As psychologist and filmmaker Eve Ash investigates her parents’ story and in doing so, she uncovers shocking family secrets that literally upend her life.You see, Eve’s beloved parents, Martha and Feliks, both lost their entire families in the Holocaust, including their spouses. Broken, Feliks and Martha met after the war and emigrated together to Melbourne in 1949. Feliks then became a gentle and loving father, dedicated to the family business.

Eve grew up with her older sister, Helen, in a prototypical post-war suburb, with all the comforts any child could want, and yet, somehow, she always felt “different”. After their parents died, Eve and Helen, travelled to the Ukraine to uncover details of the horrific pogroms that wiped out their family. On their tour of discovery, Eve talked to friends and family in Europe, the USA, and in Australia to find out more about her parents. Her mother, Martha emerges, as a talented artist and devoted wife and mother, but also a flamboyant and flirtatious woman who was bored by suburban life and often said ‘some secrets you must never tell anyone’. Having narrowly escaped execution by the Nazis and losing her mother and husband in horrific circumstances, Martha made a new life in Melbourne that featured a whirlwind of parties and gaiety, but always hid a deep dark secret: her love affair over fifteen years with a man she met on a bus.

For Eve, the truth came out in a stunning way. In January 2008, she received an email from a stranger who claimed to be her sister. When they met, Eve was startled by how much the stranger looked like her. A DNA test confirmed that they were, indeed, half-sisters. This woman’s father was a man named ‘Dixie’ who Eve had known as a child. And, in fact, he was the mysterious man on the bus that Eve had spotted in Martha’s home movies. Following this bombshell, Eve set out to find Dixie, who was working full-time in Melbourne as a land surveyor at the age of 83. He is a defiant non-conformist who had ten children with six different women, and Eve strives to make sense of this piece of her story. In doing so, Eve finally manages to connect the dots of her life, from the Holocaust atrocities to her mixed emotions about her fathers. She gets to the truth of her own identity, resolving the feelings of “differentness” that have always stalked her.

BUT BEFORE YOU GO…

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CREDITS:

Creator, Host & Executive Producer: Tammi Faraday

 With thanks to my special guest: Eve Ash

Audio Editor: Zoltan Fecso

With very special thanks to George Weinberg.

BRAVE JOURNEYS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we record this podcast on, the Yaluk-ut Weelam Clan of the Boon Wurrung who are part of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respect to their Elders, both past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and To