War Survival Stories

A six-year-old Japanese American girl is held in a government internment camp during WWII. Decades later, she confronts an invisible ceiling in television.

The Phone Call That Shattered an Invisible Ceiling

This episode explores the experiences of Joan Aiko Shigekawa, who was interned as a child during World War II, and how those formative years shaped her ability to identify and challenge systemic barriers in her later career. It questions what a person carries out of such an experience and how it influences their life's work.

Person: Joan Aiko Shigekawa
Event: Japanese American internment
Order: Executive Order 9066
Location: Tule Lake
Period: 1942-1973

- Joan Aiko Shigekawa was six years old when her family was confined to the Tule Lake internment camp for eighteen months.
- Her mother, Yoshiko Shigekawa, searched for wood scraps daily to heat their barracks, where Joan’s brother suffered from whooping cough.
- Executive Order 9066 authorized the military removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast without individual suspicion or evidence.
- After internment, Joan attended Bryn Mawr College, where she developed a keen diagnostic sense for the gap between an institution's claims and its reality.
- In 1973, Joan received a phone call from Ronnie Eldridge of Ms. magazine, offering her the opportunity to produce a television special made by and for women.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A young woman is imprisoned in a desert camp during World War II, then spends decades uncovering the bureaucratic truth behind her internment. Her research exposes the hidden facts of a national injustice.

The File She Photocopied That Unmasked the Internment Case

This episode explores the life of Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, from her forced removal as a teenager to her later work in the National Archives. It delves into the personal and systemic impacts of the Japanese American internment, and what she discovered that challenged the official narrative.

Person: Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga
Date: June 26, 1942
Location: Los Angeles High School
Event: Japanese American internment
Document: Final Report on Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast

- Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was a 17-year-old honors student when Executive Order 9066 authorized the removal of over 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.
- Her high school principal told Japanese American students they did not deserve their diplomas, citing "your people bombed Pearl Harbor."
- Aiko eloped with her sweetheart before forced removal, hoping to keep her family unit together, but was sent to Manzanar, a prison camp in the California high desert, while her parents went to Jerome.
- She gave birth to her first child inside the Manzanar camp and was later released with only twenty-five dollars and a bus ticket.
- In her fifties, Aiko spent years at the National Archives, using her own portable copy machine to cross-reference documents from various government agencies.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A bacteriologist interned during wartime uses his expertise in tropical disease to keep civilians alive with "inadequate and unlikely sources." How did his methods expose them?

The East Africa War Showed What Disease Does

This episode explores the career of George Vance Allen, a bacteriologist and college principal, and his experiences during internment. It highlights how his medical background, particularly in tropical diseases, prepared him for the challenges he faced.

Person: George Vance Allen
Date: February 1942
Location: Singapore
Event: Japanese bombardment of Singapore
Period: World War II

- George Vance Allen, a bacteriologist, was interned for three years, seven months, and four days at Changi Prison and Sime Road internment camp.
- His career spanned over twenty years, focusing on diseases prevalent in British Empire territories.
- During World War I, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in East Africa from 1917 to 1920, witnessing the impact of disease on populations without infrastructure.
- By 1930, Allen was the permanent principal of King Edward VII College of Medicine and Professor of Clinical Medicine in Singapore.
- As the Japanese bombardment of Singapore began in January 1942, Allen transformed the College of Medicine into a blood transfusion center and urged people to grow food, anticipating the breakdown of supply chains.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A British commando arrests a powerful general for Nazi collaboration, finding German weapons and opium. This Cold War figure later becomes a key player in a CIA-backed coup.

The British arrest warrant that sent Zahedi into exile

This episode explores the early life and military career of Fazlollah Zahedi, an Iranian general whose path intertwined with the Pahlavi dynasty and the nationalization of Iran's oil. It questions how a man interned by the British for suspected Nazi ties became a central figure in a major geopolitical event.

