wolf
And boy, are the parents freaking. They’re all running towards the fences and trying to follow the trucks and talk about learned helplessness and senior kids being all the way to who knows where. So that part may not have been as realistic. But yeah, it was such a well-done movie. And, and I don’t know that much about the Italian history in, in World War Two, so that’s that.

00:26:52:14 – 00:27:11:10
Robert Wolf
But comparing what you to the other movie and to what I’ve read and done, and learned about pretty realistic, I mean, in their own way. Obviously not every concentration camps will be the same. Not a forced labor camps going to be the same. The different guards, different, food supply, who knows? Different amounts of sadism.

00:27:11:12 – 00:27:21:00
Robert Wolf
It’s people to take orders and people that delight in torturing others. And that’s so hard to put your arms around to. It’s just. I don’t know how people could be like that at all.

00:27:21:02 – 00:27:41:21
Dan LeFebvre
But you mentioned Schindler’s List, and whenever we think of movies that depict the Holocaust, that’s probably the first one that does come to mind. In that movie, we see what life is like in the Jewish ghetto. Of course, Schindler’s List depicts the ghetto in Krakow, Poland, but your grandparents were forced to move to another Nazi controlled Jewish ghetto in your Hungary.

00:27:41:23 – 00:27:44:15
Dan LeFebvre
I’m probably mispronouncing that, but.

00:27:44:18 – 00:27:49:18
Robert Wolf
My Hungarians not so. They never taught me, so I. It’s fine. That was their shooting around which.

00:27:49:20 – 00:27:57:21
Dan LeFebvre
But based on the research that you did for your book, were there similarities to what we see in Schindler’s List and in the ghetto there, and what your grandparents dealt with?

00:27:57:24 – 00:28:19:27
Robert Wolf
Many, many, many. First, I want to talk about, so many. I mean, unfortunately, the movie was in black and white, but the cinematography in that movie is unbelievable. Like I said, they talk a little fast, especially when they’re talking about people’s names a little fast for me, some of the conversation, but, amazing. Some overlap when when they’re taken to Auschwitz, we don’t know if it’s accidentally or if it’s on purpose.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:37:05
Robert Wolf
And they put them in the chamber and they think that that’s it. The gas chamber and the relief showers. I can picture my mom, my my grandmother, in the in the gas chamber. And, of course, when they’re on trains, when I visit Holocaust museums, when I do book talks, book lectures, I can’t even go into the I.

00:28:37:05 – 00:29:01:10
Robert Wolf
It’s hard to even look in the train, let alone go in the train just because. Just because that imagery. So, so that resonates. The dramatic irony. I guess I can get that, in a minute, but, the random shooting. Okay, so dramatic irony. I’m going to mention the three things where I well, first of all, the turning point is when they’re horseback riding and they’re randomly shooting all the people in the ghetto, the people that stayed, the people that that tried to hide very, very sad scene.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:18:21
Robert Wolf
Because every. And you know, another thing that’s not talked about is pets. You know, how many did the pets get left behind and the pets get killed. And we know in, life is beautiful. There’s a little kitten, is strolling around the, the clothes that were stolen. Another thing. And I’m going to go back to the dramatic irony, another thing that resonates.

00:29:18:24 – 00:29:35:21
Robert Wolf
With all of it is the stolen luggage. They bring your goods, leave them here, and they’ll come. They will arrive. Big deception. And when my dad’s parents were all to Auschwitz, it was to be they were going to go to forest or farm, plant flowers, trees. Do you know, do, work on the foliage? That’s what.

00:29:35:21 – 00:29:53:15
Robert Wolf
That’s how they were to see. And they end up going to Auschwitz. So. So three points of dramatic irony, not necessarily related to my, my dad, but one is actually. So when, the, engineer they’re building the they’re constructing the building and the engineer comes up to, I think it’s almond goes, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing or I’m on both.

00:29:53:15 – 00:30:09:27
Robert Wolf
He’s the I think he’s a lieutenant, but he’s the most sadistic guy around. And, she says to me now, the structure is not sound, and we need to do this and maybe even start again. And, what does he say? We are not going to argue with these people. And and then he asks the guy shooter, shooter.

00:30:09:27 – 00:30:28:01
Robert Wolf
And it’s one of the few scenes where somebody gets shot and it’s not him doing it. So amazingly enough. And then the irony is that he decides to he changes his mind and, and decides to, to take it down and start all over again. Another irony was, the the lady that comes to Schindler, I don’t know if that was Helen Hirsch.

00:30:28:04 – 00:30:50:13
Robert Wolf
Helen, her hair, shoes, how to pronounce it. I don’t know if it’s her or the other one, but she comes to Schindler and says, can you get my parents into this? Into the factory here? And he says, you know, he’s practically screaming at her, saying, no, I can’t save everybody this and that and that. And then the guy escapes from the camp and, and just, randomly shoots 25 guys and then just Clarkston.

00:30:50:13 – 00:31:23:23
Robert Wolf
If I’m pronouncing Sharon I love, they really did their best trying to do the correct pronunciation and I think an accurate job. But stern tells Schindler that, you know, 25 people died. So Schindler, goes out of his way to bring in, the lady’s parents, which is which is pretty cool, too. I mean, and, so the other irony and oh, that resonates with my dad in the forced labor camp where, an officer would get drunk and some, some little piece of malfeasance, like somebody chirping a word or or moving in the line, and the guy gets past and he’s,

00:31:23:25 – 00:31:40:18
Robert Wolf
And he’s got the he’s got the gun. And, you threatened to shoot every tense man, in his drunk, in his drunk, state, and, in the end, doesn’t. But imagine the fear. You know, you dad, it can seem like that. And everybody else counting 1 to 1 through ten, you know, every 10th man they’re going to kill.

00:31:40:20 – 00:31:58:01
Robert Wolf
And, And the guy does that, too. He’s got the whole line of the men, and he shoots the guy with the, with the, I don’t remember. It’s a gun shot. I think it was a, shotgun. And then they shoot him in the head and and that, like, that scene is so vivid. The way that was bleeding, it would’ve been even more so in color.

00:31:58:04 – 00:32:16:22
Robert Wolf
But the irony there is the same thing. Just like when he randomly shoots the 25 men and, also the one person, and then he says, who’s, you know, who’s next? And then the kid smart enough to step forward and said, you know, you who did this? Who’s the one who created the malfeasance? And the kid points at the dead guy and probably saved a lot of lives, just by doing that.

00:32:16:22 – 00:32:36:01
Robert Wolf
So that’s more irony. And then and, and comparable with my dad had to go through, you know, random threaten to be killed randomly and thank God, they, they didn’t carry that out. The other piece of irony, which is almost redemption itself, is when, the I think it was the rabbi, was one of the older men making the parts, and his productivity was on the low side that compared it.

00:32:36:01 – 00:32:52:17
Robert Wolf
You know, it took some a minute to make the part, which is where you got so few partially take him out to shoot him and his gun jams and, you know, his backup gun jams, and he gets a gun from his, mother, the fellow officers and or soldiers, I don’t remember. It was an officer. And that gun jams and there’s 15 or 20 clicks.

00:32:52:19 – 00:33:08:03
Robert Wolf
We shoot this guy, and the poor guy’s got his neck going down. He knows he’s going to die any second. It reminds me of that, the Vilna, the Vilna photograph. And then he ends up just sitting with the butt of the gun and and lets him live. Imagine going through that kind of trauma and not having PTSD.

