War Survival Stories

A young tattoo artist is abducted from a music festival, and her forced hostage video becomes the first glimpse into a brutal captivity. But a fresh surgical scar tells a different story.

The fresh surgical scar that contradicted her hostage video

This episode details the abduction of Mia Schem from the Nova music festival and her subsequent 54-day captivity in Gaza. It explores how a forced video released by her captors presented a stark contrast to the reality of her experience, revealed by a visible injury.

Person: Mia Schem
Date: October 7, 2023
Location: Nova music festival, southern Israel
Event: Civilian abduction
Status: Hostage for 54 days

- Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli tattoo artist, sent a text message from a field in southern Israel stating, "They are shooting at us please come save us."
- She was attending the Nova music festival, an outdoor rave near Re'im, close to the Gaza border.
- Mia and her friend Elia Toledano were in Elia's car when Hamas militants breached the border fence and attacked the festival.
- Mia was shot in the arm at point-blank range by a Hamas militant and then taken into Gaza along with Elia.
- On October 16, Hamas released a hostage video of Mia, where she stated she was being treated with care, but a fresh surgical scar on her arm was visible.

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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 market stall in Tel Aviv keeps paying rent for 738 days, even though its owner, a logistics manager, has vanished. His family learns he is a Gaza hostage.

The Market Stall That Kept Paying Rent While He Vanished

This episode tells the story of Elkana Bohbot, a logistics manager and aspiring ice cream shop owner, whose life takes an unexpected turn on October 7, 2023. It explores the harrowing experience of being held captive and the profound impact on his family.

Person: Elkana Bohbot
Date: October 7, 2023
Location: Tel Aviv, Mevaseret Zion, Gaza
Event: Nova Festival attack

- Elkana Bohbot, a 34-year-old logistics manager, planned to open a gourmet ice cream stall in Tel Aviv.
- On the morning of October 7, 2023, he was working at the Nova Festival, where his company built the stage.
- He called his mother, Ruhama, at 7:50 AM, stating he was helping others evacuate and would come home soon.
- His wife, Rivka, warned him about terrorists in pickup trucks disguised as Israeli military vehicles.
- At noon, a friend confirmed Elkana's capture via a Hamas video showing him bound and injured alongside other Nova hostages.

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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 Japanese American scientist from Manzanar names a Red Sea mangrove project after the camp - will she build it?

The Manzanar Name That Turned a Scientist into a Forest-builder

In this episode, we trace the life choices that led Gordon Hisashi Hisashi from Manzanar to the National Academy of Sciences and then to planting nearly a million trees in Eritrea. What drove him to choose mangroves, Eritrea, and to keep the name Manzanar for the project?

Person: Gordon Hisashi Hisashi
Date of birth: December 17, 1927
Event: Imprisonment at Manzanar Relocation Camp
Location: Terminal Island, East San Pedro; Manzanar; Red Sea coast of Eritrea
Achievement: Elected to the National Academy of Sciences; co-recipient of Rosenstiel Award

- At age fourteen Hisashi was removed from Terminal Island under Executive Order 9066 and sent to Manzanar, where he played baseball and saxophone in the camp jazz band.
- After Manzanar closed in 1945 he resumed education, earning a B.S, in biochemistry (USC, 1951) and a Ph.D, in biophysics from Caltech (1955) under Max Delbrück.
- Hisashi’s postdoctoral work included labs with Gunther Stent and Theodore Puck, and he joined Brandeis faculty in 1958, later directing the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center.
- He shared the Rosenstiel Award with Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984, while remaining active in high-level biomedical research.
- In his mid-fifties he left institutional science to establish a mangrove reforestation project on Eritrea’s Red Sea coast, naming it Manzanar and planting trees in saltwater and desert conditions.

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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 newborn in a horse stall at Turlock grows into a sociologist who confronts how a nation confines its own - how did that stall expose her?