Person: Fazlollah Zahedi
Date: May 17, 1892 (birth)
Location: Hamadan, Iran
Event: Operation PONGO
Period: Second World War

- Fazlollah Zahedi was born into a prominent family with ancestral ties to Sufi mystics and an 18th-century ruler, making him a distant relative of Mohammad Mosaddegh.
- His military career began in the Imperial Russian-trained Iranian Cossack Brigade, where his superior officer was Mosaddegh Khan, who later became Mosaddegh Shah.
- By age 25, Zahedi was a brigadier general, suppressing rebellions and holding key positions like Military Governor of Khuzestan and Chief of the National Police.
- In 1941, British officer Fitzroy Maclean arrested Zahedi, then Commanding General of the Isfahan division, under suspicion of organizing an uprising aligned with the Axis powers.
- During the arrest, British officers found German weapons, opium, correspondence from a German agent, and an illustrated register of prostitutes in Zahedi's bedroom.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A Jewish art historian flees 1934 Munich, is interned on the Dunera, and begins learning Russian - how did that language save his career?

The language he learned on the Dunera that saved his career

In this episode, we follow Ernst Kitzinger’s flight from Munich in 1934, his years of unpaid scholarship across Europe, and the startling detour of being interned and shipped to Australia on HMT Dunera. We track the choices, institutions, and moments - including the odd, pivotal decision to learn Russian aboard the Dunera - that shaped a decades-long academic life; what did learning that language enable?

Person: Ernst Kitzinger
Date: 1934-1940 (flight, migration, internment)
Location: Munich; Rome; London; HMT Dunera (voyage to Australia)
Event: Internment as an enemy alien and voyage on HMT Dunera
Topic: Learning Russian while interned

- He defended his doctoral dissertation in Munich and left Germany the next day in 1934 at age 21.
- He worked at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, then volunteered at the British Museum, producing scholarship without a salary.
- In 1939 he assisted with the Sutton Hoo finds and in 1940 published Early Medieval Art in the British Museum.
- In 1940 Britain classified him as an enemy alien and loaded him onto HMT Dunera with nearly 2,600 internees bound for Australia.
- During the cramped, degrading voyage on the Dunera, he began learning Russian from a fellow internee.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A printing worker is arrested by the state he served, charged with crimes no record substantiates. His survival hinges on a diplomatic list, but the cost is decades.

The diplomatic list that handed Štajner back and cost him decades

This episode recounts the harrowing experience of Karlo Štajner, a communist activist who endured decades within the Soviet Gulag system. It explores the arbitrary nature of his imprisonment and the extraordinary circumstances that eventually led to his release.

Person: Karlo Štajner
Date: November 4, 1936
Location: Moscow
Event: Arrest by NKVD
Charge: Counterrevolutionary activity, Gestapo agent, complicity in Sergei Kirov assassination

- Karlo Štajner, a printing worker from Vienna, joined the Austrian communist movement by 1919 and later established an illegal printing house in Zagreb.
- He moved to the Soviet Union in 1932, becoming manager of the Comintern publishing house and marrying Sofya Yefimovna Moiseeva in 1935.
- On November 4, 1936, Štajner was arrested by the NKVD on charges of counterrevolutionary activity and complicity in the assassination of Sergei Kirov, despite no evidence.
- His co-defendants, Filip Filipović and Antun Mavrak, were executed, while Štajner received a ten-year sentence without clear explanation for the difference.
- Štajner was transferred through various Gulag camps, including Solovki and Norilsk, where he endured brutal conditions while his daughter Lida died in Moscow and his wife Sonya was labeled an "enemy's wife."

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A Yiddish writer, "The Hidden One," dies in a Soviet prison, his unmarked grave known only decades later. How did his literary life lead to this fate?

The barbed wire that marked his unmarked grave

This episode explores the life of Pinchus Kahanovich, also known as Der Nister, a prominent Yiddish author whose chosen pseudonym became a literal truth. It examines the forces that led to his unmarked burial and the enduring mystery surrounding his death.