00:33:08:05 – 00:33:23:13
Robert Wolf
It’s amazing. But the irony is, when they hang golf, they have a trouble date. They’ve got him by the rope, but they have trouble checking out those. The step stool underneath him, it takes some at least like a half a minute. They can’t do it in the guy. So that’s a little bit of redemption too. But, more dramatic irony.

00:33:23:13 – 00:33:42:17
Robert Wolf
So I it’s a fantastically bad movie. And and so, so similar in in his point, you know, the trains and the, or the, forced labor and, you know, we see forced labor, of course, in concentration camps to sometimes women, sometimes men. We don’t talk about much about forced labor in, with women in our story.

00:33:42:17 – 00:33:48:08
Robert Wolf
But lately I’ve been taught and enlightened about that part, that part of it as well.

00:33:48:10 – 00:34:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
Something that we don’t see in Schindler’s List much is, is how others in the city reacted to the ghetto being set up and the Nazis moving the Jews into it. How did the civilians in and around Europe react to the Jewish ghetto being established for when your your grandparents were there?

00:34:06:21 – 00:34:23:12
Robert Wolf
Well, once they were in the ghetto, they had no access to the outside world. They had limited food, limited medical supplies and my dad, being a dentist, brought what he had. But it wasn’t enough. And ultimately it was to carry him off to Auschwitz to kill them. Most of them immediately, unfortunately. So I don’t think they had much time to even think about it.

00:34:23:12 – 00:34:48:26
Robert Wolf
But during, I’ll say this, that, but they were shunned. No doubt it was hard to go out shopping without being, bullied or picked on or even mugged. We talk about that in the or the fear of it. And also when my, my dad and his friend Frank were out on leave or whatever it was in town, or in that they were on camp, for one thing they didn’t have, then my dad needed a haircut.

00:34:48:26 – 00:35:06:12
Robert Wolf
And if you remember that scene, the anti-Semitic barber. But, they had the yellow bands was ridiculous hats that they had to wear and yellow bit unarmed paramilitary. And yeah, a couple what beautiful women walk by and they, they, they won’t even look at them. And believe me, the matter, they’re dying to meet A and B with a a warm blooded girl.

00:35:06:12 – 00:35:26:18
Robert Wolf
And it just didn’t happen. You were shunned. So, in its learned helplessness. I mean, people feared for their lives, for sure. And, they did what they were told, and and it’s scary stuff. So, and then. Oh, that remind me of another scene where in Schindler, the young girl, is yelling out, Goodbye Jews, goodbye Jews!

00:35:26:18 – 00:35:44:17
Robert Wolf
And, it’s awful to see that, because I think it reminds me of, what we just talked about. The Christians turning on the Jews. It also reminds me of what’s going on in Gaza at the, these children are being educated to hate Jewish people, hate Israel, hate Americans. And it’s that’s got to stop. That really has to stop.

00:35:44:20 – 00:36:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
There is a scene in in Schindler’s List where we see the Nazis going in there clearing everyone out of the ghetto, to take them to the concentration camps. You talked a little bit about that in the movie. The camps they take them to first is off, and then later in the movie we see Auschwitz, which you mentioned, and we’ll talk about Auschwitz in a moment, because I know your grandparents were there.

00:36:03:18 – 00:36:22:07
Dan LeFebvre
But according to Schindler’s List, seeing the brutality of the Nazi soldiers during the liquidation of the ghetto, that’s what leads Liam Neeson’s version of Oskar Schindler to start working with one of his employees. You mentioned him earlier. Is Doc Stern, Ben Kingsley’s character, to hire more and more Jews to help save them from being murdered by the Nazis.

00:36:22:09 – 00:36:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
Were there any transformational points like this for the civilians in Darfur in Hungary, where they started to change their minds about what they’re seeing? But the brutality of the Nazis, like, we kind of start seeing it happening in Schindler’s List with Oskar Schindler.

00:36:36:16 – 00:36:52:09
Robert Wolf
Well, great point. You know, that’s the turning point of that movie. If I haven’t already mentioned, when they’re horseback riding. Yeah, they’re looking down at that. One thing that resonates, too, is, the humiliation, the the general, the the men, the rabbis, you know, religious with the pious ain’t undercutting it. And they’re cutting their hair and laughing.

00:36:52:15 – 00:37:11:18
Robert Wolf
So that kind of humiliation, was there so humiliation we don’t talk about, as much. I think the Aryans were. And Hungary gets mentioned later that they were bringing in Hungarians, to one of the camps late, later in the movie. And that was true later in time, during at least a couple of years later. But that humiliation really, really resonates.

00:37:11:18 – 00:37:30:24
Robert Wolf
Well, what else is it? Yeah. The marching, the other humiliation is that, Gough has his own personal woman slave that he ends up abusing y’all. She’s. She goes the food and probably sex. Well, there is there is a sex scene or two in there. And of course, at the end he beats her up and but she survives.

00:37:30:27 – 00:37:46:29
Robert Wolf
But he beats her up and it’s drunk or whatever. It’s the wine cellar. I basically remember that scene, but, humiliation is a big thing about it. So, and then, of course, starvation is another one thing that resonates people to didn’t have food to eat. There was no there was no trade. There was nothing coming in. So shunned is the best word.

00:37:46:29 – 00:38:08:15
Robert Wolf
And like we said before, the the witness, the witness was the next victim. I also remember, golf shooting randomly at people that were sitting down and taking a break. So, Oh, and know the dramatic irony. He has a kid cleaning out his bathtub, and he’s trying to put the saddle on his horse. I don’t know if it’s the same kid, but, the guy that the kid that can’t put the kettle on the horse properly.

00:38:08:17 – 00:38:25:12
Robert Wolf
It’s right after Schindler talks about power and the power of the power, if you can forgive. And he remembers that for a while. So he forgives the kid, for the for the saddle. But then when he screws up using the wrong material to clean his bathtub, he ends up shooting him. And, it’s just, What a sadistic guy.

00:38:25:12 – 00:38:40:24
Robert Wolf
I mean, I was a guy who deserved to be executed without, without trial. I mean, so many witnesses. So, Yeah, that whole process, of course, it’s never going to be the same at every camp, but what? People running around in fear that they might get shot or killed, or if they take a break, they’re going to get killed.

00:38:41:02 – 00:38:48:14
Robert Wolf
You can’t. It’s just, some furthermore that what people had to think in their minds and stay strong while they’re doing it.

00:38:48:17 – 00:39:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
That those, those types of things are, like you said, unfathomable. Like it’s I, it’s what I’m trying to unravel. A lot of this. But, you know, in our discussion here, but also there are just some things like we there’s only so much that we can do as we’re talking here in this conversation that just it’s not. It will never be enough.

00:39:11:18 – 00:39:20:03
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, there’s to to to tell the true story of it. I mean, it’s yeah, I’ve tried to have words, but yeah, I can’t even do that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:42:08
Robert Wolf
Well, it was talk about Christians. You know, if we had Hamas, we had Hamas tanks and armored armored cars, guns, tanks, then that horrible flag, you know, marched in the streets here and, and, Florida or where you’re from, Oklahoma. God bless, the heartland. We would be thinking different then, it would affect us more then we would have.

00:39:42:10 – 00:40:03:26
Robert Wolf
We’d have a lot more fear. Yeah, but it’s it’s patchy areas. It’s Canada, Australia, parts of the U.S anti-Semitic. So it’s not it’s not directly in our face. But that’s why I’m doing this is so that it doesn’t happen. I mean, that’s why, 99% of us are good people. 99% of us believe in work, family, occasional vacation, religion, and if possible, whatever the freedom to vote, freedom speech.