The Wartime Stall That Shaped a Scholar's Fight for Justice

In this episode, we follow the arc from a toddler’s confinement in a converted horse stall to a lifetime of questions about citizenship, labor, and structural power. It traces the places and decisions that shaped Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s path and asks how those beginnings pushed her into a career of naming systemic injustice.

Person: Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Date: February 19, 1942 (Executive Order 9066)
Location: Turlock Assembly Center; Gila River War Relocation Center; Heart Mountain
Event: Forced removal and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry
Topic: Labor, citizenship, and structural confinement

- Two-year-old Evelyn lived in a converted horse stall at the Turlock Assembly Center that still smelled of animals.
- Executive Order 9066 authorized forced removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast.
- The family was moved from Turlock to Gila River, Arizona, then to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, all before she was five.
- Postwar displacement sent the family to Chicago, redirecting the community’s geographic and social ties.
- Evelyn became a sociologist who focused on structural questions-labor, citizenship, and how confinement operates beyond fences.

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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 builds a radical bank facade in colonial Indonesia - then the world shuts down around him. What did this architecture cost him?

The DENIS facade rolled outward and made Aalbers famous

This episode explores the story of Albert Frederik Aalbers, an architect who designed the DENIS Bank on Braga Street in Bandung, Dutch East Indies, and the personal cost of his architectural ambition amidst a changing world.

Person: Albert Frederik Aalbers
Location: Bandung, Dutch East Indies
Year: 1935
Building: DENIS Bank
Topic: Colonial Architecture

- Albert Aalbers trained at the Rotterdam Academy of Visual Arts and Techniques, absorbing Dutch expressionism, Frank Lloyd Wright's horizontal logic, and Le Corbusier's open structural thinking.
- After his Rotterdam office collapsed in 1926, Aalbers moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1928 with his wife, initially working for a contractor in Sukabumi.
- In 1930, Aalbers established himself as a freelance architect in Bandung, a city undergoing significant infrastructure investment without a clear purpose, creating an "architecture laboratory."
- The DENIS Bank commission in 1935 required a building on Braga Street, and Aalbers delivered a design featuring six curved horizontal platforms and a central vertical lift tower.
- The design for the DENIS Bank incorporated elements from Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, but also a unique fluidity that resembled water caught mid-motion.

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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 rebuilt from a death block dedicates six decades to justice, but his version of events contains contradictions. How did his story change?

A Jewish quota blocked his architecture dreams, changing his life

This episode explores the early life of Simon Wiesenthal, a man who survived five concentration camps and dedicated his life to pursuing justice. It delves into the discrepancies between his autobiographical accounts and documented facts, raising questions about the accuracy of his personal narrative.

Person: Simon Wiesenthal
Date: May 5, 1945
Location: Mauthausen concentration camp
Weight: 41 kilograms
Family losses: 89 relatives

- Simon Wiesenthal was born in 1908 in Buczacz, a town at the edge of empires.
- His father died on the Eastern Front during World War I, and his younger brother died in 1924, leaving him and his mother.
- A Jewish quota prevented him from attending the Polytechnic in Lwów, redirecting his education to Prague.
- During World War II, Wiesenthal and his wife Cyla were transferred to Janowska concentration camp.
- Wiesenthal traded railway intelligence for false papers, allowing Cyla to escape to Warsaw under a false 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 diplomat is interned in Rhodesia for four years without trial, far from Jerusalem. His story reveals what happens when a negotiator's world burns.

The Diplomat Who Vanished: Four Years in Rhodesia

This episode explores the life of Jamal al-Husayni, a diplomat from Jerusalem who was interned in Southern Rhodesia for four years without trial. It questions the kind of life that leads to such an outcome, revealing a story stranger than it first appears.