Person: Pinchus Kahanovich (Der Nister)
Born: November 1, 1884
Location: Berdychiv, Ukraine
Died: June 4, 1950

- Pinchus Kahanovich adopted the pseudonym Der Nister, meaning "The Hidden One," as a young writer in 1904, a name reflecting his Kabbalistic approach to truth.
- He began his literary career publishing in Vilna, Warsaw, and Kiev, gaining recognition from figures like I. L. Peretz.
- During a brief period of Soviet cultural policy, Der Nister taught at a Jewish orphanage near Moscow alongside artists like Marc Chagall.
- After returning to the Soviet Union in 1926, his work, dense with Hasidic mysticism, was declared reactionary by the regime, forcing him to publicly renounce his symbolism.
- He survived the 1930s as a translator and children's author, and later began his multi-generational novel, "The Family Mashber," which was universally praised upon its 1939 release.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

In 1938, two girls in a Grantham corner shop count coins from their pockets to help a Jewish refugee escape Nazi Germany. One will later hold power for over a decade.

The Coins She Counted Bought a Refugee's Escape

This episode explores the early life of Margaret Thatcher, from her childhood in a small Lincolnshire town to her time at Oxford. It examines the formative experiences and contradictions that shaped one of the 20th century's most polarizing figures.

Person: Margaret Hilda Thatcher
Date: October 13, 1925 (birth)
Location: Grantham, Lincolnshire
Parent: Alfred Roberts
Education: Somerville College, Oxford

- Margaret Roberts was born in Grantham, a market town where her father, Alfred Roberts, ran a tobacconist's and grocery.
- Alfred Roberts was a Methodist preacher and alderman who instilled values of hard work and self-reliance in his daughters.
- In 1938, Margaret, aged twelve, and her sister Muriel saved their pocket money to help a Jewish teenager who had fled Nazi Germany.
- Margaret attended Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, serving as head girl in her final year.
- She studied Chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, under Dorothy Hodgkin, a future Nobel laureate whose portrait would later hang in 10 Downing Street.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A Tel Aviv teen hurled by the Dizengoff Center Purim bombing must rebuild her life-how did that redirect her path?

The Dizengoff bomb hurled her across the pavement and redirected a life

In this episode, we follow Carmen Elmakiyes from the moment the Dizengoff Center explosion throws her across the pavement to the choices she makes afterward, tracing how trauma, schooling, and community work shape her trajectory. What did she do with that morning that kept pressing on every room she entered?

Person: Carmen Elmakiyes
Event: Dizengoff Center bombing, Purim 1994
Location: Tel Aviv; grew up in Shikunim, Ashkelon
Education: left school at 16; later completed high school independently and earned a film degree from Kinneret Academic College
Organization: co-founded Not Nice; worked with Ahoti and Libi BaMizrach Coalition

- Standing at an ATM a few meters from the blast, she was thrown several meters and watched children die.
- Medically classified as minor injuries, she nonetheless endured years of psychological rehabilitation and was later exempted from military service.
- Raised in Shikunim as one of nine children to Moroccan immigrant parents, she experienced the structural neglect of public housing.
- Tracked into technical schooling and leaving at sixteen, she later completed schooling independently and trained as a medical clown.
- Volunteering with Mizrahi feminist groups led to directing projects for the Libi BaMizrach Coalition and co-founding Not Nice.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

A professional midwife and her grandson are classified as national security threats, forcing them into a Japanese American incarceration camp.

The Diary That Tracked Every Day Behind Barbed Wire

This episode explores the story of the Shimomura family, focusing on Toku Shimomura, a midwife, and her grandson Roger, as they navigate forced relocation and incarceration during World War II. It questions how a family's established life was uprooted by government order.

Person: Toku Shimomura
Date: June 26, 1939
Location: Seattle's Central District
Executive Order: 9066
Camp: Minidoka War Relocation Center

- Toku Shimomura, a licensed midwife, delivered her grandson Roger in Seattle's Central District.
- In February 1942, Executive Order 9066 authorized the removal of Japanese American from the West Coast.
- Roger, not yet three, and Toku were among the 120,000 people ordered to leave their homes.
- The Shimomura family was first sent to Camp Harmony, a converted fairground in Puyallup, Washington.
- They were later transferred to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho, where Toku continued to write in her diary.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].