00:40:03:29 – 00:40:26:01
Robert Wolf
Is that 1% or less that the ruins are for everybody and not just Hamas, you know, Osama bin laden and Saddam Hussein? Hitler, Pol Pot, the list goes on and on. We can counteract with better names Jesus, Moses, Noah, MLK, Gandhi, that. So there’s a nice there’s a balance there. But, we’re still talking about hate and war rather than these other guys.

00:40:26:01 – 00:40:41:27
Robert Wolf
I mean, unless you’re a staunch Christian or Jewish or Muslim, I don’t think a lot I meant for this to happen. Where? I don’t know, I don’t know much about the Muslim religion, but I do have Muslim friends, and they’re peaceful, and, So what’s going. I mean, I can’t get my arms around it. And, the thing about this book.

00:40:42:01 – 00:40:59:15
Robert Wolf
Yeah. And the story is my parents knew that it would be necessary to share it because they didn’t think that the hate and the Jewish scapegoating issue would go away. And each year they’re right, 60, 80 on our years. And the disturbing part is people find different ways to maim and torture, punish, kill each other. And it’s really sad.

00:40:59:15 – 00:41:16:27
Robert Wolf
And I just I can’t feel it because as a radiologist, we’re into preservation of life. The beauty of the human body, the beauty of the anatomy, the cell and all this training to go through it. There’s no room for racism or prejudice in my field. But these people would just. They would think nothing about chopping your head off or killing somebody instantly.

00:41:17:00 – 00:41:37:07
Robert Wolf
No respect for human life. And I can’t wrap my my hands around that. It’s just not that. It’s not what I was built for. And so we educate, we try to spread the word. We do podcasts, we do, book talks, book presentations, TV interviews, in some cases radio. And, we get the point across while sharing good stories, amazing stories throughout.

00:41:37:07 – 00:42:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
A lot of if you go back to Schindler’s List throughout a lot of that movie, it it does recreate the I mentioned your passion and and Auschwitz and where there were hundreds of thousands of people that were murdered. And unfortunately, that number also includes your grandparents, which is a very moving story told in the book. I think a lot of people base their knowledge of concentration camps today on what we see in movies like Schindler’s List.

00:42:05:15 – 00:42:23:23
Dan LeFebvre
But I remember the story of like The Latrine. And in your book, we don’t ever see in the movie Schindler’s List at all. So there’s obviously other things there that we don’t we’re not going to see in the movie. But based on what you know of your grandparents experience, how well do you think Schindler’s List does capturing the horrors of Auschwitz?

00:42:23:26 – 00:42:44:19
Robert Wolf
I think it’s amazing. Like I said, the cinematography is amazing. The storyline and the brutality. We’ll go back to the women guards that were were tougher than one thing that resonates. So, I mean, I don’t like spoiling too meaning, but my my dad’s a miracle. And my dad found out what happened to his parents. An eyewitness who happened to survive Auschwitz and meet, meet up with him in his hometown of Jura.

00:42:44:19 – 00:43:06:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, all of those. That’s a miracle after miracle that that happened. But, Yeah, being in the train reminded me of, my my my grandmother, the grandparents I never met, but my grandmother, was an orphan, a little girl orphan. And they went straight to the chamber. So, and actually, when I did that, when I first did this project, turning it from autobiography to biography, I had to walk away from from the book.

00:43:06:28 – 00:43:25:24
Robert Wolf
I had to walk away from the story for at least a week, ten days, because it profoundly affected me. So, so. And, you know, I hate to say this, but fortunately, she didn’t have to it. Her life didn’t have to linger on for months, months at a time. And where you’re starving and you’re trapped and you were on your forced labor, and you don’t know when your last day is going to be, Schindler.

00:43:25:24 – 00:43:40:00
Robert Wolf
I think they capture all of that pretty well. I mean, everybody’s going to have a different story. But it didn’t go well. And then another thing that resonates is my my grandfather, who was a dentist who told the the, the intake people at the intake that he was a dentist was a doctor, and he might be useful.

00:43:40:06 – 00:43:55:27
Robert Wolf
So they assign him to cleaning latrines, and we don’t see that in Schindler. But we sure see all these kids hiding in Auschwitz, including the one that you get shut out by every other letter, every other kid. And then he’s up, he ends up diving into the feces and he hides in the latrine or whatever you want.

00:43:56:04 – 00:44:07:07
Robert Wolf
It’s disgusting. I mean, I can’t imagine what was the movie with the kid from India who does the same thing. He ends up diving into the, into the feces, and it just, the. Joe, remember that movie?

00:44:07:07 – 00:44:07:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yes.

00:44:07:29 – 00:44:10:07
Robert Wolf
And he’s on jeopardy or something like.

00:44:10:09 – 00:44:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Slumdog Millionaire.

00:44:11:16 – 00:44:15:27
Robert Wolf
Yes. Very good. Thank you. I knew you were. No, you got a brilliant memory. I can.

00:44:15:27 – 00:44:17:01
Dan LeFebvre
Go on.

00:44:17:03 – 00:44:35:10
Robert Wolf
And that’s the. Yeah. That’s good. I mean, I need more people like you helped me with the message. This is why we’re doing this, too. But, talking about great movies and and a story that could be a movie. At least some people say that, so, so that resonate. Yeah. And then. So these were I went by at least my, my dad’s parents, didn’t have to endure all that.

00:44:35:12 – 00:44:51:20
Robert Wolf
I mean, if you’ve ever fasted just one day without food, it’s tough enough. I can’t imagine week after week, we would bury little food. And, you know, you’ve seen the pictures of the people that are skin and bones. Those that were lucky enough to survive. But, what a what a terrible life. They must have adapted and they had to live then.

00:44:51:22 – 00:44:56:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes back to the words don’t really do it justice to to.

00:44:56:15 – 00:45:13:09
Robert Wolf
Not only that that personal. It’s the light. The light. So. So my dad’s father died probably of cholera week from the feces, you know. So that was, but there’s tuberculosis. There’s lice. My dad had a foot infection, when he was in, when he was forced labor camp, and he had lice a couple times. He had hepatitis.

00:45:13:09 – 00:45:30:10
Robert Wolf
He had a bad back. He had a lot going on. And then. And then recently talking about women in forced labor camps. There’s this guy in England, super nice and super dedicated to what we’re doing. He’s turning black and white photos into color photos, and he’s doing a good job, and he’s trying to get financial support for that.

00:45:30:12 – 00:45:48:13
Robert Wolf
But he did a, it was a short it was a short little documentary, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, maybe five, with conversion from black and white to color. And it was the forced labor. The women forced laborers from Hungary. And a lot of them had gangrene. They had gangrenous legs and gangrenous feet. And they actually, they depicted, what their skin look like.

00:45:48:13 – 00:46:12:14
Robert Wolf
And it’s brutal that. So, you know, you’d never think of gangrene. I mean, so a lot of health issues besides the starvation and lack of water to, of course, dehydration and, you know, electrolytes going to be off and, and, muscle mass goes and eventually you die because you’re, you’re malnourished. So I’m sure many, many people died from, I don’t know the exact numbers, but malnourishment, I’m sure, was not just getting shot or put in the gas chambers.

00:46:12:14 – 00:46:33:06
Robert Wolf
Just. Or other sickness, malnourishment, sickness. It’s just too much. It’s too much to think about. It’s 200. It is. And that need doesn’t need to happen. And it also resonates with Gaza. It with what’s the prisoners that are still there? I can’t imagine even if they released them today, the ones that are still alive, just talk about PTSD, talk about trying to overcome that kind of trauma, not knowing when your last day is.

00:46:33:06 – 00:46:38:03
Robert Wolf
Mostly that’s that’s the big thing, the wait and the boredom and, horror fun.

