Erased

Never could we have believed to reach this episode. We have found living relatives of Ilse.

After the initial phone contact, we stay in contact with Helen Romain-Levien a few more times. And one evening, the phone rings. It’s Helen. She tells me that she rummaged some more in the attic, and in a box, she found a pile of paper. They are all brown and stained. It is very thin paper from the war, she says, so thin you can almost see through it. They were carefully stored by in a folder. They are letters, typed in German, dating from the early 1940’s. And each letter ends with the names of the senders. Alfred, Hanni and ….Ilse! 

we set of for Francisco and learn yet more about Ilse and her family. And ...as it turns out, upon arriving back on Ducth soil, the Anne Frank house investigators help us unravel one last mysterie.

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Janny van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For more background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

In this episode we hear the story of Rozette, the woman who sat in the front row together with Jules Schelvis during the trial against John Demjanjuk, the camp guard of death camp Sobibór on the day the train arrived with Ilse. You may have thought he was a very sick man that had to lie down during the court sessions – until you hear this episode…

We also talk to Helen, 81 years old and a living relative of Ilse! We found her! Does she have pictures of the war? And what can she tell us about the war stories her father must have had?

And we hear what happened to Hamburg, just a month after Ilse was brought to Sobibór. Would the house of her birth have survived the war?

Oh, and… this is not the last episode of the story of Ilse! We went to San Francisco, to look at the family archive for traces of Ilse! We won’t give away any spoilers upfront, but be advised that this last episode is definitely not the one you would want to miss out on!

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Janny van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For more background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

In this episode, we hear the incredible stories from eyewitnesses of the persecution of Jews in Holland. We hear a testimony from the secretary of the Jewish Counsil in Amsterdam: nobody knew for certain what would happen at the end of the train transports.

Jules Schelvis was on a train just after the one our Ilse was transported in. But Jules’ story is remarkable because he managed to survive Sobibór. He was taken away to be put to work in another camp, while his wife and family were being led to the gas chamber. His testimony tells us what Ilse must have went through.

And writer Rosanne Kropman, who did years of research, tells us what it was like to be present at the moment the archeologists discovered the foundations of the gas chamber. She helped sifting through the sand at the site en found artefacts, like an earring. “It was a prolonged, sinking feeling”, she says in this episode.

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Janny van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

In this episode, we try to find out who's really responsible for the murder of Ilse Wagner and her family. Is it Reinhard Heydrich, the nazi whom Hitler called 'The man with the iron heart'? 

We try to get into contact with the boy who lived in the same house as Ilse, in the last months before she was taken away. And finally, finally, we hear his story. What would he still know about Ilse?

And we travel to Sobibór in the east of Poland, where Ilse and 34.000 other Dutch Jews were gassed. A new museum was bult on that spot. And: strangely enough a tangible memory of Ilse is found at Sobibór!

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Janny van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma. 

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

In this episode, we find the name of Ilse's father on a mysterious list, connected to a labour camp. Did he go there? And what happened at a time when all the Jewish families were being rounded up, but Ilse's father was being set free - for just one week? 

We try to get into contact with the boy who lived in the same house as Ilse, in the last months before she was taken away. What would his story be, and will we be able to get in touch with him?

At the Camp Westerbork memorial centre, we take a look at the information in the archives about Ilse, and we come across a last minute effort by het grandmother to try and save Ilse. And we see that it almost succeeded. Almost...

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Janny van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

In this fourth episode, we visit Hannah Goslar, who turns out to be Ilse’s best friend. They met just a few days after ilse and her parents first came to the Netherlands. What makes the story even more remarkable is that Hannah, like Ilse, was brought up Jewish orthodox! She meets Ilse in synagogue and she is there on the day Ilse and Anne Frank fist meet. Hannah, who lives in Jerusalem, digs into her memory and tells wonderful details about the life of Ilse in Amsterdam.

In the meantime in Holland Patty-Lou finds an exiting trace of Ilse’s life in the ghetto: the family that lived in the same flat… Can we find the boy that lived together with Ilse’s family?

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Jane van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

With the few, but definitely tangible initial information about Ilse, we go to Hamburg. We go to the place where Ilse was born, where she grew up with her father Salomon Alfred Wagner, her mother Johanna Wagner-Goldstein and grandmother Golda Wagner. We are taken by Holger Artus along the homes and paths that were so familiar to the family.

We describe what beautiful life was once like for her and visit the synagogue, the Hamburg archive, researcher Bärbel Klein and writer/historian Sybille Baumbach. Not only do they talk about their personal motivations, but we make another discovery, closely linked to the pogrom on 9 November and to Ilse's father.

And we are baffled, because Anna von Viellez, the director of the (former school) Israelitische Töchterschule, why can't she find Ilse in the pupil records?

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Jane van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

We go back to Jacqueline van Maarsen. Ilse's classmate at the Jewish Lyceum. What can she still remember and what is in her suitcase? A photo perhaps? Moreover, the search continues in the Amsterdam region. For what does writer and historian Dienke Hondius know? Together with a classmate of Ilse, she wrote the book 'Absent' about the pupils of the Jewish Lyceum. Is Ilse's name to be found there, and if so, what can we discover?

Bart Wallet points us to a small detail in the documents of Ilse, that will change our perspective on her life completely. We go to the synagogue where the mother of the rabbi Shmuel Katz probably knew Ilse!

And then we meet somebody by chance who, as a boy, was at almost all the places where Ilse was! Will he be able to shed some light on our quest?

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Jane van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobensteihttps://marklobenstein.comn. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

We know that Ilse Wagner was a friend of Anne Frank. She is even mentioned several times in her famous diary ‘The Secret Annex’. Writer Janny van der Molen previously researched Ilse for her book ‘Do not Forget Me'. A children's book about Anne Frank's friends. But why was she unable to find Ilse's story? What happened to Anne Frank's friend?

Podcastmakers Richard and Patty-Lou join Janny in a search that will take them around the world and will last for more than two years. But where to start?

In this episode, we start our research. Where did Ilse live in the Netherlands? Where did she come from? We are able to read unpublished letters that Anne Frank wrote in which Ilse is mentioned!

And then we get a call from her former classmate and other friend of the past Jacqueline van Maarsen and she has a suitcase. A suitcase that might contain more information about Ilse.

The podcast 'Erased' is an Audiodroom Podcast Production, made in the Netherlands. Production: Richard Grootbod and Patty-Lou Middel-Leenheer. Advice and fact-check: Aline Pennewaard and Jane van der Molen. Music: Mark Lobenstein. Audio and studio support: Gijs Friesen and Marc Reitsma.

For all background information and how to support this production, please visit podcasterased.com

This trailer tells you how this 9-episode storytelling podcastseries takes you on a journey along the lines of Holocaust history in search for the story of Ilse Wagner, the lost friend of Anne Frank. This succesful Dutch production is finally available in the English language.

Episode 1 is published May 2 2024 and then every 2nd week a new episode follows.

A Dutch Audiodroom-production

Check out details of our search on podcasterased.com