Person: Jamal al-Husayni
Period: 1894-1982
Location: Jerusalem, Southern Rhodesia, Beirut
Status: Diplomat, interned without trial
Event: Internment in Southern Rhodesia

- Jamal al-Husayni was born into a prominent Arab family in Jerusalem, deeply embedded in Palestinian Arab public life.
- He was the first student at St. George's School in Jerusalem to wear Western clothes, showing a modern and outward-looking orientation.
- While studying medicine in Beirut, he fled after Ottoman authorities raided his college, narrowly escaping the fate of fellow Arab nationalists who were later hanged.
- At 27, he became Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress, traveling to meet Muslim leaders and proposing a two-chamber Legislative Council to the Jewish Agency.
- He petitioned the High Court in 1927 to remove "Eretz Israel" from Palestine postage stamps, arguing it prejudiced Arab claims, but the petition was rejected.

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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 testifies before the US Senate about Soviet Gulag camps, including an atomic reactor, on an Arctic island. No one can prove him wrong.

The Man Who Mapped Hell From The Inside

This episode recounts the extraordinary journey of Avraham Shifrin, from his youth as a "Son of an Enemy of the People" to his testimony before the United States Senate. It explores the personal cost of exposing the Soviet Union's hidden geography of captivity.

Person: Avraham Shifrin
Date: 1973
Location: United States Senate
Topic: Soviet Gulag system
Charge: Espionage

- Avraham Shifrin's father was arrested in 1937, leading to Avraham being classified as a "Son of an Enemy of the People."
- During World War Two, Shifrin was assigned to a penal battalion and fought in the assault on Königsberg, earning a medal.
- After the war, Shifrin became a lawyer for the Soviet Ministry of Defense while secretly active in the Zionist movement.
- In 1953, he was arrested on false espionage charges and sentenced to 25 years in the Gulag, serving ten.
- After emigrating to Israel, Shifrin founded a research center and began mapping Soviet prisons and forced labor camps based on survivor testimonies.

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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 philosopher's grave above the Arctic Circle is lost to history until a single photograph, kept by a widow, exposes its location.

A Widow's Photograph Located Karsavin's Lost Grave

This episode tells the story of Lev Karsavin, a philosopher whose grave was lost for decades in an abandoned cemetery above the Arctic Circle. It explores how a single photograph, preserved by a widow, ultimately led researchers to its discovery.

Person: Lev Karsavin Karsavin
Date: December 13, 1882 (birth)
Location: Abez, above the Arctic Circle
Period: 19th and 20th centuries
Event: Organized expulsion of Russian intellectuals

- Lev Karsavin was a philosopher who wrote five volumes on European culture and taught in three countries.
- He was sentenced at age sixty-seven for alleged crimes committed decades earlier and transported above the Arctic Circle.
- In 1922, he was among approximately forty-five prominent Russian intellectuals expelled from the country on the "Philosophers' Steamers."
- Karsavin became a leading voice for the Eurasian movement, arguing Russia was its own civilizational type.
- He accepted a chair at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1928, learning Lithuanian and publishing extensively 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].

An eight-year-old stands outside School Number One as armed men herd his teammates inside-how did that Beslan morning shape a champion wrestler?

The Boy at Beslan Who Kept Training and Became a Champion

In this episode, we follow the life of Zaurbek Sidakov from the grounds of School Number One in Beslan to the elite mats of international freestyle wrestling. The episode traces his training, key matches, and the question his career cannot answer: what becomes of someone who witnessed the worst thing they ever saw but kept moving forward?

Person: Zaurbek Sidakov
Date: September 1, 2004
Location: School Number One, Beslan, North Ossetia
Event: Beslan school siege
Period: From childhood training to international wrestling competitions

- An eight-year-old Sidakov stood outside the gym as more than a thousand hostages, including his friends and training partners, were forced inside.
- North Ossetia’s wrestling culture is described as inheritance-coaches, small gyms, and community expectation shaped young athletes like him.
- After Beslan, Sidakov continued training; by 19 he earned bronze at the Ivan Yarygin Golden Grand Prix as an unknown.
- In 2016 Sidakov returned to the Yarygin and defeated the reigning Russian national champion, Khusein Suyunchev, to win gold.
- At the 2018 Russian National Championships Sidakov advanced through four matches with decisive scores before meeting Khetag Tsabolov in the final.

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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].