00:46:38:05 – 00:46:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movie, there’s, we’re talking about Schindler’s List, and that’s going to be the most popular movie about someone saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. But it’s not the.

00:46:49:08 – 00:46:56:08
Robert Wolf
The Ten Commandments. Well, I gotta say, that’s a fantastic movie, too. But, I don’t mean. Sorry to interrupt. Yes.

00:46:56:09 – 00:47:01:15
Dan LeFebvre
No no no no no, that’s a that’s a classic a little bit outside the time frame that we’re talking about now.

00:47:01:15 – 00:47:07:18
Robert Wolf
And I’m kidding then Fiddler on the roof was another one. But it was a Rorschach. But, you know, that was a lot of anti-Semitism there too. But go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:47:07:18 – 00:47:41:02
Dan LeFebvre
I know you’re there’s another movie, called walking with the enemy about a Hungarian Jew named Ella Cohen, who he dresses up in an SS uniform to help rescue other Jews. Now, Ella Cohen is another fictional character, but he is based on a real person. Again, with with pronunciation. I believe it’s, Pincus Rosenbaum. He was disguised. He disguised himself in uniforms of the SS, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, which you mentioned earlier, the the Hungarian Lavant and the with the purpose of of saving, I believe hundreds of Jews.

00:47:41:04 – 00:47:51:15
Dan LeFebvre
During your research, did you come across other stories like Oskar Schindler or like Rosenbaum, of people who risked their lives to save the lives of others?

00:47:51:18 – 00:48:11:04
Robert Wolf
Raoul Wallenberg, my my, my dad and his friend Frank had those, passes, those forged papers. And he did, I don’t know, hundreds, thousands of them to help save people. Wallenberg was from Sweden, if I’m not mistaken. And I believe he was Jewish, but fantastic what he did. You going back to Schindler real quick is the way he laments.

00:48:11:04 – 00:48:26:23
Robert Wolf
You know this. Amongst all the murders he did no lamentation. You know. No. No sense of, of of, of mortality, no sense of, what’s the word I’m looking for? It just does. It doesn’t bother. And it doesn’t affect you.

00:48:26:25 – 00:48:29:21
Dan LeFebvre
No sense of decency. I mean, humanity, like Mr..

00:48:29:25 – 00:48:49:17
Robert Wolf
Schindler saving all these people. And he’s still got his car and he’s still got, like, enough jewelry or whatever. Yet on on him, he used his rings and he still your e remorse about. That’s the what I was and will remark you remorse is he elements about how he could have saved another eight or 10 or 12 Jewish people and and they had to console him because of that.

00:48:49:17 – 00:49:19:28
Robert Wolf
He cries, he breaks down. It’s a real it’s a real irony too. So, Yeah, but, but so he helps. So like Wallenberg, probably countless, Christian people, the Christians out, my dad, I mean, he wouldn’t survive without a lot of Christian help. Now, these aren’t famous stories, but being able to go to a casino, and hide in a casino, hide in a, a nunnery or, nursing home, with demented people and and, where else did he, his friend, hiding in a haberdashery and a hatbox, that kind of thing.

00:49:19:28 – 00:49:36:08
Robert Wolf
A lot of Christians help them. And then even after that, during communist Hungary, my my dad was getting, a few shekels sent, from Israel, from my mother’s mother and stepfather at this point, who was a Marky Mark in Israel, a consulate to Hungary. So they’d sneak them a few shekels, to, to this place in Budapest.

00:49:36:08 – 00:49:53:03
Robert Wolf
And my dad, it was a cloak and dagger story, the way my dad had to weave in and out of buildings to sneak to get that money, because he could have been in prison for that, too. So, a lot of people helped Jewish and Christian. Those that could a lot didn’t, again, fear for their lives. Not a lot of famous, well, here’s one actually.

00:49:53:03 – 00:50:14:15
Robert Wolf
Sorry. In communist Hungary, though, it’s not. My parents had an illegal Jewish wedding in 1953. My mom’s uncle, what? He sponsored that in his home. And like I say, it was illegal, and KGB was there, so, and my parents, when my parents, were on their honeymoon, the. He got arrested. He was a surgeon, chief of surgery in a Budapest hospital.

00:50:14:18 – 00:50:30:28
Robert Wolf
And they Waldemar for 13 months tortured him and, try to get him to confess to the to the murder. I think it was Wallenberg, if I’m not mistaken. So. And he wouldn’t he wouldn’t do it. And he was he came back a broken man, and obviously. And then they put him out in some rural clinic or something.

00:50:31:00 – 00:50:55:22
Robert Wolf
He ended up, ironically, in Sweden, where he had a successful career, and, solo daughter Susie, who was the last survivor in my book and just died in Jerusalem. Couple that soon after the attacks. 12 or 7. So she was comatose at the time and long standing on. And so as bad as that was, and it was great busier the year before, at least enough to know, about what was happening in Gaza and Israel.

00:50:55:22 – 00:51:22:01
Robert Wolf
So, all of them rest in peace. But yeah, so there’s famous and there’s not so famous in the autobiography. My dad mentions Mengele, that that is that Mengele greeted his father. But, the research that we this was a lot of research in our book, multiple people, historians, but, Berenbaum, Michael Berenbaum, who was one of the professors who wrote a tremendous, testimonial to other professors, did too.

00:51:22:02 – 00:51:38:06
Robert Wolf
They’re all good. But he mentions that don’t mix up where we’re talking about an Auschwitz because he had been there. He knows the history. And so we we took out Mengele. But, it may well be. And this is speculation that my dad’s father met Mengele, and he was the one that appealed since he was a doctor, too.

00:51:38:08 – 00:51:54:27
Robert Wolf
He was brutal himself, right? I mean, taking our feelings and using, humans as, for experiments and all that. But, if it was him or whoever it was, I guess I can’t call it nice, but got him a week’s worth. Two weeks worth of life, even though that week was miserable. So there are people that,

00:51:54:29 – 00:52:04:00
Robert Wolf
Yeah, the circles there are overlapping circles, for sure. And, as soon as we are done, I’ll probably think a couple more or two, but, you never know. And that’s a great question.

00:52:04:02 – 00:52:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
I think it’s great to know that. I mean, there are the famous one. Oskar Schindler obviously is famous, but he’s famous because of the movie and and the book and the as well. But he wasn’t doing it for fame. And there’s, you know, a lot of these stories, like you’re talking about the they’re not well known now, but that’s not why they were doing it.

00:52:23:15 – 00:52:54:21
Dan LeFebvre
They were doing it to help fellow humans. And I think that’s that in and of itself is a little bit of a light in, you know, in this dark time of history where there’s all this going on. But there are some people that will help. And I I’m happy to hear that. Yes, there were others that even though we might not know their names and whoever’s listening to this may not know their names, but they were still hoping because it was the right thing to do, not because they wanted to get their name, you know, a movie made about them.

00:52:54:26 – 00:53:00:16
Dan LeFebvre
So that we’d be talking about them on a podcast later. But, you know, it’s just the right thing to do.

00:53:00:18 – 00:53:20:26
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, it’s it’s very palpable. And, you know, you really identify with Schindler and you always have the it’s another ironic thing. You have the swastika. Yeah. The little swastika on a super all the time. But it was, it was this guys, you know, that was it. But you’re right. He just did it out of, the love for human beings and and that that goes for Moses and that goes for Jesus and Gandhi and all these other former leaders.

00:53:20:26 – 00:53:35:03
Robert Wolf
And, of course they got some recognition, of course. But, and another one that comes to mind is Captain Khomeini. If you remember his, he’s the one who got them the forged papers. And, and I believe if I did my memory short, I’m going through my book again. You have to. Every so often. There’s never all the details.

