War Survival Stories

A Japanese-American writer hides a novel in an internment camp. How did that manuscript expose him?

The Manuscript Finished Behind Barbed Wire That Proved His Loyalty

In this episode, we follow the life and writing of Toshio Mori from his nursery in San Leandro to the Topaz War Relocation Center, tracing how a completed manuscript and a shelved book intersected with wartime America. What did finishing a novel behind barbed wire mean for his claim to belonging?

Person: Toshio Mori
Date: March 3, 1910 (birth)
Location: Topaz War Relocation Center, Millard County, Utah
Event: Completion of the novel Send These the Homeless in 1942
Manuscript: Yokohama, California held by Caxton Printers with foreword promised by William Saroyan

- Born to Hidekichi Mori and Yoshi Takaki, Toshio worked in his family nursery in San Leandro before writing in the evenings.
- In 1938 his short story "The Brothers" appeared in The Coast and his work was included in New Directions in Prose and Poetry.
- By 1941 he had a full manuscript titled Yokohama, California with William Saroyan slated to write the foreword and Caxton Printers holding the text.
- After Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066, Mori and his family were sent to Topaz where he continued to write inside tarpaper barracks surrounded by barbed wire.
- In 1942 he completed Send These the Homeless, a finished novel written in the camp that remains unpublished and held in an archive.

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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 Surabaya lawyer-turned-prisoner is handed a lieutenant colonel’s commission in Tokyo and asked to draft the Dutch indictment - how did that appointment expose him?

The Lieutenant Colonel's Commission Made the Prisoner the Prosecutor

In this episode, we tell the story of Jacobus Sinninghe Damsté, a Surabaya lawyer who survived forced labor on Maluku airfields and the notorious Sumatra Railway, and who was later commissioned to prepare indictments in Tokyo; what does the record’s silence about his inner life and that surprising appointment reveal? The episode traces his prewar civic life, wartime captivity, and the choices that led a civilian prisoner to become a prosecutor.

Person: Jacobus Sinninghe Damsté (Koos)
Location: Surabaya; Maluku Islands; Pekanbaru, Sumatra; Tokyo
Date: 1943-1946 (captivity and Tokyo commission), 1920s-1941 (prewar career)
Occupation: Lawyer; Surabaya city councillor; president of the Simpang Club; later wrote memoirs and ran Netherlands Security Service
Event: Building airfields in Maluku and cutting the Sumatra Railway; later given a lieutenant colonel's commission to prepare the Dutch indictment

- Koos arrived in Maluku in April 1943 and spent eight months building airfields for the occupying forces after a life as a Surabaya lawyer.
- Transfers in captivity took him to Jakarta in January 1944 and to Pekanbaru in May 1944, where he worked on the Sumatra Railway described in the record as notorious.
- Before the war he was a civic figure: law graduate from Groningen, legal consultant to a German industrial subsidiary, city councillor, and head of colonial clubs in Surabaya.
- His first wife died in 1935; he remarried in 1938 and had three sons-Willem (Pim), Cornelis (Hans), and Dick-details the record notes without elaboration.
- After surviving fifteen months on the railway, he was given a lieutenant colonel’s commission and directed to Tokyo to prepare the Dutch indictment against Japanese war criminals.

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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].

An Oxford college drinks from a human skull, unaware of its dark origins tied to a British aristocrat's Nazi sympathies and race theories.

The Swastika, The Skull, and The Uncharged Traitor

This episode explores the story of a human skull used as a drinking vessel at Worcester College, Oxford, and its connection to George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, a man who openly embraced eugenics and Nazi ideology before World War II. It examines how his family's legacy and beliefs shaped his worldview and the unsettling journey of the skull.

Person: George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers
Date: 1946
Location: Worcester College, Oxford
Object: Silver-rimmed human skull
Topic: Eugenics

- In 1946, a human skull was donated to Worcester College, Oxford, and used as a drinking vessel in the common room.
- The donor, George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, was interned during World War II but never charged with treason.
- George was born in 1890, the grandson of Augustus Pitt Rivers, founder of the Pitt Rivers Museum, who built his reputation on systematically collecting objects to rank human cultures.
- After inheriting his family's estate and collections, George published "The World Significance of the Russian Revolution" in 1920, an anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik work.
- By 1937, George was openly wearing a golden swastika badge in England, two years before the country went to war with Germany.

