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

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

In this epic journey, Mike sets out to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are more connected than he thought possible. In 2023, can both stories be heard and understood? 

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph. 

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

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

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt, Alex Dunai, Markus Hartmann, Burkhardt Kolbmuller, Svitlana Kovalyk, Itamar Shapira, Nadia Slobodyan, Hannah Kleinfeld, Atef Alshaer

Images & music

Lilli Gold, Mike Joseph, Holger Jackisch, Sami Abu Salem 

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

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

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph - Producer, Zac Ware - Sound Editor, Micha Wink - Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor, Pamela Koehne-Drube - Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

CAST in programme order

Daniel Ratthei as Burkhardt Kolbmuller [German]

Werner Bauer as Ralph Dippmann [German] 

James Stewart as Ralph Dippmann [English] 

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

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

Klaus Riekemann as Hinrich Lehmann-Grube and Christian Jacke

Bruno Bubna-Kasteliz as Klaus Kinkel and Otto Lambsdorff 

Christine Willison as Lilli Gold