00:53:35:11 – 00:53:54:17
Robert Wolf
But, he might have been Jewish, but since he was a big guy in the military, he had, privileges. So he helped my dad out to more than once, too. So that was another one. You may have been Christian, maybe Jewish, but, I’m glad that my parents didn’t know more famous people because. Or my grandparents, I should say, because, that to me, been more apt to be killed.

00:53:54:19 – 00:54:10:25
Robert Wolf
It didn’t matter anyway. But, if they lived in the out in the middle of nowhere, which Jer was, and it was a, pretty, very populated, industrial town. So, and that was it. They were they were in Transylvania first. And Albert. Julia, if I’m not pronouncing that right, might be I mean, if it was Spanish would be Albert.

00:54:10:27 – 00:54:42:04
Robert Wolf
Julia, I guess, or Julia it might be, but. Albert. Julia. So they they loved Mother Hungary, as do my parents. And, they decided to go back to George. So instead of living Transylvania. So. And that might have been an ill fated decision to my mom and dad. Love mother Hungary, too, by the way, and would have probably stayed if the Americans had taken over rather than the Soviets, because they had had enough with the two wars and, and and countless persecution, illegal weddings, torture, deaths and, deception.

00:54:42:04 – 00:54:58:18
Robert Wolf
You know, their, their colleagues and friends and fellow doctors were trying to get them to convert to the communist ideal. And my parents wouldn’t buy into that. And, and that state, the the Soviets, in their arrogance, called my dad not a real enemy. And that’s what they really were. They love Mother Hungary, but they weren’t going to stay.

00:54:58:21 – 00:55:13:17
Robert Wolf
My mom was a med school, by the way, to winning them. So. And dad was already in okay. And and he had to double down as a trauma surgeon during a revolution. So they’re both frontliners. And after that they said and they were closing the borders and people were leaving in droves. But they managed to get out.

00:55:13:21 – 00:55:19:13
Robert Wolf
That’s my dad’s fourth escape, which is they’re all harrowing, but, memorable for sure.

00:55:19:15 – 00:55:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
Right. Mentioning Hungary and, earlier I mentioned Ben Kingsley and Schindler’s List and that how that movie started in 1939. But Ben Kingsley is in another movie called walking with the enemy, and he plays another person that you mentioned, Regent Horthy, the Hungarian leader. That movie takes place in 1944, when the Germans finally occupy Hungary. And Regent Horthy doesn’t want to let the Nazis take the Jews.

00:55:42:17 – 00:55:58:02
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s trying to sign a deal with the Soviet Union to get the Nazis out of Hungary. But then in a group called Arrow Cross, which you had also mentioned earlier, takes control of Hungary up until the Red Army pushes the Nazis out of the during the siege of Budapest. This is all as far as the movie is concerned.

00:55:58:02 – 00:56:03:09
Dan LeFebvre
But what really happened with Hungarian, Polish artists during World War Two?

00:56:03:11 – 00:56:20:21
Robert Wolf
Oh well, that’s you. And you kind of said it yourself. I mean, you needed a guide. You needed it literally. So Horthy takes over after he was an admirable admiral in World War One. He takes over Hungary again. The Jews feel like he’s he’s not, friendly to the Jews, even though what if what you say is true, that might be the opposite.

00:56:20:21 – 00:56:23:24
Robert Wolf
But, kudos to him for for trying to prevent that.

00:56:23:26 – 00:56:26:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I was in the movie. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s the way the movie presents.

00:56:26:25 – 00:56:40:06
Robert Wolf
Oh, yeah. Got to see the movie in and review the book and compare notes. There’s not a lot in the book about there’s a lot of history, but it’s it’s history light. I call it my coauthor, Janice. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. She’s a fantastic writer, but helped me turn the book and something really special.

00:56:40:06 – 00:56:56:26
Robert Wolf
But, if you were a junior school, they had the red chair. There’s a white chair. You know, you didn’t have communism. It was in then. They’re trying to say communism is no good. They’re beating up people. They’re going door to door. And then, of course, the rise of fascism, the Nazis entering, the, entering Hungary.

00:56:56:26 – 00:57:27:26
Robert Wolf
So the political climate then was you did what the Nazis said or you’re screwed. You know, that was Hungary trying to fight Germany. It was horse horses versus tanks, you know. How does that let me know how that goes for you. Right. And then, finally 1944 or 45, you Arrow cross, tremendously anti-Semitic. In my, I, maybe like a Gestapo or KGB type thing, they were worse to the Jews and they went out of their way opposite of Schindler, where, you know, the last day of the war and all the guards you only day, that’s all the guards.

00:57:27:26 – 00:57:42:24
Robert Wolf
And, in with the, prisoners, the laborers, and, he openly invites them to, to do what they want with them. Kill them or not. Or you can go home to your families, he says, and they all even go, well, that’s not what it was like in Hungary that at the end of the war, they went out of their way to kill as many Hungarians as they could.

00:57:42:27 – 00:58:07:09
Robert Wolf
And we all know about this. The Danube River, 21,000 Jewish people were shot to death, in cold blood, without their clothes on in the winter. December 43rd, January 44th. And, so that’s, it’s complete. Opposite of Schindler and it’s very set. So that’s the politics then. And of course, communism takes over. And, you know, we get the Stalin years and, and they wouldn’t go away.

00:58:07:09 – 00:58:25:20
Robert Wolf
And the irony is, like if the Americans had one or the West, the allies, then I probably wouldn’t be here. And I’d probably been born and raised in Hungary and maybe got lucky enough to go to med school. But they they left for the U.S., so. And then obviously, the Soviet, the Red Army and Soviet stayed on for forever and ever and ever.

00:58:25:23 – 00:58:45:13
Robert Wolf
Maybe now it’s a little bit of a democracy, but I don’t know much about recent Hungarian politics. But what I’ve seen and heard, the, Orban is, is Putin’s puppet. And, I could see him doing land for people. Deal, without dropping out. And let’s listen on. Jared’s never got a break for 80, 100 years, the most the majority of the 20th century was.

00:58:45:20 – 00:59:03:23
Robert Wolf
And the sad thing is, Hungarian Jews were. Well, if we’re going to flash, flash back to before World War one, 1890s, you know, the gay 90s and all that, Hungarian Jews and Jews in Europe were well treated. They were well respected. And and that boy that that climate turned, between world War one, World War two and and beyond with the Communist.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:21:27
Robert Wolf
So, so Stalin dies in 53. That was good news. Hungarian, because he was really brutal, and I and Hungary in 56, they have their revolution. And, it goes badly for them. And then the hard liners became even more so because they were clamping down on the citizens. They didn’t want people to revolt.

00:59:21:27 – 00:59:37:12
Robert Wolf
And and they almost they didn’t almost win, but they almost got the Soviets out of there. And then just something changed about it. But instead of less, it became more with all the tanks coming in. And, that’s something that my dad said to the were that the men that were driving the tanks were from the Far East.

00:59:37:12 – 00:59:55:04
Robert Wolf
They were from, I don’t think it was Malaysia, maybe Burma. But they thought they were in Egypt. They thought they were in the Sinai, the Sinai War in 56. But they weren’t. They were. They were in Hungary fighting. So, that’s that was an interesting little tidbit. So it’s kind of like, oh, sorry, the North Koreans, you know, going to fight with the Russians kind of sounds like that, right?

00:59:55:04 – 01:00:01:08
Robert Wolf
They, they, you know, they recruit, they recruit people from other countries. Well, World War II was all about that, too.