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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 veteran rose-breeder with German roots is arrested in his Turramurra garden over blank deposit slips and maps-how did that expose him?

The blank signed deposit slip that sent him to internment

In this episode, we follow the life interrupted: a self-taught rose breeder and longtime bookmaker’s clerk pulled from his garden and held without charge during World War II. What decisions, documents and distant ties led authorities to suspect espionage?

Person: Frank Riethmuller
Date: Arrested August 20, 1940; born February 10, 1884
Location: Eastern Road, Turramurra; internment at Long Bay, Orange, Hay
Occupation: Confidential clerk (bookmaker’s penciller); rose breeder
Health: Chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis

- He worked two or three days a week at racetracks for two employers and earned roughly £1,000 a year.
- His employer Frank Alldritt gave him a signed blank bank document to handle deposits without audit.
- He traveled to Europe in 1928 and studied German in Berlin in 1931 but canceled a planned 1937 trip to Germany.
- He began deliberate rose breeding at age fifty-four and kept a nursery bed where a new rose sat during his internment.
- On August 20, 1940, police found maps of strategic sites in his home and arrested him under National Security Regulation 26.

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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 man calculates the lunar trajectory that will take humanity to the Moon, but a revolution forces him to erase his identity to survive.

Four notebooks full of math launched Armstrong to the Moon

This episode explores the life of the man whose calculations made the Apollo 11 mission possible, detailing his early life, the circumstances that led him to assume a new identity, and the challenges he faced in sharing his groundbreaking work.

Person: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei (Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk)
Date: 1897 (birth)
Location: Poltava, Ukraine (birth)
Event: First World War, Russian Revolution

- Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei was born in Poltava in 1897 to a father who studied physics and mathematics and a mother from noble lineage.
- During the First World War, while serving on the Caucasian Front, Shargei, not yet twenty, began filling four notebooks with calculations for lunar trajectories.
- His central idea was that a spacecraft could leave part of itself in lunar orbit, send a smaller vessel to the surface, and rejoin the larger craft for the return.
- In 1917, the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war led Shargei to lose all his documents and legal identity after deserting the White Army.
- In 1921, Shargei assumed the identity of Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk, a man who had died of tuberculosis, to survive in a state hostile to those without legal identity.

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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 German communist, imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag, faces a moral dilemma when asked to expose the camp's horrors to the world.

Seven words in Gulag silence silenced a world

This episode explores the life of Roberta Gropper, a German communist who, while imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp, uttered seven words that would echo through history. It delves into her journey from a factory worker to a parliamentarian and the circumstances that led her to the Gulag.

Person: Roberta Gropper
Date: 1939
Location: Soviet labor camp
Event: Encounter with Margarete Buber-Neumann

- Roberta Gropper began working at a cigarette factory in Ulm, Germany, at age thirteen in 1911.
- By 1919, she helped found the local Communist Party in Ulm, driven by her experiences with poverty.
- She became a deputy in the Reichstag for Berlin by July 1930, at the age of thirty-two.
- Her association with the Neumann-Remmele faction, which opposed pro-Stalin elements, led to her losing party functions and her parliamentary seat by 1932.
- After fleeing Nazi Germany, she arrived in Moscow in 1935 and was arrested by the NKVD in November 1937, charged with membership in an anti-Soviet grouping.

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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 two-year-old boy stands over his motionless parents, his pants soaked in blood, as a nanny hides one floor below during a Mumbai terror attack.

The child's voice calling her name opened the door to rescue

This episode recounts the harrowing events of November 26, 2008, focusing on Sandra Samuel, a nanny from Goa, and her connection to a family caught in the Mumbai terror attacks. It explores the inexplicable decision that led her to risk her life amidst gunfire.

