When I decided to get married, every living member of my family who had ever been married had also gotten divorced. Apparently, I thought my marriage would end differently.

Listen to Personally: Forever is a Long Time starting June 16, 2025.

Introducing an upcoming season of Personally, called Creation Myth. Helena does not want kids. Her husband does. What else is the purpose of life, he keeps asking her, hoping she’ll change her mind. But after eight years he gives up and leaves. Lost and alone, she’s left with his question. What is our purpose? And what if it is already here?

This series is an Official Selection of the Tribeca Audio Festival. Make sure you follow Personally, so you know when the full season becomes available, later this year. 

This episode of Personally is from an upcoming season, called Creation Myth. Helena does not want kids. Her husband does. For years they’ve battled it out. Then, while her husband is on his way back from a surfing trip, she finds out she’s pregnant. What will she tell him? What should she do? She calls her dear friend Joshua for help: he’s wise, he’s a parent, he knows her well. But she doesn’t have a lot of time. Her husband will be home in an hour.

As Alex’s newfound family grapples with who he really was and what side of the war he was fighting for, COVID sets in. Will Alex ever get a real reunion?

Alex finally takes a DNA test, hoping to prove his identity – once and for all. What will it find? Who will it find? The results surprise everyone, even Alex.

Alex’s story goes viral (as viral as it can in the early 2000s), but doubts and accusations swirl around him – dividing his family and community. Alex is called a liar and a conman trying to profit from the Holocaust, yet he refuses to do the one thing that would prove he’s telling the truth.

Uldis is now Alex – living an ordinary, happy life in Australia, but the horrors of his past have resurfaced. Fifty years after his name was stolen from him, can he find it again? A letter from Minsk might hold the answers.

Uldis Kurzemnieks believed he would take his lie to the grave – his life had depended on it. For decades, he told the same story of how he survived the Second World War as a boy, but his niece always believed there was more to the story. Now, she’s learning the whole truth – piece by shocking piece.

As a child, Alex Kurzem faced a choice: be killed or join the killers. 

After escaping the massacre that killed his family during the Holocaust, he’s found by the enemy and taken in as one of their own – becoming a Jewish boy masquerading as a Nazi soldier. He’d live with this false identity for so long, he no longer remembered who he was before.

This is the story Alex would tell the world decades later, but could a story so unbelievable be true? Host Dan Goldberg finds out.

On Drugs looks through the lenses of history, pop culture and personal experience to understand how drugs have shaped our world. Because even if it’s just caffeine or ibuprofen, there’s a good chance you’re on drugs right now. More episodes of On Drugs are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/4DtGUQ