01:00:01:08 – 01:00:26:05
Dan LeFebvre
But you you mentioned World War One and even before World War One, and that lead right into the last movie that I want to talk to you about, today’s, 1999 film, epic film called sunshine. I know up until now we’ve mostly talked about World War Two, but sunshine focuses on three generations of characters, all played by Ray finds across generations of a family called the Sun Shines, a, Hungarian Jewish family.

01:00:26:11 – 01:00:44:23
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie goes from the end of the 19th century with Hungarian nationalism through World War One, World War Two, and then into the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And the first generation of the movie we see refines version of ignite, Sun and Shine. He wants to be a judge, but to do that he has to change his last name to something.

01:00:44:23 – 01:01:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
According to the movie is more Hungarian, so he changes it to show where there pressure even before the rise of fascism. Because in the movie this is happening, you know, before World War one and 19th century, was there pressure for Hungarians to hide their Jewish heritage?

01:01:03:20 – 01:01:18:12
Robert Wolf
Yeah. I’m thank you for reminding me of that movie, because I’ve heard of it recently and I didn’t remember the title. So if you don’t mind, please email me that, because that’s something that sounds like. But it’s totally, it’s encountered distinction too. Oh, he was in Schindler. I mean, that that kind of, that kind of wants to be a judge.

01:01:18:18 – 01:01:37:27
Robert Wolf
And he’s an excellent actor, don’t get me wrong. But, and so is the guy that played Schindler, you know, Liam, Liam Neeson, and we back to Ben Kingsley. But yeah, my dad’s parents converted. They converted to Christianity, reluctantly, but they did. And, it was so he could practice dentistry and hide his heritage. And my dad’s mother hated it, and.

01:01:37:27 – 01:01:55:00
Robert Wolf
But they did. So, and I’m sure a lot of other Hungarian Jews did. I mean, I’ve read about it and heard that other Hungarian used it in it, and of course, hiding certain valuables, hiding radios, hiding your religion. That was a part of your heritage. And it’s horrible thing. Now, they weren’t that religious, but for the Orthodox Jew either.

01:01:55:00 – 01:02:14:14
Robert Wolf
Good luck having that up. And, until they got to Auschwitz and you weren’t allowed to practice religion or do anything, they shaved off all your hair, humiliated you, killed you, clowns too. Not just the religious were clowns. But they were fortunate enough to convert back. My. I’m a mr. Cronenberg. My dad’s father’s, his cousin, just turns up.

01:02:14:14 – 01:02:30:21
Robert Wolf
I forget how the circumstances of how they meet, but he’s he’s wealthy, and he helps him open up a private practice, and they’re in their home and, lends the money or whatever. Maybe if ghost money and we don’t really talk about how it’s returned, if at all. But he has to convert. They have to convert back to Judaism.

01:02:30:21 – 01:02:45:13
Robert Wolf
And as soon as they get that news, my dad’s mom’s taking the cross off the wall. And, not that they didn’t like Christians because most of their friends were Christians, no doubt. Because they didn’t always share in with the Jewish people, especially the Orthodox. So, and so they converted back. So it was a big sacrifice for them.

01:02:45:18 – 01:03:02:19
Robert Wolf
I can’t imagine converting to Christianity. I love Christianity, I think it’s great religion and theory. I think, that Christians have had a hard time over the last, you know, thousand, 2000 years in certain cases. The Bible talks about the Spanish Inquisition. We talk about the Crusades. So all of that, both at both ends of it. Right.

01:03:02:19 – 01:03:23:06
Robert Wolf
And also Muslims and Jews as well, too. So, yeah, a lot of sacrifices they had to make, to finally get a life going, finally having my dad, who grows up, not wealthy, but, you know, upper middle, grows up as a spoiled kid, ironically ends up forced labor and gets through that. But, so the 20s were kind of easy on them.

01:03:23:09 – 01:03:37:02
Robert Wolf
But, in between where during, during certain times they had to convert at the either. And then of course, you couldn’t if you didn’t wear your yellow star or a yellow band. In my dad’s case, in the forced labor, you’d be punished or shot for sure. You’ll.

01:03:37:05 – 01:04:00:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you might have already answered my my next question on that one, because in sunshine, the next generation is very finds plays the same. He, he plays different characters in each generation. So in the first generation refines, character is ignites, and he’s trying to become a judge. And then the next generation, once the child grows up, they have a younger, you know, different actor playing the younger version, and he grows up.

01:04:00:04 – 01:04:18:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s also a great find, you know? But this time he’s Adam Shaw. And in Adam’s timeline, this is during World War two, and he has to convert. He converts to Roman Catholicism because Jews aren’t allowed to join the fencing club, which is what he wants to do. But then in the movie, obviously that doesn’t work. They find out about his Jewish ancestry.

01:04:18:27 – 01:04:31:29
Dan LeFebvre
And so you can’t just convert. It doesn’t doesn’t really work. So would it be with the movie’s concept there be correct that switching religions wouldn’t work as far as the brutality of the Nazis to escape that?

01:04:32:02 – 01:04:51:13
Robert Wolf
Probably not. I mean, I don’t even know how people know who’s Jewish and who is. And I mean, I have no idea what’s happened once the traumas, on the door. I mean, I, you know, I don’t know how they, how they could masterfully and systematically find them all and exterminate them. But, you bring up a good point, because my dad, my dad’s father, was Jewish.

01:04:51:13 – 01:05:13:02
Robert Wolf
He lost a government job as a dentist. They he had to be, first of all, let them do part time. And then they laid him off and they said, you know, no pension, no benefits. And then ultimately laid off. We talked about the sign. No Jews or dogs. That was out there in Hungary, too. So you weren’t allowed to fencing, you know, certain, bars, restaurants, places of worship, places of business.

01:05:13:02 – 01:05:27:14
Robert Wolf
So Jews weren’t allowed to go to. So and that same sign that we, we talk about in, life was beautiful and, also my dad was not allowed to be on the swim team because he was Jewish. And, my dad loved to swim. I was a pretty good swimmer in high school. I guess I got that from my dad.

01:05:27:14 – 01:05:44:23
Robert Wolf
I swam for four years, and, he did breaststroke, me butterfly and freestyle. But anyway, he had he was kicked off the swim team because he was Jewish. So, yeah, ramifications were there. And, very sad. And it’s too bad because his coach liked him and and his friends like them. And they were very sad for him, but there was nothing they could do,

01:05:44:25 – 01:06:02:03
Dan LeFebvre
Those sort of things. Again, it’s hard to wrap my head around because. So what does that have to do with swimming? Like it? Like you’re swimming in a pool in water. I mean, you’re competing in not to not to take away from how serious it can be for competitions and stuff, but it’s it’s still a sport and it’s similar.

01:06:02:03 – 01:06:21:02
Dan LeFebvre
We see the similar sort of thing in, in the movie with sunshine, except it’s fencing. He’s, you know, he’s fencing. He’s like, that’s part of the reason why he ends up he converts is because he’s like, this doesn’t really it doesn’t affect my how good I am at fencing and with my practicing. And I imagine a similar thing for, for swimming like it does, it doesn’t affect that.

01:06:21:02 – 01:06:29:17
Dan LeFebvre
And so it’s, it’s, it goes back to that concept of what as we’re talking about, it, there’s so much more that, you know, it’s just it’s hard to wrap your head around.

01:06:29:18 – 01:06:48:00
Robert Wolf
And so it’s awful now, you know, ironically, the Olympics came up in a recent podcast too, and y can every day be like the Olympics? Yeah. Why can’t we do peace negotiations and tear off negotiations in the hot tub, or over find a nice table with a tablecloth and, you know, nice silverware? The the Olympics, exemplifies that.