Event: Mumbai terror attacks
Date: November 26, 2008
Location: Nariman House, Colaba, Mumbai
Person: Sandra Samuel
Victims: Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and Rivka Holtzberg

- Sandra Samuel, a widowed nanny from Goa, had been working for the Holtzberg family at Nariman House since 2003.
- Nariman House was a Jewish community center in Mumbai, one of ten locations simultaneously attacked by Lashkar-e-Taiba.
- On the night of the attack, Sandra Samuel was in a laundry room, hiding from armed men moving through the building.
- She heard the two-year-old child, Moshe, calling her name from an upper floor where his parents lay motionless.
- Despite the ongoing threat and gunfire, Samuel opened the door and climbed the stairwell towards the child.

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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 diplomatic gift arrives for an Iranian ambassador in Damascus, but opening the package reveals a deadly assassination attempt.

The Book on the Desk That Cost a Hand

This episode explores the life of Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a Shia cleric and diplomat, and the events leading up to a targeted attack that left him severely injured. It delves into the complex political landscape and the formation of a powerful organization.

Person: Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour
Date: 1984
Location: Damascus, Syria
Event: Assassination attempt
Organization: Hezbollah

- Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour was born in Iran in 1947 and trained as a Shia cleric in Najaf, Iraq.
- He became part of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's inner circle during Khomeini's exile.
- Mohtashamipour received military training at a Fatah camp in Lebanon during the 1970s.
- In 1982, he was appointed Iran's ambassador to Syria at the age of 34.
- He used his diplomatic pouch to transport materials from Iran into Lebanon, merging six organizations into what became Hezbollah.

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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].

Born in a US internment camp, a woman's birth certificate declared her American, but a fence held her captive. How did that expose them?

Her birth certificate declared her American, but a fence held her captive

This episode covers the story of Wendy Masako Yoshimura, born in a World War II internment camp, and how her life led her from painter to fugitive. It explores the complex legal case she became entangled in and the government's role in her family's internment.

Person: Wendy Masako Yoshimura
Date: January 17, 1943
Location: Manzanar Internment Camp, California
Event: World War II Japanese American internment
Status: Fugitive

- Wendy Masako Yoshimura was born in Manzanar Internment Camp, a facility built by the US government to detain American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.
- Her parents, both American-born citizens, were interned at Manzanar in February 1942 solely due to their Japanese ancestry.
- After the camp closed, her family relocated to Etajima, Japan, where Wendy grew up speaking Japanese as her first language.
- Upon returning to the United States at age thirteen, she was placed in second grade due to her inability to speak English.
- After earning a fine arts degree, she rented a garage in Berkeley where police later discovered a "massive bomb factory" and notes detailing a plan to kidnap or assassinate Robert McNamara.

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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].

An architect sells his car for a steamship ticket, disappearing for a decade before internment as an enemy alien. A carpenter's hand tool changes his life.

A carpenter's hand tool changed an architect's life

This episode explores the journey of George Nakashima, an MIT-trained architect whose life took an unexpected turn from global travels to an internment camp, where he discovered a new path through woodworking. It delves into the influences and experiences that shaped his unique approach to furniture making.

Person: George Nakashima
Date: 1905
Location: Spokane, Washington
Event: Internment at Camp Minidoka
Topic: Woodworking

- George Nakashima, born in 1905 to Japanese immigrants, earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Washington in 1929 and a Master of Architecture from MIT in 1931.
- Instead of a conventional career, he sold his car for a round-the-world steamship ticket, traveling to France, North Africa, and Japan, where he met Le Corbusier and worked under Antonin Raymond.
- In 1937, while overseeing construction of the Golconde Dormitory in Puducherry, India, Nakashima built his first furniture without prior woodworking training.
- In March 1942, he was sent to Camp Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho, as an "enemy alien" under Executive Order 9066.
- Inside the internment camp, Nakashima was taught traditional Japanese hand tools and joinery by Gentaro Hikogawa, a Japanese carpenter also interned there.

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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].