01:06:48:00 – 01:07:06:14
Robert Wolf
It’s the one time where for the 2 or 3 weeks that the all these countries get together, they compete, they put all the bibs, all the politics, all the disagreements off you know, back. They leave it on the field or behind them and they compete. And it’s great sportsmanship. And why can’t, why can’t our politicians, why can’t our leaders, do that?

01:07:06:14 – 01:07:24:14
Robert Wolf
I mean, it’s such a such a great lesson. So I love the Olympics, not only because I love sports, but also just that concept of, worldwide, a worldwide peace and, the amicable feeling that you got, and I just love it. I mean, third place, person congratulating the first on the gold medal winner, that kind of thing.

01:07:24:17 – 01:07:44:16
Robert Wolf
Arm in arm in arm, holding our flags. Just the fact, you know, we’re talking about kneeling and and, during, it’s not a big thing lightly, thank God. But kneeling or not respecting the national anthem, my mom and dad would spit in those people. They would be. How dare you? You know, we we were barely allowed to practice what we want in a free country.

01:07:44:16 – 01:08:04:15
Robert Wolf
How dare you do that in this country? And they would, think. I mean, they got to their dad, but they. I got the narrative experience, the the the people kneeling and and not respecting the flag, multi-millionaires, people that are privileged, privileged enough and talented enough, and marketable enough to to be in sports and make lots of money, be very popular.

01:08:04:15 – 01:08:24:06
Robert Wolf
And when they do that, it’s it just doesn’t hurt the snarling. And so those kind of things, that’s what we’re battling here. You know, we got to respect our country and our freedoms, and our luck and realize that what happened to my dad could happen to any one of us. Could be a bad neighbor. Bad local government, federal government, foreign government, natural disaster, bad business deal.

01:08:24:06 – 01:08:39:07
Robert Wolf
Whatever it is could happen to us where we’re on the run not knowing where your next meal is. So not only are we going to sleep, not not knowing if you’re going to get a job or where you will, and you still you’re still, you don’t know. You can’t meet people. You can’t be around people that that spot you and say, oh, there’s a Jew.

01:08:39:07 – 01:08:47:24
Robert Wolf
There’s, Because you hear that. So there’s we talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. Even during escapes, there was no such thing.

01:08:47:27 – 01:09:11:23
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to sunshine, the last generation in that movie is Adam, son Ivan. And he survives World War two. But then he joins the communists because they seem to be the liberators of the brutality of the Nazis had inflicted in Hungary. But then, as the Hungarian Revolution breaks out in 1956, in the movie we see Ivan, he realizes the communists are brutal and corrupt also.

01:09:12:00 – 01:09:38:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then at the very end of that movie, Ivan learns from an old letter from his great grandfather, who was at the very beginning of the movie. It’s it’s a long movie. But he finds out that in this letter, it’s the goal is not to be accepted by others. And in this letter, as you reads it, Ivan then has the inspiration to change his name from shores back to sunshine to embrace his Jewish ancestry.

01:09:38:16 – 01:09:58:14
Dan LeFebvre
And like a lot of the movie characters that we’ve talked about today, the Shine is high. Family from the movie sunshine are fictional. They’re not real. But of course, the unimaginable hardships that they faced in the movie were real events that generations of of your family faced as well. So just like Ivan took lessons from his family’s past at the end of the movie and build a better life for himself.

01:09:58:14 – 01:10:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
As we kind of start to wrap up our discussion today, if you took a look at your family’s history, what’s one lesson that you’ve learned that people today can apply to create a better future?

01:10:09:06 – 01:10:26:04
Robert Wolf
I have to see that movie sunshine. It sounds. I mean, it sounds like they stole my stole my own story. Now, would you remind me? Because I do want to, but yeah, my, my mom’s uncle, Zoltan was she. He converted. He was a communist because he wanted to. He wanted to survive. And, my mom probably hated it, but he was.

01:10:26:04 – 01:10:43:18
Robert Wolf
It helped him. He was a he was a monkey in the government and in the economic the economic plan after World War two. And, I read some of the notes, those turned up and I it was really and I don’t mean to get off the subject, but it was really poignant and depressing actually saying, well, what what do we do with our, our Jews?

01:10:43:25 – 01:11:03:10
Robert Wolf
And they are mostly farms and factories. I’m not going to talk about military. I’m talking about the civilian Jews because they couldn’t work. They couldn’t be educated. Finally, they let my dad get into medical school, 10%, quota, which is 10% quota, which is amazing that he even got in. But, so but he was a communist, so he, you know, resonates really, really well with whatever.

01:11:03:10 – 01:11:23:24
Robert Wolf
My mom and dad wouldn’t buy into it as we already mentioned, that, like I said, this country is amazing. Accountability is an important. It’s an important message. Don’t point at people. It just, you know, after 911, we had Islamophobia. After the coronavirus epidemic. We had the Asian eight. Now tober seventh. That’s the Jewish people.

01:11:23:24 – 01:11:39:12
Robert Wolf
Well, what do I have to do with Gaza? And October 7th, I support Israel, I support peace, and, that that that unnecessary. You know, you’re wasting your time, with these protests, these kids in Colombia, you don’t know how good you have it. You know, I, I think people would tell the end of Harvard or Columbia or privilege.

01:11:39:12 – 01:12:03:24
Robert Wolf
They would be. And, people that are doing this and and protesting and calling for the death of Israel and America, it’s just there’s no room for it. Not for me, not for you, and not in this country. And so I identify with the peaceful people, try to get a handle around, at least. Finally, they’re curtailing funding for universities everywhere I could in there, I’d be showing them and and suing them and suing them and and doing more talks in the area.

01:12:03:24 – 01:12:20:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, believe me, that’s all I’m doing anyway, but we need to, appreciate what we have. Accountability. And if you’re bored with what you have, you got if you’re complaining, change vectors. If you don’t like your job, change jobs, work part time, write a book. Everybody’s got a story. Write a poem, write an opera. Go to the library.

01:12:20:28 – 01:12:37:28
Robert Wolf
Go to the museum. Spend more time with your family. Give back to the community. It’s not just about food, shelter, clothing. Unlike for my mom and dad and, all the victims, it’s all food, shelter and clothing. But for now, for us, I put a little more into your life, put a more pot, and, love your neighbor, you know, and I don’t I don’t mean to be corny.

01:12:37:28 – 01:12:57:02
Robert Wolf
Bring a neighbor some macaroons or whatever. Invite them for the Seder. Just get to know them better and embrace them. And things. And things. Well, it all starts. Leadership starts from within. You know, you’re not going to be a leader if you’re not a good person. If you’re not. And I don’t mean no Hitler leader because he just led by charisma and, and, all his, his garbage is, propaganda.

01:12:57:04 – 01:13:14:01
Robert Wolf
But, you can lead by example, and it’s never too late to do the right thing. There’s no substitute for experience. I got a lot of, you know, the trend is your friend, you can learn something from every case, as we say in radiology. But as now, I’ve been on both sides of the needle. You can learn something from every person you know.

01:13:14:01 – 01:13:30:13
Robert Wolf
You can learn from every situation. And don’t forget that, don’t be that. That dead shark swim in the water. Just keep on moving. And if you don’t like what you’re doing and don’t don’t watch and complain, do something else. Life is short here. It’s our only commodity. It’s. You know, time is. Our time is our only commodity.

01:13:30:13 – 01:13:41:24
Robert Wolf
It’s not gold or silver stocks, real estate. It’s time. So use it. Use it wisely. Like my dad used to say. Enjoy every moment. And now I understand why.

01:13:41:26 – 01:14:02:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I love that I love that, and that’s one thing as we’ve talked about you just looking back to some of the movies we talked about, the concept that I get is a lot of the things that led to like the atrocities Auschwitz that we talked about. It didn’t jump right to that. It was there were steps that they got there.

01:14:02:13 – 01:14:26:01
Dan LeFebvre
And although we’ve we talked mostly about historical events that took place around World War Two today, a lot of people have compared the current climate here in the United States as I’m recording this, similar to the rise of fascism that resulted in Nazi Germany. And I’m just curious, from your perspective, do you think there’s any truth to those comparisons, or is that kind of overblown just, extremism?

01:14:26:03 – 01:14:44:26
Robert Wolf
That’s such a great question. It’s hard to know. I hope not. That’s why there’s people like me trying to prevent that from happening. Call Congress, call you local government. What are you guys doing about anti-Semitism? I’m still doing it. I hate getting ghosted. That’s a big part of it being rejected. I don’t mind getting rejected like people that are apathetic, but too much apathy is going to be the danger to us.

01:14:44:26 – 01:15:04:25
Robert Wolf
And if the Jewish population doesn’t survive, you know, the LGBTQ, the criticize the Jewish and African-Americans, if you guys are next and and those those that glorify Hitler, you guys were next. You just don’t even realize it. So, now in some ways, yeah, in some countries worse than here. But even in America, in World War two, there was the rise of anti-Semitism.

01:15:04:25 – 01:15:23:16
Robert Wolf
And, fortunately not fascism. But until the guns are pointed at me, I feel relief. As long as the government and the local police are protecting us, then I feel safe. Whatever. If it starts to turn. And we talked about the your armored trucks and tanks going down the streets with the flags. If it ever comes to that, then I’d say, well, no, we’re doomed.

01:15:23:16 – 01:15:45:23
Robert Wolf
But, at least for the short term. But, hopefully that never happens. I can’t see that happening. But you never know. I mean, Australia and Canada, Europe, it’s still going on. So it’s up to the government, the people that are supposed to protect others. As Reagan said, that’s what government’s job is not to and not to, to to take from others or its or to use the people.

01:15:45:23 – 01:15:52:00
Robert Wolf
It’s, it’s I’m paraphrasing, but a government’s job is to protect us. Jewish. Christian doesn’t matter. Muslim.

01:15:52:03 – 01:15:58:26
Dan LeFebvre
We’re all human. We’re all. We’re all. What is it? The JFK quotes, we all share this planet together or something. Something along.

01:15:58:26 – 01:16:17:23
Robert Wolf
Those lines. Exactly. No. It’s true, it’s true. And we’re we’re getting beyond that. Why are the Soviets and the Americans get along in space stations and the moon or whatever, but they can’t get along and Mother Earth, right? I mean, so that’s, it’s another thing like the Olympics. Yeah. It doesn’t even make sense to me. And probably Antarctica and Greenland and everybody is going to set up whatever.

01:16:17:25 – 01:16:33:08
Robert Wolf
And that works for me. You know, it’s so how about annexing Canada? What about that kind of concept? I, you know, people are thinking out of the box lately and maybe I like it, maybe I don’t, but it’s worth a look because things have to change. Canada needs a security alternative to the US. On and on and on.

01:16:33:13 – 01:16:55:13
Robert Wolf
And maybe it’s good economically too, unless it’s come up. And I don’t know that it would be so complicated. And I know our resistance. The natives would be, Mexico. Maybe not so much, but that would be scary for me because I think it’s a it’s got it’s violent areas and etc.. But interestingly, a Jewish woman is the new president of Mexico, so and a Jewish lady is, is the new mayor of Beverly Hills.

01:16:55:13 – 01:17:15:18
Robert Wolf
So, that gives me hope. I think that’s great. I mean, I love California, and if it weren’t so expensive, I maybe I would live there instead of Florida. But, with who knows? And it’s one of the liberal for me, too. But, you know, it’s a great state and, many, many people. So it’s good to see that some people that are in leadership positions are going to be on the side of peace, not just because they’re Jewish.

01:17:15:18 – 01:17:29:03
Robert Wolf
That’s the side of peace. So they get it. They care. That’s another lesson. It’s good to care. It’s important to care if you, you’re doomed if you don’t. So whatever is your own life or the life of others? It’s important.

01:17:29:05 – 01:17:44:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat about all these various movies. I know we’ve mentioned your book called Not a Real Enemy The True Story of the Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for freedom. We’ve mentioned a few times throughout our discussion today, but there’s so many things in the book that we didn’t even get a chance to talk about.

01:17:44:00 – 01:18:01:06
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to add a link to it in the show notes, so anyone watching or listening to this right now can pick up their own copy. As I was reading your book, it really read like a movie and I can’t wait until it is turned into one. And since all movies have teasers and trailers before I let you go, can you share a teaser of your book for everyone watching this?

01:18:01:06 – 01:18:03:06
Dan LeFebvre
Now?

01:18:03:09 – 01:18:23:14
Robert Wolf
Wow. Yeah, yeah, from your mouth to God’s ears. Because, we we’ve been trying to clear some producers. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a long shot, but a teaser. A man who escapes four times, I can’t imagine one escape. I mean, I’ve been reading books, guys escaping, and they’re not even Jewish. They’re. They’re prisoners of war from Poland or whatever, escaping from thousands of miles away.

01:18:23:16 – 01:18:40:12
Robert Wolf
And that’s like a one big, huge escape. But for escapes, 20 miracles in this book, like you as you know it. Or the way my dad got into medical school, cloak and dagger stories, arguing with armors and soldiers. That’s a scene I’d like to see, and winning the argument, but bluffing his way through it.

01:18:40:15 – 01:19:03:19
Robert Wolf
Of course, his first and last escape. But I think all of them would need to be included. Split second timing. The luck of God. What else? I mean, the fact that my dad was spoiled, but he was also beaten as a kid. It’s another interesting, interesting tidbit. Tidbit? So many, the way the table set, the way the way that you went from, being an upper middle says to starving and how life could change on a dime.

01:19:03:21 – 01:19:24:18
Robert Wolf
So many messages. Resilience, determination, hope, integrity, and ultimately redemption. So it’s it’s loaded. It’s packed with it’s history. It’s an adventure. It’s a biography. And, trials and tribulations. My dad and family and, must read and hopefully, more and more people read it. This is all I do is my charge is fighting anti-Semitism. You help me with that.

01:19:24:18 – 01:19:48:24
Robert Wolf
10% of my, I’m on socials across the board, so please, finally, Robert J. Wolfe, MD, or Google not relented me 10% of my proceeds henceforth and even when I’m gone and my trust are going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. So not only I’m educating in my own little corner, but I’m also contributing. And people that buy the book are contributing to education through the, to the mothership, as I call it, the U.S. Holocaust Museum in DC.

01:19:48:27 – 01:20:06:02
Robert Wolf
I’ve been fortunate enough to be there twice or two to the book signings. I could do that every day, educating kids and families about what’s going on now and then, genocide, etc.. So, it’s a must read. And, I hope that you do enjoy it and reach out to me. I do podcasts and and presentations programs.

01:20:06:02 – 01:20:09:03
Robert Wolf
Please help me fight antisemitism. Can’t do it alone.

01:20:09:05 – 01:20:16:27
Dan LeFebvre
I love education is is the key. Thank you so much for everything you do for educating. Thank you for for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

01:20:17:00 – 01:20:24:22
Robert Wolf
Pleasure. I learned a lot today to.